Aarhus, Denmark.

October 2015.

Once land was surveyed and sold, the first farmers started arriving in the area around 1875 settling their 640 acre blocks. Fortunately in that year 29 inches of rain fell (725 mm) and the season was excellent. Goyder’s Line seemed unnecessary and restrictive. On average Orroroo has 325 mm of rain a year. Unlike other places further north the rainfall is more reliable in Orroroo than places like Carrieton or Cradock. The nearby Pekina Ranges help with this.

 

Orroroo township had some early origins. It was a stopping point on the early Blinman to Burra copper route for transporting Blinman copper down to Burra for smelting. A small refreshment structure was built on Pekina Creek in the mid 1860s. The current township was surveyed in 1875 and named at the suggestion of this refreshment shanty owner. It is an Aboriginal word meaning “wind in the trees.” Land sales started in 1876 and the erection of buildings began in 1878. The Orroroo Hotel opened around 1877 followed by the Commercial Hotel in 1878. A general store opened and a three storey flour mill was also erected in 1878. Wheat from the Orroroo area was always highly prized as the high altitude (528 metres or 1,735 feet), cold winters, and dry spring made for a hard, high protein wheat. (Today this wheat is used for frozen products like frozen bread dough etc). The flour mill in Orroroo was modernized as the years went by and it survived until 1945 before being destroyed by fire. Flour from Orroroo was later sent by rail to Broken Hill for sale there. The town progressed quickly and in the 1881 census Orroroo had 314 residents. Today Orroroo has a population of 550 people.

 

1881 was a crucial year in the town’s development for the government was considering options for rail routes in the north for the new farmers. One option was a rail line from Port Germein up through the Germein Gorge to Murraytown and across the plains to Booleroo Centre and Orroroo. This line would have continued the government policy of sending lines inland from the ports such as Augusta, Pirie, Broughton, Wakefield, Robe etc. In the end the government took a different option with a line from Peterborough north to Orroroo in 1881. This line went further north to Eurelia and Carrieton before travelling via Hammond and Bruce (both now ghost towns) to Quorn where it linked with the rail line already linking Quorn with Port Augusta through Pichi Richi Gorge. The advantage of this line was that it linked several inland routes with a rail line to Port Adelaide.

 

Apart from wheat the other industry which provided much wealth (and population) to the town and immediate district was dairying. In 1906 Pekina Creek was dammed and an irrigation scheme established. Water was piped to 40 dairy farms on the eastern flats below the town of Orroroo. Lucerne was irrigated for fodder for the dairy cows. This explains the wealth and prosperity of Orroroo in the 1920s and 1930s. Some dairies still existed in the 1970s but they are gone now. Because of this scheme the butter factory, a fine stone structure, was opened in 1907 and the product produced was known as Walloway Butter. Butter was exported to London, but about 70% of it went to Broken Hill. In 1919 the factory was taken over by South Australian Farmers’ Cooperative Union, later Farmers Union. The factory you can still see today was built at this time for £8,000. It opened in 1921. The butter factory closed in 1971 and milk was then dispatched to Gawler by road.

 

The other major town industries were the Enterprise Newspaper and printing works established in 1892, (it ceased production in Orroroo in 1970 and was then produced in Peterborough) and Richard Parnell’s blacksmith and wheelwright business. Parnell’s started producing agricultural implements in Orroroo and Walloway in 1880. Their forge was always busy producing carriages, bullock drays, buggies, sulkies and wagons. Keeping abreast of the times Parnell’s established a motor garage in 1914 and began selling Model T Fords. Eventually Parnell’s moved into road transportation. All these businesses in the town were boosted greatly with the arrival of the railway in 1881 as it pushed its way north to Quorn. Until 1937 and the completion of the new line from Adelaide to Port Pirie, Orroroo was on the main rail line to Perth and Alice Springs. Leigh Creek brown coal was also shipped through the town until the early 1950s and the establishment of the first power station in Port Augusta.

 

Back in the main street department stores were established in the 1890s and the Institute opened in 1880 and at the same time a Post Office opened. The Institute was upgraded and renamed as the Soldiers Memorial Hall in 1924. Orroroo School opened in 1880. It eventually became a higher Primary school in 1916 and an Area School in 1962. The main street businesses included stock and station agents because Orroroo had a large regional livestock market. A branch of the National Bank opened in 1878 in a house. Next came the Savings Bank of SA in 1881. Like many SA towns Orroroo got a new Savings Bank in 1936 as part of the SA centenary celebrations. One well known business was that of the misses Toop. The three sister carried on a dressmaking extraordinaire business for many years. They had clients across SA. Other members of the Toop family established a Buick car agency in the town in 1922.

 

Like all growing towns Orroroo soon had its own churches. The Primitive Methodists built the first church in 1876 but soon proposed to sell it to the Baptist Church in 1878. This fell through and it was sold to the Catholic Church in 1881. The first Wesleyan Methodist Church was opened in 1882. The present day Uniting Church was constructed as the Methodist Church in 1911, The Sunday School was built in 1934 in a classical revival style which is unusual for Orroroo. The present day Catholic Church was opened in 1926. The almost strange Anglican Church in Mediterranean style was opened in 1920. Prior to this the Anglicans had a small church that had been built in 1879.

 

Orroroo was unusual in that it had a Light Horse Troop based in the town. Prior to Federation SA was responsible for its own armed services. The Orroroo Light Horse Troop become part of the 17th Australian Light Horse Regiment and many members from Orroroo served in the First World War. After World War One the Orroroo troop became a part of the 9th Light Horse Regiment.

 

The Karpas Peninsula is a long, finger-like peninsula that is one of the most prominent geographical features of the island of Cyprus. Its farthest extent is Cape Apostolos Andreas, and its major population centre is the town of Rizokarpaso (Greek: Ριζοκάρπασο; Turkish: Dipkarpaz). The peninsula de facto forms the İskele District of Northern Cyprus, while de jure it lies in the Famagusta District of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

It covers an area of 898 km2, making up 27% of the territory of Northern Cyprus. It is much less densely populated than the average of Northern Cyprus, with a population density of 26 people per km2 in 2010. The town of Trikomo (İskele), the district capital, is considered to be the "gateway" and the geographical starting point of the peninsula, along with the neighboring village of Bogazi (Boğaz). Apart from Trikomo, the most important towns and municipalities in the area are Yialousa, Galateia, Rizokarpaso, Komi Kebir and Akanthou.

 

The peninsula hosts a number of historical sites such as Kantara Castle and Apostolos Andreas Monastery, as well as the ruins of Agia Trias Basilica and the ancient cities of Karpasia and Aphendrika among numerous others.

 

There are more than 46 sandy beaches in the peninsula, which are the primary Eastern Mediterranean nesting grounds for the loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas). The Golden Beach is situated around 15 km from the town of Rizokarpaso and is considered one of the finest and most remote beaches of Cyprus. It is one of the least tourist-frequented beaches in the island. The Karpas Peninsula is home to the Karpas donkey, known as a symbol of Cyprus; there are campaigns carried out jointly by Turkish and Greek Cypriots to conserve the rare donkeys of the peninsula.

 

Most of the activities in the Karpas Peninsula are related to agriculture, fishing, hunting, and some to micro-tourism. Local farmers take advantage of this natural environment to grow different fruits and vegetables mostly as sub-subsistence farming (although for local commerce too). The region is mostly known for its karpuz (Turkish for "watermelon"). Several tourist businesses can be found in the town of Rizokarpaso. These are generally restaurants serving traditional Turkish-Cypriot Cuisine, including meze.

 

Due to its geographical position, the Karpas Peninsula is somewhat protected from human interference. This makes it a pristine natural environment, home to many inland and marine species. When hunting season starts, the Karpas's forests are a popular location to go hunting for partridges. Meanwhile, the coastal region, with its clear waters, moderate northern currents, and rocky bottom with cave-like structures, is home to two of the most highly valued fish species: the orfoz (dusky grouper) and lahos (Epinepheluses). The price per kilogram of each species ranges from 35-80 Turkish lira, depending on the location and the season. However, fishing rates in the Karpas region and most of North Cyprus dramatically decreased last century because of the use of dynamite. This is why the Zafer Burunu (the tip of the peninsula) is now a protected natural heritage area, where marine species are slowly recovering to healthy population parameters.

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. national monument and national preserve in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. It is along US 20 (concurrent with US 93 and US 26), between the small towns of Arco and Carey, at an average elevation of 5,900 feet (1,800 m) above sea level.

 

The Monument was established on May 2, 1924. In November 2000, a presidential proclamation by President Clinton greatly expanded the Monument area. The 410,000-acre National Park Service portions of the expanded Monument were designated as Craters of the Moon National Preserve in August 2002. It spreads across Blaine, Butte, Lincoln, Minidoka, and Power counties. The area is managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

 

The Monument and Preserve encompass three major lava fields and about 400 square miles (1,000 km2) of sagebrush steppe grasslands to cover a total area of 1,117 square miles (2,893 km2). The Monument alone covers 343,000 acres (139,000 ha). All three lava fields lie along the Great Rift of Idaho, with some of the best examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the deepest known on Earth at 800 feet (240 m). There are excellent examples of almost every variety of basaltic lava, as well as tree molds (cavities left by lava-incinerated trees), lava tubes (a type of cave), and many other volcanic features.

 

Craters of the Moon is in south-central Idaho, midway between Boise and Yellowstone National Park. The lava field reaches southeastward from the Pioneer Mountains. Combined U.S. Highway 20–26–93 cuts through the northwestern part of the monument and provides access to it. However, the rugged landscape of the monument itself remains remote and undeveloped, with only one paved road across the northern end.

 

The Craters of the Moon Lava Field spreads across 618 square miles (1,601 km2) and is the largest mostly Holocene-aged basaltic lava field in the contiguous United States. The Monument and Preserve contain more than 25 volcanic cones, including outstanding examples of spatter cones. The 60 distinct solidified lava flows that form the Craters of the Moon Lava Field range in age from 15,000 to just 2,000 years. The Kings Bowl and Wapi lava fields, both about 2,200 years old, are part of the National Preserve.

 

This lava field is the largest of several large beds of lava that erupted from the 53-mile (85 km) south-east to north-west trending Great Rift volcanic zone, a line of weakness in the Earth's crust. Together with fields from other fissures they make up the Lava Beds of Idaho, which in turn are in the much larger Snake River Plain volcanic province. The Great Rift extends across almost the entire Snake River Plain.

 

Elevation at the visitor center is 5,900 feet (1,800 m) above sea level.

 

Total average precipitation in the Craters of the Moon area is between 15–20 inches (380–510 mm) per year. Most of this is lost in cracks in the basalt, only to emerge later in springs and seeps in the walls of the Snake River Canyon. Older lava fields on the plain have been invaded by drought-resistant plants such as sagebrush, while younger fields, such as Craters of the Moon, only have a seasonal and very sparse cover of vegetation. From a distance this cover disappears almost entirely, giving an impression of utter black desolation. Repeated lava flows over the last 15,000 years have raised the land surface enough to expose it to the prevailing southwesterly winds, which help to keep the area dry. Together these conditions make life on the lava field difficult.

 

Paleo-Indians visited the area about 12,000 years ago but did not leave much archaeological evidence. Northern Shoshone created trails through the Craters of the Moon Lava Field during their summer migrations from the Snake River to the camas prairie, west of the lava field. Stone windbreaks at Indian Tunnel were used to protect campsites from the dry summer wind. No evidence exists for permanent habitation by any Native American group. A hunting and gathering culture, the Northern Shoshone pursued elk, bears, American bison, cougars, and bighorn sheep — all large game who no longer range the area. The most recent volcanic eruptions ended about 2,100 years ago and were likely witnessed by the Shoshone people. Ella E. Clark has recorded a Shoshone legend which speaks of a serpent on a mountain who, angered by lightning, coiled around and squeezed the mountain until liquid rock flowed, fire shot from cracks, and the mountain exploded.

 

In 1879, two Arco cattlemen named Arthur Ferris and J.W. Powell became the first known European-Americans to explore the lava fields. They were investigating its possible use for grazing and watering cattle but found the area to be unsuitable and left.

 

U.S. Army Captain and western explorer B.L.E. Bonneville visited the lava fields and other places in the West in the 19th century and wrote about his experiences in his diaries. Washington Irving later used Bonneville's diaries to write the Adventures of Captain Bonneville, saying this unnamed lava field is a place "where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful waste, where no grass grows nor water runs, and where nothing is to be seen but lava."

 

In 1901 and 1903, Israel Russell became the first geologist to study this area while surveying it for the United States Geological Survey (USGS). In 1910, Samuel Paisley continued Russell's work and later became the monument's first custodian. Others followed and in time much of the mystery surrounding this and the other Lava Beds of Idaho was lifted.

 

The few European settlers who visited the area in the 19th century created local legends that it looked like the surface of the Moon. Geologist Harold T. Stearns coined the name "Craters of the Moon" in 1923 while trying to convince the National Park Service to recommend protection of the area in a national monument.

 

The Snake River Plain is a volcanic province that was created by a series of cataclysmic caldera-forming eruptions which started about 15 million years ago. A migrating hotspot thought to now exist under Yellowstone Caldera in Yellowstone National Park has been implicated. This hot spot was under the Craters of the Moon area some 10 to 11 million years ago but 'moved' as the North American Plate migrated northwestward. Pressure from the hot spot heaves the land surface up, creating fault-block mountains. After the hot spot passes the pressure is released and the land subsides.

 

Leftover heat from this hot spot was later liberated by Basin and Range-associated rifting and created the many overlapping lava flows that make up the Lava Beds of Idaho. The largest rift zone is the Great Rift; it is from this 'Great Rift fissure system' that Craters of the Moon, Kings Bowl, and Wapi lava fields were created. The Great Rift is a National Natural Landmark.

 

In spite of their fresh appearance, the oldest flows in the Craters of the Moon Lava Field are 15,000 years old and the youngest erupted about 2000 years ago, according to Mel Kuntz and other USGS geologists. Nevertheless, the volcanic fissures at Craters of the Moon are considered to be dormant, not extinct, and are expected to erupt again in less than a thousand years. There are eight major eruptive periods recognized in the Craters of the Moon Lava Field. Each period lasted about 1000 years or less and were separated by relatively quiet periods that lasted between 500 and as long as 3000 years. Individual lava flows were up to 30 miles (50 km) long with the Blue Dragon Flow being the longest.

