View allAll Photos Tagged density
Montreal, Canada
June 2014
Sony A7R | Leica Summicron 50mm f2 V3
Leica M Mount Adapted (Hawks V3 Close Focus Helicoil)
Density - Density is a people counter. A simple sensor gets attached to nearly any environment — from an entrance, to retail floor. Anonymous measure “people” movement as they come and go. Density generates real-time and historical data that can be integrated anywhere. Brings life to saving consumers time in the coffee line, or use detailed data in a retail environment to help determine why sales are different between locations.
Install sensors across your network of locations (ex. a set of small businesses, a college campus, or museum). Real-time movement data is collected, organized, and made available to your developers through the Density API.
Huntington Beach State Park, SC
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Red/Cyan (not Red/Blue) glasses of the proper density must be used to view 3D effect without ghosting.
Summer holiday 2014
In and around Berlin Germany
Berlin
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This article is about the capital of Germany. For other uses, see Berlin (disambiguation).
Berlin
State of Germany
Clockwise: Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Clockwise: Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Flag of Berlin
Flag Coat of arms of Berlin
Coat of arms
Location within European Union and Germany
Location within European Union and Germany
Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′ECoordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′E
Country
Germany
Government
• Governing Mayor
Michael Müller (SPD)
• Governing parties
SPD / CDU
• Votes in Bundesrat
4 (of 69)
Area
• City
891.85 km2 (344.35 sq mi)
Elevation
34 m (112 ft)
Population (December 2013)[1]
• City
3,517,424
• Density
3,900/km2 (10,000/sq mi)
Demonym
Berliner
Time zone
CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)
CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code(s)
10115–14199
Area code(s)
030
ISO 3166 code
DE-BE
Vehicle registration
B[2]
GDP/ Nominal
€109.2 billion (2013) [3]
NUTS Region
DE3
Website
berlin.de
Berlin (/bərˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] ( listen)) is the capital of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people,[4] Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union.[5] Located in northeastern Germany on the River Spree, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which has about 4.5 million residents from over 180 nations.[6][7][8][9] Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.[10]
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945).[11] Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world.[12] After World War II, the city was divided; East Berlin became the capital of East Germany while West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989).[13] Following German reunification in 1990, the city was once more designated as the capital of all Germany, hosting 158 foreign embassies.[14]
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media, and science.[15][16][17][18] Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations, and convention venues.[19][20] Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination.[21] Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction, and electronics.
Modern Berlin is home to renowned universities, orchestras, museums, entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events.[22] Its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions.[23] The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts, and a high quality of living.[24] Over the last decade Berlin has seen the upcoming of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.[25]
20th to 21st centuries[edit]
Street, Berlin (1913) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
After 1910 Berlin had become a fertile ground for the German Expressionist movement. In fields such as architecture, painting and cinema new forms of artistic styles were invented. At the end of World War I in 1918, a republic was proclaimed by Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act incorporated dozens of suburban cities, villages, and estates around Berlin into an expanded city. The act increased the area of Berlin from 66 to 883 km2 (25 to 341 sq mi). The population almost doubled and Berlin had a population of around four million. During the Weimar era, Berlin underwent political unrest due to economic uncertainties, but also became a renowned center of the Roaring Twenties. The metropolis experienced its heyday as a major world capital and was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, city planning, film, higher education, government, and industries. Albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
Berlin in ruins after World War II (Potsdamer Platz, 1945).
In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. NSDAP rule effectively destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which had numbered 160,000, representing one-third of all Jews in the country. Berlin's Jewish population fell to about 80,000 as a result of emigration between 1933 and 1939. After Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's persecuted groups were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp or, starting in early 1943, were shipped to death camps, such as Auschwitz.[39] During World War II, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. Around 125,000 civilians were killed.[40] After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin.[41]
The Berlin Wall in 1986, painted on the western side. People crossing the so-called "death strip" on the eastern side were at risk of being shot.
All four Allies shared administrative responsibilities for Berlin. However, in 1948, when the Western Allies extended the currency reform in the Western zones of Germany to the three western sectors of Berlin, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on the access routes to and from West Berlin, which lay entirely inside Soviet-controlled territory. The Berlin airlift, conducted by the three western Allies, overcame this blockade by supplying food and other supplies to the city from June 1948 to May 1949.[42] In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in West Germany and eventually included all of the American, British, and French zones, excluding those three countries' zones in Berlin, while the Marxist-Leninist German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in East Germany. West Berlin officially remained an occupied city, but it politically was aligned with the Federal Republic of Germany despite West Berlin's geographic isolation. Airline service to West Berlin was granted only to American, British, and French airlines.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. On 3 October 1990, the German reunification process was formally finished.
The founding of the two German states increased Cold War tensions. West Berlin was surrounded by East German territory, and East Germany proclaimed the Eastern part as its capital, a move that was not recognized by the western powers. East Berlin included most of the historic center of the city. The West German government established itself in Bonn.[43] In 1961, East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany. John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" – speech in 1963 underlining the US support for the Western part of the city. Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other side through strictly controlled checkpoints, for most Easterners travel to West Berlin or West Germany prohibited. In 1971, a Four-Power agreement guaranteed access to and from West Berlin by car or train through East Germany.[44]
In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and pressure from the East German population, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November and was subsequently mostly demolished. Today, the East Side Gallery preserves a large portion of the Wall. On 3 October 1990, the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin again became the official German capital. In 1991, the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voted to move the seat of the (West) German capital from Bonn to Berlin, which was completed in 1999. Berlin's 2001 administrative reform merged several districts. The number of boroughs was reduced from 23 to twelve. In 2006 the FIFA World Cup Final was held in Berlin.
Berlin Wall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the chess opening variation, sometimes known as Berlin Wall, see Berlin Defence.
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Berlin Wall
Berlinermauer.jpg
View from the West Berlin side of graffiti art on the wall in 1986. The wall's "death strip", on the east side of the wall, here follows the curve of the Luisenstadt Canal (filled in 1932).
Berlin-wall-map.png
Map of the location of the Berlin Wall, showing checkpoints
General information
Type
Wall
Country
East Germany
Flag of East Berlin (1956-1990).svg East Berlin (Soviet-occupied sector of Berlin)
Coordinates
52.516111°N 13.376944°ECoordinates: 52.516111°N 13.376944°E
Construction started
13 August 1961
Dimensions
Other dimensions
Border length around West Berlin: 155 km (96 mi)
Border length between West Berlin and East Germany: 111.9 km (69.5 mi)
Border length between West and East Berlin: 43.1 km (26.8 mi)
Border length through residential areas in East Berlin: 37 km (23 mi)
Concrete segment of wall height: 3.6 m (12 ft)
Concrete segment of wall length: 106 km (66 mi)
Wire mesh fencing: 66.5 km (41.3 mi)
Anti-vehicle trenches length: 105.5 km (65.6 mi)
Contact/signal fence length: 127.5 km (79.2 mi)
Column track width: 7 m (7.7 yd)
Column track length: 124.3 km (77.2 mi)
Number of watch towers: 302
Number of bunkers: 20
Technical details
Size
155 km (96 mi)
Satellite image of Berlin, with the wall's location marked in yellow
West and East Berlin borders overlaying a current road map (interactive map)
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989,[1] constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989.[2] Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. [3] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[4] which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were "fascists."[5] The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin, from where they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration.[6] During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with an estimated death toll of from 136[7] to more than 200[8] in and around Berlin.
In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. Contrary to popular belief the wall's actual demolition did not begin until Summer 1990 and was not completed until 1992.[1] The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
Antwerp (English: /ˈæntwɜrp/ ( listen); Dutch: Antwerpen, [ˈɑntˌʋɛrpə(n)] ( listen); French: Anvers, [ɑ̃vɛʁs]) is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp province in Flanders, one of Belgium's three regions. Antwerp's total population is 472,071 (as of 1 January 2008)[1] and its total area is 204.51 km2 (78.96 sq mi), giving a population density of 2,308 inhabitants per km². The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 1,449 km2 (559 sq mi) with a total of 1,190,769 inhabitants as of 1 January 2008.[2] The nickname of inhabitants of Antwerp is Sinjoren, after the Spanish word señor, which means 'mister' or 'gent'. It refers to the leading Spanish noble-men who ruled the city during the 17th century.[3]
Antwerp has long been an important city in the nations of the Benelux both economically and culturally, especially before the Spanish Fury of the Dutch Revolt. It is located on the right bank of the river Scheldt, which is linked to the North Sea by the estuary Westerschelde.
History
[edit]
Origin of the name
According to folklore, and as celebrated by the statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend involving a mythical giant called Antigoon who lived near the river Scheldt. He exacted a toll from those crossing the river, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands and threw it into the river Scheldt. Eventually, the giant was slain by a young hero named Brabo, who cut off the giant's own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen—akin to Old English hand and wearpan (= to throw), that has changed to today's warp.[4]
In favour of this folk etymology is the fact that hand-cutting was indeed practised in Europe, the right hand of a man who died without issue being cut off and sent to the feudal lord as proof of main-morte. However, John Lothrop Motley argues that Antwerp's name derives from an 't werf (on the wharf).[5] Aan 't werp (at the warp) is also possible. This 'warp' (thrown ground) would be a man made hill, just high enough to remain dry at high tide, whereupon a farm would be built. Another word for werp is pol (hence polders).
The most prevailing theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante (before) Verpia (deposition, sedimentation), indicating land that forms by deposition in the inside curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a transition period between 600 to 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, situating the city within a former curve of the river.[6]
[edit]
Pre-1500
Historical Antwerp had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus civilization. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952-1961 (ref. Princeton), produced pottery shards and fragments of glass from mid-2nd century to the end of the 3rd century.
In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks.[7] The name was reputed to have been derived from "anda" (at) and "werpum" (wharf).[5]
The Merovingian Antwerp, now fortified, was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century. At the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate, a border province facing the County of Flanders.
In the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michael's Abbey at Caloes. Antwerp was also the headquarters of Edward III during his early negotiations with Jacob van Artevelde, and his son Lionel, the earl of Cambridge, was born there in 1338.
[edit]
16th century
After the silting up of the Zwin and the consequent decline of Bruges, the city of Antwerp, then part of the Duchy of Brabant, became of importance. At the end of the 15th century the foreign trading houses were transferred from Bruges to Antwerp, and the building assigned to the English nation is specifically mentioned in 1510.
Fernand Braudel states that Antwerp became "the center of the entire international economy, something Bruges had never been even at its height."[8] Antwerp was the richest city in Europe at this time.[9] Antwerp's golden age is tightly linked to the "Age of Exploration". Over the first half of the 16th century Antwerp grew to become the second-largest European city north of the Alps by 1560. Many foreign merchants were resident in the city. Francesco Guicciardini, the Venetian envoy, stated that hundreds of ships would pass in a day, and 2,000 carts entered the city each week. Portuguese ships laden with pepper and cinnamon would unload their cargo.
Without a long-distance merchant fleet, and governed by an oligarchy of banker-aristocrats forbidden to engage in trade, the economy of Antwerp was foreigner-controlled, which made the city very cosmopolitan, with merchants and traders from Venice, Ragusa, Spain and Portugal. Antwerp had a policy of toleration, which attracted a large orthodox Jewish community. Antwerp was not a "free" city though, since it had been reabsorbed into the Duchy of Brabant in 1406 and was controlled from Brussels.
Antwerp experienced three booms during its golden age: The first based on the pepper market, a second launched by American silver coming from Seville (ending with the bankruptcy of Spain in 1557), and a third boom, after the stabilising Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, in 1559, based on the textiles industry. The boom-and-bust cycles and inflationary cost-of-living squeezed less-skilled workers.
The religious revolution of the Reformation erupted in violent riots in August 1566, as in other parts of the Low Countries. The regent Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was swept aside when Philip II sent the Duke of Alba at the head of an army the following summer. When the Eighty Years' War broke out in 1572, commercial trading between Antwerp and the Spanish port of Bilbao collapsed and became impossible. On 4 November 1576, Spanish soldiers plundered the city. During the Spanish Fury 6,000 citizens were massacred, 800 houses were burnt down, and over 2 million sterling of damage was done.
Antwerp became the capital of the Dutch revolt. In 1585, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, captured it after a long siege and as part of the terms of surrender its Protestant citizens were given two years to settle their affairs before quitting the city.[10] Most went to the United Provinces in the north, starting the Dutch Golden Age. Antwerp's banking was controlled for a generation by Genoa, and Amsterdam became the new trading centre.
17th-19th centuries
The recognition of the independence of the United Provinces by the Treaty of Münster in 1648 stipulated that the Scheldt should be closed to navigation, which destroyed Antwerp's trading activities. This impediment remained in force until 1863, although the provisions were relaxed during French rule from 1795 to 1814, and also during the time Belgium formed part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands (1815 to 1830). Antwerp had reached the lowest point of its fortunes in 1800, and its population had sunk under 40,000, when Napoleon, realizing its strategic importance, assigned two million[clarification needed] to enlarge the harbor by constructing two docks and a mole and deepening the Scheldt to allow for larger ships to approach Antwerp.[9] Napoleon hoped that by making Antwerp's harbor the finest in Europe he would be able to counter London's harbor and stint English growth, but he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo before he could see the plan through.[11]
In 1830, the city was captured by the Belgian insurgents, but the citadel continued to be held by a Dutch garrison under General David Hendrik Chassé. For a time Chassé subjected the town to periodic bombardment which inflicted much damage, and at the end of 1832 the citadel itself was besieged by a French army. During this attack the town was further damaged. In December 1832, after a gallant defence, Chassé made an honourable surrender.
Later that century, a ring of fortresses was constructed some 10 kilometers from the city center, as Antwerp was considered vital for the survival of the young Belgian state.
20th century
Antwerp was the first city to host the World Gymnastics Championships, in 1903. During World War I, the city became the fallback point of the Belgian Army after the defeat at Liège. It was taken after heavy fighting by the German Army, and the Belgians were forced to retreat westward.
