The dodge 1800 shares the same platform as the hillman avenger. The 1800 was only sold in Brazil.

Shore Acres State Park. Coos Bay, Oregon USA

A beautiful day in March.

I just love the blue-ness of the sky and the water in the harbour, the near perfect reflections of the craft as they idle. I think that, although technically a fairly average photo taken with a slightly primitive camera phone, this is one of my best pictures.

Sometimes looking in the mirror it's hard to believe I am not a woman and in some respects I'm obviously not but I'm certainly not your average male either far from it. Anyone can transgender themselves with hormones but what I've achieved with off the shelf everyday herbs is hardly hard-line transitioning and as I cheated I think they shouldn't have even worked so well, but through unbroken persistence and self-belief they brought out the femininity that was always there just beneath the

skin. Maybe it was a placebo effect and it's all in the mind and maybe we can work wonders with determination and self-belief. But like a sports-person wanting to hit the heights the seed and ability has to be there at the start. Anyone who tries to say transgendered people are a manufactured confection are lying as for me starting to live as Jojo and just deciding to do it was enough to bring to the fore what was inside waiting to get out. Naively when I started I just wanted to grow some breasts thinking that would do, but of course you don't get flowers without leaves and as they slowly grew so did my body change. At night in bed I used to get spasms as the male muscles in my legs broke down and remarkably even the small amount of body hair and beard retreated so now I'm virtually hairless. I mean that is quite remarkable as even those who transition properly with the right hormones don't achieve that so it a bit of a miracle. My mother had preyed for a girl instead of me, and I wonder if she would be happy knowing she got her wish lol. Maybe not as to be Jojo properly I had to think like a woman too and date you guys. I have to say I have no regrets.

Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world.

 

The park consists of 310.31 square kilometres (76,680 acres; 119.81 sq mi; 31,031 ha) of high desert located on the Colorado Plateau. The highest elevation in the park is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and the lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. The park receives an average of less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rain annually.

 

Administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a national monument on April 12, 1929, and was re designated as a national park on November 12, 1971. The park received more than 1.6 million visitors in 2018.

 

As stated in the foundation document in U.S. National Park Service website:

 

The purpose of Arches National Park is to protect extraordinary examples of geologic features including arches, natural bridges, windows, spires, and balanced rocks, as well as other features of geologic, historic, and scientific interest, and to provide opportunities to experience these resources and their associated values in their majestic natural settings.

 

The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago (Mya) when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic (about 200 Mya), desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone (about 140 Mya), was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation.

 

The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual "salt anticlines" or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot (760 m) displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.

 

As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. These are visible in layer-cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches.

 

Although the park's terrain may appear rugged and durable, it is extremely fragile. More than 1 million visitors each year threaten the fragile high-desert ecosystem. The problem lies within the soil's crust, which is composed of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, and lichens that grow in the dusty parts of the park. Factors that make Arches National Park sensitive to visitor damage include being a semiarid region, the scarce, unpredictable rainfall, lack of deep freezing, and lack of plant litter, which results in soils that have both a low resistance to and slow recovery from, compressional forces such as foot traffic. Methods of indicating effects on the soil are cytophobic soil crust index, measuring of water infiltration, and t-tests that are used to compare the values from the undisturbed and disturbed areas.

 

Geological processes that occurred over 300 million years ago caused a salt bed to be deposited, which today lies beneath the landscape of Arches National Park.[ Over time, the salt bed was covered with sediments that eventually compressed into rock layers that have since been named Entrada Standstone. Rock layers surrounding the edge of the salt bed continued to erode and shift into vertical sandstone walls called fins. Sand collected between vertical walls of the fins, then slightly acidic rain combined with carbon dioxide in the air allowed for the chemical formation of carbonic acid within the trapped sand. Over time, the carbonic acid dissolved the calcium carbonate that held the sandstone together. Many of the rock formations have weaker layers of rock on bottom that are holding stronger layers on top. The weaker layers would dissolve first, creating openings in the rock. Gravity caused pieces of the stronger rock layer to fall piece by piece into an arch shape. Arches form within rock fins at points of intense fracturing localization, or weak points in the rock's formation, caused by horizontal and vertical discontinuities. Lastly, water, wind, and time continued this erosion process and ultimately created the arches of Arches National Park. All of the arches in the park are made of Entrada Sandstone, however, there are slight differences in how each arch was developed. This allows the Entrada Sandstone to be categories into 3 groups including Slick rock members, Dewey rock members, and Moab members. Vertical arches can be developed from Slick rock members, a combination of Slick rock members and Moab members, or Slick rock members resting above Dewey rock members. Horizontal arches (also called potholes) are formed when a vertical pothole formation meets a horizontal cave, causing a union into a long arch structure. The erosion process within Arches National Park will continue as time continues to pass. Continued erosion combined with vertical and horizontal stress will eventually cause arches to collapse, but still, new arches will continue to form for thousands of years.

 

Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and Ancestral Puebloans lived in the area until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paiute tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, who soon abandoned the area. Ranchers, farmers, and prospectors later settled Moab in the neighboring Riverine Valley in the late 1870s. Word of the beauty of the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination.

 

The Arches area was first brought to the attention of the National Park Service by Frank A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Wadleigh, accompanied by railroad photographer George L. Beam, visited the area in September 1923 at the invitation of Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector living in Salt Valley. Ringhoffer had written to the railroad to interest them in the tourist potential of a scenic area he had discovered the previous year with his two sons and a son-in-law, which he called the Devils Garden (known today as the Klondike Bluffs). Wadleigh was impressed by what Ringhoffer showed him, and suggested to Park Service director Stephen T. Mather that the area be made a national monument.

 

The following year, additional support for the monument idea came from Laurence Gould, a University of Michigan graduate student (and future polar explorer) studying the geology of the nearby La Sal Mountains, who was shown the scenic area by local physician Dr. J. W. "Doc" Williams.

 

A succession of government investigators examined the area, in part due to confusion as to the precise location. In the process, the name Devils Garden was transposed to an area on the opposite side of Salt Valley that includes Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park. Ringhoffer's original discovery was omitted, while another area nearby, known locally as the Windows, was included. Designation of the area as a national monument was supported by the Park Service in 1926 but was resisted by President Calvin Coolidge's Interior Secretary, Hubert Work. Finally, in April 1929, shortly after his inauguration, President Herbert Hoover signed a presidential proclamation creating the Arches National Monument, consisting of two comparatively small, disconnected sections. The purpose of the reservation under the 1906 Antiquities Act was to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations for their scientific and educational value. The name Arches was suggested by Frank Pinkely, superintendent of the Park Service's southwestern national monuments, following a visit to the Windows section in 1925.

 

In late 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that enlarged the Arches to protect additional scenic features and permit the development of facilities to promote tourism. A small adjustment was made by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 to accommodate a new road alignment.

 

In early 1969, just before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation substantially enlarging the Arches. Two years later, President Richard Nixon signed legislation enacted by Congress, which significantly reduced the total area enclosed, but changed its status. Arches National Park was formally dedicated in May 1972.

 

In 1980, vandals attempted to use an abrasive kitchen cleanser to deface ancient petroglyphs in the park, prompting park officials to recruit physicist John F. Asmus, who specialized in using lasers to restore works of art, to use his technology to repair the damage. Asmus "zapped the panel with intense light pulses and succeeded in removing most of the cleanser".

 

Climbing Balanced Rock or any named or unnamed arch in Arches National Park with an opening larger than 3 ft (0.9 m) is banned by park regulations. Climbing on other features in the park is allowed but regulated; in addition, slacklining and BASE jumping are banned parkwide.

 

Climbing on named arches within the park had long been banned by park regulations, but following Dean Potter's successful free climb on Delicate Arch in May 2006, the wording of the regulations was deemed unenforceable by the park attorney. In response, the park revised its regulations later that month, eventually imposing the current ban on arch climbing in 2014.

 

Approved recreational activities include auto touring, hiking, bicycling, camping at the Devils Garden campground, backpacking, canyoneering, and rock climbing, with permits required for the last three activities. Guided commercial tours and ranger programs are also available.

 

Astronomy is also popular in the park due to its dark skies, despite the increasing light pollution from towns such as Moab.

 

Delicate Arch is the subject of the third 2014 quarter of the U.S. Mint's America the Beautiful Quarters program commemorating national parks and historic sites. The Arches quarter had the highest production of the five 2014 national park quarters, with more than 465 million minted.

 

American writer Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in 1956 and 1957, where he kept journals that became his book Desert Solitaire. The success of Abbey's book, as well as interest in adventure travel, has drawn many hikers, mountain bikers, and off-pavement driving enthusiasts to the area. Permitted activities within the park include camping, hiking along designated trails, backpacking, canyoneering, rock climbing, bicycling, and driving along existing roads, both paved and unpaved. The Hayduke Trail, an 812 mi (1,307 km) backpacking route named after one of Edward Abbey's characters, begins in the park.

 

An abundance of wildlife occurs in Arches National Park, including spadefoot toads, antelope squirrels, scrub jays, peregrine falcons, many kinds of sparrows, red foxes, desert bighorn sheep, kangaroo rats, mule deers, cougars, midget faded rattlesnakes, yucca moths, western rattlesnakes, and collared lizards.

 

A number of plant species are common in the park, including prickly pear cactus, Indian ricegrass, bunch grasses, cheatgrass, moss, liverworts, Utah juniper, Mormon tea, blackbrush, cliffrose, four-winged saltbrush, pinyon pine, evening primrose, sand verbena, yucca, and sacred datura.

 

Biological soil crust consisting of cyanobacteria, lichen, mosses, green algae, and microfungi is found throughout southeastern Utah. The fibrous growths help keep soil particles together, creating a layer that is more resistant to erosion. The living soil layer readily absorbs and stores water, allowing more complex forms of plant life to grow in places with low precipitation levels.

 

Among the notable features of the park are the following:

Balanced Rock – a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses

Courthouse Towers – a collection of tall stone columns

Dark Angel – a free-standing 150 ft-tall (46 m) sandstone pillar at the end of the Devils Garden Trail

Delicate Arch – a lone-standing arch that has become a symbol of Utah and the most recognized arch in the park

Devils Garden – many arches and columns scattered along a ridge

Double Arch – two arches that share a common end

Fiery Furnace – an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns (see biblical reference, Book of Daniel, chapter 3)

Landscape Arch – a very thin and long arch in the Devils Garden with a span of 290 ft (88 m) (the longest arch in the park)

Petrified Dunes – petrified remnants of dunes blown from the ancient lakes that covered the area

The Phallus – a rock spire that resembles a phallus

Wall Arch – located along the popular Devils Garden Trail; collapsed sometime on August 4/5, 2008

The Three Gossips –a mid-sized sandstone tower located in the Courthouse Towers area.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

I also like jeans sagging! It's a "Nudie Average Joe - Dry Organic"

Yellow-rumped warblers (Setophaga coronata) spend the breeding season in mature coniferous and mixed coniferous-deciduous woodlands (such as in patches of aspen, birch, or willow). In the western U.S. and in the central Appalachian Mountains, they are found mostly in mountainous areas. In the Pacific Northwest and the Northeastern U.S., they occur all the way down to sea level wherever conifers are present.

 

During winter, yellow-rumped warblers find open areas with fruiting shrubs or scattered trees, such as parks, streamside woodlands, open pine and pine-oak forest, dunes (where bayberries are common), and residential areas. On their tropical wintering grounds they live in mangroves, thorn scrub, pine-oak-fir forests, and shade coffee plantations.

 

This is a mid-sized New World warbler, with a total length ranging from 12 to 15 cm (4.7 to 5.9 in) long, with a wingspan of 19 to 24 cm (7.5 to 9.4 in). Body mass can vary from 9.9 to 17.7 g (0.35 to 0.62 oz), though averages between 11 and 14 g (0.39 and 0.49 oz). Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 6.3 to 8.4 cm (2.5 to 3.3 in), the tail is 5 to 6.6 cm (2.0 to 2.6 in), the bill is 0.8 to 1.1 cm (0.31 to 0.43 in) and the tarsus is 1.8 to 2.2 cm (0.71 to 0.87 in).

 

In summers, males of both forms have streaked backs of black on slate blue, white wing patches, a streaked breast, and conspicuous yellow patches on the crown, flank, and rump (the latter giving rise to the species's nickname "butterbutt" among birdwatchers. Audubon's warbler also sports a yellow throat patch, while the myrtle warbler has a white throat and eye stripe, and a contrasting black cheek patch. Females of both forms are more dull, with brown streaking front and back, but still have noticeable yellow rumps.

 

This image was taken at Baie-Comeau on the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence in Canada on 23rd September 2018.

 

I would really appreciate it if someone could identify the bird for me, thanks in anticipation of your assistance.

This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:

www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-242

 

RETIREMENT SECURITY: Better Information on Income Replacement Rates Needed to Help Workers Plan for Retirement

 

Notes: Age groupings are based on the age of the reference person, or the person who rents or owns the home, for the consumer unit. There may be adults in the in the consumer unit who are older or younger than the reference person. A consumer unit can comprise (1) all members of a household related by blood, marriage, or other legal arrangement, (2) a person living alone or sharing a household but who is financially independent, or (3) two or more persons living together who make joint expenditures. For the purposes of this report, we refer to consumer units as households. We did not adjust spending levels for household size. The "other" category of spending includes expenditures for reading, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, education, cash contributions, personal care, and miscellaneous expenses. The "personal insurance and pensions category" includes deductions for government and railroad retirement, private pensions, and Social Security. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics officials, the private pensions category includes defined benefit, defined contribution, and individual retirement accounts. Housing expenditures include expenses such as rent, utilities, and mortgage interest payments, but do not include payments on mortgage principal. For more information on mortgage principal, see appendix II. For more information on Consumer Expenditure Survey expenditure categories and treatment of taxes, see appendix I. For average total spending, 95 percent confidence intervals are less than +/-9 percent of the estimate itself for all age groups.

 

by hp bit.ly/1G1la9g

Amtrak Locomotive 40 leading Amtrak Train 58, the northbound City of New Orleans arrives then departs the station in Brookhaven, Mississippi on Wednesday, May 9, 2018.

 

I was told that Locomotive 130, one of Amtrak's new Heritage Units was on this train but unfortunately, it was not.

 

AMTK 40 [GE P42DC]

Kapunda.

Six years after the founding of the colony, SA was producing almost no wheat and the government was near bankruptcy. Governor Gawler had run up huge debts that the SA Company and the British government were unwilling to pay. Governor Grey arrived to face these problems but the discovery of commercial quantities of copper at Kapunda saved the state. Captain Charles Bagot of Koonunga Station discovered the copper and conferred with Francis Dutton of Anlaby station who had also discovered copper. They kept the news secret whilst they applied for 80 acres of land to be surveyed which they then bought at auction. Thus the two purchased the Kapunda copper mine with Bagot owning 75% and Dutton 25%. The first samples were assayed and averaged 23% pure copper, an extremely high rate for any mine. Cornish miners were secured for the mining jobs and mining began in January of 1843. The first shipment of copper reached England in 1845 and the royalties from the sales revived the states flagging economy. The first group of three blocks of miners cottages owned by the mine were built in 1845 really marking the beginning of the town. They were near the Dutton chimney stack and whim. Over the next thirty five years the mine delivered about £1,000,000 of wealth and the township of Kapunda grew quickly to become a major SA town. Dutton sold his share of the mine in 1846 for a huge sum (£16,000) which allowed him to invest in the even wealthier Burra copper mine. Bagot became the major shareholder but sold out to an English company within a couple of years although he maintained financial involvement with the mine until 1859. He returned to Adelaide and built Nurney House North Adelaide. His younger son Edward lived on in the district and established a stock agent and wool handling business when the railway reached Kapunda in 1860. This business eventually merged into Elder Smiths Goldsborough Mort. Edward Bagot was an important pastoralist with several stations in the far north of SA and a boiling down works at Thebarton.

 

William Oldham became the mine superintendant in 1848, as well as the Congregational minister, the town surveyor, the local post master and a local businessman. To many he is considered the “father” of Kapunda! From 1866 Captain Osborne succeeded William Oldham as the mine superintendent until the mine closed in 1878. At first copper was carted to Port Adelaide by bullock dray, a six day journey. It was then exported to Wales for smelting. Soon the Welsh joined the Cornish in Kapunda and smelting operations began in the town in 1849. In 1851 three hundred men, including woodcutters were employed in the smelting works. The town had taken its name from an Aboriginal word “cappie oonda” which means spring. There were several mines with different names on the site.

 

In 1850 the Cornish miners built the still impressive Dutton chimney which draw the draft from the Buhl Enginehouse furnaces via a lined tunnel up into the air through the chimney stack. The Cornish traditionally built round chimney stacks and the Welsh built square chimney stacks. The Buhl pump house drew water out of the main shaft which was up to 360 feet deep. Then in 1861-62 a second winding house to haul up copper ore was built further up the hill but for some strange reason it was named the Buhl Winding house although it never contained a Buhl engine. A significant part of the Buhl Winding House ruins remain on the site. Although the first mining was simple open cut mining undertaken by miners and tributers (who were paid according to how much ore they extracted), deep shafts were soon needed to reach the underground lodes of ore. The deepest shafts sunk were 150 m (490ft) and mining operations were complex. By 1861 the mine employed 340 men and boys. Just two years later mining operations were scaled down (Moonta Mine had begun by that time) and the mine reverted to open cut mining. Low grade ore was mined until 1878, the year after the Burra mine closed. Some tribute work continued in the mine until 1912.

 

The original private township was called North Kapunda and it was laid out by the North Kapunda Mining Company in 1846 although many miners were living on the lands of the Dutton copper mine before that time. These early miners squatted on land even if they built a hut or cottage on it. In 1849 the government belatedly surveyed a town which it called Victoria and then Kapunda. Look at a map of Kapunda today and you can see this government town delineated by South, North, and West terraces. This is the northern half of today’s Kapunda where the old primary school is located. Government facilities followed soon after the founding of the mining town with the police station, now a private residence being erected in 1852. Later in 1866 the impressive Court House was built adjacent to the police station still in the private township of the Kapunda Mining Company. The early Congregational Church of 1857 was also built on land obtained from the Kapunda Mining Company. The town prospered greatly once the government railway arrived in 1860. It then became the terminus for the bullock drays carting copper ore from Burra. It was during the 1860s and 1870s that many of the fine buildings in the town were erected. At this time Kapunda was larger than Gawler and Glenelg and in 1850 Kapunda was larger than Brisbane! It was the first town in SA with gas street lighting from around 1870. Kapunda also had its own newspaper from 1864 when the Kapunda Herald was established. Andrew Thomson of Osborne House bought the newspaper later that year. The paper still operates today as the Barossa and Light Herald (from 1908) and is the largest circulating regional weekly newspaper. Thomson also ran the general store, which is now the information centre.

 

Once the mine closed in 1878 the town focused on its agricultural hinterland and Sir Sidney Kidman played a major role in developing the town. He regularly held horse and cattle auctions behind the North Kapunda Hotel in the main street and by the time of his death in 1935 he owned or had a financial interest in 68 large properties which covered over 100,000 square miles ( 64 million acres or 259,000 square kms ) of Australia. Victoria is only 227,000 square kms! Kidman donated his home to the education department in 1921 for it to become Kapunda High School- one of the first high schools outside of Adelaide. In 1876 a local Scot, Alexander Greenshields built a mansion for £4,000 which he called Lanark after his birthplace in Scotland. He was a wealthy Kapunda draper and store owner. Sir Sidney Kidman bought the house around 1897 and renamed it Eringa. A major fire destroyed the roof of Eringa in 1902 and the Art Nouveau style Marseille tile roof replaced the original roof. The western wing was also added at this time and if you get to go inside you can see the delightful Art Nouveau ceiling motifs and the leadlight windows featuring bull rushes. When Sidney and his wife Bel moved to Adelaide they purchased a house at 76 Northgate Street Unley Park which they also named Eringa. Sir Sidney Kidman died here in 1935 and was buried nearby in the Mitcham cemetery. The Kidman Empire was inherited by his son Walter and other family members. Sir Sidney Kidman was mourned by people around the world and the almost illiterate 13 year who set about to create a pastoral empire on his own died an extremely wealthy man. Kidman was knighted partly for his generosity and bequests to the Inland Mission, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and other charities. During World War One he had also donated hundreds of horses, produce, especially beef and other materials to the Australian war effort including two fighter airplanes. As a generous employer it was not surprising that his employees put on a rodeo party for his 75th birthday in 1932 in the Adelaide Parklands. 60,000 people attended! Kidman was meant to be as comfortable talking to British royalty as to his stockmen. Although the Kidman properties are only half what they used to be in size they are for sale for round $350 million in 2015.

 

Sir Montague( or Montagu) Chapman, Third Baronet of Westmeath near Dublin Ireland, used a loop hole in the Special Survey regulations of 1839 and selected his 4,000 acres for £4,000 in different areas. He took 800 acres at Koonunga near Kapunda; 500 acres at Kapunda; 500 acres near Waterloo and Marrabel; and later in 1842 he selected a further 2,200 acres between the Little Para River and Dry Creek at what is now Mawson Lakes, Salisbury and Cross Keys. At Killua Castle in Ireland he had 9,000 acres and hundreds of tenant farmers. He wanted to do the same in SA. In 1840 he sent out Captain Charles Bagot from Ireland with his family and 224 Irish immigrants to settle his, and Bagot’s lands at Kapunda and Koonunga with Irish labourers and tenants. Then in 1842 he sailed out to SA with 120 Irish tenant farmers who he installed on his lands at Cross Keys. Sir Montague Chapman returned to Ireland the next year. Then in 1847 he sent out with a further 214 Irish immigrants to be tenant farmers on his Cross Key lands. They came out on the ships named Trafalgar and Aboukir. Sir Montague Chapman lived in Ireland not SA but returned to his SA estates in 1852 and drowned at sea in 1853 off Portland when returning to SA from Sydney. His brother Benjamin inherited the SA lands and estates. The lasting effect of Sir Montague Chapmans tenant farming ideas was a large number of Irish Catholics around the Salisbury and Kapunda districts. Many of these immigrants soon became independent landowners themselves. These early Irish Catholic’s had the fourth Catholic Church in SA built at Koonunga. But in 1862 they opened a church in Kapunda itself named St Rose of Lima which was completed in 1866. This church was replaced with the current fine red brick Romanesque style St Rose’s Church which was built in 1938. The original church was demolished in 1946. Beside the church is a bluestone church office, and behind it is a parish hall built in 1909. It replaced an earlier 1865 parish hall. Beyond that is the fine convent built in 1892. This early hall was used as a Catholic school run by the Sisters of St Joseph. When the Dominican sister took over the school they had a new two storey convent built. It is now a private residence. Imprisoned paedophile magistrate Peter Liddy owned this former convent for some years.

 

Apart from the Dutton family, Captain Bagot and Sir Sidney Kidman, Kapunda was also home to Ellen Benham (1871-1917.) She was the daughter of a Kapunda solicitor and was educated in the town. She obtained a Bachelor of Science from the University of Adelaide in 1889 and returned to Kapunda as a teacher. In 1901 she became the first female lecturer employed by the University of Adelaide, and later in 1912 she purchased her own school – Walford Grammar School for Girls. She is buried in the Kapunda cemetery. Sir Jenkin Coles a state parliamentarian who served for 33 years lived in Kapunda for most of his life. In the early days the town’s water supply came from the Light River which flows through the town. Electricity was not turned on until 1925. One of many symbols of its early growth as an urban centre was the establishment of the Kapunda Horticultural Society and Annual Show in 1857. Kapunda is 800 feet or 245 m above sea level, with a population of around 3,000 people today and it has an average annual rainfall of 500mm or 19.6 inches.

  

Average guys with exceptional hair tour

Scarlett o'hara

Atlanta,GA

 

Average weight of a male - 3.22 grams

 

Sight and Sound

 

Time to funk things up with the Average White Band!

 

I'm such a huge fan of this Scottish band. I wore their records out in the 70s. Founded by Alan Gorrrie, Malcolm "Molly" Duncan and Onnie McIntyre the band represents its country well.

 

Here are just a few of their songs (take your pick.)

 

Cut the Cake Live

 

School Boy Crush Live

 

And since it's alway fun to go to Darryl's House (w/Alan Gorrie on bass): Pick Up the Pieces Live

My sisters and I

For more car related awesomeness Like me on facebook! :)

One of the many old town homes

 

Visby is a popular vacation destination for Scandinavians during the summer and receives thousands of tourists every year. It is by far the most populated locality outside the Swedish mainland. Visby is also the only municipality seat of Sweden that is accessible only by boat and air traffic. The University of Gotland is in Visby, and since 1 July 2013, it is a department of Uppsala University under the name Uppsala university–Campus Gotland.

January 2025.Joe’s Junk on Fair Park Boulevard Little Rock, Arkansas.KodakTX400.Pentax KX-silver.Pentax120mm.OrangeFilter.CaffenolCH@20minutes.Scanned:FujifilmXH1

The geothermal areas of Yellowstone include several geyser basins in Yellowstone National Park as well as other geothermal features such as hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles. The number of thermal features in Yellowstone is estimated at 10,000. A study that was completed in 2011 found that a total of 1,283 geysers have erupted in Yellowstone, 465 of which are active during an average year. These are distributed among nine geyser basins, with a few geysers found in smaller thermal areas throughout the Park. The number of geysers in each geyser basin are as follows: Upper Geyser Basin (410), Midway Geyser Basin (59), Lower Geyser Basin (283), Norris Geyser Basin (193), West Thumb Geyser Basin (84), Gibbon Geyser Basin (24), Lone Star Geyser Basin (21), Shoshone Geyser Basin (107), Heart Lake Geyser Basin (69), other areas (33). Although famous large geysers like Old Faithful are part of the total, most of Yellowstone's geysers are small, erupting to only a foot or two. The hydrothermal system that supplies the geysers with hot water sits within an ancient active caldera. Many of the thermal features in Yellowstone build up sinter, geyserite, or travertine deposits around and within them.

