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+A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the vertebrate skeleton in animals. Bones protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, and enable mobility. Bones come in a variety of shapes and sizes and have a complex internal and external structure. They are lightweight yet strong and hard, and serve multiple functions.
+Bone tissue (osseous tissue) is a hard tissue, a type of dense connective tissue.  It has a honeycomb-like matrix internally, which helps to give the bone rigidity.  Bone tissue is made up of different types of bone cells. Osteoblasts and osteocytes are involved in the formation and mineralization of bone; osteoclasts are involved in the resorption of bone tissue. Modified (flattened) osteoblasts become the lining cells that form a protective layer on the bone surface. The mineralised matrix of bone tissue has an organic component of mainly collagen called ossein and an inorganic component of bone mineral made up of various salts. Bone tissue is a mineralized tissue of two types, cortical bone and cancellous bone. Other types of tissue found in bones include bone marrow, endosteum, periosteum, nerves, blood vessels and cartilage.
+In the human body at birth, there are approximately 270 bones present; many of these fuse together during development, leaving a total of 206 separate bones in the adult, not counting numerous small sesamoid bones.[1][2] The largest bone in the body is the femur or thigh-bone, and the smallest is the stapes in the middle ear.
+The Greek word for bone is ὀστέον ("osteon"), hence the many terms that use it as a prefix—such as osteopathy.
+Bone is not uniformly solid, but consists of a flexible matrix (about 30%) and bound minerals (about 70%) which are intricately woven and endlessly remodeled by a group of specialized bone cells. Their unique composition and design allows bones to be relatively hard and strong, while remaining lightweight.
+Bone matrix is 90 to 95% composed of elastic collagen fibers, also known as ossein,[3] and the remainder is ground substance.[4] The elasticity of collagen improves fracture resistance.[5] The matrix is hardened by the binding of inorganic mineral salt, calcium phosphate, in a chemical arrangement known as calcium hydroxylapatite. It is the bone mineralization that give bones rigidity.
+Bone is actively constructed and remodeled throughout life by special bone cells known as osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Within any single bone, the tissue is woven into two main patterns, known as cortical and cancellous bone, and each with different appearance and characteristics.
+The hard outer layer of bones is composed of cortical bone, which is also called compact bone as it is much denser than cancellous bone. It forms the hard exterior (cortex) of bones. The cortical bone gives bone its smooth, white, and solid appearance, and accounts for 80% of the total bone mass of an adult human skeleton.[6] It facilitates bone's main functions - to support the whole body, to protect organs, to provide levers for movement, and to store and release chemical elements, mainly calcium. It consists of multiple microscopic columns, each called an osteon or Haversian system. Each column is multiple layers of osteoblasts and osteocytes around a central canal called the haversian canal. Volkmann's canals at right angles connect the osteons together. The columns are metabolically active, and as bone is reabsorbed and created the nature and location of the cells within the osteon will change. Cortical bone is covered by a periosteum on its outer surface, and an endosteum on its inner surface. The endosteum is the boundary between the cortical bone and the cancellous bone.[7] The primary anatomical and functional unit of cortical bone is the osteon.
+Cancellous bone, also called trabecular or spongy bone,[7] is the internal tissue of the skeletal bone and is an open cell porous network. Cancellous bone has a higher surface-area-to-volume ratio than cortical bone and it is less dense. This makes it weaker and more flexible. The greater surface area also makes it suitable for metabolic activities such as the exchange of calcium ions. Cancellous bone is typically found at the ends of long bones, near joints and in the interior of vertebrae. Cancellous bone is highly vascular and often contains red bone marrow where hematopoiesis, the production of blood cells, occurs. The primary anatomical and functional unit of cancellous bone is the trabecula. The trabeculae are aligned towards the mechanical load distribution that a bone experiences within long bones such as the femur.  As far as short bones are concerned, trabecular alignment has been studied in the vertebral pedicle.[8] Thin formations of osteoblasts covered in endosteum create an irregular network of spaces,[9] known as trabeculae. Within these spaces are bone marrow and hematopoietic stem cells that give rise to platelets, red blood cells and white blood cells.[9] Trabecular marrow is composed of a network of rod- and plate-like elements that make the overall organ lighter and allow room for blood vessels and marrow. Trabecular bone accounts for the remaining 20% of total bone mass but has nearly ten times the surface area of compact bone.[10]
+The words cancellous and trabecular refer to the tiny lattice-shaped units (trabeculae) that form the tissue. It was first illustrated accurately in the engravings of Crisóstomo Martinez.[11]
+Bone marrow, also known as myeloid tissue in red bone marrow, can be found in almost any bone that holds cancellous tissue.  In newborns, all such bones are filled exclusively with red marrow or hematopoietic marrow, but as the child ages the hematopoietic fraction decreases in quantity and the fatty/ yellow fraction called marrow adipose tissue (MAT) increases in quantity.  In adults, red marrow is mostly found in the bone marrow of the femur, the ribs, the vertebrae and pelvic bones.[12]
+Bone is a metabolically active tissue composed of several types of cells. These cells include osteoblasts, which are involved in the creation and mineralization of bone tissue, osteocytes, and osteoclasts, which are involved in the reabsorption of bone tissue. Osteoblasts and osteocytes are derived from osteoprogenitor cells, but osteoclasts are derived from the same cells that differentiate to form macrophages and monocytes.[13] Within the marrow of the bone there are also hematopoietic stem cells. These cells give rise to other cells, including white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.[14]
+Osteoblasts are mononucleate bone-forming cells. They are located on the surface of osteon seams and make a protein mixture known as osteoid, which mineralizes to become bone.[15] The osteoid seam is a narrow region of newly formed organic matrix, not yet mineralized, located on the surface of a bone. Osteoid is primarily composed of Type I collagen. Osteoblasts also manufacture hormones, such as prostaglandins, to act on the bone itself. The osteoblast creates and repairs new bone by actually building around itself. First, the osteoblast puts up collagen fibers. These collagen fibers are used as a framework for the osteoblasts' work. The osteoblast then deposits calcium phosphate which is hardened by hydroxide and bicarbonate ions. The brand new bone created by the osteoblast is called osteoid.[16] Once the osteoblast is finished working it is actually trapped inside the bone once it hardens. When the osteoblast becomes trapped, it becomes known as an osteocyte.[17] Other osteoblasts remain on the top of the new bone and are used to protect the underlying bone, these become known as lining cells.
+Osteocytes are mostly inactive osteoblasts.[13] Osteocytes originate from osteoblasts that have migrated into and become trapped and surrounded by bone matrix that they themselves produced.[7] The spaces they occupy are known as lacunae. Osteocytes have many processes that reach out to meet osteoblasts and other osteocytes probably for the purposes of communication.[18] Osteocytes remain in contact with other cells in the bone through gap junctions—coupled cell processes—which pass through small channels in the bone matrix called the canaliculi.
+Osteoclasts are very large multinucleate cells that are responsible for the breakdown of bones by the process of bone resorption. New bone is then formed by the osteoblasts. Bone is constantly remodelled by the resorption of osteoclasts and created by osteoblasts.[13] Osteoclasts are large cells with multiple nuclei located on bone surfaces in what are called Howship's lacunae (or resorption pits). These lacunae are the result of surrounding bone tissue that has been reabsorbed.[19] Because the osteoclasts are derived from a monocyte stem-cell lineage, they are equipped with phagocytic-like mechanisms similar to circulating macrophages.[13] Osteoclasts mature and/or migrate to discrete bone surfaces. Upon arrival, active enzymes, such as tartrate resistant acid phosphatase, are secreted against the mineral substrate.[citation needed] The reabsorption of bone by osteoclasts also plays a role in calcium homeostasis.[19]
+Bones consist of living cells embedded in a mineralized organic matrix. This matrix consists of organic components, mainly type I collagen – "organic" referring to materials produced as a result of the human body – and inorganic components, primarily hydroxyapatite and other salts of calcium and phosphate. Above 30% of the acellular part of bone consists of the organic components, and 70% of salts.[20] The collagen fibers give bone its tensile strength, and the interspersed crystals of hydroxyapatite give bone its compressive strength. These effects are synergistic.[20]
+The inorganic composition of bone (bone mineral) is primarily formed from salts of calcium and phosphate, the major salt being hydroxyapatite (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2).[20] The exact composition of the matrix may be subject to change over time due to nutrition and biomineralization, with the ratio of calcium to phosphate varying between 1.3 and 2.0 (per weight), and trace minerals such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and carbonate also being found.[20]
+Type I collagen composes 90–95% of the organic matrix, with remainder of the matrix being a homogenous liquid called ground substance consisting of proteoglycans such as hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate,[20] as well as non-collagenous proteins such as osteocalcin, osteopontin or bone sialoprotein. Collagen consists of strands of repeating units, which give bone tensile strength, and are arranged in an overlapping fashion that prevents shear stress. The function of ground substance is not fully known.[20] Two types of bone can be identified microscopically according to the arrangement of collagen: woven and lamellar.
+Woven bone is produced when osteoblasts produce osteoid rapidly, which occurs initially in all fetal bones, but is later replaced by more resilient lamellar bone. In adults woven bone is created after fractures or in Paget's disease. Woven bone is weaker, with a smaller number of randomly oriented collagen fibers, but forms quickly; it is for this appearance of the fibrous matrix that the bone is termed woven. It is soon replaced by lamellar bone, which is highly organized in concentric sheets with a much lower proportion of osteocytes to surrounding tissue. Lamellar bone, which makes its first appearance in humans in the fetus during the third trimester,[22] is stronger and filled with many collagen fibers parallel to other fibers in the same layer (these parallel columns are called osteons).  In cross-section, the fibers run in opposite directions in alternating layers, much like in plywood, assisting in the bone's ability to resist torsion forces. After a fracture, woven bone forms initially and is gradually replaced by lamellar bone during a process known as "bony substitution." Compared to woven bone, lamellar bone formation takes place more slowly. The orderly deposition of collagen fibers restricts the formation of osteoid to about 1 to 2 µm per day. Lamellar bone also requires a relatively flat surface to lay the collagen fibers in parallel or concentric layers.[23]
+The extracellular matrix of bone is laid down by osteoblasts, which secrete both collagen and ground substance. These synthesise collagen within the cell, and then secrete collagen fibrils. The collagen fibers rapidly polymerise to form collagen strands. At this stage they are not yet mineralised, and are called "osteoid". Around the strands calcium and phosphate precipitate on the surface of these strands, within days to weeks becoming crystals of hydroxyapatite.[20]
+In order to mineralise the bone, the osteoblasts secrete vesicles containing alkaline phosphatase. This cleaves the phosphate groups and acts as the foci for calcium and phosphate deposition. The vesicles then rupture and act as a centre for crystals to grow on. More particularly, bone mineral is formed from globular and plate structures.[24][25]
+There are five types of bones in the human body: long, short, flat, irregular, and sesamoid.[26]
+In the study of anatomy, anatomists use a number of anatomical terms to describe the appearance, shape and function of bones. Other anatomical terms are also used to describe the location of bones. Like other anatomical terms, many of these derive from Latin and Greek. Some anatomists still use Latin to refer to bones. The term "osseous", and the prefix "osteo-", referring to things related to bone, are still used commonly today.
+Some examples of terms used to describe bones include the term "foramen" to describe a hole through which something passes, and a "canal" or "meatus" to describe a tunnel-like structure. A protrusion from a bone can be called a number of terms, including a "condyle", "crest", "spine", "eminence", "tubercle" or "tuberosity", depending on the protrusion's shape and location. In general, long bones are said to have a "head", "neck", and "body".
+When two bones join together, they are said to "articulate". If the two bones have a fibrous connection and are relatively immobile, then the joint is called a "suture".
+The formation of bone is called ossification. During the fetal stage of development this occurs by two processes: intramembranous ossification and endochondral ossification.[31] Intramembranous ossification involves the formation of bone from connective tissue whereas endochondral ossification involves the formation of bone from cartilage.
+Intramembranous ossification mainly occurs during formation of the flat bones of the skull but also the mandible, maxilla, and clavicles; the bone is formed from connective tissue such as mesenchyme tissue rather than from cartilage. The process includes: the development of the ossification center, calcification, trabeculae formation and the development of the periosteum.[32]
+Endochondral ossification occurs in long bones and most other bones in the body; it involves the development of bone from cartilage. This process includes the development of a cartilage model, its growth and development, development of the primary and secondary ossification centers, and the formation of articular cartilage and the epiphyseal plates.[33]
+Endochondral ossification begins with points in the cartilage called "primary ossification centers." They mostly appear during fetal development, though a few short bones begin their primary ossification after birth. They are responsible for the formation of the diaphyses of long bones, short bones and certain parts of irregular bones. Secondary ossification occurs after birth, and forms the epiphyses of long bones and the extremities of irregular and flat bones. The diaphysis and both epiphyses of a long bone are separated by a growing zone of cartilage (the epiphyseal plate). At skeletal maturity (18 to 25 years of age), all of the cartilage is replaced by bone, fusing the diaphysis and both epiphyses together (epiphyseal closure).[34] In the upper limbs, only the diaphyses of the long bones and scapula are ossified. The epiphyses, carpal bones, coracoid process, medial border of the scapula, and acromion are still cartilaginous.[35]
+The following steps are followed in the conversion of cartilage to bone:
+Bones have a variety of functions:
+Bones serve a variety of mechanical functions. Together the bones in the body form the skeleton. They provide a frame to keep the body supported, and an attachment point for skeletal muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints, which function together to generate and transfer forces so that individual body parts or the whole body can be manipulated in three-dimensional space (the interaction between bone and muscle is studied in biomechanics).
+Bones protect internal organs, such as the skull protecting the brain or the ribs protecting the heart and lungs. Because of the way that bone is formed, bone has a high compressive strength of about 170 MPa (1800 kgf/cm²),[5] poor tensile strength of 104–121 MPa, and a very low shear stress strength (51.6 MPa).[37][38] This means that bone resists pushing (compressional) stress well, resist pulling (tensional) stress less well, but only poorly resists shear stress (such as due to torsional loads). While bone is essentially brittle, bone does have a significant degree of elasticity, contributed chiefly by collagen.
+Mechanically, bones also have a special role in hearing. The ossicles are three small bones in the middle ear which are involved in sound transduction.
+The cancellous part of bones contain bone marrow. Bone marrow produces blood cells in a process called hematopoiesis.[39] Blood cells that are created in bone marrow include red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells.[40] Progenitor cells such as the hematopoietic stem cell divide in a process called mitosis to produce precursor cells. These include precursors which eventually give rise to white blood cells, and erythroblasts which give rise to red blood cells.[41] Unlike red and white blood cells, created by mitosis, platelets are shed from very large cells called megakaryocytes.[42] This process of progressive differentiation occurs within the bone marrow. After the cells are matured, they enter the circulation.[43] Every day, over 2.5 billion red blood cells and platelets, and 50–100 billion granulocytes are produced in this way.[14]
+As well as creating cells, bone marrow is also one of the major sites where defective or aged red blood cells are destroyed.[14]
+°Determined by the species, age, and the type of bone, bone cells make up to 15 percent of the bone. Growth factor storage – mineralized bone matrix stores important growth factors such as insulin-like growth factors, transforming growth factor, bone morphogenetic proteins and others.[46]
+Bone is constantly being created and replaced in a process known as remodeling. This ongoing turnover of bone is a process of resorption followed by replacement of bone with little change in shape. This is accomplished through osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Cells are stimulated by a variety of signals, and together referred to as a remodeling unit. Approximately 10% of the skeletal mass of an adult is remodelled each year.[52] The purpose of remodeling is to regulate calcium homeostasis, repair microdamaged bones from everyday stress, and to shape the skeleton during growth.[citation needed] Repeated stress, such as weight-bearing exercise or bone healing, results in the bone thickening at the points of maximum stress (Wolff's law). It has been hypothesized that this is a result of bone's piezoelectric properties, which cause bone to generate small electrical potentials under stress.[53]
+The action of osteoblasts and osteoclasts are controlled by a number of chemical enzymes that either promote or inhibit the activity of the bone remodeling cells, controlling the rate at which bone is made, destroyed, or changed in shape. The cells also use paracrine signalling to control the activity of each other.[citation needed] For example, the rate at which osteoclasts resorb bone is inhibited by calcitonin and osteoprotegerin.  Calcitonin is produced by parafollicular cells in the thyroid gland, and can bind to receptors on osteoclasts to directly inhibit osteoclast activity. Osteoprotegerin is secreted by osteoblasts and is able to bind RANK-L, inhibiting osteoclast stimulation.[54]
+Osteoblasts can also be stimulated to increase bone mass through increased secretion of osteoid and by inhibiting the ability of osteoclasts to break down osseous tissue.[citation needed] Increased secretion of osteoid is stimulated by the secretion of growth hormone by the pituitary, thyroid hormone and the sex hormones (estrogens and androgens). These hormones also promote increased secretion of osteoprotegerin.[54] Osteoblasts can also be induced to secrete a number of cytokines that promote reabsorption of bone by stimulating osteoclast activity and differentiation from progenitor cells. Vitamin D, parathyroid hormone and stimulation from osteocytes induce osteoblasts to increase secretion of RANK-ligand and interleukin 6, which cytokines then stimulate increased reabsorption of bone by osteoclasts. These same compounds also increase secretion of macrophage colony-stimulating factor by osteoblasts, which promotes the differentiation of progenitor cells into osteoclasts, and decrease secretion of osteoprotegerin.[citation needed]
+Bone volume is determined by the rates of bone formation and bone resorption. Recent research has suggested that certain growth factors may work to locally alter bone formation by increasing osteoblast activity. Numerous bone-derived growth factors have been isolated and classified via bone cultures. These factors include insulin-like growth factors I and II, transforming growth factor-beta, fibroblast growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor, and bone morphogenetic proteins.[55] Evidence suggests that bone cells produce growth factors for extracellular storage in the bone matrix. The release of these growth factors from the bone matrix could cause the proliferation of osteoblast precursors. Essentially, bone growth factors may act as potential determinants of local bone formation.[55] Research has suggested that cancellous bone volume in postmenopausal osteoporosis may be determined by the relationship between the total bone forming surface and the percent of surface resorption.[56]
+A number of diseases can affect bone, including arthritis, fractures, infections, osteoporosis and tumours. Conditions relating to bone can be managed by a variety of doctors, including rheumatologists for joints, and orthopedic surgeons, who may conduct surgery to fix broken bones. Other doctors, such as rehabilitation specialists may be involved in recovery, radiologists in interpreting the findings on imaging, and pathologists in investigating the cause of the disease, and family doctors may play a role in preventing complications of bone disease such as osteoporosis.
+When a doctor sees a patient, a history and exam will be taken. Bones are then often imaged, called radiography. This might include ultrasound X-ray, CT scan, MRI scan and other imaging such as a Bone scan, which may be used to investigate cancer.[57] Other tests such as a blood test for autoimmune markers may be taken, or a synovial fluid aspirate may be taken.[57]
+In normal bone, fractures occur when there is significant force applied, or repetitive trauma over a long time. Fractures can also occur when a bone is weakened, such as with osteoporosis, or when there is a structural problem, such as when the bone remodels excessively (such as Paget's disease) or is the site of the growth of cancer.[58] Common fractures include wrist fractures and hip fractures, associated with osteoporosis, vertebral fractures associated with high-energy trauma and cancer, and fractures of long-bones. Not all fractures are painful.[58] When serious, depending on the fractures type and location, complications may include flail chest, compartment syndromes or fat embolism.
+Compound fractures involve the bone's penetration through the skin. Some complex fractures can be treated by the use of bone grafting procedures that replace missing bone portions.
+Fractures and their underlying causes can be investigated by X-rays, CT scans and MRIs.[58] Fractures are described by their location and shape, and several classification systems exist, depending on the location of the fracture. A common long bone fracture in children is a Salter–Harris fracture.[59] When fractures are managed, pain relief is often given, and the fractured area is often immobilised. This is to promote bone healing. In addition, surgical measures such as internal fixation may be used. Because of the immobilisation, people with fractures are often advised to undergo rehabilitation.[58]
+There are several types of tumour that can affect bone; examples of benign bone tumours include osteoma, osteoid osteoma, osteochondroma, osteoblastoma, enchondroma, giant cell tumour of bone, and aneurysmal bone cyst.[60]
+Cancer can arise in bone tissue, and bones are also a common site for other cancers to spread (metastasise) to.[61] Cancers that arise in bone are called "primary" cancers, although such cancers are rare.[61] Metastases within bone are "secondary" cancers, with the most common being breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, and kidney cancer.[61] Secondary cancers that affect bone can either destroy bone (called a "lytic" cancer) or create bone (a "sclerotic" cancer). Cancers of the bone marrow inside the bone can also affect bone tissue, examples including leukemia and multiple myeloma. Bone may also be affected by cancers in other parts of the body. Cancers in other parts of the body may release parathyroid hormone or parathyroid hormone-related peptide. This increases bone reabsorption, and can lead to bone fractures.
+Bone tissue that is destroyed or altered as a result of cancers is distorted, weakened, and more prone to fracture. This may lead to compression of the spinal cord, destruction of the marrow resulting in bruising, bleeding and immunosuppression, and is one cause of bone pain. If the cancer is metastatic, then there might be other symptoms depending on the site of the original cancer. Some bone cancers can also be felt.
+Cancers of the bone are managed according to their type, their stage, prognosis, and what symptoms they cause. Many primary cancers of bone are treated with radiotherapy. Cancers of bone marrow may be treated with chemotherapy, and other forms of targeted therapy such as immunotherapy may be used.[62] Palliative care, which focuses on maximising a person's quality of life, may play a role in management, particularly if the likelihood of survival within five years is poor.
+Osteoporosis is a disease of bone where there is reduced bone mineral density, increasing the likelihood of fractures.[63]  Osteoporosis is defined in women by the World Health Organization as a bone mineral density of 2.5 standard deviations below peak bone mass, relative to the age and sex-matched average. This density is measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), with the term "established osteoporosis" including the presence of a fragility fracture.[64] Osteoporosis is most common in women after menopause, when it is called "postmenopausal osteoporosis", but may develop in men and premenopausal women in the presence of particular hormonal disorders and other chronic diseases or as a result of smoking and medications, specifically glucocorticoids.[63] Osteoporosis usually has no symptoms until a fracture occurs.[63] For this reason, DEXA scans are often done in people with one or more risk factors, who have developed osteoporosis and are at risk of fracture.[63]
+Osteoporosis treatment includes advice to stop smoking, decrease alcohol consumption, exercise regularly, and have a healthy diet. Calcium and trace mineral supplements may also be advised, as may Vitamin D. When medication is used, it may include bisphosphonates, Strontium ranelate, and hormone replacement therapy.[65]
+Osteopathic medicine is a school of medical thought originally developed based on the idea of the link between the musculoskeletal system and overall health, but now very similar to mainstream medicine. As of 2012[update], over 77,000 physicians in the United States are trained in osteopathic medical schools.[66]
+The study of bones and teeth is referred to as osteology. It is frequently used in anthropology, archeology and forensic science for a variety of tasks. This can include determining the nutritional, health, age or injury status of the individual the bones were taken from. Preparing fleshed bones for these types of studies can involve the process of maceration.
+Typically anthropologists and archeologists study bone tools made by Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis.  Bones can serve a number of uses such as projectile points or artistic pigments, and can also be made from external bones such as antlers.
+Bird skeletons are very lightweight. Their bones are smaller and thinner, to aid flight. Among mammals, bats come closest to birds in terms of bone density, suggesting that small dense bones are a flight adaptation. Many bird bones have little marrow due to their being hollow.[67]
+A bird's beak is primarily made of bone as projections of the mandibles which are covered in keratin.
+A deer's antlers are composed of bone which is an unusual example of bone being outside the skin of the animal once the velvet is shed.[68]
+The extinct predatory fish Dunkleosteus had sharp edges of hard exposed bone along its jaws.[69][70]
+Many animals possess an exoskeleton that is not made of bone. These include insects and crustaceans.
+The proportion of cortical bone that is 80% in the human skeleton may be much lower in other animals, especially in marine mammals and marine turtles, or in various Mesozoic marine reptiles, such as ichthyosaurs,[71] among others.[72]
+Many animals, particularly herbivores, practice osteophagy – the eating of bones. This is presumably carried out in order to replenish lacking phosphate.
+Many bone diseases that affect humans also affect other vertebrates – an example of one disorder is skeletal fluorosis.
+Bones from slaughtered animals have a number of uses. In prehistoric times, they have been used for making bone tools.[73] They have further been used in bone carving, already important in prehistoric art, and also in modern time as crafting materials for buttons, beads, handles, bobbins, calculation aids, head nuts, dice, poker chips, pick-up sticks, ornaments, etc. A special genre is scrimshaw.[citation needed]
+Bone glue can be made by prolonged boiling of ground or cracked bones, followed by filtering and evaporation to thicken the resulting fluid. Historically once important, bone glue and other animal glues today have only a few specialized uses, such as in antiques restoration. Essentially the same process, with further refinement, thickening and drying, is used to make gelatin.
+Broth is made by simmering several ingredients for a long time, traditionally including bones.
+Bone char, a porous, black, granular material primarily used for filtration and also as a black pigment, is produced by charring mammal bones.
+Oracle bone script was a writing system used in Ancient China based on inscriptions in bones. Its name originates from oracle bones, which were mainly ox clavicle. The Ancient Chinese (mainly in the Shang Dynasty), would write their questions on the Oracle Bone, and burn the bone, and where the bone cracked would be the answer for the questions.
+To point the bone at someone is considered bad luck in some cultures, such as Australian aborigines, such as by the Kurdaitcha.
+The wishbones of fowl have been used for divination, and are still customarily used in a tradition to determine which one of two people pulling on either prong of the bone may make a wish.
+Various cultures throughout history have adopted the custom of shaping an infant's head by the practice of artificial cranial deformation.  A widely practised
+custom in China was that of foot binding to limit the normal growth of the foot.
+Cells in bone marrow
+Scanning electron microscope of bone at 100x magnification
+Structure detail of an animal bone

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+Athens (/ˈæθɪnz/ ATH-inz;[3] Greek: Αθήνα, romanized: Athína [aˈθina] (listen); Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, romanized: Athênai (pl.) [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]), is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years[citation needed] and its earliest human presence started somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.[4]
+Classical Athens was a powerful city-state that emerged in conjunction with the seagoing development of the port of Piraeus. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum,[5][6] it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy,[7][8] largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent, and in particular the Romans.[9] In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece.
+Athens is a global city and one of the biggest economic centers in southeastern Europe. It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe,[10][11] and the second largest in the world.[12]
+The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which actually constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire city, had a population of 664,046 (in 2011)[2] within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi).[13][14] The Athens Urban Area (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 (in 2011)[15] over an area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi).[14] According to Eurostat[16] in 2011, the functional urban area (FUA) of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union (the 6th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 3.8 million people. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland and the warmest major city in Europe.