Antwerp hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics. During World War II, the city was an important strategic target because of its port. It was occupied by Germany in May 1940 and liberated by the British 11th Armoured Division on 4 September 1944. After this, the Germans attempted to destroy the Port of Antwerp, which was used by the Allies to bring new material ashore. Thousands of V-1 and V-2 missiles battered the city. The city was hit by more V-2s than all other targets during the entire war combined, but the attack did not succeed in destroying the port since many of the missiles fell upon other parts of the city. As a result, the city itself was severely damaged and rebuilt after the war in a modern style. After the war, Antwerp, which had already had a sizable Jewish population before the war, once again became a major European center of Haredi (and particularly Hasidic) Orthodox Judaism.
Buildings, landmarks and museums
In the 16th century, Antwerp was noted for the wealth of its citizens ("Antwerpia nummis"); the houses of these wealthy merchants and manufacturers have been preserved throughout the city. However fire has destroyed several old buildings, such as the house of the Hanseatic League on the northern quays in 1891. The city also suffered considerable war damage by V-bombs, and in recent years other noteworthy buildings were demolished for new developments.
▪Antwerp Zoo was founded in 1843, and is home to more than 6,000 animals (about 769 species). One of the oldest zoos in the world, it is renowned for of its high level of research and conservation.
▪Central Station is a railway station designed by Louis Delacenserie that was completed in 1905. It has two monumental neo-baroque facades, a large metal and glass dome (60m/197 ft) and a gilt and marble interior
▪Cathedral of Our Lady. This church was begun in the 14th century and finished in 1518. The church has four works by Rubens, viz. "The Descent from the Cross", "The Elevation of the Cross", "The Resurrection of Christ" and "The Assumption"
▪St. James' Church, is more ornate than the cathedral. It contains the tomb of Rubens
▪The Church of St. Paul has a beautiful baroque interior. It is a few hundred yards north of the Grote Markt
▪Plantin-Moretus Museum preserves the house of the printer Christoffel Plantijn and his successor Jan Moretus
▪The Saint-Boniface Church is an Anglican church and headseat of the archdeanery North-West Europe.
▪Boerentoren (Farmers' Tower) or KBC Tower, a 26-storey building built in 1932, is the oldest skyscraper in Europe[21]
▪Royal Museum of Fine Arts, close to the southern quays, has a collection of old masters (Rubens, Van Dyck, Titian) and the leading Dutch masters.
▪Rubenshuis is the former home and studio of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in Antwerp. It is now a museum.
▪Exchange or Bourse, one of the earliest institutions in Europe with that title, was built in 1872.
▪Law Courts, designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, Arup and VK Studio, and opened by King Albert in April 2006. This building is the antithesis of the heavy, dark court building designed by Joseph Poelaert that dominates the skyline of Brussels. The courtrooms sit on top of six fingers that radiate from an airy central hall, and are surmounted by spires which provide north light and resemble oast houses or the sails of barges on the nearby River Scheldt. It is built on the site of the old Zuid ("South") station, at the end of a magnificent 1.5 km perspective at the southern end of Amerikalei. The road neatly disappears into an underpass under oval Bolivarplaats to join the motorway ring. This leaves peaceful surface access by foot, bicycle or tram (routes 8 & 12). The building's highest 'sail' is 51 m (167.32 ft) high, has a floor area of 77,000 m2 (828,821.10 sq ft), and cost €130 million.
Kathmandu is the capital and largest municipality of Nepal. It is the only city of Nepal with the administrative status of Mahanagar (Metropolitan City), as compared to Upa-Mahanagar (Sub-Metropolitan City) or Nagar (City). Kathmandu is the core of Nepal's largest urban agglomeration located in the Kathmandu Valley consisting of Lalitpur, Kirtipur, Madhyapur Thimi, Bhaktapur and a number of smaller communities. Kathmandu is also known informally as "KTM" or the "tri-city". According to the 2011 census, Kathmandu Metropolitan City has a population of 975,453 and measures 49.45 square kilometres.
The city stands at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley of central Nepal. It is surrounded by four major hills: Shivapuri, Phulchoki, Nagarjun, and Chandragiri. Kathmandu Valley is part of three districts (Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur), has the highest population density in the country, and is home to about a twelfth of Nepal's population.
Historically, the Kathmandu Valley and adjoining areas were known as Nepal Mandala. Until the 15th century, Bhaktapur was its capital when two other capitals, Kathmandu and Lalitpur, were established. During the Rana and Shah eras, British historians called the valley itself "Nepal Proper". Today, Kathmandu is not only the capital of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, but also the headquarters of the Bagmati Zone and the Central Development Region of Nepal.
Kathmandu is the gateway to tourism in Nepal. It is also the hub of the country's economy. It has the most advanced infrastructure of any urban area in Nepal, and its economy is focused on tourism, which accounted for 3.8% of Nepal's GDP in 1995–96. Tourism in Kathmandu declined thereafter during a period of political unrest, but since then has improved. In 2013, Kathmandu was ranked third among the top 10 travel destinations on the rise in the world by TripAdvisor, and ranked first in Asia.
The city has a rich history, spanning nearly 2000 years, as inferred from inscriptions found in the valley. Religious and cultural festivities form a major part of the lives of people residing in Kathmandu. Most of Kathmandu's people follow Hinduism and many others follow Buddhism. There are people of other religious beliefs as well, giving Kathmandu a cosmopolitan culture. Nepali is the most commonly spoken language in the city. English is understood by Kathmandu's educated residents. Kathmandu was devastated by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on April 25, 2015.
ETYMOLOGY
The city of Kathmandu is named after Kasthamandap temple, that stood in Durbar Square. In Sanskrit, Kastha (काष्ठ) means "wood" and Mandap (/मण्डप) means "covered shelter". This temple, also known as Maru Satal (in ″Newar language″), was built in 1596 by King Laxmi Narsingh Malla. The two-storey structure was made entirely of wood, and used no iron nails nor supports. According to legend, all the timber used to build the pagoda was obtained from a single tree. The structure unfortunately collapsed during the major earthquake in April 2015.
The colophons of ancient manuscripts, dated as late as the 20th century, refer to Kathmandu as Kasthamandap Mahanagar in Nepal Mandala. Mahanagar means "great city". The city is called "Kasthamandap" in a vow that Buddhist priests still recite to this day. Thus, Kathmandu is also known as Kasthamandap. During medieval times, the city was sometimes called Kantipur (कान्तिपुर). This name is derived from two Sanskrit words - Kanti and pur. "Kanti" is one of the names of the Goddess Lakshmi, and "pur" means place.
Among the indigenous Newar people, Kathmandu is known as Yen Desa (येँ देश), and Patan and Bhaktapur are known as Yala Desa (यल देश) and Khwopa Desa (ख्वप देश). "Yen" is the shorter form of Yambu (यम्बु), which originally referred to the northern half of Kathmandu.
HISTORY
Archaeological excavations in parts of Kathmandu have found evidence of ancient civilizations. The oldest of these findings is a statue, found in Maligaon, that was dated at 185 AD. The excavation of Dhando Chaitya uncovered a brick with an inscription in Brahmi script. Archaeologists believe it is two thousand years old. Stone inscriptions are an ubiquitous element at heritage sites and are key sources for the history of Nepal
The earliest Western reference to Kathmandu appears in an account of Jesuit Fathers Johann Grueber and Albert d'Orville. In 1661, they passed through Nepal on their way from Tibet to India, and reported that they reached "Cadmendu, the capital of the Kingdom of Necbal".
ANCIENT HISTORY
The ancient history of Kathmandu is described in its traditional myths and legends. According to Swayambhu Purana, the present day Kathmandu was once a lake called Nagdaha. The lake was drained by Manjusri, who established a city called Manjupattan and made Dharmakar the ruler of the land.
Kotirudra Samhita of Shiva Purana, Chapter 11, shloka 18 refers to the place as Nayapala city famous for its Pashupati Shivalinga. The name Nepal probably originates from this city Nayapala.
Very few historical records exist of the period before the medieval Licchavis rulers. According to Gopalraj Vansawali, a genealogy of Nepali monarchs, the rulers of Kathmandu Valley before the Licchavis were Gopalas, Mahispalas, Aabhirs, Kirants, and Somavanshi. The Kirata dynasty was established by Yalamber. During the Kirata era, a settlement called Yambu existed in the northern half of old Kathmandu. In some of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Kathmandu is still called Yambu. Another smaller settlement called Yengal was present in the southern half of old Kathmandu, near Manjupattan. During the reign of the seventh Kirata ruler, Jitedasti, Buddhist monks entered Kathmandu valley and established a forest monastery at Sankhu.
MEDIEVAL HISTORY
LICCHAVI ERA
The Licchavis from the Indo-Gangetic plain migrated north and defeated the Kiratas, establishing the Licchavi dynasty. During this era, following the genocide of Shakyas in Lumbini by Virudhaka, the survivors migrated north and entered the forest monastery in Sankhu masquerading as Koliyas. From Sankhu, they migrated to Yambu and Yengal (Lanjagwal and Manjupattan) and established the first permanent Buddhist monasteries of Kathmandu. This created the basis of Newar Buddhism, which is the only surviving Sanskrit-based Buddhist tradition in the world. With their migration, Yambu was called Koligram and Yengal was called Dakshin Koligram during most of the Licchavi era.Eventually, the Licchavi ruler Gunakamadeva merged Koligram and Dakshin Koligram, founding the city of Kathmandu. The city was designed in the shape of Chandrahrasa, the sword of Manjushri. The city was surrounded by eight barracks guarded by Ajimas. One of these barracks is still in use at Bhadrakali (in front of Singha Durbar). The city served as an important transit point in the trade between India and Tibet, leading to tremendous growth in architecture. Descriptions of buildings such as Managriha, Kailaskut Bhawan, and Bhadradiwas Bhawan have been found in the surviving journals of travelers and monks who lived during this era. For example, the famous 7th-century Chinese traveller Xuanzang described Kailaskut Bhawan, the palace of the Licchavi king Amshuverma. The trade route also led to cultural exchange as well. The artistry of the Newar people - the indigenous inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley - became highly sought after during this era, both within the Valley and throughout the greater Himalayas. Newar artists travelled extensively throughout Asia, creating religious art for their neighbors. For example, Araniko led a group of his compatriot artists through Tibet and China. Bhrikuti, the princess of Nepal who married Tibetan monarch Songtsän Gampo, was instrumental in introducing Buddhism to Tibet.
MALLA ERA
The Licchavi era was followed by the Malla era. Rulers from Tirhut, upon being attacked by Muslims, fled north to the Kathmandu valley. They intermarried with Nepali royalty, and this led to the Malla era. The early years of the Malla era were turbulent, with raids and attacks from Khas and Turk Muslims. There was also a devastating earthquake which claimed the lives of a third of Kathmandu's population, including the king Abhaya Malla. These disasters led to the destruction of most of the architecture of the Licchavi era (such as Mangriha and Kailashkut Bhawan), and the loss of literature collected in various monasteries within the city. Despite the initial hardships, Kathmandu rose to prominence again and, during most of the Malla era, dominated the trade between India and Tibet. Nepali currency became the standard currency in trans-Himalayan trade.
During the later part of the Malla era, Kathmandu Valley comprised four fortified cities: Kantipur, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, and Kirtipur. These served as the capitals of the Malla confederation of Nepal. These states competed with each other in the arts, architecture, aesthetics, and trade, resulting in tremendous development. The kings of this period directly influenced or involved themselves in the construction of public buildings, squares, and temples, as well as the development of water spouts, the institutionalization of trusts (called guthis), the codification of laws, the writing of dramas, and the performance of plays in city squares. Evidence of an influx of ideas from India, Tibet, China, Persia, and Europe among other places can be found in a stone inscription from the time of king Pratap Malla. Books have been found from this era that describe their tantric tradition (e.g. Tantrakhyan), medicine (e.g. Haramekhala), religion (e.g. Mooldevshashidev), law, morals, and history. Amarkosh, a Sanskrit-Nepal Bhasa dictionary from 1381 AD, was also found. Architecturally notable buildings from this era include Kathmandu Durbar Square, Patan Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square, the former durbar of Kirtipur, Nyatapola, Kumbheshwar, the Krishna temple, and others.
MODERN ERA
EARLY SHAH RULE
The Gorkha Kingdom ended the Malla confederation after the Battle of Kathmandu in 1768. This marked the beginning of the modern era in Kathmandu. The Battle of Kirtipur was the start of the Gorkha conquest of the Kathmandu Valley. Kathmandu was adopted as the capital of the Gorkha empire, and the empire itself was dubbed Nepal. During the early part of this era, Kathmandu maintained its distinctive culture. Buildings with characteristic Nepali architecture, such as the nine-story tower of Basantapur, were built during this era. However, trade declined because of continual war with neighboring nations. Bhimsen Thapa supported France against Great Britain; this led to the development of modern military structures, such as modern barracks in Kathmandu. The nine-storey tower Dharahara was originally built during this era.
RANA RULE
Rana rule over Nepal started with the Kot Massacre, which occurred near Hanuman Dhoka Durbar. During this massacre, most of Nepal's high-ranking officials were massacred by Jang Bahadur Rana and his supporters. Another massacre, the Bhandarkhal Massacre, was also conducted by Kunwar and his supporters in Kathmandu. During the Rana regime, Kathmandu's alliance shifted from anti-British to pro-British; this led to the construction of the first buildings in the style of Western European architecture. The most well-known of these buildings include Singha Durbar, Garden of Dreams, Shital Niwas, and the old Narayanhiti palace. The first modern commercial road in the Kathmandu Valley, the New Road, was also built during this era. Trichandra College (the first college of Nepal), Durbar School (the first modern school of Nepal), and Bir Hospital (the first hospital of Nepal) were built in Kathmandu during this era. Rana rule was marked by tyranny, debauchery, economic exploitation and religious persecution.
GEOGRAPHY
Kathmandu is located in the northwestern part of Kathmandu Valley to the north of the Bagmati River and covers an area of 50.67 square kilometres. The average elevation is 1,400 metres above sea level. The city is directly bounded by several other municipalities of the Kathmandu valley: south of the Bagmati by Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City (Patan) with which it today forms one urban area surrounded by a ring road, to the southwest by Kirtipur Municipality and to the east by Madyapur Thimi Municipality. To the north the urban area extends into several Village Development Committees. However, the urban agglomeration extends well beyond the neighboring municipalities, e. g. to Bhaktapur and just about covers the entire Kathmandu valley.