 

The various geyser basins are located where rainwater and snowmelt can percolate into the ground, get indirectly superheated by the underlying Yellowstone hotspot, and then erupt at the surface as geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. Thus flat-bottomed valleys between ancient lava flows and glacial moraines are where most of the large geothermal areas are located. Smaller geothermal areas can be found where fault lines reach the surface, in places along the circular fracture zone around the caldera, and at the base of slopes that collect excess groundwater. Due to the Yellowstone Plateau's high elevation the average boiling temperature at Yellowstone's geyser basins is 199 °F (93 °C). When properly confined and close to the surface it can periodically release some of the built-up pressure in eruptions of hot water and steam that can reach up to 390 feet (120 m) into the air (see Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest geyser). Water erupting from Yellowstone's geysers is superheated above that boiling point to an average of 204 °F (95.5 °C) as it leaves the vent. The water cools significantly while airborne and is no longer scalding hot by the time it strikes the ground, nearby boardwalks, or even spectators. Because of the high temperatures of the water in the features it is important that spectators remain on the boardwalks and designated trails. Several deaths have occurred in the park as a result of falls into hot springs.

 

Prehistoric Native American artifacts have been found at Mammoth Hot Springs and other geothermal areas in Yellowstone. Some accounts state that the early people used hot water from the geothermal features for bathing and cooking. In the 19th century Father Pierre-Jean De Smet reported that natives he interviewed thought that geyser eruptions were "the result of combat between the infernal spirits". The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled north of the Yellowstone area in 1806. Local natives that they came upon seldom dared to enter what we now know is the caldera because of frequent loud noises that sounded like thunder and the belief that the spirits that possessed the area did not like human intrusion into their realm. The first white man known to travel into the caldera and see the geothermal features was John Colter, who had left the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He described what he saw as "hot spring brimstone". Beaver trapper Joseph Meek recounted in 1830 that the steam rising from the various geyser basins reminded him of smoke coming from industrial smokestacks on a cold winter morning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the 1850s famed trapper Jim Bridger called it "the place where Hell bubbled up".

 

The heat that drives geothermal activity in the Yellowstone area comes from brine (salty water) that is 1.5–3 miles (7,900–15,800 ft; 2,400–4,800 m) below the surface. This is actually below the solid volcanic rock and sediment that extends to a depth of 3,000 to 6,000 feet (900 to 1,800 m) and is inside the hot but mostly solid part of the pluton that contains Yellowstone's magma chamber. At that depth the brine is superheated to temperatures that exceed 400 °F (204 °C) but is able to remain a liquid because it is under great pressure (like a huge pressure cooker).

 

Convection of the churning brine and conduction from surrounding rock transfers heat to an overlaying layer of fresh groundwater. Movement of the two liquids is facilitated by the highly fractured and porous nature of the rocks under the Yellowstone Plateau. Some silica is dissolved from the fractured rhyolite into the hot water as it travels through the fractured rock. Part of this hard mineral is later redeposited on the walls of the cracks and fissures to make a nearly pressure-tight system. Silica precipitates at the surface to form either geyserite or sinter, creating the massive geyser cones, the scalloped edges of hot springs, and the seemingly barren landscape of geyser basins.

 

There are at least five types of geothermal features found at Yellowstone:

 

Fumaroles: Fumaroles, or steam vents, are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park. They have so little water that it all flashes into steam before reaching the surface. At places like Roaring Mountain, the result is loud hissing of steam and gases.

Geysers: Geysers such as Old Faithful are a type of geothermal feature that periodically erupt scalding hot water. Increased pressure exerted by the enormous weight of the overlying rock and water prevents deeper water from boiling. As the hot water rises it is under less pressure and steam bubbles form. They, in turn, expand on their ascent until the bubbles are too big and numerous to pass freely through constrictions. At a critical point the confined bubbles actually lift the water above, causing the geyser to splash or overflow. This decreases the pressure of the system and violent boiling results. Large quantities of water flash into tremendous amounts of steam that force a jet of water out of the vent: an eruption begins. Water (and heat) is expelled faster than the geyser's recharge rate, gradually decreasing the system's pressure and eventually ending the eruption.

Hot springs: Hot springs such as Grand Prismatic Spring are the most common hydrothermal features in the park. Their plumbing has no constrictions. Superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks, and is replaced by hotter water from below. This circulation, called convection, prevents water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption. Many hot springs give rise to streams of heated water.

Mudpots: Mudpots such as Fountain Paint Pots are acidic hot springs with a limited water supply. Some microorganisms use hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell), which rises from deep within the earth, as an energy source. They convert the gas into sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay.

Travertine terraces: Travertine terraces, found at Mammoth Hot Springs, are formed from limestone (a rock type made of calcium carbonate). Thermal waters rise through the limestone, carrying high amounts of dissolved carbonate. Carbon dioxide is released at the surface and calcium carbonate deposited as travertine, the chalky white rock of the terraces. These features constantly and quickly change due to the rapid rate of deposition.

Geyser basins

 

The Norris Geyser Basin 44°43′43″N 110°42′16″W is the hottest geyser basin in the park and is located near the northwest edge of Yellowstone Caldera near Norris Junction and on the intersection of three major faults. The Norris-Mammoth Corridor is a fault that runs from Norris north through Mammoth to the Gardiner, Montana, area. The Hebgen Lake fault runs from northwest of West Yellowstone, Montana, to Norris. This fault experienced an earthquake in 1959 that measured 7.4 on the Richter scale (sources vary on exact magnitude between 7.1 and 7.8; see 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake). Norris Geyser Basin is so hot and dynamic because these two faults intersect with the ring fracture zone that resulted from the creation of the Yellowstone Caldera of 640,000 years ago.

 

The Basin consists of three main areas: Porcelain Basin, Back Basin, and One Hundred Springs Plain. Unlike most of other geyser basins in the park, the waters from Norris are acidic rather than alkaline (for example, Echinus Geyser has a pH of ~3.5). The difference in pH allows for a different class of bacterial thermophiles to live at Norris, creating different color patterns in and around the Norris Basin waters.

 

The Ragged Hills that lie between Back Basin and One Hundred Springs Plain are thermally altered glacial kames. As glaciers receded the underlying thermal features began to express themselves once again, melting remnants of the ice and causing masses of debris to be dumped. These debris piles were then altered by steam and hot water flowing through them. Madison lies within the eroded stream channels cut through lava flows formed after the caldera eruption. The Gibbon Falls lies on the caldera boundary as does Virginia Cascades.

 

Algae on left bacteria on right at the intersection of flows from the Constant & Whirlgig Geysers at Norris Geyser Basin

The tallest active geyser in the world, Steamboat Geyser,[11] is located in Norris Basin. Unlike the slightly smaller but much more famous Old Faithful Geyser located in Upper Geyser Basin, Steamboat has an erratic and lengthy timetable between major eruptions. During major eruptions, which may be separated by intervals of more than a year (the longest recorded span between major eruptions was 50 years), Steamboat erupts over 300 feet (90 m) into the air. Steamboat does not lie dormant between eruptions, instead displaying minor eruptions of approximately 40 feet (12 m).

 

Norris Geyser Basin periodically undergoes a large-scale, basin-wide thermal disturbance lasting a few weeks. Water levels fluctuate, and temperatures, pH, colors, and eruptive patterns change throughout the basin. During a disturbance in 1985, Porkchop Geyser continually jetted steam and water; in 1989, the same geyser apparently clogged with silica and blew up, throwing rocks more than 200 feet (61 m). In 2003 a park ranger observed it bubbling heavily, the first such activity seen since 1991. Activity increased dramatically in mid-2003. Because of high ground temperatures and new features beside the trail much of Back Basin was closed until October. In 2004 the boardwalk was routed around the dangerous area and now leads behind Porkchop Geyser.

 

North of Norris, Roaring Mountain is a large, acidic hydrothermal area (solfatara) with many fumaroles. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the number, size, and power of the fumaroles were much greater than today. The fumaroles are most easily seen in the cooler, low-light conditions of morning and evening.

 

The Gibbon Geyser Basin 44°41′58″N 110°44′34″W includes several thermal areas in the vicinity of the Gibbon River between Gibbon Falls and Norris. The most accessible feature in the basin is Beryl Spring, with a small boardwalk right along the Grand Loop Road. Artists' Paintpots is a small hydrothermal area south of Norris Junction that includes colorful hot springs and two large mudpots.

 

The Monument Geyser Basin 44°41′03″N 110°45′14″W has no active geysers, but its 'monuments' are siliceous sinter deposits similar to the siliceous spires discovered on the floor of Yellowstone Lake. Scientists hypothesize that this basin's structures formed from a hot water system in a glacially dammed lake during the waning stages of the Pinedale Glaciation. The basin is on a ridge reached by a very steep one-mile (1.6 km) trail south of Artists' Paint Pots. Other areas of thermal activity in Gibbon Geyser Basin lie off-trail.

 

South of Norris along the rim of the caldera is the Upper Geyser Basin 44°27′52″N 110°49′45″W, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the park. This complement of features includes the most famous geyser in the park, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as four other predictable large geysers. One of these large geysers in the area is Castle Geyser which is about 1,400 feet (430 m) northwest of Old Faithful. Castle Geyser has an interval of approximately 13 hours between major eruptions, but is unpredictable after minor eruptions. The other three predictable geysers are Grand Geyser, Daisy Geyser, and Riverside Geyser. Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin are also within the boundaries of Upper Geyser Basin.

 

The hills surrounding Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin are reminders of Quaternary rhyolitic lava flows. These flows, occurring long after the catastrophic eruption of 640,000 years ago, flowed across the landscape like stiff mounds of bread dough due to their high silica content.

 

Evidence of glacial activity is common, and it is one of the keys that allows geysers to exist. Glacier till deposits underlie the geyser basins providing storage areas for the water used in eruptions. Many landforms, such as Porcupine Hills north of Fountain Flats, are made up of glacial gravel and are reminders that 70,000 to 14,000 years ago, this area was buried under ice.

 

Signs of the forces of erosion can be seen everywhere, from runoff channels carved across the sinter in the geyser basins to the drainage created by the Firehole River. Mountain building is evident on the drive south of Old Faithful, toward Craig Pass. Here the Rocky Mountains reach a height of 8,262 feet (2,518 m), dividing the country into two distinct watersheds.

 

Midway Geyser Basin 44°31′04″N 110°49′56″W is much smaller than the other basins found alongside the Firehole River. Despite its small size, it contains two large features, the 200-by-300-foot-wide (60 by 90 m) Excelsior Geyser which pours over 4,000 U.S. gallons (15,000 L; 3,300 imp gal) per minute into the Firehole River. The largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the 370-foot-wide (110 m) and 121-foot-deep (37 m) Grand Prismatic Spring is found here. Also in the basin is Turquoise Pool and Opal Pool.

 

Lower Geyser Basin

Blue spring with steam rising from it; irregular blotches of red and orange residue are on the banks, along with dead tree trunks.

Silex Spring at Fountain Paint Pot

 

Farther north is the Lower Geyser Basin 44°32′58″N 110°50′09″W, which is the largest geyser basin in area, covering approximately 11 square miles. Due to its large size, it has a much less concentrated set of geothermal features, including Fountain Paint Pots. Fountain Paint Pots are mud pots, that is, a hot spring that contains boiling mud instead of water. The mud is produced by a higher acidity in the water which enables the spring to dissolve surrounding minerals to create an opaque, usually grey, mud. Also there is Firehole Spring, Celestine Pool, Leather Pool, Red Spouter, Jelly spring, and a number of fumaroles.

 

Geysers in Lower Geyser Basin include Great Fountain Geyser, whose eruptions reach 100 to 200 feet (30–61 m) in the air, while waves of water cascade down its sinter terraces., the Fountain group of Geysers (Clepsydra Geyser which erupts nearly continuously to heights of 45 feet (14 m), Fountain Geyser, Jelly Geyser, Jet Geyser, Morning Geyser, and Spasm Geyser), the Pink Cone group of geysers (Dilemma Geyser, Labial Geyser, Narcissus Geyser, Pink Geyser, and Pink Cone Geyser), the White Dome group of geysers (Crack Geyser, Gemini Geyser, Pebble Geyser, Rejuvenated Geyser, and White Dome Geyser), as well as Sizzler Geyser.

 

Clepsydra Geyser erupting. July 2019

Fountain Paint Pots

White Dome Geyser

West Thumb Geyser Basin

Several pools of blue water in ashen rock basin.

West Thumb Geyser Basin

Blackened basin with orange streaks; steam is rising from it with fir trees in the background.

Overflow areas of Silex springs

 

The West Thumb Geyser Basin 44°25′07″N 110°34′23″W, including Potts Basin to the north, is the largest geyser basin on the shores of Yellowstone Lake. The heat source of the thermal features in this location is thought to be relatively close to the surface, only 10,000 feet (3,000 m) down. West Thumb is about the same size as another famous volcanic caldera, Crater Lake in Oregon, but much smaller than the great Yellowstone Caldera which last erupted about 640,000 years ago. West Thumb is a caldera within a caldera.

 

West Thumb was created approximately 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the surface of the earth and subsequently cracked it along ring fracture zones. This in turn released the enclosed magma as lava and caused the surface above the emptied magma chamber to collapse. Water later filled the collapsed area of the caldera, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake. This created the source of heat and water that feed the West Thumb Geyser Basin today.

 

The thermal features at West Thumb are not only found on the lake shore, but extend under the surface of the lake as well. Several underwater hydrothermal features were discovered in the early 1990s and can be seen as slick spots or slight bulges in the summer. During the winter, the underwater thermal features are visible as melt holes in the icy surface of the lake. The surrounding ice can reach three feet (one yard) in thickness.

 

Perhaps the most famous hydrothermal feature at West Thumb is a geyser on the lake shore known as Fishing Cone. Walter Trumbull of the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition described a unique event while a man was fishing adjacent to the cone: "...in swinging a trout ashore, it accidentally got off the hook and fell into the spring. For a moment it darted about with wonderful rapidity, as if seeking an outlet. Then it came to the top, dead, and literally boiled." Fishing Cone erupted frequently to the height of 40 feet (12 m) in 1919 and to lesser heights in 1939. One fisherman was badly burned in Fishing Cone in 1921. Fishing at the geyser is now prohibited.

 

Early visitors would arrive at West Thumb via stagecoach from the Old Faithful area. They had a choice of continuing on the stagecoach or boarding the steamship Zillah to continue the journey by water to Lake Hotel. The boat dock was located near the south end of the geyser basin near Lakeside Spring.

 

Backcountry Geyser Basins

The Heart Lake 44°18′00″N 110°30′56″W, Lone Star 44°24′50″N 110°49′04″W, and Shoshone Geyser Basins 44°21′16″N 110°47′57″W are located away from the road and require at least several miles of hiking to reach. These areas lack the boardwalks and other safety features of the developed areas. As falling into geothermal features can be fatal, it is usually advisable to visit these areas with an experienced guide or at the very least, travelers need to ensure they remain on well-marked trails.

 

The Heart Lake Geyser Basin contains several groups of geysers and deep blue hot springs near Heart Lake in the south-central portion of Yellowstone, southeast of most of the main geyser basins. Lying in the Snake River watershed east of Lewis Lake and south of Yellowstone Lake, Heart Lake was named sometime before 1871 for Hart Hunney, a hunter. Other explorers in the region incorrectly assumed that the lake's name was spelled 'heart' because of its shape. The Heart Lake Geyser Basin begins a couple miles from the lake and descends along Witch Creek to the lakeshore. Five groups of hydrothermal features comprise the basin, and all of them contain geysers, although some are dormant.

 

Between Shoshone Lake and Old Faithful is the Lone Star Geyser Basin, of which the primary feature is Lone Star Geyser, named for its isolation from the nearby geysers of the Upper Geyser Basin. The basin is reachable on foot or bicycle via a 3 mile road that is closed to vehicles.

 

The Shoshone Geyser Basin, reached by hiking or by boat, contains one of the highest concentrations of geysers in the world – more than 80 in an area 1,600 by 800 feet (490 by 240 m). Hot springs and mudpots dot the landscape between the geyser basin and Shoshone Lake.

 

Hot Spring Basin is located 15 miles (24 km) north-northeast of Fishing Bridge and has one of Yellowstone's largest collections of hot springs and fumaroles. The geothermal features there release large amounts of sulfur. This makes water from the springs so acidic that it has dissolved holes in the pants of people who sit on wet ground and causes mounds of sulfur three feet (1 m) high to develop around fumaroles. The very hot acidic water and steam have also created voids in the ground that are only covered by a thin crust.

 

Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Because of the huge amount of geothermal vents, travertine flourishes. Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas.

 

The thermal features at Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron are primarily mud pots and fumaroles because the area is situated on a perched water system with little water available. Fumaroles or "steam vents" occur when the ground water boils away faster than it can be recharged. Also, the vapors are rich in sulfuric acid that leaches the rock, breaking it down into clay. Because no water washes away the acid or leached rock, it remains as sticky clay to form a mud pot. Hydrogen sulfide gas is present deep in the earth at Mud Volcano and is oxidized to sulfuric acid by microbial activity, which dissolves the surface soils to create pools and cones of clay and mud. Along with hydrogen sulfide, steam, carbon dioxide, and other gases explode through the layers of mud.

 

A series of shallow earthquakes associated with the volcanic activity in Yellowstone struck this area in 1978. Soil temperatures increased to nearly 200 °F (93 °C). The slope between Sizzling Basin and Mud Geyser, once covered with green grass and trees, became a barren landscape of fallen trees known as "the cooking hillside".

 

Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.

 

While Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park originally fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first Secretary of the Interior to supervise the park being Columbus Delano. However, the U.S. Army was eventually commissioned to oversee the management of Yellowstone for 30 years between 1886 and 1916. In 1917, the administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, and researchers have examined more than a thousand archaeological sites.

 

Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 sq mi (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Well over half of the world's geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. In 1978, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in this park. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the park each year; in the large forest fires of 1988, nearly one-third of the park was burnt. Yellowstone has numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing, and sightseeing. Paved roads provide close access to the major geothermal areas as well as some of the lakes and waterfalls. During the winter, visitors often access the park by way of guided tours that use either snow coaches or snowmobiles.

 

Teton County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 23,331. Its county seat is Jackson. Its west boundary line is also the Wyoming state boundary shared with Idaho and the southern tip of Montana. Teton County is part of the Jackson, WY-ID Micropolitan Statistical Area.

 

Teton County contains the Jackson Hole ski area, all of Grand Teton National Park, and 40.4% of Yellowstone National Park's total area, including over 96.6% of its water area (largely in Yellowstone Lake).

 

Wyoming is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With a population of 576,851 in 2020, Wyoming is the least populous state despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had an estimated population of 63,957 in 2018.

 

Wyoming's western half consists mostly of the ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountains; its eastern half consists of high-elevation prairie, and is referred to as the High Plains. Wyoming's climate is semi-arid in some parts and continental in others, making it drier and windier overall than other states, with greater temperature extremes. The federal government owns just under half of Wyoming's land, generally protecting it for public uses. The state ranks sixth in the amount of land—-and fifth in the proportion of its land—-that is owned by the federal government. Its federal lands include two national parks (Grand Teton and Yellowstone), two national recreation areas, two national monuments, and several national forests, as well as historic sites, fish hatcheries, and wildlife refuges.

 

Indigenous peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years. Historic and currently federally recognized tribes include the Arapaho, Crow, Lakota, and Shoshone. Part of the land that is now Wyoming came under American sovereignty via the Louisiana Purchase, part via the Oregon Treaty, and, lastly, via the Mexican Cession. With the opening of the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the California Trail, vast numbers of pioneers travelled through parts of the state that had once been traversed mainly by fur trappers, and this spurred the establishment of forts, such as Fort Laramie, that today serve as population centers. The Transcontinental Railroad supplanted the wagon trails in 1867 with a route through southern Wyoming, bringing new settlers and the establishment of founding towns, including the state capital of Cheyenne. On March 27, 1890, Wyoming became the union's 44th state.

 

Farming and ranching, and the attendant range wars, feature prominently in the state's history. Today, Wyoming's economy is largely based on tourism and the extraction of minerals such as coal, natural gas, oil, and trona. Its agricultural commodities include barley, hay, livestock, sugar beets, wheat, and wool.

 

Wyoming was the first state to allow women the right to vote (not counting New Jersey, which had allowed it until 1807), and the right to assume elected office, as well as the first state to elect a female governor. In honor of this part of its history, its most common nickname is "The Equality State" and its official state motto is "Equal Rights". It is among the least religious states in the country, and is known for having a political culture that leans towards libertarian conservatism. The Republican presidential nominee has carried the state in every election since 1968.

A chart depicting the average number of calories in an entree salad at various fast food restaurants (McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell, Subway, and Arby's)

 

Want to use one of our images on your own site? That's great! We do ask that you please give credit for the image by including a link to www.franchiseopportunities.com/

Go Ahead London Enviro 200 Man 12.240 707 YX58DXC at New Addington on route 130 (New Addington - Thornton Heath, Parchmore Road) Route 130 is currently based at Croydon (C) As well as recently being extended to Thornton Heath to provide more links.

Hyderabad (Listeni/ˈhaɪdərəˌbæd/ HY-dər-ə-bad; often /ˈhaɪdrəˌbæd/) is the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana and de jure capital of Andhra Pradesh. Occupying 625 square kilometres along the banks of the Musi River, it has a population of about 6.8 million and a metropolitan population of about 7.75 million, making it the fourth most populous city and sixth most populous urban agglomeration in India. At an average altitude of 542 metres, much of Hyderabad is situated on hilly terrain around artificial lakes, including Hussain Sagar - predating the city's founding - north of the city centre.

 

Established in 1591 by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, Hyderabad remained under the rule of the Qutb Shahi dynasty for nearly a century before the Mughals captured the region. In 1724, Mughal viceroy Asif Jah I declared his sovereignty and created his own dynasty, known as the Nizams of Hyderabad. The Nizam's dominions became a princely state during the British Raj, and remained so for 150 years, with the city serving as its capital. The city continued as the capital of Hyderabad State after it was brought into the Indian Union in 1948, and became the capital of Andhra Pradesh after the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. Since 1956, Rashtrapati Nilayam in the city has been the winter office of the President of India. In 2014, the newly formed state of Telangana split from Andhra Pradesh and the city became joint capital of the two states, a transitional arrangement scheduled to end by 2025.

 

Relics of Qutb Shahi and Nizam rule remain visible today, with the Charminar - commissioned by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah - coming to symbolise Hyderabad. Golconda fort is another major landmark. The influence of Mughlai culture is also evident in the city's distinctive cuisine, which includes Hyderabadi biryani and Hyderabadi haleem. The Qutb Shahis and Nizams established Hyderabad as a cultural hub, attracting men of letters from different parts of the world. Hyderabad emerged as the foremost centre of culture in India with the decline of the Mughal Empire in the mid-19th century, with artists migrating to the city from the rest of the Indian subcontinent. While Hyderabad is losing its cultural pre-eminence, it is today, due to the Telugu film industry, the country's second-largest producer of motion pictures.

 

Hyderabad was historically known as a pearl and diamond trading centre, and it continues to be known as the City of Pearls. Many of the city's traditional bazaars, including Laad Bazaar, Begum Bazaar and Sultan Bazaar, have remained open for centuries. However, industrialisation throughout the 20th century attracted major Indian manufacturing, research and financial institutions, including Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, the National Geophysical Research Institute and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. Special economic zones dedicated to information technology have encouraged companies from across India and around the world to set up operations and the emergence of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the 1990s led to the area's naming as India's "Genome Valley". With an output of US$74 billion, Hyderabad is the fifth-largest contributor to India's overall gross domestic product.

 

HISTORY

TOPONYMY

According to John Everett-Heath, the author of Oxford Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, Hyderabad means "Haydar's city" or "lion city", from haydar (lion) and ābād (city). It was named to honour the Caliph Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who was also known as Haydar because of his lion-like valour in battles. Andrew Petersen, a scholar of Islamic architecture, says the city was originally called Baghnagar (city of gardens). One popular theory suggests that Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the founder of the city, named it "Bhaganagar" or "Bhāgnagar" after Bhagmati, a local nautch (dancing) girl with whom he had fallen in love. She converted to Islam and adopted the title Hyder Mahal. The city was renamed Hyderabad in her honour. According to another source, the city was named after Haidar, the son of Quli Qutb Shah.

 

EARLY AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY

Archaeologists excavating near the city have unearthed Iron Age sites that may date from 500 BCE. The region comprising modern Hyderabad and its surroundings was known as Golkonda ("shepherd's hill"), and was ruled by the Chalukya dynasty from 624 CE to 1075 CE. Following the dissolution of the Chalukya empire into four parts in the 11th century, Golkonda came under the control of the Kakatiya dynasty from 1158, whose seat of power was at Warangal, 148 km northeast of modern Hyderabad.

 

The Kakatiya dynasty was reduced to a vassal of the Khilji dynasty in 1310 after its defeat by Sultan Alauddin Khilji of the Delhi Sultanate. This lasted until 1321, when the Kakatiya dynasty was annexed by Malik Kafur, Allaudin Khilji's general. During this period, Alauddin Khilji took the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is said to have been mined from the Kollur Mines of Golkonda, to Delhi. Muhammad bin Tughluq succeeded to the Delhi sultanate in 1325, bringing Warangal under the rule of the Tughlaq dynasty until 1347 when Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah, a governor under bin Tughluq, rebelled against Delhi and established the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan Plateau, with Gulbarga, 200 km west of Hyderabad, as its capital. The Bahmani kings ruled the region until 1518 and were the first independent Muslim rulers of the Deccan.

 

Sultan Quli, a governor of Golkonda, revolted against the Bahmani Sultanate and established the Qutb Shahi dynasty in 1518; he rebuilt the mud-fort of Golconda and named the city "Muhammad nagar". The fifth sultan, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, established Hyderabad on the banks of the Musi River in 1591, to avoid the water shortages experienced at Golkonda. During his rule, he had the Charminar and Mecca Masjid built in the city. On 21 September 1687, the Golkonda Sultanate came under the rule of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after a year-long siege of the Golkonda fort. The annexed area was renamed Deccan Suba (Deccan province) and the capital was moved from Golkonda to Aurangabad, about 550 km northwest of Hyderabad.