+The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "architectural trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of the few cities to have hosted the Olympics more than once.[17]
+In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic) a plural. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē).[18] It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin,[19] and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica.[19] In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city.[20] Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city,[20] because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.[20] During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. However, after the establishment of the modern Greek state, and partly due to the conservatism of the written language, Ἀθῆναι [aˈθine] became again the official name of the city and remained so until the abandonment of Katharevousa in the 1970s, when Ἀθήνα, Athína, became the official name.
+According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city;[21] they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron[21] and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge.[21] According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up.[21] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse.[21] In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree.[21][22] Cecrops accepted this gift[21] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens.[21][22] Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, were proposed during the 17th century.[citation needed] Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil.[23]
+In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city"). In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases.[24] Today the caption η πρωτεύουσα (ī protévousa), "the capital", has become somewhat common. King Alphonse X of Castile in his 'General Storia' (Global History) cites etymology of Athens as: 'Athinai', 'the one without death', death here meaning ignorance.
+Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthon (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect.[25]
+The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC.[4] Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years.[26][27] By 1400 BC the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls.[28] Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards.
+Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.[29] The leading position of Athens may well have resulted from its central location in the Greek world, its secure stronghold on the Acropolis and its access to the sea, which gave it a natural advantage over inland rivals such as Thebes and Sparta.
+By the 6th century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas,[30] after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.
+The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
+By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea, effectively ending Athenian independence. Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. The Roman emperor Hadrian, in the 2nd century CE, ordered the construction of a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
+By the end of Late Antiquity, Athens had shrunk due to sacks by the Herulians, Visigoths, and Early Slavs which caused massive destruction in the city. In this era, the first Christian churches were built in Athens, and the Parthenon and other temples were converted into churches. Athens expanded its settlement in the second half of the Middle Byzantine Period, in the 9th to 10th centuries CE, and was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian trade. After the Fourth Crusade the Duchy of Athens was established. In 1458 it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and entered a long period of decline.
+Following the Greek War of Independence and the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, Athens was chosen as the capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834, largely because of historical and sentimental reasons. At the time, it was reduced to a town of about 4,000 people in a loose swarm of houses along the foot of the Acropolis. The first King of Greece, Otto of Bavaria, commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert to design a modern city plan fit for the capital of a state.
+The first modern city plan consisted of a triangle defined by the Acropolis, the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos and the new palace of the Bavarian king (now housing the Greek Parliament), so as to highlight the continuity between modern and ancient Athens. Neoclassicism, the international style of this epoch, was the architectural style through which Bavarian, French and Greek architects such as Hansen, Klenze, Boulanger or Kaftantzoglou designed the first important public buildings of the new capital. In 1896, Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games. During the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War, swelled Athens's population; nevertheless it was most particularly following World War II, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion.
+In the 1980s it became evident that smog from factories and an ever-increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to congestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge. A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city. In 2004 Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics.
+Tondo of the Aison Cup, showing the victory of Theseus over the Minotaur in the presence of Athena. Theseus was responsible, according to the myth, for the synoikismos ("dwelling together")—the political unification of Attica under Athens.
+The earliest coinage of Athens, c. 545–525/15 BC
+Coat of Arms of the Duchy of Athens during the rule of the de la Roche family (13th century)
+The Roman Agora and the Gate of Athena in Plaka district.
+The Temple of Olympian Zeus with river Ilisos by Edward Dodwell, 1821
+The Entry of King Otto in Athens, Peter von Hess, 1839.
+The Stadiou Street in Central Athens in 1908.
+Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens Basin or the Attica Basin (Greek: Λεκανοπέδιο Αθηνών/Αττικής). The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aigaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east.[31] Beyond Mount Aegaleo lies the Thriasian plain, which forms an extension of the central plain to the west. The Saronic Gulf lies to the southwest. Mount Parnitha is the tallest of the four mountains (1,413 m (4,636 ft)),[32] and has been declared a national park.
+Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and provides a view of the entire Attica Basin. The meteorology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world because its mountains cause a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the Greek Government's difficulties controlling industrial pollution, was responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced.[27] This issue is not unique to Athens; for instance, Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer from similar atmospheric inversion problems.[27]
+The Cephissus river, the Ilisos and the Eridanos stream are the historical rivers of Athens.
+By the late 1970s, the pollution of Athens had become so destructive that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, "...the carved details on the five the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated."[33] A series of measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in the improvement of air quality; the appearance of smog (or nefos as the Athenians used to call it) has become less common.
+Measures taken by the Greek authorities throughout the 1990s have improved the quality of air over the Attica Basin. Nevertheless, air pollution still remains an issue for Athens, particularly during the hottest summer days. In late June 2007,[34] the Attica region experienced a number of brush fires,[34] including a blaze that burned a significant portion of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha,[35] considered critical to maintaining a better air quality in Athens all year round.[34] Damage to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the improvement of air quality in the city.[34]
+The major waste management efforts undertaken in the last decade (particularly the plant built on the small island of Psytalia) have greatly improved water quality in the Saronic Gulf, and the coastal waters of Athens are now accessible again to swimmers. In January 2007, Athens faced a waste management problem when its landfill near Ano Liosia, an Athenian suburb, reached capacity.[36] The crisis eased by mid-January when authorities began taking the garbage to a temporary landfill.[36]
+Athens ranks in the lowest percentage for the risk on frequency and severity of terrorist attacks according to the EU Global Terrorism Database (EIU 2007-2016 calculations). The city also ranked 35th in Digital Security, 21st on Health Security, 29th on Infrastructure Security and 41st on Personal Security globally in a 2017 The Economist Intelligence Unit report.[37] It also ranks as a very safe city (39th globally out of 162 cities overall) on the ranking of the safest and most dangerous countries.[38] A 2019 crime index from Numbeo places Athens at 130th position, rating safer than Tampa, Florida or Dublin, Ireland.[39] According to a Mercer 2019 Quality of Living Survey, Athens ranks 89th on the Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranking.[40]
+Athens has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). The dominant feature of Athens' climate is alternation between prolonged hot and dry summers and mild winters with moderate rainfall.[41] With an average of 455 millimetres (17.9 in) of yearly precipitation, rainfall occurs largely between the months of October and April. July and August are the driest months when thunderstorms occur sparsely. Furthermore, some coastal areas of Athens, known as the Athens Riviera have a hot semi-arid climate (BSh) according to the climate atlas published by the Hellenic National Meteorological Service (H.N.M.S).[42]
+Owing to the rain shadow of the Pindus Mountains, annual precipitation of Athens is lower than most other parts of Greece, especially western Greece. As an example, Ioannina receives around 1,300 mm (51 in) per year, and Agrinio around 800 mm (31 in) per year. Daily average highs for July have been measured around 34 °C or 93 °F in downtown Athens, but some parts of the city may be even hotter for the higher density of buildings, such as the center,[43] in particular, western areas due to a combination of industrialization and a number of natural factors, knowledge of which has existed since the mid-19th century.[44][45][46]
+Athens is affected by the urban heat island effect in some areas which is caused by human activity,[47][48] altering its temperatures compared to the surrounding rural areas,[49][50][51][52] and leaving detrimental effects on energy usage, expenditure for cooling,[53][54] and health.[48] The urban heat island of the city has also been found to be partially responsible for alterations of the climatological temperature time-series of specific Athens meteorological stations, because of its impact on the temperatures and the temperature trends recorded by some meteorological stations.[55][56][57][58][59] On the other hand, specific meteorological stations, such as the National Garden station and Thiseio meteorological station, are less affected or do not experience the urban heat island.[49][60]
+Athens holds the World Meteorological Organization record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe, at 48 °C (118.4 °F), which was recorded in the Elefsina and Tatoi suburbs of Athens on 10 July 1977.[61]
+The Municipality of Athens, the City Centre of the Athens Urban Area, is divided into several districts: Omonoia, Syntagma, Exarcheia, Agios Nikolaos, Neapolis, Lykavittos, Lofos Strefi, Lofos Finopoulou, Lofos Filopappou, Pedion Areos, Metaxourgeio, Aghios Kostantinos, Larissa Station, Kerameikos, Psiri, Monastiraki, Gazi, Thission, Kapnikarea, Aghia Irini, Aerides, Anafiotika, Plaka, Acropolis, Pnyka, Makrygianni, Lofos Ardittou, Zappeion, Aghios Spyridon, Pangrati, Kolonaki, Dexameni, Evaggelismos, Gouva, Aghios Ioannis, Neos Kosmos, Koukaki, Kynosargous, Fix, Ano Petralona, Kato Petralona, Rouf, Votanikos, Profitis Daniil, Akadimia Platonos, Kolonos, Kolokynthou, Attikis Square, Lofos Skouze, Sepolia, Kypseli, Aghios Meletios, Nea Kypseli, Gyzi, Polygono, Ampelokipoi, Panormou-Gerokomeio, Pentagono, Ellinorosson, Nea Filothei, Ano Kypseli, Tourkovounia-Lofos Patatsou, Lofos Elikonos, Koliatsou, Thymarakia, Kato Patisia, Treis Gefyres, Aghios Eleftherios, Ano Patisia, Kypriadou, Menidi, Prompona, Aghios Panteleimonas, Pangrati, Goudi, Vyronas and Ilisia.
+Parnitha National Park is punctuated by well-marked paths, gorges, springs, torrents and caves dotting the protected area. Hiking and mountain-biking in all four mountains are popular outdoor activities for residents of the city. The National Garden of Athens was completed in 1840 and is a green refuge of 15.5 hectares in the centre of the Greek capital. It is to be found between the Parliament and Zappeion buildings, the latter of which maintains its own garden of seven hectares.
+Parts of the City Centre have been redeveloped under a masterplan called the Unification of Archeological Sites of Athens, which has also gathered funding from the EU to help enhance the project.[68][69] The landmark Dionysiou Areopagitou Street has been pedestrianised, forming a scenic route. The route starts from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, continues under the southern slopes of the Acropolis near Plaka, and finishes just beyond the Temple of Hephaestus in Thiseio. The route in its entirety provides visitors with views of the Parthenon and the Agora (the meeting point of ancient Athenians), away from the busy City Centre.
+The hills of Athens also provide green space. Lycabettus, Philopappos hill and the area around it, including Pnyx and Ardettos hill, are planted with pines and other trees, with the character of a small forest rather than typical metropolitan parkland. Also to be found is the Pedion tou Areos (Field of Mars) of 27.7 hectares, near the National Archaeological Museum.
+Athens' largest zoo is the Attica Zoological Park, a 20-hectare (49-acre) private zoo located in the suburb of Spata. The zoo is home to around 2000 animals representing 400 species, and is open 365 days a year. Smaller zoos exist within public gardens or parks, such as the zoo within the National Garden of Athens.
+The Athens Metropolitan Area consists of 58[15] densely populated municipalities, sprawling around the Municipality of Athens (the City Centre) in virtually all directions. For the Athenians, all the urban municipalities surrounding the City Centre are called suburbs. According to their geographic location in relation to the City of Athens, the suburbs are divided into four zones; the northern suburbs (including Agios Stefanos, Dionysos, Ekali, Nea Erythraia, Kifissia, Kryoneri, Maroussi, Pefki, Lykovrysi, Metamorfosi, Nea Ionia, Nea Filadelfeia, Irakleio, Vrilissia, Melissia, Penteli, Chalandri, Agia Paraskevi, Gerakas, Pallini, Galatsi, Psychiko and Filothei); the southern suburbs (including Alimos, Nea Smyrni, Moschato, Tavros, Agios Ioannis Rentis, Kallithea, Piraeus, Agios Dimitrios, Palaio Faliro, Elliniko, Glyfada, Lagonisi, Saronida, Argyroupoli, Ilioupoli, Varkiza, Voula, Vari and Vouliagmeni); the eastern suburbs (including Zografou, Dafni, Vyronas, Kaisariani, Cholargos and Papagou); and the western suburbs (including Peristeri, Ilion, Egaleo, Koridallos, Agia Varvara, Keratsini, Perama, Nikaia, Drapetsona, Chaidari, Petroupoli, Agioi Anargyroi, Ano Liosia, Aspropyrgos, Eleusina, Acharnes and Kamatero).
+The Athens city coastline, extending from the major commercial port of Piraeus to the southernmost suburb of Varkiza for some 25 km (20 mi),[70] is also connected to the City Centre by tram.
+In the northern suburb of Maroussi, the upgraded main Olympic Complex (known by its Greek acronym OAKA) dominates the skyline. The area has been redeveloped according to a design by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, with steel arches, landscaped gardens, fountains, futuristic glass, and a landmark new blue glass roof which was added to the main stadium. A second Olympic complex, next to the sea at the beach of Palaio Faliro, also features modern stadia, shops and an elevated esplanade. Work is underway to transform the grounds of the old Athens Airport – named Elliniko – in the southern suburbs, into one of the largest landscaped parks in Europe, to be named the Hellenikon Metropolitan Park.[71]
+Many of the southern suburbs (such as Alimos, Palaio Faliro, Elliniko, Glyfada, Voula, Vouliagmeni and Varkiza) known as the Athens Riviera, host a number of sandy beaches, most of which are operated by the Greek National Tourism Organisation and require an entrance fee. Casinos operate on both Mount Parnitha, some 25 km (16 mi)[72] from downtown Athens (accessible by car or cable car), and the nearby town of Loutraki (accessible by car via the Athens – Corinth National Highway, or the suburban rail service Proastiakos).
+The large City Centre (Greek: Κέντρο της Αθήνας) of the Greek capital falls directly within the Municipality of Athens or Athens Municipality (Greek: Δήμος Αθηναίων)—also City of Athens. Athens Municipality is the largest in population size in Greece. Piraeus also forms a significant city centre on its own,[73] within the Athens Urban Area and it is the second largest in population size within it, with Peristeri, Kallithea and Kypseli following.
+The Athens Urban Area (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Αθηνών), also known as Urban Area of the Capital (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Πρωτεύουσας), today consists of 40 municipalities, 35 of which make up what is referred to as the Greater Athens municipalities, located within 4 regional units (North Athens, West Athens, Central Athens, South Athens); and a further 5, which make up the Greater Piraeus municipalities, located within the regional unit of Piraeus as mentioned above. The densely built up urban area of the Greek capital sprawls across 412 km2 (159 sq mi)[14] throughout the Attica Basin and has a total population of 3,074,160 (in 2011).
+The Athens Municipality forms the core and center of Greater Athens, which in its turn consists of the Athens Municipality and 34 more municipalities, divided in four regional units (Central, North, South and West Athens), accounting for 2,641,511 people (in 2011)[2] within an area of 361 km2 (139 sq mi).[14] Until 2010, these four regional units made up the abolished Athens Prefecture. The municipality of Piraeus, the historic Athenian port, with its 4 suburban municipalities make up the regional unit of Piraeus, which in turn forms Greater Piraeus.
+Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus with part of East[74] and West Attica[75] regional units combined make up the continuous Athens Urban Area,[75][76][77] also called the "Urban Area of the Capital" or simply "Athens" (the most common use of the term), spanning over 412 km2 (159 sq mi),[78] with a population of 3,090,508 people as of 2011. The Athens Urban Area is considered to form the city of Athens as a whole, despite its administrative divisions, which is the largest in Greece and one of the most populated urban areas in Europe.
+The Athens Metropolitan Area (Greek: Μητροπολιτική Περιοχή της Αθήνας), also commonly known in English as Greater Athens,[79] spans 2,928.717 km2 (1,131 sq mi) within the Attica region and includes a total of 58 municipalities, which are organized in seven regional units (those outlined above, along with East Attica and West Attica), having reached a population of 3,737,550 based on the preliminary results of the 2011 census. Athens and Piraeus municipalities serve as the two metropolitan centres of the Athens Metropolitan Area.[80] There are also some inter-municipal centres serving specific areas. For example, Kifissia and Glyfada serve as inter-municipal centres for northern and southern suburbs respectively.
+The Municipality of Athens has an official population of 664,046 people.[2] The four regional units that make up what is referred to as Greater Athens have a combined population of 2,640,701. They together with the regional unit of Piraeus (Greater Piraeus) make up the dense Athens Urban Area which reaches a total population of 3,090,508 inhabitants (in 2011).[15] As Eurostat the FUA of Athens had in 2013 3,828,434 inhabitants, being apparently decreasing compared with the pre-economic crisis date of 2009 (4,164,175)[16]
+The municipality (Center) of Athens is the most populous in Greece, with a population of 664,046 people (in 2011)[2] and an area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi),[13] forming the core of the Athens Urban Area within the Attica Basin. The incumbent Mayor of Athens is Kostas Bakoyannis of New Democracy. The municipality is divided into seven municipal districts which are mainly used for administrative purposes.
+As of the 2011 census, the population for each of the seven municipal districts of Athens is as follows:[81]
+For the Athenians the most popular way of dividing the downtown is through its neighbourhoods such as Pagkrati, Ambelokipi, Goudi, Exarcheia, Patissia, Ilissia, Petralona, Plaka, Anafiotika, Koukaki and Kypseli, each with its own distinct history and characteristics.
+The Athens Metropolitan Area, with an area of 2,928.717 km2 (1,131 sq mi) and inhabited by 3,753,783 people in 2011,[2] consists of the Athens Urban Area with the addition of the towns and villages of East and West Attica, which surround the dense urban area of the Greek capital. It actually sprawls over the whole peninsula of Attica, which is the best part of the region of Attica, excluding the islands.
+Mycenean Athens in 1600–1100 BC could have reached the size of Tiryns; that would put the population at the range of 10,000–15,000.[82] During the Greek Dark Ages the population of Athens was around 4,000 people. In 700 BC the population grew to 10,000. In 500 BC the area probably contained 200,000 people. During the classical period the city's population is estimated from 150,000–350,000 and up to 610,000 according to Thucydides. When Demetrius of Phalerum conducted a population census in 317 BC the population was 21,000 free citizens, plus 10,000 resident aliens and 400,000 slaves. This suggests a total population of 431,000.[83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91] This figure is highly suspect because of the lopsided number of slaves and does not include free women and children and resident foreigners: an estimated based on Thucydides is: 40,000 male citizens, 100,000 family members, 70,000 metics (resident foreigners) and 150,000-400,000 slaves.  However the numbers would include all of Athenian territory which consisted almost entirely of modern Attica region expect the territory of the city-state of Megaris and the island section.
+The ancient site of the main city is centred on the rocky hill of the acropolis. In the whole of Athenian territory they existed many towns. Acharnae, Afidnes, Cytherus, Colonus, Corydallus, Cropia, Decelea, Euonymos, Vravron among others was important towns in Athenian countryside. The new port of Piraeus was a prototype harbour with the infrastructure and housing located in the site between modern passenger section of the port (named Kantharos in ancient times) and the Pasalimani harbour (named Zea in ancient times). The old one Phaliro was in the site of modern Palaio Faliro and gradually declined after the construction of the new prototype port but remained as a minor port and important settlement with historic significance in late Classical times. The rapid expansion of the modern city, which continues to this day, was initiated in the 1950s and 1960s, because of Greece's transition from an agricultural to an industrial nation.[92] The expansion is now particularly toward the East and North East (a tendency greatly related to the new Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport and the Attiki Odos, the freeway that cuts across Attica). By this process Athens has engulfed many former suburbs and villages in Attica, and continues to do so. The table below shows the historical population of Athens in recent times.
+Athens became the capital of Greece in 1834, following Nafplion, which was the provisional capital from 1829. The municipality (City) of Athens is also the capital of the Attica region. The term Athens can refer either to the Municipality of Athens, to Greater Athens, or to the entire Athens Urban Area.
+The Hellenic Parliament
+The Presidential Mansion, formerly the Crown Prince Palace, in Herodou Attikou Street.
+The Maximos Mansion, official office of the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, in Herodou Attikou Street.
+The Athens City Hall in Kotzia Square was designed by Panagiotis Kolkas and completed in 1874.[98]
+The Embassy of France in Vasilissis Sofias Avenue.
+The Italian Embassy in Vasilissis Sofias Avenue.
+Athens is twinned with:[99]
+Athens is the financial capital of Greece.  According to data from 2014, Athens as a metropolitan economic area produced 130 billion US-dollars as GDP in PPP, which consists nearly a half of the production for the whole country. In the list with the strongest economic metropoles of the world Athens was ranked that year 102nd, while the GDP per capita for the same year was 32,000 US-dollars.[112]
+Athens is one of the major economic centres in south-eastern Europe and is considered as a regional economic power in Europe generally. The port of Piraeus, where big investments by COSCO have already been delivered during the recent decade, the completion of the new Cargo Centre in Thriasion,[113] the expansion of the Athens Metro and the Athens Tram, as well as the projected metropolitan park in Elliniko and other economic projects are the economic landmarks of the upcoming years.
+Important Greek companies such as Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Mytilineos Holdings, Titan Cement, Hellenic Petroleum, Papadopoulos E.J., Folli Follie, Jumbo S.A., OPAP, and COSMOTE have their headquarters in the metropolitan area of Athens. Multinational companies such as Ericsson, Sony, Siemens, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft, Novartis, Mondelez, Coca-Cola, etc. have their regional research and development headquarters also there.
+The banking sector is represented by National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Piraeus Bank, while the Bank of Greece is also situated in the City Centre. The Athens Stock Exchange, the only in Greece, has been severely hit by the Greek government-debt crisis and the decision of the government to proceed into capital controls during summer 2015. As a whole the economy of Athens and Greece has been severely hit with today's data showing a change from long recession to growth of 1.4% in 2017.[114]
+Tourism is also a great contributor for the economy of the city, which is considered as one of the top destinations in Europe for city-break tourism and is also the gateway for excursions to the islands or the mainland. Greece attracted 26.5 million visitors in 2015, 30.1 million visitors in 2017 and over 33 million in 2018, making Greece one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world, and contributing 18% to the nation's Gross Domestic Product. Athens welcomed more than 5 million tourists in 2018 and 1,4 million of them were "city-breakers" (in 2013 the city-breakers were only 220.000).[115]
+Athens is the major transportation hub of Greece. They combines the largest Airport in Greece as also the largest port in Greece which also the largest port in Mediterranean in containers transport and the largest passenger port in Europe. Is also major national hub for Intercity (Ktel) and international buses as well as for domestic and international rail transport. Public transport is serviced by a variety of transportation means, forming the largest mass transit system of Greece. The Athens Mass Transit System consists of a large bus fleet, a trolleybus fleet that mainly serves Athens's city center, the city's Metro, a Proastiakos service[116] and a tram network, connecting the southern suburbs to the City Centre.[117]
+OSY (Greek: ΟΣΥ) (Odikes Sygkoinonies S.A.) which is subsidiary company of OASA (Athens urban transport organisation), is the main operator of buses and trolleybusses in Athens. Its network consists of about 300 bus lines and 22 trolleybus lines which span the Athens Metropolitan Area,[118] with a fleet of 1,839 buses and 366 trolleybuses.[119] Of those 1,839 buses 416 run on compressed natural gas,[119] making up the largest fleet of natural gas-powered buses in Europe[120] and all trolleybusses are equipped to enable them to run on diesel in case of power failure.[121]
+International links are provided by a number of private companies. National and regional bus links are provided by KTEL from two InterCity Bus Terminals, Kifissos Bus Terminal A and Liosion Bus Terminal B, both located in the north-western part of the city. Kifissos provides connections towards Peloponnese, North Greece, West Greece and some Ionian Islands, whereas Liosion is used for most of Central Greece.
+The Athens Metro is operated by STASY S.A (Greek: ΣΤΑΣΥ) (Statheres Sygkoinonies S.A) which is a subsidiary company of OASA (Athens urban transport organisation) and provides public transport throughout the Athens Urban Area. While its main purpose is transport, it also houses Greek artifacts found during construction of the system.[122] The Athens Metro has an operating staff of 387 and runs three metro lines, namely the line 1 (Green Line), line 2 (Red Line) and line 3 (Blue Line) lines, of which the first was constructed
+in 1869, and the other two largely during the 1990s, with the initial new sections opened in January 2000. Line 1 mostly runs at ground level and the other two (Line 2 & 3) routes run entirely underground. A fleet of 42 trains, using 252 carriages, operates on the network,[123] with a daily occupancy of 1,353,000 passengers.[124]
+The line 1 (Green Line) serves 24 stations, and is the oldest line of the Athens metro network. It runs from Piraeus station to Kifissia station and covers a distance of 25.6-kilometre (15.9 mi). There are transfer connections with the Blue Line 3 at Monastiraki station and with the Red Line 2 at Omonoia and Attiki stations.
+The line 2 (Red Line) runs from Anthoupoli station to Elliniko station and covers a distance of 17.5 km (10.9 mi).[123] The line connects the western suburbs of Athens with the southeast suburbs, passing through the center of Athens. The Red Line has transfer connections with the Green Line 1 at Attiki and Omonoia stations. There are also transfer connections with the Blue Line 3 at Syntagma station and with the tram at Syntagma, Syngrou Fix and Neos Kosmos stations.
+The line 3 (Blue Line) runs from Agia Marina and Egaleo stations, through the central Monastiraki and Syntagma stations to Doukissis Plakentias avenue in the northeastern suburb of Halandri, covering a distance of 16 km (10 mi).[123] It then ascends to ground level and continues to Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, using the Suburban Railway infrastructure, extending its total length to 39 km (24 mi).[123] The spring 2007 extension from Monastiraki westwards to Egaleo connected some of the main night life hubs of the city, namely those of Gazi (Kerameikos station) with Psirri (Monastiraki station) and the City Centre (Syntagma station). Extensions are under construction to the west southwest suburbs of Athens, as far as the port of Piraeus. The new stations will be Agia Barvara, Koridallos, Nikaia, Maniatika, Piraeus and Dimotiko Theatro. The completed extension will be ready in 2022 (the first three stations will open in summer 2020), connecting the biggest port of Greece, Piraeus Port, with the biggest airport of Greece the Athens International Airport.