 

Kings Bowl Lava Field erupted during a single fissure eruption on the southern part of the Great Rift about 2,250 years ago. This eruption probably lasted only a few hours to a few days. The field preserves explosion pits, lava lakes, squeeze-ups, basalt mounds, and an ash blanket. The Wapi Lava Field probably formed from a fissure eruption at the same time as the Kings Bowl eruption. More prolonged activity over a period of months to a few years led to the formation of low shield volcanoes in the Wapi field. The Bear Trap lava tube, between the Craters of the Moon and the Wapi lava fields, is a cave system more than 15 miles (24 km) long. The lava tube is remarkable for its length and for the number of well-preserved lava cave features, such as lava stalactites and curbs, the latter marking high stands of the flowing lava frozen on the lava tube walls. The lava tubes and pit craters of the monument are known for their unusual preservation of winter ice and snow into the hot summer months, due to shielding from the sun and the insulating properties of basalt.

 

A typical eruption along the Great Rift and similar basaltic rift systems starts with a curtain of very fluid lava shooting up to 1,000 feet (300 m) high along a segment of the rift up to 1 mile (1.6 km) long. As the eruption continues, pressure and heat decrease and the chemistry of the lava becomes slightly more silica rich. The curtain of lava responds by breaking apart into separate vents. Various types of volcanoes may form at these vents: gas-rich pulverized lava creates cinder cones (such as Inferno Cone – stop 4), and pasty lava blobs form spatter cones (such as Spatter Cones – stop 5). Later stages of an eruption push lava streams out through the side or base of cinder cones, which usually ends the life of the cinder cone (North Crater, Watchmen, and Sheep Trail Butte are notable exceptions). This will sometimes breach part of the cone and carry it away as large and craggy blocks of cinder (as seen at North Crater Flow – stop 2 – and Devils Orchard – stop 3). Solid crust forms over lava streams, and lava tubes (a type of cave) are created when lava vacates its course (examples can be seen at the Cave Area – stop 7).

 

Geologists feared that a large earthquake that shook Borah Peak, Idaho's tallest mountain, in 1983 would restart volcanic activity at Craters of the Moon, though this proved not to be the case. Geologists predict that the area will experience its next eruption some time in the next 900 years with the most likely period in the next 100 years.

 

All plants and animals that live in and around Craters of the Moon are under great environmental stress due to constant dry winds and heat-absorbing black lavas that tend to quickly sap water from living things. Summer soil temperatures often exceed 150 °F (66 °C) and plant cover is generally less than 5% on cinder cones and about 15% over the entire monument. Adaptation is therefore necessary for survival in this semi-arid harsh climate.

 

Water is usually only found deep inside holes at the bottom of blow-out craters. Animals therefore get the moisture they need directly from their food. The black soil on and around cinder cones does not hold moisture for long, making it difficult for plants to establish themselves. Soil particles first develop from direct rock decomposition by lichens and typically collect in crevices in lava flows. Successively more complex plants then colonize the microhabitat created by the increasingly productive soil.

 

The shaded north slopes of cinder cones provide more protection from direct sunlight and prevailing southwesterly winds and have a more persistent snow cover (an important water source in early spring). These parts of cinder cones are therefore colonized by plants first.

 

Gaps between lava flows were sometimes cut off from surrounding vegetation. These literal islands of habitat are called kīpukas, a Hawaiian name used for older land surrounded by younger lava. Carey Kīpuka is one such area in the southernmost part of the monument and is used as a benchmark to measure how plant cover has changed in less pristine parts of southern Idaho.

 

Idaho is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the United States. It shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border to the north, with the province of British Columbia. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west. The state's capital and largest city is Boise. With an area of 83,570 square miles (216,400 km2), Idaho is the 14th largest state by land area. With a population of approximately 1.8 million, it ranks as the 13th least populous and the 6th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states.

 

For thousands of years, and prior to European colonization, Idaho has been inhabited by native peoples. In the early 19th century, Idaho was considered part of the Oregon Country, an area of dispute between the U.S. and the British Empire. It officially became a U.S. territory with the signing of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, but a separate Idaho Territory was not organized until 1863, instead being included for periods in Oregon Territory and Washington Territory. Idaho was eventually admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, becoming the 43rd state.

 

Forming part of the Pacific Northwest (and the associated Cascadia bioregion), Idaho is divided into several distinct geographic and climatic regions. The state's north, the relatively isolated Idaho Panhandle, is closely linked with Eastern Washington, with which it shares the Pacific Time Zone—the rest of the state uses the Mountain Time Zone. The state's south includes the Snake River Plain (which has most of the population and agricultural land), and the southeast incorporates part of the Great Basin. Idaho is quite mountainous and contains several stretches of the Rocky Mountains. The United States Forest Service holds about 38% of Idaho's land, the highest proportion of any state.

 

Industries significant for the state economy include manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry, and tourism. Several science and technology firms are either headquartered in Idaho or have factories there, and the state also contains the Idaho National Laboratory, which is the country's largest Department of Energy facility. Idaho's agricultural sector supplies many products, but the state is best known for its potato crop, which comprises around one-third of the nationwide yield. The official state nickname is the "Gem State."

 

The history of Idaho is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Idaho, one of the United States of America located in the Pacific Northwest area near the west coast of the United States and Canada. Other associated areas include southern Alaska, all of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, western Montana and northern California and Nevada.

 

Humans may have been present in Idaho for 16,600 years. Recent findings in Cooper's Ferry along the Salmon River in western Idaho near the town of Cottonwood have unearthed stone tools and animal bone fragments in what may be the oldest evidence of humans in North America. Earlier excavations in 1959 at Wilson Butte Cave near Twin Falls revealed evidence of human activity, including arrowheads, that rank among the oldest dated artifacts in North America. Native American tribes predominant in the area in historic times included the Nez Perce and the Coeur d'Alene in the north; and the Northern and Western Shoshone and Bannock peoples in the south.

 

Idaho was one of the last areas in the lower 48 states of the US to be explored by people of European descent. The Lewis and Clark expedition entered present-day Idaho on August 12, 1805, at Lemhi Pass. It is believed that the first "European descent" expedition to enter southern Idaho was by a group led in 1811 and 1812 by Wilson Price Hunt, which navigated the Snake River while attempting to blaze an all-water trail westward from St. Louis, Missouri, to Astoria, Oregon. At that time, approximately 8,000 Native Americans lived in the region.

 

Fur trading led to the first significant incursion of Europeans in the region. Andrew Henry of the Missouri Fur Company first entered the Snake River plateau in 1810. He built Fort Henry on Henry's Fork on the upper Snake River, near modern St. Anthony, Idaho. However, this first American fur post west of the Rocky Mountains was abandoned the following spring.

 

The British-owned Hudson's Bay Company next entered Idaho and controlled the trade in the Snake River area by the 1820s. The North West Company's interior department of the Columbia was created in June 1816, and Donald Mackenzie was assigned as its head. Mackenzie had previously been employed by Hudson's Bay and had been a partner in the Pacific Fur Company, financed principally by John Jacob Astor. During these early years, he traveled west with a Pacific Fur Company's party and was involved in the initial exploration of the Salmon River and Clearwater River. The company proceeded down the lower Snake River and Columbia River by canoe, and were the first of the Overland Astorians to reach Fort Astoria, on January 18, 1812.

 

Under Mackenzie, the North West Company was a dominant force in the fur trade in the Snake River country. Out of Fort George in Astoria, Mackenzie led fur brigades up the Snake River in 1816-1817 and up the lower Snake in 1817-1818. Fort Nez Perce, established in July, 1818, became the staging point for Mackenzies' Snake brigades. The expedition of 1818-1819 explored the Blue Mountains, and traveled down the Snake River to the Bear River and approached the headwaters of the Snake. Mackenzie sought to establish a navigable route up the Snake River from Fort Nez Perce to the Boise area in 1819. While he did succeed in traveling by boat from the Columbia River through the Grand Canyon of the Snake past Hells Canyon, he concluded that water transport was generally impractical. Mackenzie held the first rendezvous in the region on the Boise River in 1819.

 

Despite their best efforts, early American fur companies in this region had difficulty maintaining the long-distance supply lines from the Missouri River system into the Intermountain West. However, Americans William H. Ashley and Jedediah Smith expanded the Saint Louis fur trade into Idaho in 1824. The 1832 trapper's rendezvous at Pierre's Hole, held at the foot of the Three Tetons in modern Teton County, was followed by an intense battle between the Gros Ventre and a large party of American trappers aided by their Nez Perce and Flathead allies.

 

The prospect of missionary work among the Native Americans also attracted early settlers to the region. In 1809, Kullyspell House, the first white-owned establishment and first trading post in Idaho, was constructed. In 1836, the Reverend Henry H. Spalding established a Protestant mission near Lapwai, where he printed the Northwest's first book, established Idaho's first school, developed its first irrigation system, and grew the state's first potatoes. Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding were the first non-native women to enter present-day Idaho.

 

Cataldo Mission, the oldest standing building in Idaho, was constructed at Cataldo by the Coeur d'Alene and Catholic missionaries. In 1842, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, with Fr. Nicholas Point and Br. Charles Duet, selected a mission location along the St. Joe River. The mission was moved a short distance away in 1846, as the original location was subject to flooding. In 1850, Antonio Ravalli designed a new mission building and Indians affiliated with the church effort built the mission, without nails, using the wattle and daub method. In time, the Cataldo mission became an important stop for traders, settlers, and miners. It served as a place for rest from the trail, offered needed supplies, and was a working port for boats heading up the Coeur d'Alene River.

 

During this time, the region which became Idaho was part of an unorganized territory known as Oregon Country, claimed by both the United States and Great Britain. The United States gained undisputed jurisdiction over the region in the Oregon Treaty of 1846, although the area was under the de facto jurisdiction of the Provisional Government of Oregon from 1843 to 1849. The original boundaries of Oregon Territory in 1848 included all three of the present-day Pacific Northwest states and extended eastward to the Continental Divide. In 1853, areas north of the 46th Parallel became Washington Territory, splitting what is now Idaho in two. The future state was reunited in 1859 after Oregon became a state and the boundaries of Washington Territory were redrawn.

 

While thousands passed through Idaho on the Oregon Trail or during the California gold rush of 1849, few people settled there. In 1860, the first of several gold rushes in Idaho began at Pierce in present-day Clearwater County. By 1862, settlements in both the north and south had formed around the mining boom.

 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints missionaries founded Fort Lemhi in 1855, but the settlement did not last. The first organized town in Idaho was Franklin, settled in April 1860 by Mormon pioneers who believed they were in Utah Territory; although a later survey determined they had crossed the border. Mormon pioneers reached areas near the current-day Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and established most of the historic and modern communities in Southeastern Idaho. These settlements include Ammon, Blackfoot, Chubbuck, Firth, Idaho Falls, Iona, Pocatello, Rexburg, Rigby, Shelley, and Ucon.

 

Large numbers of English immigrants settled in what is now the state of Idaho in the late 19th and early 20th century, many before statehood. The English found they had more property rights and paid less taxes than they did back in England. They were considered some of the most desirable immigrants at the time. Many came from humble beginnings and would rise to prominence in Idaho. Frank R. Gooding was raised in a rural working-class background in England, but was eventually elected as the seventh governor of the state. Today people of English descent make up one fifth of the entire state of Idaho and form a plurality in the southern portion of the state.

 

Many German farmers also settled in what is now Idaho. German settlers were primarily Lutheran across all of the midwest and west, including Idaho, however there were small numbers of Catholics amongst them as well. In parts of Northern Idaho, German remained the dominant language until World War I, when German-Americans were pressured to convert entirely to English. Today, Idahoans of German ancestry make up nearly one fifth of all Idahoans and make up the second largest ethnic group after Idahoans of English descent with people of German ancestry being 18.1% of the state and people of English ancestry being 20.1% of the state.

 

Irish Catholics worked in railroad centers such as Boise. Today, 10% of Idahoans self-identify as having Irish ancestry.

 

York, a slave owned by William Clark but considered a full member of Corps of Discovery during expedition to the Pacific, was the first recorded African American in Idaho. There is a significant African American population made up of those who came west after the abolition of slavery. Many settled near Pocatello and were ranchers, entertainers, and farmers. Although free, many blacks suffered discrimination in the early-to-mid-late 20th century. The black population of the state continues to grow as many come to the state because of educational opportunities, to serve in the military, and for other employment opportunities. There is a Black History Museum in Boise, Idaho, with an exhibit known as the "Invisible Idahoan", which chronicles the first African-Americans in the state. Blacks are the fourth largest ethnic group in Idaho according to the 2000 census. Mountain Home, Boise, and Garden City have significant African-American populations.

 

The Basque people from the Iberian peninsula in Spain and southern France were traditionally shepherds in Europe. They came to Idaho, offering hard work and perseverance in exchange for opportunity. One of the largest Basque communities in the US is in Boise, with a Basque museum and festival held annually in the city.

 

Chinese in the mid-19th century came to America through San Francisco to work on the railroad and open businesses. By 1870, there were over 4000 Chinese and they comprised almost 30% of the population. They suffered discrimination due to the Anti-Chinese League in the 19th century which sought to limit the rights and opportunities of Chinese emigrants. Today Asians are third in population demographically after Whites and Hispanics at less than 2%.

 

Main articles: Oregon boundary dispute, Provisional Government of Oregon, Oregon Treaty, Oregon Territory, Washington Territory, Dakota Territory, Organic act § List of organic acts, and Idaho Territory

 

On March 4, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act creating Idaho Territory from portions of Washington Territory and Dakota Territory with its capital at Lewiston. The original Idaho Territory included most of the areas that later became the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and had a population of under 17,000. Idaho Territory assumed the boundaries of the modern state in 1868 and was admitted as a state in 1890.

 

After Idaho became a territory, legislation was held in Lewiston, the capital of Idaho Territory at the time. There were many territories acts put into place, and then taken away during these early sessions, one act being the move of the capital city from Lewiston to Boise City. Boise was becoming a growing area after gold was found, so on December 24, 1864, Boise City was made the final destination of the capital for the Territory of Idaho.

 

However, moving the capital to Boise City created a lot of issues between the territory. This was especially true between the north and south areas in the territory, due to how far south Boise City was. Problems with communicating between the north and south contributed to some land in Idaho Territory being transferred to other territories and areas at the time. Idaho’s early boundary changes helped create the current boundaries of Washington, Wyoming, and Montana States as currently exist.

 

In a bid for statehood, Governor Edward A. Stevenson called for a constitutional convention in 1889. The convention approved a constitution on August 6, 1889, and voters approved the constitution on November 5, 1889.

 

When President Benjamin Harrison signed the law admitting Idaho as a U.S. state on July 3, 1890, the population was 88,548. George L. Shoup became the state's first governor, but resigned after only a few weeks in office to take a seat in the United States Senate. Willis Sweet, a Republican, was the first congressman, 1890 to 1895, representing the state at-large. He vigorously demanded "Free Silver" or the unrestricted coinage of silver into legal tender, in order to pour money into the large silver mining industry in the Mountain West, but he was defeated by supporters of the gold standard. In 1896 he, like many Republicans from silver mining districts, supported the Silver Republican Party instead of the regular Republican nominee William McKinley.