Kathmandu is dissected by eight rivers, the main river of the valley, the Bagmati and its tributaries, of which the Bishnumati, Dhobi Khola, Manohara Khola, Hanumant Khola, and Tukucha Khola are predominant. The mountains from where these rivers originate are in the elevation range of 1,500–3,000 metres, and have passes which provide access to and from Kathmandu and its valley. An ancient canal once flowed from Nagarjuna hill through Balaju to Kathmandu; this canal is now extinct.
Kathmandu and its valley are in the Deciduous Monsoon Forest Zone (altitude range of 1,200–2,100 metres), one of five vegetation zones defined for Nepal. The dominant tree species in this zone are oak, elm, beech, maple and others, with coniferous trees at higher altitude.
TOURISM
Tourism is considered another important industry in Nepal. This industry started around 1950, as the country's political makeup changed and ended the country's isolation from the rest of the world. In 1956, air transportation was established and the Tribhuvan Highway, between Kathmandu and Raxaul (at India's border), was started. Separate organizations were created in Kathmandu to promote this activity; some of these include the Tourism Development Board, the Department of Tourism and the Civil Aviation Department. Furthermore, Nepal became a member of several international tourist associations. Establishing diplomatic relations with other nations further accentuated this activity. The hotel industry, travel agencies, training of tourist guides, and targeted publicity campaigns are the chief reasons for the remarkable growth of this industry in Nepal, and in Kathmandu in particular.
Since then, tourism in Nepal has thrived; it is sometimes called the "third religion" of Nepal. It is the country's most important industry. Tourism is a major source of income for most of the people in the city, with several hundred thousand visitors annually. Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world visit Kathmandu's religious sites such as Pashupatinath, Swayambhunath, Boudhanath and Budhanilkantha. From a mere 6,179 tourists in 1961–62, the number jumped to 491,504 in 1999-2000. With the end of Maoist insuregency period in 2009 there was a significant rise of 509,956 tourist arrivals. Since then, tourism has improved as the country turned into a Democratic Republic. In economic terms, the foreign exchange registered 3.8% of the GDP in 1995–96 but then started declining[why?]. The high level of tourism is attributed to the natural grandeur of the Himalayas and the rich cultural heritage of the country.
The neighborhood of Thamel is Kathmandu's primary "traveler's ghetto", packed with guest houses, restaurants, shops, and bookstores, catering to tourists. Another neighborhood of growing popularity is Jhamel, a name for Jhamsikhel coined to rhyme with Thamel. Jhochhen Tol, also known as Freak Street, is Kathmandu's original traveler's haunt, made popular by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s; it remains a popular alternative to Thamel. Asan is a bazaar and ceremonial square on the old trade route to Tibet, and provides a fine example of a traditional neighborhood.
With the opening of the tourist industry after the change in the political scenario of Nepal in 1950, the hotel industry drastically improved. Now Kathmandu boasts several five-star hotels like Hyatt Regency, Hotel Yak & Yeti, The Everest Hotel, Hotel Radisson, Hotel De L'Annapurna, The Malla Hotel, Shangri-La Hotel (which is not operated by the Shangri-La Hotel Group) and The Shanker Hotel. There are several four-star hotels such as Hotel Vaishali, Hotel Narayani, The Blue Star and Grand Hotel. The Garden Hotel, Hotel Ambassador, and Aloha Inn are among the three-star hotels in Kathmandu. Hotels like Hyatt Regency, De L'Annapurna and Hotel Yak & Yeti are among the five-star hotels providing casinos as well.
DEMOGRAPHICS
Kathmandu's urban cosmopolitan character has made it the most populous city in Nepal, recording a population of 671,846 residents living in 235,387 households in the metropolitan area, according to the 2001 census. According to the National Population Census of 2011, the total population of Kathmandu city was 975,543 with an annual growth rate of 6.12% with respect to the population figure of 2001. 70% of the total population residing in Kathmandu are aged between 15 and 59.
Over the years the city has been home to people of various ethnicities, resulting in a range of different traditions and cultural practices. In one decade, the population increased from 427,045 in 1991 to 671,805 in 2001. The population was projected to reach 915,071 in 2011 and 1,319,597 by 2021. To keep up this population growth, the KMC-controlled area of 5,076.6 hectares has expanded to 8,214 hectares in 2001. With this new area, the population density which was 85 in 1991 is still 85 in 2001; it is likely to jump to 111 in 2011 and 161 in 2021.
ETHNIC GROUPS
The largest ethnic groups are Newar (29.6%), Matwali (25.1% Sunuwar, Gurung, Magars, Tamang etc.), Khas Brahmins (20.51%) and Chettris (18.5%) .[47] Tamangs originating from surrounding hill districts can be seen in Kathmandu. More recently, other hill ethnic groups and Caste groups from Terai have become present as well in vast majority. The major languages are Nepali, Nepal Bhasa and English is understood by about 30% of the people. The major religions are Hinduism and Buddhism.
The linguistic profile of Kathmandu underwent drastic changes during the Shah dynasty's rule because of its strong bias towards the Brahminic culture. Sanskrit language therefore was preferred and people were encouraged to learn it even by attending Sanskrit learning centers in Terai. Sanskrit schools were specially set up in Kathmandu and in the Terai region to inculcate traditional Hindu culture and practices originated from Nepal.
Architecture and cityscape
The ancient trade route between India and Tibet that passed through Kathmandu enabled a fusion of artistic and architectural traditions from other cultures to be amalgamated with local art and architecture. The monuments of Kathmandu City have been influenced over the centuries by Hindu and Buddhist religious practices. The architectural treasure of the Kathmandu valley has been categorized under the well-known seven groups of heritage monuments and buildings. In 2006 UNESCO declared these seven groups of monuments as a World Heritage Site (WHS). The seven monuments zones cover an area of 188.95 hectares, with the buffer zone extending to 239.34 hectares. The Seven Monument Zones (Mzs) inscribed originally in 1979 and with a minor modification in 2006 are Durbar squares of Hanuman Dhoka, Patan and Bhaktapur, Hindu temples of Pashupatinath and Changunarayan, the Buddhist stupas of Swayambhu and Boudhanath.
DURBAR SQUARES
The literal meaning of Durbar Square is a "place of palaces". There are three preserved Durbar Squares in Kathmandu valley and one unpreserved in Kirtipur. The Durbar Square of Kathmandu is located in the old city and has heritage buildings representing four kingdoms (Kantipur, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kirtipur); the earliest is the Licchavi dynasty. The complex has 50 temples and is distributed in two quadrangles of the Durbar Square. The outer quadrangle has the Kasthamandap, Kumari Ghar, and Shiva-Parvati Temple; the inner quadrangle has the Hanuman Dhoka palace. The squares were severely damaged in the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.
Hanuman Dhoka is a complex of structures with the Royal Palace of the Malla kings and of the Shah dynasty. It is spread over five acres. The eastern wing, with ten courtyards, is the oldest part, dating to the mid-16th century. It was expanded by King Pratap Malla in the 17th century with many temples. The royal family lived in this palace until 1886 when they moved to Narayanhiti Palace. The stone inscription outside is in fifteen languages.
Kumari Ghar is a palace in the center of the Kathmandu city, next to the Durbar square where a Royal Kumari selected from several Kumaris resides. Kumari, or Kumari Devi, is the tradition of worshipping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy or devi in South Asian countries. In Nepal the selection process is very rigorous. Kumari is believed to be the bodily incarnation of the goddess Taleju (the Nepali name for Durga) until she menstruates, after which it is believed that the goddess vacates her body. Serious illness or a major loss of blood from an injury are also causes for her to revert to common status. The current Royal Kumari, Matina Shakya, age four, was installed in October 2008 by the Maoist government that replaced the monarchy.
Kasthamandap is a three-storeyed temple enshrining an image of Gorakhnath. It was built in the 16th century in pagoda style. The name of Kathmandu is a derivative of the word Kasthamandap. It was built under the reign of King Laxmi Narsingha Malla. Kasthamandap stands at the intersection of two ancient trade routes linking India and Tibet at Maru square. It was originally built as a rest house for travelers.
PASHUPATINATH TEMPLE
The Pashupatinath Temple is a famous 5th century Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva (Pashupati). Located on the banks of the Bagmati River in the eastern part of Kathmandu, Pashupatinath Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. It served as the seat of national deity, Lord Pashupatinath, until Nepal was secularized. However, a significant part of the temple was destroyed by Mughal invaders in the 14th century and little or nothing remains of the original 5th-century temple exterior. The temple as it stands today was built in the 19th century, although the image of the bull and the black four-headed image of Pashupati are at least 300 years old. The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Shivaratri, or the night of Lord Shiva, is the most important festival that takes place here, attracting thousands of devotees and sadhus.
Believers in Pashupatinath (mainly Hindus) are allowed to enter the temple premises, but non-Hindu visitors are allowed to view the temple only from the across the Bagmati River. The priests who perform the services at this temple have been Brahmins from Karnataka, South India since the time of Malla king Yaksha Malla. This tradition is believed to have been started at the request of Adi Shankaracharya who sought to unify the states of Bharatam (Unified India) by encouraging cultural exchange. This procedure is followed in other temples around India, which were sanctified by Adi Shankaracharya.
The temple is built in the pagoda style of architecture, with cubic constructions, carved wooden rafters (tundal) on which they rest, and two-level roofs made of copper and gold.
BOUDHANATH
The Boudhanath, (also written Bouddhanath, Bodhnath, Baudhanath or the Khāsa Chaitya), is one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Nepal, along with Swayambhu. It is a very popular tourist site. Boudhanath is known as Khāsti by Newars and as Bauddha or Bodhnāth by speakers of Nepali. Located about 11 km from the center and northeastern outskirts of Kathmandu, the stupa's massive mandala makes it one of the largest spherical stupas in Nepal. Boudhanath became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.The base of the stupa has 108 small depictions of the Dhyani Buddha Amitabha. It is surrounded with a brick wall with 147 niches, each with four or five prayer wheels engraved with the mantra, om mani padme hum. At the northern entrance where visitors must pass is a shrine dedicated to Ajima, the goddess of smallpox. Every year the stupa attracts many Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims who perform full body prostrations in the inner lower enclosure, walk around the stupa with prayer wheels, chant, and pray. Thousands of prayer flags are hoisted up from the top of the stupa downwards and dot the perimeter of the complex. The influx of many Tibetan refugees from China has seen the construction of over 50 Tibetan gompas (monasteries) around Boudhanath.
SWAYAMBHU
Swayambhu is a Buddhist stupa atop a hillock at the northwestern part of the city. This is among the oldest religious sites in Nepal. Although the site is considered Buddhist, it is revered by both Buddhists and Hindus. The stupa consists of a dome at the base; above the dome, there is a cubic structure with the eyes of Buddha looking in all four directions.[clarification needed] There are pentagonal Toran above each of the four sides, with statues engraved on them. Behind and above the torana there are thirteen tiers. Above all the tiers, there is a small space above which lies a gajur.
CULTURE
ARTS
Kathmandu valley is described as "an enormous treasure house of art and sculptures", which are made of wood, stone, metal, and terracotta, and found in profusion in temples, shrines, stupas, gompas, chaityasm and palaces. The art objects are also seen in street corners, lanes, private courtyards, and in open ground. Most art is in the form of icons of gods and goddesses. Kathmandu valley has had this art treasure very long, but received worldwide recognition only after the country opened its doors to the outside world in 1950.
The religious art of Nepal and Kathmandu in particular consists of an iconic symbolism of the Mother Goddesses such as: Bhavani, Durga, Gaja-Lakshmi, Hariti-Sitala, Mahsishamardini, Saptamatrika (seven mother goddesses), and Sri-Lakshmi(wealth-goddess). From the 3rd century BC, apart from the Hindu gods and goddesses, Buddhist monuments from the Ashokan period (it is said that Ashoka visited Nepal in 250 BC) have embellished Nepal in general and the valley in particular. These art and architectural edifices encompass three major periods of evolution: the Licchavi or classical period (500 to 900 AD), the post-classical period (1000 to 1400 AD), with strong influence of the Palla art form; the Malla period (1400 onwards) that exhibited explicitly tantric influences coupled with the art of Tibetan Demonology.
A broad typology has been ascribed to the decorative designs and carvings created by the people of Nepal. These artists have maintained a blend of Hinduism and Buddhism. The typology, based on the type of material used are: Stone Art, Metal Art, Wood Art, Terracotta Art, and Painting.
MUSEUMS
Kathmandu is home to a number of museums and art galleries, including the National Museum of Nepal and the Natural History Museum of Nepal. Nepal's art and architecture is an amalgamation of two ancient religions, Hinduism and Buddhhism. These are amply reflected in the many temples, shrines, stupas, monasteries, and palaces in the seven well-defined Monument Zones of the Kathmandu valley recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This amalgamation is also reflected in the planning and exhibitions in museums and art galleries throughout Kathmandu and its sister cities of Patan and Bhaktapur. The museums display unique artifacts and paintings from the 5th century CE to the present day, including archeological exportation.
KATHMANDU MUSEUMS ABD ART GALLERIES INCLUDE:
The National Museum
The Natural History Museum
Hanumandhoka Palace Complex
The Kaiser Library
The National Art Gallery
The NEF-ART (Nepal Fine Art) Gallery
The Nepal Art Council Gallery
Narayanhity Palace Museum
The Taragaon Museum
The National Museum is located in the western part of Kathmandu, near the Swayambhunath stupa in an historical building. This building was constructed in the early 19th century by General Bhimsen Thapa. It is the most important museum in the country, housing an extensive collection of weapons, art and antiquities of historic and cultural importance. The museum was established in 1928 as a collection house of war trophies and weapons, and the initial name of this museum was Chhauni Silkhana, meaning "the stone house of arms and ammunition". Given its focus, the museum contains an extensive quantity of weapons, including locally made firearms used in wars, leather cannons from the 18th–19th century, and medieval and modern works in wood, bronze, stone and paintings.