+The Athens commuter rail service, referred to as the "Proastiakós", connects Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport to the city of Kiato, 106 km (66 mi)[125] west of Athens, via Larissa station, the city's central rail station and the port of Piraeus. The length of Athens's commuter rail network extends to 120 km (75 mi),[125] and is expected to stretch to 281 km (175 mi) by 2010.[125]
+Athens tram is operated by STASY S.A (Statheres Sygkoinonies S.A) which is a subsidiary company of OASA (Athens urban transport organisation). It has a fleet of 35 Sirio type vehicles[126] which serve 48 stations,[126] employ 345 people with an average daily occupancy of 65,000 passengers.[126] The tram network spans a total length of 27 km (17 mi) and covers ten Athenian suburbs.[126] The network runs from Syntagma Square to the southwestern suburb of Palaio Faliro, where the line splits in two branches; the first runs along the Athens coastline toward the southern suburb of Voula, while the other heads toward Neo Faliro. The network covers the majority of the Athens coastline.[127] Further extensions are planned towards the major commercial port of Piraeus.[126] The expansion to Piraeus will include 12 new stations, increase the overall length of tram route by 5.4 km (3 mi), and increase the overall transportation network.[128]
+Athens is served by the Athens International Airport (ATH), located near the town of Spata, in the eastern Messoghia plain, some 35 km (22 mi) east of center of Athens.[129] The airport, awarded the "European Airport of the Year 2004" Award,[130] is intended as an expandable hub for air travel in southeastern Europe and was constructed in 51 months, costing 2.2 billion euros. It employs a staff of 14,000.[130]
+The airport is served by the Metro, the suburban rail, buses to Piraeus port, Athens' City Centre, Liosion and Kifisos Intercity bus stations and Elliniko metro's line 2 southern terminal, and also taxis. The airport accommodates 65 landings and take-offs per hour,[129] with its 24-passenger boarding bridges,[129] 144 check-in counters and broader 150,000 m2 (1,614,587 sq ft) main terminal;[129] and a commercial area of 7,000 m2 (75,347 sq ft) which includes cafés, duty-free shops,[130] and a small museum.
+In 2018, the airport handled 24,135,736 a huge increase over the last 4 years. In 2014, the airport handled 15,196,369 passengers, an increase of 21.2% over the previous year of 2013.[131] Of those 15,196,369 passengers, 5,267,593 passed through the airport for domestic flights,[132] and 9,970,006 passengers travelled through for international flights.[132] Beyond the dimensions of its passenger capacity, ATH handled 205,294 total flights in 2007, or approximately 562 flights per day.[133]
+Athens is the hub of the country's national railway system (OSE), connecting the capital with major cities across Greece and abroad (Istanbul, Sofia, Belgrade and Bucharest). The Port of Piraeus is the largest port in Greece and one of the largest in Europe. It is the largest container port in East Mediterranean Sea Basin. It is also the busiest passenger port in Europe and one of the largest passenger ports in the world. Connects Athens to the numerous Greek islands of the Aegean Sea, with ferries departing, while also serving the cruise ships that arrive.[134][135][136] Rafina and Lavrio act as alternative ports of Athens, connects the city with numerous Greek islands of the Aegean Sea, Evia and Cesme in Turkey,[137][138] while also serving the cruise ships that arrive.
+Two main motorways of Greece begin in Athens, namely the A1/E75, heading north towards Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki; and the border crossing of Evzones and the A8/E94 heading west, towards Greece's third largest city, Patras, which incorporated the GR-8A. Before their completion much of the road traffic used the GR-1 and the GR-8.
+Athens' Metropolitan Area is served by the motorway network of the Attiki Odos toll-motorway (code: A6). Its main section extends from the western industrial suburb of Elefsina to Athens International Airport; while two beltways, namely the Aigaleo Beltway (A65) and the Hymettus Beltway (A64) serve parts of western and eastern Athens respectively. The span of the Attiki Odos in all its length is 65 km (40 mi),[139] making it the largest metropolitan motorway network in all of Greece.
+Located on Panepistimiou Street, the old campus of the University of Athens, the National Library, and the Athens Academy form the "Athens Trilogy" built in the mid-19th century. Most of the university's workings have been moved to a much larger, modern campus located in the eastern suburb of Zografou. The second higher education institution in the city is the Athens Polytechnic School, found in Patission Street. This was the location where on 17 November 1973, more than 13 students were killed and hundreds injured inside the university during the Athens Polytechnic uprising,[140] against the military junta that ruled the nation from 21 April 1967 until 23 July 1974.
+Other universities that lie within Athens are the Athens University of Economics and Business, the Panteion University, the Agricultural University of Athens and the University of Piraeus. There are overall ten state-supported Institutions of Higher (or Tertiary) education located in the Athens Urban Area, these are by chronological order: Athens School of Fine Arts (1837), National Technical University of Athens (1837), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1837), Agricultural University of Athens (1920), Athens University of Economics and Business (1920), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (1927), University of Piraeus (1938), Harokopio University of Athens (1990), School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (2002), University of West Attica (2018). There are also several other private colleges, as they called formally in Greece, as the establishment of private universities is prohibited by the constitution. Many of them are accredited by a foreign state or university such as the American College of Greece and the Athens Campus of the University of Indianapolis.[141]
+The city is a world centre of archaeological research. Along with national institutions, such as the Athens University and the Archaeological Society, there are multiple archaeological Museums including the National Archaeological Museum, the Cycladic Museum, the Epigraphic Museum, the Byzantine & Christian Museum, as well as museums at the ancient Agora, Acropolis, Kerameikos, and the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum.  The city is also home to the Demokritos laboratory for Archaeometry, alongside regional and national archaeological authorities that form part of the Greek Department of Culture.
+Athens hosts 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes which promote and facilitate research by scholars from their home countries. As a result, Athens has more than a dozen archaeological libraries and three specialized archaeological laboratories, and is the venue of several hundred specialized lectures, conferences and seminars, as well as dozens of archaeological exhibitions, each year. At any given time, hundreds of international scholars and researchers in all disciplines of archaeology are to be found in the city.
+Athens incorporates architectural styles ranging from Greco-Roman and Neoclassical to modern times. They are often to be found in the same areas, as Athens is not marked by a uniformity of architectural style. A visitor will quickly notice the absence of tall buildings: Athens has very strict height restriction laws in order to ensure the Acropolis hill is visible throughout the city. There is evidence of continuity in elements of the architectural environment through the city's history, although this is still a contested subject [142].
+For the greatest part of the 19th century Neoclassicism dominated Athens, as well as some deviations from it such as Eclecticism, especially in the early 20th century. Thus, the Old Royal Palace was the first important public building to be built, between 1836 and 1843. Later in the mid and late 19th century, Theophil Freiherr von Hansen and Ernst Ziller took part in the construction of many neoclassical buildings such as the Athens Academy and the Zappeion Hall. Ziller also designed many private mansions in the centre of Athens which gradually became public, usually through donations, such as Schliemann's Iliou Melathron.
+Beginning in the 1920s, modern architecture including Bauhaus and Art Deco began to exert an influence on almost all Greek architects, and buildings both public and private were constructed in accordance with these styles. Localities with a great number of such buildings include Kolonaki, and some areas of the centre of the city; neighbourhoods developed in this period include Kypseli.[143]
+In the 1950s and 1960s during the extension and development of Athens, other modern movements such as the International style played an important role. The centre of Athens was largely rebuilt, leading to the demolition of a number of neoclassical buildings. The architects of this era employed materials such as glass, marble and aluminium, and many blended modern and classical elements.[144] After World War II, internationally known architects to have designed and built in the city included Walter Gropius, with his design for the US Embassy, and, among others, Eero Saarinen, in his postwar design for the east terminal of the Ellinikon Airport.
+All over the city can be found several statues or busts. Apart from the neoclassicals by Leonidas Drosis at the Academy of Athens (Plato, Socrates, Apollo, Athena), other notable include the statue of Theseus by Georgios Fytalis at Thiseion, of philhellenes like Lord Byron, George Canning and William Gladstone, the equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis by Lazaros Sochos in front of the Old Parliament, statues of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais at the University, of Evangelos Zappas and Konstantinos Zappas at Zappeion, of Ioannis Varvakis at the National Garden, the "woodbreaker" by Dimitrios Filippotis, the equestrian statue of Alexandros Papagos at Papagou district and various busts of fighters of Greek independence at the Pedion tou Areos. A significant landmark is also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma.
+Athens' most important museums include:
+Athens has been a destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the city's infrastructure and social amenities have improved, in part because of its successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The Greek Government, aided by the EU, has funded major infrastructure projects such as the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport,[145] the expansion of the Athens Metro system,[68] and the new Attiki Odos Motorway.[68]
+Athens was voted as the third best European city to visit in 2015 by European Best Destination. More than 240,000 people voted.
+Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other city in the world, including the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus, home to the Athens Festival, which runs from May to October each year.[146][147] In addition to a large number of multiplexes, Athens plays host to open air garden cinemas. The city also supports music venues, including the Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Moussikis), which attracts world class artists.[148] The Athens Planetarium,[149] located in Andrea Syngrou Avenue, in Palaio Faliro[150] is one of the largest and best equipped digital planetaria in the world.[151] The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, inaugurated in 2016, will house the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera.[152]
+The most successful songs during the period 1870–1930 were the so-called Athenian serenades (Αθηναϊκές καντάδες), based on the Heptanesean kantádhes (καντάδες 'serenades'; sing.: καντάδα) and the songs performed on stage (επιθεωρησιακά τραγούδια 'theatrical revue songs') in revues, musical comedies, operettas and nocturnes that were dominating Athens' theatre scene.
+Notable composers of operettas or nocturnes were Kostas Giannidis, Dionysios Lavrangas, Nikos Hatziapostolou, while Theophrastos Sakellaridis' The Godson remains probably the most popular operetta. Despite the fact that the Athenian songs were not autonomous artistic creations (in contrast with the serenades) and despite their original connection with mainly dramatic forms of Art, they eventually became hits as independent songs. Notable actors of Greek operettas, who made also a series of melodies and songs popular at that time, include Orestis Makris, Kalouta sisters, Vasilis Avlonitis, Afroditi Laoutari, Eleni Papadaki, Marika Nezer, Marika Krevata and others. After 1930, wavering among American and European musical influences as well as the Greek musical tradition. Greek composers begin to write music using the tunes of the tango, waltz, swing, foxtrot, some times combined with melodies in the style of Athenian serenades' repertory. Nikos Gounaris was probably the most renowned composer and singer of the time.
+In 1923, after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, many ethnic Greeks from Asia Minor fled to Athens as a result of the Greco-Turkish War. They settled in poor neighborhoods and brought with them Rebetiko music, making it popular also in Greece, which became later the base for the Laïko music. Other forms of song popular today in Greece are elafrolaika, entechno, dimotika, and skyladika.[153] Greece's most notable, and internationally famous, composers of Greek song, mainly of the entechno form, are Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. Both composers have achieved fame abroad for their composition of film scores.[153]
+Athens has a long tradition in sports and sporting events, serving as home to the most important clubs in Greek sport and housing a large number of sports facilities. The city has also been host to sports events of international importance.
+Athens has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in 1896 and 2004. The 2004 Summer Olympics required the development of the Athens Olympic Stadium, which has since gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, and one of its most interesting modern monuments.[154] The biggest stadium in the country, it hosted two finals of the UEFA Champions League, in 1994 and 2007. Athens' other major stadium, located in the Piraeus area, is the Karaiskakis Stadium, a sports and entertainment complex, host of the 1971 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final.
+Athens has hosted the EuroLeague final three times, the first in 1985 and second in 1993, both at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, most known as SEF, a large indoor arena,[155] and the third time in 2007 at the Olympic Indoor Hall. Events in other sports such as athletics, volleyball, water polo etc., have been hosted in the capital's venues.
+Athens is home to three European multi-sport clubs: Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, AEK Athens. In football, Olympiacos have dominated the domestic competitions, Panathinaikos made it to the 1971 European Cup Final, while AEK Athens is the other member of the big three. These clubs also have basketball teams; Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are among the top powers in European basketball, having won the Euroleague six times and three respectively, whilst AEK Athens was the first Greek team to win a European trophy in any team sport.
+Other notable clubs within Athens are Athinaikos, Panionios, Atromitos, Apollon, Panellinios, Ethnikos Piraeus, Maroussi BCE and Peristeri B.C.. Athenian clubs have also had domestic and international success in other sports.
+The Athens area encompasses a variety of terrain, notably hills and mountains rising around the city, and the capital is the only major city in Europe to be bisected by a mountain range. Four mountain ranges extend into city boundaries and thousands of miles of trails criss-cross the city and neighbouring areas, providing exercise and wilderness access on foot and bike.
+Beyond Athens and across the prefecture of Attica, outdoor activities include skiing, rock climbing, hang gliding and windsurfing. Numerous outdoor clubs serve these sports, including the Athens Chapter of the Sierra Club, which leads over 4,000 outings annually in the area.
+Beside the above clubs, inside the boundaries of Athens Municipality there are some more clubs with presence in national divisions or notable action for short periods. Some of them are PAO Rouf (Rouf) with earlier presence in Gamma Ethniki, Petralona F.C.(el) (Petralona), football club founded in 1963, with earlier presence in Beta Ethniki, Attikos F.C.(el) (Kolonos), football club founded in 1919 with short presence in Gamma Ethniki, Athinais Kypselis [es] (Kypseli), football club founded in 1938 with short presence in Gamma Ethniki, Gyziakos (Gyzi), basketball club founded in 1937 with short presence in Beta Ethniki basketball and Aetos B.C.(el) (Agios Panteleimonas), basketball club founded in 1992 with earlier presence in A2 Ethniki Basketball. Another important Athenian sport club is the Athens Tennis Club founded in 1895 with important offer for the Greek tennis.[156]
+The revival of the modern Olympic Games was brought forth in 1896, by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin. Thanks to his efforts, Athens was awarded the first modern Olympic Games. In 1896, the city had a population of 123,000[93] and the event helped boost the city's international profile. Of the venues used for these Olympics, the Kallimarmaro Stadium, and Zappeion were most crucial. The Kallimarmaro is a replica of the ancient Athenian stadiums, and the only major stadium (in its capacity of 60,000) to be made entirely of white marble from Mount Penteli, the same material used for construction of the Parthenon.
+Fencing before the king of Greece at the 1896 Summer Olympics.
+The Panathenaic Stadium of Athens (Kallimarmaron) dates back to the 4th century BC and has hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
+The 1906 Summer Olympics, or the 1906 Intercalated games, were held in Athens. The intercalated competitions were intermediate games to the internationally organized Olympics, and were meant to be organized in Greece every four years, between the main Olympics. This idea later lost support from the IOC and these games were discontinued.
+Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics on 5 September 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland, after having lost a previous bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, to Atlanta, United States.[17] It was to be the second time Athens would host the games, following the inaugural event of 1896. After an unsuccessful bid in 1990, the 1997 bid was radically improved, including an appeal to Greece's Olympic history. In the last round of voting, Athens defeated Rome with 66 votes to 41.[17] Prior to this round, the cities of Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Cape Town had been eliminated from competition, having received fewer votes.[17]
+During the first three years of preparations, the International Olympic Committee had expressed concern over the speed of construction progress for some of the new Olympic venues. In 2000 the Organising Committee's president was replaced by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who was the president of the original Bidding Committee in 1997. From that point forward, preparations continued at a highly accelerated, almost frenzied pace.
+Although the heavy cost was criticized, estimated at $1.5 billion, Athens was transformed into a more functional city that enjoys modern technology both in transportation and in modern urban development.[157] Some of the finest sporting venues in the world were created in the city, all of which were fully ready for the games. The games welcomed over 10,000 athletes from all 202 countries.[157]
+The 2004 Games were judged a success, as both security and organization worked well, and only a few visitors reported minor problems mainly concerning accommodation issues. The 2004 Olympic Games were described as Unforgettable, dream Games, by IOC President Jacques Rogge for their return to the birthplace of the Olympics, and for meeting the challenges of holding the Olympic Games.[157] The only observable problem was a somewhat sparse attendance of some early events. Eventually, however, a total of more than 3.5 million tickets were sold, which was higher than any other Olympics with the exception of Sydney (more than 5 million tickets were sold there in 2000).[158]
+In 2008 it was reported that most of the Olympic venues had fallen into disrepair: according to those reports, 21 of the 22 facilities built for the games had either been left abandoned or are in a state of dereliction, with several squatter camps having sprung up around certain facilities, and a number of venues afflicted by vandalism, graffiti or strewn with rubbish.[159][160] These claims, however, are disputed and likely to be inaccurate, as most of the facilities used for the Athens Olympics are either in use or in the process of being converted for post-Olympics use. The Greek Government has created a corporation, Olympic Properties SA, which is overseeing the post-Olympics management, development and conversion of these facilities, some of which will be sold off (or have already been sold off) to the private sector,[161] while other facilities are still in use just as during the Olympics, or have been converted for commercial use or modified for other sports.[162] Concerts and theatrical shows, such as those by the troupe Cirque du Soleil, have recently been held in the complex.[153]

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+Coordinates: 47°20′N 13°20′E / 47.333°N 13.333°E / 47.333; 13.333
+– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green)  –  [Legend]
+Austria (/ˈɒstriə/ (listen), /ˈɔːs-/;[9] German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐʁaɪ̯ç] (listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich, listen (help·info)), is a landlocked East Alpine country in the southern part of Central Europe. It is composed of nine federated states (Bundesländer), one of which is Vienna, Austria's capital and its largest city. It is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. Austria occupies an area of 83,879 km2 (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of nearly 9 million people. While German is the country's official language,[10] many Austrians communicate informally in a variety of Bavarian dialects.[11]
+Austria initially emerged as a margraviate around 976 and developed into a duchy and archduchy. In the 16th century, Austria started serving as the heart of the Habsburg Monarchy and the junior branch of the House of Habsburg – one of the most influential royal dynasties in history. As an archduchy, it was a major component and administrative centre of the Holy Roman Empire. Early in the 19th century, Austria established its own empire, which became a great power and the leading force of the German Confederation but pursued its own course independently of the other German states. Following the Austro-Prussian War and the compromise with Hungary, the Dual Monarchy was established.
+Austria was involved in World War I under Emperor Franz Joseph following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the presumptive successor to the Austro-Hungarian throne. After the defeat and the dissolution of the Monarchy, the Republic of German-Austria was proclaimed with the intent of the union with Germany, which eventually failed because of the Allied Powers and the state remained unrecognized. In 1919 the First Austrian Republic became the legal successor of Austria. In 1938, the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, who became the Chancellor of the German Reich, achieved the annexation of Austria by the Anschluss. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and an extended period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as a sovereign and self-governing democratic nation known as the Second Republic.
+Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy with a directly elected Federal President as head of state and a Chancellor as head of the federal government. Major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is consistently ranked in the top 20 richest countries in the world by GDP per capita terms. The country has achieved a high standard of living and in 2018 was ranked 20th in the world for its Human Development Index. Vienna consistently ranks in the top internationally on quality-of-life indicators.[12]
+The Second Republic declared its perpetual neutrality in foreign political affairs in 1955. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955 and[13] joined the European Union in 1995.[14] It plays host to the OSCE and OPEC and is a founding member of the OECD and Interpol.[15] Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995,[16] and adopted the euro currency in 1999.[17]
+The German name for Austria, Österreich, derives from the Old High German Ostarrîchi, which meant "eastern realm" and which first appeared in the "Ostarrîchi document" of 996.[18][19] This word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local (Bavarian) dialect. Another theory says that this name comes from the local name of the mountain whose original Slovenian name is Ostravica ('sharp mountain'), because it is very steep on both sides.
+Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976. The word "Austria" is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century.[20]
+At the time, the Danube basin of Austria (Upper and Lower Austria) was the easternmost extent of Bavaria.
+The Central European land that is now Austria was settled in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes. The Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province. Present-day Petronell-Carnuntum in eastern Austria was an important army camp turned capital city in what became known as the Upper Pannonia province. Carnuntum was home for 50,000 people for nearly 400 years.[21]
+After the fall of the Roman Empire, the area was invaded by Bavarians, Slavs, and Avars.[22] Charlemagne, King of the Franks, conquered the area in AD 788, encouraged colonization, and introduced Christianity.[22] As part of Eastern Francia, the core areas that now encompass Austria were bequeathed to the house of Babenberg. The area was known as the marchia Orientalis and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976.[23]
+The first record showing the name Austria is from 996, where it is written as Ostarrîchi, referring to the territory of the Babenberg March.[23] In 1156, the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs also acquired the Duchy of Styria. With the death of Frederick II in 1246, the line of the Babenbergs was extinguished.[24]
+As a result, Ottokar II of Bohemia effectively assumed control of the duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia.[24] His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hands of Rudolph I of Germany in 1278.[25] Thereafter, until World War I, Austria's history was largely that of its ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs.
+In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria. In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, henceforth every emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a Habsburg, with only one exception.
+The Habsburgs began also to accumulate territory far from the hereditary lands. In 1477, Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress Maria of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Netherlands for the family.[26][27] In 1496, his son Philip the Fair married Joanna the Mad, the heiress of Castile and Aragon, thus acquiring Spain and its Italian, African, and New World appendages for the Habsburgs.[26][27]
+In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans came under Austrian rule.[28] Ottoman expansion into Hungary led to frequent conflicts between the two empires, particularly evident in the Long War of 1593 to 1606. The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly 20 times,[29] of which some are cited as "burning, pillaging, and taking thousands of slaves".[30] In late September 1529 Suleiman the Magnificent launched the first Siege of Vienna, which unsuccessfully ended, according to Ottoman historians, with the snowfalls of an early beginning winter.
+During the long reign of Leopold I (1657–1705) and following the successful defence of Vienna against the Turks in 1683 (under the command of the King of Poland, John III Sobieski),[31] a series of campaigns resulted in bringing most of Hungary to Austrian control by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.
+Emperor Charles VI relinquished many of the gains the empire made in the previous years, largely due to his apprehensions at the imminent extinction of the House of Habsburg. Charles was willing to offer concrete advantages in territory and authority in exchange for recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction that made his daughter Maria Theresa his heir. With the rise of Prussia, the Austrian–Prussian dualism began in Germany. Austria participated, together with Prussia and Russia, in the first and the third of the three Partitions of Poland (in 1772 and 1795).
+Austria later became engaged in a war with Revolutionary France, at the beginning highly unsuccessfully, with successive defeats at the hands of Napoleon, meaning the end of the old Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Two years earlier,[32] the Empire of Austria was founded. From 1792 to 1801, the Austrians had suffered 754,700 casualties.[33] In 1814, Austria was part of the Allied forces that invaded France and brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars.
+It emerged from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as one of the continent's four dominant powers and a recognised great power. The same year, the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was founded under the presidency of Austria. Because of unsolved social, political, and national conflicts, the German lands were shaken by the 1848 revolutions aiming to create a unified Germany.[34]
+The various different possibilities for a united Germany were: a Greater Germany, or a Greater Austria or just the German Confederation without Austria at all. As Austria was not willing to relinquish its German-speaking territories to what would become the German Empire of 1848, the crown of the newly formed empire was offered to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In 1864, Austria and Prussia fought together against Denmark and secured the independence from Denmark of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. As they could not agree on how the two duchies should be administered, though, they fought the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. Defeated by Prussia in the Battle of Königgrätz,[34] Austria had to leave the German Confederation and no longer took part in German politics.[35][36]
+The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Ausgleich, provided for a dual sovereignty, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, under Franz Joseph I.[37] The Austrian-Hungarian rule of this diverse empire included various Slavic groups, including Croats, Czechs, Poles, Rusyns, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, and Ukrainians, as well as large Italian and Romanian communities.
+As a result, ruling Austria–Hungary became increasingly difficult in an age of emerging nationalist movements, requiring considerable reliance on an expanded secret police. Yet, the government of Austria tried its best to be accommodating in some respects: for example, the Reichsgesetzblatt, publishing the laws and ordinances of Cisleithania, was issued in eight languages; and all national groups were entitled to schools in their own language and to the use of their mother tongue at state offices.
+Many Austrians of all different social circles such as Georg Ritter von Schönerer promoted strong pan-Germanism in hope of reinforcing an ethnic German identity and the annexation of Austria to Germany.[38] Some Austrians such as Karl Lueger also used pan-Germanism as a form of populism to further their own political goals. Although Bismarck's policies excluded Austria and the German Austrians from Germany, many Austrian pan-Germans idolized him and wore blue cornflowers, known to be the favourite flower of German Emperor William I, in their buttonholes, along with cockades in the German national colours (black, red, and yellow), although they were both temporarily banned in Austrian schools, as a way to show discontent towards the multi-ethnic empire.[39]
+Austria's exclusion from Germany caused many Austrians a problem with their national identity and prompted the Social Democratic Leader Otto Bauer to state that it was "the conflict between our Austrian and German character."[40] The Austro-Hungarian Empire caused ethnic tension between the German Austrians and the other ethnic groups. Many Austrians, especially those involved with the pan-German movements, desired a reinforcement of an ethnic German identity and hoped that the empire would collapse, which would allow an annexation of Austria with Germany.[41]
+A lot of Austrian pan-German nationalists protested passionately against minister-president Kasimir Count Badeni's language decree of 1897, which made German and Czech co-official languages in Bohemia and required new government officials to be fluent in both languages. This meant in practice that the civil service would almost exclusively hire Czechs, because most middle-class Czechs spoke German but not the other way around. The support of ultramontane Catholic politicians and clergy for this reform triggered the launch of the "Away from Rome" (German: Los-von-Rom) movement, which was initiated by supporters of Schönerer and called on "German" Christians to leave the Roman Catholic Church.[42]
+As the Second Constitutional Era began in the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary took the opportunity to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908.[43] The
+assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip[44] was used by leading Austrian politicians and generals to persuade the emperor to declare war on Serbia, thereby risking and prompting the outbreak of World War I, which eventually led to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over one million Austro-Hungarian soldiers died in World War I.[45]
+On 21 October 1918, the elected German members of the Reichsrat (parliament of Imperial Austria) met in Vienna as the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria (Provisorische Nationalversammlung für Deutschösterreich). On 30 October the assembly founded the Republic of German Austria by appointing a government, called Staatsrat. This new government was invited by the Emperor to take part in the decision on the planned armistice with Italy, but refrained from this business.[citation needed]
+This left the responsibility for the end of the war, on 3 November 1918, solely to the emperor and his government. On 11 November, the emperor, advised by ministers of the old and the new governments, declared he would not take part in state business any more; on 12 November, German Austria, by law, declared itself to be a democratic republic and part of the new German republic. The constitution, renaming the Staatsrat as Bundesregierung (federal government) and Nationalversammlung as Nationalrat (national council) was passed on 10 November 1920.[citation needed]
+The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 (for Hungary the Treaty of Trianon of 1920) confirmed and consolidated the new order of Central Europe which to a great extent had been established in November 1918, creating new states and altering others. The German-speaking parts of Austria which had been part of Austria-Hungary were reduced to a rump state named The Republic of German-Austria (German: Republik Deutschösterreich).[46][47] The desire for Anschluss (annexation of Austria to Germany) was a popular opinion shared by all social circles in both Austria and Germany.[48] On 12 November, German-Austria was declared a republic, and named Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On the same day it drafted a provisional constitution that stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria is an integral part of the German reich" (Article 2).[49] The Treaty of Saint Germain and the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbid union between Austria and Germany.[50][51] The treaties also forced German-Austria to rename itself as "Republic of Austria" which consequently led to the first Austrian Republic.[52][53]
+Over 3 million German-speaking Austrians found themselves living outside the new Austrian Republic as minorities in the newly formed or enlarged states of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Italy.[54] These included the provinces of South Tyrol (which became part of Italy) and German Bohemia (Czechoslovakia). The status of German Bohemia (Sudetenland) later played a role in sparking the Second World War.[55]
+The status of South Tyrol was a lingering problem between Austria and Italy until it was officially settled by the 1980s with a great degree of autonomy being granted to it by the Italian national government. Between 1918 and 1919, Austria was known as the State of German Austria (Staat Deutschösterreich). Not only did the Entente powers forbid German Austria to unite with Germany, but they also rejected the name German Austria in the peace treaty to be signed; it was, therefore, changed to Republic of Austria in late 1919.[55]
+The border between Austria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) was settled with the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920 and allocated the major part of the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Crownland of Carinthia to Austria. This set the border on the Karawanken mountain range, with many Slovenes remaining in Austria.