 

During its first years of statehood, Idaho was plagued by labor unrest in the mining district of Coeur d'Alene. In 1892, miners called a strike which developed into a shooting war between union miners and company guards. Each side accused the other of starting the fight. The first shots were exchanged at the Frisco mine in Frisco, in the Burke-Canyon north and east of Wallace. The Frisco mine was blown up, and company guards were taken prisoner. The violence soon spilled over into the nearby community of Gem, where union miners attempted to locate a Pinkerton spy who had infiltrated their union and was passing information to the mine operators. But agent Charlie Siringo escaped by cutting a hole in the floor of his room. Strikers forced the Gem mine to close, then traveled west to the Bunker Hill mining complex near Wardner, and closed down that facility as well. Several had been killed in the Burke-Canyon fighting. The Idaho National Guard and federal troops were dispatched to the area, and union miners and sympathizers were thrown into bullpens.

 

Hostilities would again erupt at the Bunker Hill facility in 1899, when seventeen union miners were fired for having joined the union. Other union miners were likewise ordered to draw their pay and leave. Angry members of the union converged on the area and blew up the Bunker Hill Mill, killing two company men.

 

In both disputes, the union's complaints included pay, hours of work, the right of miners to belong to the union, and the mine owners' use of informants and undercover agents. The violence committed by union miners was answered with a brutal response in 1892 and in 1899.

 

Through the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) union, the battles in the mining district became closely tied to a major miners' strike in Colorado. The struggle culminated in the December 1905 assassination of former Governor Frank Steunenberg by Harry Orchard (also known as Albert Horsley), a member of the WFM. Orchard was allegedly incensed by Steunenberg's efforts as governor to put down the 1899 miner uprising after being elected on a pro-labor platform.

 

Pinkerton detective James McParland conducted the investigation into the assassination. In 1907, WFM Secretary Treasurer "Big Bill" Haywood and two other WFM leaders were tried on a charge of conspiracy to murder Steunenberg, with Orchard testifying against them as part of a deal made with McParland. The nationally publicized trial featured Senator William E. Borah as prosecuting attorney and Clarence Darrow representing the defendants. The defense team presented evidence that Orchard had been a Pinkerton agent and had acted as a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association. Darrow argued that Orchard's real motive in the assassination had been revenge for a declaration of martial law by Steunenberg, which prompted Orchard to gamble away a share in the Hercules silver mine that would otherwise have made him wealthy.

 

Two of the WFM leaders were acquitted in two separate trials, and the third was released. Orchard was convicted and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted, and he spent the rest of his life in an Idaho prison.

 

Mining in Idaho was a major commercial venture, bringing a great deal of attention to the state. From 1860-1866 Idaho produced 19% of all gold in the United States, or 2.5 million ounces.

 

Most of Idaho's mining production, 1860–1969, has come from metals equating to $2.88 billion out of $3.42 billion, according to the best estimates. Of the metallic mining areas of Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene region has produced the most by far, and accounts for about 80% of the total Idaho yield.

 

Several others—Boise Basin, Wood River Valley, Stibnite, Blackbirg, and Owyhee—range considerably above the other big producers. Atlanta, Bear Valley, Bay Horse, Florence, Gilmore, Mackay, Patterson, and Yankee Fork all ran on the order of ten to twenty million dollars, and Elk City, Leesburg, Pierce, Rocky Bar, and Warren's make up the rest of the major Idaho mining areas that stand out in the sixty or so regions of production worthy of mention.

 

A number of small operations do not appear in this list of Idaho metallic mining areas: a small amount of gold was recovered from Goose Creek on Salmon Meadows; a mine near Cleveland was prospected in 1922 and produced a little manganese in 1926; a few tons of copper came from Fort Hall, and a few more tons of copper came from a mine near Montpelier. Similarly, a few tons of lead came from a property near Bear Lake, and lead-silver is known on Cassia Creek near Elba. Some gold quartz and lead-silver workings are on Ruby Creek west of Elk River, and there is a slightly developed copper operation on Deer Creek near Winchester. Molybdenum is known on Roaring River and on the east fork of the Salmon. Some scattered mining enterprises have been undertaken around Soldier Mountain and on Chief Eagle Eye Creek north of Montour.

 

Idaho proved to be one of the more receptive states to the progressive agenda of the late 19th century and early 20th century. The state embraced progressive policies such as women's suffrage (1896) and prohibition (1916) before they became federal law. Idahoans were also strongly supportive of Free Silver. The pro-bimetallism Populist and Silver Republican parties of the late 1890s were particularly successful in the state.

 

Eugenics was also a major part of the Progressive movement. In 1919, the Idaho legislature passed an Act legalizing the forced sterilization of some persons institutionalized in the state. The act was vetoed by governor D.W. Davis, who doubted its scientific merits and believed it likely violated the Equal Protection clause of the US Constitution. In 1925, the Idaho legislature passed a revised eugenics act, now tailored to avoid Davis's earlier objections. The new law created a state board of eugenics, charged with: the sterilization of all feebleminded, insane, epileptics, habitual criminals, moral degenerates and sexual perverts who are a menace to society, and providing the means for ascertaining who are such persons.

The Eugenics board was eventually folded into the state's health commission; between 1932 and 1964, a total of 30 women and eight men in Idaho were sterilized under this law. The sterilization law was formally repealed in 1972.

 

After statehood, Idaho's economy began a gradual shift away from mining toward agriculture, particularly in the south. Older mining communities such as Silver City and Rocky Bar gave way to agricultural communities incorporated after statehood, such as Nampa and Twin Falls. Milner Dam on the Snake River, completed in 1905, allowed for the formation of many agricultural communities in the Magic Valley region which had previously been nearly unpopulated.

 

Meanwhile, some of the mining towns were able to reinvent themselves as resort communities, most notably in Blaine County, where the Sun Valley ski resort opened in 1936. Others, such as Silver City and Rocky Bar, became ghost towns.

 

In the north, mining continued to be an important industry for several more decades. The closure of the Bunker Hill Mine complex in Shoshone County in the early 1980s sent the region's economy into a tailspin. Since that time, a substantial increase in tourism in north Idaho has helped the region to recover. Coeur d'Alene, a lake-side resort town, is a destination for visitors in the area.

 

Beginning in the 1980s, there was a rise in North Idaho of a few right-wing extremist and "survivalist" political groups, most notably one holding Neo-Nazi views, the Aryan Nations. These groups were most heavily concentrated in the Panhandle region of the state, particularly in the vicinity of Coeur d'Alene.

 

In 1992 a stand-off occurred between U.S. Marshals, the F.B.I., and white separatist Randy Weaver and his family at their compound at Ruby Ridge, located near the small, northern Idaho town of Naples. The ensuing fire-fight and deaths of a U.S. Marshal, and Weaver's son and wife gained national attention, and raised a considerable amount of controversy regarding the nature of acceptable force by the federal government in such situations.

 

In 2001, the Aryan Nations compound, which had been located in Hayden Lake, Idaho, was confiscated as a result of a court case, and the organization moved out of state. About the same time Boise installed an impressive stone Human Rights Memorial featuring a bronze statue of Anne Frank and quotations from her and many other writers extolling human freedom and equality.

 

The demographics of the state have changed. Due to this growth in different groups, especially in Boise, the economic expansion surged wrong-economic growth followed the high standard of living and resulted in the "growth of different groups". The population of Idaho in the 21st Century has been described as sharply divided along geographic and cultural lines due to the center of the state being dominated by sparsely-populated national forests, mountain ranges and recreation sites: "unless you're willing to navigate a treacherous mountain pass, you can't even drive from the north to the south without leaving the state." The northern population gravitates towards Spokane, Washington, the heavily Mormon south-east population towards Utah, with an isolated Boise "[being] the closest thing to a city-state that you'll find in America."

 

On March 13, 2020, officials from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare announced the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 within the state of Idaho. A woman over the age of 50 from the southwestern part of the state was confirmed to have the coronavirus infection. She contracted the infection while attending a conference in New York City. Conference coordinators notified attendees that three individuals previously tested positive for the coronavirus. The Idahoan did not require hospitalization and was recovering from mild symptoms from her home. At the time of the announcement, there were 1,629 total cases and 41 deaths in the United States. Five days beforehand, on March 8, a man of age 54 had died of an unknown respiratory illness which his doctor had believed to be pneumonia. The disease was later suspected to be – but never confirmed as – COVID-19.

 

On March 14, state officials announced the second confirmed case within the state. The South Central Public Health District, announced that a woman over the age of 50 that resides in Blaine County had contracted the infection.[44] Like the first case, she did not require hospitalization and she was recovering from mild symptoms from home. Later on in the day, three additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in the state by three of the seven health districts in the state, which brought the confirmed total cases of coronavirus to five in Idaho. Officials from Central District Health announced their second confirmed case, which was a male from Ada County in his 50s. He was not hospitalized and was recovering at home. South Central Public Health reported their second confirmed case in a female that is over the age of 70 who was hospitalized. Eastern Idaho Public Health reported a confirmed positive case in a woman under the age of 60 in Teton County. She had contracted the coronavirus from contact with a confirmed case in a neighboring state; she was not hospitalized. The South Central Public Health District announced that a woman over the age of 50 that resides in Blaine County had contracted the infection. Like the first case, she did not require hospitalization and she was recovering from mild symptoms from home.

 

On March 17, two more confirmed cases of the infection were reported, bringing the total to seven. The first case on this date was by officials from Central District Health reported that a female under the age of 50 in Ada County was recovering at home and was not hospitalized. The second confirmed case was a female over the age of 50 as reported by South Central Public Health officials.

 

On March 18, two additional confirmed cases were announced by South Central Public Health District officials. One is a male from Blaine County in his 40s and the other a male in his 80s from Twin Falls County. These cases were the first known community spread transmission of the coronavirus in South Central Idaho.

Lee, Russell,, 1903-1986,, photographer.

 

Butter in churn of the Dairymen's Cooperative Creamery. Caldwell, Canyon County, Idaho. Average price paid to members in 1940 was 32.43 cents (including cash dividend) per pound for butter fat. Average price for U.S. was twenty-eight cents

 

1941 June.

 

1 negative : safety ; 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches or smaller.

 

Notes:

Title and other information from caption card.

Transfer; United States. Office of War Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington Division; 1944.

 

Subjects:

United States--Idaho--Canyon County--Caldwell.

 

Format: Safety film negatives.

 

Rights Info: No known restrictions. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html

 

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 

Part Of: Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) (DLC) 2002708960

 

More information about the FSA/OWI Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.fsaowi

 

Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c01714

 

Call Number: LC-USF34- 039652-D

 

The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that are not retreating. The terminus of the Perito Moreno Glacier is 5 kilometres (3 mi) wide, with an average height of 60 m (200 ft) above the surface of the water, with a total ice depth of 170 metres (558 ft). It advances at a speed of up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) per day (around 700 metres (2,300 ft) per year), although it loses mass at approximately the same rate, meaning that aside from small variations, its terminus has not advanced or receded in the past 90 years. At its deepest part, the glacier has a depth of approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft).

 

On Black

Place Émile Goudeau 06/02/2018 19h45

Place Émile Goudeau on the hill of Montmartre in the 18ème arrondissement is also called « place Ravignan » is a square of 43 meters long and 7 meters wide. It is surrounded by trees and a Wallace fountain can be found as well.

 

Paris sous la Neige

On the 6th of February and overnight to the 7th of February 2018 the city of Paris was slowly covered by a thick layer of snow. At least 15 cm of snow fell around the capital’s outlying suburbs, the biggest dump since 2013. Heavy snowfall across northern France overnight caused widespread travel disruption on Wednesday with hundreds of motorists spending the night in their cars and around 700 travelers sleeping in two Paris train stations. Heavy snow is not common in Paris. The average winter sees 15 days with some snowfall, but most of those are only a dusting.

 

 

After two weeks of illness, storms, February rainfall now approaching three times the monthly average figure and days and days of endless R, I was determined to get out and do some fieldwork today. Determined. Those 40mph winds weren't going to stop me! When I woke the sun was shining and I sprang out of bed to charge the eVac battery. Dressed, breakfast ... then it rained, hard and horizontally. It's only a shower! It's all clear behind, I'll give it half an hour then head out. After half an hour, it rained again. And again. After two hours I gave up and went to get changed. As I walked into the bathroom I saw a tiny orange spider on the wall. Although I've never seen Oonops before, from the cluster of eyes and the way it ran, stopped, and ran again, I knew what it was.

 

However, I didn't know which of the two UK species it was. Under the microscope I could count 5 ventral spines on tibia I, meaning this was Oonops domesticus, which the BAS web page calls the "Pink Prowler" (c.f. Oonops pulcher, 4 spines on tibia I).

 

This 1.5-2mm, pinkish-orange spider has a highly characteristic way of slowly walking with its front legs out-stretched, interspersed with short bursts of running. Its small size and pinkish colour make it difficult to spot, particularly because it often nocturnal. During the day, it hides away in a silken cell behind furniture, curtains, pictures, papers, etc. In warmer parts of Europe this spider lives under stones, amongst leaf-litter, etc. In the UK it is more or less completely synanthropic and only found in houses, feeding on tiny prey such as mites and booklice. There are relatively few records, but this species is under-recorded due to its small size and nocturnal habits. There's a fair chance you have it in your house. Go look while it's raining.

  

Average Sex headlining a show at The Hare and Hounds Birmingham.

Average day of a Sea Lion - Galapagos

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

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

A Ferrari F430 outside the Ferrari dealership in Geneva.

Our Fiat hire car was not quite this good.

Picture taken with Sony Alpha 700 Camera and Sony 70-200 F2.8 G (D) SSM Zoom Lens at 135mm focal length, F/4 and 1/250 sec exposure time. ISO speed set at 400. Metering Mode Center Weighted Average.

July 2011 Update: Due to popular demand, I am building this ecommerce dashboard into a subscription based product anyone can use for their ecommerce site. Launch details at edash.tv

 

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Older:

 

A work in progress, this is a real-time sales dashboard for cincottachemist.com.au

 

The goal is to provide an at-a-glance view on where sales are for the day, trending product and searches and visibility over order queues.

 

Note: I have set numbers to zero or blurred terms for confidentiality reasons.

 

Check out the notes above for information on what we're tracking.

 

I should also give props to Panic. While I have done a few dashboards in my time I definitely took some inspiration from their status screen -- it also motivated me to make some progress on this project.

Notre-Dame de la Gratemoine 29/06/2015 12h18

Surrounded by rocks when standing near the Notre-Dame de la Gratemoinw along the Route Napoléon near Séranon.