The Natural History Museum is located in the southern foothills of Swayambhunath hill and has a sizeable collection of different species of animals, butterflies, and plants. The museum is noted for its display of species, from prehistoric shells to stuffed animals.
The Tribhuvan Museum contains artifacts related to the King Tribhuvan (1906–1955). It has a variety of pieces including his personal belongings, letters and papers, memorabilia related to events he was involved in and a rare collection of photos and paintings of Royal family members. The Mahendra Museum is dedicated to king Mahendra of Nepal (1920–1972). Like the Tribhuvan Museum, it includes his personal belongings such as decorations, stamps, coins and personal notes and manuscripts, but it also has structural reconstructions of his cabinet room and office chamber. The Hanumandhoka Palace, a lavish medieval palace complex in the Durbar, contains three separate museums of historic importance. These museums include the Birendra museum, which contains items related to the second-last monarch, Birendra of Nepal.
The enclosed compound of the Narayanhity Palace Museum is in the north-central part of Kathmandu. "Narayanhity" comes from Narayana, a form of the Hindu god Lord Vishnu, and Hiti, meaning "water spout" (Vishnu's temple is located opposite the palace, and the water spout is located east of the main entrance to the precinct). Narayanhity was a new palace, in front of the old palace built in 1915, and was built in 1970 in the form of a contemporary Pagoda. It was built on the occasion of the marriage of King Birenda Bir Bikram Shah, then heir apparent to the throne. The southern gate of the palace is at the crossing of Prithvipath and Darbar Marg roads. The palace area covers (30 hectares) and is fully secured with gates on all sides. This palace was the scene of the Nepali royal massacre. After the fall of the monarchy, it was converted to a museum.The Taragaon Museum presents the modern history of the Kathmandu Valley. It seeks to document 50 years of research and cultural heritage conservation of the Kathmandu Valley, documenting what artists photographers architects anthropologists from abroad had contributed in the second half of the 20th century. The actual structure of the Museum showcases restoration and rehabilitation efforts to preserve the built heritage of Kathmandu. It was designed by Carl Pruscha (master-planner of the Kathmandy Valley [69]) in 1970 and constructed in 1971. Restoration works began in 2010 to rehabilitate the Taragaon hostel into the Taragaon Museum. The design uses local brick along with modern architectural design elements, as well as the use of circle, triangles and squares. The Museum is within a short walk from the Boudhnath stupa, which itself can be seen from the Museum tower.
ART GALLERIES
Kathmandu is a center for art in Nepal, displaying the work of contemporary artists in the country and also collections of historical artists. Patan in particular is an ancient city noted for its fine arts and crafts. Art in Kathmandu is vibrant, demonstrating a fusion of traditionalism and modern art, derived from a great number of national, Asian, and global influences. Nepali art is commonly divided into two areas: the idealistic traditional painting known as Paubhas in Nepal and perhaps more commonly known as Thangkas in Tibet, closely linked to the country's religious history and on the other hand the contemporary western-style painting, including nature-based compositions or abstract artwork based on Tantric elements and social themes of which painters in Nepal are well noted for. Internationally, the British-based charity, the Kathmandu Contemporary Art Centre is involved with promoting arts in Kathmandu.
Kathmandu contains many notable art galleries. The NAFA Gallery, operated by the Arts and crafts Department of the Nepal Academy is housed in Sita Bhavan, a neo-classical old Rana palace.
The Srijana Contemporary Art Gallery, located inside the Bhrikutimandap Exhibition grounds, hosts the work of contemporary painters and sculptors, and regularly organizes exhibitions. It also runs morning and evening classes in the schools of art. Also of note is the Moti Azima Gallery, located in a three storied building in Bhimsenthan which contains an impressive collection of traditional utensils and handmade dolls and items typical of a medieval Newar house, giving an important insight into Nepali history. The J Art Gallery is also located in Kathmandu, near the Royal Palace in Durbarmarg, Kathmandu and displays the artwork of eminent, established Nepali painters. The Nepal Art Council Gallery, located in the Babar Mahal, on the way to Tribhuvan International Airport contains artwork of both national and international artists and extensive halls regularly used for art exhibitions.
CUISINE
The staple food of most of Kathmanduites is dal bhat. It consists of rice and lentil soup, generally served with vegetable curries, achar and sometimes Chutney. Momo, a type of Nepali version of Tibetan dumpling, has become prominent in Nepal with many street vendors selling it. It is one of the most popular fast foods in Kathmandu. Various Nepali variants of momo including buff (i.e. buffalo) momo, chicken momo, and vegetarian momo are famous in Kathmandu. Dal Bhaat is the local cuisine of Kathmandu.
Most of the cuisines found in Kathmandu are non-vegetarian. However, the practice of vegetarianism is not uncommon, and vegetarian cuisines can be found throughout the city. Consumption of beef is very uncommon and considered taboo in many places. Buff (meat of water buffalo) is very common. There is a strong tradition of buff consumption in Kathmandu, especially among Newars, which is not found in other parts of Nepal. Consumption of pork was considered taboo until a few decades ago. Due to the intermixing with Kirat cuisine from eastern Nepal, pork has found a place in Kathmandu dishes. A fringe population of devout Hindus and Muslims consider it taboo. The Muslims forbid eating buff as from Quran while Hindus eat all varieties except Cow's meat as the consider Cow to be a goddess and symbol of purity. The chief breakfast for locals and visitors is mostly Momo or Chowmein.
Kathmandu had only one restaurant in 1955.[73] A large number of restaurants in Kathmandu have since opened, catering Nepali cuisine, Tibetan cuisine, Chinese cuisine and Indian cuisine in particular. Many other restaurants have opened to accommodate locals, expatriates, and tourists. The growth of tourism in Kathmandu has led to culinary creativity and the development of hybrid foods to accommodate for tourists such as American chop suey, which is a sweet-and-sour sauce with crispy noodles with a fried egg commonly added on top and other westernized adaptations of traditional cuisine. Continental cuisine can be found in selected places. International chain restaurants are rare, but some outlets of Pizza Hut and KFC have recently opened there. It also has several outlets of the international ice-cream chain Baskin-Robbins
Kathmandu has a larger proportion of tea drinkers than coffee drinkers. Tea is widely served but is extremely weak by western standards. It is richer and contains tea leaves boiled with milk, sugar and spices. Alcohol is widely drunk, and there are numerous local variants of alcoholic beverages. But its use has been now reduced.refnational survey. Drinking and driving is illegal, and authorities have a zero tolerance policy. Ailaa and thwon (alcohol made from rice) are the alcoholic beverages of Kathmandu, found in all the local bhattis (alcohol serving eateries). Chhyaang, tongba (fermented millet or barley) and rakshi are alcohols from other parts of Nepal which are found in Kathmandu. However, shops and bars in Kathmandu widely sell western and Nepali beers. Shops are forbidden to sell alcohol on the first two days and last two days of the Nepali month (Nepal Sambat).
FESTIVALS
Most of the fairs and festivals in Kathmandu originated in the Malla period or earlier. Traditionally, these festivals were celebrated by Newars. In recent years, these festivals have found wider participation from other Kathmanduites as well. As the capital of the Republic of Nepal, various national festivals are celebrated in Kathmandu. With mass migration to the city, the cultures of Khas from the west, Kirats from the east, Bon/Tibetan from the north, and Mithila from the south meet in the capital and mingle harmoniously. The festivities such as the Ghode (horse) Jatra, Indra Jatra, Dashain Durga Puja festivals, Shivratri and many more are observed by all Hindu and Buddhist communities of Kathmandu with devotional fervor and enthusiasm. Social regulation in the codes enacted incorporate Hindu traditions and ethics. These were followed by the Shah kings and previous kings, as devout Hindus and protectors of Buddhist religion.
Cultural continuity has been maintained for centuries in the exclusive worship of goddesses and deities in Kathmandu and the rest of the country. These deities include the Ajima, Taleju (or Tulja Bhavani), Digu taleju, and Kumari (the living goddess).[citation needed] The artistic edifices have now become places of worship in the everyday life of the people, therefore a roster is maintained to observe annual festivals. There are 133 festivals held in the year.
Some of the traditional festivals observed in Kathmandu, apart from those previously mentioned, are Bada Dashain, Tihar, Chhath, Maghe Sankranti, Naga Panchami, Janai Poornima, Pancha Dan, Teej/Rishi Panchami, Pahan Charhe, Jana Baha Dyah Jatra (White Machchhendranath Jatra), and Matatirtha Aunsi.
HINDUISM
Assumedly, together with the kingdom of Licchhavi (c. 400 to 750), Hinduism and the endogam social stratification of the Caste was established in Kathmandu Valley. The Pashupatinath Temple, Changu Narayan temple (the oldest), and the Kasthamandap are of particular importance to Hindus. Other notable Hindu temples in Kathmandu and the surrounding valley include Bajrayogini Temple, Dakshinkali Temple, Guhyeshwari Temple, and the Sobha Bhagwati shrine.
The Bagmati River which flows through Kathmandu is considered a holy river both by Hindus and Buddhists, and many Hindu temples are located on the banks of this river. The importance of the Bagmati also lies in the fact that Hindus are cremated on its banks, and Kirants are buried in the hills by its side. According to the Nepali Hindu tradition, the dead body must be dipped three times into the Bagmati before cremation. The chief mourner (usually the first son) who lights the funeral pyre must take a holy riverwater bath immediately after cremation. Many relatives who join the funeral procession also take bath in the Bagmati River or sprinkle the holy water on their bodies at the end of cremation as the Bagmati is believed to purify people spiritually.
BUDDHISM
Buddhism started in Kathmandu with the arrival of Buddhist monks during the time of Buddha (c. 563 - 483 BC). They started a forest monastery in Sankhu. This monastery was renovated by Shakyas after they fled genocide from Virudhaka (rule: 491-461 BC).
During the Hindu Lichchavi era (c. 400 to 750), various monasteries and orders were created which successively led to the formation of Newar Buddhism, which is still practiced in the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Sanskrit.
WIKIPEDIA
This month's map illustrates population density, i.e. the number of inhabitants per square kilometer, in Europe (source: "GfK Purchasing Power Europe 2012 / 2013", GfK GeoMarketing).
The map may be freely distributed and reproduced if the following attribution is included: "Illustration: GfK GeoMarketing".
Additional illustrations can be found in our online press section at
This is a variation of hydrangea by Shuzo Fujimoto. Here it is used as a portrait for a picture of my wife's parents.
Project 365, #330 - 23rd Jan 2013
A little dangerous perhaps but I got directly under an electricity pylon for this shot, and yes, I was lying down also :)
A reference to the title and great movie/soundtrack.
Our Daily Challenge (ODC): POWER
113 Pictures in 2013: #67 Symmetry
Project 52/2013: #04 Symmetry
Many thanks for looking/comments/favs!
Summer holiday 2014
In and around Berlin Germany
Berlin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the capital of Germany. For other uses, see Berlin (disambiguation).
Berlin
State of Germany
Clockwise: Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Clockwise: Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Flag of Berlin
Flag Coat of arms of Berlin
Coat of arms
Location within European Union and Germany
Location within European Union and Germany
Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′ECoordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′E
Country
Germany
Government
• Governing Mayor
Michael Müller (SPD)
• Governing parties
SPD / CDU
• Votes in Bundesrat
4 (of 69)
Area
• City
891.85 km2 (344.35 sq mi)
Elevation
34 m (112 ft)
Population (December 2013)[1]
• City
3,517,424
• Density
3,900/km2 (10,000/sq mi)
Demonym
Berliner
Time zone
CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)
CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code(s)
10115–14199
Area code(s)
030
ISO 3166 code
DE-BE
Vehicle registration
B[2]
GDP/ Nominal
€109.2 billion (2013) [3]
NUTS Region
DE3
Website
berlin.de
Berlin (/bərˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] ( listen)) is the capital of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people,[4] Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union.[5] Located in northeastern Germany on the River Spree, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which has about 4.5 million residents from over 180 nations.[6][7][8][9] Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.[10]
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945).[11] Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world.[12] After World War II, the city was divided; East Berlin became the capital of East Germany while West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989).[13] Following German reunification in 1990, the city was once more designated as the capital of all Germany, hosting 158 foreign embassies.[14]
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media, and science.[15][16][17][18] Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations, and convention venues.[19][20] Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination.[21] Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction, and electronics.
Modern Berlin is home to renowned universities, orchestras, museums, entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events.[22] Its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions.[23] The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts, and a high quality of living.[24] Over the last decade Berlin has seen the upcoming of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.[25]
20th to 21st centuries[edit]
Street, Berlin (1913) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
After 1910 Berlin had become a fertile ground for the German Expressionist movement. In fields such as architecture, painting and cinema new forms of artistic styles were invented. At the end of World War I in 1918, a republic was proclaimed by Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act incorporated dozens of suburban cities, villages, and estates around Berlin into an expanded city. The act increased the area of Berlin from 66 to 883 km2 (25 to 341 sq mi). The population almost doubled and Berlin had a population of around four million. During the Weimar era, Berlin underwent political unrest due to economic uncertainties, but also became a renowned center of the Roaring Twenties. The metropolis experienced its heyday as a major world capital and was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, city planning, film, higher education, government, and industries. Albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
Berlin in ruins after World War II (Potsdamer Platz, 1945).
In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. NSDAP rule effectively destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which had numbered 160,000, representing one-third of all Jews in the country. Berlin's Jewish population fell to about 80,000 as a result of emigration between 1933 and 1939. After Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's persecuted groups were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp or, starting in early 1943, were shipped to death camps, such as Auschwitz.[39] During World War II, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. Around 125,000 civilians were killed.[40] After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin.[41]
The Berlin Wall in 1986, painted on the western side. People crossing the so-called "death strip" on the eastern side were at risk of being shot.
All four Allies shared administrative responsibilities for Berlin. However, in 1948, when the Western Allies extended the currency reform in the Western zones of Germany to the three western sectors of Berlin, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on the access routes to and from West Berlin, which lay entirely inside Soviet-controlled territory. The Berlin airlift, conducted by the three western Allies, overcame this blockade by supplying food and other supplies to the city from June 1948 to May 1949.[42] In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in West Germany and eventually included all of the American, British, and French zones, excluding those three countries' zones in Berlin, while the Marxist-Leninist German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in East Germany. West Berlin officially remained an occupied city, but it politically was aligned with the Federal Republic of Germany despite West Berlin's geographic isolation. Airline service to West Berlin was granted only to American, British, and French airlines.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. On 3 October 1990, the German reunification process was formally finished.