+After the war, inflation began to devalue the Krone, which was still Austria's currency. In autumn 1922, Austria was granted an international loan supervised by the League of Nations.[56] The purpose of the loan was to avert bankruptcy, stabilise the currency, and improve Austria's general economic condition. The loan meant that Austria passed from an independent state to the control exercised by the League of Nations. In 1925, the Schilling was introduced, replacing the Krone at a rate of 10,000:1. Later, it was nicknamed the "Alpine dollar" due to its stability. From 1925 to 1929, the economy enjoyed a short high before nearly crashing[clarification needed] after Black Tuesday.
+The First Austrian Republic lasted until 1933, when Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, using what he called "self-switch-off of Parliament", established an autocratic regime tending towards Italian fascism.[57][58] The two big parties at this time, the Social Democrats and the Conservatives, had paramilitary armies;[59] the Social Democrats' Schutzbund was now declared illegal, but was still operative[59] as civil war broke out.[57][58][60]
+In February 1934, several members of the Schutzbund were executed,[61] the Social Democratic party was outlawed, and many of its members were imprisoned or emigrated.[60] On 1 May 1934, the Austrofascists imposed a new constitution ("Maiverfassung") which cemented Dollfuss's power, but on 25 July he was assassinated in a Nazi coup attempt.[62][63]
+His successor Kurt Schuschnigg acknowledged Austria as a "German state" and that Austrians were "better Germans" but wished for Austria to remain independent.[64] He announced a referendum on 9 March 1938, to be held on 13 March, concerning Austria's independence from Germany. On 12 March 1938, Austrian Nazis took over government, while German troops occupied the country, which prevented Schuschnigg's referendum from taking place.[65] On 13 March 1938, the Anschluss of Austria was officially declared. Two days later, Austrian-born Hitler announced what he called the "reunification" of his home country with the "rest of the German Reich" on Vienna's Heldenplatz. He established a plebiscite confirming the union with Germany in April 1938.
+Parliamentary elections were held in Germany (including recently annexed Austria) on 10 April 1938. They were the final elections to the Reichstag during Nazi rule, and took the form of a single-question referendum asking whether voters approved of a single Nazi-party list for the 813-member Reichstag, as well as the recent annexation of Austria (the Anschluss). Jews and Gypsies were not allowed to vote.[66] Turnout in the election was officially 99.5%, with 98.9% voting "yes". In the case of Austria, Adolf Hitler's native soil, 99.71% of an electorate of 4,484,475 officially went to the ballots, with a positive tally of 99.73%.[67] Although most Austrians favoured the Anschluss, in certain parts of Austria the German soldiers were not always welcomed with flowers and joy, especially in Vienna which had Austria's largest Jewish population.[68] Nevertheless, despite the propaganda and the manipulation and rigging which surrounded the ballot box result, there was massive genuine support for Hitler for fulfilling the Anschluss,[69] since many Germans from both Austria and Germany saw it as completing the long overdue German unification of all Germans united into one-state.[70]
+On 12 March 1938, Austria was annexed to the Third Reich and ceased to exist as an independent country. The Aryanisation of the wealth of Jewish Austrians started immediately in mid-March, with a so-called "wild" (i.e. extra-legal) phase, but was soon structured legally and bureaucratically to strip Jewish citizens of any assets they possessed. The Nazis renamed Austria in 1938 as "Ostmark"[65] until 1942, when it was again renamed and called "Alpine and Danubian Gaue" (Alpen-und Donau-Reichsgaue).[71][72]
+Though Austrians made up only 8% of the population of the Third Reich,[73] some of the most prominent Nazis were native Austrians, including Adolf Hitler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Franz Stangl, and Odilo Globocnik,[74] as were over 13% of the SS and 40% of the staff at the Nazi extermination camps.[73] Vienna fell on 13 April 1945, during the Soviet Vienna Offensive, just before the total collapse of the Third Reich. The invading Allied powers, in particular the Americans, planned for the supposed "Alpine Fortress Operation" of a national redoubt, that was largely to have taken place on Austrian soil in the mountains of the Eastern Alps. However, it never materialised because of the rapid collapse of the Reich.
+Karl Renner and Adolf Schärf (Socialist Party of Austria [Social Democrats and Revolutionary Socialists]), Leopold Kunschak (Austria's People's Party [former Christian Social People's Party]), and Johann Koplenig (Communist Party of Austria) declared Austria's secession from the Third Reich by the Declaration of Independence on 27 April 1945 and set up a provisional government in Vienna under state Chancellor Renner the same day, with the approval of the victorious Red Army and backed by Joseph Stalin.[75] (The date is officially named the birthday of the second republic.) At the end of April, most of western and southern Austria were still under Nazi rule. On 1 May 1945, the federal constitution of 1929, which had been terminated by dictator Dollfuss on 1 May 1934, was declared valid again.
+Total military deaths from 1939 to 1945 are estimated at 260,000.[76] Jewish Holocaust victims totalled 65,000.[77] About 140,000 Jewish Austrians had fled the country in 1938–39. Thousands of Austrians had taken part in serious Nazi crimes (hundreds of thousands died in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp alone), a fact officially recognised by Chancellor Franz Vranitzky in 1992.
+Much like Germany, Austria was divided into American, British, French, and Soviet zones and governed by the Allied Commission for Austria.[78] As forecast in the Moscow Declaration in 1943, a subtle difference was seen in the treatment of Austria by the Allies.[75] The Austrian government, consisting of Social Democrats, Conservatives, and Communists (until 1947), and residing in Vienna, which was surrounded by the Soviet zone, was recognised by the Western Allies in October 1945 after some doubts that Renner could be Stalin's puppet. Thus, the creation of a separate Western Austrian government and the division of the country was avoided. Austria, in general, was treated as though it had been originally invaded by Germany and liberated by the Allies.[79]
+On 15 May 1955, after talks which lasted for years and were influenced by the Cold War, Austria regained full independence by concluding the Austrian State Treaty with the Four Occupying Powers. On 26 October 1955, after all occupation troops had left, Austria declared its "permanent neutrality" by an act of parliament.[80] This day is now Austria's National Day, a public holiday.[81]
+The political system of the Second Republic is based on the constitution of 1920 and 1929, which was reintroduced in 1945. The system came to be characterised by Proporz, meaning that most posts of political importance were split evenly between members of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).[82] Interest group "chambers" with mandatory membership (e.g. for workers, business people, farmers) grew to considerable importance and were usually consulted in the legislative process, so hardly any legislation was passed that did not reflect widespread consensus.[83]
+Since 1945, governing via a single-party government has occurred twice: 1966–1970 (ÖVP) and 1970–1983 (SPÖ). During all other legislative periods, either a grand coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP or a "small coalition" (one of these two and a smaller party) ruled the country.
+Kurt Waldheim, a Wehrmacht officer in the Second World War accused of war crimes, was elected President of Austria from 1986 to 1992.[84]
+Following a referendum in 1994, at which consent reached a majority of two-thirds, the country became a member of the European Union on 1 January 1995.[85]
+The major parties SPÖ and ÖVP have contrary opinions about the future status of Austria's military nonalignment: While the SPÖ in public supports a neutral role, the ÖVP argues for stronger integration into the EU's security policy; even a future NATO membership is not ruled out by some ÖVP politicians (ex. Dr Werner Fasslabend (ÖVP) in 1997). In reality, Austria is taking part in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, participates in peacekeeping and peace creating tasks, and has become a member of NATO's "Partnership for Peace"; the constitution has been amended accordingly. Since Liechtenstein joined the Schengen Area in 2011, none of Austria's neighbouring countries performs border controls towards it anymore.
+The Parliament of Austria is located in Vienna, the country's capital and most populous city. Austria became a federal, representative democratic republic through the Federal Constitution of 1920. The political system of the Second Republic with its nine states is based on the constitution of 1920, amended in 1929, which was reenacted on 1 May 1945.[86]
+The head of state is the Federal President (Bundespräsident), who is directly elected by popular majority vote, with a run-off between the top-scoring candidates, if necessary. The head of the Federal Government is the Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler), who is selected by the President and tasked with forming a government based on the partisan composition of the lower house of parliament.
+The government can be removed from office by either a presidential decree or by vote of no confidence in the lower chamber of parliament, the Nationalrat. Voting for the Federal President and for the Parliament used to be compulsory in Austria, but this was abolished in steps from 1982 to 2004.[87]
+Austria's parliament consists of two chambers. The composition of the Nationalrat (183 seats) is determined every five years (or whenever the Nationalrat has been dissolved by the federal president on a motion by the federal chancellor, or by Nationalrat itself) by a general election in which every citizen over the age of 16 has the right to vote. The voting age was lowered from 18 in 2007.
+While there is a general threshold of 4% of the vote for all parties in federal elections (Nationalratswahlen) to participate in the proportional allocation of seats, there remains the possibility of being elected to a seat directly in one of the 43 regional electoral districts (Direktmandat).
+The Nationalrat is the dominant chamber in the legislative process in Austria. However, the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, has a limited right of veto (the Nationalrat can—in almost all cases—ultimately pass the respective bill by voting a second time. This is referred to as Beharrungsbeschluss, lit. "vote of persistence"). A constitutional convention, called the Österreich -Konvent[88] was convened on 30 June 2003 to consider reforms to the constitution, but failed to produce a proposal that would command a two-third majority in the Nationalrat, the margin necessary for constitutional amendments and/or reform.
+While the bicameral Parliament and the Government constitute the legislative and executive branches, respectively, the courts are the third branch of Austrian state powers. The Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof) exerts considerable influence on the political system because of its power to invalidate legislation and ordinances that are not in compliance with the constitution. Since 1995, the European Court of Justice may overrule Austrian decisions in all matters defined in laws of the European Union. Austria also implements the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, since the European Convention on Human Rights is part of the Austrian constitution.
+After general elections held in October 2006, the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) emerged as the strongest party, and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) came in second, having lost about 8% of its previous polling.[89][90] Political realities prohibited any of the two major parties from forming a coalition with smaller parties. In January 2007 the People's Party and SPÖ formed a grand coalition with the social democrat Alfred Gusenbauer as Chancellor. This coalition broke up in June 2008.
+Elections in September 2008 further weakened both major parties (SPÖ and ÖVP) but together they still held 70% of the votes, with the Social Democrats holding slightly more than the other party. They formed a coalition with Werner Faymann from the Social Democrats as Chancellor. The Green Party came in third with 11% of the vote. The FPÖ and the deceased Jörg Haider's new party Alliance for the Future of Austria, both on the political right, were strengthened during the election but taken together received less than 20% of the vote.
+In the legislative elections of 2013, the Social Democratic Party received 27% of the vote and 52 seats; People's Party 24% and 47 seats, thus controlling together the majority of the seats. The Freedom Party received 40 seats and 21% of the votes, while the Greens received 12% and 24 seats. Two new parties, Stronach and the NEOS, received less than 10% of the vote, and 11 and nine seats respectively.
+After the Grand Coalition broke in Spring 2017 a snap election was proclaimed for October 2017. The Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) with its new young leader Sebastian Kurz emerged as the largest party in the National Council, winning 31.5% of votes and 62 of the 183 seats. The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) finished second with 52 seats and 26.9% votes, slightly ahead of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), which received 51 seats and 26%. NEOS finished fourth with 10 seats (5.3 percent of votes), and PILZ (which split from the Green Party at the start of the campaign) entered parliament for the first time and came in fifth place with 8 seats and 4.4% The Green Party failed with 3.8% to cross the 4% threshold and was ejected from parliament, losing all of its 24 seats. The ÖVP decided to form a coalition with the FPÖ. The new government between the centre-right wing and the right-wing populist party under the new chancellor Sebastian Kurz was sworn in on 18 December 2017, but the coalition government later collapsed and new elections were called for 29 September 2019. The elections lead to another landslide victory (37.5%) of the  Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) who formed a coalition-government with the reinvigorated (13.9%) Greens, which was sworn in with Kurz as chancellor on January 7 2020.
+The 1955 Austrian State Treaty ended the occupation of Austria following World War II and recognised Austria as an independent and sovereign state. On 26 October 1955, the Federal Assembly passed a constitutional article in which "Austria declares of her own free will her perpetual neutrality". The second section of this law stated that "in all future times Austria will not join any military alliances and will not permit the establishment of any foreign military bases on her territory". Since then, Austria has shaped its foreign policy on the basis of neutrality, but rather different from the neutrality of Switzerland.
+Austria began to reassess its definition of neutrality following the fall of the Soviet Union, granting overflight rights for the UN-sanctioned action against Iraq in 1991, and since 1995, it has developed participation in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Also in 1995, it joined NATO's Partnership for Peace (although it was careful to do so only after Russia joined) and subsequently participated in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia. Meanwhile, the only part of the Constitutional Law on Neutrality of 1955 still fully valid is to not allow foreign military bases in Austria.[citation needed] Austria signed the UN's Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty,[91] which was opposed by all NATO members.[92]
+Austria attaches great importance to participation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and other international economic organisations, and it has played an active role in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). As an OSCE-participating State, Austria's international commitments are subject to monitoring under the mandate of the U.S. Helsinki Commission.
+The manpower of the Austrian Armed Forces (German: Bundesheer) mainly relies on conscription.[citation needed] All males who have reached the age of eighteen and are found fit have to serve a six months compulsory military service, followed by an eight-year reserve obligation. Both males and females at the age of sixteen are eligible for voluntary service.[14] Conscientious objection is legally acceptable and those who claim this right are obliged to serve an institutionalised nine months civilian service instead. Since 1998, women volunteers have been allowed to become professional soldiers.
+The main sectors of the Bundesheer are Joint Forces (Streitkräfteführungskommando, SKFüKdo) which consist of Land Forces (Landstreitkräfte), Air Forces (Luftstreitkräfte), International Missions (Internationale Einsätze) and Special Forces (Spezialeinsatzkräfte), next to Joint Mission Support Command (Kommando Einsatzunterstützung; KdoEU) and Joint Command Support Centre (Führungsunterstützungszentrum; FüUZ). Austria is a landlocked country and has no navy.
+In 2012, Austria's defence expenditures corresponded to approximately 0.8% of its GDP. The Army currently has about 26,000[93] soldiers, of whom about 12,000 are conscripts. As head of state, Austrian President is nominally the Commander-in-Chief of the Bundesheer. Command of the Austrian Armed Forces is exercised by the Minister of Defence, as of May 2020[update]: Klaudia Tanner.
+Since the end of the Cold War, and more importantly the removal of the former heavily guarded "Iron Curtain" separating Austria and its Eastern Bloc neighbours (Hungary and former Czechoslovakia), the Austrian military has been assisting Austrian border guards in trying to prevent border crossings by illegal immigrants. This assistance came to an end when Hungary and Slovakia joined the EU Schengen Area in 2008, for all intents and purposes abolishing "internal" border controls between treaty states. Some politicians have called for a prolongation of this mission, but the legality of this is heavily disputed. In accordance with the Austrian constitution, armed forces may only be deployed in a limited number of cases, mainly to defend the country and aid in cases of national emergency, such as in the wake of natural disasters.[94] They may generally not be used as auxiliary police forces.
+Within its self-declared status of permanent neutrality, Austria has a long and proud tradition of engaging in UN-led peacekeeping and other humanitarian missions. The Austrian Forces Disaster Relief Unit (AFDRU), in particular, an all-volunteer unit with close ties to civilian specialists (e.g. rescue dog handlers) enjoys a reputation as a quick (standard deployment time is 10 hours) and efficient SAR unit. Currently, larger contingents of Austrian forces are deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo.
+Austria is a federal republic consisting of nine states (German: Bundesländer).[14] The states are sub-divided into districts (Bezirke) and statutory cities (Statutarstädte). Districts are subdivided into municipalities (Gemeinden). Statutory Cities have the competencies otherwise granted to both districts and municipalities. Vienna is unique in that it is both a city and a state.
+Austria's constituent states are not mere administrative divisions but have some legislative authority distinct from the federal government, e.g. in matters of culture, social welfare, youth and nature protection, hunting, building, and zoning ordinances. In recent years, it has been questioned whether a small country should maintain ten subnational legislatures.[citation needed] Consolidation of local governments has already been undertaken at the Gemeinde level for purposes of administrative efficiency and cost savings (Gemeindezusammenlegung).
+The Ministry in charge of the Austrian corrections system is the Ministry of Justice.[97] The Ministry of Justice is based out of Vienna.[97] The head of the prison administration falls under the title of Director General.[97] The total prison population rate as of July 2017 2017 is 8,290 people. [97] Pre-trial detainees make up 23.6%, female prisoners make up 5.7%, juveniles make up 1.4%, and foreign prisoners make up 54.2% of the prison system.[97]. Since 2000 the population has risen over 2,000 and has stabilized at over 8,000.[97]
+Austria is a largely mountainous country because of its location in the Alps.[98] The Central Eastern Alps, Northern Limestone Alps and Southern Limestone Alps are all partly in Austria. Of the total area of Austria (84,000 km2 or 32,433 sq mi), only about a quarter can be considered low lying, and only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft). The Alps of western Austria give way somewhat into low lands and plains in the eastern part of the country.
+Austria lies between latitudes 46° and 49° N, and longitudes 9° and 18° E.
+It can be divided into five areas, the biggest being the Eastern Alps, which constitute 62% of the nation's total area. The Austrian foothills at the base of the Alps and the Carpathians account for around 12% and the foothills in the east and areas surrounding the periphery of the Pannoni low country amount to about 12% of the total landmass. The second greater mountain area (much lower than the Alps) is situated in the north. Known as the Austrian granite plateau, it is located in the central area of the Bohemian Mass and accounts for 10% of Austria. The Austrian portion of the Vienna basin makes up the remaining 4%.
+Phytogeographically, Austria belongs to the Central European province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the WWF, the territory of Austria can be subdivided into four ecoregions: the Central European mixed forests, Pannonian mixed forests, Alps conifer and mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests.
+View of Hallstatt
+View of Krems at the end of Wachau valley
+Austrian rural area of Schoppernau in summer
+The Danube at Linz with cruise ships
+The greater part of Austria lies in the cool/temperate climate zone, where humid westerly winds predominate. With nearly three-quarters of the country dominated by the Alps, the alpine climate is predominant. In the east—in the Pannonian Plain and along the Danube valley—the climate shows continental features with less rain than the alpine areas. Although Austria is cold in the winter (−10 to 0 °C), summer temperatures can be relatively high,[100] with average temperatures in the mid-20s and a highest temperature of 40.5 °C (105 °F) in August 2013.[101]
+According to the Köppen Climate Classification Austria has the following climate types: Oceanic (Cfb), Cool/Warm-summer humid continental (Dfb), Subarctic/Subalpine (Dfc), Tundra/Alpine (ET) and Ice-Cap (EF). It is important to note though that Austria may experience very cold, severe winters, but most of the time they are only around as cold as those in somewhat comparable climate zones, for example Southern Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. As well, at higher altitudes, summers are usually considerably cooler than in the valleys/lower altitudes. The subarctic and tundra climates seen around the Alps are much warmer in winter than what is normal elsewhere due in part to the Oceanic influence on this part of Europe.[101][102][103]
+Austria consistently ranks high in terms of GDP per capita,[104] due to its highly industrialized economy, and well-developed social market economy. Until the 1980s, many of Austria's largest industry firms were nationalised; in recent years, however, privatisation has reduced state holdings to a level comparable to other European economies. Labour movements are particularly influential, exercising large influence on labour politics and decisions related to the expansion of the economy. Next to a highly developed industry, international tourism is the most important part of the economy of Austria.
+Germany has historically been the main trading partner of Austria, making it vulnerable to rapid changes in the German economy. Since Austria became a member state of the European Union, it has gained closer ties to other EU economies, reducing its economic dependence on Germany. In addition, membership of the EU has drawn an influx of foreign investors attracted by Austria's access to the single European market and proximity to the aspiring economies of the European Union. Growth in GDP reached 3.3% in 2006.[105] At least 67% of Austria's imports come from other European Union member states.[106]
+Austria indicated on 16 November 2010 that it would withhold the December installment of its contribution to the EU bailout of Greece, citing the material worsening of the Greek debt situation and the apparent inability of Greece to collect the level of tax receipts it had previously promised.[107]
+The Financial crisis of 2007–2008 dented the economy of Austria in other ways as well. It caused, for example, the Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International to be purchased in December 2009 by the government for 1 euro owing to credit difficulties, thus wiping out the €1.63bn of BayernLB. As of February 2014[update], the HGAA situation was unresolved,[108] causing Chancellor Werner Faymann to warn that its failure would be comparable to the 1931 Creditanstalt event.[109]
+Since the fall of communism, Austrian companies have been quite active players and consolidators in Eastern Europe. Between 1995 and 2010, 4,868 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of 163 bil. EUR with the involvement of Austrian firms have been announced.[110] The largest transactions with involvement of Austrian companies[111] have been: the acquisition of Bank Austria by Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank for 7.8 billion EUR in 2000, the acquisition of Porsche Holding Salzburg by Volkswagen Group for 3.6 billion EUR in 2009,[112] and the acquisition of Banca Comercială Română by Erste Group for 3.7 bil. EUR in 2005.[113]
+Tourism in Austria accounts for almost 9% of its gross domestic product.[114]
+In 2007, Austria ranked 9th worldwide in international tourism receipts, with 18.9 billion US$.[115] In international tourist arrivals, Austria ranked 12th with 20.8 million tourists.[115]
+In 1972, the country began construction of a nuclear-powered electricity-generation station at Zwentendorf on the River Danube, following a unanimous vote in parliament. However, in 1978, a referendum voted approximately 50.5% against nuclear power, 49.5% for,[116] and parliament subsequently unanimously passed a law forbidding the use of nuclear power to generate electricity although the nuclear power plant was already finished.
+Austria currently produces more than half of its electricity by hydropower.[117] Together with other renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass powerplants, the electricity supply from renewable energy amounts to 62.89%[118] of total use in Austria, with the rest being produced by gas and oil power plants.
+Compared to most European countries, Austria is ecologically well endowed. Its biocapacity (or biological natural capital) is more than double of the world average: In 2016, Austria had 3.8 global hectares[119] of biocapacity per person within its territory, compared to the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In contrast, in 2016, they used 6.0 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means that Austrians use about 60 percent more biocapacity than Austria contains. As a result, Austria is running a biocapacity deficit.[119]
+Austria's population was estimated to be nearly 9 million (8.9) in 2020 by the Statistik Austria.[120] The population of the capital, Vienna, exceeds 1.9 million[121] (2.6 million, including the suburbs), representing about a quarter of the country's population. It is known for its cultural offerings and high standard of living.
+Vienna is by far the country's largest city. Graz is second in size, with 291,007 inhabitants, followed by Linz (206,604), Salzburg (155,031), Innsbruck (131,989), and Klagenfurt (101,303). All other cities have fewer than 100,000 inhabitants.
+According to Eurostat, in 2018 there were 1.69 million foreign-born residents in Austria, corresponding to 19.2% of the total population. Of these, 928,700 (10.5%) were born outside the EU and 762,000 (8.6%) were born in another EU Member State.[122] There are more than 483,100 descendants of foreign-born immigrants.[123]
+Turks form one of the largest ethnic groups in Austria, numbering around 350,000.[124]  13,000 Turks were naturalised in 2003 and an unknown number have arrived in Austria at the same time. While 2,000 Turks left Austria in the same year, 10,000 immigrated to the country, confirming a strong trend of growth.[125] Together, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Macedonians, and Slovenes make up about 5.1% of Austria's total population.
+The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2017 was estimated at 1.52 children born per woman,[126] below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.83 children born per woman in 1873.[127] In 2015, 42.1% of births were to unmarried women.[128] Austria subsequently has the 12th oldest population in the world, with the average age of 44.2 years.[129] The life expectancy in 2016 was estimated at 81.5 years (78.9 years male, 84.3 years female).[130]
+Statistics Austria estimates that nearly 10 million people will live in the country by 2080.[131]
+Standard Austrian German is spoken in Austria, though used primarily just in education, publications, announcements and websites. It is mostly identical to the Standard German of Germany but with some vocabulary differences. This Standard German language is used in formal contexts across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as among those with significant German-speaking minorities: Italy, Belgium and Denmark. However, the common spoken language of Austria is not the Standard German taught in schools but Austro-Bavarian: a group of Upper German local dialects with varying degrees of difficulty being understood by each other as well as by speakers of non-Austrian German dialects. Taken as a collective whole, German languages or dialects are thus spoken natively by 88.6% of the population, which includes the 2.5% German-born citizens who reside in Austria, followed by Turkish (2.28%), Serbian (2.21%), Croatian (1.63%), English (0.73%), Hungarian (0.51%), Bosnian (0.43%), Polish (0.35%), Albanian (0.35%), Slovenian (0.31%), Czech (0.22%), Arabic (0.22%), and Romanian (0.21%).[11]
+The Austrian federal states of Carinthia and Styria are home to a significant indigenous Slovene-speaking minority while in the easternmost state, Burgenland (formerly part of the Hungarian portion of Austria–Hungary), there are significant Hungarian- and Croatian-speaking minorities. Of the remaining number of Austria's people that are of non-Austrian descent, many come from surrounding countries, especially from the former East Bloc nations. Guest workers (Gastarbeiter) and their descendants, as well as refugees from the Yugoslav wars and other conflicts, also form an important minority group in Austria. Since 1994 the Roma–Sinti (gypsies) have been an officially recognised ethnic minority in Austria.
+According to census information published by Statistik Austria for 2001[11] there were a total of 710,926 foreign nationals living in Austria. Of these, the largest by far are 283,334 foreign nationals from the former Yugoslavia (of whom 135,336 speak Serbian; 105,487 Croatian; 31,591 Bosnian – i.e. 272,414 Austrian resident native speakers in total, plus 6,902 Slovenian and 4,018 Macedonian speakers).