 

Roadtrip [8] 29/06/2015

On my birthday the plan was to drive the Route Napoleon from Saint-Vallier-de-Thiey to Grenoble. The planning was 320 kilometers and a 6 hour drive. We started late this day and we had to go back to Grasse to find a gas station. About one hour and 29 kilometers extra was the result. We followed the Route Napoléon (former N85) via Castellane, Digne les Bains (McLunch), Sisteron, Gap, the Col Bayard (+1248 m), Corps, La Mure, Prairie de la Rencontre and we ended up in the center of Grenoble at a Best Western hotel. The highest temperature we experienced near Digne (+34° C).

In total we have driven 329 kilometers, all driven by Stewart. We arrived at Grenoble at 19h30 which means the average speed was quite low today. Leaving at 10h36, arrived at 19h30 means an average speed of only 37 km/h. Including photostops, lunch, rest and gas. The visit to the city of Grenoble was postponed to the next day.

 

Notre-Dame de la Gratemoine

The Chapel of Notre-Dame de la Gratemoine is a remnant of a Benedictine priory which occupied the site in the eleventh century. This name comes from the Latin grada camina, the path that climbs, Séranon was then an important milestone on the Roman road linking the Alps to the coast. This chapel was originally much larger and only the last bay of the nave has been preserved. It is all that remains of an ancient priory of the abbey of Lérins. At the beginning of the twelfth century the monks rebuilt the church, flanked south of a baptismal chapel; it is that we see the remnants reworked (late thirteenth early fourteenth century). After the Middle Ages, the nave is reduced to the first bay by building a new front wall.

[ Source: divers ]

Three Maasai Men in Maasai Mara in Kenya.

 

Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress. The Maasai speak the Maa language (ɔl Maa), a member of the Nilo-Saharan family that is related to Dinka and Nuer languages. Some have become educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English. The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 841,622 in Kenya in the 2009 census, compared to 377,089 in the 1989 census.

 

The Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, but the people have continued their age-old customs. An Oxfam study has suggested that the Maasai could pass on traditional survival skills such as the ability to produce food in deserts and scrublands that could help populations adapt to climate change. Many Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visits to their villages to experience their culture, traditions, and lifestyle, in return for a fee. They are considered one of the tallest people in the world, with an average height of 6 ft 3 inches according to some reports. Wikipedia.

 

Only the second 4.0 I've ever seen.

“Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.”

~ Satchel Paige

 

p.s. This is a real fetus and i took this picture at the science museum in LA. This is the negative with orange hue.

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

Masai Mara National Reserve

Kenya

East Africa

 

The waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) is a large antelope found widely in sub-Saharan Africa. It is placed in the genus Kobus of the family Bovidae. It was first described by Irish naturalist William Ogilby in 1833. The thirteen subspecies are grouped under two varieties: the common or ellipsen waterbuck and the defassa waterbuck. The head-and-body length is typically between 177–235 cm (70–93 in) and the average height is between 120 and 136 cm (47 and 54 in). A sexually dimorphic antelope, males are taller as well as heavier than females. Males reach approximately 127 cm (50 in) at the shoulder, while females reach 119 cm (47 in). Males typically weigh 198–262 kg (437–578 lb) and females 161–214 kg (355–472 lb). The coat colour varies from brown to grey. The long, spiral horns, present only on males, curve backward, then forward and are 55–99 cm (22–39 in) long.

 

Waterbuck are rather sedentary in nature. A gregarious animal, the waterbuck may form herds consisting of six to 30 individuals. These groups are either nursery herds with females and their offspring or bachelor herds. Males start showing territorial behaviour from the age of five years, but are most dominant from the age of six to nine. The waterbuck can not tolerate dehydration in hot weather, and thus inhabits areas close to sources of water. Predominantly a grazer, the waterbuck is mostly found on grassland. In equatorial regions, breeding takes place throughout the year, but births are at their peak in the rainy season. The gestational period lasts for seven to eight months, followed by the birth of a single calf.

 

Waterbuck inhabit scrub and savanna areas along rivers, lakes and valleys. Due to their requirement for grasslands as well as water, the waterbuck have a sparse ecotone distribution. The IUCN lists the waterbuck as being of Least Concern. More specifically, the common waterbuck is listed as of Least Concern while the defassa waterbuck is Near Threatened. The population trend for both the common and defassa waterbuck is downwards, especially that of the latter, with large populations being eliminated from certain habitats because of hunting and human disturbance.

 

Info from Wikipedia

 

Its in average condition although its still very presentable in my opinion i never really found these that often thats not the case anymore! On the rear its all complete

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.

Showing how distance to camera affects average image intensity

Busted!... here I am with a very un-glam look...just the average house wife around these parts.

I have to share this with you as I had just taken the bin out to the kerb when some guy walking a dog starts chatting me up from the footpath on the other side of the road....like W.T.F.?

"Hi its a lovely evening...the warmer weather is nice...you have a beautiful garden ect" and heres me just smiling and giving a gentle girly wave and quickly spinning on my feet and dashing back into the safety of the palm forest.... heart beating madly.

It's moments like these I wish I had a soft sexy female voice so I could have said back to him...."Yes its a lovely evening but if your dog shits on my driveway again I'll bury you both up the back yard with the rest of them!...have a nice night sugar!" lol....Sorry... I have a weird and wicked sense of humour....however if there's flowers on my doorstep in the morning....gulp!...I'm in trouble lol.

 

The Emigrant Wilderness of Stanislaus National Forest is a wilderness area in the Sierra Nevada. It is bordered by Yosemite National Park on the south, the Toiyabe National Forest and the Hoover Wilderness on the east, and State Route 108 over Sonora Pass on the north. It is an elongated area that extends northeast about 25 miles (40 km) in length and up to 15 miles (24 km) in width. Watersheds drain to the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers. This area is entirely within Tuolumne County, California and is approximately 140 miles (230 km) east of San Francisco, California and 50 miles (80 km) south of Lake Tahoe.

 

The Emigrant Wilderness is a glaciated landscape of scenic beauty. The northeastern third of the Wilderness is dominated by volcanic ridges and peaks; the remaining areas consist of many sparsely vegetated, granitic ridges interspersed with numerous lakes and meadows. To see that contrast, compare the red volcanic rock in the image of Emigrant Meadow (below Right) with the granite in the other images. Elevations range from below 5,000 feet (1,500 m) near Cherry Reservoir to 11,570 feet (3,527 m) at Leavitt Peak, but the elevation range of most of the popular areas is 7,500 to 9,000 feet (2,300 to 2,700 m). Precipitation averages 50 inches (1,300 mm) annually, 80% of it in the form of snow. Snowpacks typically linger into June, sometimes later following very wet winters. Summers are generally dry and mild, but afternoon thundershowers occur periodically and nighttime temperatures could dip below freezing anytime.

 

Since 1975, 18 small dams in the Emigrant Wilderness have been the source of an unresolved political debate. Some support proposals to maintain the dams while others feel the dams should be allowed to decay in keeping with the Wilderness Act. A decision by the Stanislaus National Forest to compromise and leave some dams to naturally deteriorate while allowing maintenance of others was overturned in court in 2006, reigniting some of the controversy. The Forest Service chose not to appeal and the dams will gradually disappear.

 

From Sonora Pass in the north, the Pacific Crest Trail follows a scenic route at the east edge of the Emigrant Wilderness along the high ridge past Leavitt Peak, turns further east from Kennedy Canyon to Bond Pass, and then heads south down Jack Main Canyon.

 

Many other trails crisscross the Emigrant Wilderness, from Leavitt Meadow on the East side, Kennedy Meadow on the West side, and other trailheads. Highlights include cliffs in the Granite Dome area and lakes such as Emigrant Lake, Huckleberry Lake, and Lake Lertoria.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigrant_Wilderness

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

Frank Oliver Howard (b. August 8, 1936), nicknamed "Hondo", "The Washington Monument" and "The Capital Punisher", is a former All-Star outfielder, coach and manager in Major League Baseball who played most of his career for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Senators / Texas Rangers franchises.

 

One of the most physically intimidating players in the sport, the 6 ft 7 in / 235 lbs Howard was named the National League's Rookie of the Year in 1960, and went on to twice lead the American League in home runs and total bases and in slugging average, runs batted in and walks once each. His 382 career home runs were the eighth most by a right-handed hitter when he retired; his 237 home runs and 1969 totals of 48 HRs and 340 total bases in a Washington uniform are a record for any of that city's several franchises.

 

Howard is one of four players (along with Harmon Killebrew, Cecil Fielder, and Mark McGwire), to clear the left-field roof at Tiger Stadium. His most memorable home-run at RFK Stadium was on April 25, 1970 when he hit a 500 ft homer into the upper bleachers in left centerfield. The seat which it hit was painted white against the conforming gold to commemorate the event. In a game at Fenway Park, he hit a line drive that struck the center field wall 390 feet from home plate and bounced into Reggie Smith's glove before Howard had even reached first base. During his National League days, Howard also smashed a ball an estimated 560 feet at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field.

 

MLB statistics:

Batting average - .273

Home runs - 382

RBI - 1,119

 

Teams - As player:

Los Angeles Dodgers (1958–1964)

Washington Senators / Texas Rangers (1965–1972)

Detroit Tigers (1972–1973)

Taiheiyo Club Lions (1974)

 

As manager:

San Diego Padres (1981)

New York Mets (1983)

 

As coach:

Milwaukee Brewers (1977–1980)

New York Mets (1982–1984)

Milwaukee Brewers (1985–1986)

Seattle Mariners (1987–1988)

New York Yankees (1989, 1991–1993)

New York Mets (1994–1996)

Tampa Bay Devil Rays (1998–1999)

 

Career highlights and awards:

4× All-Star (1968–1971)

World Series champion (1963)

NL Rookie of the Year (1960)

2× AL home run leader (1968, 1970)

AL RBI leader (1970)

 

Link to all of his issued baseball cards - www.tradingcarddb.com/Person.cfm/pid/2722/col/1/yea/0/Fra...

Most lightning strikes average 2 to 3 miles long and carry a current of 10000 Amps at 100 million Volts. Sepia Photography print. 20 sec exposure 100 iso f11 60mm www.TheLightningMan.com

I took roughly three pictures per block this morning, while walking to work. This is all of them.

My family and I took a road trip across to Vancouver and this was found on a short bathroom break.

B l a c k M a g i c

 

... the old Nikon 50mm f1.2 does some crazy things...

 

This shot is nearly sooc (only a crop and mild levels adjustment). The lens seems to capture the life essence of things sometimes... almost Oster in effect, but without losing sharpness in the in-focus areas.

 

This was also shot with my d40 body - full manual, not even metering available. Fun to do if you aren't in a hurry ;)

 

Happy Bokeh Wednesday my Friends!

    

You can also view my photostream with Flickr Hive Mind

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of ​​385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .

 

Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .

 

Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.

 

In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.

 

The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .

 

Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).

 

Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .

For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.

 

Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.

 

The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.

 

The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .

 

Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.

 

More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.

 

Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .

 

In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.

 

Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .

 

Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .

 

Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.

 

Stone Age (before 1700 BC)

When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.

 

Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.

 

The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.

 

In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .

It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.

 

Finnmark

In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.

 

According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.

 

From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.

 

According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.

 

Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)

Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:

 

Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)

Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)

For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.

 

Finnmark

In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.

 

Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)

 

The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century

 

Simultaneous production of Vikings

Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages ​​developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:

 

Early Iron Age

Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)

Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)

Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.

Younger Iron Age

Merovingian period (500–800)

 

The Viking Age (793–1066)

Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .

 

Sources of prehistoric times

Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.

 

Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.

 

Settlement in prehistoric times

Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.

 

It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.

 

Norwegian expansion northwards

From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.

 

North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.

 

From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.

 

On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.

 

The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".

 

State formation

The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.

 

According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.

 

According to Sverre Steen, the national assembly was completed at the earliest at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 and the introduction of Christianity was probably a significant factor in the establishment of Norway as a state. Håkon I the good Adalsteinsfostre introduced the leasehold system where the "coastal land" (as far as the salmon went up the rivers) was divided into ship raiders who were to provide a longship with soldiers and supplies. The leidange was probably introduced as a defense against the Danes. The border with the Danes was traditionally at the Göta älv and several times before and after Harald Hårfagre the Danes had control over central parts of Norway.

 

Christianity was known and existed in Norway before Olav Haraldson's time. The spread occurred both from the south (today's Denmark and northern Germany) and from the west (England and Ireland). Ansgar of Bremen , called the "Apostle of the North", worked in Sweden, but he was never in Norway and probably had little influence in the country. Viking expeditions brought the Norwegians of that time into contact with Christian countries and some were baptized in England, Ireland and northern France. Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldson were Vikings who returned home. The first Christians in Norway were also linked to pre-Christian local religion, among other things, by mixing Christian symbols with symbols of Odin and other figures from Norse religion.

 

According to Sverre Steen, the introduction of Christianity in Norway should not be perceived as a nationwide revival. At Mostratinget, Christian law was introduced as law in the country and later incorporated into the laws of the individual jurisdictions. Christianity primarily involved new forms in social life, among other things exposure and images of gods were prohibited, it was forbidden to "put out" unwanted infants (to let them die), and it was forbidden to have multiple wives. The church became a nationwide institution with a special group of officials tasked with protecting the church and consolidating the new religion. According to Sverre Steen, Christianity and the church in the Middle Ages should therefore be considered together, and these became a new unifying factor in the country. The church and Christianity linked Norway to Roman Catholic Europe with Church Latin as the common language, the same time reckoning as the rest of Europe and the church in Norway was arranged much like the churches in Denmark, Sweden and England. Norway received papal approval in 1070 and became its own church province in 1152 with Archbishop Nidaros .

 

With Christianity, the country got three social powers: the peasants (organized through the things), the king with his officials and the church with the clergy. The things are the oldest institution: At allthings all armed men had the right to attend (in part an obligation to attend) and at lagthings met emissaries from an area (that is, the lagthings were representative assemblies). The Thing both ruled in conflicts and established laws. The laws were memorized by the participants and written down around the year 1000 or later in the Gulationsloven , Frostatingsloven , Eidsivatingsloven and Borgartingsloven . The person who had been successful at the hearing had to see to the implementation of the judgment themselves.

 

Early Middle Ages (1050s–1184)

The early Middle Ages is considered in Norwegian history to be the period between the end of the Viking Age around 1050 and the coronation of King Sverre in 1184 . The beginning of the period can be dated differently, from around the year 1000 when the Christianization of the country took place and up to 1100 when the Viking Age was over from an archaeological point of view. From 1035 to 1130 it was a time of (relative) internal peace in Norway, even several of the kings attempted campaigns abroad, including in 1066 and 1103 .