 

MODERN HISTORY

In 1713 Farrukhsiyar, the Mughal emperor, appointed Asif Jah I to be Viceroy of the Deccan, with the title Nizam-ul-Mulk (Administrator of the Realm). In 1724, Asif Jah I defeated Mubariz Khan to establish autonomy over the Deccan Suba, named the region Hyderabad Deccan, and started what came to be known as the Asif Jahi dynasty. Subsequent rulers retained the title Nizam ul-Mulk and were referred to as Asif Jahi Nizams, or Nizams of Hyderabad. The death of Asif Jah I in 1748 resulted in a period of political unrest as his sons, backed by opportunistic neighbouring states and colonial foreign forces, contended for the throne. The accession of Asif Jah II, who reigned from 1762 to 1803, ended the instability. In 1768 he signed the treaty of Masulipatnam, surrendering the coastal region to the East India Company in return for a fixed annual rent.

 

In 1769 Hyderabad city became the formal capital of the Nizams. In response to regular threats from Hyder Ali (Dalwai of Mysore), Baji Rao I (Peshwa of the Maratha Empire), and Basalath Jung (Asif Jah II's elder brother, who was supported by the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau), the Nizam signed a subsidiary alliance with the East India Company in 1798, allowing the British Indian Army to occupy Bolarum (modern Secunderabad) to protect the state's borders, for which the Nizams paid an annual maintenance to the British.

 

Until 1874 there were no modern industries in Hyderabad. With the introduction of railways in the 1880s, four factories were built to the south and east of Hussain Sagar lake, and during the early 20th century, Hyderabad was transformed into a modern city with the establishment of transport services, underground drainage, running water, electricity, telecommunications, universities, industries, and Begumpet Airport. The Nizams ruled their princely state from Hyderabad during the British Raj.

 

After India gained independence, the Nizam declared his intention to remain independent rather than become part of the Indian Union. The Hyderabad State Congress, with the support of the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India, began agitating against Nizam VII in 1948. On 17 September that year, the Indian Army took control of Hyderabad State after an invasion codenamed Operation Polo. With the defeat of his forces, Nizam VII capitulated to the Indian Union by signing an Instrument of Accession, which made him the Rajpramukh (Princely Governor) of the state until 31 October 1956. Between 1946 and 1951, the Communist Party of India fomented the Telangana uprising against the feudal lords of the Telangana region. The Constitution of India, which became effective on 26 January 1950, made Hyderabad State one of the part B states of India, with Hyderabad city continuing to be the capital. In his 1955 report Thoughts on Linguistic States, B. R. Ambedkar, then chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, proposed designating the city of Hyderabad as the second capital of India because of its amenities and strategic central location. Since 1956, the Rashtrapati Nilayam in Hyderabad has been the second official residence and business office of the President of India; the President stays once a year in winter and conducts official business particularly relating to Southern India.

 

On 1 November 1956 the states of India were reorganised by language. Hyderabad state was split into three parts, which were merged with neighbouring states to form the modern states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The nine Telugu- and Urdu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in the Telangana region were merged with the Telugu-speaking Andhra State to create Andhra Pradesh,with Hyderabad as its capital. Several protests, known collectively as the Telangana movement, attempted to invalidate the merger and demanded the creation of a new Telangana state. Major actions took place in 1969 and 1972, and a third began in 2010. The city suffered several explosions: one at Dilsukhnagar in 2002 claimed two lives; terrorist bombs in May and August 2007 caused communal tension and riots; and two bombs exploded in February 2013. On 30 July 2013 the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of India declared that part of Andhra Pradesh would be split off to form a new Telangana state, and that Hyderabad city would be the capital city and part of Telangana, while the city would also remain the capital of Andhra Pradesh for no more than ten years. On 3 October 2013 the Union Cabinet approved the proposal, and in February 2014 both houses of Parliament passed the Telangana Bill. With the final assent of the President of India in June 2014, Telangana state was formed.

 

GEOGRAPHY

TOPOGRAPHY

Situated in the southern part of Telangana in southeastern India, Hyderabad is 1,566 kilometres south of Delhi, 699 kilometres southeast of Mumbai, and 570 kilometres north of Bangalore by road. It lies on the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of the Deccan Plateau. Greater Hyderabad covers 625 km2, making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in India. With an average altitude of 542 metres, Hyderabad lies on predominantly sloping terrain of grey and pink granite, dotted with small hills, the highest being Banjara Hills at 672 metres. The city has numerous lakes referred to as sagar, meaning "sea". Examples include artificial lakes created by dams on the Musi, such as Hussain Sagar (built in 1562 near the city centre), Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar. As of 1996, the city had 140 lakes and 834 water tanks (ponds).

 

CLIMATE

Hyderabad has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen Aw) bordering on a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh). The annual mean temperature is 26.6 °C; monthly mean temperatures are 21–33 °C. Summers (March–June) are hot and humid, with average highs in the mid-to-high 30s Celsius; maximum temperatures often exceed 40 °C between April and June. The coolest temperatures occur in December and January, when the lowest temperature occasionally dips to 10 °C. May is the hottest month, when daily temperatures range from 26 to 39 °C; December, the coldest, has temperatures varying from 14.5 to 28 °C.

 

Heavy rain from the south-west summer monsoon falls between June and September, supplying Hyderabad with most of its mean annual rainfall. Since records began in November 1891, the heaviest rainfall recorded in a 24-hour period was 241.5 mm on 24 August 2000. The highest temperature ever recorded was 45.5 °C on 2 June 1966, and the lowest was 6.1 °C on 8 January 1946. The city receives 2,731 hours of sunshine per year; maximum daily sunlight exposure occurs in February.

 

CONSERVATION

Hyderabad's lakes and the sloping terrain of its low-lying hills provide habitat for an assortment of flora and fauna. The forest region in and around the city encompasses areas of ecological and biological importance, which are preserved in the form of national parks, zoos, mini-zoos and a wildlife sanctuary. Nehru Zoological Park, the city's one large zoo, is the first in India to have a lion and tiger safari park. Hyderabad has three national parks (Mrugavani National Park, Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park), and the Manjira Wildlife Sanctuary is about 50 km from the city. Hyderabad's other environmental reserves are: Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy Botanical Gardens, Shamirpet Lake, Hussain Sagar, Fox Sagar Lake, Mir Alam Tank and Patancheru Lake, which is home to regional birds and attracts seasonal migratory birds from different parts of the world. Organisations engaged in environmental and wildlife preservation include the Telangana Forest Department, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Animal Welfare Board of India, the Blue Cross of Hyderabad and the University of Hyderabad.

 

ADMINISTRATION

COMMON CAPITAL OF TELANGANA AND ANDHRA PRADESH

According to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 part 2 Section 5: "On and from the appointed day, Hyderabad in the existing State of Andhra Pradesh, shall be the common capital of the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh for such period not exceeding ten years. After expiry of the period referred to in sub-section, Hyderabad shall be the capital of the State of Telangana and there shall be a new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh."

 

The same sections also define that the common capital includes the existing area designated as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation under the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955. As stipulated in sections 3 and 18 of the Reorganisation Act, city MLAs are members of Telangana state assembly.

 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) oversees the civic infrastructure of the city's 18 "circles", which together encompass 150 municipal wards. Each ward is represented by a corporator, elected by popular vote. The corporators elect the Mayor, who is the titular head of GHMC; executive powers rest with the Municipal Commissioner, appointed by the state government. The GHMC carries out the city's infrastructural work such as building and maintenance of roads and drains, town planning including construction regulation, maintenance of municipal markets and parks, solid waste management, the issuing of birth and death certificates, the issuing of trade licences, collection of property tax, and community welfare services such as mother and child healthcare, and pre-school and non-formal education. The GHMC was formed in April 2007 by merging the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) with 12 municipalities of the Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medak districts covering a total area of 625 km2. In the 2009 municipal election, an alliance of the Indian National Congress and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen formed the majority. The Secunderabad Cantonment Board is a civic administration agency overseeing an area of 40.1 km2, where there are several military camps. The Osmania University campus is administered independently by the university authority.

 

Law and order in Hyderabad city is supervised by the governor of Telangana. The jurisdiction is divided into two police commissionerates: Hyderabad and Cyberabad, which are again divided into four and five police zones respectively. Each zone is headed by a deputy commissioner.

 

The jurisdictions of the city's administrative agencies are, in ascending order of size: the Hyderabad Police area, Hyderabad district, the GHMC area ("Hyderabad city") and the area under the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA). The HMDA is an apolitical urban planning agency that covers the GHMC and its suburbs, extending to 54 mandals in five districts encircling the city. It coordinates the development activities of GHMC and suburban municipalities and manages the administration of bodies such as the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB).

 

As the seat of the government of Telangana, Hyderabad is home to the state's legislature, secretariat and high court, as well as various local government agencies. The Lower City Civil Court and the Metropolitan Criminal Court are under the jurisdiction of the High Court. The GHMC area contains 24 State Legislative Assembly constituencies, which form five constituencies of the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Parliament of India).

 

UTILITY SERVICES

The HMWSSB regulates rainwater harvesting, sewerage services and water supply, which is sourced from several dams located in the suburbs. In 2005, the HMWSSB started operating a 116-kilometre-long water supply pipeline from Nagarjuna Sagar Dam to meet increasing demand. The Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited manages electricity supply. As of October 2014, there were 15 fire stations in the city, operated by the Telangana State Disaster and Fire Response Department. The government-owned India Post has five head post offices and many sub-post offices in Hyderabad, which are complemented by private courier services.

 

POLLUTION CONTROL

Hyderabad produces around 4,500 tonnes of solid waste daily, which is transported from collection units in Imlibun, Yousufguda and Lower Tank Bund to the dumpsite in Jawaharnagar. Disposal is managed by the Integrated Solid Waste Management project which was started by the GHMC in 2010. Rapid urbanisation and increased economic activity has also led to increased industrial waste, air, noise and water pollution, which is regulated by the Telangana Pollution Control Board (TPCB). The contribution of different sources to air pollution in 2006 was: 20–50% from vehicles, 40–70% from a combination of vehicle discharge and road dust, 10–30% from industrial discharges and 3–10% from the burning of household rubbish. Deaths resulting from atmospheric particulate matter are estimated at 1,700–3,000 each year. Ground water around Hyderabad, which has a hardness of up to 1000 ppm, around three times higher than is desirable, is the main source of drinking water but the increasing population and consequent increase in demand has led to a decline in not only ground water but also river and lake levels. This shortage is further exacerbated by inadequately treated effluent discharged from industrial treatment plants polluting the water sources of the city.

 

HEALTHCARE

The Commissionerate of Health and Family Welfare is responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of all facilities related to health and preventive services. As of 2010–11, the city had 50 government hospitals, 300 private and charity hospitals and 194 nursing homes providing around 12,000 hospital beds, fewer than half the required 25,000. For every 10,000 people in the city, there are 17.6 hospital beds, 9 specialist doctors, 14 nurses and 6 physicians. The city also has about 4,000 individual clinics and 500 medical diagnostic centres. Private clinics are preferred by many residents because of the distance to, poor quality of care at and long waiting times in government facilities, despite the high proportion of the city's residents being covered by government health insurance: 24% according to a National Family Health Survey in 2005. As of 2012, many new private hospitals of various sizes were opened or being built. Hyderabad also has outpatient and inpatient facilities that use Unani, homeopathic and Ayurvedic treatments.

 

In the 2005 National Family Health Survey, it was reported that the city's total fertility rate is 1.8, which is below the replacement rate. Only 61% of children had been provided with all basic vaccines (BCG, measles and full courses of polio and DPT), fewer than in all other surveyed cities except Meerut. The infant mortality rate was 35 per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate for children under five was 41 per 1,000 live births. The survey also reported that a third of women and a quarter of men are overweight or obese, 49% of children below 5 years are anaemic, and up to 20% of children are underweight, while more than 2% of women and 3% of men suffer from diabetes.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

When the GHMC was created in 2007, the area occupied by the municipality increased from 175 km2 to 625 km2. Consequently, the population increased by 87%, from 3,637,483 in the 2001 census to 6,809,970 in the 2011 census, 24% of which are migrants from elsewhere in India, making Hyderabad the nation's fourth most populous city. As of 2011, the population density is 18,480/km2. At the same 2011 census, the Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration had a population of 7,749,334, making it the sixth most populous urban agglomeration in the country. The population of the Hyderabad urban agglomeration has since been estimated by electoral officials to be 9.1 million as of early 2013 but is expected to exceed 10 million by the end of the year. There are 3,500,802 male and 3,309,168 female citizens - a sex ratio of 945 females per 1000 males, higher than the national average of 926 per 1000. Among children aged 0–6 years, 373,794 are boys and 352,022 are girls - a ratio of 942 per 1000. Literacy stands at 82.96% (male 85.96%; female 79.79%), higher than the national average of 74.04%. The socio-economic strata consist of 20% upper class, 50% middle class and 30% working class.

 

ETHNIC GROUPS, LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

Referred to as "Hyderabadi", residents of Hyderabad are predominantly Telugu and Urdu speaking people, with minority Bengali, Gujarati (including Memon), Kannada (including Nawayathi), Malayalam, Marathi, Marwari, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Uttar Pradeshi communities. Hadhrami Arabs, African Arabs, Armenians, Abyssinians, Iranians, Pathans and Turkish people are also present; these communities, of which the Hadhrami are the largest, declined after Hyderabad State became part of the Indian Union, as they lost the patronage of the Nizams.

 

Telugu is the official language of Hyderabad and Urdu is its second language. The Telugu dialect spoken in Hyderabad is called Telangana, and the Urdu spoken is called Dakhani. English is also used. A significant minority speak other languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Bengali and Kannada.

 

Hindus are in the majority. Muslims are present throughout the city and predominate in and around the Old City. There are also Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Parsi communities and iconic temples, mosques and churches can be seen. According to the 2001 census, Hyderabad district's religious make-up was: Hindus (55.41%), Muslims (41.17%), Christians (2.43%), Jains (0.43%), Sikhs (0.29%) and Buddhists (0.02%); 0.23% did not state any religion.

 

SLUMS

In the greater metropolitan area, 13% of the population live below the poverty line. According to a 2012 report submitted by GHMC to the World Bank, Hyderabad has 1,476 slums with a total population of 1.7 million, of whom 66% live in 985 slums in the "core" of the city (the part that formed Hyderabad before the April 2007 expansion) and the remaining 34% live in 491 suburban tenements. About 22% of the slum-dwelling households had migrated from different parts of India in the last decade of the 20th century, and 63% claimed to have lived in the slums for more than 10 years. Overall literacy in the slums is 60–80% and female literacy is 52–73%. A third of the slums have basic service connections, and the remainder depend on general public services provided by the government. There are 405 government schools, 267 government aided schools, 175 private schools and 528 community halls in the slum areas. According to a 2008 survey by the Centre for Good Governance, 87.6% of the slum-dwelling households are nuclear families, 18% are very poor, with an income up to ₹20000 (US$300) per annum, 73% live below the poverty line (a standard poverty line recognised by the Andhra Pradesh Government is ₹24000 (US$360) per annum), 27% of the chief wage earners (CWE) are casual labour and 38% of the CWE are illiterate. About 3.72% of the slum children aged 5–14 do not go to school and 3.17% work as child labour, of whom 64% are boys and 36% are girls. The largest employers of child labour are street shops and construction sites. Among the working children, 35% are engaged in hazardous jobs.

 

NEIGHBOURHOODS

The historic city established by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah on the southern side of the Musi River forms the "Old City", while the "New City" encompasses the urbanised area on the northern banks. The two are connected by many bridges across the river, the oldest of which is Purana Pul ("old bridge"). Hyderabad is twinned with neighbouring Secunderabad, to which it is connected by Hussain Sagar.

 

Many historic and tourist sites lie in south central Hyderabad, such as the Charminar, the Mecca Masjid, the Salar Jung Museum, the Nizam's Museum, the Falaknuma Palace, and the traditional retail corridor comprising the Pearl Market, Laad Bazaar and Madina Circle. North of the river are hospitals, colleges, major railway stations and business areas such as Begum Bazaar, Koti, Abids, Sultan Bazaar and Moazzam Jahi Market, along with administrative and recreational establishments such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Telangana Secretariat, the Hyderabad Mint, the Telangana Legislature, the Public Gardens, the Nizam Club, the Ravindra Bharathi, the State Museum, the Birla Temple and the Birla Planetarium.

 

North of central Hyderabad lie Hussain Sagar, Tank Bund Road, Rani Gunj and the Secunderabad Railway Station. Most of the city's parks and recreational centres, such as Sanjeevaiah Park, Indira Park, Lumbini Park, NTR Gardens, the Buddha statue and Tankbund Park are located here. In the northwest part of the city there are upscale residential and commercial areas such as Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Begumpet, Khairatabad and Miyapur. The northern end contains industrial areas such as Sanathnagar, Moosapet, Balanagar, Patancheru and Chanda Nagar. The northeast end is dotted with residential areas. In the eastern part of the city lie many defence research centres and Ramoji Film City. The "Cyberabad" area in the southwest and west of the city has grown rapidly since the 1990s. It is home to information technology and bio-pharmaceutical companies and to landmarks such as Hyderabad Airport, Osman Sagar, Himayath Sagar and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park.

 

LANDMARKS

Heritage buildings constructed during the Qutb Shahi and Nizam eras showcase Indo-Islamic architecture influenced by Medieval, Mughal and European styles. After the 1908 flooding of the Musi River, the city was expanded and civic monuments constructed, particularly during the rule of Mir Osman Ali Khan (the VIIth Nizam), whose patronage of architecture led to him being referred to as the maker of modern Hyderabad. In 2012, the government of India declared Hyderabad the first "Best heritage city of India".

 

Qutb Shahi architecture of the 16th and early 17th centuries followed classical Persian architecture featuring domes and colossal arches. The oldest surviving Qutb Shahi structure in Hyderabad is the ruins of Golconda fort built in the 16th century. The Charminar, Mecca Masjid, Charkaman and Qutb Shahi tombs are other existing structures of this period. Among these the Charminar has become an icon of the city; located in the centre of old Hyderabad, it is a square structure with sides 20 m long and four grand arches each facing a road. At each corner stands a 56 m-high minaret. Most of the historical bazaars that still exist were constructed on the street north of Charminar towards Golconda fort. The Charminar, Qutb Shahi tombs and Golconda fort are considered to be monuments of national importance in India; in 2010 the Indian government proposed that the sites be listed for UNESCO World Heritage status.

 

Among the oldest surviving examples of Nizam architecture in Hyderabad is the Chowmahalla Palace, which was the seat of royal power. It showcases a diverse array of architectural styles, from the Baroque Harem to its Neoclassical royal court. The other palaces include Falaknuma Palace (inspired by the style of Andrea Palladio), Purani Haveli, King Kothi and Bella Vista Palace all of which were built at the peak of Nizam rule in the 19th century. During Mir Osman Ali Khan's rule, European styles, along with Indo-Islamic, became prominent. These styles are reflected in the Falaknuma Palace and many civic monuments such as the Hyderabad High Court, Osmania Hospital, Osmania University, the State Central Library, City College, the Telangana Legislature, the State Archaeology Museum, Jubilee Hall, and Hyderabad and Kachiguda railway stations. Other landmarks of note are Paigah Palace, Asman Garh Palace, Basheer Bagh Palace, Errum Manzil and the Spanish Mosque, all constructed by the Paigah family.

 

ECONOMY

Hyderabad is the largest contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP), tax and other revenues, of Telangana, and the sixth largest deposit centre and fourth largest credit centre nationwide, as ranked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in June 2012. Its US$74 billion GDP made it the fifth-largest contributor city to India's overall GDP in 2011–12. Its per capita annual income in 2011 was ₹44300 (US$670). As of 2006, the largest employers in the city were the governments of Andhra Pradesh (113,098 employees) and India (85,155). According to a 2005 survey, 77% of males and 19% of females in the city were employed. The service industry remains dominant in the city, and 90% of the employed workforce is engaged in this sector.

 

Hyderabad's role in the pearl trade has given it the name "City of Pearls" and up until the 18th century, the city was also the only global trading centre for large diamonds. Industrialisation began under the Nizams in the late 19th century, helped by railway expansion that connected the city with major ports. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Indian enterprises, such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Bharat Electronics (BEL), Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) and Andhra Bank (AB) were established in the city. The city is home to Hyderabad Securities formerly known as Hyderabad Stock Exchange (HSE), and houses the regional office of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). In 2013, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) facility in Hyderabad was forecasted to provide operations and transactions services to BSE-Mumbai by the end of 2014. The growth of the financial services sector has helped Hyderabad evolve from a traditional manufacturing city to a cosmopolitan industrial service centre. Since the 1990s, the growth of information technology (IT), IT-enabled services (ITES), insurance and financial institutions has expanded the service sector, and these primary economic activities have boosted the ancillary sectors of trade and commerce, transport, storage, communication, real estate and retail.

 

Hyderabad's commercial markets are divided into four sectors: central business districts, sub-central business centres, neighbourhood business centres and local business centres. Many traditional and historic bazaars are located throughout the city, Laad Bazaar being the prominent among all is popular for selling a variety of traditional and cultural antique wares, along with gems and pearls.

 

The establishment of Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL), a public sector undertaking, in 1961 was followed over the decades by many national and global companies opening manufacturing and research facilities in the city. As of 2010, the city manufactured one third of India's bulk drugs and 16% of biotechnology products, contributing to its reputation as "India's pharmaceutical capital" and the "Genome Valley of India". Hyderabad is a global centre of information technology, for which it is known as Cyberabad (Cyber City). As of 2013, it contributed 15% of India's and 98% of Andhra Pradesh's exports in IT and ITES sectors and 22% of NASSCOM's total membership is from the city. The development of HITEC City, a township with extensive technological infrastructure, prompted multinational companies to establish facilities in Hyderabad. The city is home to more than 1300 IT and ITES firms, including global conglomerates such as Microsoft (operating its largest R&D campus outside the US), Google, IBM, Yahoo!, Dell, Facebook, and major Indian firms including Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Polaris and Wipro. In 2009 the World Bank Group ranked the city as the second best Indian city for doing business. The city and its suburbs contain the highest number of special economic zones of any Indian city.

 

Like the rest of India, Hyderabad has a large informal economy that employs 30% of the labour force. According to a survey published in 2007, it had 40–50,000 street vendors, and their numbers were increasing. Among the street vendors, 84% are male and 16% female, and four fifths are "stationary vendors" operating from a fixed pitch, often with their own stall. Most are financed through personal savings; only 8% borrow from moneylenders. Vendor earnings vary from ₹50 (75¢ US) to ₹800 (US$12) per day. Other unorganised economic sectors include dairy, poultry farming, brick manufacturing, casual labour and domestic help. Those involved in the informal economy constitute a major portion of urban poor.

 

CULTURE

Hyderabad emerged as the foremost centre of culture in India with the decline of the Mughal Empire. After the fall of Delhi in 1857, the migration of performing artists to the city particularly from the north and west of the Indian sub continent, under the patronage of the Nizam, enriched the cultural milieu. This migration resulted in a mingling of North and South Indian languages, cultures and religions, which has since led to a co-existence of Hindu and Muslim traditions, for which the city has become noted. A further consequence of this north–south mix is that both Telugu and Urdu are official languages of Telangana.[164] The mixing of religions has also resulted in many festivals being celebrated in Hyderabad such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali and Bonalu of Hindu tradition and Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha by Muslims.

 

Traditional Hyderabadi garb also reveals a mix of Muslim and South Asian influences with men wearing sherwani and kurta - paijama and women wearing khara dupatta and salwar kameez. Muslim women also commonly wear burqas and hijabs in public. In addition to the traditional Indian and Muslim garments, increasing exposure to western cultures has led to a rise in the wearing of western style clothing among youths.

 

LITERATURE

In the past, Qutb Shahi rulers and Nizams attracted artists, architects and men of letters from different parts of the world through patronage. The resulting ethnic mix popularised cultural events such as mushairas (poetic symposia). The Qutb Shahi dynasty particularly encouraged the growth of Deccani Urdu literature leading to works such as the Deccani Masnavi and Diwan poetry, which are among the earliest available manuscripts in Urdu. Lazzat Un Nisa, a book compiled in the 15th century at Qutb Shahi courts, contains erotic paintings with diagrams for secret medicines and stimulants in the eastern form of ancient sexual arts. The reign of the Nizams saw many literary reforms and the introduction of Urdu as a language of court, administration and education. In 1824, a collection of Urdu Ghazal poetry, named Gulzar-e-Mahlaqa, authored by Mah Laqa Bai - the first female Urdu poet to produce a Diwan - was published in Hyderabad.

 

Hyderabad has continued with these traditions in its annual Hyderabad Literary Festival, held since 2010, showcasing the city's literary and cultural creativity. Organisations engaged in the advancement of literature include the Sahitya Akademi, the Urdu Academy, the Telugu Academy, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, the Comparative Literature Association of India, and the Andhra Saraswata Parishad. Literary development is further aided by state institutions such as the State Central Library, the largest public library in the state which was established in 1891, and other major libraries including the Sri Krishna Devaraya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam, the British Library and the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram.

 

MUSIC AND FILMS

South Indian music and dances such as the Kuchipudi and Kathakali styles are popular in the Deccan region. As a result of their culture policies, North Indian music and dance gained popularity during the rule of the Mughals and Nizams, and it was also during their reign that it became a tradition among the nobility to associate themselves with tawaif (courtesans). These courtesans were revered as the epitome of etiquette and culture, and were appointed to teach singing, poetry and classical dance to many children of the aristocracy. This gave rise to certain styles of court music, dance and poetry. Besides western and Indian popular music genres such as filmi music, the residents of Hyderabad play city-based marfa music, dholak ke geet (household songs based on local Folklore), and qawwali, especially at weddings, festivals and other celebratory events. The state government organises the Golconda Music and Dance Festival, the Taramati Music Festival and the Premavathi Dance Festival to further encourage the development of music.

 

Although the city is not particularly noted for theatre and drama, the state government promotes theatre with multiple programmes and festivals in such venues as the Ravindra Bharati, Shilpakala Vedika and Lalithakala Thoranam. Although not a purely music oriented event, Numaish, a popular annual exhibition of local and national consumer products, does feature some musical performances. The city is home to the Telugu film industry, popularly known as Tollywood and as of 2012, produces the second largest number of films in India with the largest number being produced by Bollywood. Films in the local Hyderabadi dialect are also produced and have been gaining popularity since 2005. The city has also hosted international film festivals such as the International Children's Film Festival and the Hyderabad International Film Festival. In 2005, Guinness World Records declared Ramoji Film City to be the world's largest film studio.