+The second largest population of linguistic and ethnic groups are the Turks (including minority of Kurds) with a number of 200,000 to 300,000 who currently live in Austria.[132]
+The next largest population of linguistic and ethnic groups are the 124,392 who speak German as their mother tongue even though they hail from outside of Austria (mainly immigrants from Germany, some from Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, Romania, or the former Soviet Union); 123,417 English; 24,446 Albanian; 17,899 Polish; 14,699 Hungarian; 12,216 Romanian; 10,000 Malayali; 7,982 Arabic; 6,891 Slovak; 6,707 Czech; 5,916 Persian; 5,677 Italian; 5,466 Russian; 5,213 French; 4,938 Chinese; 4,264 Spanish; 3,503 Bulgarian. The numbers for other languages fall off sharply below 3,000.
+In 2006, some of the Austrian states introduced standardised tests for new citizens, to assure their language ability, cultural knowledge and accordingly their ability to integrate into the Austrian society.[133] For the national rules, see Austrian nationality law – Naturalisation.
+Historically Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such, although this national identity was challenged by Austrian nationalism in the decades after the end of World War I and even more so after World War II.[134][135][136] Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation until its ending in 1806 and had been part of the German Confederation, a loose association of 39 separate German-speaking countries, until the Austro-Prussian war in 1866, which resulted in the exclusion of Austria from the German Confederation and the creation of the North German Confederation led by Prussia. In 1871, Germany was founded as a nation-state, Austria was not a part of it. After World War I and the breakup of the Austrian monarchy, politicians of the new republic declared its name to be "Deutschösterreich" (Republic of German-Austria) and that it was part of the German Republic. A unification of the two countries was forbidden by the treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye as one of the conditions imposed by the victorious Allies of World War I upon the vanquished nation, to prevent the creation of a territorially extensive German state. After the events of World War II and Nazism, Austria as a country has made efforts to develop an Austrian national identity among its populace,[citation needed] and nowadays most do not consider themselves Germans.[137] However, a minority of Austrians still consider themselves to be Germans and advocate for a "Greater Germany", arguing that the historic boundaries of the German people goes beyond the boundaries of modern-day countries, especially Austria and Germany.
+Austrians may be described either as a nationality or as a homogeneous Germanic ethnic group,[138] that is closely related to neighboring Germans, Liechtensteiners and German-speaking Swiss.[139] Today 91.1% of the population are regarded as ethnic Austrians.[140]
+The Turks are the largest single immigrant group in Austria,[141] closely followed by the Serbs.[142] Serbs form one of the largest ethnic groups in Austria, numbering around 300,000 people.[143][144][145] Historically, Serbian immigrants moved to Austria during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when Vojvodina was under Imperial control. Following World War II the number of Serbs expanded again, and today the community is very large. The Austrian Serbian Society was founded in 1936. Today, Serbs in Austria are mainly found in Vienna, Salzburg, and Graz.
+An estimated 13,000 to 40,000 Slovenes in the Austrian state of Carinthia (the Carinthian Slovenes) as well as Croats (around 30,000)[146] and Hungarians in Burgenland were recognised as a minority and have had special rights following the Austrian State Treaty (Staatsvertrag) of 1955.[80] The Slovenes in the Austrian state of Styria (estimated at a number between 1,600 and 5,000) are not recognised as a minority and do not have special rights, although some believe the State Treaty of 27 July 1955 states otherwise.[citation needed]
+The right for bilingual topographic signs for the regions where Slovene and Croat Austrians live alongside the German-speaking population (as required by the 1955 State Treaty) is still to be fully implemented in the view of some, while others believe that the treaty-derived obligations have been met (see below). Many Carinthians are afraid of Slovenian territorial claims,[citation needed] pointing to the fact that Yugoslav troops entered the state after each of the two World Wars and considering that some official Slovenian atlases show parts of Carinthia as Slovene cultural territory. The recently deceased governor, Jörg Haider, has made this fact a matter of public argument in autumn 2005 by refusing to increase the number of bilingual topographic signs in Carinthia. A poll by the Kärntner Humaninstitut conducted in January 2006 states that 65% of Carinthians are not in favour of an increase of bilingual topographic signs, since the original requirements set by the State Treaty of 1955 have already been fulfilled according to their point of view.
+Another interesting phenomenon is the so-called "Windischen-Theorie" stating that the Slovenes can be split in two groups: actual Slovenes and Windische (a traditional German name for Slavs), based on differences in language between Austrian Slovenes, who were taught Slovene standard language in school and those Slovenes who spoke their local Slovene dialect but went to German schools. The term Windische was applied to the latter group as a means of distinction. This politically influenced theory, dividing Slovene Austrians into the "loyal Windische" and the "national Slovenes", was never generally accepted and fell out of use some decades ago.
+Religion in Austria (2017)[147][148][149]
+In 2001, about 74% of Austria's population were registered as Roman Catholic,[150] while about 5% considered themselves Protestants.[150] Austrian Christians, both Catholic and Protestant,[151] are obliged to pay a mandatory membership fee (calculated by income—about 1%) to their church; this payment is called "Kirchenbeitrag" ("Ecclesiastical/Church contribution"). Since the second half of the 20th century, the number of adherents and churchgoers has declined. Data for 2018 from the Austrian Roman Catholic Church list 5,050,000 members, or 56.9% of the total Austrian population. Sunday church attendance was 605,828 or 7% of the total Austrian population in 2015.[152] The Lutheran church also recorded a loss of 74,421 adherents between 2001 and 2016.
+The 2001 census report indicated that about 12% of the population declared that they have no religion;[150] according to ecclesiastical information this share had grown to 20% by 2015.[153] Of the remaining people, around 340,000 were registered as members of various Muslim communities in 2001, mainly due to the influx from Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.[150] The number of Muslims has doubled in 15 years to 700,000 in 2016.[154] About 180,000 are members of Orthodox Churches (mostly Serbs), about 21,000 people are active Jehovah's Witnesses[155] and about 8,100 are Jewish.[150]
+According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2010,[156]
+Education in Austria is entrusted partly to the Austrian states (Bundesländer) and partly to the federal government. School attendance is compulsory for nine years, i.e. usually to the age of fifteen.
+Pre-school education (called Kindergarten in German), free in most states, is provided for all children between the ages of three and six years and, whilst optional, is considered a normal part of a child's education due to its high takeup rate. Maximum class size is around 30, each class normally being cared for by one qualified teacher and one assistant.
+Primary education, or Volksschule, lasts for four years, starting at age six. The maximum class size is 30, but may be as low as 15. It is generally expected that a class will be taught by one teacher for the entire four years and the stable bond between teacher and pupil is considered important for a child's well-being. The 3Rs (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic) dominate lesson time, with less time allotted to project work than in the UK. Children work individually and all members of a class follow the same plan of work. There is no streaming.
+Standard attendance times are 8 am to 12 pm or 1 pm, with hourly five- or ten-minute breaks. Children are given homework daily from the first year. Historically there has been no lunch hour, with children returning home to eat. However, due to a rise in the number of mothers in work, primary schools are increasingly offering pre-lesson and afternoon care.
+As in Germany, secondary education consists of two main types of schools, attendance at which is based on a pupil's ability as determined by grades from the primary school. The Gymnasium caters for the more able children, in the final year of which the Matura examination is taken, which is a requirement for access to university. The Hauptschule prepares pupils for vocational education but also for various types of further education (Höhere Technische Lehranstalt HTL = institution of higher technical education; HAK = commercial academy; HBLA = institution of higher education for economic business; etc.). Attendance at one of these further education institutes also leads to the Matura. Some schools aim to combine the education available at the Gymnasium and the Hauptschule, and are known as Gesamtschulen. In addition, a recognition of the importance of learning English has led some Gymnasiums to offer a bilingual stream, in which pupils deemed able in languages follow a modified curriculum, a portion of the lesson time being conducted in English.
+As at primary school, lessons at Gymnasium begin at 8 am and continue with short intervals until lunchtime or early afternoon, with children returning home to a late lunch. Older pupils often attend further lessons after a break for lunch, generally eaten at school. As at primary level, all pupils follow the same plan of work. Great emphasis is placed on homework and frequent testing. Satisfactory marks in the end-of-the-year report ("Zeugnis") are a prerequisite for moving up ("aufsteigen") to the next class. Pupils who do not meet the required standard re-sit their tests at the end of the summer holidays; those whose marks are still not satisfactory are required to re-sit the year ("sitzenbleiben").
+It is not uncommon for a pupil to re-sit more than one year of school. After completing the first two years, pupils choose between one of two strands, known as "Gymnasium" (slightly more emphasis on arts) or "Realgymnasium" (slightly more emphasis on science). Whilst many schools offer both strands, some do not, and as a result, some children move schools for a second time at age 12. At age 14, pupils may choose to remain in one of these two strands, or to change to a vocational course, possibly with a further change of school.
+The Austrian university system had been open to any student who passed the Matura examination until recently. A 2006 bill allowed the introduction of entrance exams for studies such as Medicine. In 2001, an obligatory tuition fee ("Studienbeitrag") of €363.36 per term was introduced for all public universities. Since 2008, for all EU students the studies have been free of charge, as long as a certain time-limit is not exceeded (the expected duration of the study plus usually two terms tolerance).[157] When the time-limit is exceeded, the fee of around €363.36 per term is charged. Some further exceptions to the fee apply, e.g. for students with a year's salary of more than about €5000. In all cases, an obligatory fee of €20.20 is charged for the student union and insurance.[158]
+Austria's past as a European power and its cultural environment generated a broad contribution to various forms of art, most notably among them music. Austria was the birthplace of many famous composers such as Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner, Johann Strauss, Sr. and Johann Strauss, Jr. as well as members of the Second Viennese School such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, then an independent Church Principality of the Holy Roman Empire, which later became part of Austria, and much of Mozart's career was spent in Vienna.
+Vienna was for a long time an important centre of musical innovation. 18th- and 19th-century composers were drawn to the city due to the patronage of the Habsburgs, and made Vienna the European capital of classical music. During the Baroque period, Slavic and Hungarian folk forms influenced Austrian music.
+Vienna's status began its rise as a cultural centre in the early 16th century, and was focused around instruments, including the lute. Ludwig van Beethoven spent the better part of his life in Vienna. Austria's current national anthem, attributed to Mozart, was chosen after World War II to replace the traditional Austrian anthem by Joseph Haydn.
+Austrian Herbert von Karajan was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, and he was a dominant figure in European classical music from the 1960s until his death.[159]
+International pop super star Johann Hölzel, also known by his stage name Falco was born in Vienna, Austria 19 February 1957.
+Conchita Wurst is also a renowned singer from the Austrian stock.
+Among Austrian Artists and architects one can find the painters Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Rudolf von Alt, Hans Makart, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Carl Moll, and Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the photographers Inge Morath and Ernst Haas, and architects like Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and Hans Hollein (recipient of the 1985 Pritzker Architecture Prize). Contemporary artist Herbert Brandl.
+Sascha Kolowrat was an Austrian pioneer of filmmaking. Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, and Fred Zinnemann originally came from the Austrian Empire before establishing themselves as internationally relevant filmmakers. Willi Forst, Ernst Marischka, and Franz Antel enriched the popular cinema in German-speaking countries. Michael Haneke became internationally known for his disturbing cinematic studies, receiving a Golden Globe for his critically acclaimed film The White Ribbon (2010).
+The first Austrian director to receive an Academy Award was Stefan Ruzowitzky. A number of Austrian actors also pursued international careers, among them Peter Lorre, Helmut Berger, Curd Jürgens, Senta Berger, Oskar Werner, and Klaus Maria Brandauer. Most notably, Hedy Lamarr and Arnold Schwarzenegger became international movie stars in Hollywood. Christoph Waltz rose to fame with his performances in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, earning him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2010 and 2012. Max Reinhardt was a master of spectacular and astute theatre productions. Otto Schenk not only excelled as a stage actor, but also as an opera director.
+Austria was the cradle of numerous scientists with international reputation. Among them are Ludwig Boltzmann, Ernst Mach, Victor Franz Hess and Christian Doppler, prominent scientists in the 19th century. In the 20th century, contributions by Lise Meitner, Erwin Schrödinger and Wolfgang Pauli to nuclear research and quantum mechanics were key to these areas' development during the 1920s and 1930s. A present-day quantum physicist is Anton Zeilinger, noted as the first scientist to demonstrate quantum teleportation.
+In addition to physicists, Austria was the birthplace of two of the most noteworthy philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. In addition to them, biologists Gregor Mendel and Konrad Lorenz as well as mathematician Kurt Gödel and engineers such as Ferdinand Porsche and Siegfried Marcus were Austrians.
+A focus of Austrian science has always been medicine and psychology, starting in medieval times with Paracelsus. Eminent physicians like Theodore Billroth, Clemens von Pirquet, and Anton von Eiselsberg have built upon the achievements of the 19th-century Vienna School of Medicine. Austria was home to Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, Alfred Adler, founder of Individual psychology, psychologists Paul Watzlawick and Hans Asperger, and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl.
+The Austrian School of Economics, which is prominent as one of the main competitive directions for economic theory, is related to Austrian economists Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. Other noteworthy Austrian-born émigrés include the management thinker Peter Drucker, sociologist Paul Felix Lazarsfeld and scientist Sir Gustav Nossal.
+Complementing its status as a land of artists and scientists, Austria has always been a country of poets, writers, and novelists. It was the home of novelists Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Thomas Bernhard, and Robert Musil, of poets Georg Trakl, Franz Werfel, Franz Grillparzer, Rainer Maria Rilke, Adalbert Stifter, Karl Kraus and children's author Eva Ibbotson.
+Famous contemporary playwrights and novelists are Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, Peter Handke and Daniel Kehlmann.
+Austria's cuisine is derived from that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austrian cuisine is mainly the tradition of Royal-Cuisine ("Hofküche") delivered over centuries. It is famous for its well-balanced variations of beef and pork and countless variations of vegetables. There is also the "Mehlspeisen" Bakery, which created particular delicacies such as Sachertorte, "Krapfen" which are doughnuts usually filled with apricot jam or custard, and "Strudel" such as "Apfelstrudel" filled with apple, "Topfenstrudel" filled with a type of cheese curd called "topfen", and "Millirahmstrudel" (milk-cream strudel).
+In addition to native regional traditions, the cuisine has been influenced by Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Jewish, Italian, Balkan and French cuisines, from which both dishes and methods of food preparation have often been borrowed. The Austrian cuisine is therefore one of the most multicultural and transcultural in Europe.
+Typical Austrian dishes include Wiener Schnitzel, Schweinsbraten, Kaiserschmarren, Knödel, Sachertorte and Tafelspitz. There are also Kärntner Kasnudeln, which are pockets of dough filled with Topfen, potatoes, herbs and peppermint which are boiled and served with a butter sauce. Kasnudeln are traditionally served with a salad. Eierschwammerl dishes are also popular. The sugar block dispenser Pez was invented in Austria, as well as Mannerschnitten. Austria is also famous for its Mozartkugeln and its coffee tradition. With over 8 kg per year it has the sixth highest per capita coffee consumption worldwide.[160]
+Beer is sold in 0.2 litre (a Pfiff), 0.3 litre (a Seidel, kleines Bier or Glas Bier) and 0.5 litre (a Krügerl or großes Bier or Halbe) measures. At festivals one litre Maß and two litre Doppelmaß in the Bavarian style are also dispensed. The most popular types of beer are lager (known as Märzen in Austria), naturally cloudy Zwicklbier and wheat beer. At holidays like Christmas and Easter bock beer is also available.
+The most important wine-producing areas are in Lower Austria, Burgenland, Styria and Vienna. The Grüner Veltliner grape provides some of Austria's most notable white wines[161] and Zweigelt is the most widely planted red wine grape.[162]
+In Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Styria and Carinthia, Most, a type of cider or perry, is widely produced.
+A Schnapps of typically up to 60% alcohol or fruit brandy is drunk, which in Austria is made from a variety of fruits, for example apricots and rowanberries. The produce of small private schnapps distilleries, of which there are around 20,000 in Austria, is known as Selbstgebrannter or Hausbrand.
+Local soft drinks such as Almdudler are very popular around the country as an alternative to alcoholic beverages. Another popular drink is the so-called "Spezi", a mix between Coca-Cola and the original formula of Orange Fanta or the more locally renowned Frucade.[citation needed] Red Bull, the highest-selling energy drink in the world, was introduced by Dietrich Mateschitz, an Austrian entrepreneur.
+Due to the mountainous terrain, alpine skiing is a prominent sport in Austria and is extremely valuable in the promotion and economic growth of the country.[163] Similar sports such as snowboarding or ski-jumping are also widely popular. Austrian athletes such as Annemarie Moser-Pröll, Franz Klammer, Hermann Maier, Toni Sailer, Benjamin Raich, Marlies Schild & Marcel Hirscher are widely regarded as some of the greatest alpine skiers of all time, Armin Kogler, Andreas Felder, Ernst Vettori, Andreas Goldberger, Andreas Widhölzl, Thomas Morgenstern & Gregor Schlierenzauer as some of the greatest ski jumpers of all time. Bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton are also popular events with a permanent track located in Igls, which hosted bobsleigh and luge competitions for the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics held in Innsbruck. The first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012 were held in Innsbruck as well.[164]
+A popular team sport in Austria is football, which is governed by the Austrian Football Association.[165] Austria was among the most successful football playing nations on the European continent placing 4th at the 1934 FIFA World Cup, 3rd at the 1954 FIFA World Cup and 7th at the 1978 FIFA World Cup. However, recently Austrian football has not been internationally successful. It also co-hosted the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship with Switzerland. The national Austrian football league is the Austrian Bundesliga, which includes teams such as record-champions SK Rapid Wien, FK Austria Wien, Red Bull Salzburg and Sturm Graz.
+Besides football, Austria also has professional national leagues for most major team sports, including the Austrian Hockey League for ice hockey, and the Österreichische Basketball Bundesliga for basketball. Horseback riding is also popular; the famed Spanish Riding School of Vienna is located in Vienna.
+Niki Lauda is a former Formula One driver who was three times F1 World Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984. He is currently the only driver to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors. Other known Austrian F1 drivers are for example Gerhard Berger and Jochen Rindt. Austria also hosts F1 races (Austrian Grand Prix); now held at Red Bull Ring, in the past also at Österreichring and Zeltweg Airfield.
+Thomas Muster is a former tennis player and one of the greatest clay courters of all time. He won the 1995 French Open and in 1996 he was ranked number 1 in the ATP Ranking. Other known Austrian tennis players are for example Horst Skoff, Jürgen Melzer and Dominic Thiem.
+Sport played a significant role in developing national consciousness and boosting national self-confidence in the early years of the Second Republic after World War II, through events such as the Tour of Austria cycle race and through sporting successes such as the national football team's run to third at the 1954 World Cup and the performances of Toni Sailer and the rest of the "Kitzbühel Miracle Team" in the 1950s.[166][167]

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+The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, /ˈneɪtoʊ/; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 North American and European countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949.[3][4] NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's Headquarters are located in Evere, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.
+Since its founding, the admission of new member states has increased the alliance from the original 12 countries to 30. The most recent member state to be added to NATO was North Macedonia on 27 March 2020. NATO currently recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members.[5] An additional 20 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total.[6] Members agreed that their aim is to reach or maintain the target defense spending of at least 2% of GDP by 2024.[7][8]
+On 4 March 1947, the Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in the event of a possible attack by Germany or the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II. In 1948, this alliance was expanded to include the Benelux countries, in the form of the Western Union, also referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organization (BTO), established by the Treaty of Brussels.[9] Talks for a new military alliance which could also include North America resulted in the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949 by the member states of the Western Union plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.[10]
+The North Atlantic Treaty was largely dormant until the Korean War initiated the establishment of NATO to implement it, by means of an integrated military structure: This included the formation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in 1951, which adopted the Western Union's military structures and plans.[11] In 1952, the post of Secretary General of NATO was established as the organization's chief civilian. That year also saw the first major NATO maritime exercises, Exercise Mainbrace and the accession of Greece and Turkey to the organization.[12][13] Following the London and Paris Conferences, West Germany was permitted to rearm militarily, as they joined NATO in May 1955, which was, in turn, a major factor in the creation of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, delineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War.
+Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defense against a prospective Soviet invasion – doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in 1966.[14][15] In 1982, the newly democratic Spain joined the alliance.
+The collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989–1991 removed the de facto main adversary of NATO and caused a strategic re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature, tasks, and focus on the continent of Europe. This shift started with the 1990 signing in Paris of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe between NATO and the Soviet Union, which mandated specific military reductions across the continent that continued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.[16] At that time, European countries accounted for 34 percent of NATO's military spending; by 2012, this had fallen to 21 percent.[17] NATO also began a gradual expansion to include newly autonomous Central and Eastern European nations, and extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns.[18]
+After the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989, the organization conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999 during the break-up of Yugoslavia.[19] Politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, most of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks,[20] after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations[21] and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1973. The less potent Article 4, which merely invokes consultation among NATO members, has been invoked five times following incidents in the Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, and annexation of Crimea.[22]
+The first post-Cold War expansion of NATO came with German reunification on 3 October 1990, when the former East Germany became part of the Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance. As part of post-Cold War restructuring, NATO's military structure was cut back and reorganized, with new forces such as the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps established. The changes brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union on the military balance in Europe were recognized in the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which was signed in 1999. The policies of French President Nicolas Sarkozy resulted in a major reform of France's military position, culminating with the return to full membership on 4 April 2009, which also included France rejoining the NATO Military Command Structure, while maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent.[15][23][24]
+Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbors were set up, like the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. In 1998, the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council was established. Between 1999 and 2020 NATO incorporated the following Central and Eastern European countries, including several former communist states: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.[18]
+The Russian intervention in Crimea in 2014 led to strong condemnation by NATO nations and the creation of a new "spearhead" force of 5,000 troops at bases in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.[25] At the subsequent 2014 Wales summit, the leaders of NATO's member states formally committed for the first time to spend the equivalent of at least 2% of their gross domestic products on defence by 2024, which had previously been only an informal guideline.[26] NATO did not condemn the 2016–present purges in Turkey.[27] NATO members have resisted the UN's Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, a binding agreement for negotiations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, supported by more than 120 nations.[28]
+No military operations were conducted by NATO during the Cold War. Following the end of the Cold War, the first operations, Anchor Guard in 1990 and Ace Guard in 1991, were prompted by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Airborne early warning aircraft were sent to provide coverage of southeastern Turkey, and later a quick-reaction force was deployed to the area.[29]
+The Bosnian War began in 1992, as a result of the break-up of Yugoslavia. The deteriorating situation led to United Nations Security Council Resolution 816 on 9 October 1992, ordering a no-fly zone over central Bosnia and Herzegovina, which NATO began enforcing on 12 April 1993 with Operation Deny Flight. From June 1993 until October 1996, Operation Sharp Guard added maritime enforcement of the arms embargo and economic sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 28 February 1994, NATO took its first wartime action by shooting down four Bosnian Serb aircraft violating the no-fly zone.[30]
+On 10 and 11 April 1994, the United Nations Protection Force called in air strikes to protect the Goražde safe area, resulting in the bombing of a Bosnian Serb military command outpost near Goražde by two US F-16 jets acting under NATO direction.[31] In retaliation, Serbs took 150 U.N. personnel hostage on 14 April.[32][33] On 16 April a British Sea Harrier was shot down over Goražde by Serb forces.[34]
+In August 1995, a two-week NATO bombing campaign, Operation Deliberate Force, began against the Army of the Republika Srpska, after the Srebrenica massacre.[35] Further NATO air strikes helped bring the Yugoslav wars to an end, resulting in the Dayton Agreement in November 1995.[35] As part of this agreement, NATO deployed a UN-mandated peacekeeping force, under Operation Joint Endeavor, named IFOR. Almost 60,000 NATO troops were joined by forces from non-NATO nations in this peacekeeping mission. This transitioned into the smaller SFOR, which started with 32,000 troops initially and ran from December 1996 until December 2004, when operations were then passed onto European Union Force Althea.[36] Following the lead of its member nations, NATO began to award a service medal, the NATO Medal, for these operations.[37]
+In an effort to stop Slobodan Milošević's Serbian-led crackdown on KLA separatists and Albanian civilians in Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1199 on 23 September 1998 to demand a ceasefire. Negotiations under US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke broke down on 23 March 1999, and he handed the matter to NATO,[38] which started a 78-day bombing campaign on 24 March 1999.[39] Operation Allied Force targeted the military capabilities of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the crisis, NATO also deployed one of its international reaction forces, the ACE Mobile Force (Land), to Albania as the Albania Force (AFOR), to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Kosovo.[40]
+Though the campaign was criticized for high civilian casualties, including bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Milošević finally accepted the terms of an international peace plan on 3 June 1999, ending the Kosovo War. On 11 June, Milošević further accepted UN resolution 1244, under the mandate of which NATO then helped establish the KFOR peacekeeping force. Nearly one million refugees had fled Kosovo, and part of KFOR's mandate was to protect the humanitarian missions, in addition to deterring violence.[40][41] In August–September 2001, the alliance also mounted Operation Essential Harvest, a mission disarming ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of Macedonia.[42] As of 1 December 2013[update], 4,882 KFOR soldiers, representing 31 countries, continue to operate in the area.[43]
+The US, the UK, and most other NATO countries opposed efforts to require the UN Security Council to approve NATO military strikes, such as the action against Serbia in 1999, while France and some others claimed that the alliance needed UN approval.[44] The US/UK side claimed that this would undermine the authority of the alliance, and they noted that Russia and China would have exercised their Security Council vetoes to block the strike on Yugoslavia, and could do the same in future conflicts where NATO intervention was required, thus nullifying the entire potency and purpose of the organization. Recognizing the post-Cold War military environment, NATO adopted the Alliance Strategic Concept during its Washington summit in April 1999 that emphasized conflict prevention and crisis management.[45]
+The September 11 attacks in the United States caused NATO to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in the organization's history. The Article states that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. The invocation was confirmed on 4 October 2001 when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty.[46] The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the attacks included Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour, a naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction, and to enhance the security of shipping in general, which began on 4 October 2001.[47]
+The alliance showed unity: On 16 April 2003, NATO agreed to take command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which included troops from 42 countries. The decision came at the request of Germany and the Netherlands, the two nations leading ISAF at the time of the agreement, and all nineteen NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of control to NATO took place on 11 August, and marked the first time in NATO's history that it took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area.[48]
+ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul and surrounding areas from the Taliban, al Qaeda and factional warlords, so as to allow for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration headed by Hamid Karzai. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan,[49] and ISAF subsequently expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country.[50]
+On 31 July 2006, the ISAF additionally took over military operations in the south of Afghanistan from a US-led anti-terrorism coalition.[51] Due to the intensity of the fighting in the south, in 2011 France allowed a squadron of Mirage 2000 fighter/attack aircraft to be moved into the area, to Kandahar, in order to reinforce the alliance's efforts.[52] During its 2012 Chicago Summit, NATO endorsed a plan to end the Afghanistan war and to remove the NATO-led ISAF Forces by the end of December 2014.[53] ISAF was disestablished in December 2014 and replaced by the follow-on training Resolute Support Mission.[54]
+In August 2004, during the Iraq War, NATO formed the NATO Training Mission – Iraq, a training mission to assist the Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the US led MNF-I.[55] The NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I) was established at the request of the Iraqi Interim Government under the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546. The aim of NTM-I was to assist in the development of Iraqi security forces training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the nation. NTM-I was not a combat mission but is a distinct mission, under the political control of NATO's North Atlantic Council. Its operational emphasis was on training and mentoring. The activities of the mission were coordinated with Iraqi authorities and the US-led Deputy Commanding General Advising and Training, who was also dual-hatted as the Commander of NTM-I. The mission officially concluded on 17 December 2011.[56]
+Turkey invoked the first Article 4 meetings in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War. Turkey also invoked this article twice in 2012 during the Syrian Civil War, after the downing of an unarmed Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet, and after a mortar was fired at Turkey from Syria,[57] and again in 2015 after threats by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to its territorial integrity.[58]
+Beginning on 17 August 2009, NATO deployed warships in an operation to protect maritime traffic in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean from Somali pirates, and help strengthen the navies and coast guards of regional states. The operation was approved by the North Atlantic Council and involves warships primarily from the United States though vessels from many other nations are also included. Operation Ocean Shield focuses on protecting the ships of Operation Allied Provider which are distributing aid as part of the World Food Programme mission in Somalia. Russia, China and South Korea have sent warships to participate in the activities as well.[59][60] The operation seeks to dissuade and interrupt pirate attacks, protect vessels, and abetting to increase the general level of security in the region.[61]
+During the Libyan Civil War, violence between protesters and the Libyan government under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi escalated, and on 17 March 2011 led to the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which called for a ceasefire, and authorized military action to protect civilians. A coalition that included several NATO members began enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya shortly afterwards, beginning with Opération Harmattan by the French Air Force on 19 March.