 

During this period, the church's organization was built up. This led to a gradual change in religious customs. Religion went from being a domestic matter to being regulated by common European Christian law and the royal power gained increased power and influence. Slavery (" servitude ") was gradually abolished. The population grew rapidly during this period, as the thousands of farm names ending in -rud show.

 

The urbanization of Norway is a historical process that has slowly but surely changed Norway from the early Viking Age to today, from a country based on agriculture and sea salvage, to increasingly trade and industry. As early as the ninth century, the country got its first urban community, and in the eleventh century we got the first permanent cities.

 

In the 1130s, civil war broke out . This was due to a power struggle and that anyone who claimed to be the king's son could claim the right to the throne. The disputes escalated into extensive year-round warfare when Sverre Sigurdsson started a rebellion against the church's and the landmen's candidate for the throne , Magnus Erlingsson .

 

Emergence of cities

The oldest Norwegian cities probably emerged from the end of the 9th century. Oslo, Bergen and Nidaros became episcopal seats, which stimulated urban development there, and the king built churches in Borg , Konghelle and Tønsberg. Hamar and Stavanger became new episcopal seats and are referred to in the late 12th century as towns together with the trading places Veøy in Romsdal and Kaupanger in Sogn. In the late Middle Ages, Borgund (on Sunnmøre), Veøy (in Romsdalsfjorden) and Vågan (in Lofoten) were referred to as small trading places. Urbanization in Norway occurred in few places compared to the neighboring countries, only 14 places appear as cities before 1350. Stavanger became a bishopric around 1120–1130, but it is unclear whether the place was already a city then. The fertile Jæren and outer Ryfylke were probably relatively densely populated at that time. A particularly large concentration of Irish artefacts from the Viking Age has been found in Stavanger and Nord-Jæren.

 

It has been difficult to estimate the population in the Norwegian medieval cities, but it is considered certain that the cities grew rapidly in the Middle Ages. Oscar Albert Johnsen estimated the city's population before the Black Death at 20,000, of which 7,000 in Bergen, 3,000 in Nidaros, 2,000 in Oslo and 1,500 in Tunsberg. Based on archaeological research, Lunden estimates that Oslo had around 1,500 inhabitants in 250 households in the year 1300. Bergen was built up more densely and, with the concentration of exports there, became Norway's largest city in a special position for several hundred years. Knut Helle suggests a city population of 20,000 at most in the High Middle Ages, of which almost half in Bergen.

 

The Bjarkøyretten regulated the conditions in cities (especially Bergen and Nidaros) and in trading places, and for Nidaros had many of the same provisions as the Frostating Act . Magnus Lagabøte's city law replaced the bjarkøretten and from 1276 regulated the settlement in Bergen and with corresponding laws also drawn up for Oslo, Nidaros and Tunsberg. The city law applied within the city's roof area . The City Act determined that the city's public streets consisted of wide commons (perpendicular to the shoreline) and ran parallel to the shoreline, similarly in Nidaros and Oslo. The roads were small streets of up to 3 cubits (1.4 metres) and linked to the individual property. From the Middle Ages, the Norwegian cities were usually surrounded by wooden fences. The urban development largely consisted of low wooden houses which stood in contrast to the relatively numerous and dominant churches and monasteries built in stone.

 

The City Act and supplementary provisions often determined where in the city different goods could be traded, in Bergen, for example, cattle and sheep could only be traded on the Square, and fish only on the Square or directly from the boats at the quayside. In Nidaros, the blacksmiths were required to stay away from the densely populated areas due to the risk of fire, while the tanners had to stay away from the settlements due to the strong smell. The City Act also attempted to regulate the influx of people into the city (among other things to prevent begging in the streets) and had provisions on fire protection. In Oslo, from the 13th century or earlier, it was common to have apartment buildings consisting of single buildings on a couple of floors around a courtyard with access from the street through a gate room. Oslo's medieval apartment buildings were home to one to four households. In the urban farms, livestock could be kept, including pigs and cows, while pastures and fields were found in the city's rooftops . In the apartment buildings there could be several outbuildings such as warehouses, barns and stables. Archaeological excavations show that much of the buildings in medieval Oslo, Trondheim and Tønsberg resembled the oblong farms that have been preserved at Bryggen in Bergen . The land boundaries in Oslo appear to have persisted for many hundreds of years, in Bergen right from the Middle Ages to modern times.

 

High Middle Ages (1184–1319)

After civil wars in the 12th century, the country had a relative heyday in the 13th century. Iceland and Greenland came under the royal authority in 1262 , and the Norwegian Empire reached its greatest extent under Håkon IV Håkonsson . The last king of Haraldsätten, Håkon V Magnusson , died sonless in 1319 . Until the 17th century, Norway stretched all the way down to the mouth of Göta älv , which was then Norway's border with Sweden and Denmark.

 

Just before the Black Death around 1350, there were between 65,000 and 85,000 farms in the country, and there had been a strong growth in the number of farms from 1050, especially in Eastern Norway. In the High Middle Ages, the church or ecclesiastical institutions controlled 40% of the land in Norway, while the aristocracy owned around 20% and the king owned 7%. The church and monasteries received land through gifts from the king and nobles, or through inheritance and gifts from ordinary farmers.

 

Settlement and demography in the Middle Ages

Before the Black Death, there were more and more farms in Norway due to farm division and clearing. The settlement spread to more marginal agricultural areas higher inland and further north. Eastern Norway had the largest areas to take off and had the most population growth towards the High Middle Ages. Along the coast north of Stad, settlement probably increased in line with the extent of fishing. The Icelandic Rimbegla tells around the year 1200 that the border between Finnmark (the land of the Sami) and resident Norwegians in the interior was at Malangen , while the border all the way out on the coast was at Kvaløya . From the end of the High Middle Ages, there were more Norwegians along the coast of Finnmark and Nord-Troms. In the inner forest and mountain tracts along the current border between Norway and Sweden, the Sami exploited the resources all the way down to Hedmark.

 

There are no censuses or other records of population and settlement in the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation, the population was below 200,000 and only in 1650 was the population at the same level as before the Black Death. When Christianity was introduced after the year 1000, the population was around 200,000. After the Black Death, many farms and settlements were abandoned and deserted, in the most marginal agricultural areas up to 80% of the farms were abandoned. Places such as Skien, Veøy and Borgund (Ålesund) went out of use as trading towns. By the year 1300, the population was somewhere between 300,000 and 560,000 depending on the calculation method. Common methods start from detailed information about farms in each village and compare this with the situation in 1660 when there are good headcounts. From 1300 to 1660, there was a change in the economic base so that the coastal villages received a larger share of the population. The inland areas of Eastern Norway had a relatively larger population in the High Middle Ages than after the Reformation. Kåre Lunden concludes that the population in the year 1300 was close to 500,000, of which 15,000 lived in cities. Lunden believes that the population in 1660 was still slightly lower than the peak before the Black Death and points out that farm settlement in 1660 did not reach the same extent as in the High Middle Ages. In 1660, the population in Troms and Finnmark was 6,000 and 3,000 respectively (2% of the total population), in 1300 these areas had an even smaller share of the country's population and in Finnmark there were hardly any Norwegian-speaking inhabitants. In the High Middle Ages, the climate was more favorable for grain cultivation in the north. Based on the number of farms, the population increased 162% from 1000 to 1300, in Northern and Western Europe as a whole the growth was 200% in the same period.

 

Late Middle Ages (1319–1537)

Due to repeated plague epidemics, the population was roughly halved and the least productive of the country's farms were laid waste. It took several hundred years before the population again reached the level before 1349 . However, those who survived the epidemics gained more financial resources by sharing. Tax revenues for the state almost collapsed, and a large part of the noble families died out or sank into peasant status due to the fall in national debt . The Hanseatic League took over trade and shipping and dominated fish exports. The Archbishop of Nidaros was the country's most powerful man economically and politically, as the royal dynasty married into the Swedish in 1319 and died out in 1387 . Eventually, Copenhagen became the political center of the kingdom and Bergen the commercial center, while Trondheim remained the religious center.

 

From Reformation to Autocracy (1537–1660)

In 1537 , the Reformation was carried out in Norway. With that, almost half of the country's property was confiscated by the royal power at the stroke of a pen. The large seizure increased the king's income and was able, among other things, to expand his military power and consolidated his power in the kingdom. From roughly the time of the Reformation and in the following centuries, the state increased its power and importance in people's lives. Until around 1620, the state administration was fairly simple and unspecialised: in Copenhagen, the central administration mainly consisted of a chancellery and an interest chamber ; and sheriffs ruled the civil (including bailiffs and sheriffs) and the military in their district, the sheriffs collected taxes and oversaw business. The accounts were not clear and without summaries. The clergy, which had great power as a separate organization, was appointed by the state church after the Reformation, administered from Copenhagen. In this period, Norway was ruled by (mainly) Danish noble sheriffs, who acted as intermediaries between the peasants and the Oldenborg king in the field of justice, tax and customs collection.

 

From 1620, the state apparatus went through major changes where specialization of functions was a main issue. The sheriff's tasks were divided between several, more specialized officials - the sheriffs retained the formal authority over these, who in practice were under the national administration in Copenhagen. Among other things, a separate military officer corps was established, a separate customs office was established and separate treasurers for taxes and fees were appointed. The Overbergamtet, the central governing body for overseeing mining operations in Norway, was established in 1654 with an office in Christiania and this agency was to oversee the mining chiefs in the Nordenfjeld and Sønnenfjeld areas (the mines at Kongsberg and Røros were established in the previous decades). The formal transition from county government to official government with fixed-paid county officials took place after 1660, but the real changes had taken place from around 1620. The increased specialization and transition to official government meant that experts, not amateurs, were in charge of each area, and this civil service meant, according to Sverre Steen that the dictatorship was not a personal dictatorship.

 

From 1570 until 1721, the Oldenborg dynasty was in repeated wars with the Vasa dynasty in Sweden. The financing of these wars led to a severe increase in taxation which caused great distress.

 

Politically-geographically, the Oldenborg kings had to cede to Sweden the Norwegian provinces of Jemtland , Herjedalen , Idre and Särna , as well as Båhuslen . As part of the financing of the wars, the state apparatus was expanded. Royal power began to assert itself to a greater extent in the administration of justice. Until this period, cases of violence and defamation had been treated as civil cases between citizens. The level of punishment was greatly increased. During this period, at least 307 people were also executed for witchcraft in Norway. Culturally, the country was marked by the fact that the written language became Danish because of the Bible translation and the University of Copenhagen's educational monopoly.

 

From the 16th century, business became more marked by production for sale and not just own consumption. In the past, it was particularly the fisheries that had produced such a large surplus of goods that it was sold to markets far away, the dried fish trade via Bergen is known from around the year 1100. In the 16th century, the yield from the fisheries multiplied, especially due to the introduction of herring in Western Norway and in Trøndelag and because new tools made fishing for herring and skre more efficient. Line fishing and cod nets that were introduced in the 17th century were controversial because the small fishermen believed it favored citizens in the cities.

 

Forestry and the timber trade became an important business, particularly because of the boom saw which made it possible to saw all kinds of tables and planks for sale abroad. The demand for timber increased at the same time in Europe, Norway had plenty of forests and in the 17th century timber became the country's most important export product. There were hundreds of sawmills in the country and the largest had the feel of factories . In 1680, the king regulated the timber trade by allowing exports only from privileged sawmills and in a certain quantity.

 

From the 1520s, some silver was mined in Telemark. When the peasants chased the German miners whereupon the king executed five peasants and demanded compensation from the other rebellious peasants. The background for the harsh treatment was that the king wanted to assert his authority over the extraction of precious metals. The search for metals led to the silver works at Kongsberg after 1624, copper in the mountain villages between Trøndelag and Eastern Norway, and iron, among other things, in Agder and lower Telemark. The financial gain of the quarries at that time is unclear because there are no reliable accounts. Kongsberg made Denmark-Norway self-sufficient in silver and the copper works produced a good deal more than the domestic demand and became an important export commodity. Kongsberg and Røros were the only Norwegian towns established because of the quarries.

 

In addition to the sawmills, in the 17th century, industrial production ( manufactures ) was established in, among other things, wool weaving, soap production, tea boiling , nail production and the manufacture of gunpowder .

 

The monopoly until the Peace of Kiel (1660–1814)

Until 1660, the king had been elected by the Danish Riksråd, while he inherited the kingdom of Norway, which was a tradition in Norway. After a series of military defeats, the king committed a coup d'état and deposed the Riksdag. King Frederik III introduced absolute power, which meant that there were hardly any legal restrictions on the king's power. This reinforced the expansion of the state apparatus that had been going on for a few decades, and the civil administration was controlled to a greater extent from the central administration in Copenhagen. According to Sverre Steen, the more specialized and expanded civil service meant that the period of autocracy was not essentially a personal dictatorship: The changing monarchs had the formal last word on important matters, but higher officials set the conditions. According to Steen, the autocracy was not tyrannical where the citizens were treated arbitrarily by the king and officials: the laws were strict and the punishments harsh, but there was legal certainty. The king rarely used his right to punish outside the judiciary and often used his right to commute sentences or pardons. It almost never happened that the king intervened in a court case before a verdict had been passed.

 

In 1662, the sheriff system (in which the nobility played an important role) was abolished and replaced with amt . Norway was divided into four main counties (Akershus, Kristiansands, Bergenhus and Trondhjems) which were later called stiftamt led by stiftamtmen with a number of county marshals and bailiffs (futer) under them. The county administrator in Akershus also had other roles such as governor. The former sheriffs were almost absolute within their fiefs, while the new stifamtmen and amtmen had more limited authority; among other things, they did not have military equipment like the sheriffs. The county officials had no control over state income and could not enrich themselves privately as the sheriffs could, taxes and fees were instead handled by their own officials. County officials were employed by the king and, unlike the sheriffs, had a fixed salary. Officials appointed by the king were responsible for local government. Before 1662, the sheriffs themselves appointed low officials such as bailiffs, mayors and councillors. A church commissioner was given responsibility for overseeing the churchwardens' accounts. In 1664, two general road masters were appointed for Norway, one for Sonnafjelske (Eastland and Sørlandet) and one for Nordafjelske (Westlandet and Trøndelag; Northern Norway had no roads).

 

Both Denmark and Norway got new law books. The wretched state finances led to an extensive sale of crown property, first to the state's creditors. Further sales meant that many farmers became self-owned at the end of the 18th century. Industrial exploitation of Norwegian natural resources began, and trade and shipping and especially increasing timber exports led to economic growth in the latter part of the 1700s.