 

ART AND HANDICRAFTS

The region is well known for its Golconda and Hyderabad painting styles which are branches of Deccani painting. Developed during the 16th century, the Golconda style is a native style blending foreign techniques and bears some similarity to the Vijayanagara paintings of neighbouring Mysore. A significant use of luminous gold and white colours is generally found in the Golconda style. The Hyderabad style originated in the 17th century under the Nizams. Highly influenced by Mughal painting, this style makes use of bright colours and mostly depicts regional landscape, culture, costumes and jewellery.

 

Although not a centre for handicrafts itself, the patronage of the arts by the Mughals and Nizams attracted artisans from the region to Hyderabad. Such crafts include: Bidriware, a metalwork handicraft from neighbouring Karnataka, which was popularised during the 18th century and has since been granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag under the auspices of the WTO act; and Zari and Zardozi, embroidery works on textile that involve making elaborate designs using gold, silver and other metal threads. Another example of a handicraft drawn to Hyderabad is Kalamkari, a hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile that comes from cities in Andhra Pradesh. This craft is distinguished in having both a Hindu style, known as Srikalahasti and entirely done by hand, and an Islamic style, known as Machilipatnam that uses both hand and block techniques. Examples of Hyderabad's arts and crafts are housed in various museums including the Salar Jung Museum (housing "one of the largest one-man-collections in the world"), the AP State Archaeology Museum, the Nizam Museum, the City Museum and the Birla Science Museum.

 

CUISINE

Hyderabadi cuisine comprises a broad repertoire of rice, wheat and meat dishes and the skilled use of various spices. Hyderabadi biryani and Hyderabadi haleem, with their blend of Mughlai and Arab cuisines, have become iconic dishes of India. Hyderabadi cuisine is highly influenced by Mughlai and to some extent by French, Arabic, Turkish, Iranian and native Telugu and Marathwada cuisines. Other popular native dishes include nihari, chakna, baghara baingan and the desserts qubani ka meetha, double ka meetha and kaddu ki kheer (a sweet porridge made with sweet gourd).

 

MEDIA

One of Hyderabad's earliest newspapers, The Deccan Times, was established in the 1780s. In modern times, the major Telugu dailies published in Hyderabad are Eenadu, Andhra Jyothy, Sakshi and Namaste Telangana, while the major English papers are The Times of India, The Hindu and The Deccan Chronicle, and the major Urdu papers include The Siasat Daily, The Munsif Daily and Etemaad. Many coffee table magazines, professional magazines and research journals are also regularly published. The Secunderabad Cantonment Board established the first radio station in Hyderabad State around 1919. Deccan Radio was the first radio public broadcast station in the city starting on 3 February 1935, with FM broadcasting beginning in 2000. The available channels in Hyderabad include All India Radio, Radio Mirchi, Radio City, Red FM and Big FM.

 

Television broadcasting in Hyderabad began in 1974 with the launch of Doordarshan, the Government of India's public service broadcaster, which transmits two free-to-air terrestrial television channels and one satellite channel. Private satellite channels started in July 1992 with the launch of Star TV. Satellite TV channels are accessible via cable subscription, direct-broadcast satellite services or internet-based television. Hyderabad's first dial-up internet access became available in the early 1990s and was limited to software development companies. The first public internet access service began in 1995, with the first private sector internet service provider (ISP) starting operations in 1998. In 2015, high-speed public WiFi was introduced in parts of the city.

 

EDUCATION

Public and private schools in Hyderabad are governed by the Central Board of Secondary Education and follow a "10+2+3" plan. About two-thirds of pupils attend privately run institutions. Languages of instruction include English, Hindi, Telugu and Urdu. Depending on the institution, students are required to sit the Secondary School Certificate or the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education. After completing secondary education, students enroll in schools or junior colleges with a higher secondary facility. Admission to professional graduation colleges in Hyderabad, many of which are affiliated with either Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (JNTUH) or Osmania University (OU), is through the Engineering Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAM-CET).There are 13 universities in Hyderabad: two private universities, two deemed universities, six state universities and three central universities. The central universities are the University of Hyderabad, Maulana Azad National Urdu University and the English and Foreign Languages University. Osmania University, established in 1918, was the first university in Hyderabad and as of 2012 is India's second most popular institution for international students. The Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, established in 1982, is the first distance learning open university in India.

 

Hyderabad is also home to a number of centres specialising in particular fields such as biomedical sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, such as the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). Hyderabad has five major medical schools - Osmania Medical College, Gandhi Medical College, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Deccan College of Medical Sciences and Shadan Institute of Medical Sciences - and many affiliated teaching hospitals. The Government Nizamia Tibbi College is a college of Unani medicine. Hyderabad is also the headquarters of the Indian Heart Association, a non-profit foundation for cardiovascular education.

 

Institutes in Hyderabad include the National Institute of Rural Development, the Indian School of Business, the Institute of Public Enterprise, the Administrative Staff College of India and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy. Technical and engineering schools include the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH), Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Hyderabad (BITS Hyderabad) and Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) as well as agricultural engineering institutes such as the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University. Hyderabad also has schools of fashion design including Raffles Millennium International, NIFT Hyderabad and Wigan and Leigh College. The National Institute of Design, Hyderabad (NID-H), will offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses from 2015.

 

SPORTS

The most popular sports played in Hyderabad are cricket and association football. At the professional level, the city has hosted national and international sports events such as the 2002 National Games of India, the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, the 2004 AP Tourism Hyderabad Open women's tennis tournament, the 2007 Military World Games, the 2009 World Badminton Championships and the 2009 IBSF World Snooker Championship. The city hosts a number of venues suitable for professional competition such as the Swarnandhra Pradesh Sports Complex for field hockey, the G. M. C. Balayogi Stadium in Gachibowli for athletics and football, and for cricket, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium and Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, home ground of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. Hyderabad has hosted many international cricket matches, including matches in the 1987 and the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cups. The Hyderabad cricket team represents the city in the Ranji Trophy - a first-class cricket tournament among India's states and cities. Hyderabad is also home to the Indian Premier League franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad. A previous franchise was the Deccan Chargers, which won the 2009 Indian Premier League held in South Africa.

 

During British rule, Secunderabad became a well-known sporting centre and many race courses, parade grounds and polo fields were built. Many elite clubs formed by the Nizams and the British such as the Secunderabad Club, the Nizam Club and the Hyderabad Race Club, which is known for its horse racing especially the annual Deccan derby, still exist. In more recent times, motorsports has become popular with the Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Club organising popular events such as the Deccan 1/4 Mile Drag, TSD Rallies and 4x4 off-road rallying.

 

International-level sportspeople from Hyderabad include: cricketers Ghulam Ahmed, M. L. Jaisimha, Mohammed Azharuddin, V. V. S. Laxman, Venkatapathy Raju, Shivlal Yadav, Arshad Ayub and Noel David; football players Syed Abdul Rahim, Syed Nayeemuddin and Shabbir Ali; tennis player Sania Mirza; badminton players S. M. Arif, Pullela Gopichand, Saina Nehwal, P. V. Sindhu, Jwala Gutta and Chetan Anand; hockey players Syed Mohammad Hadi and Mukesh Kumar; rifle shooters Gagan Narang and Asher Noria and bodybuilder Mir Mohtesham Ali Khan.

 

TRANSPORT

The most commonly used forms of medium distance transport in Hyderabad include government owned services such as light railways and buses, as well as privately operated taxis and auto rickshaws. Bus services operate from the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station in the city centre and carry over 130 million passengers daily across the entire network. Hyderabad's light rail transportation system, the Multi-Modal Transport System (MMTS), is a three line suburban rail service used by over 160,000 passengers daily. Complementing these government services are minibus routes operated by Setwin (Society for Employment Promotion & Training in Twin Cities). Intercity rail services also operate from Hyderabad; the main, and largest, station is Secunderabad Railway Station, which serves as Indian Railways' South Central Railway zone headquarters and a hub for both buses and MMTS light rail services connecting Secunderabad and Hyderabad. Other major railway stations in Hyderabad are Hyderabad Deccan Station, Kachiguda Railway Station, Begumpet Railway Station, Malkajgiri Railway Station and Lingampally Railway Station. The Hyderabad Metro, a new rapid transit system, is to be added to the existing public transport infrastructure and is scheduled to operate three lines by 2015. As of 2012, there are over 3.5 million vehicles operating in the city, of which 74% are two-wheelers, 15% cars and 3% three-wheelers. The remaining 8% include buses, goods vehicles and taxis. The large number of vehicles coupled with relatively low road coverage - roads occupy only 9.5% of the total city area - has led to widespread traffic congestion especially since 80% of passengers and 60% of freight are transported by road. The Inner Ring Road, the Outer Ring Road, the Hyderabad Elevated Expressway, the longest flyover in India, and various interchanges, overpasses and underpasses were built to ease the congestion. Maximum speed limits within the city are 50 km/h for two-wheelers and cars, 35 km/h for auto rickshaws and 40 km/h for light commercial vehicles and buses.

 

Hyderabad sits at the junction of three National Highways linking it to six other states: NH-7 runs 2,369 km from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, in the north to Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, in the south; NH-9, runs 841 km east-west between Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, and Pune, Maharashtra; and the 280 km NH-163 links Hyderabad to Bhopalpatnam, Chhattisgarh. Five state highways, SH-1, SH-2, SH-4, SH-5 and SH-6, either start from, or pass through, Hyderabad.

 

Air traffic was previously handled via Begumpet Airport, but this was replaced by Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) (IATA: HYD, ICAO: VOHS) in 2008, with the capacity of handling 12 million passengers and 100,000 tonnes of cargo per annum. In 2011, Airports Council International, an autonomous body representing the world's airports, judged RGIA the world's best airport in the 5–15 million passenger category and the world's fifth best airport for service quality.

 

WIKIPEDIA

He's a step up from your average Coot. An old shot, just sharing with [https://www.flickr.com/photos/insanejane] as she mentioned Coots elsewhere.

...complete the Jack Nicolson line ; )

 

Project 52 Flower Power

 

HBW!

No intoxicants involved. Thinking he’s cool cuz he finally scored in foose-ball

2011-Cmeo(Cemo),Dasr,Rosek(Neist),Urge,Aseb,Revert

 

Ec-Bsf-Rarekind-Mct-Gf-Chm-Greetings- Pm

 

original size photo(click it):

images.imagehotel.net/?q2lv5md2fb.jpg#null

Average seeing conditions. Photographed from Northwich, UK at 00:00 UT. 6000 1/110s colour exposures stacked. Player One Uranus-C / 12" Meade LX200 at f/23.5.

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. The two surviving species of camel are the dromedary, or one-humped camel (C. dromedarius), which inhabits the Middle East and the Horn of Africa; and the bactrian, or two-humped camel (C. bactrianus), which inhabits Central Asia. Both species have been domesticated; they provide milk, meat, hair for textiles or goods such as felted pouches, and are working animals with tasks ranging from human transport to bearing loads.

 

The term "camel" is derived via Latin and Greek (camelus and κάμηλος kamēlos respectively) from Hebrew or Phoenician gāmāl.

 

"Camel" is also used more broadly to describe any of the six camel-like mammals in the family Camelidae: the two true camels and the four New World camelids: the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña of South America.

 

BIOLOGY

The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years. A full-grown adult camel stands 1.85 m at the shoulder and 2.15 m at the hump. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h in short bursts and sustain speeds of up to 40 km/h. Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg.

 

The male dromedary camel has in its throat an organ called a dulla, a large, inflatable sac he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females. It resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind. The male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the only ungulates to mate in a sitting position.

 

ECOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL ADAPTIONS

Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue: concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.

 

Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Unlike other mammals, their red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water: a 600 kg camel can drink 200 L of water in three minutes.

 

Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C by sunset, before they cool off at night again. Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C Any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat; the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat. Camels can withstand losing 25% of their body weight to sweating, whereas most other mammals can withstand only about 12–14% dehydration before cardiac failure results from circulatory disturbance.

 

When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Camels eating green herbage can ingest sufficient moisture in milder conditions to maintain their bodies' hydrated state without the need for drinking.

 

The camels' thick coats insulate them from the intense heat radiated from desert sand; a shorn camel must sweat 50% more to avoid overheating. During the summer the coat becomes lighter in color, reflecting light as well as helping avoid sunburn. The camel's long legs help by keeping its body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 70 °C. Dromedaries have a pad of thick tissue over the sternum called the pedestal. When the animal lies down in a sternal recumbent position, the pedestal raises the body from the hot surface and allows cooling air to pass under the body.

 

Camels' mouths have a thick leathery lining, allowing them to chew thorny desert plants. Long eyelashes and ear hairs, together with nostrils that can close, form a barrier against sand. If sand gets lodged in their eyes, they can dislodge it using their transparent third eyelid. The camels' gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into the sand.

 

The kidneys and intestines of a camel are very efficient at reabsorbing water. Camel urine comes out as a thick syrup, and camel feces are so dry that they do not require drying when the Bedouins use them to fuel fires.

 

Camels' immune system differs from those of other mammals. Normally, the Y-shaped antibody molecules consist of two heavy (or long) chains along the length of the Y, and two light (or short) chains at each tip of the Y. Camels, in addition to these, also have antibodies made of only two heavy chains, a trait that makes them smaller and more durable. These "heavy-chain-only" antibodies, discovered in 1993, are thought to have developed 50 million years ago, after camelids split from ruminants and pigs.

 

GENETICS

The karyotypes of different camelid species have been studied earlier by many groups, but no agreement on chromosome nomenclature of camelids has been reached. A 2007 study flow sorted camel chromosomes, building on the fact that camels have 37 pairs of chromosomes (2n=74), and found that the karyotime consisted of one metacentric, three submetacentric, and 32 acrocentric autosomes. The Y is a small metacentric chromosome, while the X is a large metacentric chromosome.The hybrid camel, a hybrid between Bactrian and dromedary camels, has one hump, though it has an indentation 4–12 cm deep that divides the front from the back. The hybrid is 2.15 m at the shoulder and 2.32 m tall at the hump. It weighs an average of 650 kg and can carry around 400 to 450 kg, which is more than either the dromedary or Bactrian can. According to molecular data, the New World and Old World camelids diverged 11 million years ago. In spite of this, these species can still hybridize and produce fertile offspring. The cama is a camel–llama hybrid bred by scientists who wanted to see how closely related the parent species were. Scientists collected semen from a camel via an artificial vagina and inseminated a llama after stimulating ovulation with gonadotrophin injections. The cama has ears halfway between the length of camel and llama ears, no hump, longer legs than the llama, and partially cloven hooves. According to cama breeder Lulu Skidmore, cama have "the fleece of the llamas" and "the strength and patience of the camel". Like the mule, camas are sterile, despite both parents having the same number of chromosomes.

 

EVOLUTION

The earliest known camel, called Protylopus, lived in North America 40 to 50 million years ago (during the Eocene). It was about the size of a rabbit and lived in the open woodlands of what is now South Dakota. By 35 million years ago, the Poebrotherium was the size of a goat and had many more traits similar to camels and llamas. The hoofed Stenomylus, which walked on the tips of its toes, also existed around this time, and the long-necked Aepycamelus evolved in the Miocene.

 

The direct ancestor of all modern camels, Procamelus, existed in the upper Miocone and lower Pliocene. Around 3–5 million years ago, the North American Camelidae spread to South America via the Isthmus of Panama, where they gave rise to guanacos and related animals, and to Asia via the Bering land bridge. Surprising finds of fossil Paracamelus on Ellesmere Island beginning in 2006 in the high Canadian Arctic indicate the dromedary is descended from a larger, boreal browser whose hump may have evolved as an adaptation in a cold climate. This creature is estimated to have stood around nine feet tall.

 

The last camel native to North America was Camelops hesternus, which vanished along with horses, short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, and many other megafauna, coinciding with the migration of humans from Asia.

 

DOMESTICATION

Most camels surviving today are domesticated. Along with many other megafauna in North America, the original wild camels were wiped out during the spread of Native Americans from Asia into North America, 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. The only wild camels left are the Bactrian camels of the Gobi Desert.

 

Like the horse, before their extinction in their native land, camels spread across the Bering land bridge, moving the opposite direction from the Asian immigration to America, to survive in the Old World and eventually be domesticated and spread globally by humans.

 

Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia and southern Arabia, around 3,000 BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC, as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.

 

Discussions concerning camel domestication in Mesopotamia are often related to mentions of camels in the Hebrew Bible. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J for instance mentions that "In accord with patriarchal traditions, cylinder seals from Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia showed riders seated upon camels."

 

Martin Heide's 2010 work on the domestication of the camel tentatively concludes that the bactrian camel was domesticated by at least the middle of the third millennium somewhere east of the Zagros Mountains, then moving into Mesopotamia, and suggests that mentions of camels "in the patriarchal narratives may refer, at least in some places, to the Bactrian camel." while noting that the camel is not mentioned in relationship to Canaan.

 

Recent excavations in the Timna Valley by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef discovered what may be the earliest domestic camel bones found in Israel or even outside the Arabian peninsula, dating to around 930 BCE. This garnered considerable media coverage as it was described as evidence that the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and Esau were written after this time.

 

The existence of camels in Mesopotamia but not in Israel is not a new idea. According to an article in Time Magazine, the historian Richard Bulliet wrote in his 1975 book "The Camel and the Wheel" that "the occasional mention of camels in patriarchal narratives does not mean that the domestic camels were common in the Holy Land at that period." The archaeologist William F. Albright writing even earlier saw camels in the Bible as an anachronism. The official report by Sapir-Hen and Ben-Joseph notes that "The introduction of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) as a pack animal to the southern Levant signifies a crucial juncture in the history of the region; it substantially facilitated trade across the vast deserts of Arabia, promoting both economic and social change (e.g., Kohler 1984; Borowski 1998: 112-116; Jasmin 2005). This, together with the depiction of camels in the Patriarchal narrative, has generated extensive discussion regarding the date of the earliest domestic camel in the southern Levant (and beyond) (e.g., Albright 1949: 207; Epstein 1971: 558-584; Bulliet 1975; Zarins 1989; Köhler-Rollefson 1993; Uerpmann and Uerpmann 2002; Jasmin 2005; 2006; Heide 2010; Rosen and Saidel 2010; Grigson 2012). Most scholars today agree that the dromedary was exploited as a pack animal sometime in the early Iron Age (not before the 12th century BCE)" and concludes that "Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The data indicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE and most probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region - attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I - raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade."

 

MILITARY USES

By at least 1200 BC, the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick. However, between 500–100 BC, Bactrian camels attained military use. New saddles, which were inflexible and bent, were put over the humps and divided the rider's weight over the animal. In the seventh century BC, the military Arabian saddle appeared, which improved the saddle design again slightly.

 

Camel cavalries have been used in wars throughout Africa, the Middle East, and into modern-day Border Security Force of India (though as of July 2012, the BSF has planned the replacement of camels with ATVs). The first use of camel cavalries was in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Armies have also used camels as freight animals instead of horses and mules.

In the East Roman Empire, the Romans used auxiliary forces known as dromedarii, whom they recruited in desert provinces. The camels were used mostly in combat because of their ability to scare off horses at close ranges (horses are afraid of the camels' scent), a quality famously employed by the Achaemenid Persians when fighting Lydia in the Battle of Thymbra.

 

19th and 20th CENTURIES

The United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps, which was stationed in California in the late 19th century. One may still see stables at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, where they nowadays serve as the Benicia Historical Museum. Though the experimental use of camels was seen as a success (John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in 1858, recommended that funds be allocated towards obtaining a thousand more camels), the outbreak of the American Civil War saw the end of the Camel Corps: Texas became part of the Confederacy, and most of the camels were left to wander away into the desert.

 

France created a méhariste camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d'Afrique in the Sahara in order to exercise greater control over the camel-riding Tuareg and Arab insurgents, as previous efforts to defeat them on foot had failed. The camel-mounted units remained in service until the end of French rule over Algeria in 1962.

 

In 1916, the British created the Imperial Camel Corps. It was originally used to fight the Senussi, but was later used in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. The Imperial Camel Corps comprised infantrymen mounted on camels for movement across desert, though they dismounted at battle sites and fought on foot. After July 1918, the Corps began to become run down, receiving no new reinforcements, and was formally disbanded in 1919.

 

In World War I, the British Army also created the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, which consisted of a group of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels. The Corps supported British war operations in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria by transporting supplies to the troops.

 

The Somaliland Camel Corps was created by colonial authorities in British Somaliland in 1912; it was disbanded in 1944.

 

Bactrian camels were used by Romanian forces during World War II in the Caucasian region.

 

The Bikaner Camel Corps of British India fought alongside the British Indian Army in World Wars I and II.

 

The Tropas Nómadas (Nomad Troops) were an auxiliary regiment of Sahrawi tribesmen serving in the colonial army in Spanish Sahara (today Western Sahara). Operational from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975, the Tropas Nómadas were equipped with small arms and led by Spanish officers. The unit guarded outposts and sometimes conducted patrols on camelback.

 

FOOD USES

DAIRY

Camel milk is a staple food of desert nomad tribes and is sometimes considered a meal in and of itself; a nomad can live on only camel milk for almost a month. Camel milk is rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and immunoglobulins; compared to cow's milk, it is lower in fat and lactose, and higher in potassium, iron, and vitamin C. Bedouins believe the curative powers of camel milk are enhanced if the camel's diet consists of certain desert plants. Camel milk can readily be made into a drinkable yogurt, as well as butter or cheese, though the yields for cheese tend to be low.

 

Camel milk cannot be made into butter by the traditional churning method. It can be made if it is soured first, churned, and a clarifying agent is then added. Until recently, camel milk could not be made into camel cheese because rennet was unable to coagulate the milk proteins to allow the collection of curds. Developing less wasteful uses of the milk, the FAO commissioned Professor J.P. Ramet of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, who was able to produce curdling by the addition of calcium phosphate and vegetable rennet. The cheese produced from this process has low levels of cholesterol and is easy to digest, even for the lactose intolerant. The sale of camel cheese is limited owing to the small output of the few dairies producing camel cheese and the absence of camel cheese in local (West African) markets. Cheese imports from countries that traditionally breed camels are difficult to obtain due to restrictions on dairy imports from these regions.

 

Additionally, camel milk has been made into ice cream in a Netherlands camel farm.

 

MEAT

A camel carcass can provide a substantial amount of meat. The male dromedary carcass can weigh 300–400 kg, while the carcass of a male Bactrian can weigh up to 650 kg. The carcass of a female dromedary weighs less than the male, ranging between 250 and 350 kg. The brisket, ribs and loin are among the preferred parts, and the hump is considered a delicacy. The hump contains "white and sickly fat", which can be used to make the khli (preserved meat) of mutton, beef, or camel. Camel meat is reported to taste like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be very tough, although camel meat becomes more tender the more it is cooked. The Abu Dhabi Officers' Club serves a camel burger mixed with beef or lamb fat in order to improve the texture and taste. In Karachi, Pakistan, some restaurants prepare nihari from camel meat. In Syria and Egypt, there are specialist camel butchers.

 

Camel meat has been eaten for centuries. It has been recorded by ancient Greek writers as an available dish at banquets in ancient Persia, usually roasted whole. The ancient Roman emperor Heliogabalus enjoyed camel's heel.[31] Camel meat is still eaten in certain regions, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other arid regions where alternative forms of protein may be limited or where camel meat has had a long cultural history. Camel blood is also consumable, as is the case among pastoralists in northern Kenya, where camel blood is drunk with milk and acts as a key source of iron, vitamin D, salts and minerals. Camel meat is also occasionally found in Australian cuisine: for example, a camel lasagna is available in Alice Springs.

 

A 2005 report issued jointly by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details cases of human bubonic plague resulting from the ingestion of raw camel liver.

 

RELIGION

ISLAM

Camel meat is halal for Muslims. However, according to some Islamic schools of thought, a state of impurity is brought on by the consumption of it. Consequently, these schools hold that Muslims must perform wudhu (ablution) before the next time they pray after eating camel meat.

 

Also, some Islamic schools of thought consider it haraam for a Muslim to perform salat in places where camels lie, as it is said to be a dwelling place of shaytan.

 

According to Suni ahadith collected by Bukhari and Muslim, Muhammad ordered a certain group of people to drink camel milk and urine as a medicine. However, according to Abū Ḥanīfa, the drinking of camel urine, while not forbidden (ḥaram), is disliked (makrūh) in Islam.

 

Camel urine is sold as traditional medicine in shops in Saudi Arabia. The Sunni scholar Muhammad Al-Munajjid's IslamQA.info recommends camel urine as beneficial to curing certain diseases and to human health and cited Ahadith and scientific studies as justification. King Abdulaziz University researcher Dr. Faten Abdel-Rajman Khorshid has claimed that cancer and other diseases could be treated with camel urine as recommended by the Prophet. The United Arab Emirates "Arab Science and Technology Foundation" reported that cancer could be treated with camel urine. Camel urine was also prescribed as a treatment by Zaghloul El-Naggar, a religious scholar. Camel urine is the only urine which is permitted to be drunk according to the Hanbali madhhab of Sunni Islam. The World Health Organization said that camel urine consumption may be a factor in the spread of the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Times writer Ahmad al-Sayyed wrote that various afflictions are dealt with camel urine by people. Dandruff, scalp ailments, hair, sores, and wounds were recommended to be treated with camel urine by Ibn Sina. Arab American University Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology Bashar Saad (PhD) along with Omar Said (PhD) wrote that medicinal use of camel urine is approved of and promoted by Islam since it was recommended by the prophet. A test on mice found that cytotoxic effects similar to cyclophosphamide were induced on bone marrow by camel urine. Besides for consumption as a medicinal drink, camel urine is believed to help treat hair. Bites from insects were warded off with camel urine, which also served as a shampoo. Camel urine is also used to help treat asthma, infections, treat hair, sores, hair growth and boost libido.