+On 20 March 2011, NATO states agreed on enforcing an arms embargo against Libya with Operation Unified Protector using ships from NATO Standing Maritime Group 1 and Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 1,[62] and additional ships and submarines from NATO members.[63] They would "monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries".[62]
+On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone from the initial coalition, while command of targeting ground units remained with the coalition's forces.[64][65] NATO began officially enforcing the UN resolution on 27 March 2011 with assistance from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.[66] By June, reports of divisions within the alliance surfaced as only eight of the 28 member nations were participating in combat operations,[67] resulting in a confrontation between US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and countries such as Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany to contribute more, the latter believing the organization has overstepped its mandate in the conflict.[68][69][70] In his final policy speech in Brussels on 10 June, Gates further criticized allied countries in suggesting their actions could cause the demise of NATO.[71] The German foreign ministry pointed to "a considerable [German] contribution to NATO and NATO-led operations" and to the fact that this engagement was highly valued by President Obama.[72]
+While the mission was extended into September, Norway that day announced it would begin scaling down contributions and complete withdrawal by 1 August.[73] Earlier that week it was reported Danish air fighters were running out of bombs.[74][75] The following week, the head of the Royal Navy said the country's operations in the conflict were not sustainable.[76] By the end of the mission in October 2011, after the death of Colonel Gaddafi, NATO planes had flown about 9,500 strike sorties against pro-Gaddafi targets.[77][78] A report from the organization Human Rights Watch in May 2012 identified at least 72 civilians killed in the campaign.[79]
+Following a coup d'état attempt in October 2013, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan requested technical advice and trainers from NATO to assist with ongoing security issues.[80]
+NATO has thirty members, mainly in Europe and North America. Some of these countries also have territory on multiple continents, which can be covered only as far south as the Tropic of Cancer in the Atlantic Ocean, which defines NATO's "area of responsibility" under Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty. During the original treaty negotiations, the United States insisted that colonies such as the Belgian Congo be excluded from the treaty.[81][82] French Algeria was however covered until their independence on 3 July 1962.[83] Twelve of these thirty are original members who joined in 1949, while the other eighteen joined in one of eight enlargement rounds.
+From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, France pursued a military strategy of independence from NATO under a policy dubbed "Gaullo-Mitterrandism".[84] Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated the return of France to the integrated military command and the Defence Planning Committee in 2009, the latter being disbanded the following year. France remains the only NATO member outside the Nuclear Planning Group and unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, will not commit its nuclear-armed submarines to the alliance.[15][23] Few members spend more than two percent of their gross domestic product on defence,[85] with the United States accounting for three quarters of NATO defence spending.[86]
+New membership in the alliance has been largely from Central and Eastern Europe, including former members of the Warsaw Pact. Accession to the alliance is governed with individual Membership Action Plans, and requires approval by each current member. NATO currently has one candidate country that is in the process of joining the alliance: Bosnia and Herzegovina. North Macedonia signed an accession protocol to become a NATO member state in February 2019, and became a member state on 27 March 2020.[87][88] Its accession had been blocked by Greece for many years due to the Macedonia naming dispute, which was resolved in 2018 by the Prespa agreement.[89] In order to support each other in the process, new and potential members in the region formed the Adriatic Charter in 2003.[90] Georgia was also named as an aspiring member, and was promised "future membership" during the 2008 summit in Bucharest,[91] though in 2014, US President Barack Obama said the country was not "currently on a path" to membership.[92]
+Russia continues to politically oppose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with informal understandings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and European and US negotiators that allowed for a peaceful German reunification.[93] NATO's expansion efforts are often seen by Moscow leaders as a continuation of a Cold War attempt to surround and isolate Russia,[94] though they have also been criticized in the West.[95] A June 2016 Levada poll found that 68% of Russians think that deploying NATO troops in the Baltic states and Poland—former Eastern bloc countries bordering Russia—is a threat to Russia.[96] In contrast 65% of Poles surveyed in a 2017 Pew Research Center report identified Russia as a "major threat", with an average of 31% saying so across all NATO countries,[97] and 67% of Poles surveyed in 2018 favour US forces being based in Poland.[98] Of non-CIS Eastern European countries surveyed by Gallup in 2016, all but Serbia and Montenegro were more likely than not to view NATO as a protective alliance rather than a threat.[99] A 2006 study in the journal Security Studies argued that NATO enlargement contributed to democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe.[100]
+Ukraine's relationship with NATO and Europe has been politically controversial, and improvement of these relations was one of the goals of the "Euromaidan" protests that saw the ousting of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. In March 2014, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk reiterated the government's stance that Ukraine is not seeking NATO membership.[101] Ukraine's president subsequently signed a bill dropping his nation's nonaligned status in order to pursue NATO membership, but signalled that it would hold a referendum before seeking to join.[102] Ukraine is one of eight countries in Eastern Europe with an Individual Partnership Action Plan. IPAPs began in 2002, and are open to countries that have the political will and ability to deepen their relationship with NATO.[103]
+The Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme was established in 1994 and is based on individual bilateral relations between each partner country and NATO: each country may choose the extent of its participation.[105] Members include all current and former members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.[106] The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) was first established on 29 May 1997, and is a forum for regular coordination, consultation and dialogue between all fifty participants.[107] The PfP programme is considered the operational wing of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership.[105] Other third countries also have been contacted for participation in some activities of the PfP framework such as Afghanistan.[108]
+The European Union (EU) signed a comprehensive package of arrangements with NATO under the Berlin Plus agreement on 16 December 2002. With this agreement, the EU was given the possibility of using NATO assets in case it wanted to act independently in an international crisis, on the condition that NATO itself did not want to act – the so-called "right of first refusal".[109] For example, Article 42(7) of the 1982 Treaty of Lisbon specifies that "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power". The treaty applies globally to specified territories whereas NATO is restricted under its Article 6 to operations north of the Tropic of Cancer. It provides a "double framework" for the EU countries that are also linked with the PfP programme.[citation needed]
+Additionally, NATO cooperates and discusses its activities with numerous other non-NATO members. The Mediterranean Dialogue was established in 1994 to coordinate in a similar way with Israel and countries in North Africa. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was announced in 2004 as a dialogue forum for the Middle East along the same lines as the Mediterranean Dialogue. The four participants are also linked through the Gulf Cooperation Council.[110] In June 2018, Qatar expressed its wish to join NATO.[111] However, NATO declined membership, stating that only additional European countries could join according to Article 10 of NATO's founding treaty.[112] Qatar and NATO have previously signed a security agreement together in January 2018.[113]
+Political dialogue with Japan began in 1990, and since then, the Alliance has gradually increased its contact with countries that do not form part of any of these cooperation initiatives.[114] In 1998, NATO established a set of general guidelines that do not allow for a formal institutionalization of relations, but reflect the Allies' desire to increase cooperation. Following extensive debate, the term "Contact Countries" was agreed by the Allies in 2000. By 2012, the Alliance had broadened this group, which meets to discuss issues such as counter-piracy and technology exchange, under the names "partners across the globe" or "global partners".[115][116] Australia and New Zealand, both contact countries, are also members of the AUSCANNZUKUS strategic alliance, and similar regional or bilateral agreements between contact countries and NATO members also aid cooperation. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that NATO needs to "address the rise of China," by closely cooperating with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.[117] Colombia is the NATO's latest partner and Colombia has access to the full range of cooperative activities NATO offers to partners; Colombia became the first and only Latin American country to cooperate with NATO.[118]
+All agencies and organizations of NATO are integrated into either the civilian administrative or military executive roles. For the most part they perform roles and functions that directly or indirectly support the security role of the alliance as a whole.
+The civilian structure includes:
+The military structure includes:
+The organizations and agencies of NATO include:
+The NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) is a body that sets broad strategic goals for NATO, which meets at two session per year. NATO PA interacts directly with the parliamentary structures of the national governments of the member states which appoint Permanent Members, or ambassadors to NATO. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is made up of legislators from the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance as well as thirteen associate members. It is however officially a different structure from NATO, and has as aim to join together deputies of NATO countries in order to discuss security policies on the NATO Council.

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+Ottawa (/ˈɒtəwə/ (listen), /ˈɒtəwɑː/; Canadian French pronunciation: [ɔtawɔ]) is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR).[12] As of 2016, Ottawa had a city population of 934,243 and a metropolitan population of 1,323,783 making it the fourth-largest city and the fifth-largest CMA in Canada. In June 2019, the City of Ottawa estimated it had surpassed a population of a million.[13]
+Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city has evolved into the political centre of Canada. Its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001 which significantly increased its land area. The city name "Ottawa" was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River, the name of which is derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning "to trade".[14]
+Ottawa has the most educated population among Canadian cities[15] and is home to a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre, the National Gallery, and numerous national museums.
+With the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago, the Ottawa Valley became habitable.[16] Local populations used the area for wild edible harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel, and camps for over 6500 years. The Ottawa river valley has archeological sites with arrow heads, pottery, and stone tools. Three major rivers meet within Ottawa, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years.[17] The Algonquins called the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning "Great River" or "Grand River".[18][19][20][21]
+Étienne Brûlé, widely regarded as the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes.[19] Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls in the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, who had been using the Ottawa River for centuries.[22] Many missionaries would follow the early explorers and traders. The first maps of the area used the word Ottawa, derived from the Algonquin word adawe ("to trade", used in reference to the area's importance to First Nations traders), to name the river. Philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first European settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from the present-day city of Ottawa in Hull.[23][24]  He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers,[18]  set about to create an agricultural community[25] called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade (soon to be the area's most significant economic activity) by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City.[26] Bytown, Ottawa's original name, was founded as a community in 1826 when hundreds of land speculators were attracted to the south side of the river when news spread that British authorities were immediately constructing the northerly end of the Rideau Canal military project at that location.[27][28] The following year, the town was named after British military engineer Colonel John By who was responsible for the entire Rideau Waterway construction project.
+The canal's military purpose was to provide a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario, bypassing a particularly vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario easily exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812.[29] Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named "Upper Town" west of the canal and "Lower Town" east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically "Upper Town" was predominantly English speaking and Protestant whereas "Lower Town" was predominantly French, Irish and Catholic.[30] Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832.[31][32] Bytown encountered some impassioned and violent times in her early pioneer period that included Irish labour unrest that attributed to the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845[33] and political dissension evident from the 1849 Stony Monday Riot.[34] In 1855 Bytown was renamed Ottawa and incorporated as a city.[35] William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk guiding it through 36 years of development.
+[36]
+On New Year's Eve 1857, Queen Victoria, as a symbolic and political gesture, was presented with the responsibility of selecting a location for the permanent capital of the Province of Canada.[37] In reality, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had assigned this selection process to the Executive Branch of the Government, as previous attempts to arrive at a consensus had ended in deadlock.[38] The "Queen's choice" turned out to be the small frontier town of Ottawa for two main reasons:[39] Firstly, Ottawa's isolated location in a backcountry surrounded by dense forest far from the Canada–US border and situated on a cliff face would make it more defensible from attack.[40][41] Secondly, Ottawa was approximately midway between Toronto and Kingston (in Canada West) and Montreal and Quebec City (in Canada East). Additionally, despite Ottawa's regional isolation, it had seasonal water transportation access to Montreal over the Ottawa River and to Kingston via the Rideau Waterway. By 1854 it also had a modern all-season Bytown and Prescott Railway that carried passengers, lumber and supplies the 82-kilometres to Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River and beyond.[18][40] Ottawa's small size, it was thought, would make it less prone to rampaging politically motivated mobs, as had happened in the previous Canadian capitals.[42] The government already owned the land that would eventually become Parliament Hill which they thought would be an ideal location for the Parliament Buildings. Ottawa was the only settlement of any substantial size that was already directly on the border of French populated former Lower Canada and English populated former Upper Canada thus additionally making the selection an important political compromise.[43] Queen Victoria made her "Queen's choice" very quickly just before welcoming in the New Year.
+Starting in the 1850s, entrepreneurs known as lumber barons began to build large sawmills, which became some of the largest mills in the world.[44] Rail lines built in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec in 1886.[45] The original Parliament buildings which included the Centre, East and West Blocks were constructed between 1859 and 1866 in the Gothic Revival style.[46] At the time, this was the largest North American construction project ever attempted and Public Works Canada and its architects were not initially well prepared. The Library of Parliament and Parliament Hill landscaping would not be completed until 1876.[47] By 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown street lights were powered entirely by electricity.[48] In 1889 the Government developed and distributed 60 "water leases" (still in use) to mainly local industrialists which gave them permission to generate electricity and operate hydroelectric generators at Chaudière Falls.[49] Public transportation began in 1870 with a horsecar system,[50] overtaken in the 1890s by a vast electric streetcar system that lasted until 1959.
+The Hull–Ottawa fire of 1900 destroyed two-thirds of Hull, including 40 percent of its residential buildings and most of its largest employers along the waterfront.[51] It also spread across the Ottawa River and destroyed about one fifth of Ottawa from the Lebreton Flats south to Booth Street and down to Dow's Lake.[52] On 1 June 1912 the Grand Trunk Railway opened both the Château Laurier hotel and its neighbouring downtown Union Station.[53][54] On 3 February 1916 the Centre Block of the Parliament buildings was destroyed by a fire.[55] The House of Commons and Senate was temporarily relocated to the then recently constructed Victoria Memorial Museum, now the Canadian Museum of Nature[56] until the completion of the new Centre Block in 1922, the centrepiece of which is a dominant Gothic revival styled structure known as the Peace Tower.[57] The location of what is now Confederation Square was a former commercial district centrally located in a triangular area downtown surrounded by historically significant heritage buildings which includes the Parliament buildings. It was redeveloped as a ceremonial centre in 1938 as part of the City Beautiful Movement and became the site of the National War Memorial in 1939 and designated a National Historic Site in 1984.[58] A new Central Post Office (now the Privy Council of Canada) was constructed in 1939 beside the War Memorial because the original post office building on the proposed Confederation Square grounds had to be demolished.
+Ottawa's former industrial appearance was vastly altered by the 1950 Greber Plan. Prime Minister Mackenzie King hired French architect-planner Jacques Greber to design an urban plan for managing development in the National Capital Region, to make it more esthetically pleasing and more befitting a location for Canada's political centre.[59][60] Greber's plan included the creation of the National Capital Greenbelt, the Parkway, the Queensway highway system, the relocation of downtown Union Station (now the Government Conference Centre) to the suburbs, the removal of the street car system, the decentralization of selected government offices, the relocation of industries and removal of substandard housing from the downtown and the creation of the Rideau Canal and Ottawa River pathways to name just a few of its recommendations.[59][61][62] In 1958 the National Capital Commission was established as a Crown Corporation from the passing of the National Capital Act to implement the Greber Plan recommendations-which it accomplished during the 1960s and 1970s.
+In the previous 50 years, other commissions, plans and projects had failed to implement plans to improve the capital such as the 1899 Ottawa Improvement Commission (OIC), The Todd Plan in 1903, The Holt Report in 1915 and The Federal District Commission (FDC) established in 1927.[63] In 1958 a new City Hall opened on Green Island near Rideau falls where urban renewal had recently transformed this former industrial location into green space.[64] Until then, City Hall had temporarily been for 27 years (1931–1958) at the Transportation Building adjacent to Union Station and now part of the Rideau Centre. In 2001, Ottawa City Hall returned downtown to a relatively new building (1990) on 110 Laurier Avenue West, the prior home of the now defunct Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. This new location was close to Ottawa's first (1849–1877) and second (1877–1931) City Halls. This new city hall complex also contained an adjacent 19th century restored heritage building formerly known as the Ottawa Normal School.[64]
+From the 1960s until the 1980s, the National Capital Region experienced a building boom, [65] which was followed by large growth in the high-tech industry during the 1990s and 2000s.[66] Ottawa became one of Canada's largest high tech cities and was nicknamed Silicon Valley North. By the 1980s, Bell Northern Research (later Nortel) employed thousands, and large federally assisted research facilities such as the National Research Council contributed to an eventual technology boom. The early adopters led to offshoot companies such as Newbridge Networks, Mitel and Corel.
+Ottawa's city limits had been increasing over the years, but it acquired the most territory on 1 January 2001, when it amalgamated all the municipalities of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton into one single city.[67] Regional Chair Bob Chiarelli was elected as the new city's first mayor in the 2000 municipal election, defeating Gloucester mayor Claudette Cain. The city's growth led to strains on the public transit system and on road bridges. On 15 October 2001, a diesel-powered light rail transit (LRT) line was introduced on an experimental basis. Known today as the Trillium Line, it was dubbed the O-Train and connected downtown Ottawa to the southern suburbs via Carleton University. The decision to extend the O-Train, and to replace it with an electric light rail system was a major issue in the 2006 municipal elections where Chiarelli was defeated by businessman Larry O'Brien. After O'Brien's election transit plans were changed to establish a series of light rail stations from the east side of the city into downtown, and for using a tunnel through the downtown core. Jim Watson, the last mayor of Ottawa prior to amalgamation, was re-elected in the 2010 election.[68]
+In October 2012, City Council approved the final Lansdowne Park plan, an agreement with the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group that saw a new stadium, increased green space, and housing and retail added to the site.[69][70] In December 2012, City Council voted unanimously to move forward with the Confederation Line, a 12.5 km (7.8 mi) light rail transit line, which was opened on 14 September 2019.[71]
+Ottawa is on the south bank of the Ottawa River and contains the mouths of the Rideau River and Rideau Canal.[72] The older part of the city (including what remains of Bytown) is known as Lower Town, and occupies an area between the canal and the rivers. Across the canal to the west lies Centretown and Downtown Ottawa, which is the city's financial and commercial hub and home to the Parliament of Canada and numerous federal government department headquarters, notably the Privy Council Office. On 29 June 2007, the Rideau Canal, which stretches 202 km (126 mi) to Kingston, Fort Henry and four Martello towers in the Kingston area, was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[73]
+Located within the major, yet mostly dormant Western Quebec Seismic Zone,[74] Ottawa is occasionally struck by earthquakes. Examples include the 2000 Kipawa earthquake,[75] a magnitude-4.5 earthquake on 24 February 2006,[76] the 2010 Central Canada earthquake,[77] and a magnitude-5.2 earthquake on 17 May 2013.[78]
+Ottawa sits at the confluence of three major rivers: the Ottawa River, the Gatineau River and the Rideau River.[79] The Ottawa and Gatineau rivers were historically important in the logging and lumber industries and the Rideau as part of the Rideau Canal system for military, commercial and, subsequently, recreational purposes.[79] The Rideau Canal (Rideau Waterway) first opened in 1832 and is 202 km (126 mi) long. It connects the Saint Lawrence River on Lake Ontario at Kingston to the Ottawa River near Parliament Hill. It was able to bypass the unnavigable sections of the Cataraqui and Rideau rivers and various small lakes along the waterway due to flooding techniques and the construction of 47 water transport locks.The Rideau River got its name from early French explorers who thought the waterfalls at the point where the Rideau River empties into the Ottawa River resembled a "curtain". Hence they began naming the falls and river "rideau" which is the French equivalent of the English word for curtain.[80][22] During part of the winter season the Ottawa section of the canal forms the world's largest skating rink, thereby providing both a recreational venue and a 7.8 km (4.8 mi) transportation path to downtown for ice skaters (from Carleton University and Dow's Lake to the Rideau Centre and National Arts Centre).[81]
+Across the Ottawa River, which forms the border between Ontario and Quebec, lies the city of Gatineau, itself the result of amalgamation of the former Quebec cities of Hull and Aylmer together with Gatineau.[82] Although formally and administratively separate cities in two separate provinces, Ottawa and Gatineau (along with a number of nearby municipalities) collectively constitute the National Capital Region, which is considered a single metropolitan area. One federal crown corporation, the National Capital Commission, or NCC, has significant land holdings in both cities, including sites of historical and touristic importance. The NCC, through its responsibility for planning and development of these lands, is an important contributor to both cities. Around the main urban area is an extensive greenbelt, administered by the NCC for conservation and leisure, and comprising mostly forest, farmland and marshland.[83]
+Ottawa has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb)[84] with four distinct seasons and is between Zones 5a and 5b on the Canadian Plant Hardiness Scale.[85] The average July maximum temperature is 26.6 °C (80 °F). The average January minimum temperature is −14.4 °C (6.1 °F)
+Summers are warm and humid in Ottawa. On average 11 days of the three summer months have temperatures exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), or 37 days if the humidex is considered. Average relative humidity averages 54% in the afternoon and 84% by morning.
+Snow and ice are dominant during the winter season. On average Ottawa receives 224 cm (88 in) of snowfall annually but maintains an average 22 cm (9 in) of snowpack throughout the three winter months. An average 16 days of the three winter months experience temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F), or 41 days if the wind chill is considered.[86]
+Spring and fall are variable, prone to extremes in temperature and unpredictable swings in conditions. Hot days above 30 °C (86 °F) have occurred as early as April[87] or as late as October.[88][86] Annual precipitation averages around 940 mm (37 in).
+Ottawa experiences about 2,130 hours of average sunshine annually (46% of possible). Winds in Ottawa are generally Westerlies averaging 13 km/h (8.1 mph) but tend to be slightly more dominant during the winter.[86]
+The highest temperature ever recorded in Ottawa was 37.8 °C (100 °F) on 4 July 1913, 1 August 1917 and 11 August 1944.[86][89] The coldest temperature ever recorded was −38.9 °C (−38 °F) on 29 December 1933.[86]
+Ottawa is bounded on the east by the United Counties of Prescott and Russell; by Renfrew County and Lanark County in the west; on the south by the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville and the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry; and on the north by the Regional County Municipality of Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais and the City of Gatineau.[104] Modern Ottawa is made up of eleven historic townships, ten of which are from Carleton County and one from Russell.[105]
+The city has a main urban area but many other urban, suburban and rural areas exist within the modern city's limits.[106] The main suburban area extends a considerable distance to the east, west and south of the centre,[106] and it includes the former cities of Gloucester, Nepean and Vanier, the former village of Rockcliffe Park (a high-income neighbourhood which is adjacent to the Prime Minister's official residence at 24 Sussex and the Governor General's residence), and the communities of Blackburn Hamlet and Orléans.[107] The Kanata suburban area includes the former village of Stittsville to the southwest.[107] Nepean is another major suburb which also includes Barrhaven.[107] The communities of Manotick and Riverside South are on the other side of the Rideau River, and Greely, southeast of Riverside South.[107]
+A number of rural communities (villages and hamlets) lie beyond the greenbelt but are administratively part of the Ottawa municipality.[106] Some of these communities are Burritts Rapids; Ashton; Fallowfield; Kars; Fitzroy Harbour; Munster; Carp; North Gower; Metcalfe; Constance Bay and Osgoode and Richmond.[107] Several towns are within the federally defined National Capital Region but outside the city of Ottawa municipal boundaries;[106] including the urban communities of Almonte, Carleton Place, Embrun, Kemptville, Rockland, and Russell.[107]
+In 2016, the populations of the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) were 934,243 and 1,323,783 respectively. The city had a population density of 334.8/km2 (867/sq mi) in 2016, while the CMA had a population density of 195.6/km2 (507/sq mi). It is the second-largest city in Ontario, fourth-largest city in the country, and the fourth-largest CMA in the country.
+Ottawa's median age of 40.1 is both below the provincial and national averages as of 2016. Youths under 15 years constituted 16.7% of the total population in 2016, while those of retirement age (65 years and older) made up 15.4%.