The founding of the two German states increased Cold War tensions. West Berlin was surrounded by East German territory, and East Germany proclaimed the Eastern part as its capital, a move that was not recognized by the western powers. East Berlin included most of the historic center of the city. The West German government established itself in Bonn.[43] In 1961, East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany. John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" – speech in 1963 underlining the US support for the Western part of the city. Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other side through strictly controlled checkpoints, for most Easterners travel to West Berlin or West Germany prohibited. In 1971, a Four-Power agreement guaranteed access to and from West Berlin by car or train through East Germany.[44]
In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and pressure from the East German population, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November and was subsequently mostly demolished. Today, the East Side Gallery preserves a large portion of the Wall. On 3 October 1990, the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin again became the official German capital. In 1991, the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voted to move the seat of the (West) German capital from Bonn to Berlin, which was completed in 1999. Berlin's 2001 administrative reform merged several districts. The number of boroughs was reduced from 23 to twelve. In 2006 the FIFA World Cup Final was held in Berlin.
Niederfinow Boat Lift
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Coordinates: 52°50′56″N 13°56′29″E
Niederfinow boat lift
The Niederfinow Boat Lift is the oldest working boat lift in Germany. It lies on the Oder-Havel Canal near Niederfinow in Brandenburg. The lift overcomes a difference in elevation of 36 metres.
Size: 148x50x18mm weight: 431gr.
Density: X,XXgr./cm³ / Estimated grit size: very fine >12K
Usage: only with water, never use Oil!!
Colour: a yellow green (YG) / darkblue (DB) coloured double layered stone
General Information on Thuringian Water Razor Hones:
These stones are ones of the most known and well appreciated water razor hones today and they have been within the last 200 years. Beeing quarried in Thuringia in the region around Sonneberg (some Quarries were in Steinach, Steinheid, Goldisthal, Forschengereuth, Hämmern, Lauscha, etc.) These stones seem to have already been quarried since the 14th Century. Actually it’s a pity that there is no documented evidence about this fact . There are many historical sources naming these stones, which were sold under different older german names like (Wetzschalen, Abziehsteine, Poliersteine, etc.)
The most interesting and most un-researched Issue is the export of the Thuringian water hones around the world. They can be found everywhere around the world, especially in the USA, Russland, England, France, Spain and other countries. There are a bunch of retailers who sold the stones under their own trademark (f.ex. Bieber, Hahn, etc) . There were also a lot of US catalog companies who sold German Water Razor Hones, just to name a few here: Sears Roebruck, Gustav Knecht M.F.G. Barber Suplies, Theo A. Koch, and a lot more….also smaller Barber Supplies Stores and Companies had the stones in their product catalogues or in their stores. Within the second World War the sale of the german water razor hones were stopped which is well visible and documented in the Sears Roebruck catalogs.
One of the most known trader and exporter of the Thuringian water razor hones is “ESCHER” (known during time periods as Escher & Co. shortened E&Co., Escher & Sohn, Escher & Son, J.G. Escher & Sohn shortened JGES ). The Company was founded in 1789 by Johann Gottfried Escher from Sonneberg. Escher sold slate products in the first step afterwards their products ranged from soft water hones to hard oilstones which were quarried from layers of Ordovician age and Devonian age.
The Company started early to sell their products after their foundation on the well-known world fair’s in Frankfurt, Leipzig (at the Union Messehaus) and Vienna. Escher was already selling products one year after their foundation on the fair in Frankfurt . Within the marketing on these fair’s Escher created a name/brand which got more and more attention around the world, probably this was the consequence of a well done marketing campaign which seems to work quite good to these days.
Between 1890 and 1925 the Escher Company had another additional business in producing and selling dolls. They had their own Puppet label signed (J. G. Escher & Sohn / IGES) with a Girl holding a puppet and a Bear in her hands.
Escher created a well-known “Brand” which is still known under Straight Razor Users and People working with fine instruments. The stones today, especially if the labels are full intact are sold for a big amount of money. But it has to be stated that only a label doesn’t say anything about the quality of these stones. So any of these Thuringian Stones without label might be in the same range or quality as a full labelled stone could be.
The last operating quarry (Christoph Luthard Fikken Sohn, Am Petersberg, Steinach) was closed in 1966, which was the end of the operating business of quarrying whetstones in this region. Actually there are nearly no official sources or stores where “Vintage” Thuringian Stones can be bought, most of the stones on the market are old finds or new old stocks from older closed companies.
My Videos about technical topics:
Possible Touch Up Strokes on Thuringian Stone
www.youtube.com/watch?v=odrpiW16HCc
My Videos about Stones:
Escher & Co. Water Razor Hone type "Barber's Delight" yellow/green (Y/G) size: 6"x2"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHBNRGcYrXk&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Escher & Co. Water Razor Hone type "Baber's Delight" yellow/green (Y/G) size: 6"x2"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp0TPZszuZ0&index=51&list..
Escher & Co. Water Razor Hone Type "Rasierstube" darkblue (DB) size: 6"x2"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQa7PTTv5wU&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Escher & Co. Wasserabziehstein yellow/green (YG) size: 10" x 2"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFdouu_G5Cs&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
FASO Water Razor Hone in green C. Jul. Herbert packaging size: 6"x2"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCYMvklAVJo&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Karl Brächer Jr. Water Razor Hone yellow/green (YG) size: X"xX"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvsSpaPQVJw&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Thuringian double layered Stone yellow/green (YG) and darkblue (DB):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjGW6GN_Y0w&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Thuringian Bout Stone No. 1 from Hatzicho:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxR1Ho4T608&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Thuringian Bout Stone No. 2 from Hatzicho:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFuI0FNpjOw&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3..
Thuringian Bout Stone No. 3 from Hatzicho:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZUBsgdl_co&list=UUvv6dx-BXb3...
more Information:
Razorandstone.com (R&S): "Barbers Delight Escher"
www.razorandstone.com/showthread.php?174-Barbers-delight-...
Razorandstone.com (R&S): "Wide Escher Hone"
www.razorandstone.com/showthread.php?963-Wide-Escher-hone
Razorandstone.com (R&S): "Nakayama Mizu Asagi vs Barbers Delight Escher"
www.razorandstone.com/showthread.php?2193-Nakayama-Mizu-A...
Straightrazorplace.com (SRP): "Escher Price"
straightrazorplace.com/honing/55677-escher-price.html
Badgerandblade.com (B&B): "Escher Thuringian Love Show of your rocks"
badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/320736-Escher-Thurin...
Gut-rasiert.de: "Zeigt her eure Steine"
www.gut-rasiert.de/forum/index.php/topic,15571.0.html
General Information on Thuringian Water hones and the Escher Company:
Strazors.com: "Thuringian waterwhetstones from the J.G. Escher Company in Germany"
(C) by Peter Buhlmann (Hatzicho), Oktober 2013
strazors.com/uploads/images/articles/escher.pdf
general Information on Water Hones:
Gammas Site Tomonagura.com:
Olivia-Seife.de: “Steinevergleich”
www.olivia-seife.de/steinevergleich.htm
other Literature/Information:
[1] Bautsch, Riederer „Zur Herkunft der Wetzsteine aus der Grabung
aus dem Burgwall in Berlin Spandau“ Rhythmus und Saisonalität, Kongreßakten des 5. Symposions des Mediävistenverbandes in Göttingen, 1933
Jan Thorbecke Verlag Sigmaringen, 1995
[2] Hahn Renate "Sonneberger Spielzeug - Made in Judenbach", 2010
[3] Thomas Schwämmlein "Wetzsteinbergbau und Wetzsteinherstellung im Landkreis Sonneberg" Geschichts- und Köhlerverein Mengersgereuth-Hämmern e.V. Nr. 8
[4] Thomas Schwämmlein "Herstellung und Handel mit Wetzsteinen im Bereich des Thüringer Schiefergebirges während des frühen und hohen Mittelalters"
Geschichts- und Köhlerverein Mengersgereuth-Hämmern e.V. Nr. 21
[5] Zeno.org "Tonschiefer"
www.zeno.org/Lueger-1904/A/Tonschiefer
[6] Thoma, Witzgall, Bravidor „Seminarfacharbeit Gruppe 5 "Kulturelle und wirtschaftliche Bedeutung von Schiefern im Thüringer Schiefergebirge am Beispiel des Staatsbruchs Lehesten" sites.bravidor.de/skool/sf/schiefer/files/seminarfacharbe...
[7] Volk, Max „Die Wetzschiefervorkommen in der Phycodenserie bei
Mengersgereuth-Hämmern, Steinach und Gräfenthal“
Hallesches Jahrbuch Mitteldeutsche Erdgeschichte, 7. Band, 1965
B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, 1966
[8] Volk, Max „Die Hiftenberger Wetzsteinbrüche“
Hallesches Jahrbuch Mitteldeutsche Erdgeschichte, 8. Band, 1966
B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, 1967
[9] Volk, Max „Volkstümliche Aufsätze zur Geschichte von Geologie und Bergbau“
Ausgewählte Aufsätze Teil 7, Herausgegeben von Karl Eichhorn
Museumsverein Schieferbergbau Steinach/Thüringen e.V., 2005
[10] Weise, Gerhard „Die Nutzung thüringischer Gesteine zur Herstellung von Wetzsteinen“
[11] Weber, Martin "Wetzschiefer - Wetzsteine bei Lauenstein und Gräfenthal"
Beitrag Geologie Thüringen, N.F. 12, 71-97, 5 Abb., 5 Tab., Jena 2005
███▓▒░░.RAZORLOVESTONES 06.04.2015.░░▒▓███
【Tehran, Iran】 Dense Tehran urban development constantly under construction, as seen from the heights of the Darband district at the North East of the Iranian capital.
© All rights reserved - No usage allowed in any form without the written consent of the photographer
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the second full week of July, 2016.
Electrofishing is a common scientific survey method used to sample fish populations to determine abundance, density, and species composition. When performed correctly, electrofishing results in no permanent harm to fish, which return to their natural state in as little as two minutes after being caught.
Electrofishing relies on two electrodes which deliver direct current at high-voltage from the anode to the cathode through the water. When a fish encounters a large enough potential gradient on this path, it becomes affected by the electricity. Usually pulsed direct current (DC) is applied, which causes galvanotaxis in the fish.
Galvanotaxis is uncontrolled muscular convulsion that results in the fish swimming toward the anode. At least two people are required for an effective electrofishing crew: one to operate the anode, and the other to catch the stunned fish with a dip net.
Just like the warnings on hair driers, combining electricity and water can be fatal to both humans and fish. To prevent harm, professionally constructed equipment must be used by properly trained personnel.
Safety gear is an important component of electrofishing. Some important gear for boat electrofishing includes: life jackets, rubber gloves, rubber soled shoes, and nets with fiberglass or wooden handles. For backpack electrofishing, non-breathable waders are also a must.
Life jackets, gloves, heavy duty shoes, and nets with fiberglass handles are a must.
Backpack electrofisher generators are either battery or gas powered.
They employ a transformer to pulse the current before it is delivered into the water.
The anode is located at the end of a long, 2 meter pole and is usually in the form of a ring. The cathode is a long, 3 meter braided steel cable that trails behind the operator.
The electrofisher is operated by a deadman's switch on the anode pole.
There are a number of safety features built into newer backpack models, such as audible speakers that sound when the unit is operating, tilt-switches that incapacitate the electrofisher if the backpack is tilted more than 45 degrees, and quick-release straps to enable the user to quickly remove the electrofisher in the event of some emergency.
Inland Fisheries Ireland
NASA Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate Steve Jurczyk participates in the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) flight test media briefing Monday, June 1, 2015, at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), Kauai, Hawaii. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Size: 100x50x20mm, weight: 314gr.
Density: xxgr./cm³ / Estimated grit size: ultra fine > 15k
Usage: with water, oil or glycerin (FGBC says to use the stone with oil)
Colour: red/purple or blue/green/blackish slate with metallic sparkle look
The information written here is in general about the "French Special Stones". Named here "Pierre La Lune" or the "Special Stone only for Good Razors". Both types of stones have been sold from F.G.B.C. and the "Special Stone for Good razors" were also exclusively sold from Manufrance (MF) as beeing a well known french catalogue company in the past. The company was established in Villebouef, Saint Etienne, on the 10th November 1885.
Up to date the origin of the stones and in detail the place where the stones were quarried is not known. Actually there are some traces leading towards the french region down the Vosges (Steige) where a red schist type has its origin called Schist de Steige or "Lie de Vin Rouge", its has some good properties which might help the stone to be usable as a sharpening stone (SiO2 59,3%, Al2O3 22%, FE2O3 7,3%). Other places could be well some of the Quarries (Merviller-Vacqueville, Pexonne, Badonviller) named in the letterheads or advertisement of F.G.B.C..
Up to May 2014 the Company with the shortcut F.G.B.C. selling the La Lune Stones was unknown, until a member of the french "coupe choux" forum coupechouclub.cultureforum.net/ named "FERDI" found an old pricetable from F.G.B.C. from 1974.
F.G.B.C. stands for the company "F. Ghelfi Birolleau & Cie." selling sharpening stones and building up Grinding stones. They sold different kinds of stones like "Pierre Du Levant", "Pierre Arkansas" and Grinding Hones like "Grés Blanc, Gris & Rouge". They had men made stones like the "New Master Stone" in their catalogue which is a SIC (Siliciumcarbide) Stone or a "Brocken Selected La Lune Extra Fin" which seems to be a double sided sharpening stone.
The Company F. Ghelfi & Cie., Maisons Birolleau & F. Ghelfi & Cie. Réunies, used different adresses during their appearance: 7 Rue Charlot, Paris (1916), 17 Rue de Saintonge, Paris (1922), 47 Rue de Saintonge, Paris (1925). Also it seems that there existed a former company named "D. Giovannacci & L. Ghelfi", 84, Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris (1893) and "Bardotti, Ghelfi & Cie.", 106 Rue de Fanbourg, Saint-Antoine (1889). The newer company name "F. Ghelfi Birolleau & Cie" was also down the 47 Rue de Saintonge, Paris (1974), so it seems that the company stayed there from 1925-1974 concernign the documents. The years in brackets are taken out of existent documents like invoices or letters.