 

Several Sunni Ahadith mention drinking camel urine. Some Shia criticized Wahhabis for camel urine treatment. Shia scholars also recommend the medicinal use of camel urine. Shia Hadith on Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq reported that shortness of breath (asthma) was treated with camel urine. Shia Marja Ayatollah Sistani said that for medicinal purposes only, sheep, cow, and camel urine can be drunk.

 

JUDAISM

According to Jewish tradition, camel meat and milk are not kosher. Camels possess only one of the two kosher criteria; although they chew their cud, they do not possess cloven hooves:

 

Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that only chew the cud, or of them that only part the hoof: the camel, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.

— Leviticus 11:4

 

DISTRIBUTION ANDNUMBERS

There are around 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia (which has the largest camel herd in the world) and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.

 

The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The only truly wild Bactrian camels, of which there are less than one thousand, are thought to inhabit the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia.

 

The largest population of feral camels is in Australia. There are around 700,000 feral dromedary camels in central parts of Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.

 

A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwest United States after having been imported in the 1800s as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and imported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Composite of half dozen brunette actresses and a half dozen blonde actresses.

 

Done as part of a study on standards of beauty.

Mũi Né is a coastal fishing town in the Bình Thuận Province of Vietnam. The town, with approximately 25,000 residents is a ward of the city of Phan Thiết. Mui Ne and the other wards of Phan Thiet that stretch along the coast for approximately 50 kilometers have been transformed into a resort destination since the mid 1990s, when many visited the area to view the solar eclipse of October 24, 1995. Most notably, tourism has developed in the area from the city center to Mũi Né, which has more than a hundred beach resorts, as well as restaurants, bars, shops and cafes.

 

Mũi Né ward has two beaches; Ganh Beach and Suoi Nuoc Beach, both with a number of resorts and a few shops and restaurants. But the most highly developed area is Rang Beach in Ham Tien ward, which extends west of Mui Ne. Strong sea breezes make all three beaches very popular for kitesurfing and windsurfing. The tourist season is from December to April The average temperature is 27 °C, and the climate is hot and dry much of the year.

____________________________________________

 

Mui Ne is a traditional fishing town in Binh Thuan Province that became a ward of the City of Phan Thiet in 1999. The name Mui Ne is often erroneously used as the general name for the main resort area in Phan Thiet along Mui Ne Bay, 220 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City (South Vietnam).

 

Mui Ne is a coastal fishing community in Bình Thuận Province which is part of the South Central Coast of Vietnam. The town, with approximately 25,000 residents is a ward of the city of Phan Thiết. Mui Ne and the other wards of Phan Thiet that stretch along the coast for approximately 50 km have been transformed into a resort destination since the mid 1990s, when many discovered the area during the solar eclipse of October 24, 1995. Most notably, tourism has developed in the area from the city center of Phan Thiet to Mui Ne, including Phu Hai and Ham Tien wards along Phan Thiet Bay. The dense resort area along Phan Thiet Bay and beyond now boasts over two hundred beach resorts and hotels, as well as guest houses, backpacker hostels, restaurants, bars, shops and cafes.

 

In 2018 the Prime Minister approved the master plan to develop Mui Ne (Binh Thuan) as a National Tourist Site with a size of around 14,760 ha by 2025, with an orientation towards 2030.

 

An area of 1,000 ha has been defined as a core area for the establishment and development of functional areas for the tourism sector. Mui Ne National Tourism Site will be developed in an environmentally responsible way with a focus on protecting existing natural resources and environments, landscapes, and in particular the ecosystem in the Bau Trang tourist area (White Sand Dunes) as well as the sand dunes along the sea shore.

 

UNDERSTAND

Northeast of Phan Thiet the coastal road climbs over the slope of a Cham tower-topped hill and descends into the long, sandy crescent of Mui Ne Bay. The formerly little-inhabited beach southwest of the historic fishing village of Mui Ne proper has seen some serious development in the last 15 years. Now it is a 15 km long strip of resorts that line up like pearls on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, shaded by coconut palms. The main resort strip lies between the addresses of 2 and 98 Nguyen Dinh Chieu and is called Ham Tien. Like Mui Ne it is now a ward of the city of Phan Thiet which stretches over 50 km of coastline to the south and to the west of the original city center of Phan Thiet.

 

At the shoreline, nature moves the sand around, much to the dismay of some developers. Beach sand tends to migrate up and down the coast seasonally, leaving some (but not all) spots with just a concrete breakwater rather than sandy beach. There is always a good sandy beach somewhere along this 15 km beach. Accommodations at higher addresses tend to be smaller and less expensive, somewhat removed from the main tourist section and more mixed in with local life. If a sandy beach is important to you, some research is called for before booking in the area, especially after the tropical storm season. This research is important as without the beach there is little for non-kite-surfers to do in Mui Ne.

 

Quite a few bargain and "backpacker" hotels have popped up on the inland side of the road, across from the shoreline resorts. If you stay on the inland side, you will need to pass though one of the resorts to reach the beach, which might or might not result in some hassle from the guards. The resorts jealously guard their lounge chairs and palapas, though the beach itself is open to everyone.

 

Mui Ne Bay has become very popular with Russian tourists. Major Russian tour operators who bring busloads of tourists to Ham Tien and Mui Ne from the airports in Cam Ranh and Ho Chi Minh City have bought up several hotels along the main road and fill them year-round with Russian charter tour groups. English and Russian menus are common in most restaurants, and many stores and hotels are advertising and catering specifically to the Russian-speaking tourists, especially along the lowered numbered area of the strip on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street which some guidebooks have rebaptised "Little Moscow."

 

GET IN

BY BUS

Most overseas visitors reach Ham Tien and Mui Ne via "open tour" buses that run between Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang. Most depart from Ho Chi Minh City between 07:30 and 09:00 (07:30 for Sinh Cafe's air conditioned bus) and arrive at Ham Tien and Mui Ne at about 13:00. In the opposite direction, buses typically depart from Mui Ne and Ham Tien around either 14:00 or 02:00 and arrive in Ho Chi Minh City approximately five hours later. Joe's Cafe is a good place to catch an outgoing night bus as it offers full service all night and you never know how late the bus will be. Outside Ho Chi Minh City, the coach will stop at a petrol station with a large shop and stalls selling snacks, drinks, and fruit.

 

The buses stop in the heart of the tourist strip in Ham Tien, so there is no need to take a taxi. The cost is about 105,000 dong each way, and tickets are sold all over the tourist districts of both Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang. If you are traveling to Ho Chi Minh City from Mui Ne and Ham Tien, you will most likely be put on an already full bus traveling from Nha Trang. As you are not assigned a seat, you may not be able to sit with any traveling companions, and at some of the less scrupulous travel agents you may not even get a real seat. You might get a mat at the back of the bus with four other people.

 

Public buses from both destinations also travel to the Mui Ne area, though finding the departure stations and figuring out the schedule is difficult for visitors. It's not worth the trouble unless you have a strong need to depart at a different time of day other than when the open tour bus leaves. Travel agencies play dumb because they don't earn anything from helping you find a public bus. The main bus station in Phan Thiet is at Từ Văn Tư, Phú Trinh and a taxi from there to the tourist strip can cost more than your bus ticket from HCMC!

 

BY TRAIN

A train runs daily from Ho Chi Minh City to Phan Thiet, departing around 06:30 and arriving five hours later. The return trip leaves Phan Thiet around 13:30. The cost is quite modest at around 60,000 dong per person each way (similar to the bus). The train station in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon Railway Station) is in District 3, about 3 km from the centre. The railway station in Phan Thiet is about 5 km (80,000 dong taxi ride) from the beginning of the Ham Tien resort strip, and taxis are abundant to take you there. The railway also sometimes runs a mid-sized bus from the station to Mui Ne for 25,000 dong per person. Tickets are sold on the train, though the announcement might be made in Vietnamese only, and you need to watch carefully for the ticket sellers to pass by.

 

The train has regular carriages operated by the state railways, and sometimes other carriages booked and operated by private companies. The latter have somewhat larger seats for a higher price, but fall short of luxury. The regular carriages are a bit cramped for the Western-sized body. When the train is not full, railway staff usually packs everyone into one carriage, leaving another one empty, and then run a side business selling "upgrades" to the quiet, empty carriage. The entire train will be jammed on holidays.

 

Overall, the train is probably less comfortable and convenient than the open-tour bus, though it has some advantages. You get a better view of the countryside and avoid the endless honking of horns and lunatic driving of the bus drivers.

 

BY TAXI

You might consider coming to Mui Ne from Saigon by taxi, instead of open bus. The departure times of the open buses might not suit your schedule. They are also slow sometimes, because the driver makes stops at rather bad restaurants where he receives commission. The ride by taxi takes 4-5 hours, depending on road conditions, and will cost US$70-100, depending on your ability to bargain. Talk to taxi drivers in the airport to get best prices.

 

Fare from Tan Son Nhut Airport to Mui Ne by SATSCO is US$100/trip.

 

GET AROUND

You can't get lost in Mui Ne and Ham Tien, since the whole place consists of one long strip along a main street, Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Motorbike taxis are present everywhere and their drivers will bug you each time you leave the hotel or walk along the road. Along the tourist strip it is much cheaper to stop a xe om as long as you know how to bargain. It can be hard for Western tourists to get appropriate prices (10,000-15,000 dong is more than enough to pay for a ride from one place to another along the main strip). Taxis are also abundant, with fares slightly higher than Ho Chi Minh City, but still reasonable (starting at around 20,000 dong).

 

You can rent motorbikes and bicycles at many resorts and tour agencies. Since traffic is light, motorbikes or bicycles are a pleasant way to explore the surroundings. Motorbikes cost anywhere from 60,000-150,000 dong per day depending on how late in the day you start, how many hours you need, and age/type of motorbike (automatics can cost 230,000 dong). The locals say it's getting harder to rent because of bike thefts and police driving license enforcement. Your hotel might rent to you, which may be a bit more convenient since they already have your passport. Western tourists should avoid taking a rented motorbike to the White Sand Dunes if you are not in the possession of a Vietnamese driver's license. The Mui Ne police is known for stopping all motorbikes on the road leading to Bau Trang (White Lake) and collect at least 1 million dong from any foreigner not able to provide at least an international driver's license.

 

Be careful when riding a bike in Ham Tien and Mui Ne. Traffic is light, especially during the summer months, but nobody pays any attention to traffic rules. For example, it's common to see Vietnamese riders turning left from the right lane. Also, Vietnamese riders don't stop or even look when entering the main road from secondary one. The increase in big motor coaches shuttling Russain tourists in and out of Ham Tien and the uncontrolled jeeps used to bring hundreds of tourists to the White Sand Dunes every day contribute to increased risks for motorbikes and pedestrians along Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street in particular. Traffic fatalities are not uncommon. Rumors are that up to 30 people die every month in accidents. If you plan to ride a bike here, investment in medical insurance, if you can get it, is a wise move.

 

Even-numbered addresses are on the sea side of the street, and odd numbers on the inland side. Even and odd addresses are not aligned, thus 39 on the odd side can be several hundred metres from 40 on the even side.

 

SEE

CHAM TOWER

The Poshanu Cham Tower in Phu Hai ward (Thap Po Sah Inu) is a derelict remainder of the ancient Cham culture that was built in the 8th century. It is still in use for religious and social gatherings by the local Cham population, especially during the annual Kate festival.

Fish Sauce Plants, where the famous nuoc mam (fish sauce) is produced. Big jars harbour the concoction that, after months in the blazing sun, is sold all over Vietnam to add some spice to the food.

The famous Red Sand Dunes (Doi Cat), on the main coastal road a short distance north of the fishing town at the north end of Mui Ne Bay, about 10 km from the main resort strip. The whole region is fairly sandy, with orange sand threatening to blow onto the coastal road in some spots. The dunes that visitors visit are about 50 ha (1/2 km²) of open sand on a hillside with ten-meter undulations, staffed by dusty children with plastic slides, who will offer instruction and assistance if you want to slide on the sand. Caution is recommended since a number of tourists have lost money, cameras or cell phones in the sand or through theft and pick-pocketing on the dunes. The sand dunes offer nice views of the sea coast to the north. On the opposite side of the road are a series of small cafes (illegally built but tolerated by the local police), where you can park your vehicle for a small fee if you ride there on your own. Most day tours sold by local tour operators include a stop at the dunes. The trip by taxi from the main resort strip in Ham Tien is about 170,000 dong each way, and less by xe om. It is reachable by bicycle in 30-45 minutes, passing the Fairy Stream on the way. From the resorts on Malibu Beach (Ganh Beach) it is just a short 5 to 10 minute walk to the bottom of the dunes.

Mui Ne Market (Chợ Mũi Né) and fishing harbor (Lang chai Mui Ne). If you are staying on the resort strip in Ham Tien or Phu Hai wards, don't miss out to visit this once quiet "fishing village" but nowadays bustling town, at the northeast end of Mui Ne Bay. The coastal road leads straight into the town (with a left turn required at the first red light to continue up the coast). If you arrive during the dry "winter" season, don't miss the harbor overlook at the entrance to Mui Ne with a splendid view of hundreds of colorful fishing boats moored in the bay. The boats move to the other side of the "Shelter Cape" (English translation of "Mui Ne") during the monsoon season from May through October, when the wind direction changes from mainly northeast to mainly southwest. Further along into town, just off the main road, there is a colorful local market. If you take your transport just down to the water, you will reach the fishing harbor, where you can purchase fresh seafood (if you have any means to cook it) or purchase steamed crabs, shellfish, etc. to eat on the spot from local vendors. Walking along the beach, you'll pass by fishermen sorting out their catch, ship-wharves and, at the southern end of town, a section where clams have been rid of their shells for many years, so the sand on the beach is by now substituted with littered shells. Be prepared to encounter piles and stretches of rubbish on the beach.

The Fairy Stream (Suoi Tien) is a little creek that winds its way through bamboo forests, boulders and the dunes behind the village, in parts resembling a miniature version of the Grand Canyon. Local children will want to accompany you to show you the way (and of course earn a dollar or so), but since you're just following the stream, there's little need. For the most part, the stream is about ankle-deep and no more than knee-deep even at its deepest. It is sandy with few stones and can be walked comfortably barefooted. You can climb up the red sand hills overlooking the river valley and even walk there parallel to the river, however, the sand may be hot on a sunny day, so bring some footwear. Walking upstream for about 20 minutes, you will reach a small waterfall into at most waist-deep water, great to take a refreshing bath before heading back. To reach the stream, head along the main road towards the east until you cross a small bridge. The stream is underneath, you will see a sign pointing towards a path to the left, go that way to reach an easy place to enter the stream. By bicycle it's about 15 minutes from the main resort strip and shouldn't be more than 20,000 dong by xe om. You can enter somewhere along the beach or at the bridge where you will be charged 10,000 dong for entry (although entrance is officially free) and 5,000 dong for motorcycle parking.

The White Sand Dunes are approximately 45 km away from the Ham Tien tourist strip to the northeast, and some 24 km from the Red Sand Dunes and nearby resorts on the east side of the Mui Ne peninsula (GPS 11.068254 108.428513). Trips are offered by any tourist agency along the resort stretch for 4x4 or quad drives, as well as by some resorts with their own vehicles. While too far away for a bicycle trip especially in summer, a motorbike trip can bring you there. Make sure to bring an international driver's licence if you do not own a Vietnamese one (driving without Vietnamese driver's license is illegal in Vietnam), the local police is well-known for stopping foreigners on motorbikes on their way to and from the White Sand Dunes and extort a fine (up to 1 million dong) or sometimes even confiscate the motorbike. Entrance is a 10,000 dong fee.

 

DO

KITE SURFING

Kitesurfing is offered by many outfitters and hotels. Kite surfing instruction is available, starting at US$60/hour, beginners package of 7 lessons start at US$350. From November till March you generally will have strong winds every day. The Winds in Mui Ne emerge by thermal movements, after the shores got warmed by the sun. You will have perfect wind everyday from 11:00 until the late evening. Gusty winds are seldom. With strong winds, the sometimes choppy waves can be as high as 4 m and more. The water is free of rocks, which makes it relatively safe to kite. However in the peak season there up to 300 kiters in the water at the same time. Beginners and Students, who mainly practice close to the beach front makes things a bit more dangerous. So watch out for other kitersurfers and swimmers and control the speed, in particularly because swimmers are difficult to see when waves are high. Accidents between kitesurfers or between kitesurfers and Swimmers happen from time to time and medical facilities are limited in terms of their equipment and abilities.

 

There are several kitesurfing schools along the beach, which all employ beach boys who will help you to start and launch the kite. It is widely common to tip the beach boys with US$1/day. If you bring your own equipment and don't want to carry it from and to your hotel every day, you can store it at one of the kitesurfing schools for US$20/week or US$60/month, including usage of their compressors and shower facilities.

 

If you are a beginner but already can practice independent without an instructor, you might avoid the area around Sunshine Beach Hotel/Sankara/Wax, because there are too many kite surfers and swimmers which may lead to accidents, particularly if you can not fully control the kite. Try the western part of beach front around the Kitesurfing School Windchimes. There are less kiters in this area and you can practice without bringing you and others into danger.

 

There is a place called "wave spot" or "Malibu beach" (10.92676, 108.29500). It is suitable only for intermediate/advanced kiters, but its much less crowded there.

 

OTHERS

All-terrain vehicle. You can ride one on white sand dunes.

Cooking classes, 400,000 dong/hr. If you want to learn to cook Vietnamese food, check cooking classes near C2SKY kitesurfing school (opposite Kim Shop). You will learn to cook pancakes, Pho Bo soup, shrimp salad and fresh spring rolls. All ingredients are ready, you'll just mix them under supervision of Vietnamese cook.

Day tours, US$10-13. Travel agents and restaurants abound with day tour offerings. The standard half day tour takes in the fishing village, fairy stream, and the red and while sand dunes. Tours normally start at either 17:00 or 14:30 so you can watch the sunrise/sunset over the sand dunes.

Balloon riding, ☏ +841208536828, ✉ booking@vietnamballoons.com. 05:00-08:00. Mui Ne is the only place in Vietnam where you can fly hot air balloons. A balloon company has European management, balloons, and pilots. Most flights take place over white sand dunes. When the winds in dunes are too strong, flights take place from Phan Thiet city centre. (updated Jan 2018 | edit)

Sailing, 108 Huynh Thuc Khang. Manta Sail Training Centre was newly founded in 2010 and water sport has been gaining popularity since then. Classes are available at US$50/hour for individuals with certified international and local instructors. The sailing area is safe, quiet, with no swimmers and only a few advanced kitesurfers. edit

Surfing. Sometimes you get good waves in mornings of windy season. Lessons, day trips and rentals are available, don't hesitate to ask around. While Mui Ne is not the best destination for surfing, it can be good place to give it a try.

Swimming. The sea is wonderfully warm, but it can be quite rough, with large waves and a strong rip tide. When the tide is in, there is not much of a beach to speak of. When wind is blowing it can be quite chilly to even think of swimming. The area between kilometre markers 11 and 13 has the largest stretch of enduring sandy beach. Since large waves normally emerge after 11:00 you might prefer to swim in the early morning hours, when the water is flat and free of Kitesurfers. Most mid-range and top-end resorts have swimming pools for their guests. Some are open for day users starting at 80,000 dong per day. But you can always behave as guest from this hotel and buy a few drinks for these 80,000 dong.

Water sports. Most outfitters offer a host of water sports including kayaking, paddle surfing, and jet ski rental.

Windsurfing. If you like to do some windsurfing, go to eastern part of Mui Ne. Starting from Hai Au resort, there are some hotels that are offering good place to water start, rent or store your gear.

 

BUY

Along the Mui Ne strip are several small nameless shops; all selling the same sundries and souvenirs. You can find packaged snacks (Oreos, cakes, biscuits, ice cream, etc.), liquor, clothing, and souvenirs.

 

Anything beyond very basic necessities should be brought with you. There is a small pharmacy, but it would be wise to bring your own first aid kit.

 

Standard souvenirs offered include wooden and lacquered bowls, wooden statues, snake whiskey, and pearl necklaces. Compared with Ho Chi Minh City, souvenirs are almost five times more expensive in Mui Ne. The same small wooden bowl selling for US$3 in HCMC is US$14 in Mui Ne.

 

Several travel agencies along the strip also double as used book stores. Most have a few shelves of English books, along with a small selection in German and French. Books cost 80,000-100,000 dong and most shops will give a 50% discount if you trade in a book.

 

Coop Mart, Phan Thiet (corner of Nguyen Tat Thanh and Tran Hung Dao), ☏ +84 62 3835440, +84 62 3835455. 08:00-21:30. A large, Western-style grocery store that also sells books, jewellery and necessities.

 

EAT

Every resort area in Ham Tien and Mui Ne is surrounded by restaurants specializing in seafood. The food is invariably fresh, well-prepared, and served in friendly and interesting surroundings. By all means get out of your hotel and try one of the local restaurants. The best restaurants are a motorbike ride away, found outside of the tourist/resort district on the ocean.

1 Bo Ke Street (Go to the fishing village past the Tien Dat Hotel until you see many small cafes near seashore). This is a street full of local cafes that serve BBQ seafood. Prices are very cheap and choice is wide. Scallops with onion and garlic sauce are must-to-have here. If you're a fussy about hygiene, don't bother coming here. edit

Joe's (The Art Cafe), 86 Nguyen Dinh Chieu St, Ham Tien (Across from Shades Resort), ☏ +84 62 374 3447. 24 hr daily. Joe's is the only place open 24/7 in Mui Ne. It's a cosy old farmhouse cafe offering Western fare. A Canadian developed the menu, and the pancakes with maple syrup (50,000 dong including coffee) are great. The sandwiches with home cut fries and salad (60,000 dong) are also recommended. Two movies are shown each evening in the pillow-filled loft. Free Wi-fi, exhibits and live performances. A great place to have your bus pick you up at 02:00 when you head out and great for a chill spot for after party breakfast or a romantic glass of wine. A 24-hr supermarket is part of the complex. Joe is on the strip, offering now even accommodation. Drinks 10,000 - 60,000 dong, meals 50,000 - 120,000 dong. edit

Lâm Tòng, 92 Nguyễn Đinh Chiêu (Right on the beach next to Jibes under some shady palms), ☏ +84 62 384 7598. You can even sit at tables in the sand. There's a little hut with hammocks strung. Try one of the pancakes (bánh xèo) with condensed milk (sữa đặc), the fried fish with lemon, and the chicken fried in fish sauce. edit

2 Pho Bo and sandwiches, Bo Ke St (Go past Bo Ke St in the direction of Pogo Bar, small pavilion on the right). The only place to have food at night (since Joe's doesn't serve food at night anymore). They serve nice sandwiches with chicken and scrambled eggs (30,000 dong). Also you can have pho bo here. edit

3 Santimatti Pizzeria, 83 Nguyen Dinh Chieu St. Classic Italian cuisine. Place is nice looking, with a good atmosphere. Locals and long stayers enjoy a 10% discount with membership card. Owner is on-site, so expect good service. edit

4 Sindbad Kebap, Nguyen Dinh Chieu (opposite Pogo Bar). Good beef/chicken/veggie kebabs, shawarma and tsatsiki. edit

Smoky House, 125 Nguyen Dinh Chieu St. Offers large, high-quality meals, and offers all customers free ice cream. edit

Snow Restaurant, Club and Sushi Bar, 109 Nguyen Dinh Chieu St. 10:00-02:00. Famous for its cool air-conditioned hall that is unique in Mui Ne. European, Japanese, Russian and Vietnamese cuisines, including exotic dishes such as filet of crocodile. Lounge still open after 22:00, cinema-sessions in the evening. Free Wi-Fi, free pool, and free transfer by Taxi Mai Linh to the restaurant and back to hotel. edit

The Terrace Restaurant, 21 Nguyen Dinh Chieu St (in front of Anantara Resort), ☏ +84 62 3741293, ✉ admin@herbalhotelmuinevietnam.com. 08:00-23:00. The restaurant's first floor is fully air conditioned and the terrace on the upper floor is an open concept with a a nice view. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The restaurant specializes in sushi, fresh seafood and Vietnamese food and the bar serves beer, wine and cocktails. US$3-15. (updated Jul 2016

 

DRINK

Deja Vu Restaurant and Shisha Bar, 21 Nguyen Dinh Chieu (Opposite Anantara Resort), ☏ +84 62 374 1160, +84 913327232, ✉ dejavuvn@gmail.com. 11:00 - 24:00. Family restaurant focused on good food and entertainment for all the ages. Daily live music, cozy garden with kids area. Seafood, European food, Vietnamese food, kids menu, exotic food, cocktails, shisha- culture show "Folklore night" (show + dinner) every W 20:00. Exotic food show every F 19:00. edit

DJ Station (El Vagabundo), 120C Nguyen Dinh Chieu (300 m to the right when facing Sinh Cafe). 09:00-03:00. Ocean view terrace area, dining area and large dance floor. Happy hour 18:00-21:00 means selected cocktails are 30,000 dong, and regular priced cocktails are all buy-one-get-one-free. It's a popular backpacker place and usually very crowded weekends. edit

Pogo Bar, 138 Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Popular place once, but you can still expect surfers and expats. Cocktails and buckets are cheap, but not tasty. edit

Mooney's Irish Bar, 121 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Phường Hàm Tiến, Thành phố Phan Thiết, Bình Thuận, Vietnam (almost opposite Joe's Cafe), ☏ +84 91 402 65 96. 18:00-02:00. A small establishment run by a genuine Irishman (which marks it out from many 'Irish' pubs in Asia), an affable chap form just outside Dublin. There's a pool table, but the best thing to do is order a beer and have a chat with Liam. (updated Jul 2018 | edit)

The Crown and Anchor, 117c Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Ham Tien Phan Thiet (about 2 minutes from Mooney's Irish Bar.). 16:00-23:45. A new establishment that promises a lot. Great design, long bar, games room with pool, darts and table football. Brian from the English Midlands and Adele from Kyrgyzstan are the friendly hosts. Live sports and Sunday Roasts are popular features. (updated Jul 2018 | edit)

Old Fashioned Bar, 151 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Phường Hàm Tiến, Thành phố Phan Thiết, Bình Thuận, ☏ +84 368 307 432. 08:00-03:00. Classic bar. Large territory: bar, hookah, restaurant area, cinema, air-conditioned room of a coffee shop, rooftop. European cuisine. Live music. The largest bar in Muine with the largest selection of coffee, tea, alcohol, cocktails and services. Located near the BOKE site.