 

From 1500 to 1814, Norway did not have its own foreign policy. After the dissolution of the Kalmar Union in 1523, Denmark remained the leading power in the Nordic region and dominated the Baltic Sea, while Sweden sought to expand geographically in all directions and strengthened its position. From 1625 to 1660, Denmark lost its dominance: Christian IV lost to the emperor in the Thirty Years' War and ceded Skåne, Blekinge, Halland, Båhuslen , Jemtland and Herjedalen as well as all the islands in the inner part of the Baltic Sea. With this, Norway got its modern borders, which have remained in place ever since. Sweden was no longer confined by Norway and Denmark, and Sweden became the great power in the Nordic region. At the same time, Norway remained far from Denmark (until 1660 there was an almost continuous land connection between Norway and Denmark). During the Great Nordic War, Danish forces moved towards Scania and ended with Charles the 12th falling at Fredriksten . From 1720 to 1807 there was peace except for the short Cranberry War in 1788. In August 1807, the British navy surrounded Denmark and demanded that the Danish fleet be handed over. After bombing 2-7. On September 1807, the Danes capitulated and handed over the fleet (known as the "fleet robbery") and the arsenal. Two weeks later, Denmark entered into an alliance with Napoleon and Great Britain declared war on Denmark in November 1807. The Danish leadership had originally envisioned an alliance with Great Britain. Anger at the fleet robbery and fear of French occupation of Denmark itself (and thus breaking the connection with Norway) were probably the motive for the alliance with France. According to Sverre Steen, the period 1807-1814 was the most significant in Norway's history (before the Second World War). Foreign trade was paralyzed and hundreds of Norwegian ships were seized by the British. British ships, both warships and privateers , blocked the sea route between Norway and Denmark as described in " Terje Vigen " by Henrik Ibsen . During the Napoleonic Wars , there was a food shortage and famine in Norway, between 20 and 30 thousand people out of a population of around 900 thousand died from sheer lack of food or diseases related to malnutrition.

 

From the late summer of 1807, Norway was governed by a government commission led by the governor and commander-in-chief, Prince Christian August . Christian August was considered an honorable and capable leader. In 1808, a joint Russian and Danish/Norwegian attack on Sweden was planned; the campaign fails completely and Christian August concludes a truce with the Swedes. The Swedish king was deposed, the country got a new constitution with a limited monarchy and in the summer of 1808, Christian August was elected heir to the throne in Sweden. Christian August died a few months after he moved to Sweden and the French general Jean Baptiste Bernadotte became the new heir to the throne with the name "Karl Johan". After Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig in 1813, Bernadotte entered Holstein with Swedish forces and forced the Danish king to the Peace of Kiel .

 

Colonies and slave trade

Denmark-Norway acquired overseas colonies: St. Thomas (1665), St. Jan and St. Croix (18th century). At the same time, the kingdom entered into an agreement with rulers on the Gold Coast (Ghana) regarding the establishment of slave forts, including Christiansborg in Accra . The trade was triangular from Copenhagen to the Gold Coast with weapons, gunpowder and liquor which were exchanged for gold, ivory and slaves . The slaves were transported across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, among other things to the Danish-Norwegian colonies where St. Croix was most important. The ships returned to Copenhagen with sugar, tobacco, cotton and other goods. About 100,000 slaves were transported across the sea on Danish and Norwegian ships from 1660 to 1802. About 10% of the slaves died during the crossing. At least two of the slave ships ("Cornelia" and "Friderich") were in Norwegian ownership. Engelbret Hesselberg was a fut on St. Croix and after a slave rebellion in 1759, he had some of the rebels executed, among other things, by burning them alive, hanging them by their feet or putting them naked in a cage in the sun. At the end of the 18th century, opposition to the slave trade grew in Denmark-Norway, among others the Norwegian Claus Fasting promoted strong criticism. The slave trade was banned from 1803, while slavery itself was banned in Denmark from 1848.

 

Immigration to Norway

In the 1500s and 1600s, many people moved within Europe. From Germany, France and the Netherlands, enterprising people came to Sweden and Denmark, and gave rise to influential families. Danes in particular came to Norway who, formally speaking, were not foreigners, but were probably perceived as strangers by the local population. There was some immigration of ethnic Germans, some from areas under the Danish crown and others. Some immigrated from the Netherlands, England and Scotland. For example, half of those who applied for citizenship in Bergen in the 17th century were foreigners and they were often founders of new businesses. Immigrants from the Netherlands brought knowledge of line fishing and the preparation of herring; the Scot came with knowledge of the production of cuttlefish ; and Germans engaged in mining. Some foreigners ran large farms they bought near the cities, for example Frogner near Christiania and Lade near Trondheim. A large part of the country's leading echelon of officials and merchants were around 1,800 descendants of immigrants, and family names of foreign origin had a higher status. According to Sverre Steen, it was special for Norway that the immigrants and their descendants were given such a much stronger position than other residents.

 

Social and cultural conditions

Around 1800, most people, both women and men, in Norway could read and many could write. Foreigners traveling in Norway were surprised at how well-informed and interested Norwegian farmers were about the situation outside the country. In the 17th century, Peder Claussøn Friis translated Snorre Sturlason's royal sagas from Old Norse, and in a new edition this book became important in nation-building in later centuries. Early in the 18th century, Tormod Torfæus wrote Norway's history to 1387 in 4 volumes in Latin ; the preparation is considered to be scientifically unsustainable. In the 1730s, Ludvig Holberg wrote the popular scientific Danmarks Reges Historie , which is considered to maintain a high standard. According to Holberg, Norway emerged as a kingdom after the "nomenclature union in 1380". Holberg was the most important Norwegian cultural figure in the Danish era. Gerhard Schøning wrote Norges Reges Historie (in Danish) in the 1770s ; Schøning claimed that the Norwegians were a separate people from the dawn of time and had immigrated from the north-east without visiting Denmark.

 

1814

Norway remained the hereditary kingdom of the Oldenborg kings until 1814 , when the king had to renounce Norway at the Peace of Kiel on 14 January 1814 after being on the losing side during the Napoleonic Wars . Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland were not included in the transfer to Sweden. The King of Sweden undertook to maintain the laws and freedoms the Norwegians had and Norway was to take over its share of the national debt. At the same time, the Swedish king ceded Rügen and Swedish Pomerania as well as 1 million dalers. Norway was ceded to the king of Sweden and the Treaty of Kiel established that Norway was a separate kingdom. Prince Christian Frederik traveled to Trondheim to calm the mood. Sixty leading citizens of Trondheim signed a letter in which they supported the prince's policy of independence and at the same time asked that a congress should be convened to lay the foundations for Norway's future constitution. On his return from Trondheim, he gathered 15 civil servants and 6 businessmen for the Stormannsmøetet at Eidsvoll 16-17. February where it was agreed on a constitutional assembly in the same place from 10 April. Until then, the prince was to rule the country as regent with the support of a government council. After the meeting, the prince announced that the Norwegian people had been released from their oath to Frederik VI and, as a free and independent people, had the right to decide their own government constitution.

 

Sverre Steen describes these as revolutionary ideas: It involved a transition from princely sovereignty to popular sovereignty as was known from the US Constitution and from the French Revolution. Georg Sverdrup stated at the nobles' meeting in February that the Norwegian krone had thus "returned home" to the Norwegian people and that the people could, by their own decision, transfer the krone to whoever was deemed most suitable. The transition was not prepared in Norway except as an idea as individuals. In the previous years, there had been dissatisfaction (especially in Eastern Norway) with the Danish government, but no stated demands for secession from Denmark. When the rumor spread in 1813 that Denmark would probably have to cede Norway, there was talk of independence. At the elders' meeting, it was agreed that the congregations should gather in the churches and swear allegiance to Norway, as a simple referendum on independence and against union with Sweden. At the same time, the priests organized elections for the National Assembly, which was to convene later.

 

In public, there was overwhelming support for independence, while those who wanted union with Sweden advanced their views in silence. The mood of the people was for full independence.

Just the average reds & greens of Zion have a beauty all their own, in Zion, apart from the majestic peaks and huge moutain cliffs, yet still so beautiful in their own right.

A fairly average photo but the first with my new 16-35 f/4 lens (my old 17-40 had a tragic encounter with a shingle beach). I got home and rushed out to find some nice light. This was the best I could find before I lost the light but, on first impressions, I'm happy with the new kit.

 

Please visit my website at www.brucelittle.net for more images and to order prints

Der Gaukler (Terathopius ecaudatus) ist eine Greifvogelart aus der Unterfamilie der Schlangenadler (Circaetinae), die in großen Teilen Subsahara-Afrikas vorkommt und offene oder halboffene Savannenlandschaften bewohnt. Der Gaukler ernährt sich größtenteils von kleineren bis mittelgroßen Vögeln und Säugetieren, die er erjagt, aber auch von Aas. Er fällt durch seine ausgedehnten, relativ niedrigen, „gaukelnden“ Suchflüge auf, bei denen er die Flügel in einem tiefen V hält und seitlich hin- und herschaukelt. Zudem ist die akrobatische Flugbalz recht spektakulär.

 

Der Gaukler ist ein relativ großer Greifvogel, der vom Körperbau den Altweltgeiern ähnelt, verwandtschaftlich jedoch zu den Schlangenadlern gehört. Seine Körperlänge liegt zwischen 55 und 70 cm, wobei der Schwanz extrem kurz ist, worauf auch das Epitheton des wissenschaftlichen Namens (ecaudatus = schwanzlos) hinweist. Bei adulten Vögel ragen die Füße im Flug über den Schwanz hinaus. Die Flügel, mit denen er Spannweiten von 168 bis 190 cm erreicht, sind jedoch außergewöhnlich lang und haben mit 25 Armschwingen die meisten aller Greifvögel. Die Hinterränder der Armflügel bilden einen großen Bogen, während der Handflügel relativ kurz und spitz ist. Der Kopf wirkt groß, mit langem Nackengefieder, das zu einer Kapuze aufgestellt werden kann. Das Gewicht liegt zwischen 1820 und 2950 g.

 

Quelle: Wikipedia

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The bateleur (Terathopius ecaudatus) is a medium-sized eagle in the family Accipitridae. Its closest relatives are the snake eagles. It is the only member of the genus Terathopius and may be the origin of the "Zimbabwe Bird", the national emblem of Zimbabwe. It is endemic to Africa and small parts of Arabia. "Bateleur" is French for "street performer".

 

The average adult is 55 to 70 cm long with a 186 cm wingspan. The wing chord averages approximately 51 cm. Adult weight is typically 2 to 2.6 kg.

 

The bateleur is a colourful species with a very short tail (ecaudatus is Latin for tailless) which, together with its white underwing coverts, makes it unmistakable in flight. The tail is so small the bird's legs protrude slightly beyond the tail during flight. The bateleur is sexually dimorphic; both adults have black plumage, a chestnut mantle and tail, grey shoulders, tawny wing coverts, and red facial skin, bill, and legs. The female additionally has tawny secondary wing feathers. Less commonly, the mantle may be white. Immature birds are brown with white dappling and have greenish facial skin. It takes them seven or eight years to reach full maturity.

 

The bateleur eagle is a common to fairly common resident of the open savanna country and woodland (thornveld) within Sub-Saharan Africa; it also occurs in south-western Arabia. Total distribution size is estimated at 28,000,000 km². The bird's range has diminished significantly in recent decades, possibly due to poisoning, and as such has been confined mostly to conservation areas such as national wildlife parks. In April 2012, a juvenile bateleur was seen in Algeciras in southern Spain. This was the first European record for the bateleur.

 

Source: Wikipedia

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Single, male, and Indian? It’s almost a disease

The guard outside the Gordon House Hotel in Colaba hated my face. I don’t think he’d even seen it, though. The way most of us casually blank out eyes of a beggar knocking on our tinted car windows, this guard had first looked away, then scowled, then mumbled something for a bit—still ignoring the four of us entirely, given that we were even unworthy of his inattention. And then he finally muttered ‘nahin’, or something to the effect.

We were all men, single (so, obviously molesters and rapists), standing outside the main gate of his posh discotheque, dressed in our Saturday night best. It appeared we could afford his hospitality, but he didn’t seem interested. Dogs and stags weren’t allowed, but then, suddenly, we (the dogs) were.

Galloping mindlessly across Mumbai’s backpacking district, we had left behind our only legitimate passports to status and nightlife—the four women friends with us. They caught up with us eventually and hence the guard welcomed us in. I don’t think he said sorry. He needn’t have. I didn’t blame him. Egos are too trivial to get in the way of a precious evening.

However, the gent outside Tito’s, with eight people inside on a Monday night, in the dead of the monsoon season, turned out to be a whole lot ruder. I heard him whisper under his breath some terrible things about the anatomy of our mothers and sisters. Not the sorts to pick a brawl still, we endured the humiliation, gently explained that we, in fact, did have women friends at the bar and then quietly left. This is common sufferance in Delhi. But we were in Goa, for God’s sake.

Being a man, with other men, in India’s semi-urban nocturnal jungle is to remain a gross, sometimes disgraced social outcaste, experiencing a strange tropical ailment—single-itis, for lack of a better name. These untouchables of nightlife don’t deserve their dance, with their drink, even if they could pay twice for the same simple pleasures.

You know something’s warped when watering holes that serve loud hard retro rock for music—still no one’s idea of a romantic date, by the way — remain officially open to couples only. Save if you are a regular. So they let me into Mumbai’s good old Ghetto the other night. I heaved a sigh of relief. We were five men, one woman. You can’t form political coalitions with right permutations each time you go out. The said ratio didn’t work at the next lounge, like it won’t at most clubs. Tough luck, I guess. And, no, there isn’t such a thing as ‘gay couples’. So, smart try.

It’s the sort of sexual discrimination few will take seriously and fewer still will care about. No one I know will fight against it. Suspicions are hard to erase. Some terrorists give all men a bad name. This is true for the average, Indian non-molester man, who makes for the vast majority. He stopped hitting on Indian women at some point. She instantly assumed him to be sleazy anyway. She had probably liked looking at him. He had seemed okay. He had enjoyed giving her the attention. She had thought that was fine as well. Their eyes had just met at the bar. But I know what they were both suffering from.

The Indian girl is hit by the silly ‘slut complex’. She won’t make the semblance of a first move—which should truly be her right—for fear of being judged as the loose one. The Indian guy is similarly down with the ‘creep syndrome’. He can’t be seen as one of those, you know, “one of those”. He has a reputation to protect.

Given such poor practice with making conversations with the unknown of the opposite gender, his skills get considerably worse with time. When he does try his luck now, once in a while, the possible openers get odder still: “You smell really nice . . .” Eww. She looks away. He goes back to his drink.

The times you must hang out with other men, just men, is when you’re at a quasi-gay joint celebrating old boys’ reunion of a frustrated boarding school. There are mostly men around at party places, which allow men to be by themselves. The topic of conversation is the woman, still.