+Over 20 percent of the city's population is foreign-born, with the most common non-Canadian countries of origin being the United Kingdom (8.8% of those foreign-born), China (8.0%), and Lebanon (4.8%). About 6.1% of residents are not Canadian citizens.[115]
+Around 65% of Ottawa residents describe themselves as Christian as of 2011[update], with Catholics accounting for 38.5% of the population and members of Protestant churches 25%. Non-Christian religions are also very well established in Ottawa, the largest being Islam (6.7%), Hinduism (1.4%), Buddhism (1.3%), and Judaism (1.2%). Those with no religious affiliation represent 22.8%.[115]
+As of 2016, approximately 69.1% of Ottawa's population was white, while 4.6% were aboriginal and 26.3% were visible minorities (higher than the national percentage of 22.3%). Below is a breakdown of the demographics.[116]
+Bilingualism became official policy for the conduct of municipal business in 2002,[117] and 37.6% of the population can speak both languages as of 2016, making it the largest city in Canada with both English and French as co-official languages.[118] Those who identify their mother tongue as English constitute 62.4 percent, while those with French as their mother tongue make up 14.2 percent of the population. In terms of respondents' knowledge of one or both official languages, 59.9 percent and 1.5 percent of the population have knowledge of English only and French only, respectively; while 37.2 percent have a knowledge of both official languages. The overall Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) has a larger proportion of French speakers than Ottawa itself, since Gatineau is overwhelmingly French speaking. An additional 20.4 percent of the population list languages other than English and French as their mother tongue. These include Arabic (3.2%), Chinese (3.0%), Spanish (1.2%), Italian (1.1%), and many others.[115]
+As of 2015, the region of Ottawa-Gatineau has the sixth highest total household income of all Canadian metropolitan areas ($82,052).[119] The median household income after taxes is $73,745 which is higher than the national median of $61,348.[120] The unemployment rate in Ottawa in 2016 was 7.2%, lower than the national rate of 7.7%.[121] In 2019 Mercer ranks Ottawa with the third highest quality of living of any Canadian city, and 19th highest in the world.[122] It is also rated the second cleanest city in Canada, and third cleanest city in the world.[123]
+Ottawa's primary employers are the Public Service of Canada and the high-tech industry, although tourism and healthcare also represent increasingly sizeable economic activities. The Federal government is the city's largest employer, employing over 110,000 individuals from the National Capital region.[124] The national headquarters for many federal departments are in Ottawa, particularly throughout Centretown and in the Terrasses de la Chaudière and Place du Portage complexes in Hull. The National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa is the main command centre for the Canadian Armed Forces and hosts the Department of National Defence.[125] The Ottawa area includes CFS Leitrim and the former CFB Rockcliffe. During the summer, the city hosts the Ceremonial Guard, which performs functions such as the Changing the Guard.[126] As the national capital of Canada, tourism is an important part of Ottawa's economy, particularly after the 150th anniversary of Canada which was centred in Ottawa. The lead-up to the festivities saw much investment in civic infrastructure, upgrades to tourist infrastructure and increases in national cultural attractions. The National Capital Region annually attracts an estimated 7.3 million tourists, who spend about 1.18 billion dollars.[127]
+In addition to the economic activities that come with being the national capital, Ottawa is an important technology centre; in 2015, its 1800 companies employed approximately 63,400 people.[128] The concentration of companies in this industry earned the city the nickname of "Silicon Valley North".[66] Most of these companies specialize in telecommunications, software development and environmental technology. Large technology companies such as Nortel, Corel, Mitel, Cognos, Halogen Software, Shopify and JDS Uniphase were founded in the city.[129] Ottawa also has regional locations for Nokia, 3M, Adobe Systems, Bell Canada, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.[130] Many of the telecommunications and new technology are in the western part of the city (formerly Kanata). The "tech sector" was doing particularly well in 2015/2016.[131][132]
+Another major employer is the health sector, which employs over 18,000 people.[133] Four active general hospitals are in the Ottawa area: Queensway Carleton Hospital, The Ottawa Hospital, Montfort Hospital, and Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Several specialized hospital facilities are also present, such as the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.[134] Nordion, i-Stat and the National Research Council of Canada and OHRI are part of the growing life science sector.[135][136] Business, finance, administration, and sales and service rank high among types of occupations.[113] Approximately ten percent of Ottawa's GDP is derived from finance, insurance and real estate whereas employment in goods-producing industries is only half the national average.[137] The City of Ottawa is the second largest employer[138][139] with over 15,000 employees.[139][140]
+In 2006, Ottawa experienced an increase of 40,000 jobs over 2001 with a five-year average growth that was relatively slower than in the late 1990s.[141] While the number of employees in the federal government stagnated, the high-technology industry grew by 2.4%. The overall growth of jobs in Ottawa-Gatineau was 1.3% compared to the previous year, down to sixth place among Canada's largest cities.  In 2016, the unemployment rate in Ottawa was 7.2%, which was below the national unemployment rate of 7.7%.[142] The economic downturn resulted in an increase in the unemployment rate between April 2008 and April 2009 from 4.7 to 6.3%. In the province, however, this rate increased over the same period from 6.4 to 9.1%.[143]
+Traditionally the ByWard Market (in Lower Town), Parliament Hill and the Golden Triangle (both in Centretown – Downtown) have been the focal points of the cultural scenes in Ottawa.[144] Modern thoroughfares such as Wellington Street, Rideau Street, Sussex Drive, Elgin Street, Bank Street, Somerset Street, Preston Street, Richmond Road in Westboro, and Sparks Street are home to many boutiques, museums, theatres, galleries, landmarks and memorials in addition to eating establishments, cafes, bars and nightclubs.[145]
+Ottawa hosts a variety of annual seasonal activities—such as Winterlude, the largest festival in Canada,[146] and Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill and surrounding downtown area, as well as Bluesfest, Canadian Tulip Festival, Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival, Ottawa International Jazz Festival, Fringe Festival and Folk Music Festival, that have grown to become some of the largest festivals of their kind in the world.[147][148] In 2010, Ottawa's Festival industry received the IFEA "World Festival and Event City Award" for the category of North American cities with a population between 500,000 and 1,000,000.[149]
+As Canada's capital, Ottawa has played host to a number of significant cultural events in Canadian history, including the first visit of the reigning Canadian sovereign—King George VI, with his consort, Queen Elizabeth—to his parliament, on 19 May 1939.[150] VE Day was marked with a large celebration on 8 May 1945,[151] the first raising of the country's new national flag took place on 15 February 1965,[152] and the centennial of Confederation was celebrated on 1 July 1967.[153] Elizabeth II was in Ottawa on 17 April 1982, to issue a royal proclamation of the enactment of the Constitution Act.[154] In 1983, Prince Charles and Diana Princess of Wales came to Ottawa for a state dinner hosted by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.[155] In 2011, Ottawa was selected as the first city to receive Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge during their tour of Canada.
+Influenced by government structures, much of the city's architecture tends to be formalistic and functional; however, the city is also marked by Romantic and Picturesque styles of architecture such as the Parliament Buildings' gothic revival architecture.[156] Ottawa's domestic architecture is dominated by single family homes, but also includes smaller numbers of semi-detached houses, rowhouses, and apartment buildings. Many domestic buildings are clad in brick, with small numbers covered in wood, stone, or siding of different materials; variations are common, depending on neighbourhoods and the age of dwellings within them.
+The skyline has been controlled by building height restrictions originally implemented to keep Parliament Hill and the Peace Tower at 92.2 m (302 ft) visible from most parts of the city.[157] Today, several buildings are slightly taller than the Peace Tower, with the tallest on Albert Street being the 29-storey Place de Ville (Tower C) at 112 m (367 ft).[158] Federal buildings in the National Capital Region are managed by Public Works Canada, while most of the federal land in the region is managed by the National Capital Commission; its control of much undeveloped land gives the NCC a great deal of influence over the city's development.[159]
+Amongst the city's national museums and galleries is the National Gallery of Canada; designed by famous architect Moshe Safdie, it is a permanent home to the Maman sculpture.[160] The Canadian War Museum houses over 3.75 million artifacts and was moved to an expanded facility in 2005.[161] The Canadian Museum of Nature was built in 1905, and underwent a major renovation between 2004 and 2010.[162] Across the Ottawa river in Gatineau is the most visited museum in Canada, the Canadian Museum of History.[163] Designed by Canadian Aboriginal architect Douglas Cardinal, the curving-shaped complex, built at a cost of US$340 million, also houses the Canadian Children's Museum, the Canadian Postal Museum and a 3D IMAX theatre.[164]
+The city is also home to the Canada Agriculture Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, the Canada Science and Technology Museum, Billings Estate Museum, Bytown Museum, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Bank of Canada Museum, and the Portrait Gallery of Canada.[165]
+The Ottawa Little Theatre, originally called the Ottawa Drama League at its inception in 1913, is the longest-running community theatre company in Ottawa.[166] Since 1969, Ottawa has been the home of the National Arts Centre, a major performing arts venue that houses four stages and is home to the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and Opera Lyra Ottawa.[167] Established in 1975, the Great Canadian Theatre Company specializes in the production of Canadian plays at a local level.[168]
+The Rideau Canal is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America, and in 2007, it was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[169] In addition, 24 other National Historic Sites of Canada are in Ottawa, including: the Central Chambers, the Central Experimental Farm, the Château Laurier, Confederation Square, the former Ottawa Teachers' College, Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council, Laurier House and the Parliament Buildings. Many other properties of cultural value have been designated as having "heritage elements" by the City of Ottawa under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.[170]
+Sport in Ottawa has a history dating back to the 19th century. Ottawa is home to six professional sports teams. The Ottawa Senators are a professional ice hockey team playing in the National Hockey League. The Senators play their home games at the Canadian Tire Centre.[171] The Ottawa Redblacks are a professional Canadian Football team playing in the Canadian Football League.[172] A professional soccer club, Atlético Ottawa, will play in the Canadian Premier League, following the dissolution of Ottawa Fury FC. A new rugby league team called the Ottawa Aces will play in the 2021 RFL League 1 competition.[173] The Redblacks, Atlético, and the Aces all play their home games at TD Place Stadium. The city is once again home to a professional basketball team, with the Ottawa Blackjacks beginning to play in the Canadian Elite Basketball League, out of the TD Place Arena.[174] Previously, Ottawa was home to the Ottawa SkyHawks basketball team, of the National Basketball League of Canada. The Ottawa Champions play professional baseball at Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park, most recently in the Can-Am League. They are league-less, however, following the merger of the Can-Am League and the Frontier League.
+Several non-professional teams also play in Ottawa, including the Ottawa 67's junior ice hockey team.[175]
+Collegiate teams in various sports compete in Canadian Interuniversity Sport. The Carleton Ravens are nationally ranked in basketball,[176] and the Ottawa Gee-Gees are nationally ranked in football and basketball. Algonquin College has also won numerous national championships. The city is home to an assortment of amateur organized team sports such as soccer, basketball, baseball, curling, rowing, hurling and horse racing.[177] Casual recreational activities, such as skating, cycling, hiking, sailing, golfing, skiing, and fishing/ice fishing are also popular.[177]
+The City of Ottawa is a single-tier municipality, meaning it is in itself a census division and has no county or regional municipality government above it.[178] As a single-tier municipality, Ottawa has responsibility for all municipal services, including fire, emergency medical services, police, parks, roads, sidewalks, public transit, drinking water, storm water, sanitary sewage and solid waste. Ottawa is governed by the 24-member Ottawa City Council consisting of 23 councillors each representing one ward and the mayor Jim Watson,[179] elected in a citywide vote.
+Along with being the capital of Canada, Ottawa is politically diverse in local politics. Most of the city has traditionally supported the Liberal Party.[180] Perhaps the safest areas for the Liberals are the ones dominated by Francophones, especially in Vanier and central Gloucester.[180] Central Ottawa is usually more left-leaning, and the New Democratic Party have won ridings there. Some of Ottawa's suburbs are swing areas, notably central Nepean and, despite its francophone population, Orléans.[180] The southern and western parts of the old city of Ottawa are generally moderate and swing to the Conservative Party.[180] The farther one goes outside the city centre like to Kanata and Barrhaven and rural areas, the voters tend to be increasingly conservative, both fiscally and socially.[180] This is especially true in the former Townships of West Carleton, Goulbourn, Rideau and Osgoode, which are more in line with the conservative areas in the surrounding counties.[180] However, not all rural areas support the Conservative Party. Rural parts of the former township of Cumberland, with a large number of Francophones, traditionally support the Liberal Party, though their support has recently weakened.[180]
+At present, Ottawa is host to 130 embassies.[181] A further 49 countries accredit their embassies and missions in the United States to Canada.[181]
+Ottawa is served by a number of airlines that fly into the Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport (IATA: YOW, ICAO: CYOW), as well as two main regional airports Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, and the Ottawa/Carp Airport.[182]
+Ottawa station (IATA: XDS), is the main inter-city train station operated by Via Rail.  It is located 4 km to the east of downtown in Eastway Gardens and serves Via Rail's Corridor Route. The city is also served by inter-city passenger rail service at Fallowfield station in Barrhaven.
+Inter-city bus services operate out of Ottawa Central Station, 1.5 km south of downtown in Centretown and just north of Highway 417.[182]
+OC Transpo, a department of the city, operates the public transit system.[183] OC Transpo operates an integrated, multi-modal Rapid Transit system which includes:
+The Rapid bus service network operates all day, 7 days a week, reaching Kanata to the West, Barrhaven to the South-West, Orléans to the East, and South Keys to the South.[186] There are also several night bus routes that cover Line 1's downtown stations while it is shut off for the night, and backup service to downtown while the train is delayed.
+Both OC Transpo and the Quebec-based Société de transport de l'Outaouais (STO) operate bus services between Ottawa and Gatineau.
+OC Transpo also operates a door-to-door bus service for the differently-abled known as ParaTranspo.[183]
+Construction was recently completed on the Confederation Line, a 12.5-kilometre (7.8 mi) light-rail transit line (LRT), which includes a 2.5-kilometre (1.6 mi) tunnel through the downtown area featuring three underground stations. The project broke ground in 2013, and opened in September 2019.[187][188] A further 30 km (19 mi) and 19 stations will be built by 2023, referred to as the Stage 2 plan.[189] There is a proposed LRT system that would link Ottawa with Gatineau.[190]
+The city is served by two freeway corridors. The primary corridor is east-west and consists of provincial Highway 417 (designated as the Queensway) and Ottawa-Carleton Regional Road 174 (formerly Provincial Highway 17); a north-south corridor, Highway 416 (designated as Veterans' Memorial Highway), connects Ottawa to the rest of the 400-Series Highway network in Ontario at the 401. Highway 417 is also the Ottawa portion of the Trans-Canada Highway.
+The city also has several scenic parkways (promenades), such as Colonel By Drive, Queen Elizabeth Driveway, the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway, the Rockcliffe Parkway and the Aviation Parkway and has a freeway connection to Autoroute 5 and Autoroute 50, in Gatineau. In 2006, the National Capital Commission completed aesthetic enhancements to Confederation Boulevard, a ceremonial route of existing roads linking key attractions on both sides of the Ottawa River.[191]
+Numerous paved multi-use trails, mostly operated by the National Capital Commission, wind their way through much of the city, including along the Ottawa River, Rideau River, and Rideau Canal. These pathways are used for transportation, tourism, and recreation. Because many streets either have wide curb lanes or bicycle lanes, cycling is a popular mode of transportation throughout the year.[192] As of 31 December 2015, 900 km (560 mi) of cycling facilities are found in Ottawa, including 435 km (270 mi) of multi use pathways, 8 km (5.0 mi) of cycle tracks, 200 km (120 mi) of on-road bicycle lanes, and 257 km (160 mi) of paved shoulders.[193] 204 km (127 mi) of new cycling facilities were added between 2011 and 2014.[193] A downtown street that is restricted to pedestrians only, Sparks Street was turned into a pedestrian mall in 1966.[194] On Sundays (since 1960) and selected holidays and events additional avenues and streets are reserved for pedestrian and/or bicycle uses only.[195] In May 2011, The NCC introduced the Capital Bixi bicycle-sharing system.[196]
+Ottawa is known as one of the most educated cities in Canada, with over half the population having graduated from college and/or university.[197] Ottawa has the highest per capita concentration of engineers, scientists, and residents with PhDs in Canada.[198]
+The city has two main public universities:
+Ottawa also has two main public colleges – Algonquin College and La Cité collégiale. It also has two Catholic universities – Dominican University College and Saint Paul University. Other colleges and universities in nearby areas (namely, the neighbouring city of Gatineau) include the University of Quebec en Outaouais, Cégep de l'Outaouais, and Heritage College.
+Four main public school boards exist in Ottawa: English, English-Catholic, French, and French-Catholic. The English-language Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) is the largest board with 147 schools,[202] followed by the English-Catholic Ottawa Catholic School Board with 85 schools.[203] The two French-language boards are the French-Catholic Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est with 49 schools,[204] and the French Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario with 37 schools.[205] Ottawa also has numerous private schools which are not part of a board.
+The Ottawa Public Library was created in 1906 as part of the famed Carnegie library system.[206] The library system had 2.3 million items as of 2008[update].[207]
+Three main daily local newspapers are printed in Ottawa: two English newspapers, the Ottawa Citizen established as the Bytown Packet in 1845 and the Ottawa Sun, and one French newspaper, Le Droit.[208] Multiple Canadian television broadcast networks and systems, and an extensive number of radio stations, broadcast in both English and French.
+In addition to the market's local media services, Ottawa is home to several national media operations, including CPAC (Canada's national legislature broadcaster)[209] and the parliamentary bureau staff of virtually all of Canada's major newsgathering organizations in television, radio and print. The city is also home to the head office of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, although it is not the primary production location of most CBC radio or television programming.
+Ottawa is twinned with:

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+Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (German: [ˈanəˌliːs maˈʁiː ˈfʁaŋk], short version: [ˈanə ˈfʁaŋk] (listen), Dutch: [ˈɑnəˌlis maːˈri ˈfrɑŋk]; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)[3] was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish origin. One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl (originally Het Achterhuis in Dutch; English: The Secret Annex), in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world's best known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
+Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, Netherlands, having moved there with her family at the age of four and a half when the Nazis gained control over Germany. Born a German national, she lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless. By May 1940, the Franks were trapped in Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the Franks went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne's father, Otto Frank, worked. From then until the family's arrest by the Gestapo in August 1944, she kept a diary she had received as a birthday present, and wrote in it regularly. Following their arrest, the Franks were transported to concentration camps. In October or November 1944, Anne and her sister, Margot, were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died (probably of typhus) a few months later. They were originally estimated by the Red Cross to have died in March, with Dutch authorities setting 31 March as their official date of death, but research by the Anne Frank House in 2015 suggests it is more likely that they died in February.[3]
+Otto, the only survivor of the Frank family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved by his secretary, Miep Gies, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch version and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, and has since been translated into over 70 languages.
+Frank was born Annelies[1] or Anneliese[2] Marie Frank on 12 June 1929 at the Maingau Red Cross Clinic[4] in Frankfurt, Germany, to Edith (née Holländer) and Otto Heinrich Frank. She had an older sister, Margot.[5] The Franks were liberal Jews, and did not observe all of the customs and traditions of Judaism.[6] They lived in an assimilated community of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of various religions. Edith and Otto were devout parents, who were interested in scholarly pursuits and had an extensive library; both parents encouraged the children to read.[7] [8]At the time of Anne's birth the family lived in a house at Marbachweg 307 in Frankfurt-Dornbusch, where they rented two floors. In 1931 the family moved to Ganghoferstrasse 24 in a fashionable liberal area of Dornbusch called the Dichterviertel (Poets' Quarter). Both houses still exist.[9]
+In 1933, after Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party won the federal election and Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich, Edith Frank and the children went to stay with Edith's mother Rosa in Aachen. Otto Frank remained in Frankfurt, but after receiving an offer to start a company in Amsterdam, he moved there to organize the business and to arrange accommodations for his family.[10] He began working at the Opekta Works, a company that sold the fruit extract pectin. Edith travelled back and forth between Aachen and Amsterdam and found an apartment on the Merwedeplein (Merwede Square) in the Rivierenbuurt neighbourhood of Amsterdam, where more Jewish-German refugees settled.[11]  In late December 1933, Edith followed her husband together with Margot. Anne stayed with her grandmother until February, when the family was reunited in the Netherlands.[12] The Franks were among 300,000 Jews who fled Germany between 1933 and 1939.[13]
+After moving to Amsterdam, Anne and Margot Frank were enrolled in school—Margot in public school and Anne in a Montessori school. Despite initial problems with the Dutch language, Margot became a star pupil in Amsterdam. Anne soon felt at home at the Montessori school and met children of her own age, like Hannah Goslar, who would later become one of her best friends.[14]
+In 1938, Otto Frank started a second company, Pectacon, which was a wholesaler of herbs, pickling salts, and mixed spices, used in the production of sausages.[15][16] Hermann van Pels was employed by Pectacon as an advisor about spices. A Jewish butcher, he had fled Osnabrück with his family.[16] In 1939, Edith Frank's mother came to live with the Franks, and remained with them until her death in January 1942.[17]
+In May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, and the occupation government began to persecute Jews by the implementation of restrictive and discriminatory laws; mandatory registration and segregation soon followed.[17] Otto Frank tried to arrange for the family to emigrate to the United States
+– the only destination that seemed to him to be viable[18] – but Frank's application for a visa was never processed, due to circumstances such as the closing of the U.S. consulate in Rotterdam and the loss of all the paperwork there, including the visa application.[19] Even if it had been processed, the U.S. government at the time was concerned that people with close relatives still in Germany could be blackmailed into becoming Nazi spies.[18]
+For her thirteenth birthday on 12 June 1942, Frank received a book she had bought with her father or/and mother in a shop some time earlier. [20] It was an autograph book, bound with red-and-white checkered cloth[21] and with a small lock on the front. Frank decided she would use it as a diary,[22] and she began writing in it almost immediately. In her entry dated 20 June 1942, she lists many of the restrictions placed upon the lives of the Dutch Jewish population.[23]
+Otto and Edith Frank planned to go into hiding with the children on 16 July 1942, but when Margot received a call-up notice from the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration) on 5 July, ordering her to report for relocation to a work camp, they were forced to move the plan ten days forward.[24] Shortly before going into hiding, Anne gave her friend and neighbour Toosje Kupers a book, a tea set, a tin of marbles. On July 6 the Frank family left a note for the Kupers, asking them to take care of their cat Moortje. As the Associated Press reports: "'I'm worried about my marbles, because I'm scared they might fall into the wrong hands,' Kupers said Anne told her. 'Could you keep them for me for a little while?'"[25]
+On the morning of Monday, 6 July 1942,[26] the Frank family moved into their hiding place, a three-story space entered from a landing above the Opekta offices on the Prinsengracht, where some of his most trusted employees would be their helpers. This hiding place became known as the Achterhuis (translated into "Secret Annex" in English editions of the diary). Their apartment was left in a state of disarray to create the impression that they had left suddenly, and Otto left a note that hinted they were going to Switzerland. The need for secrecy forced them to leave behind Anne's cat, Moortje. As Jews were not allowed to use public transport, they walked several kilometres from their home.[27] The door to the Achterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained undiscovered.[28]
+Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl were the only employees who knew of the people in hiding. Along with Gies' husband Jan Gies and Voskuijl's father Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl, they were the "helpers" for the duration of their confinement. The only connection between the outside world and the occupants of the house, they kept the occupants informed of war news and political developments. They catered to all of their needs, ensured their safety, and supplied them with food, a task that grew more difficult with the passage of time. Frank wrote of their dedication and of their efforts to boost morale within the household during the most dangerous of times. All were aware that, if caught, they could face the death penalty for sheltering Jews.[29]
+On 13 July 1942, the Franks were joined by the Van Pels, made up of Hermann, Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the family. Frank wrote of her pleasure at having new people to talk to, but tensions quickly developed within the group forced to live in such confined conditions. After sharing her room with Pfeffer, she found him to be insufferable and resented his intrusion,[30] and she clashed with Auguste van Pels, whom she regarded as foolish. She regarded Hermann van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer as selfish, particularly in regard to the amount of food they consumed.[31] Some time later, after first dismissing the shy and awkward Peter van Pels, she recognized a kinship with him and the two entered a romance. She received her first kiss from him, but her infatuation with him began to wane as she questioned whether her feelings for him were genuine, or resulted from their shared confinement.[32] Anne Frank formed a close bond with each of the helpers, and Otto Frank later recalled that she had anticipated their daily visits with impatient enthusiasm. He observed that Anne's closest friendship was with Bep Voskuijl, "the young typist ... the two of them often stood whispering in the corner."[33]
+In her writing, Frank examined her relationships with the members of her family, and the strong differences in each of their personalities. She considered herself to be closest emotionally to her father, who later commented, "I got on better with Anne than with Margot, who was more attached to her mother. The reason for that may have been that Margot rarely showed her feelings and didn't need as much support because she didn't suffer from mood swings as much as Anne did."[34] The Frank sisters formed a closer relationship than had existed before they went into hiding, although Anne sometimes expressed jealousy towards Margot, particularly when members of the household criticized Anne for lacking Margot's gentle and placid nature. As Anne began to mature, the sisters were able to confide in each other. In her entry of 12 January 1944, Frank wrote, "Margot's much nicer ... She's not nearly so catty these days and is becoming a real friend. She no longer thinks of me as a little baby who doesn't count."[35]
+Frank frequently wrote of her difficult relationship with her mother, and of her ambivalence towards her. On 7 November 1942 she described her "contempt" for her mother and her inability to "confront her with her carelessness, her sarcasm and her hard-heartedness," before concluding, "She's not a mother to me."[36] Later, as she revised her diary, Frank felt ashamed of her harsh attitude, writing: "Anne, is it really you who mentioned hate, oh Anne, how could you?"[37] She came to understand that their differences resulted from misunderstandings that were as much her fault as her mother's, and saw that she had added unnecessarily to her mother's suffering. With this realization, Frank began to treat her mother with a degree of tolerance and respect.[38]
+The Frank sisters each hoped to return to school as soon as they were able, and continued with their studies while in hiding. Margot took a shorthand course by correspondence in Bep Voskuijl's name and received high marks. Most of Anne's time was spent reading and studying, and she regularly wrote and edited (after March 1944) her diary entries. In addition to providing a narrative of events as they occurred, she wrote about her feelings, beliefs, dreams and ambitions, subjects she felt she could not discuss with anyone. As her confidence in her writing grew, and as she began to mature, she wrote of more abstract subjects such as her belief in God, and how she defined human nature.[39]
+Frank aspired to become a journalist, writing in her diary on Wednesday, 5 April 1944:
+I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that's what I want! I know I can write ..., but it remains to be seen whether I really have talent ...
+And if I don't have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. I can't imagine living like Mother, Mrs. van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! ...
+I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me!
+When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that's a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?[40]
+She continued writing regularly until her last entry of 1 August 1944.