 

SLEEP

Mui Ne and Ham Tien have over 200 accommodations to choose from, in every price category (US$5-200), along the main ocean strip of Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Huynh Thuc Khang ("HTK"). Small guest houses, family-run beach hotels and some big luxury resorts can also be found east of the town center of Mui Ne proper, along the road leading to the Red Sand Dunes, where Ganh Beach offers long sandy beaches and excellent kite-surfing on the east side of the Mui Ne peninsula.

 

Accommodations at higher addresses of Nguyen Dinh Chieu towards HTK and Mui Ne ward tend to be smaller and less expensive, somewhat removed from the main tourist section in Ham Tien and more mixed in more with local life. If a sandy beach is important to you, some research is called for before booking in that area. Many "beach side" resorts are actually against a sloping cement wall that leads into the sea. The sand itself migrates up and down the long coast seasonally leaving some areas with expansive beaches and others with little at any given time.

 

A few budget hotels have popped up on the inland side of the road, across from the beach side resorts. If you stay on the inland side, you will need to pass though one of the resorts to reach the beach, which might or might not result in some hassle from the guards. The resorts jealously guard their lounge chairs and palapas, though the beach itself is open to everyone. If all else fails, you can always access a nice sandy stretch of beach via the Wax Bar at 68 Nguyen Dinh Chieu.

 

Remember that during Tet (Vietnamese New Year), hotels and resorts are booked way in advance.

 

BUDGET

Go past the Pogo Bar in the direction of the fishing village to find the best budget hotels (as low as US$5 a day for adouble room with air-con).

 

Bao Trang, Nguyen Dinh Chieu (Turn right when exiting from Sinh Cafe). Small bungalows with a beach frontage. From US$10. edit

Guest House 20, 20 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, ☏ +84 62 374 1440, ✉ guesthouse20@yahoo.com.vn. Very nice guest house on main strip without beach access. Also organise tours and transport for you. Very friendly staff, family-owned and operated. From US$15. (updated Mar 2015 | edit)

Hon Di Bungalows, 70 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, ☏ +84 62 847 014, ✉ hdhongdi@yahoo.com. Has simple but nice bungalows with fan and attached bath. There is a shady courtyard strung with hammocks, and four of the bungalows are directly facing the beachfront. A small restaurant and Internet access cater to your needs. US$10-12. edit

Keng Guesthouse, 185 Nguyen Dinh Chieu (About 100 m east of Phuoc Thien Pagoda), ☏ +84 62 374 3312, ✉ yongkeng999@yahoo.com. Simple, clean guest house with all the usual facilities on the quiet end of the main strip. About 15 min walk to the bar and restaurant area. Friendly English speaking owner. Dorm 100,000 dong, rooms from 160,000 dong. edit

Lan Anh, Huynh Tân Phát (Coming from Phan Thiet, turn left when entering the village, in the corner where there's a business called Nhà Tho). Local guesthouse in the village, a couple of kilometres from the resorts and beaches, but close to shops, market and street food stalls. Perfect for experiencing local life. Owner family can barely understand English but are nice. Room with 2 double beds, fan, fridge, toilet, and TV. Free Wi-Fi. 150,000 dong. edit

Mai Am Guesthouse, 148 Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Beachfront bungalows with air-con, working shower, mosquito net, and nothing more. Clean pool. Beach seating with chairs and mats, although some of furniture is falling apart. Can hear next door bar till 03:00 nightly which may bother some. Also, they have monkey cages in the courtyard for some reason. US$10-15. edit

Thien Son, 102 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, ☏ +84 62 384 7187, +84 91 861 0727. Guest house just down the road from Joe's cafe with clean, large rooms. Can get breakfast for about US$1. Very friendly people, though English is limited. Also organises tours to sand dunes (depends on size of group, but from US$4-9) as well as buses to Saigon and Nha Trang. From US$12. edit

1 Nam Chau Boutique Resort - Mui Ne Passion ((Formerly Nam Chau Resort)), Khu phố 5, Mũi Né (Coming from the Red Sand Dunes go down the hill towards the town of Mui Ne, the resort lies right after the Pandanus Resort on the left hand side of the road (ca. 600 m from the dunes). Coming from the town center of Mui Ne (Mui ne market or Fishing Village) turn left at the red light (in front of Blue Shell Resort), continue for about 200 m (entrance after Malibu Resort on the right hand side).), ☏ +84 252 3849 323, ✉ sales@namchauresort.com. Rustic beach resort with 48 rooms offering free WiFi, refrigerators, and TVs with cable channels in a 3-ha tropical garden on the beach in Mui Ne. Inexpensive restaurant, beach bar organising disco parties on weekends. Swimming pool, ongoing activities including kite-boarding and SUP. From US$11 for shared accommodations. Dormitories in cottages, private bungalows available.

 

MID-RANGE

Ngoc Suong Marina Hotel, Nguyen Dinh Chieu (Across the road from TM Brothers Cafe, beside Tien Dat Resort). On the beach, with an excellent swimming pool. Rooms have mosquito nets, air-con, satellite TV, and en suite bath. US$40 including breakfast. edit

Novela Muine Resort & Spa, 96A Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Hàm Tiến, Phan Thiết (In the center of Muine Resort), ☏ +84623743456, ✉ sales@novelaresort.com. US$50 including breakfast.

 

SPLURGE

2 Anantara Mui Ne Resort, Mui Ne Beach, KM10 Ham Tien Ward, Phan Thiet City, ☏ +84 62 374 1888, ✉ muine@anantara.com. The resort includes 89 rooms, suites and pool villas designed according to Vietnamese tradition. US$105. (updated Jan 2017)

3 Blue Ocean Resort, 54 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, ☏ +84 62 3847 322. Has various rooms and bungalows. Only metres from many of the kite surfing schools, particularly Windchimes, which is directly outside the property. 2,770,000 - 8,100,000 dong. (updated Mar 2016 | edit)

Cham Villas Boutique Luxury Resort, 32 Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Has 6 villas with beach front view and 12 villas with garden view. Each villa has a king size bed, bathtub overlooking a small private garden, and a large private patio with comfortable club chairs and a day bed. edit

Grace Boutique Resort, 144A Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Has the look of a Mediterranean villa. There are only 14 rooms, all with sea views. Well-trained staff, a beautiful garden, and a charming pool. Rates include daily breakfasts. Discounts are offered during the low season and for long-term stays. It is advisable to book well ahead during the holidays. edit

4 Pandanus Resort, Block 5, Mui Ne (The average driving time from the center or airport in Ho Chi Minh City to the resort is approximately four hours. Can be reached in 20 mins by car via main road Vo Nguyen Giap from Phan Thiet city center (25 km). At the roundabout below the Red Sand Dunes turn right. The resort is the second on the left (ca. 150 m). Coming from Ham Tien and the Mui Ne fishing village take Huynh Tan Phat at the red light to another red light in from of Blue Shell Resort. Turn left, the resort will be on the right hand side after approx. 400 m.), ☏ +84 252 3849 849, ✉ pandanus@pandanusresort.com. Check-in: 14:00, check-out: 12:00 noon. 134 renovated rooms including 24 bungalows with outdoor bathtub in a relaxing beachside environment: 10 ha of lush tropical gardens within walking distance of the Red Sand Dunes. Phan Thiet's largest free-form swimming pool, 2 restaurants, 3 bars incl. lounge with live entertainment, two live bands, spa (indoor and outdoor). Weekly seafood BBQ buffets by the pool, All Inclusive package, weddings, special events, team building, tours and excursions, transfer service. Complimentary bicycle rental. Daily complimentary walking tour of Mui Ne fishing town, free shuttle service to Mui Ne, Fairy Stream and Ham Tien tourist strip. Jet Ski, surfboards, kiteboarding nearby. US$60-310 including Mui Ne's biggest breakfast buffet (based on room type and number of guests). Group discounts, All Inclusive package, honeymoon packages and special event rates available.. (updated Dec 2017 | edit)

5 The Sailing Bay Beach Resort, 107 Ho Xuan Huong St, ☏ +84 8 6282 4567, ✉ resorts@thesailingbay.com. 192 rooms with sea views, all-day restaurant, open-air beach club, a grand ballroom that accommodates 400 guests and a fully equipped board meeting room for 40 guests. On-site water sports facility with a professional international team managing board sailing, kite surfing and other activities. US$100-644 including breakfast (low-season). edit

Shades Resort, 98A Nguyen Dinh Chieu (Across from Joe's Cafe). Has 8 studios/apartments with kitchens, Jacuzzi or rainshower, preloaded computers, 42 inch flatscreen TVs and a lovely view. The site includes a swimming pool and a bar with Bon Cafe coffees made with fresh milk from Dalat. Rate includes daily breakfast, bottled water, and laundry service. US$45-200. edit

The Cliff Resort, 5, Phu Hai Ward, Phan Thiet, Binh Thuan (Along the Nguyễn Thông road to Mũi Né), ☏ +84 252 3719 111 (HCMC), +84 24 3936 5065 (Hanoi), ✉ reservation@thecliffresort.com.vn. Check-out: 12:00. A resort complex that has many different room designs in different prices, the more big and beautiful they are, the more expensive they are. All guests can enjoy the big pool in the middle and can have access to the Mui Ne beach. The location is near Phan Thiet. US$100-500.

 

WIKI VOYAGE

Hyderabad (Listeni/ˈhaɪdərəˌbæd/ HY-dər-ə-bad; often /ˈhaɪdrəˌbæd/) is the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana and de jure capital of Andhra Pradesh. Occupying 625 square kilometres along the banks of the Musi River, it has a population of about 6.8 million and a metropolitan population of about 7.75 million, making it the fourth most populous city and sixth most populous urban agglomeration in India. At an average altitude of 542 metres, much of Hyderabad is situated on hilly terrain around artificial lakes, including Hussain Sagar - predating the city's founding - north of the city centre.

 

Established in 1591 by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, Hyderabad remained under the rule of the Qutb Shahi dynasty for nearly a century before the Mughals captured the region. In 1724, Mughal viceroy Asif Jah I declared his sovereignty and created his own dynasty, known as the Nizams of Hyderabad. The Nizam's dominions became a princely state during the British Raj, and remained so for 150 years, with the city serving as its capital. The city continued as the capital of Hyderabad State after it was brought into the Indian Union in 1948, and became the capital of Andhra Pradesh after the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. Since 1956, Rashtrapati Nilayam in the city has been the winter office of the President of India. In 2014, the newly formed state of Telangana split from Andhra Pradesh and the city became joint capital of the two states, a transitional arrangement scheduled to end by 2025.

 

Relics of Qutb Shahi and Nizam rule remain visible today, with the Charminar - commissioned by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah - coming to symbolise Hyderabad. Golconda fort is another major landmark. The influence of Mughlai culture is also evident in the city's distinctive cuisine, which includes Hyderabadi biryani and Hyderabadi haleem. The Qutb Shahis and Nizams established Hyderabad as a cultural hub, attracting men of letters from different parts of the world. Hyderabad emerged as the foremost centre of culture in India with the decline of the Mughal Empire in the mid-19th century, with artists migrating to the city from the rest of the Indian subcontinent. While Hyderabad is losing its cultural pre-eminence, it is today, due to the Telugu film industry, the country's second-largest producer of motion pictures.

 

Hyderabad was historically known as a pearl and diamond trading centre, and it continues to be known as the City of Pearls. Many of the city's traditional bazaars, including Laad Bazaar, Begum Bazaar and Sultan Bazaar, have remained open for centuries. However, industrialisation throughout the 20th century attracted major Indian manufacturing, research and financial institutions, including Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, the National Geophysical Research Institute and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. Special economic zones dedicated to information technology have encouraged companies from across India and around the world to set up operations and the emergence of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the 1990s led to the area's naming as India's "Genome Valley". With an output of US$74 billion, Hyderabad is the fifth-largest contributor to India's overall gross domestic product.

 

HISTORY

TOPONYMY

According to John Everett-Heath, the author of Oxford Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, Hyderabad means "Haydar's city" or "lion city", from haydar (lion) and ābād (city). It was named to honour the Caliph Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who was also known as Haydar because of his lion-like valour in battles. Andrew Petersen, a scholar of Islamic architecture, says the city was originally called Baghnagar (city of gardens). One popular theory suggests that Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the founder of the city, named it "Bhaganagar" or "Bhāgnagar" after Bhagmati, a local nautch (dancing) girl with whom he had fallen in love. She converted to Islam and adopted the title Hyder Mahal. The city was renamed Hyderabad in her honour. According to another source, the city was named after Haidar, the son of Quli Qutb Shah.

 

EARLY AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY

Archaeologists excavating near the city have unearthed Iron Age sites that may date from 500 BCE. The region comprising modern Hyderabad and its surroundings was known as Golkonda ("shepherd's hill"), and was ruled by the Chalukya dynasty from 624 CE to 1075 CE. Following the dissolution of the Chalukya empire into four parts in the 11th century, Golkonda came under the control of the Kakatiya dynasty from 1158, whose seat of power was at Warangal, 148 km northeast of modern Hyderabad.

 

The Kakatiya dynasty was reduced to a vassal of the Khilji dynasty in 1310 after its defeat by Sultan Alauddin Khilji of the Delhi Sultanate. This lasted until 1321, when the Kakatiya dynasty was annexed by Malik Kafur, Allaudin Khilji's general. During this period, Alauddin Khilji took the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is said to have been mined from the Kollur Mines of Golkonda, to Delhi. Muhammad bin Tughluq succeeded to the Delhi sultanate in 1325, bringing Warangal under the rule of the Tughlaq dynasty until 1347 when Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah, a governor under bin Tughluq, rebelled against Delhi and established the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan Plateau, with Gulbarga, 200 km west of Hyderabad, as its capital. The Bahmani kings ruled the region until 1518 and were the first independent Muslim rulers of the Deccan.

 

Sultan Quli, a governor of Golkonda, revolted against the Bahmani Sultanate and established the Qutb Shahi dynasty in 1518; he rebuilt the mud-fort of Golconda and named the city "Muhammad nagar". The fifth sultan, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, established Hyderabad on the banks of the Musi River in 1591, to avoid the water shortages experienced at Golkonda. During his rule, he had the Charminar and Mecca Masjid built in the city. On 21 September 1687, the Golkonda Sultanate came under the rule of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after a year-long siege of the Golkonda fort. The annexed area was renamed Deccan Suba (Deccan province) and the capital was moved from Golkonda to Aurangabad, about 550 km northwest of Hyderabad.

 

MODERN HISTORY

In 1713 Farrukhsiyar, the Mughal emperor, appointed Asif Jah I to be Viceroy of the Deccan, with the title Nizam-ul-Mulk (Administrator of the Realm). In 1724, Asif Jah I defeated Mubariz Khan to establish autonomy over the Deccan Suba, named the region Hyderabad Deccan, and started what came to be known as the Asif Jahi dynasty. Subsequent rulers retained the title Nizam ul-Mulk and were referred to as Asif Jahi Nizams, or Nizams of Hyderabad. The death of Asif Jah I in 1748 resulted in a period of political unrest as his sons, backed by opportunistic neighbouring states and colonial foreign forces, contended for the throne. The accession of Asif Jah II, who reigned from 1762 to 1803, ended the instability. In 1768 he signed the treaty of Masulipatnam, surrendering the coastal region to the East India Company in return for a fixed annual rent.

 

In 1769 Hyderabad city became the formal capital of the Nizams. In response to regular threats from Hyder Ali (Dalwai of Mysore), Baji Rao I (Peshwa of the Maratha Empire), and Basalath Jung (Asif Jah II's elder brother, who was supported by the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau), the Nizam signed a subsidiary alliance with the East India Company in 1798, allowing the British Indian Army to occupy Bolarum (modern Secunderabad) to protect the state's borders, for which the Nizams paid an annual maintenance to the British.

 

Until 1874 there were no modern industries in Hyderabad. With the introduction of railways in the 1880s, four factories were built to the south and east of Hussain Sagar lake, and during the early 20th century, Hyderabad was transformed into a modern city with the establishment of transport services, underground drainage, running water, electricity, telecommunications, universities, industries, and Begumpet Airport. The Nizams ruled their princely state from Hyderabad during the British Raj.

 

After India gained independence, the Nizam declared his intention to remain independent rather than become part of the Indian Union. The Hyderabad State Congress, with the support of the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India, began agitating against Nizam VII in 1948. On 17 September that year, the Indian Army took control of Hyderabad State after an invasion codenamed Operation Polo. With the defeat of his forces, Nizam VII capitulated to the Indian Union by signing an Instrument of Accession, which made him the Rajpramukh (Princely Governor) of the state until 31 October 1956. Between 1946 and 1951, the Communist Party of India fomented the Telangana uprising against the feudal lords of the Telangana region. The Constitution of India, which became effective on 26 January 1950, made Hyderabad State one of the part B states of India, with Hyderabad city continuing to be the capital. In his 1955 report Thoughts on Linguistic States, B. R. Ambedkar, then chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, proposed designating the city of Hyderabad as the second capital of India because of its amenities and strategic central location. Since 1956, the Rashtrapati Nilayam in Hyderabad has been the second official residence and business office of the President of India; the President stays once a year in winter and conducts official business particularly relating to Southern India.

 

On 1 November 1956 the states of India were reorganised by language. Hyderabad state was split into three parts, which were merged with neighbouring states to form the modern states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The nine Telugu- and Urdu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in the Telangana region were merged with the Telugu-speaking Andhra State to create Andhra Pradesh,with Hyderabad as its capital. Several protests, known collectively as the Telangana movement, attempted to invalidate the merger and demanded the creation of a new Telangana state. Major actions took place in 1969 and 1972, and a third began in 2010. The city suffered several explosions: one at Dilsukhnagar in 2002 claimed two lives; terrorist bombs in May and August 2007 caused communal tension and riots; and two bombs exploded in February 2013. On 30 July 2013 the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of India declared that part of Andhra Pradesh would be split off to form a new Telangana state, and that Hyderabad city would be the capital city and part of Telangana, while the city would also remain the capital of Andhra Pradesh for no more than ten years. On 3 October 2013 the Union Cabinet approved the proposal, and in February 2014 both houses of Parliament passed the Telangana Bill. With the final assent of the President of India in June 2014, Telangana state was formed.

 

GEOGRAPHY

TOPOGRAPHY

Situated in the southern part of Telangana in southeastern India, Hyderabad is 1,566 kilometres south of Delhi, 699 kilometres southeast of Mumbai, and 570 kilometres north of Bangalore by road. It lies on the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of the Deccan Plateau. Greater Hyderabad covers 625 km2, making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in India. With an average altitude of 542 metres, Hyderabad lies on predominantly sloping terrain of grey and pink granite, dotted with small hills, the highest being Banjara Hills at 672 metres. The city has numerous lakes referred to as sagar, meaning "sea". Examples include artificial lakes created by dams on the Musi, such as Hussain Sagar (built in 1562 near the city centre), Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar. As of 1996, the city had 140 lakes and 834 water tanks (ponds).

 

CLIMATE

Hyderabad has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen Aw) bordering on a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh). The annual mean temperature is 26.6 °C; monthly mean temperatures are 21–33 °C. Summers (March–June) are hot and humid, with average highs in the mid-to-high 30s Celsius; maximum temperatures often exceed 40 °C between April and June. The coolest temperatures occur in December and January, when the lowest temperature occasionally dips to 10 °C. May is the hottest month, when daily temperatures range from 26 to 39 °C; December, the coldest, has temperatures varying from 14.5 to 28 °C.

 

Heavy rain from the south-west summer monsoon falls between June and September, supplying Hyderabad with most of its mean annual rainfall. Since records began in November 1891, the heaviest rainfall recorded in a 24-hour period was 241.5 mm on 24 August 2000. The highest temperature ever recorded was 45.5 °C on 2 June 1966, and the lowest was 6.1 °C on 8 January 1946. The city receives 2,731 hours of sunshine per year; maximum daily sunlight exposure occurs in February.

 

CONSERVATION

Hyderabad's lakes and the sloping terrain of its low-lying hills provide habitat for an assortment of flora and fauna. The forest region in and around the city encompasses areas of ecological and biological importance, which are preserved in the form of national parks, zoos, mini-zoos and a wildlife sanctuary. Nehru Zoological Park, the city's one large zoo, is the first in India to have a lion and tiger safari park. Hyderabad has three national parks (Mrugavani National Park, Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park), and the Manjira Wildlife Sanctuary is about 50 km from the city. Hyderabad's other environmental reserves are: Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy Botanical Gardens, Shamirpet Lake, Hussain Sagar, Fox Sagar Lake, Mir Alam Tank and Patancheru Lake, which is home to regional birds and attracts seasonal migratory birds from different parts of the world. Organisations engaged in environmental and wildlife preservation include the Telangana Forest Department, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Animal Welfare Board of India, the Blue Cross of Hyderabad and the University of Hyderabad.

 

ADMINISTRATION

COMMON CAPITAL OF TELANGANA AND ANDHRA PRADESH

According to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 part 2 Section 5: "On and from the appointed day, Hyderabad in the existing State of Andhra Pradesh, shall be the common capital of the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh for such period not exceeding ten years. After expiry of the period referred to in sub-section, Hyderabad shall be the capital of the State of Telangana and there shall be a new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh."

 

The same sections also define that the common capital includes the existing area designated as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation under the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955. As stipulated in sections 3 and 18 of the Reorganisation Act, city MLAs are members of Telangana state assembly.

 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) oversees the civic infrastructure of the city's 18 "circles", which together encompass 150 municipal wards. Each ward is represented by a corporator, elected by popular vote. The corporators elect the Mayor, who is the titular head of GHMC; executive powers rest with the Municipal Commissioner, appointed by the state government. The GHMC carries out the city's infrastructural work such as building and maintenance of roads and drains, town planning including construction regulation, maintenance of municipal markets and parks, solid waste management, the issuing of birth and death certificates, the issuing of trade licences, collection of property tax, and community welfare services such as mother and child healthcare, and pre-school and non-formal education. The GHMC was formed in April 2007 by merging the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) with 12 municipalities of the Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medak districts covering a total area of 625 km2. In the 2009 municipal election, an alliance of the Indian National Congress and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen formed the majority. The Secunderabad Cantonment Board is a civic administration agency overseeing an area of 40.1 km2, where there are several military camps. The Osmania University campus is administered independently by the university authority.

 

Law and order in Hyderabad city is supervised by the governor of Telangana. The jurisdiction is divided into two police commissionerates: Hyderabad and Cyberabad, which are again divided into four and five police zones respectively. Each zone is headed by a deputy commissioner.

 

The jurisdictions of the city's administrative agencies are, in ascending order of size: the Hyderabad Police area, Hyderabad district, the GHMC area ("Hyderabad city") and the area under the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA). The HMDA is an apolitical urban planning agency that covers the GHMC and its suburbs, extending to 54 mandals in five districts encircling the city. It coordinates the development activities of GHMC and suburban municipalities and manages the administration of bodies such as the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB).

 

As the seat of the government of Telangana, Hyderabad is home to the state's legislature, secretariat and high court, as well as various local government agencies. The Lower City Civil Court and the Metropolitan Criminal Court are under the jurisdiction of the High Court. The GHMC area contains 24 State Legislative Assembly constituencies, which form five constituencies of the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Parliament of India).

 

UTILITY SERVICES

The HMWSSB regulates rainwater harvesting, sewerage services and water supply, which is sourced from several dams located in the suburbs. In 2005, the HMWSSB started operating a 116-kilometre-long water supply pipeline from Nagarjuna Sagar Dam to meet increasing demand. The Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited manages electricity supply. As of October 2014, there were 15 fire stations in the city, operated by the Telangana State Disaster and Fire Response Department. The government-owned India Post has five head post offices and many sub-post offices in Hyderabad, which are complemented by private courier services.

 

POLLUTION CONTROL

Hyderabad produces around 4,500 tonnes of solid waste daily, which is transported from collection units in Imlibun, Yousufguda and Lower Tank Bund to the dumpsite in Jawaharnagar. Disposal is managed by the Integrated Solid Waste Management project which was started by the GHMC in 2010. Rapid urbanisation and increased economic activity has also led to increased industrial waste, air, noise and water pollution, which is regulated by the Telangana Pollution Control Board (TPCB). The contribution of different sources to air pollution in 2006 was: 20–50% from vehicles, 40–70% from a combination of vehicle discharge and road dust, 10–30% from industrial discharges and 3–10% from the burning of household rubbish. Deaths resulting from atmospheric particulate matter are estimated at 1,700–3,000 each year. Ground water around Hyderabad, which has a hardness of up to 1000 ppm, around three times higher than is desirable, is the main source of drinking water but the increasing population and consequent increase in demand has led to a decline in not only ground water but also river and lake levels. This shortage is further exacerbated by inadequately treated effluent discharged from industrial treatment plants polluting the water sources of the city.

 

HEALTHCARE

The Commissionerate of Health and Family Welfare is responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of all facilities related to health and preventive services. As of 2010–11, the city had 50 government hospitals, 300 private and charity hospitals and 194 nursing homes providing around 12,000 hospital beds, fewer than half the required 25,000. For every 10,000 people in the city, there are 17.6 hospital beds, 9 specialist doctors, 14 nurses and 6 physicians. The city also has about 4,000 individual clinics and 500 medical diagnostic centres. Private clinics are preferred by many residents because of the distance to, poor quality of care at and long waiting times in government facilities, despite the high proportion of the city's residents being covered by government health insurance: 24% according to a National Family Health Survey in 2005. As of 2012, many new private hospitals of various sizes were opened or being built. Hyderabad also has outpatient and inpatient facilities that use Unani, homeopathic and Ayurvedic treatments.