On some of the older Lorraine stones there is also a shortcut given named M.P.O.P. which was the addition to the precedessors company or probably a parallel runned company from "D. Giovannici, L. & B. Ghelfi". M.P.O.P. stands for "Meules, Pierres, Outillage, Produits".
more on F.G.B.C. and the history of the company can be found here:
F. GHELFI, BIROLLEAU & CIE (F.G.B.C.), PARIS
About this stone:
This is one of the bigger examples and a very clean one, sometimes small black lines or holes appear in the stones. This one has none of the named inclusions. It seems that this one is also one of the older stones due the usage of the label.
Usage:
Often there is a discussion how the stones are used the best way, some mention to use them only with water, some say oil or glycerine. Concerning the facts: the stones were mentioned to use with oil, this information is given on the Bulletin de Garantie which was delivered with the stones from F.G.B.C.
Indicators/Indentifiers:
1. red/purple or blue/green/blackish slate, dense and very hard
2. metallic or sparkle surface which reflects in the light, smal reflecting particles
3. fast cutting abilities due it is a very fine finishing stone
4. stamped "fine", "very fine", "extra fine"
5. usable with oil, water and glycerin
6. there were stones appearing as "Pierre de L'est" with the same look
The best usage seems to be with glycerin, which was mentioned in different ways from different members. It seems that after the last finishing routine with a high rated grit stone (10K, 12K, Thuringian) the latest 50 laps should be done with the weight of the razor.
my Videos from the Razorlovestones project:
Razorlovestones: "Series 1 - French Hones"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXiMYeq36wQ
Razorlovestones: "Combinaison "Master Stone" / "La Lune" marque F.G.B.C."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9HHJMQQGZg
Razorlovestones: "Pierre Aiguiser La Lune marque F.G.B.C."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKfTCpyzwE4
Razorlovestones: "Pierre aiguiser "La Lune" (red/purple slate)"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWpMDa_gMK4
Razorlovestones: "Special Stone for good razors: Steel removal with Kitchen Knife"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Pp_DnceXI
Razorlovestones: "Pierre aiguiser La Lune vs. Special Stone for good razors"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=41oPWmF_RiE
Other Videos:
Oldengaerde:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0saHnIS-h6I
General Information:
Manufrance Website:
Manufrance History:
More here:
Razorandstone (R&S): "Special Stone only for Good Razors"
www.razorandstone.com/showthread.php?170-Special-stone-on...
Razorandstone (R&S): "The Special Stone only Razors"
www.razorandstone.com/showthread.php?1465-The-Special-Sto...
Straightrazorplace.com (SRP): "Pierre La Lune"
straightrazorplace.com/hones/96159-pierre-la-lune.html
Straightrazorplace.com (SRP): "A Special Stone"
straightrazorplace.com/hones/70082-special-stone.html
Straightrazorplace.com (SRP): "French Hones"
straightrazorplace.com/hones/92323-french-hones.html
Coupe Choux Club: "Pierre La Lune"
coupechouclub.cultureforum.net/t14523-pierre-la-lune
███▓▒░░RAZORLOVESTONES 08.04.2016░░▒▓███
The Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) launch team discusses operations at the launch pad, Wednesday, June 3, 2015, at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Kauai, Hawaii. The LDSD crosscutting technology demonstration mission will test two breakthrough technologies that will enable larger payloads to be landed safely on the surface of Mars or other planetary bodies with atmospheres, including Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
2 shots of blowing grass stacked together. A Neutral Density Filter was used to take longer exposures and give an illusion of ghostly grass movements.
【Tokyo, Japan】 Shinjuku-Akenobashi line 61 bus cruising the Shinjuku streets under the JR East Yamanote train.
Follow my photos in Facebook
©2016 Germán Vogel - All rights reserved - No usage allowed in any form without the written consent of the photographer.
Population Density (per person per square kilometer) layers, for 1990 and 2000 were created by dividing the 1990 and 2000 UN-adjusted population (POP) count grids by the land area (LA) grid. The resulting grid layers, one each for 1990 and 2000 were then aggregated to match the 12 population density classes. Source Information: sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/.
Summer holiday 2014
In and around Berlin Germany
Berlin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the capital of Germany. For other uses, see Berlin (disambiguation).
Berlin
State of Germany
Clockwise: Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Clockwise: Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Flag of Berlin
Flag Coat of arms of Berlin
Coat of arms
Location within European Union and Germany
Location within European Union and Germany
Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′ECoordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′E
Country
Germany
Government
• Governing Mayor
Michael Müller (SPD)
• Governing parties
SPD / CDU
• Votes in Bundesrat
4 (of 69)
Area
• City
891.85 km2 (344.35 sq mi)
Elevation
34 m (112 ft)
Population (December 2013)[1]
• City
3,517,424
• Density
3,900/km2 (10,000/sq mi)
Demonym
Berliner
Time zone
CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)
CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code(s)
10115–14199
Area code(s)
030
ISO 3166 code
DE-BE
Vehicle registration
B[2]
GDP/ Nominal
€109.2 billion (2013) [3]
NUTS Region
DE3
Website
berlin.de
Berlin (/bərˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] ( listen)) is the capital of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people,[4] Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union.[5] Located in northeastern Germany on the River Spree, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which has about 4.5 million residents from over 180 nations.[6][7][8][9] Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.[10]
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945).[11] Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world.[12] After World War II, the city was divided; East Berlin became the capital of East Germany while West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989).[13] Following German reunification in 1990, the city was once more designated as the capital of all Germany, hosting 158 foreign embassies.[14]
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media, and science.[15][16][17][18] Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations, and convention venues.[19][20] Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination.[21] Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction, and electronics.
Modern Berlin is home to renowned universities, orchestras, museums, entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events.[22] Its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions.[23] The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts, and a high quality of living.[24] Over the last decade Berlin has seen the upcoming of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.[25]
20th to 21st centuries[edit]
Street, Berlin (1913) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
After 1910 Berlin had become a fertile ground for the German Expressionist movement. In fields such as architecture, painting and cinema new forms of artistic styles were invented. At the end of World War I in 1918, a republic was proclaimed by Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act incorporated dozens of suburban cities, villages, and estates around Berlin into an expanded city. The act increased the area of Berlin from 66 to 883 km2 (25 to 341 sq mi). The population almost doubled and Berlin had a population of around four million. During the Weimar era, Berlin underwent political unrest due to economic uncertainties, but also became a renowned center of the Roaring Twenties. The metropolis experienced its heyday as a major world capital and was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, city planning, film, higher education, government, and industries. Albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
Berlin in ruins after World War II (Potsdamer Platz, 1945).
In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. NSDAP rule effectively destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which had numbered 160,000, representing one-third of all Jews in the country. Berlin's Jewish population fell to about 80,000 as a result of emigration between 1933 and 1939. After Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's persecuted groups were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp or, starting in early 1943, were shipped to death camps, such as Auschwitz.[39] During World War II, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. Around 125,000 civilians were killed.[40] After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin.[41]
The Berlin Wall in 1986, painted on the western side. People crossing the so-called "death strip" on the eastern side were at risk of being shot.
All four Allies shared administrative responsibilities for Berlin. However, in 1948, when the Western Allies extended the currency reform in the Western zones of Germany to the three western sectors of Berlin, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on the access routes to and from West Berlin, which lay entirely inside Soviet-controlled territory. The Berlin airlift, conducted by the three western Allies, overcame this blockade by supplying food and other supplies to the city from June 1948 to May 1949.[42] In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in West Germany and eventually included all of the American, British, and French zones, excluding those three countries' zones in Berlin, while the Marxist-Leninist German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in East Germany. West Berlin officially remained an occupied city, but it politically was aligned with the Federal Republic of Germany despite West Berlin's geographic isolation. Airline service to West Berlin was granted only to American, British, and French airlines.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. On 3 October 1990, the German reunification process was formally finished.
The founding of the two German states increased Cold War tensions. West Berlin was surrounded by East German territory, and East Germany proclaimed the Eastern part as its capital, a move that was not recognized by the western powers. East Berlin included most of the historic center of the city. The West German government established itself in Bonn.[43] In 1961, East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany. John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" – speech in 1963 underlining the US support for the Western part of the city. Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other side through strictly controlled checkpoints, for most Easterners travel to West Berlin or West Germany prohibited. In 1971, a Four-Power agreement guaranteed access to and from West Berlin by car or train through East Germany.[44]
In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and pressure from the East German population, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November and was subsequently mostly demolished. Today, the East Side Gallery preserves a large portion of the Wall. On 3 October 1990, the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin again became the official German capital. In 1991, the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voted to move the seat of the (West) German capital from Bonn to Berlin, which was completed in 1999. Berlin's 2001 administrative reform merged several districts. The number of boroughs was reduced from 23 to twelve. In 2006 the FIFA World Cup Final was held in Berlin.
"Neues Palais" Potsdam
The New Palace (German: Neues Palais) is a palace situated on the western side of the Sanssouci royal park in Potsdam, Germany. The building was begun in 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War, under Frederick the Great and was completed in 1769. It is considered to be the last great Prussian baroque palace.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Palace_(Potsdam)
Took my daughter and some friends out for her birthday. Thought I might just use the neutral density filter I had yet to check out. What a difference it can make. Had fun with this one.
We're lucky to have 1 physician for every 375 people here in the states... some countries have 1 doc for ever 100,000 people!
Countries with physician density per 10,000...
less than or equal to 1 = 29
less than or equal to 2 = 40
less than or equal to 5 = 67
less than or equal to the global median of 11.5/10,000 = 91
less than the United States (26.7/10,0000) = 138
*based of WHO statistics 2011
Population density and Twitter geotag density seem to be very close to being linearly related, except that the very most densely populated areas have a slightly higher rate of geotagging, and the very most sparsely populated a slightly lower rate, and that there are some places with no population at all that do get geotagged (perhaps parks, monuments, and large shopping or office areas).
Top: Scatterplot of population and geotags for all half-mile squares of the US (log-log scale), and linear fit to the points.
Bottom: Accumulation of geotags from the most densely populated to the least densely populated half-mile square.
US Census 2010 populations and counts of tweets from the Twitter streaming API for half-mile squares (one quarter square mile) of the United States.
Single Image RAW, 6 image Verto+Panorama with GND 0.9 soft. Toa Payoh Estates, Singapore.
Various exploration of Toa Payoh during my free time. Will upload more later when I have the time to post-process.
U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility Commanding Officer Captain Bruce Hay participates in the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) flight test media briefing Monday, June 1, 2015, at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), Kauai, Hawaii. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Population Density (per person per square kilometer) layers, for 1990 and 2000 were created by dividing the 1990 and 2000 UN-adjusted population (POP) count grids by the land area (LA) grid. The resulting grid layers, one each for 1990 and 2000 were then aggregated to match the 12 population density classes. Source Information: sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/.
The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.
Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum
Last updated January 2014
Architecture in Vienna
Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.
Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.
Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom
The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.
The baroque residence
Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.
Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)
Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.
Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.
Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900
Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.
With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).
Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing
After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.
Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.
Expulsion, war and reconstruction
After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.
The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).
The youngsters come
Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.
MuseumQuarter and Gasometer
Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.
The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.
New Neighborhood
In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.
In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).
Flying high
International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.
Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.
Info: The folder "Architecture: From Art Nouveau to the Presence" is available at the Vienna Tourist Board and can be downloaded on www.wien.info/media/files/guide-architecture-in-wien.pdf.
Captured 15 Jun 2021, 22:49 hrs ET, Springfield, VA, USA. Bortle 8 skies, Mallincam DS10C camera, Celestron 8 inch SCT f/10, exposure 20 sec, gain 20, bin 2, stack of 100 light frames, dark and flat frames subtracted, no filter.
Clouds: partly cloudy
Seeing: ok
Transparency: ok
Moon phase: 37%
FOV: 29 x 22 arcmin before crop
Resolution: 0.9 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is South
Appearance: group of dim galaxies. NGC6166 is the nebulous object (small nebulosity with two light 'eyes') just right of center and NGC6158 is at 7:30 o'clock.
From NED: NGC 6166
Apparent magnitude: +11.8
Apparent size: 2 arcmin
Distance: 429 million light years
Redshift: z = 0.030
Type: cD
Age: 97% of the age of the Universe
From the Wikipedia:
Abell 2199 is a galaxy cluster in the Abell catalogue featuring a brightest cluster galaxy NGC 6166, a cD galaxy. Abell 2199 is the definition of a Bautz-Morgan type I cluster due to NGC 6166.
A brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) is defined as the brightest galaxy in a cluster of galaxies. BCGs include the most massive galaxies in the universe. They are generally elliptical galaxies which lie close to the geometric and kinematical center of their host galaxy cluster, hence at the bottom of the cluster potential well. They are also generally coincident with the peak of the cluster X-ray emission.
Formation scenarios for BCGs include:
Cooling flow—Star formation from the central cooling flow in high density cooling centers of X-ray cluster halos.
The study of accretion populations in BCGs has cast doubt over this theory and astronomers have seen no evidence of cooling flows in radiative cooling clusters. The two remaining theories exhibit healthier prospects.
Galactic cannibalism—Galaxies sink to the center of the cluster due to dynamical friction and tidal stripping.
Galactic merger—Rapid galactic mergers between several galaxies take place during cluster collapse.
It is possible to differentiate the cannibalism model from the merging model by considering the formation period of the BCGs. In the cannibalism model, there are numerous small galaxies present in the evolved cluster, whereas in the merging model, a hierarchical cosmological model is expected due to the collapse of clusters. It has been shown that the orbit decay of cluster galaxies is not effective enough to account for the growth of BCGs. The merging model is now generally accepted as the most likely one, but recent observations are at odds with some of its predictions. For example, it has been found that the stellar mass of BCGs was assembled much earlier than the merging model predicts.