Species single, male, and Indian, could consider themselves getting officially quarantined. It would help their cause. Female companionship is a mirage. Male company gets boring. Cloaking this lack of opportunity into a moral virtue, most prefer to get married instead. Their parents help them hook up, finally. Someone should. It’s hard to hold out beyond the late twenties. Arranged marriage isn’t always a matter of social conservatism or personal choice. It is often an urban necessity. Family feels proud. Segregation suits the status quo. Society approves. As does the petty politician, whether he’s the sicko who hassles lovers at public parks, or the old man in the gram panchayat. Unmarried love is fatal to his constituency. Inter-religious or inter-caste family can negate his existence. The conforming institution, the saviour, lives on.

Sooner or later, being single gets even tougher when everyone else around is already married. And there, those platonic female passports to an acceptable nightlife are gone as well. It may be fair to suggest that you can be happily single, in much the same way as you can be happily married . . . both being empirically impossible. To me the occasional woes of single men, however, seem diametrically opposite to those of the single women I meet. Except when they discuss the opposite sex, which is when they talk the same language.

Both on separate tables insist that a man or woman who is straight, smart, attractive, intelligent, interesting, funny, and, yet, available is an extinct specimen fit to hang at museums. Maybe because the two tables have never merged with each other’s. They’ve never really met. After school and college, where will they? At work? That’s where many do, it appears—unless you’re the supposedly shy sort, who only slimily stares at objects of desire, over the cubicle, under the staircase, when not stalking on Facebook.

New to sharing workspace with women, the traditional Indian man can barely get himself to open his hesitant mouth before a frothy female form. What comes out, when he does part his lips, bears promise of a sexual harassment case. He’s better off tongue-tied, quietly fantasizing. Dishonesty in sexual expression is probably better for the civilised world.

The less shady ones—fat, fugly, tall, talkative, short, sloppy—get to demonstrate their actual worth at work. This is a level playing eld. Women get attracted to the relatively

smart. The guy has something to prove. Bosses should be glad. Late hours aren’t a problem. Attendance goes up. Company’s productivity rises.

Sure, an office intern can shake up the White House and shock America. The gorgeous dimwit secretary can make the stern corporate CEO dance on his knees. Attraction demands no prior appointment. This may be unfair on the nerdy, pimply man who must work harder to command the same attention from his male superiors. But nature tends to balance this out in the long run.

That rookie biz-school grad, when he turns bald and old and if he is on top of his boardroom game, will be considered sexually attractive still. This isn’t necessarily true for the dumb hot intern in his office twenty years later. While he’s younger, freer, funnier, he stands a fair chance as well. Call centres and the movie industry merely get a bad name. All Indian offices with reasonable sex ratios, being 1:10, if you peer harder I reckon, will look like rocking dating sites, spiced up with secret romances, rebounds, heartburns, and heartbreaks. Pay closer attention to the HR department.

Mixing hormones with business may be a terrible idea, I know, but what to do? Where else to go? At a house party full of drunks? Where the inevitable cock-blocking and penis- fencing match is about to begin between twenty single men over the only woman who decided to stay back until late? Maybe. Or maybe not.

At a discotheque? Yes. That would be an ideal place for the lonely soul, seeking a happy ending to a day—a night of casual, naughty nirvana. It’s a large, dimly lit psychedelic dome singularly structured around eyeing men and women, since there’s precious little they can see of each other, through their beer goggles, under a shiny disco-ball. Loud music takes away the awkward discomforts of acquaintanceship. Burden of conversation safely lies in the lyrics of the songs. Akon sings ‘I wanna love you’, Snoop Dogg adds ‘I wanna fuck you’. Bodies move to booty calls. Eyes meet. The point’s made. Nobody need ask your place or mine?. Maybe that’s there in the song lyrics as well. Deal’s struck. Booze is expensive. Night’s young. So are you.

But then if you’re single, male, and around others with the same affliction, you were just dreaming right now. They won’t allow you into a nightclub. It’s for couples only. Despite weightier measures of time, the two people entering have already met, and so have already dated, drank, danced, and done all old-world things invented to break the ice since the Internet. Then, perhaps, they’re not single anymore. Social segregation is a vicious circle. Having a girlfriend exponentially increases your chances of finding another than being single ever does.

For a year or so I once co-ran an anonymous daily relationship column in an English daily in Mumbai. It was called Dear Diana, named after this well-travelled woman who could solve your daily problems. I was Diana. It was a popular read. Most of those writing in, I realised, were only checking if we would print their crazy queries, none of which were serious. They were almost all jigsaw puzzles about cousins sleeping with their daughters, who were in turn making love with both the dad and the aunt. The only genuine questions would inevitably be from a lost male soul: “I like this girl. What do I do?” Become her friend, I’d say. “How?” Get to know her friends first, and take it slowly from there, I guess. “How?” You know what, buddy? I don’t know.

A veteran tri-sexual acquaintance (the sort who serially tries for sex as his natural right) tells me he’s had it now. It is a hard life, unless you’re a rock star, or in the Indian context, a Bollywood hero who plays a rock star, I suppose. The friend says he’d rather start a political front for single men. There’d be enough support for his cause, he jokes. I don’t agree.

Nobody would openly join a group that automatically is presumed to comprise a bunch of cash-strapped, unstable varieties who walk around being single because, it is thought, they ought to be. No woman could stand the son of a gun, anyway. Even women are attracted more towards men who are already hitched. There’s mystique in the unattainable. Singles’ nights inevitably fail. Recent female responses to dating apps like Tinder suggest to me that it is mainly full of married freakoids or sexual ends. Neither help much in restoring the rep of the Indian single man anyway. “Deserters, all these people,” the ‘tri-sexual’ frowns at my analysis. You’d be the first one looking to desert your own group, I tell him. He agrees.

The Game is a celebrated Bible for single men that scientifically tutors an ‘average frustrated chump’ (AFC) to become a ‘pick-up artist’ (PUA) giving out few quick steps towards attracting pretty things at bars, cafés, malls, and discotheques. The bestseller studies various ‘seduction communities’ in the US. During the course of writing his experiences, author Neil Strauss, self- admittedly an AFC, attends workshops conducted by experts in serious ‘seduction communities’ before he gets anointed the world’s no. 1 PUA.

The single Indian man would be in awe of such a champion. Read the book and you’d be easily able to tell why the same methods could never be applied in his country. This isn’t to say I haven’t seen a desi dude with a ‘wing man’ at a local bar, ‘peacocking’ (dressing outrageously), ‘negging’ (sounding rude, but giving backhanded compliments), ‘kinoing’ (making harmless physical contact) . . . Yeah, I have basically seen him make a plum ass of himself in public. The desi girl is mostly unimpressed. She probably also knows he’s read the book.

The Game is yet another American dream. Women have widely panned the bestseller in the West for its overt male chauvinism. The premise is entirely sexist, yes. But sex-guru Strauss makes a significant point out there that should please the average female reader—that there are no ugly women, only lazy ones.

Everybody loves the single woman. The world donates her its affection, attention, drinks, dinner, coffee, couch, conversations, cupcakes, tags, hash-tags, friend requests, re- tweets, roses on Rose Day, proposals on Propose Day, self- respect on Valentine’s Day . . . She gifts them hope. Nobody loves a single man; not even the single man himself, and least of all the bouncer outside the club.

Average Joe with a moustache on a late 19th Century arcade tintype.

Since I've had my Langster since August, and covered about 1000 miles on it so far, I thought I might share my impressions of it. The late, great Sheldon Brown's article on fixed gear cycling had piqued my interest and I wanted to try it out. I didn't want anything too fancy, as this was to be my general purpose transport, and not something I would want to have invested too much time, effort or cash in in case it was stolen. I also didn't want to spend too much in case I didn't like riding single-speed. I liked the idea of something subtle, preferably black, with removable labels. I almost went for the Gary Fisher Triton, but unfortunately the decals are sealed beneath a layer of clearcoat. I read a few reviews of the Langster, and most people seem to love it. It ticked most of my other boxes so untimately it was a relatively easy decision.

   

I bought the bike through the NHS Cycle to Work scheme, as that's how I bought my Kona Sutra and I like the system's capacity to affordably feed my cycling addiction. The supplier was The Bike Shed, who are the mail order supplier for NHS bikes (I imagine there were more high-fives than in an average episode of The Apprentice when they sealed that deal). Their part of the deal was well executed and my bike arrived in a very thin cardboard box, with just the handlebars to straighten out before the off.

 

The first step was to fit the extras I had ordered for the bike. I attached some Crud Road Racer IIs to keep the rain off (and also send the message that this wasn't a posey Shoreditch-type fixie). This took me, I am ashamed to admit, quite a long time: at least half an hour. Part of this was owing to the fact that I had to saw parts of the reaar guard off to allow it to fit, but I still find the "fits easily in seconds" message emblazoned on the packaging a little hard to swallow. Next, on went the Shimano SPD pedals, my trusty Brooks B17 saddle, some lights and a saddlebag. I also flipped the rear wheel around to make the bike into a true fixed-gear and removed the labels, which was easily done by hand.

    

So, here's some specs:-

 

Frame Specialized Langster A1 Premium aluminium, fully manipulated tubing, compact design, integrated headset

ForkLangster carbon, carbon fibre legs, aluminium crown and steerer

HeadsetCage bearings integrated HS. w/ 20mm of spacers w/ top cap

Stem3D forged alloy, 31.8mm clamp

HandlebarsSpecialized Elite, 6061 aluminium, short drop, 31.8mm

BrakesLight dual pivot brake, Teflon pivots, forged alloy w/ standard pads --> Ultegra catridges

Brake leversTektro R520 short reach for drop bar

SaddleBody Geometry Rival road, w/ steel rails --> Brooks B17

ChainKMC Z-510HX

CranksetSugino Zen Messenger - 42t

BBBB-7420 w/crank bolts

PedalsSilver cage/black body, w/ black toe clips and strap --> Shimano M520 SPDs

TyresSpecialized Mondo Sport, 700x23c --> Maxxis Re-Fuse, 700x23c

WheelsAlex Race 32, aluminium, sleeve joint, CNC machined sidewalls, 32h Track Hubs, 14g spokes

SprocketsShimano MX-30 freewheel, singlespeed, 16t

  

So, what's it like to ride? I was initially rather dubious about going fixed-gear, as I thought the limitations might be restrictive. I thought it would be slower, harder to get going and easily defeated by steep hills. I have been proved wrong. In fact the time it takes me to commute to North London from Brixton remains the same. I have taken it up some pretty nasty hills, and whilst it's no picnic, it gets you up them, and often quicker as you can't just engage a winch-like gear and pootle up. Starting off is a trade-off: you have no gears to make it easier, but you also have no gears to jump off when you put your foot down, so the reliability and lack of gear changes means that there's little real difference.

 

Riding fixed has been a revelation. I had read and heard all sorts of things about a greater feeling of oneness with the bike, better feedback about the road surface and grip conditions, hairy moments when you forget that you can't stop pedalling, and a better workout. These observations are all true. The hairy moments came early on. On my first ride, I tried to adjust my bag's strap, and instinctively froze my legs. The bike was having none of it and I was almost launched off it! This happened once more on that ride, and very little since. In fact, I now find it nearly impossible to freeze my legs - my brain must have re-learned its subconscious cycling reflexes. Not being able to stop pedalling is noot as tiring as it sounds you can still relax your legs and let your momentum do the bulk of the work of pushing them round.

   

The ride quality is surprisingly good, especially in comparison to my aluminium Decathlon racer. Bear in mind that the Decathlon racer was only £126 pounds, and does not have carbon forks. The aluminium frame with its sloping top-tube is very responsive, both in terms of maneouvreability and acceleration and zipping around town is a hoot. The langster soaks up bumps and potholes well, especially considering its skinny 23c tyres. The wheels seem rock solid: I've hit some nasty potholes that had me worried, but they have remained true. The stock tyres were abysmal for punctures, despite being billed as having "flak jacket puncture protection". I have replaced them with some Maxxis Re-Fuse tyres this week, and they seem tougher. I rode over some broken glass on the way to work today, and they seemed unscathed. Only time will tell. The stock brake pads were pretty ropey too: I have replaced them with Shimano Ultegra cartridge shoes, and they are much more responsive, to the point of endos under heavy braking! When the standard pads wear out, I'll be trying some Kool-Stop Salmons, to see if they are all they are cracked up to be.

   

Aside from the daily commute, I took the Langster out on a longer jaunt (click here for a map and stats) recently, and was pleasantly surprised to find it performed well. I hardly missed gears. In fact, the lack of gears to hide behind makes you more disciplined in managing your energy, and forces you to really go for it when you are climbing. As there is no freewheel, it can give you a sense that it is pushing you up the hill, which can be rather confidence inspiring, and makes you constantly aware of how much energy there is in the system. The bike also broke the 30mph barrier a couple of times, at which point I imagine my legs appeared as blurs to passers-by. I was considering fitting a smaller sprocket to give a higher gear ratio, but I think that 42x16 works well for me.

 

In summary, the Langster has been a great purchase. In just under three months, it's taught me a lot of new things about cycling, and the lessons have all been fun, if painful at times. If you are contemplating making the transition to fixed-gear cycling, I can heartily recommend the Langster as a good starting point.

 

I used to google 'What is the average size?' So i could measure myself and get to it.

For years i taught myself to believe that i was the bigger one, unashamedly, realising now and looking back at past photos, i had a banging bod - then it become to little.

I look and see more of a Woman now than i ever did

Someone who has taken on a lot in the last few years

And my Body represents that, through permanent and irreplaceable marks,

My Body can fluctuate like my moods can

I have a fat day

thin day

Pretty day

Ugly day

I'm not good enough day

Today I wont eat breakfast because 'im not a breakfast person'

I am going to order the burger, chips, onion rings and 3 pints because I didnt eat anything else today, soo that counteracts it right?

Today I ate breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, supper and had a few pints.

Whats up with that?

 

I use to google the average amount a girl like me should eat so I could fit the number.

The daily intake of calories for a Woman. 2000

The average amount of pints on a night out for me, 6

A pint averages at 340 calories

The average size of a Woman. 14

But What if I'm a 12?

Most of my friends are a 10, but I'm a 12..

The NHS has a graph that says I am a healthy 5"4 Woman when I weigh 9 stone

But Ok magazine said that i need to be 8 stone and had pictures of celebs bodies to show me my goal

 

But it could all be Lies because I have haven't weighed my self in years because I hate numbers.

 

But i still read into them.

 

At the end of the day,

I have, 2 eyes, 2 Ears, 2 legs, 2 arms, 2 bum cheeks - you get it.

 

But I also have

2 boobs,

1 vagina

and

A mouth,

And thats pretty fuckin badass to me.