 

In the 2005 National Family Health Survey, it was reported that the city's total fertility rate is 1.8, which is below the replacement rate. Only 61% of children had been provided with all basic vaccines (BCG, measles and full courses of polio and DPT), fewer than in all other surveyed cities except Meerut. The infant mortality rate was 35 per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate for children under five was 41 per 1,000 live births. The survey also reported that a third of women and a quarter of men are overweight or obese, 49% of children below 5 years are anaemic, and up to 20% of children are underweight, while more than 2% of women and 3% of men suffer from diabetes.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

When the GHMC was created in 2007, the area occupied by the municipality increased from 175 km2 to 625 km2. Consequently, the population increased by 87%, from 3,637,483 in the 2001 census to 6,809,970 in the 2011 census, 24% of which are migrants from elsewhere in India, making Hyderabad the nation's fourth most populous city. As of 2011, the population density is 18,480/km2. At the same 2011 census, the Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration had a population of 7,749,334, making it the sixth most populous urban agglomeration in the country. The population of the Hyderabad urban agglomeration has since been estimated by electoral officials to be 9.1 million as of early 2013 but is expected to exceed 10 million by the end of the year. There are 3,500,802 male and 3,309,168 female citizens - a sex ratio of 945 females per 1000 males, higher than the national average of 926 per 1000. Among children aged 0–6 years, 373,794 are boys and 352,022 are girls - a ratio of 942 per 1000. Literacy stands at 82.96% (male 85.96%; female 79.79%), higher than the national average of 74.04%. The socio-economic strata consist of 20% upper class, 50% middle class and 30% working class.

 

ETHNIC GROUPS, LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

Referred to as "Hyderabadi", residents of Hyderabad are predominantly Telugu and Urdu speaking people, with minority Bengali, Gujarati (including Memon), Kannada (including Nawayathi), Malayalam, Marathi, Marwari, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Uttar Pradeshi communities. Hadhrami Arabs, African Arabs, Armenians, Abyssinians, Iranians, Pathans and Turkish people are also present; these communities, of which the Hadhrami are the largest, declined after Hyderabad State became part of the Indian Union, as they lost the patronage of the Nizams.

 

Telugu is the official language of Hyderabad and Urdu is its second language. The Telugu dialect spoken in Hyderabad is called Telangana, and the Urdu spoken is called Dakhani. English is also used. A significant minority speak other languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Bengali and Kannada.

 

Hindus are in the majority. Muslims are present throughout the city and predominate in and around the Old City. There are also Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Parsi communities and iconic temples, mosques and churches can be seen. According to the 2001 census, Hyderabad district's religious make-up was: Hindus (55.41%), Muslims (41.17%), Christians (2.43%), Jains (0.43%), Sikhs (0.29%) and Buddhists (0.02%); 0.23% did not state any religion.

 

SLUMS

In the greater metropolitan area, 13% of the population live below the poverty line. According to a 2012 report submitted by GHMC to the World Bank, Hyderabad has 1,476 slums with a total population of 1.7 million, of whom 66% live in 985 slums in the "core" of the city (the part that formed Hyderabad before the April 2007 expansion) and the remaining 34% live in 491 suburban tenements. About 22% of the slum-dwelling households had migrated from different parts of India in the last decade of the 20th century, and 63% claimed to have lived in the slums for more than 10 years. Overall literacy in the slums is 60–80% and female literacy is 52–73%. A third of the slums have basic service connections, and the remainder depend on general public services provided by the government. There are 405 government schools, 267 government aided schools, 175 private schools and 528 community halls in the slum areas. According to a 2008 survey by the Centre for Good Governance, 87.6% of the slum-dwelling households are nuclear families, 18% are very poor, with an income up to ₹20000 (US$300) per annum, 73% live below the poverty line (a standard poverty line recognised by the Andhra Pradesh Government is ₹24000 (US$360) per annum), 27% of the chief wage earners (CWE) are casual labour and 38% of the CWE are illiterate. About 3.72% of the slum children aged 5–14 do not go to school and 3.17% work as child labour, of whom 64% are boys and 36% are girls. The largest employers of child labour are street shops and construction sites. Among the working children, 35% are engaged in hazardous jobs.

 

NEIGHBOURHOODS

The historic city established by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah on the southern side of the Musi River forms the "Old City", while the "New City" encompasses the urbanised area on the northern banks. The two are connected by many bridges across the river, the oldest of which is Purana Pul ("old bridge"). Hyderabad is twinned with neighbouring Secunderabad, to which it is connected by Hussain Sagar.

 

Many historic and tourist sites lie in south central Hyderabad, such as the Charminar, the Mecca Masjid, the Salar Jung Museum, the Nizam's Museum, the Falaknuma Palace, and the traditional retail corridor comprising the Pearl Market, Laad Bazaar and Madina Circle. North of the river are hospitals, colleges, major railway stations and business areas such as Begum Bazaar, Koti, Abids, Sultan Bazaar and Moazzam Jahi Market, along with administrative and recreational establishments such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Telangana Secretariat, the Hyderabad Mint, the Telangana Legislature, the Public Gardens, the Nizam Club, the Ravindra Bharathi, the State Museum, the Birla Temple and the Birla Planetarium.

 

North of central Hyderabad lie Hussain Sagar, Tank Bund Road, Rani Gunj and the Secunderabad Railway Station. Most of the city's parks and recreational centres, such as Sanjeevaiah Park, Indira Park, Lumbini Park, NTR Gardens, the Buddha statue and Tankbund Park are located here. In the northwest part of the city there are upscale residential and commercial areas such as Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Begumpet, Khairatabad and Miyapur. The northern end contains industrial areas such as Sanathnagar, Moosapet, Balanagar, Patancheru and Chanda Nagar. The northeast end is dotted with residential areas. In the eastern part of the city lie many defence research centres and Ramoji Film City. The "Cyberabad" area in the southwest and west of the city has grown rapidly since the 1990s. It is home to information technology and bio-pharmaceutical companies and to landmarks such as Hyderabad Airport, Osman Sagar, Himayath Sagar and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park.

 

LANDMARKS

Heritage buildings constructed during the Qutb Shahi and Nizam eras showcase Indo-Islamic architecture influenced by Medieval, Mughal and European styles. After the 1908 flooding of the Musi River, the city was expanded and civic monuments constructed, particularly during the rule of Mir Osman Ali Khan (the VIIth Nizam), whose patronage of architecture led to him being referred to as the maker of modern Hyderabad. In 2012, the government of India declared Hyderabad the first "Best heritage city of India".

 

Qutb Shahi architecture of the 16th and early 17th centuries followed classical Persian architecture featuring domes and colossal arches. The oldest surviving Qutb Shahi structure in Hyderabad is the ruins of Golconda fort built in the 16th century. The Charminar, Mecca Masjid, Charkaman and Qutb Shahi tombs are other existing structures of this period. Among these the Charminar has become an icon of the city; located in the centre of old Hyderabad, it is a square structure with sides 20 m long and four grand arches each facing a road. At each corner stands a 56 m-high minaret. Most of the historical bazaars that still exist were constructed on the street north of Charminar towards Golconda fort. The Charminar, Qutb Shahi tombs and Golconda fort are considered to be monuments of national importance in India; in 2010 the Indian government proposed that the sites be listed for UNESCO World Heritage status.

 

Among the oldest surviving examples of Nizam architecture in Hyderabad is the Chowmahalla Palace, which was the seat of royal power. It showcases a diverse array of architectural styles, from the Baroque Harem to its Neoclassical royal court. The other palaces include Falaknuma Palace (inspired by the style of Andrea Palladio), Purani Haveli, King Kothi and Bella Vista Palace all of which were built at the peak of Nizam rule in the 19th century. During Mir Osman Ali Khan's rule, European styles, along with Indo-Islamic, became prominent. These styles are reflected in the Falaknuma Palace and many civic monuments such as the Hyderabad High Court, Osmania Hospital, Osmania University, the State Central Library, City College, the Telangana Legislature, the State Archaeology Museum, Jubilee Hall, and Hyderabad and Kachiguda railway stations. Other landmarks of note are Paigah Palace, Asman Garh Palace, Basheer Bagh Palace, Errum Manzil and the Spanish Mosque, all constructed by the Paigah family.

 

ECONOMY

Hyderabad is the largest contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP), tax and other revenues, of Telangana, and the sixth largest deposit centre and fourth largest credit centre nationwide, as ranked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in June 2012. Its US$74 billion GDP made it the fifth-largest contributor city to India's overall GDP in 2011–12. Its per capita annual income in 2011 was ₹44300 (US$670). As of 2006, the largest employers in the city were the governments of Andhra Pradesh (113,098 employees) and India (85,155). According to a 2005 survey, 77% of males and 19% of females in the city were employed. The service industry remains dominant in the city, and 90% of the employed workforce is engaged in this sector.

 

Hyderabad's role in the pearl trade has given it the name "City of Pearls" and up until the 18th century, the city was also the only global trading centre for large diamonds. Industrialisation began under the Nizams in the late 19th century, helped by railway expansion that connected the city with major ports. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Indian enterprises, such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Bharat Electronics (BEL), Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) and Andhra Bank (AB) were established in the city. The city is home to Hyderabad Securities formerly known as Hyderabad Stock Exchange (HSE), and houses the regional office of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). In 2013, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) facility in Hyderabad was forecasted to provide operations and transactions services to BSE-Mumbai by the end of 2014. The growth of the financial services sector has helped Hyderabad evolve from a traditional manufacturing city to a cosmopolitan industrial service centre. Since the 1990s, the growth of information technology (IT), IT-enabled services (ITES), insurance and financial institutions has expanded the service sector, and these primary economic activities have boosted the ancillary sectors of trade and commerce, transport, storage, communication, real estate and retail.

 

Hyderabad's commercial markets are divided into four sectors: central business districts, sub-central business centres, neighbourhood business centres and local business centres. Many traditional and historic bazaars are located throughout the city, Laad Bazaar being the prominent among all is popular for selling a variety of traditional and cultural antique wares, along with gems and pearls.

 

The establishment of Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL), a public sector undertaking, in 1961 was followed over the decades by many national and global companies opening manufacturing and research facilities in the city. As of 2010, the city manufactured one third of India's bulk drugs and 16% of biotechnology products, contributing to its reputation as "India's pharmaceutical capital" and the "Genome Valley of India". Hyderabad is a global centre of information technology, for which it is known as Cyberabad (Cyber City). As of 2013, it contributed 15% of India's and 98% of Andhra Pradesh's exports in IT and ITES sectors and 22% of NASSCOM's total membership is from the city. The development of HITEC City, a township with extensive technological infrastructure, prompted multinational companies to establish facilities in Hyderabad. The city is home to more than 1300 IT and ITES firms, including global conglomerates such as Microsoft (operating its largest R&D campus outside the US), Google, IBM, Yahoo!, Dell, Facebook, and major Indian firms including Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Polaris and Wipro. In 2009 the World Bank Group ranked the city as the second best Indian city for doing business. The city and its suburbs contain the highest number of special economic zones of any Indian city.

 

Like the rest of India, Hyderabad has a large informal economy that employs 30% of the labour force. According to a survey published in 2007, it had 40–50,000 street vendors, and their numbers were increasing. Among the street vendors, 84% are male and 16% female, and four fifths are "stationary vendors" operating from a fixed pitch, often with their own stall. Most are financed through personal savings; only 8% borrow from moneylenders. Vendor earnings vary from ₹50 (75¢ US) to ₹800 (US$12) per day. Other unorganised economic sectors include dairy, poultry farming, brick manufacturing, casual labour and domestic help. Those involved in the informal economy constitute a major portion of urban poor.

 

CULTURE

Hyderabad emerged as the foremost centre of culture in India with the decline of the Mughal Empire. After the fall of Delhi in 1857, the migration of performing artists to the city particularly from the north and west of the Indian sub continent, under the patronage of the Nizam, enriched the cultural milieu. This migration resulted in a mingling of North and South Indian languages, cultures and religions, which has since led to a co-existence of Hindu and Muslim traditions, for which the city has become noted. A further consequence of this north–south mix is that both Telugu and Urdu are official languages of Telangana.[164] The mixing of religions has also resulted in many festivals being celebrated in Hyderabad such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali and Bonalu of Hindu tradition and Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha by Muslims.

 

Traditional Hyderabadi garb also reveals a mix of Muslim and South Asian influences with men wearing sherwani and kurta - paijama and women wearing khara dupatta and salwar kameez. Muslim women also commonly wear burqas and hijabs in public. In addition to the traditional Indian and Muslim garments, increasing exposure to western cultures has led to a rise in the wearing of western style clothing among youths.

 

LITERATURE

In the past, Qutb Shahi rulers and Nizams attracted artists, architects and men of letters from different parts of the world through patronage. The resulting ethnic mix popularised cultural events such as mushairas (poetic symposia). The Qutb Shahi dynasty particularly encouraged the growth of Deccani Urdu literature leading to works such as the Deccani Masnavi and Diwan poetry, which are among the earliest available manuscripts in Urdu. Lazzat Un Nisa, a book compiled in the 15th century at Qutb Shahi courts, contains erotic paintings with diagrams for secret medicines and stimulants in the eastern form of ancient sexual arts. The reign of the Nizams saw many literary reforms and the introduction of Urdu as a language of court, administration and education. In 1824, a collection of Urdu Ghazal poetry, named Gulzar-e-Mahlaqa, authored by Mah Laqa Bai - the first female Urdu poet to produce a Diwan - was published in Hyderabad.

 

Hyderabad has continued with these traditions in its annual Hyderabad Literary Festival, held since 2010, showcasing the city's literary and cultural creativity. Organisations engaged in the advancement of literature include the Sahitya Akademi, the Urdu Academy, the Telugu Academy, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, the Comparative Literature Association of India, and the Andhra Saraswata Parishad. Literary development is further aided by state institutions such as the State Central Library, the largest public library in the state which was established in 1891, and other major libraries including the Sri Krishna Devaraya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam, the British Library and the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram.

 

MUSIC AND FILMS

South Indian music and dances such as the Kuchipudi and Kathakali styles are popular in the Deccan region. As a result of their culture policies, North Indian music and dance gained popularity during the rule of the Mughals and Nizams, and it was also during their reign that it became a tradition among the nobility to associate themselves with tawaif (courtesans). These courtesans were revered as the epitome of etiquette and culture, and were appointed to teach singing, poetry and classical dance to many children of the aristocracy. This gave rise to certain styles of court music, dance and poetry. Besides western and Indian popular music genres such as filmi music, the residents of Hyderabad play city-based marfa music, dholak ke geet (household songs based on local Folklore), and qawwali, especially at weddings, festivals and other celebratory events. The state government organises the Golconda Music and Dance Festival, the Taramati Music Festival and the Premavathi Dance Festival to further encourage the development of music.

 

Although the city is not particularly noted for theatre and drama, the state government promotes theatre with multiple programmes and festivals in such venues as the Ravindra Bharati, Shilpakala Vedika and Lalithakala Thoranam. Although not a purely music oriented event, Numaish, a popular annual exhibition of local and national consumer products, does feature some musical performances. The city is home to the Telugu film industry, popularly known as Tollywood and as of 2012, produces the second largest number of films in India with the largest number being produced by Bollywood. Films in the local Hyderabadi dialect are also produced and have been gaining popularity since 2005. The city has also hosted international film festivals such as the International Children's Film Festival and the Hyderabad International Film Festival. In 2005, Guinness World Records declared Ramoji Film City to be the world's largest film studio.

 

ART AND HANDICRAFTS

The region is well known for its Golconda and Hyderabad painting styles which are branches of Deccani painting. Developed during the 16th century, the Golconda style is a native style blending foreign techniques and bears some similarity to the Vijayanagara paintings of neighbouring Mysore. A significant use of luminous gold and white colours is generally found in the Golconda style. The Hyderabad style originated in the 17th century under the Nizams. Highly influenced by Mughal painting, this style makes use of bright colours and mostly depicts regional landscape, culture, costumes and jewellery.

 

Although not a centre for handicrafts itself, the patronage of the arts by the Mughals and Nizams attracted artisans from the region to Hyderabad. Such crafts include: Bidriware, a metalwork handicraft from neighbouring Karnataka, which was popularised during the 18th century and has since been granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag under the auspices of the WTO act; and Zari and Zardozi, embroidery works on textile that involve making elaborate designs using gold, silver and other metal threads. Another example of a handicraft drawn to Hyderabad is Kalamkari, a hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile that comes from cities in Andhra Pradesh. This craft is distinguished in having both a Hindu style, known as Srikalahasti and entirely done by hand, and an Islamic style, known as Machilipatnam that uses both hand and block techniques. Examples of Hyderabad's arts and crafts are housed in various museums including the Salar Jung Museum (housing "one of the largest one-man-collections in the world"), the AP State Archaeology Museum, the Nizam Museum, the City Museum and the Birla Science Museum.

 

CUISINE

Hyderabadi cuisine comprises a broad repertoire of rice, wheat and meat dishes and the skilled use of various spices. Hyderabadi biryani and Hyderabadi haleem, with their blend of Mughlai and Arab cuisines, have become iconic dishes of India. Hyderabadi cuisine is highly influenced by Mughlai and to some extent by French, Arabic, Turkish, Iranian and native Telugu and Marathwada cuisines. Other popular native dishes include nihari, chakna, baghara baingan and the desserts qubani ka meetha, double ka meetha and kaddu ki kheer (a sweet porridge made with sweet gourd).

 

MEDIA

One of Hyderabad's earliest newspapers, The Deccan Times, was established in the 1780s. In modern times, the major Telugu dailies published in Hyderabad are Eenadu, Andhra Jyothy, Sakshi and Namaste Telangana, while the major English papers are The Times of India, The Hindu and The Deccan Chronicle, and the major Urdu papers include The Siasat Daily, The Munsif Daily and Etemaad. Many coffee table magazines, professional magazines and research journals are also regularly published. The Secunderabad Cantonment Board established the first radio station in Hyderabad State around 1919. Deccan Radio was the first radio public broadcast station in the city starting on 3 February 1935, with FM broadcasting beginning in 2000. The available channels in Hyderabad include All India Radio, Radio Mirchi, Radio City, Red FM and Big FM.

 

Television broadcasting in Hyderabad began in 1974 with the launch of Doordarshan, the Government of India's public service broadcaster, which transmits two free-to-air terrestrial television channels and one satellite channel. Private satellite channels started in July 1992 with the launch of Star TV. Satellite TV channels are accessible via cable subscription, direct-broadcast satellite services or internet-based television. Hyderabad's first dial-up internet access became available in the early 1990s and was limited to software development companies. The first public internet access service began in 1995, with the first private sector internet service provider (ISP) starting operations in 1998. In 2015, high-speed public WiFi was introduced in parts of the city.

 

EDUCATION

Public and private schools in Hyderabad are governed by the Central Board of Secondary Education and follow a "10+2+3" plan. About two-thirds of pupils attend privately run institutions. Languages of instruction include English, Hindi, Telugu and Urdu. Depending on the institution, students are required to sit the Secondary School Certificate or the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education. After completing secondary education, students enroll in schools or junior colleges with a higher secondary facility. Admission to professional graduation colleges in Hyderabad, many of which are affiliated with either Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (JNTUH) or Osmania University (OU), is through the Engineering Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAM-CET).There are 13 universities in Hyderabad: two private universities, two deemed universities, six state universities and three central universities. The central universities are the University of Hyderabad, Maulana Azad National Urdu University and the English and Foreign Languages University. Osmania University, established in 1918, was the first university in Hyderabad and as of 2012 is India's second most popular institution for international students. The Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, established in 1982, is the first distance learning open university in India.

 

Hyderabad is also home to a number of centres specialising in particular fields such as biomedical sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, such as the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). Hyderabad has five major medical schools - Osmania Medical College, Gandhi Medical College, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Deccan College of Medical Sciences and Shadan Institute of Medical Sciences - and many affiliated teaching hospitals. The Government Nizamia Tibbi College is a college of Unani medicine. Hyderabad is also the headquarters of the Indian Heart Association, a non-profit foundation for cardiovascular education.

 

Institutes in Hyderabad include the National Institute of Rural Development, the Indian School of Business, the Institute of Public Enterprise, the Administrative Staff College of India and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy. Technical and engineering schools include the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH), Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Hyderabad (BITS Hyderabad) and Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) as well as agricultural engineering institutes such as the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University. Hyderabad also has schools of fashion design including Raffles Millennium International, NIFT Hyderabad and Wigan and Leigh College. The National Institute of Design, Hyderabad (NID-H), will offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses from 2015.

 

SPORTS

The most popular sports played in Hyderabad are cricket and association football. At the professional level, the city has hosted national and international sports events such as the 2002 National Games of India, the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, the 2004 AP Tourism Hyderabad Open women's tennis tournament, the 2007 Military World Games, the 2009 World Badminton Championships and the 2009 IBSF World Snooker Championship. The city hosts a number of venues suitable for professional competition such as the Swarnandhra Pradesh Sports Complex for field hockey, the G. M. C. Balayogi Stadium in Gachibowli for athletics and football, and for cricket, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium and Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, home ground of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. Hyderabad has hosted many international cricket matches, including matches in the 1987 and the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cups. The Hyderabad cricket team represents the city in the Ranji Trophy - a first-class cricket tournament among India's states and cities. Hyderabad is also home to the Indian Premier League franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad. A previous franchise was the Deccan Chargers, which won the 2009 Indian Premier League held in South Africa.

 

During British rule, Secunderabad became a well-known sporting centre and many race courses, parade grounds and polo fields were built. Many elite clubs formed by the Nizams and the British such as the Secunderabad Club, the Nizam Club and the Hyderabad Race Club, which is known for its horse racing especially the annual Deccan derby, still exist. In more recent times, motorsports has become popular with the Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Club organising popular events such as the Deccan 1/4 Mile Drag, TSD Rallies and 4x4 off-road rallying.

 

International-level sportspeople from Hyderabad include: cricketers Ghulam Ahmed, M. L. Jaisimha, Mohammed Azharuddin, V. V. S. Laxman, Venkatapathy Raju, Shivlal Yadav, Arshad Ayub and Noel David; football players Syed Abdul Rahim, Syed Nayeemuddin and Shabbir Ali; tennis player Sania Mirza; badminton players S. M. Arif, Pullela Gopichand, Saina Nehwal, P. V. Sindhu, Jwala Gutta and Chetan Anand; hockey players Syed Mohammad Hadi and Mukesh Kumar; rifle shooters Gagan Narang and Asher Noria and bodybuilder Mir Mohtesham Ali Khan.

 

TRANSPORT

The most commonly used forms of medium distance transport in Hyderabad include government owned services such as light railways and buses, as well as privately operated taxis and auto rickshaws. Bus services operate from the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station in the city centre and carry over 130 million passengers daily across the entire network. Hyderabad's light rail transportation system, the Multi-Modal Transport System (MMTS), is a three line suburban rail service used by over 160,000 passengers daily. Complementing these government services are minibus routes operated by Setwin (Society for Employment Promotion & Training in Twin Cities). Intercity rail services also operate from Hyderabad; the main, and largest, station is Secunderabad Railway Station, which serves as Indian Railways' South Central Railway zone headquarters and a hub for both buses and MMTS light rail services connecting Secunderabad and Hyderabad. Other major railway stations in Hyderabad are Hyderabad Deccan Station, Kachiguda Railway Station, Begumpet Railway Station, Malkajgiri Railway Station and Lingampally Railway Station. The Hyderabad Metro, a new rapid transit system, is to be added to the existing public transport infrastructure and is scheduled to operate three lines by 2015. As of 2012, there are over 3.5 million vehicles operating in the city, of which 74% are two-wheelers, 15% cars and 3% three-wheelers. The remaining 8% include buses, goods vehicles and taxis. The large number of vehicles coupled with relatively low road coverage - roads occupy only 9.5% of the total city area - has led to widespread traffic congestion especially since 80% of passengers and 60% of freight are transported by road. The Inner Ring Road, the Outer Ring Road, the Hyderabad Elevated Expressway, the longest flyover in India, and various interchanges, overpasses and underpasses were built to ease the congestion. Maximum speed limits within the city are 50 km/h for two-wheelers and cars, 35 km/h for auto rickshaws and 40 km/h for light commercial vehicles and buses.

 

Hyderabad sits at the junction of three National Highways linking it to six other states: NH-7 runs 2,369 km from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, in the north to Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, in the south; NH-9, runs 841 km east-west between Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, and Pune, Maharashtra; and the 280 km NH-163 links Hyderabad to Bhopalpatnam, Chhattisgarh. Five state highways, SH-1, SH-2, SH-4, SH-5 and SH-6, either start from, or pass through, Hyderabad.

 

Air traffic was previously handled via Begumpet Airport, but this was replaced by Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) (IATA: HYD, ICAO: VOHS) in 2008, with the capacity of handling 12 million passengers and 100,000 tonnes of cargo per annum. In 2011, Airports Council International, an autonomous body representing the world's airports, judged RGIA the world's best airport in the 5–15 million passenger category and the world's fifth best airport for service quality.

 

WIKIPEDIA

After decades of rapid and robust growth, the U.S. economy has lost some of its allure. GDP growth averaged 2 percent over the past 5 years, well below the 3 percent or more rates in the two decades before the global financial crisis. Productivity growth is at historic lows and population aging is weighing on labor supply. Some of the lackluster performance can be blamed on the drawn-out recovery, but there is growing evidence that market dynamism had begun to decline well before the Lehman crisis. Business startup and exit rates have fallen since the early 1990s and the labor market has steadily become less and less fluid. Are the gravitational forces of demographic change and productivity normalization finally pulling down growth, or is another innovative burst around the corner? The seminar examines the reasons behind the U.S. growth slowdown, the prospects for a recovery in productivity and dynamism, and the scope for policies to influence current growth trends.

The average human body contains enough human bones to make up an entire human skeleton.

Just your average gun-slinging cowboy.

The average European goldfinch is 12–13 cm (4.7–5.1 in) long with a wingspan of 21–25 cm (8.3–9.8 in) and a weight of 14 to 19 g (0.49 to 0.67 oz). The sexes are broadly similar, with a red face, black and white head, warm brown upper parts, white underparts with buff flanks and breast patches, and black and yellow wings. On closer inspection, male European goldfinches can often be distinguished by a larger, darker red mask that extends just behind the eye. The shoulder feathers are black, whereas they are brown on the female. In females, the red face does not extend past the eye. The ivory-coloured bill is long and pointed, and the tail is forked. Goldfinches in breeding condition have a white bill, with a greyish or blackish mark at the tip for the rest of the year. Juveniles have a plain head and a greyer back but are unmistakable due to the yellow wing stripe.