BCGs are divided into various classes of galaxies: giant ellipticals (gE), D galaxies and cD galaxies. cD and D galaxies both exhibit an extended diffuse envelope surrounding an elliptical-like nucleus akin to regular elliptical galaxies. The light profiles of BCGs are often described by a Sersic surface brightness law, a double Sersic profile or a de Vaucouleurs law. The different parametrizations of the light profile of BCG's, as well as the faintness of the diffuse envelope lead to discrepancies in the reported values of the sizes of these objects.
The Bautz–Morgan classification was developed in 1970 by Laura P. Bautz and William Wilson Morgan to categorize galaxy clusters based on their morphology. It defines three main types: I, II, and III. Intermediate types (I-II, II-III) are also allowed. A type IV was initially proposed, but later redacted before the final paper was published.
A type I cluster is dominated by a bright, large, supermassive cD galaxy; for example Abell 2029 and Abell 2199. A type II cluster contains elliptical galaxies whose brightness relative to the cluster is intermediate to that of type I and type III. The Coma Cluster is an example of a type II. A type III cluster has no remarkable members, such as the Virgo Cluster. Type III has two subdivisions, type IIIE and type IIIS. Type IIIE clusters do not contain many giant spirals. Type IIIS clusters contain many giant spirals. The deprecated type IV was for clusters whose brightest members were predominantly spirals.
NGC 6166 is an elliptical galaxy in the Abell 2199 cluster. It lies 490 million light years away in the constellation Hercules. The primary galaxy in the cluster, it is one of the most luminous galaxies known in terms of X-ray emissions. NGC 6166 is a radio-loud quasar.
NGC 6166 is a supermassive, type cD galaxy, with several smaller galaxies within its envelope.
Suspected to have formed through a number of galaxy collisions, NGC 6166 has a large number of globular clusters (estimated as between 6,200 and 22,000 in 1996) orbiting the galaxy. A 2016 study, however, gave an even higher number (around 39,000) suggesting also that the halo of this galaxy blends smoothly with the intra-cluster medium. Because of that, the galaxy has richest globular cluster system known. The galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass of nearly 30 billion M☉ based on dynamical modelling.
NGC 6166 is known to host an active nucleus, classified as an FR I source, which powers two symmetric parsec-scale radio jets and radio lobes and it is caused by the infall of gas into its center caused by a cooling flow that deposits 200 solar masses of gas every year there.
It has been proposed that a number of O-type stars may be present in the center of NGC 6166.
The Abell catalog of rich clusters of galaxies is an all-sky catalog of 4,073 rich galaxy clusters of nominal redshift z ≤ 0.2. This catalog supplements a revision of George O. Abell's original "Northern Survey" of 1958, which had only 2,712 clusters, with a further 1,361 clusters – the "Southern Survey" of 1989, published after Abell's death by co-authors Harold G. Corwin and Ronald P. Olowin from those parts of the south celestial hemisphere that had been omitted from the earlier survey.
The Abell catalog, and especially its clusters, are of interest to amateur astronomers as challenge objects to be viewed in dark locations on large aperture amateur telescopes.
A quasar (/ˈkweɪzɑːr/; also known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO) is an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN), in which a supermassive black hole with mass ranging from millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun is surrounded by a gaseous accretion disk. As gas in the disk falls towards the black hole, energy is released in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which can be observed across the electromagnetic spectrum. The power radiated by quasars is enormous; the most powerful quasars have luminosities thousands of times greater than a galaxy such as the Milky Way. Usually, quasars are categorized as a subclass of the more general category of AGN. The redshifts of quasars are of cosmological origin.
The term quasar originated as a contraction of quasi-stellar [star-like] radio source – because quasars were first identified during the 1950s as sources of radio-wave emission of unknown physical origin – and when identified in photographic images at visible wavelengths, they resembled faint, star-like points of light. High-resolution images of quasars, particularly from the Hubble Space Telescope, have demonstrated that quasars occur in the centers of galaxies, and that some host galaxies are strongly interacting or merging galaxies. As with other categories of AGN, the observed properties of a quasar depend on many factors, including the mass of the black hole, the rate of gas accretion, the orientation of the accretion disk relative to the observer, the presence or absence of a jet, and the degree of obscuration by gas and dust within the host galaxy.
Quasars are found over a very broad range of distances, and quasar discovery surveys have demonstrated that quasar activity was more common in the distant past. The peak epoch of quasar activity was approximately 10 billion years ago.
More than a million quasars have been found. The nearest known quasar is about 600 million light-years away (Markarian 231).
The record for the most distant known quasar keeps changing. In 2017, the quasar ULAS J1342+0928 was detected at redshift z = 7.54. Light observed from this 800 million solar mass quasar was emitted when the universe was only 690 million years old. In 2020, the quasar Pōniuāʻena was detected from a time only 700 million years after the Big Bang, and with an estimated mass of 1.5 billion times the mass of our Sun. In early 2021, the quasar J0313-1806, with a 1.6 billion solar-mass black hole, was reported at z = 7.64, 670 million years after the Big Bang. In March 2021, PSO J172.3556+18.7734 was detected and has since been called the most distant known radio-loud quasar discovered.
The term "quasar" was first used in an article by astrophysicist Hong-Yee Chiu in May 1964, in Physics Today, to describe certain astronomically-puzzling objects:
So far, the clumsily long name "quasi-stellar radio sources" is used to describe these objects. Because the nature of these objects is entirely unknown, it is hard to prepare a short, appropriate nomenclature for them so that their essential properties are obvious from their name. For convenience, the abbreviated form "quasar" will be used throughout this paper.
Between 1917 and 1922, it became clear from work by Heber Curtis, Ernst Öpik and others, that some objects ("nebulae") seen by astronomers were in fact distant galaxies like our own. But when radio astronomy commenced in the 1950s, astronomers detected, among the galaxies, a small number of anomalous objects with properties that defied explanation.
The objects emitted large amounts of radiation of many frequencies, but no source could be located optically, or in some cases only a faint and point-like object somewhat like a distant star. The spectral lines of these objects, which identify the chemical elements of which the object is composed, were also extremely strange and defied explanation. Some of them changed their luminosity very rapidly in the optical range and even more rapidly in the X-ray range, suggesting an upper limit on their size, perhaps no larger than our own Solar System. This implies an extremely high power density. Considerable discussion took place over what these objects might be. They were described as "quasi-stellar [meaning: star-like] radio sources", or "quasi-stellar objects" (QSOs), a name which reflected their unknown nature, and this became shortened to "quasar".
The first quasars (3C 48 and 3C 273) were discovered in the late 1950s, as radio sources in all-sky radio surveys. They were first noted as radio sources with no corresponding visible object. Using small telescopes and the Lovell Telescope as an interferometer, they were shown to have a very small angular size. By 1960, hundreds of these objects had been recorded and published in the Third Cambridge Catalogue while astronomers scanned the skies for their optical counterparts. In 1963, a definite identification of the radio source 3C 48 with an optical object was published by Allan Sandage and Thomas A. Matthews. Astronomers had detected what appeared to be a faint blue star at the location of the radio source and obtained its spectrum, which contained many unknown broad emission lines. The anomalous spectrum defied interpretation.
British-Australian astronomer John Bolton made many early observations of quasars, including a breakthrough in 1962. Another radio source, 3C 273, was predicted to undergo five occultations by the Moon. Measurements taken by Cyril Hazard and John Bolton during one of the occultations using the Parkes Radio Telescope allowed Maarten Schmidt to find a visible counterpart to the radio source and obtain an optical spectrum using the 200-inch (5.1 m) Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar. This spectrum revealed the same strange emission lines. Schmidt was able to demonstrate that these were likely to be the ordinary spectral lines of hydrogen redshifted by 15.8%, at the time, a high redshift (with only a handful of much fainter galaxies known with higher redshift). If this was due to the physical motion of the "star", then 3C 273 was receding at an enormous velocity, around 47000 km/s, far beyond the speed of any known star and defying any obvious explanation. Nor would an extreme velocity help to explain 3C 273's huge radio emissions. If the redshift was cosmological (now known to be correct), the large distance implied that 3C 273 was far more luminous than any galaxy, but much more compact. Also, 3C 273 was bright enough to detect on archival photographs dating back to the 1900s; it was found to be variable on yearly timescales, implying that a substantial fraction of the light was emitted from a region less than 1 light-year in size, tiny compared to a galaxy.
Although it raised many questions, Schmidt's discovery quickly revolutionized quasar observation. The strange spectrum of 3C 48 was quickly identified by Schmidt, Greenstein and Oke as hydrogen and magnesium redshifted by 37%. Shortly afterwards, two more quasar spectra in 1964 and five more in 1965 were also confirmed as ordinary light that had been redshifted to an extreme degree. While the observations and redshifts themselves were not doubted, their correct interpretation was heavily debated, and Bolton's suggestion that the radiation detected from quasars were ordinary spectral lines from distant highly redshifted sources with extreme velocity was not widely accepted at the time.
An extreme redshift could imply great distance and velocity but could also be due to extreme mass or perhaps some other unknown laws of nature. Extreme velocity and distance would also imply immense power output, which lacked explanation. The small sizes were confirmed by interferometry and by observing the speed with which the quasar as a whole varied in output, and by their inability to be seen in even the most powerful visible-light telescopes as anything more than faint starlike points of light. But if they were small and far away in space, their power output would have to be immense and difficult to explain. Equally, if they were very small and much closer to our galaxy, it would be easy to explain their apparent power output, but less easy to explain their redshifts and lack of detectable movement against the background of the universe.
Schmidt noted that redshift is also associated with the expansion of the universe, as codified in Hubble's law. If the measured redshift was due to expansion, then this would support an interpretation of very distant objects with extraordinarily high luminosity and power output, far beyond any object seen to date. This extreme luminosity would also explain the large radio signal. Schmidt concluded that 3C 273 could either be an individual star around 10 km wide within (or near to) our galaxy, or a distant active galactic nucleus. He stated that a distant and extremely powerful object seemed more likely to be correct.
Schmidt's explanation for the high redshift was not widely accepted at the time. A major concern was the enormous amount of energy these objects would have to be radiating, if they were distant. In the 1960s no commonly accepted mechanism could account for this. The currently accepted explanation, that it is due to matter in an accretion disc falling into a supermassive black hole, was only suggested in 1964 by Edwin Salpeter and Yakov Zel'dovich, and even then it was rejected by many astronomers, because in the 1960s, the existence of black holes was still widely seen as theoretical and too exotic, and because it was not yet confirmed that many galaxies (including our own) have supermassive black holes at their center. The strange spectral lines in their radiation, and the speed of change seen in some quasars, also suggested to many astronomers and cosmologists that the objects were comparatively small and therefore perhaps bright, massive and not far away; accordingly that their redshifts were not due to distance or velocity, and must be due to some other reason or an unknown process, meaning that the quasars were not really powerful objects nor at extreme distances, as their redshifted light implied. A common alternative explanation was that the redshifts were caused by extreme mass (gravitational redshifting explained by general relativity) and not by extreme velocity (explained by special relativity).
Various explanations were proposed during the 1960s and 1970s, each with their own problems. It was suggested that quasars were nearby objects, and that their redshift was not due to the expansion of space (special relativity) but rather to light escaping a deep gravitational well (general relativity). This would require a massive object, which would also explain the high luminosities. However, a star of sufficient mass to produce the measured redshift would be unstable and in excess of the Hayashi limit. Quasars also show forbidden spectral emission lines, previously only seen in hot gaseous nebulae of low density, which would be too diffuse to both generate the observed power and fit within a deep gravitational well. There were also serious concerns regarding the idea of cosmologically distant quasars. One strong argument against them was that they implied energies that were far in excess of known energy conversion processes, including nuclear fusion. There were suggestions that quasars were made of some hitherto unknown form of stable antimatter regions and that this might account for their brightness. Others speculated that quasars were a white hole end of a wormhole, or a chain reaction of numerous supernovae.
Eventually, starting from about the 1970s, many lines of evidence (including the first X-ray space observatories, knowledge of black holes and modern models of cosmology) gradually demonstrated that the quasar redshifts are genuine and due to the expansion of space, that quasars are in fact as powerful and as distant as Schmidt and some other astronomers had suggested, and that their energy source is matter from an accretion disc falling onto a supermassive black hole. This included crucial evidence from optical and X-ray viewing of quasar host galaxies, finding of "intervening" absorption lines, which explained various spectral anomalies, observations from gravitational lensing, Peterson and Gunn's 1971 finding[citation needed] that galaxies containing quasars showed the same redshift as the quasars, and Kristian's 1973 finding that the "fuzzy" surrounding of many quasars was consistent with a less luminous host galaxy.
This model also fits well with other observations suggesting that many or even most galaxies have a massive central black hole. It would also explain why quasars are more common in the early universe: as a quasar draws matter from its accretion disc, there comes a point when there is less matter nearby, and energy production falls off or ceases, as the quasar becomes a more ordinary type of galaxy.
The accretion-disc energy-production mechanism was finally modeled in the 1970s, and black holes were also directly detected (including evidence showing that supermassive black holes could be found at the centers of our own and many other galaxies), which resolved the concern that quasars were too luminous to be a result of very distant objects or that a suitable mechanism could not be confirmed to exist in nature. By 1987 it was "well accepted" that this was the correct explanation for quasars, and the cosmological distance and energy output of quasars was accepted by almost all researchers.
Later it was found that not all quasars have strong radio emission; in fact only about 10% are "radio-loud". Hence the name "QSO" (quasi-stellar object) is used (in addition to "quasar") to refer to these objects, further categorised into the "radio-loud" and the "radio-quiet" classes. The discovery of the quasar had large implications for the field of astronomy in the 1960s, including drawing physics and astronomy closer together.
In 1979 the gravitational lens effect predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity was confirmed observationally for the first time with images of the double quasar 0957+561.
A study published in February, 2021, showed that there are more quasars in one direction (towards Hydra) than in the opposite direction, seemingly indicating that we are moving in that direction. But the direction of this dipole is about 28° away from the direction of our motion relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation.
In March, 2021, a collaboration of scientists, related to the Event Horizon Telescope, presented, for the first time, a polarized-based image of a black hole, particularly the black hole at the center of Messier 87, an elliptical galaxy approximately 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, revealing the forces giving rise to quasars.