I can deal with being a 4

#woman

The Arboretum has an interactive map on their web site. This map is found at the Arborway Gate.

 

Pasting from Wikipedia: Arnold Arboretum:

 

• • • • •

 

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is an arboretum located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale sections of Boston, Massachusetts. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and is the second largest "link" in the Emerald Necklace.

 

History

 

The Arboretum was founded in 1872 when the President and Fellows of Harvard College became trustees of a portion of the estate of James Arnold (1781–1868).

 

In 1842, Benjamin Bussey (1757–1842), a prosperous Boston merchant and scientific farmer, donated his country estate Woodland Hill and a part of his fortune to Harvard University "for instruction in agriculture, horticulture, and related subjects". Bussey had inherited land from fellow patriot Eleazer Weld in 1800 and further enlarged his large estate between 1806 and 1837 by acquiring and consolidating various farms that had been established as early as the seventeenth century. Harvard used this land for the creation of the Bussey Institute, which was dedicated to agricultural experimentation. The first Bussey Institute building was completed in 1871 and served as headquarters for an undergraduate school of agriculture.

 

Sixteen years after Bussey's death, James Arnold, a New Bedford, Massachusetts whaling merchant, specified that a portion of his estate was to be used for "...the promotion of Agricultural, or Horticultural improvements". In 1872, when the trustees of the will of James Arnold transferred his estate to Harvard University, Arnold’s gift was combined with 120 acres (0.49 km2) of the former Bussey estate to create the Arnold Arboretum. In the deed of trust between the Arnold trustees and the College, income from Arnold’s legacy was to be used for establishing, developing and maintaining an arboretum to be known as the Arnold Arboretum which "shall contain, as far as practicable, all the trees [and] shrubs ... either indigenous or exotic, which can be raised in the open air of West Roxbury". The historical mission of the Arnold Arboretum is to increase knowledge of woody plants through research and to disseminate this knowledge through education.

 

Charles Sprague Sargent was appointed director and Arnold Professor of Botany shortly after the establishment of the institution in 1872.[2] Together with landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted he developed the road and pathway system and delineated the collection areas by family and genus, following the then current and widely accepted classification system of Bentham and Hooker. The Hunnewell building was designed by architect Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr. in 1892 and constructed with funds donated by H. H. Hunnewell in 1903. From 1946 to 1950 the landscape architect Beatrix Farrand was the landscape design consultant for the Arboretum. Her early training in the 1890s included time with Charles Sprague Sargent and chief propagator and superintendent Jackson Thornton Johnson.[3] Today the Arboretum occupies 265 acres (107 hectares) of land divided between four parcels, viz. the main Arboretum and the Peters Hill, Weld-Walter and South Street tracts. The collections, however, are located primarily in the main Arboretum and on the Peters Hill tract. The Arboretum remains one of the finest examples of a landscape designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and it is a Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site) and a National Historic Landmark.

 

Robert E. Cook is the seventh and current Director of the Arnold Arboretum. He is also the Director of the Harvard University Herbaria located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

Status

 

The Arboretum is privately endowed as a department of Harvard University. The land, however, was deeded to the City of Boston in 1882 and incorporated into the so-called "Emerald Necklace". Under the agreement with the City, Harvard University was given a thousand-year lease on the property, and the University, as trustee, is directly responsible for the development, maintenance, and operation of the Arboretum; the City retains responsibility for water fountains, benches, roads, boundaries, and policing. The annual operating budget of $7,350,644 (fiscal year 2003) is largely derived from endowment, which is also managed by the University, and all Arboretum staff are University employees. Other income is obtained through granting agencies and contributors.

 

Location

 

The main Arborway gate is located on Route 203 a few hundred yards south of its junction with the Jamaicaway. Public transportation to the Arboretum is available on the MBTA Orange Line to its terminus at Forest Hills Station and by bus (#39) to the Monument in Jamaica Plain. The Arboretum is within easy walking distance from either of these points.

 

Hours

 

The grounds are open free of charge to the public from sunrise to sunset 365 days of the year. The Visitor's Center in the Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, is open Monday through Friday 9 a.m.–4 p.m.; Saturdays 10 a.m.–4 p.m.; Sundays 12 p.m.–4 PM. The Visitor’s Center is closed on holidays. The Library, located in the Hunnewell Building, is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.. The Library is closed on Sundays and holidays. Stacks are closed and the collection does not circulate.

 

Area

 

Two hundred and sixty-five acres (107 hectares) in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale sections of Boston, Massachusetts, located at 42°19′N 71°5′W / 42.317°N 71.083°W / 42.317; -71.083, with altitudes ranging from 46 feet (15 m) in the meadow across the drive from the Hunnewell Building to 240 feet (79 m) at the top of Peters Hill.

 

Climate

 

Average yearly rainfall is 43.63 inches (1,102 mm); average snowfall, 40.2 inches (102 centimeters). Monthly mean temperature is 51.5 °F (10.8 °C); July's mean temperature is 73.5 °F (23 °C); January's is 29.6 °F (-1.3 °C). The Arboretum is located in USDA hardiness zone 6 (0 to −10 °F, −18 to −23 °C).

 

Collections (as of September 14, 2007)

 

At present, the living collections include 15,441 individual plants (including nursery holdings) belonging to 10,216 accessions representing 4,099 taxa; with particular emphasis on the ligneous species of North America and eastern Asia. Historic collections include the plant introductions from eastern Asia made by Charles Sprague Sargent, Ernest Henry Wilson, William Purdom, Joseph Hers, and Joseph Rock. Recent introductions from Asia have resulted from the 1977 Arnold Arboretum Expedition to Japan and Korea, the 1980 Sino-American Botanical Expedition to western Hubei Province, and more recent expeditions to China and Taiwan.

 

Comprehensive collections are maintained and augmented for most genera, and genera that have received particular emphasis include: Acer, Fagus, Carya, Forsythia, Taxodium, Pinus, Metasequoia, Lonicera, Magnolia, Malus, Quercus, Rhododendron, Syringa, Paulownia, Albizia, Ilex, Gleditsia and Tsuga. Other comprehensive collections include the Bradley Collection of Rosaceous Plants, the collection of conifers and dwarf conifers, and the Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection. Approximately 500 accessions are processed annually.

 

Collections policy

 

The mission of the Arnold Arboretum is to increase our knowledge of the evolution and biology of woody plants. Historically, this research has investigated the global distribution and evolutionary history of trees, shrubs and vines, with particular emphasis on the disjunct species of East Asia and North America. Today this work continues through molecular studies of the evolution and biogeography of the floras of temperate Asia, North America and Europe.

 

Research activities include molecular studies of gene evolution, investigations of plant-water relations, and the monitoring of plant phenology, vegetation succession, nutrient cycling and other factors that inform studies of environmental change. Applied work in horticulture uses the collections for studies in plant propagation, plant introduction, and environmental management. This diversity of scientific investigation is founded in a continuing commitment to acquire, grow, and document the recognized species and infraspecific taxa of ligneous plants of the Northern Hemisphere that are able to withstand the climate of the Arboretum’s 265-acre (1.07 km2) Jamaica Plain/Roslindale site.

 

As a primary resource for research in plant biology, the Arboretum’s living collections are actively developed, curated, and managed to support scientific investigation and study. To this end, acquisition policies place priority on obtaining plants that are genetically representative of documented wild populations. For each taxon, the Arnold Arboretum aspires to grow multiple accessions of known wild provenance in order to represent significant variation that may occur across the geographic range of the species. Accessions of garden or cultivated provenance are also acquired as governed by the collections policies herein.

 

For all specimens, full documentation of both provenance and history within the collection is a critical priority. Curatorial procedures provide for complete and accurate records for each accession, and document original provenance, locations in the collections, and changes in botanical identity. Herbarium specimens, DNA materials, and digital images are gathered for the collection and maintained in Arboretum data systems and the herbarium at the Roslindale site.

 

Research

 

Research on plant pathology and integrated pest management for maintenance of the living collections is constantly ongoing. Herbarium-based research focuses on the systematics and biodiversity of both temperate and tropical Asian forests, as well as the ecology and potential for sustainable use of their resources. The Arboretum's education programs offer school groups and the general public a wide range of lectures, courses, and walks focusing on the ecology and cultivation of plants. Its quarterly magazine, Arnoldia, provides in-depth information on horticulture, botany, and garden history. Current Research Initiatives

 

Plant Records

 

Plant records are maintained on a computerized database, BG-BASE 6.8 (BG-Base Inc.), which was initiated in 1985 at the request of the Arnold Arboretum and the Threatened Plants Unit (TPU) of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC). A computerized mapping program (based on AutoCAD (Autodesk)) is linked to BG-BASE, and each accession is recorded on a series of maps at a scale of 1-inch (25 mm) to 20 feet (1:240) or 1-inch (25 mm) to 10 feet (1:120). A computer-driven embosser generates records labels. All accessioned plants in the collections are labeled with accession number, botanical name, and cultivar name (when appropriate), source information, common name, and map location. Trunk and/or display labels are also hung on many accessions and include botanical and common names and nativity. Stake labels are used to identify plants located in the Leventritt Garden and Chinese Path.

 

Grounds Maintenance

 

The grounds staff consists of the superintendent and assistant superintendent, three arborists, and ten horticultural technologists. A service garage is adjacent to the Hunnewell Building, where offices and locker rooms are located. During the summer months ten horticultural interns supplement the grounds staff. A wide array of vehicles and modern equipment, including an aerial lift truck and a John Deere backhoe and front loader, are used in grounds maintenance. Permanent grounds staff, excluding the superintendents, are members of AFL/CIO Local 615, Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

 

Nursery and Greenhouse Facilities

 

The Dana Greenhouses, located at 1050 Centre Street (with a mailing address of 125 Arborway), were completed in 1962. They comprise four service greenhouses totaling 3,744 square feet (348 m²), the headhouse with offices, cold rooms, storage areas, and a classroom. Staffing at the greenhouse includes the manager of greenhouses and nurseries, the plant propagator, two assistants, and, during the summer months, two horticultural interns. Adjacent to the greenhouse is a shade house of 3,150 square feet (293 m²), a 12,600 cubic foot (357 m³) cold storage facility, and three irrigated, inground nurseries totaling approximately one and one-half acres (6,000 m²). Also located in the greenhouse complex is the bonsai pavilion, where the Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection is displayed from the middle of April to the end of October. During the winter months the bonsai are held in the cold storage unit at temperatures slightly above freezing.

 

Isabella Welles Hunnewell Internship Program

 

The living collections department of the Arnold Arboretum offers a paid summer internship program [2] that combines hands-on training in horticulture with educational courses. Intern trainees will be accepted for 12- to 24-week appointments. Ten interns will work with the grounds maintenance department and two in the Dana Greenhouses.

 

As part of the training program, interns participate in mandatory instructional sessions and field trips in order to develop a broader sense of the Arboretum’s horticultural practices as well as those of other institutions. Sessions and field trips are led by Arnold staff members and embrace an open question and answer format encouraging all to participate. Interns often bring experience and knowledge that everyone, including staff, benefits from. It is a competitive-free learning environment.

 

Horticultural Apprenticeship

 

The Arboretum created the horticultural apprenticeship program in 1997 to provide hands-on experience in all aspects of the development, curation, and maintenance of the Arboretum's living collections to individuals interested in pursuing a career in an arboretum or botanical garden.

 

The Living Collections department of the Arnold Arboretum offers a summer internship program[4] that combines practical hands-on training in horticulture with educational courses. Fourteen Interns/Horticultural Trainees are accepted for twelve to twenty-four week appointments. Interns receive the majority of their training in one of three departments: Grounds Maintenance, Nursery and Greenhouse, or Plant Records.

 

Lilac Sunday

 

The second Sunday in May every year is "Lilac Sunday". This is the only day of the year that picnicing is allowed. In 2008, on the 100th anniversary of Lilac Sunday, the Arboretum website touted:

 

Of the thousands of flowering plants in the Arboretum, only one, the lilac, is singled out each year for a daylong celebration. On Lilac Sunday, garden enthusiasts from all over New England gather at the Arboretum to picnic, watch Morris dancing, and tour the lilac collection. On the day of the event, which takes place rain or shine, the Arboretum is open as usual from dawn to dusk.[5]

 

Associated Collections

 

The Arboretum's herbarium in Jamaica Plain holds specimens of cultivated plants that relate to the living collections (ca. 160,000). The Jamaica Plain herbarium, horticultural library, archives, and photographs are maintained in the Hunnewell building at 125 Arborway; however, the main portions of the herbarium and library collections are housed in Cambridge on the campus of Harvard University, at 22 Divinity Avenue.

 

Publications

 

The inventory of living collections is updated periodically and made available to sister botanical gardens and arboreta on request; it is also available on the Arboretum’s website (searchable inventory). Arnoldia, the quarterly magazine of the Arnold Arboretum, frequently publishes articles relating to the living collections. A Reunion of Trees[6] by Stephen A. Spongberg (curator emeritus) recounts the history of the introduction of many of the exotic species included in the Arobretum’s collections. New England Natives[7] written by horticultural research archivist Sheila Connor describes many of the trees and shrubs of the New England flora and the ways New Englanders have used them since prehistoric times. Science in the Pleasure Ground[8] by Ida Hay (former curatorial associate) constitutes an institutional biography of the Arboretum.

 

Institutional Collaborations

 

The Arboretum maintains an institutional membership in the American Public Garden Association (APGA) and the International Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. Additionally, members of the staff are associated with many national and international botanical and horticultural organizations. The Arboretum is also a cooperating institution with the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC), and as an active member of the North American Plant Collections Consortium (NAPCC), it is committed to broadening and maintaining its holdings of: Acer, Carya, Fagus, Stewartia, Syringa, and Tsuga for the purposes of plant conservation, evaluation, and research. The Arboretum is also a member of the North American China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC).

 

See also

 

Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection, donated by businessman and ambassador Larz Anderson

The Case Estates of the Arnold Arboretum

List of botanical gardens in the United States

North American Plant Collections Consortium

Adams-Nervine_Asylum

 

External links

 

Arnold Arboretum Official Website

Arnold Arboretum Visitor Information

Harvard University Herbaria

American Public Gardens Association (APGA)

Flora of China

Virtual Information Access (VIA) Catalog of visual resources at Harvard University.

Garden and Forest A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and Forestry (1888–1897)

Boston's Arnold Arboretum: A Place for Study and Recreation, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan

The Emerald Necklace: Boston's Green Connection, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan

Seeing was above average for Saturn, but not as steady as the previous few nights.

 

Notes:

The large storm near the north pole is approaching the central meridian.

 

Telescope: Celestron C8 EdgeHD

Camera: ZWO ASI224MC

Barlow: Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate

Filter: Orion Luminance

 

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