A mean average amalgamation of the entire video Word Crimes by Weird Al.

 

my blog

PIXLS.US

Averaged from 6 shots to reduce noise.

An average of 250,000 passengers use the Bernina Express annually. Already during the provision and cleaning of the train there is a crowd. Switzerland, June 1, 2023. (2/3)

The River Swale in Yorkshire, England, is a major tributary of the River Ure, which becomes the River Ouse, that empties into the North Sea via the Humber Estuary. The river gives its name to Swaledale, the valley through which it flows.

 

The river and its valley are home to many types of flora and fauna typical to the Yorkshire Dales. Like similar rivers in the region, the river carves through several types of rock and has features typical of both river and glacial erosion. The River Swale has been a contributory factor in the settlements that have been recorded throughout its history. It has provided water to aid in the raising of crops and livestock, but also in the various mining activities that have occurred since Roman times and before.

 

The river is said to be the fastest flowing in England and its levels have been known to rise 10 feet (3 m) in 20 minutes. Annual rainfall figures average 1800 mm p.a. in the headwaters and 1300 mm p.a. in the lower waters over a drop of 148 m in 32 km.

 

The source of the Swale is at the confluence of the Birkdale Beck and the Great Sleddale Beck. The river flows north-north-east past lead mines on its northern bank and the end of Whitsundale and then eastwards towards the first of many waterfalls in the headwaters. After flowing over Wain Wath Force the river continues south-east over Hoggarts Leap and Catrake Force near Keld, before it reaches East Gill Force and Kisdon Force. Shortly after Swinner Gill joins the river it swings sharply south towards the village of Muker where Straw Beck joins and the river turns east again. The river flows past Gunnerside towards Feetham where it turns north-east for a short while before returning east past Healaugh, Reeth and Grinton. The river then swings gently south-east and east below Marrick before turning north-eastward and then north past Marske.

 

The Swale returns eastward near Hudswell before it flows past the main town of the valley, Richmond. It starts a series of long south-east meanders past Brompton-on-Swale and passes under the A1 at Catterick Bridge before turning south past Catterick. The river continues long south and south-east meanders past Thrintoft and Morton-on-Swale. As it starts to pursue a more constant southerly flow it is joined by the River Wiske before passing Skipton-on-Swale, Catton, Topcliffe and Asenby. It then flows past Helperby and Myton-on-Swale before joining the River Ure.

 

River levels

Monitoring station[4]Station elevationLow water levelHigh water levelRecord high level

Park Bridge325 m (1,066 ft)0.00 m (0 ft)2.50 m (8.2 ft)3.04 m (10.0 ft)

Grinton Bridge178 m (584 ft)0 m (0 ft)1.5 m (4.9 ft)2.51 m (8.2 ft)

Richmond Lownthwaite Bridge114 m (374 ft)0.00 m (0 ft)2.0 m (6.6 ft)4.19 m (13.7 ft)

Catterick Bridge60 m (200 ft)0.3 m (0.98 ft)2.40 m (7.9 ft)3.48 m (11.4 ft)

Morton-on-Swale27 m (89 ft)0.13 m (0.43 ft)5.80 m (19.0 ft)6.47 m (21.2 ft)

Crakehill16 m (52 ft)0.22 m (0.72 ft)3 m (9.8 ft)5.45 m (17.9 ft)

Myton-on-Swale12 m (39 ft)0.44 m (1.4 ft)3.44 m (11.3 ft)6.02 m (19.8 ft)

Low and High Water Levels are an average figure.

 

The River Swale and its valley support a range of habitats including broadleaved, mixed and conifer woodland as well as hay meadows and grasslands. Limestone scar, bracken, scrub and heather moorland can also be found. Amongst the species of tree that can be found are ash, birch, rowan and bird cherry along with shrubs such as hawthorn, hazel and holly. There are smaller populations of yew and sycamore. Pine, larch and spruce occur mostly in plantations with alder and willow common along the river banks. The many hay meadows are filled with buttercup species and wood cranesbill.

 

There are three distinct geological areas in Upper and Mid Swaledale. The upper reaches of the river flow over Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic rock, all of which are atop a layer of Lower Paleozoic beds. These rocks are rich in minerals and metalliferous sulfide ores such as galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite and bravoite. There are also deposits of fluorite, barite, witherite, calcite, dolomite and barytocalcite.

 

Along the valley sides can be seen the typical Dales geology of Yoredale beds, alternating strata of limestone and gritstone.[9] Small seams of coal, particularly around Tan Hill, have been found and worked. During the last Ice Age, the glacier that dominated the valley was responsible for broadening it and altering the course of the river around Keld and Round Howe. It was also responsible for cutting the Kisdon gorge. Retreat moraines lower in the river valley can be seen around Gunnerside and Grinton Bridge.

 

The earliest evidence of occupation in the river valley can be dated to the Mesolithic and Neolithic Ages with the discovery of flint tools and arrowheads. Around Harkerside are some small stone circles that date to the Bronze Age and some Iron Age defensive earthworks. Evidence of lead mining has been traced back to Roman times with finds at the Hurst mine. This industry seemed to decline until after the Norse (Danish) invasions of the area. During the major ecclesiastical building of the 12th and 13th centuries, lead became a valuable commodity and mining once again increased in the valley. Evidence of the lead mining can still be seen from the remains of the 18th-century practice of 'hushing' that involved creating turf dams across gills that were then released to wash away topsoil to expose the ore veins.

 

It was part of the Votadini Celtic kingdom of Catraeth, but in the late 6th century the river valley was invaded by Angles who took the settlement at Catraeth (now Catterick). Warriors from the Celtic Gododdin kingdom to the north attempted to dislodge them, but failed to do so at the Battle of Catraeth. The Angles then established themselves at Reeth, Stainton, Grinton Bridge and Fremington. By the mid-9th century the area had been invaded by Norsemen who settled first the lower and then the upper valley. After the Norman invasion, the lands of the valley were given to Alan the Red of Brittany who built the castle at Richmond between 1071 and 1091. It was built on a bluff overlooking the River Swale.

 

In the 7th century, St Paulinus supposedly immersed thousands of people in a baptismal rite at Brompton-on-Swale and further downstream at Brafferton. Because so many had been baptised in this way, 19th-century writers have labelled the Swale as England's River Jordan. Mass baptisms are still carried out in the river around the Catterick Bridge area.

 

Over the centuries, lead mining and cattle farming have been the main industries, but competition from the rest of the world saw them decline by the end of the 19th century. Some crop farming also took place, most notably during the warm periods of the 13th century.

 

Tourism now plays a major role in the economy of the river valley. The Yorkshire Dales Cycle Way follows the valley between Fremington and Gunnerside. The Coast to Coast Walk passes through Richmond to Reeth and is crossed at Keld by the Pennine Way, which goes through the upper valley from Buttertubs Pass to Muker.

 

The Yorkshire Dales National Park is a 2,178 km2 (841 sq mi) national park in England covering most of the Yorkshire Dales, with the notable exception of Nidderdale. Most of the park is in North Yorkshire, with a sizeable area in Cumbria and a small part in Lancashire. The park was designated in 1954, and extended in 2016. Over 95% of the land in the Park is under private ownership; there are over 1,000 farms in this area.

 

In late 2020, the park was named as an International Dark Sky Reserve. This honour confirms that the area has "low levels of light pollution with good conditions for astronomy".

 

Some 23,500 residents live in the park (as of 2017); a 2018 report estimated that the Park attracted over four million visitors per year. The economy consists primarily of tourism and agriculture.

 

The park is 50 miles (80 km) north-east of Manchester; Otley, Ilkley, Leeds and Bradford lie to the south, while Kendal is to the west, Darlington to the north-east and Harrogate to the south-east.

 

The national park does not include all of the Yorkshire Dales. Parts of the dales to the south and east of the national park are located in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The national park also includes the Howgill Fells and Orton Fells in the north west although they are not often considered part of the dales.

 

In 1947, the Hobhouse Report recommended the creation of the Yorkshire Dales National Park covering parts of the West Riding and North Riding of Yorkshire. The proposed National Park included most of the Yorkshire Dales, but not Nidderdale. Accordingly, Nidderdale was not included in the National Park when it was designated in 1954. In 1963 the then West Riding County Council proposed that Nidderdale should be added to the National Park, but the proposal met with opposition from the district councils which would have lost some of their powers to the county council.

 

Following the Local Government Act 1972 most of the area of the national park was transferred in 1974 to the new county of North Yorkshire. An area in the north west of the national park (Dentdale, Garsdale and the town of Sedbergh) was transferred from the West Riding of Yorkshire to the new county of Cumbria. In 1997 management of the national park passed from the county councils to the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

 

A westward extension of the park into Lancashire and Westmorland encompassed much of the area between the old boundaries of the park and the M6 motorway. This increased the area by nearly 24% and brought the park close to the towns of Kirkby Lonsdale, Kirkby Stephen and Appleby-in-Westmorland. The extension also includes the northern portion of the Howgill Fells and most of the Orton Fells. Before the expansion, the national park was solely in the historic county of Yorkshire, the expansion bringing in parts of historic Lancashire and Westmorland.

 

The area has a wide range of activities for visitors. For example, many people come to the Dales for walking or other exercise. Several long-distance routes cross the park, including the Pennine Way, the Dales Way, the Coast to Coast Walk and the Pennine Bridleway. Cycling is also popular and there are several cycleways.

 

The DalesBus service provides service in the Dales on certain days in summer, "including the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty". In summer, these buses supplement the other services that operate year-round in the Dales.

 

Tourism in the region declined due to restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and into 2021. Later in 2021, the volume of visits was expected to increase as a result of the 2020 TV series All Creatures Great and Small, largely filmed within the Dales. The first series aired in the UK in September 2020 and in the US in early 2021. One source stated that visits to Yorkshire Web sites had increased significantly by late September 2020. By early 2021, the Discover England Web sites, for example, were using the tag line "Discover All Creatures Great and Small in Yorkshire".

 

The Dales Countryside Museum is housed in the converted Hawes railway station in Wensleydale in the north of the area.The park also has five visitor centres. These are at:

Aysgarth Falls

Grassington

Hawes

Malham

Reeth

 

Other places and sights within the National Park include:

Bolton Castle

Clapham

Cautley Spout waterfall

Firbank Fell

Gaping Gill

Gayle Mill

Hardraw Force

Horton in Ribblesdale

Howgill Fells

Kisdon Force (waterfall) in Swaledale

Leck Fell

Malham Cove, Gordale Scar, Janet's Foss and Malham Tarn

Orton Fells

River Lune

Sedbergh

Settle

Settle and Carlisle Railway including the Ribblehead Viaduct

Wild Boar Fell

The Yorkshire Three Peaks (Ingleborough, Pen-y-ghent and Whernside)

 

North Yorkshire is a ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber and North East regions of England. It borders County Durham to the north, the North Sea to the east, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the south-east, South Yorkshire to the south, West Yorkshire to the south-west, and Cumbria and Lancashire to the west. Northallerton is the county town.

 

The county is the largest in England by land area, at 9,020 km2 (3,480 sq mi), and has a population of 1,158,816. The largest settlements are Middlesbrough (174,700) in the north-east and the city of York (152,841) in the south. Middlesbrough is part of the Teesside built-up area, which extends into County Durham and has a total population of 376,663. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Harrogate (73,576) and Scarborough (61,749). For local government purposes the county comprises four unitary authority areas — York, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and North Yorkshire — and part of a fifth, Stockton-on-Tees.

 

The centre of the county contains a wide plain, called the Vale of Mowbray in the north and Vale of York in the south. The North York Moors lie to the east, and south of them the Vale of Pickering is separated from the main plain by the Howardian Hills. The west of the county contains the Yorkshire Dales, an extensive upland area which contains the source of the River Ouse/Ure and many of its tributaries, which together drain most of the county. The Dales also contain the county's highest point, Whernside, at 2,415 feet (736 m).

 

North Yorkshire non-metropolitan and ceremonial county was formed on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. It covered most of the North Riding of Yorkshire, as well as northern parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, northern and eastern East Riding of Yorkshire and the former county borough of York. Northallerton, as the former county town for the North Riding, became North Yorkshire's county town. In 1993 the county was placed wholly within the Yorkshire and the Humber region.

 

Some areas which were part of the former North Riding were in the county of Cleveland for twenty-two years (from 1974 to 1996) and were placed in the North East region from 1993. On 1 April 1996, these areas (Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton borough south of the River Tees) became part of the ceremonial county as separate unitary authorities. These areas remain within the North East England region.

 

Also on 1 April 1996, the City of York non-metropolitan district and parts of the non-metropolitan county (Haxby and nearby rural areas) became the City of York unitary authority.

 

On 1 April 2023, the non-metropolitan county became a unitary authority. This abolished eight councils and extended the powers of the county council to act as a district council.

 

The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority held its first meeting on 22 January 2024, assumed its powers on 1 February 2024 and the first mayor is to be elected in May 2024.

 

The geology of North Yorkshire is closely reflected in its landscape. Within the county are the North York Moors and most of the Yorkshire Dales, two of eleven areas in England and Wales to be designated national parks. Between the North York Moors in the east and the Pennine Hills. The highest point is Whernside, on the Cumbrian border, at 2,415 feet (736 m). A distinctive hill to the far north east of the county is Roseberry Topping.

 

North Yorkshire contains several major rivers. The River Tees is the most northerly, forming part of the border between North Yorkshire and County Durham in its lower reaches and flowing east through Teesdale before reaching the North Sea near Redcar. The Yorkshire Dales are the source of many of the county's major rivers, including the Aire, Lune, Ribble, Swale, Ure, and Wharfe.[10] The Aire, Swale, and Wharfe are tributaries of the Ure/Ouse, which at 208 km (129 mi) long is the sixth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The river is called the Ure until it meets Ouse Gill beck just below the village of Great Ouseburn, where it becomes the Ouse and flows south before exiting the county near Goole and entering the Humber estuary. The North York Moors are the catchment for a number of rivers: the Leven which flows north into the Tees between Yarm and Ingleby Barwick; the Esk flows east directly into the North Sea at Whitby as well as the Rye (which later becomes the Derwent at Malton) flows south into the River Ouse at Goole.

 

North Yorkshire contains a small section of green belt in the south of the county, which surrounds the neighbouring metropolitan area of Leeds along the North and West Yorkshire borders. It extends to the east to cover small communities such as Huby, Kirkby Overblow, and Follifoot before covering the gap between the towns of Harrogate and Knaresborough, helping to keep those towns separate.

 

The belt adjoins the southernmost part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the Nidderdale AONB. It extends into the western area of Selby district, reaching as far as Tadcaster and Balne. The belt was first drawn up from the 1950s.

 

The city of York has an independent surrounding belt area affording protections to several outlying settlements such as Haxby and Dunnington, and it too extends into the surrounding districts.

 

North Yorkshire has a temperate oceanic climate, like most of the UK. There are large climate variations within the county. The upper Pennines border on a Subarctic climate. The Vale of Mowbray has an almost Semi-arid climate. Overall, with the county being situated in the east, it receives below-average rainfall for the UK. Inside North Yorkshire, the upper Dales of the Pennines are one of the wettest parts of England, where in contrast the driest parts of the Vale of Mowbray are some of the driest areas in the UK.

 

Summer temperatures are above average, at 22 °C. Highs can regularly reach up to 28 °C, with over 30 °C reached in heat waves. Winter temperatures are below average, with average lows of 1 °C. Snow and Fog can be expected depending on location. The North York Moors and Pennines have snow lying for an average of between 45 and 75 days per year. Sunshine is most plentiful on the coast, receiving an average of 1,650 hours a year. It reduces further west in the county, with the Pennines receiving 1,250 hours a year.

 

The county borders multiple counties and districts:

County Durham's County Durham, Darlington, Stockton (north Tees) and Hartlepool;

East Riding of Yorkshire's East Riding of Yorkshire;

South Yorkshire's City of Doncaster;

West Yorkshire's City of Wakefield, City of Leeds and City of Bradford;

Lancashire's City of Lancaster, Ribble Valley and Pendle

Cumbria's Westmorland and Furness.

 

The City of York Council and North Yorkshire Council formed the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority in February 2024. The elections for the first directly-elected mayor will take place in May 2024. Both North Yorkshire Council and the combined authority are governed from County Hall, Northallerton.

 

The Tees Valley Combined Authority was formed in 2016 by five unitary authorities; Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland Borough both of North Yorkshire, Stockton-on-Tees Borough (Uniquely for England, split between North Yorkshire and County Durham), Hartlepool Borough and Darlington Borough of County Durham.

 

In large areas of North Yorkshire, agriculture is the primary source of employment. Approximately 85% of the county is considered to be "rural or super sparse".

 

Other sectors in 2019 included some manufacturing, the provision of accommodation and meals (primarily for tourists) which accounted for 19 per cent of all jobs. Food manufacturing employed 11 per cent of workers. A few people are involved in forestry and fishing in 2019. The average weekly earnings in 2018 were £531. Some 15% of workers declared themselves as self-employed. One report in late 2020 stated that "North Yorkshire has a relatively healthy and diverse economy which largely mirrors the national picture in terms of productivity and jobs.

 

Mineral extraction and power generation are also sectors of the economy, as is high technology.

 

Tourism is a significant contributor to the economy. A study of visitors between 2013 and 2015 indicated that the Borough of Scarborough, including Filey, Whitby and parts of the North York Moors National Park, received 1.4m trips per year on average. A 2016 report by the National Park, states the park area gets 7.93 million visitors annually, generating £647 million and supporting 10,900 full-time equivalent jobs.

 

The Yorkshire Dales have also attracted many visitors. In 2016, there were 3.8 million visits to the National Park including 0.48 million who stayed at least one night. The parks service estimates that this contributed £252 million to the economy and provided 3,583 full-time equivalent jobs. The wider Yorkshire Dales area received 9.7 million visitors who contributed £644 million to the economy. The North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales are among England's best known destinations.

 

York is a popular tourist destination. A 2014 report, based on 2012 data, stated that York alone receives 6.9 million visitors annually; they contribute £564 million to the economy and support over 19,000 jobs. In the 2017 Condé Nast Traveller survey of readers, York rated 12th among The 15 Best Cities in the UK for visitors. In a 2020 Condé Nast Traveller report, York rated as the sixth best among ten "urban destinations [in the UK] that scored the highest marks when it comes to ... nightlife, restaurants and friendliness".

 

During February 2020 to January 2021, the average property in North Yorkshire county sold for £240,000, up by £8100 over the previous 12 months. By comparison, the average for England and Wales was £314,000. In certain communities of North Yorkshire, however, house prices were higher than average for the county, as of early 2021: Harrogate (average value: £376,195), Knaresborough (£375,625), Tadcaster (£314,278), Leyburn (£309,165) and Ripon (£299,998), for example.

 

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added for North Yorkshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.

 

Unemployment in the county was traditionally low in recent years, but the lockdowns and travel restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on the economy during much of 2020 and into 2021. The UK government said in early February 2021 that it was planning "unprecedented levels of support to help businesses [in the UK] survive the crisis". A report published on 1 March 2021 stated that the unemployment rate in North Yorkshire had "risen to the highest level in nearly 5 years – with under 25s often bearing the worst of job losses".

 

York experienced high unemployment during lockdown periods. One analysis (by the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership) predicted in August 2020 that "as many as 13,835 jobs in York will be lost in the scenario considered most likely, taking the city's unemployment rate to 14.5%". Some critics claimed that part of the problem was caused by "over-reliance on the booming tourism industry at the expense of a long-term economic plan". A report in mid June 2020 stated that unemployment had risen 114 per cent over the previous year because of restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic.

 

Tourism in the county was expected to increase after the restrictions imposed due the pandemic are relaxed. One reason for the expected increase is the airing of All Creatures Great and Small, a TV series about the vet James Herriot, based on a successful series of books; it was largely filmed within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The show aired in the UK in September 2020 and in the US in early 2021. One source stated that visits to Yorkshire websites had increased significantly by late September 2020.

 

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) bisects the county stopping at Northallerton,Thirsk and York. Passenger service companies in the area are London North Eastern Railway, Northern Rail, TransPennine Express and Grand Central.

 

LNER and Grand Central operate services to the capital on the ECML, Leeds Branch Line and the Northallerton–Eaglescliffe Line. LNER stop at York, Northallerton and on to County Durham or spur over to the Tees Valley Line for Thornaby and Middlesbrough. The operator also branch before the county for Leeds and run to Harrogate and Skipton. Grand Central stop at York, Thirsk Northallerton and Eaglescliffe then over to the Durham Coast Line in County Durham.

 

Northern operates the remaining lines in the county, including commuter services on the Harrogate Line, Airedale Line and York & Selby Lines, of which the former two are covered by the Metro ticketing area. Remaining branch lines operated by Northern include the Yorkshire Coast Line from Scarborough to Hull, York–Scarborough line via Malton, the Hull to York Line via Selby, the Tees Valley Line from Darlington to Saltburn via Middlesbrough and the Esk Valley Line from Middlesbrough to Whitby. Last but certainly not least, the Settle-Carlisle Line runs through the west of the county, with services again operated by Northern.

 

The county suffered badly under the Beeching cuts of the 1960s. Places such as Richmond, Ripon, Tadcaster, Helmsley, Pickering and the Wensleydale communities lost their passenger services. Notable lines closed were the Scarborough and Whitby Railway, Malton and Driffield Railway and the secondary main line between Northallerton and Harrogate via Ripon.

 

Heritage railways within North Yorkshire include: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, between Pickering and Grosmont, which opened in 1973; the Derwent Valley Light Railway near York; and the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. The Wensleydale Railway, which started operating in 2003, runs services between Leeming Bar and Redmire along a former freight-only line. The medium-term aim is to operate into Northallerton station on the ECML, once an agreement can be reached with Network Rail. In the longer term, the aim is to reinstate the full line west via Hawes to Garsdale on the Settle-Carlisle line.

 

York railway station is the largest station in the county, with 11 platforms and is a major tourist attraction in its own right. The station is immediately adjacent to the National Railway Museum.

 

The main road through the county is the north–south A1(M), which has gradually been upgraded in sections to motorway status since the early 1990s. The only other motorways within the county are the short A66(M) near Darlington and a small stretch of the M62 motorway close to Eggborough. The other nationally maintained trunk routes are the A168/A19, A64, A66 and A174.

 

Long-distance coach services are operated by National Express and Megabus. Local bus service operators include Arriva Yorkshire, Stagecoach, Harrogate Bus Company, The Keighley Bus Company, Scarborough & District (East Yorkshire), Yorkshire Coastliner, First York and the local Dales & District.

 

There are no major airports in the county itself, but nearby airports include Teesside International (Darlington), Newcastle and Leeds Bradford.

 

The main campus of Teesside University is in Middlesbrough, while York contains the main campuses of the University of York and York St John University. There are also two secondary campuses in the county: CU Scarborough, a campus of Coventry University, and Queen's Campus, Durham University in Thornaby-on-Tees.

 

Colleges

Middlesbrough College's sixth-form

Askham Bryan College of agriculture, Askham Bryan and Middlesbrough

Craven College, Skipton

Middlesbrough College

The Northern School of Art, Middlesbrough

Prior Pursglove College

Redcar & Cleveland College

Scarborough Sixth Form College

Scarborough TEC

Selby College

Stockton Riverside College, Thornaby

York College

 

Places of interest

Ampleforth College

Beningbrough Hall –

Black Sheep Brewery

Bolton Castle –

Brimham Rocks –

Castle Howard and the Howardian Hills –

Catterick Garrison

Cleveland Hills

Drax Power Station

Duncombe Park – stately home

Eden Camp Museum –

Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway –

Eston Nab

Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo –

Helmsley Castle –

Ingleborough Cave – show cave

John Smith's Brewery

Jorvik Viking Centre –

Lightwater Valley –

Lund's Tower

Malham Cove

Middleham Castle –

Mother Shipton's Cave –

National Railway Museum –

North Yorkshire Moors Railway –

Ormesby Hall – Palladian Mansion

Richmond Castle –

Ripley Castle – Stately home and historic village

Riverside Stadium

Samuel Smith's Brewery

Shandy Hall – stately home

Skipton Castle –

Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications –

Studley Royal Park –

Stump Cross Caverns – show cave

Tees Transporter Bridge

Theakston Brewery

Thornborough Henges

Wainman's Pinnacle

Wharram Percy

York Castle Museum –

Yorkshire Air Museum –

The Yorkshire Arboretum

THIRTY ONE MILLION hits!

.... achieved 18 February 2015 at 22.19 hrs

 

Now averaging 2 million a month!

 

Previous milestones:-

 

3 million achieved 17 March 12

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/6989950303

4 million achieved 1 December 12

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/8235666881

5 million achieved 1 August 13

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/9413787668

6 million achieved 10 September 13

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/9714914983

7 million achieved 17 October 13

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/10335051083

8 million achieved 25 November 13

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/11047912183

9 million hits achieved 31 December 2013

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/11668667523

10 million hits achieved 31 January 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/12239172205

11 Million achieved on 4 March 2014

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/12936048793

12 Million achieved on 13 April 2014

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/13815526595/

13 Million achieved on 2 May 2014

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14065942026

14 Million achieved on 19 May 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14035509440

15 Million achieved on 6 June 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14035509440

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15203173303/

26 million achieved on 3 Dec 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15760632588

27 million achieved on 19 Dec14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15869247138

28 million achieved on 4 Jan 15

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/16008228689

29 million achieved on 19 Jan 15

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/16293895146/

30 million achieved 5 Feb 15

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/1644291389116 Million achieved on 23 Jun 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14484422471/

17 Million achieved on 11 Jul 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14605040966

18 Million achieved on 28 Jul 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14585000930

19 million achieved on 14 Aug 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/14917180225

20 million achieved on 31 Aug 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15095923641

21 million achieved on 18 Sep 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15275673801

22 million achieved on 5 Oct 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15445721475

23 million achieved on 21 Oct 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/16293895146/

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15591416982

24 million achieved on 4 Nov 14

www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/15525506729

25 million achieved on 18 Nov 14

 

ScreenHunter_541 Feb. 18 22.19

18 Feb 15