It is now known that quasars are distant but extremely luminous objects, so any light that reaches the Earth is redshifted due to the metric expansion of space.
Quasars inhabit the centers of active galaxies and are among the most luminous, powerful, and energetic objects known in the universe, emitting up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way, which contains 200–400 billion stars. This radiation is emitted across the electromagnetic spectrum, almost uniformly, from X-rays to the far infrared with a peak in the ultraviolet optical bands, with some quasars also being strong sources of radio emission and of gamma-rays. With high-resolution imaging from ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope, the "host galaxies" surrounding the quasars have been detected in some cases. These galaxies are normally too dim to be seen against the glare of the quasar, except with special techniques. Most quasars, with the exception of 3C 273, whose average apparent magnitude is 12.9, cannot be seen with small telescopes.
Quasars are believed—and in many cases confirmed—to be powered by accretion of material into supermassive black holes in the nuclei of distant galaxies, as suggested in 1964 by Edwin Salpeter and Yakov Zel'dovich. Light and other radiation cannot escape from within the event horizon of a black hole. The energy produced by a quasar is generated outside the black hole, by gravitational stresses and immense friction within the material nearest to the black hole, as it orbits and falls inward. The huge luminosity of quasars results from the accretion discs of central supermassive black holes, which can convert between 6% and 32% of the mass of an object into energy, compared to just 0.7% for the p–p chain nuclear fusion process that dominates the energy production in Sun-like stars. Central masses of 105 to 109 solar masses have been measured in quasars by using reverberation mapping. Several dozen nearby large galaxies, including our own Milky Way galaxy, that do not have an active center and do not show any activity similar to a quasar, are confirmed to contain a similar supermassive black hole in their nuclei (galactic center). Thus it is now thought that all large galaxies have a black hole of this kind, but only a small fraction have sufficient matter in the right kind of orbit at their center to become active and power radiation in such a way as to be seen as quasars.[43]
This also explains why quasars were more common in the early universe, as this energy production ends when the supermassive black hole consumes all of the gas and dust near it. This means that it is possible that most galaxies, including the Milky Way, have gone through an active stage, appearing as a quasar or some other class of active galaxy that depended on the black-hole mass and the accretion rate, and are now quiescent because they lack a supply of matter to feed into their central black holes to generate radiation.[43]
Quasars in interacting galaxies[44]
The matter accreting onto the black hole is unlikely to fall directly in, but will have some angular momentum around the black hole, which will cause the matter to collect into an accretion disc. Quasars may also be ignited or re-ignited when normal galaxies merge and the black hole is infused with a fresh source of matter. In fact, it has been suggested that a quasar could form when the Andromeda Galaxy collides with our own Milky Way galaxy in approximately 3–5 billion years.
In the 1980s, unified models were developed in which quasars were classified as a particular kind of active galaxy, and a consensus emerged that in many cases it is simply the viewing angle that distinguishes them from other active galaxies, such as blazars and radio galaxies.
The highest-redshift quasar known (as of December 2017) was ULAS J1342+0928, with a redshift of 7.54, which corresponds to a comoving distance of approximately 29.36 billion light-years from Earth (these distances are much larger than the distance light could travel in the universe's 13.8 billion year history because space itself has also been expanding).
More than 750000 quasars have been found (as of August 2020), most from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. All observed quasar spectra have redshifts between 0.056 and 7.64 (as of 2021). Applying Hubble's law to these redshifts, it can be shown that they are between 600 million and 29.36 billion light-years away (in terms of comoving distance). Because of the great distances to the farthest quasars and the finite velocity of light, they and their surrounding space appear as they existed in the very early universe.
The power of quasars originates from supermassive black holes that are believed to exist at the core of most galaxies. The Doppler shifts of stars near the cores of galaxies indicate that they are revolving around tremendous masses with very steep gravity gradients, suggesting black holes.
Although quasars appear faint when viewed from Earth, they are visible from extreme distances, being the most luminous objects in the known universe. The brightest quasar in the sky is 3C 273 in the constellation of Virgo. It has an average apparent magnitude of 12.8 (bright enough to be seen through a medium-size amateur telescope), but it has an absolute magnitude of −26.7. From a distance of about 33 light-years, this object would shine in the sky about as brightly as our Sun. This quasar's luminosity is, therefore, about 4 trillion (4×1012) times that of the Sun, or about 100 times that of the total light of giant galaxies like the Milky Way. This assumes that the quasar is radiating energy in all directions, but the active galactic nucleus is believed to be radiating preferentially in the direction of its jet. In a universe containing hundreds of billions of galaxies, most of which had active nuclei billions of years ago but only seen today, it is statistically certain that thousands of energy jets should be pointed toward the Earth, some more directly than others. In many cases it is likely that the brighter the quasar, the more directly its jet is aimed at the Earth. Such quasars are called blazars.
The hyperluminous quasar APM 08279+5255 was, when discovered in 1998, given an absolute magnitude of −32.2. High-resolution imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope and the 10 m Keck Telescope revealed that this system is gravitationally lensed. A study of the gravitational lensing of this system suggests that the light emitted has been magnified by a factor of ~10. It is still substantially more luminous than nearby quasars such as 3C 273.
Quasars were much more common in the early universe than they are today. This discovery by Maarten Schmidt in 1967 was early strong evidence against steady-state cosmology and in favor of the Big Bang cosmology. Quasars show the locations where massive black holes are growing rapidly (by accretion). These black holes grow in step with the mass of stars in their host galaxy in a way not understood at present. One idea is that jets, radiation and winds created by the quasars shut down the formation of new stars in the host galaxy, a process called "feedback". The jets that produce strong radio emission in some quasars at the centers of clusters of galaxies are known to have enough power to prevent the hot gas in those clusters from cooling and falling on to the central galaxy.
Quasars' luminosities are variable, with time scales that range from months to hours. This means that quasars generate and emit their energy from a very small region, since each part of the quasar would have to be in contact with other parts on such a time scale as to allow the coordination of the luminosity variations. This would mean that a quasar varying on a time scale of a few weeks cannot be larger than a few light-weeks across. The emission of large amounts of power from a small region requires a power source far more efficient than the nuclear fusion that powers stars. The conversion of gravitational potential energy to radiation by infalling to a black hole converts between 6% and 32% of the mass to energy, compared to 0.7% for the conversion of mass to energy in a star like our Sun. It is the only process known that can produce such high power over a very long term. (Stellar explosions such as supernovas and gamma-ray bursts, and direct matter–antimatter annihilation, can also produce very high power output, but supernovae only last for days, and the universe does not appear to have had large amounts of antimatter at the relevant times.)
Since quasars exhibit all the properties common to other active galaxies such as Seyfert galaxies, the emission from quasars can be readily compared to those of smaller active galaxies powered by smaller supermassive black holes. To create a luminosity of 1040 watts (the typical brightness of a quasar), a super-massive black hole would have to consume the material equivalent of 10 stars per year. The brightest known quasars devour 1000 solar masses of material every year. The largest known is estimated to consume matter equivalent to 10 Earths per second. Quasar luminosities can vary considerably over time, depending on their surroundings. Since it is difficult to fuel quasars for many billions of years, after a quasar finishes accreting the surrounding gas and dust, it becomes an ordinary galaxy.
Radiation from quasars is partially "nonthermal" (i.e., not due to black-body radiation), and approximately 10% are observed to also have jets and lobes like those of radio galaxies that also carry significant (but poorly understood) amounts of energy in the form of particles moving at relativistic speeds. Extremely high energies might be explained by several mechanisms (see Fermi acceleration and Centrifugal mechanism of acceleration). Quasars can be detected over the entire observable electromagnetic spectrum, including radio, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-ray and even gamma rays. Most quasars are brightest in their rest-frame ultraviolet wavelength of 121.6 nm Lyman-alpha emission line of hydrogen, but due to the tremendous redshifts of these sources, that peak luminosity has been observed as far to the red as 900.0 nm, in the near infrared. A minority of quasars show strong radio emission, which is generated by jets of matter moving close to the speed of light. When viewed downward, these appear as blazars and often have regions that seem to move away from the center faster than the speed of light (superluminal expansion). This is an optical illusion due to the properties of special relativity.
Quasar redshifts are measured from the strong spectral lines that dominate their visible and ultraviolet emission spectra. These lines are brighter than the continuous spectrum. They exhibit Doppler broadening corresponding to mean speed of several percent of the speed of light. Fast motions strongly indicate a large mass. Emission lines of hydrogen (mainly of the Lyman series and Balmer series), helium, carbon, magnesium, iron and oxygen are the brightest lines. The atoms emitting these lines range from neutral to highly ionized, leaving it highly charged. This wide range of ionization shows that the gas is highly irradiated by the quasar, not merely hot, and not by stars, which cannot produce such a wide range of ionization.
Like all (unobscured) active galaxies, quasars can be strong X-ray sources. Radio-loud quasars can also produce X-rays and gamma rays by inverse Compton scattering of lower-energy photons by the radio-emitting electrons in the jet.
Iron quasars show strong emission lines resulting from low-ionization iron (Fe II), such as IRAS 18508-7815.
Quasars also provide some clues as to the end of the Big Bang's reionization. The oldest known quasars (z = 6) display a Gunn–Peterson trough and have absorption regions in front of them indicating that the intergalactic medium at that time was neutral gas. More recent quasars show no absorption region, but rather their spectra contain a spiky area known as the Lyman-alpha forest; this indicates that the intergalactic medium has undergone reionization into plasma, and that neutral gas exists only in small clouds.
The intense production of ionizing ultraviolet radiation is also significant, as it would provide a mechanism for reionization to occur as galaxies form. Despite this, current theories suggest that quasars were not the primary source of reionization; the primary causes of reionization were probably the earliest generations of stars, known as Population III stars (possibly 70%), and dwarf galaxies (very early small high-energy galaxies) (possibly 30%).
Quasars show evidence of elements heavier than helium, indicating that galaxies underwent a massive phase of star formation, creating population III stars between the time of the Big Bang and the first observed quasars. Light from these stars may have been observed in 2005 using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, although this observation remains to be confirmed.
The taxonomy of quasars includes various subtypes representing subsets of the quasar population having distinct properties.
Radio-loud quasars are quasars with powerful jets that are strong sources of radio-wavelength emission. These make up about 10% of the overall quasar population. Radio-quiet quasars are those quasars lacking powerful jets, with relatively weaker radio emission than the radio-loud population. The majority of quasars (about 90%) are radio-quiet.
Broad absorption-line (BAL) quasars are quasars whose spectra exhibit broad absorption lines that are blueshifted relative to the quasar's rest frame, resulting from gas flowing outward from the active nucleus in the direction toward the observer. Broad absorption lines are found in about 10% of quasars, and BAL quasars are usually radio-quiet. In the rest-frame ultraviolet spectra of BAL quasars, broad absorption lines can be detected from ionized carbon, magnesium, silicon, nitrogen, and other elements.
Type 2 (or Type II) quasars are quasars in which the accretion disk and broad emission lines are highly obscured by dense gas and dust. They are higher-luminosity counterparts of Type 2 Seyfert galaxies.
Red quasars are quasars with optical colors that are redder than normal quasars, thought to be the result of moderate levels of dust extinction within the quasar host galaxy. Infrared surveys have demonstrated that red quasars make up a substantial fraction of the total quasar population.
Optically violent variable (OVV) quasars are radio-loud quasars in which the jet is directed toward the observer. Relativistic beaming of the jet emission results in strong and rapid variability of the quasar brightness. OVV quasars are also considered to be a type of blazar.
Weak emission line quasars are quasars having unusually faint emission lines in the ultraviolet/visible spectrum.
The energetic radiation of the quasar makes dark galaxies glow, helping astronomers to understand the obscure early stages of galaxy formation.
Because quasars are extremely distant, bright, and small in apparent size, they are useful reference points in establishing a measurement grid on the sky. The International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) is based on hundreds of extra-galactic radio sources, mostly quasars, distributed around the entire sky. Because they are so distant, they are apparently stationary to our current technology, yet their positions can be measured with the utmost accuracy by very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). The positions of most are known to 0.001 arcsecond or better, which is orders of magnitude more precise than the best optical measurements.
A grouping of two or more quasars on the sky can result from a chance alignment, where the quasars are not physically associated, from actual physical proximity, or from the effects of gravity bending the light of a single quasar into two or more images by gravitational lensing.
When two quasars appear to be very close to each other as seen from Earth (separated by a few arcseconds or less), they are commonly referred to as a "double quasar". When the two are also close together in space (i.e. observed to have similar redshifts), they are termed a "quasar pair", or as a "binary quasar" if they are close enough that their host galaxies are likely to be physically interacting.
As quasars are overall rare objects in the universe, the probability of three or more separate quasars being found near the same physical location is very low, and determining whether the system is closely separated physically requires significant observational effort. The first true triple quasar was found in 2007 by observations at the W. M. Keck Observatory Mauna Kea, Hawaii. LBQS 1429-008 (or QQQ J1432-0106) was first observed in 1989 and at the time was found to be a double quasar. When astronomers discovered the third member, they confirmed that the sources were separate and not the result of gravitational lensing. This triple quasar has a redshift of z = 2.076. The components are separated by an estimated 30–50 kiloparsecs (roughly 97,000-160,000 light years), which is typical for interacting galaxies. In 2013, the second true triplet of quasars, QQQ J1519+0627, was found with a redshift z = 1.51, the whole system fitting within a physical separation of 25 kpc (about 80,000 light years).
The first true quadruple quasar system was discovered in 2015 at a redshift z = 2.0412 and has an overall physical scale of about 200 kpc (roughly 650,000 light years).
A multiple-image quasar is a quasar whose light undergoes gravitational lensing, resulting in double, triple or quadruple images of the same quasar. The first such gravitational lens to be discovered was the double-imaged quasar Q0957+561 (or Twin Quasar) in 1979. An example of a triply lensed quasar is PG1115+08. Several quadruple-image quasars are known, including the Einstein Cross and the Cloverleaf Quasar, with the first such discoveries happening in the mid-1980s.