+On the morning of 4 August 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by a group of German uniformed police (Grüne Polizei) led by SS-Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer of the Sicherheitsdienst.[41] The Franks, Van Pelses, and Pfeffer were taken to RSHA headquarters, where they were interrogated and held overnight. On 5 August they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were transported to the Westerbork transit camp, through which by that time more than 100,000 Jews, mostly Dutch and German, had passed. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals and sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labour.[42]
+Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested and jailed at the penal camp for enemies of the regime at Amersfoort. Kleiman was released after seven weeks, but Kugler was held in various work camps until the war's end.[43] Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl were questioned and threatened by the Security Police but not detained. They returned to the Achterhuis the following day, and found Anne's papers strewn on the floor. They collected them, as well as several family photograph albums, and Gies resolved to return them to Anne after the war. On 7 August 1944, Gies attempted to facilitate the release of the prisoners by confronting Silberbauer and offering him money to intervene, but he refused.[44]
+Although there have been persistent claims of betrayal by an informant, the source of the information that led the authorities to raid the Achterhuis has never been identified. Night watchman Martin Sleegers and an unidentified police officer investigated a burglary at the premises in April 1944 and came across the bookcase concealing the secret door. Tonny Ahlers, a member of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB), was suspected of being the informant by Carol Ann Lee, biographer of Otto Frank. Another suspect is stockroom manager Willem van Maaren. The Annex occupants did not trust him, as he seemed inquisitive regarding people entering the stockroom after hours. He once unexpectedly asked the employees whether there had previously been a Mr. Frank at the office. Lena Hartog was suspected of being the informant by Anne Frank's biographer Melissa Müller. Several of these suspects knew one another and might have worked in collaboration. While virtually everyone connected with the betrayal was interrogated after the war, no one was definitively identified as being the informant.[45]
+In 2015, Flemish journalist Jeroen de Bruyn and Joop van Wijk, Bep Voskuijl's youngest son, wrote a biography, Bep Voskuijl, het zwijgen voorbij: een biografie van de jongste helper van het Achterhuis (Bep Voskuijl, the Silence is Over: A Biography of the Youngest Helper of the Secret Annex), in which they alleged that Bep's younger sister Nelly (1923–2001) could have betrayed the Frank family. According to the book, Bep's sister Diny and her fiancé Bertus Hulsman recollected Nelly  telephoning the Gestapo on the morning of 4 August 1944.[46][47] Nelly had been critical of Bep and their father, Johannes Voskuijl, helping the Jews. (Johannes was the one who constructed the bookcase covering the entrance to the hiding place.)[48] Nelly was a Nazi collaborator between the ages of 19 and 23.[49] Karl Silberbauer, the SS officer who received the phone call and made the arrest, was documented to say that the informer had "the voice of a young woman".[47]
+In 2016, the Anne Frank House published new research pointing to investigation over ration card fraud, rather than betrayal, as a plausible explanation for the raid that led to the arrest of the Franks.[50] The report states that other activities in the building may have led authorities there, including activities of Frank's company; however, it does not rule out betrayal.[51]
+On 3 September 1944,[a] the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp and arrived after a three-day journey; on the same train was Bloeme Evers-Emden, an Amsterdam native who had befriended Margot and Anne in the Jewish Lyceum in 1941.[52] Bloeme saw Anne, Margot, and their mother regularly in Auschwitz,[53] and was interviewed for her remembrances of the Frank women in Auschwitz in the television documentary The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank (1988) by Dutch filmmaker Willy Lindwer[54] and the BBC documentary Anne Frank Remembered (1995).[55]
+Upon arrival at Auschwitz, the SS forcibly split the men from the women and children, and Otto Frank was separated from his family. Those deemed able to work were admitted into the camp, and those deemed unfit for labour were immediately killed. Of the 1,019 passengers, 549—including all children younger than 15—were sent directly to the gas chambers. Anne Frank, who had turned 15 three months earlier, was one of the youngest people spared from her transport. She was soon made aware that most people were gassed upon arrival and never learned that the entire group from the Achterhuis had survived this selection. She reasoned that her father, in his mid-fifties and not particularly robust, had been killed immediately after they were separated.[56]
+With the other women and girls not selected for immediate death, Frank was forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had her head shaved, and was tattooed with an identifying number on her arm. By day, the women were used as slave labour and Frank was forced to haul rocks and dig rolls of sod; by night, they were crammed into overcrowded barracks. Some witnesses later testified Frank became withdrawn and tearful when she saw children being led to the gas chambers; others reported that more often she displayed strength and courage. Her gregarious and confident nature allowed her to obtain extra bread rations for her mother, sister, and herself. Disease was rampant; before long, Frank's skin became badly infected by scabies. The Frank sisters were moved into an infirmary, which was in a state of constant darkness and infested with rats and mice. Edith Frank stopped eating, saving every morsel of food for her daughters and passing her rations to them through a hole she made at the bottom of the infirmary wall.[57]
+In October 1944, the Frank women were scheduled to join a transport to the Liebau labour camp in Upper Silesia. Bloeme Evers-Emden was scheduled to be on this transport, but Anne was prohibited from going because she had developed scabies, and her mother and sister opted to stay with her. Bloeme went on without them.[55]
+On 28 October, selections began for women to be relocated to Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank, and Auguste van Pels, were transported. Edith Frank was left behind and died of starvation.[58] Tents were erected at Bergen-Belsen to accommodate the influx of prisoners, and as the population rose, the death toll due to disease increased rapidly. Frank was briefly reunited with two friends, Hanneli Goslar and Nanette Blitz, who were confined in another section of the camp. Goslar and Blitz survived the war, and discussed the brief conversations they had conducted with Frank through a fence. Blitz described Anne as bald, emaciated, and shivering. Goslar noted Auguste van Pels was with Anne and Margot Frank, and was caring for Margot, who was severely ill. Neither of them saw Margot, as she was too weak to leave her bunk. Anne told Blitz and Goslar she believed her parents were dead, and for that reason she did not wish to live any longer. Goslar later estimated their meetings had taken place in late January or early February 1945.[59]
+In early 1945, a typhus epidemic spread through the camp, killing 17,000 prisoners.[60] Other diseases, including typhoid fever, were rampant.[61] Due to these chaotic conditions, it is not possible to determine the specific cause of Anne's death; however, there is evidence that she died from the epidemic.  Gena Turgel, a survivor of Bergen Belsen, knew Anne Frank at the camp.  In 2015, Turgel told the British newspaper, The Sun:  “Her bed was around the corner from me.  She was delirious, terrible, burning up,” adding that she had brought Frank water to wash.[62]  Turgel, who worked in the camp hospital, said that the typhus epidemic at the camp took a terrible toll on the inmates.  “The people were dying like flies — in the hundreds.”  “Reports used to come in — 500 people who died. Three hundred? We said, ‘Thank God, only 300.’”[62]
+Witnesses later testified Margot fell from her bunk in her weakened state and was killed by the shock. Anne died a few days after Margot. The exact dates of Margot's and Anne's deaths were not recorded. It was long thought that their deaths occurred only a few weeks before British soldiers liberated the camp on 15 April 1945,[63] but research in 2015 indicated that they may have died as early as February.[64] Among other evidence, witnesses recalled that the Franks displayed typhus symptoms by 7 February,[3][65] and Dutch health authorities reported that most untreated typhus victims died within 12 days of their first symptoms.[64]
+After the war, it was estimated that only 5,000 of the 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands between 1942 and 1944 survived. An estimated 30,000 Jews remained in the Netherlands, with many people aided by the Dutch underground. Approximately two-thirds of this group survived the war.[66]
+Otto Frank survived his internment in Auschwitz. After the war ended, he returned to Amsterdam in June 1945 where he was sheltered by Jan and Miep Gies as he attempted to locate his family. He learned of the death of his wife, Edith, in Auschwitz, but remained hopeful that his daughters had survived. After several weeks, he discovered Margot and Anne had also died. He attempted to determine the fates of his daughters' friends and learned many had been murdered. Sanne Ledermann, often mentioned in Anne's diary, had been gassed along with her parents; her sister, Barbara, a close friend of Margot's, had survived.[67] Several of the Frank sisters' school friends had survived, as had the extended families of Otto and Edith Frank, as they had fled Germany during the mid-1930s, with individual family members settling in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[68]
+In July 1945, after the Red Cross confirmed the deaths of the Frank sisters, Miep Gies gave Otto Frank the diary and a bundle of loose notes that she had saved in the hope of returning them to Anne. Otto Frank later commented that he had not realized Anne had kept such an accurate and well-written record of their time in hiding. In his memoir, he described the painful process of reading the diary, recognizing the events described and recalling that he had already heard some of the more amusing episodes read aloud by his daughter. He saw for the first time the more private side of his daughter and those sections of the diary she had not discussed with anyone, noting, "For me it was a revelation ... I had no idea of the depth of her thoughts and feelings ... She had kept all these feelings to herself".[69] Moved by her repeated wish to be an author, he began to consider having it published.[70]
+Frank's diary began as a private expression of her thoughts; she wrote several times that she would never allow anyone to read it. She candidly described her life, her family and companions, and their situation, while beginning to recognize her ambition to write fiction for publication. In March 1944, she heard a radio broadcast by Gerrit Bolkestein—a member of the Dutch government in exile, based in London—who said that when the war ended, he would create a public record of the Dutch people's oppression under German occupation.[71] He mentioned the publication of letters and diaries, and Frank decided to submit her work when the time came. She began editing her writing, removing some sections and rewriting others, with a view to publication. Her original notebook was supplemented by additional notebooks and loose-leaf sheets of paper. She created pseudonyms for the members of the household and the helpers. The van Pels family became Hermann, Petronella, and Peter van Daan, and Fritz Pfeffer became Albert Düssell. In this edited version, she addressed each entry to "Kitty," a fictional character in Cissy van Marxveldt's Joop ter Heul novels that Anne enjoyed reading. Otto Frank used her original diary, known as "version A", and her edited version, known as "version B", to produce the first version for publication. Although he restored the true identities of his own family, he retained all of the other pseudonyms.[72]
+Otto Frank gave the diary to the historian Annie Romein-Verschoor, who tried unsuccessfully to have it published. She then gave it to her husband Jan Romein, who wrote an article about it, titled "Kinderstem" ("A Child's Voice"), which was published in the newspaper Het Parool on 3 April 1946. He wrote that the diary "stammered out in a child's voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence at Nuremberg put together."[73] His article attracted attention from publishers, and the diary was published in the Netherlands as Het Achterhuis (The Annex) in 1947,[74] followed by five more printings by 1950.[75]
+It was first published in Germany and France in 1950, and after being rejected by several publishers, was first published in the United Kingdom in 1952. The first American edition, published in 1952 under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, was positively reviewed. The book was successful in France, Germany, and the United States, but in the United Kingdom it failed to attract an audience and by 1953 was out of print. Its most noteworthy success was in Japan, where it received critical acclaim and sold more than 100,000 copies in its first edition. In Japan, Anne Frank quickly was identified as an important cultural figure who represented the destruction of youth during the war.[76]
+A play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett based upon the diary premiered in New York City on 5 October 1955, and later won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was followed by the film The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), which was a critical and commercial success. Biographer Melissa Müller later wrote that the dramatization had "contributed greatly to the romanticizing, sentimentalizing and universalizing of Anne's story."[77] Over the years the popularity of the diary grew, and in many schools, particularly in the United States, it was included as part of the curriculum, introducing Anne Frank to new generations of readers.[78]
+In 1986 the Dutch Institute for War Documentation published the "Critical Edition" of the diary. It includes comparisons from all known versions, both edited and unedited. It includes discussion asserting the diary's authentication, as well as additional historical information relating to the family and the diary itself.[79]
+Cornelis Suijk—a former director of the Anne Frank Foundation and president of the U.S. Center for Holocaust Education Foundation—announced in 1999 that he was in the possession of five pages that had been removed by Otto Frank from the diary prior to publication; Suijk claimed that Otto Frank gave these pages to him shortly before his death in 1980. The missing diary entries contain critical remarks by Anne Frank about her parents' strained marriage and discuss Frank's lack of affection for her mother.[80] Some controversy ensued when Suijk claimed publishing rights over the five pages; he intended to sell them to raise money for his foundation. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, the formal owner of the manuscript, demanded the pages be handed over. In 2000 the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science agreed to donate US$300,000 to Suijk's foundation, and the pages were returned in 2001. Since then, they have been included in new editions of the diary.[81]
+The diary has been praised for its literary merits. Commenting on Anne Frank's writing style, the dramatist Meyer Levin commended Frank for "sustaining the tension of a well-constructed novel",[82] and was so impressed by the quality of her work that he collaborated with Otto Frank on a dramatization of the diary shortly after its publication.[83] Levin became obsessed with Anne Frank, which he wrote about in his autobiography The Obsession. The poet John Berryman called the book a unique depiction, not merely of adolescence but of the "conversion of a child into a person as it is happening in a precise, confident, economical style stunning in its honesty".[84]
+In her introduction to the diary's first American edition, Eleanor Roosevelt described it as "one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever read."[85] John F. Kennedy discussed Anne Frank in a 1961 speech, and said, "Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank."[86][87] In the same year, the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg wrote of her: "one voice speaks for six million—the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl."[88]
+As Anne Frank's stature as both a writer and humanist has grown, she has been discussed specifically as a symbol of the Holocaust and more broadly as a representative of persecution.[89] Hillary Clinton, in her acceptance speech for an Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award in 1994, read from Anne Frank's diary and spoke of her "awakening us to the folly of indifference and the terrible toll it takes on our young," which Clinton related to contemporary events in Sarajevo, Somalia and Rwanda.[90] After receiving a humanitarian award from the Anne Frank Foundation in 1994, Nelson Mandela addressed a crowd in Johannesburg, saying he had read Anne Frank's diary while in prison and "derived much encouragement from it." He likened her struggle against Nazism to his struggle against apartheid, drawing a parallel between the two philosophies: "Because these beliefs are patently false, and because they were, and will always be, challenged by the likes of Anne Frank, they are bound to fail."[91] Also in 1994, Václav Havel said "Anne Frank's legacy is very much alive and it can address us fully" in relation to the political and social changes occurring at the time in former Eastern Bloc countries.[86]
+Primo Levi suggested Anne Frank is frequently identified as a single representative of the millions of people who suffered and died as she did because "One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way; if we were capable of taking in all the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live."[86] In her closing message in Müller's biography of Anne Frank, Miep Gies expressed a similar thought, though she attempted to dispel what she felt was a growing misconception that "Anne symbolises the six million victims of the Holocaust", writing: "Anne's life and death were her own individual fate, an individual fate that happened six million times over. Anne cannot, and should not, stand for the many individuals whom the Nazis robbed of their lives ... But her fate helps us grasp the immense loss the world suffered because of the Holocaust."[92]
+Otto Frank spent the remainder of his life as custodian of his daughter's legacy, saying, "It's a strange role. In the normal family relationship, it is the child of the famous parent who has the honour and the burden of continuing the task. In my case the role is reversed." He recalled his publisher's explaining why he thought the diary has been so widely read, with the comment, "he said that the diary encompasses so many areas of life that each reader can find something that moves him personally".[93] Simon Wiesenthal expressed a similar sentiment when he said that the diary had raised more widespread awareness of the Holocaust than had been achieved during the Nuremberg Trials, because "people identified with this child. This was the impact of the Holocaust, this was a family like my family, like your family and so you could understand this."[94]
+In June 1999, Time magazine published a special edition titled "Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century". Anne Frank was selected as one of the "Heroes & Icons", and the writer, Roger Rosenblatt, described her legacy with the comment, "The passions the book ignites suggest that everyone owns Anne Frank, that she has risen above the Holocaust, Judaism, girlhood and even goodness and become a totemic figure of the modern world—the moral individual mind beset by the machinery of destruction, insisting on the right to live and question and hope for the future of human beings." He notes that while her courage and pragmatism are admired, her ability to analyse herself and the quality of her writing are the key components of her appeal. He writes, "The reason for her immortality was basically literary. She was an extraordinarily good writer, for any age, and the quality of her work seemed a direct result of a ruthlessly honest disposition."[95]
+After the diary became widely known in the late 1950s, various allegations against the veracity of the diary and/or its contents appeared, with the earliest published criticisms occurring in Sweden and Norway.[96]
+In 1957, Fria ord ("Free Words"), the magazine of the Swedish neofascist organization National League of Sweden, published an article by Danish author and critic Harald Nielsen, who had previously written antisemitic articles about the Danish-Jewish author Georg Brandes.[97] Among other things, the article claimed that the diary had been written by Meyer Levin.[98]
+In 1958, at a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Vienna, Simon Wiesenthal was challenged by a group of protesters who asserted that Anne Frank had never existed, and who challenged Wiesenthal to prove her existence by finding the man who had arrested her. Wiesenthal indeed began searching for Karl Silberbauer and found him in 1963. When interviewed, Silberbauer admitted his role, and identified Anne Frank from a photograph as one of the people arrested. Silberbauer provided a full account of events, even recalling emptying a briefcase full of papers onto the floor. His statement corroborated the version of events that had previously been presented by witnesses such as Otto Frank.[99]
+In 1959, Otto Frank took legal action in Lübeck against Lothar Stielau, a school teacher and former Hitler Youth member who published a school paper that described the diary as "a forgery". The complaint was extended to include Heinrich Buddegerg, who wrote a letter in support of Stielau, which was published in a Lübeck newspaper. The court examined the diary in 1960 and authenticated the handwriting as matching that in letters known to have been written by Anne Frank. They declared the diary to be genuine. Stielau recanted his earlier statement, and Otto Frank did not pursue the case any further.[98]
+In 1976, Otto Frank took action against Heinz Roth of Frankfurt, who published pamphlets stating that the diary was "a forgery". The judge ruled that if Roth  was to publish any further statements he would be subjected to a fine of 500,000 German marks and a six-month jail sentence. Roth appealed against the court's decision. He died in 1978, and after a year his appeal was rejected.[98]
+Otto Frank mounted a lawsuit in 1976 against Ernst Römer, who distributed a pamphlet titled "The Diary of Anne Frank, Bestseller, A Lie". When a man named Edgar Geiss distributed the same pamphlet in the courtroom, he too was prosecuted. Römer was fined 1,500 Deutschmarks,[98] and Geiss was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The sentence of Geiss was reduced on appeal, and the case was eventually dropped following a subsequent appeal because the time limit for filing a libel case had expired.[100]
+With Otto Frank's death in 1980, the original diary, including letters and loose sheets, was willed to the Dutch Institute for War Documentation,[101] which commissioned a forensic study of the diary through the Netherlands Ministry of Justice in 1986. They examined the handwriting against known examples and found that they matched. They determined that the paper, glue, and ink were readily available during the time the diary was said to have been written. They concluded that the diary is authentic, and their findings were published in what has become known as the "Critical Edition" of the diary.[102] In 1990, the Hamburg Regional Court confirmed the diary's authenticity.[79]
+In 1991, Holocaust deniers Robert Faurisson and Siegfried Verbeke produced a booklet titled "The Diary of Anne Frank: A Critical Approach", in which they revived the allegation that Otto Frank wrote the diary. Purported evidence, as before, included several contradictions in the diary, that the prose style and handwriting were not those of a teenager, and that hiding in the Achterhuis would have been impossible.[103][104] In 1993, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel filed a civil lawsuit to prohibit further distribution of Faurisson and Verbeke's booklet in the Netherlands. In 1998, the Amsterdam District Court ruled in favour of the claimants, forbade any further denial of the authenticity of the diary and unsolicited distribution of publications to that effect, and imposed a penalty of 25,000 guilders per infringement.[105]
+An unabridged edition of Anne Frank's work was published in 1995.[106] This version included Anne's description of her exploration of her own genitalia and her puzzlement regarding sex and childbirth, a passage that had previously been edited out by Otto Frank.[107]
+On 3 May 1957, a group of citizens, including Otto Frank, established the Anne Frank Stichting in an effort to rescue the Prinsengracht building from demolition and to make it accessible to the public. The Anne Frank House opened on 3 May 1960. It consists of the Opekta warehouse and offices and the Achterhuis, all unfurnished so that visitors can walk freely through the rooms. Some personal relics of the former occupants remain, such as movie star photographs glued by Anne to a wall, a section of wallpaper on which Otto Frank marked the height of his growing daughters, and a map on the wall where he recorded the advance of the Allied Forces, all now protected behind acrylic glass. From the small room which was once home to Peter van Pels, a walkway connects the building to its neighbours, also purchased by the Foundation. These other buildings are used to house the diary, as well as rotating exhibits that chronicle aspects of the Holocaust and more contemporary examinations of racial intolerance around the world. One of Amsterdam's main tourist attractions, it received a record 965,000 visitors in 2005. The House provides information via the internet and offers exhibitions that in 2005 travelled to 32 countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.[108]
+In 1963, Otto Frank and his second wife, Elfriede Geiringer-Markovits, set up the Anne Frank Fonds as a charitable foundation, based in Basel, Switzerland. Upon his death, Otto willed the diary's copyright to the Fonds, on the provision that the first 80,000 Swiss francs in income each year was to be distributed to his heirs. The Anne Frank Fonds represents the Frank family. It administers the rights, «inter alia», to the writings of Anne and Otto Frank and to the letters of the Frank family. It is the owner of the rights to translations, editions, compilations, and authorised books about Anne Frank and her family. The Fonds aims to educate young people against racism, and loaned some of Anne Frank's papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington for an exhibition in 2003. Its annual report that year outlined its efforts to contribute on a global level, with support for projects in Germany, Israel, India, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[109]
+In 1997, the Anne Frank Educational Centre (Jugendbegegnungsstätte Anne Frank) was opened in the Dornbusch neighbourhood of Frankfurt, where Frank lived with her family until 1934. The Centre is "a place where both young people and adults can learn about the history of National Socialism and discuss its relevance to today."[110]
+The Merwedeplein apartment, where the Frank family lived from 1933 until 1942, remained privately owned until the 2000s. After becoming the focus of a television documentary, the building—in a serious state of disrepair—was purchased by a Dutch housing corporation. Aided by photographs taken by the Frank family and descriptions in letters written by Anne Frank, it was restored to its 1930s appearance. Teresien da Silva of the Anne Frank House and Frank's cousin, Bernhard "Buddy" Elias, contributed to the restoration project. It opened in 2005. Each year, a writer who is unable to write freely in his or her own country is selected for a year-long tenancy, during which they reside and write in the apartment. The first writer selected was the Algerian novelist and poet El-Mahdi Acherchour.[108]
+Anne Frank is included as one of the topics in the Canon of Dutch History, which was prepared by a committee headed by Frits van Oostrom and presented to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Maria van der Hoeven, in 2006; the Canon is a list of fifty topics that aims to provide a chronological summary of Dutch history to be taught in primary schools and the first two years of secondary school in the Netherlands. A revised version, which still includes her as one of the topics, was presented to the Dutch government on 3 October 2007.
+In June 2007, "Buddy" Elias donated some 25,000 family documents to the Anne Frank House. Among the artefacts are Frank family photographs taken in Germany and the Netherlands and the letter Otto Frank sent his mother in 1945, informing her that his wife and daughters had perished in Nazi concentration camps.[111]
+In November 2007, the Anne Frank tree—by then infected with a fungal disease affecting the tree trunk—was scheduled to be cut down to prevent it from falling on the surrounding buildings. Dutch economist Arnold Heertje said about the tree: "This is not just any tree. The Anne Frank tree is bound up with the persecution of the Jews."[112] The Tree Foundation, a group of tree conservationists, started a civil case to stop the felling of the horse chestnut, which received international media attention. A Dutch court ordered city officials and conservationists to explore alternatives and come to a solution.[113] The parties built a steel construction that was expected to prolong the life of the tree up to 15 years.[112] However, it was only three years later, on 23 August 2010, that gale-force winds blew down the tree.[114] Eleven saplings from the tree were distributed to museums, schools, parks and Holocaust remembrance centres through a project led by the Anne Frank Center USA. The first sapling was planted in April 2013 at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Saplings were also sent to a school in Little Rock, Arkansas, the scene of a desegregation battle; Liberty Park (Manhattan), which honours victims of the September 11 attacks; and other sites in the United States.[115] Another horse chestnut tree honoring Frank was planted in 2010 at Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama.[116]
+Over the years, several films about Anne Frank appeared. Her life and writings have inspired a diverse group of artists and social commentators to make reference to her in literature, popular music, television, and other media. These include The Anne Frank Ballet by Adam Darius,[117] first performed in 1959, and the choral works Annelies (2005)[118] and The Beauty That Still Remains by Marcus Paus (2015).[119] The only known footage of the real Anne Frank comes from a 1941 silent film recorded for her newlywed next-door neighbour. She is seen leaning out of a second-floor window in an attempt to better view the bride and groom. The couple, who survived the war, gave the film to the Anne Frank House.[120]
+In 1999, Time named Anne Frank among the heroes and icons of the 20th century on their list The Most Important People of the Century, stating: "With a diary kept in a secret attic, she braved the Nazis and lent a searing voice to the fight for human dignity".[95] Philip Roth called her the "lost little daughter" of Franz Kafka.[121] Madame Tussauds wax museum unveiled an exhibit featuring a likeness of Anne Frank in 2012.[122] Asteroid 5535 Annefrank was named in her honour in 1995, after having been discovered in 1942.[123]
+One school in Amsterdam is named after Frank, 6e Openbare Montessori Basischool Anne Frank [nl] (No. 6 Montessori Primary School Anne Frank).[124] Multiple schools in the United States and other countries are named after Frank, with the first being Anne Frank Elementary School in Dallas, which opened in 1997.[125] Others are Anne Frank Elementary School in Philadelphia,[126] and Anne Frank Inspire Academy in San Antonio, Texas; the latter opened in 2014.[127]
+Informational notes
+Citations
+Further reading

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+Ouagadougou[2] (/ˌwɑːɡəˈduːɡuː/, Mossi: [ˈwɔɣədəɣʊ], French: [waɡaduɡu]) is the capital of Burkina Faso[3] and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,200,000 in 2015. The city's name is often shortened to Ouaga. The inhabitants are called ouagalais. The spelling of the name Ouagadougou is derived from the French orthography common in former French African colonies.
+Ouagadougou's primary industries are food processing and textiles. It is served by an international airport and is linked by rail to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast and, for freight only, to Kaya. There are several highways linking the city to Niamey, Niger, south to Ghana, and southwest to Ivory Coast. Ouagadougou has one of West Africa's largest markets, which burned down in 2003 and has since reopened with better facilities and improved fire-prevention measures. Other attractions include the National Museum of Burkina Faso, the Moro-Naba Palace (site of the Moro-Naba Ceremony), the National Museum of Music, and several craft markets.
+The name Ouagadougou dates back to the 15th century when the Ninsi tribes inhabited the area.[4] They were in constant conflict until 1441 when Wubri, a Yonyonse hero and an important figure in Burkina Faso's history, led his tribe to victory. He then renamed the area from "Kumbee-Tenga", as the Ninsi had called it, to "Wage sabre soba koumbem tenga", meaning "head war chief's village". Ouagadougou is a Francophone spelling of the name.
+The city became the capital of the Mossi Empire in 1441 and became the permanent residence of the Mossi emperors (Moro-Naba) in 1681.[5] The Moro-Naba Ceremony is still performed every Friday by the Moro-Naba and his court. In 1919 the French made Ouagadougou the capital of the Upper Volta territory (basically the same area as contemporary Burkina Faso). In 1954 the railroad line from Ivory Coast reached the city. Ouagadougou's population doubled from 1954 to 1960 and has been doubling about every ten years since.[5]
+On 15 January 2016, gunmen armed with heavy weapons attacked central Ouagadougou at the Cappuccino restaurant and the Splendid Hotel. 28 people were killed,[6][7] and at least 56 wounded; after a government counterattack, a total of 176 hostages were released[8] the morning after the initial attack. Three of the perpetrators were also killed.
+Ouagadougou, situated on the central plateau (12°24′N 1°30′W / 12.4°N 1.5°W / 12.4; -1.5), grew around the imperial palace of the Mogho Naaba. An administrative centre of colonial rule, it became an important urban centre in the post-colonial era. First the capital of the Mossi Kingdoms and later of Upper Volta and Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou became a veritable communal centre in 1995.
+Ouagadougou's climate is hot semi-arid (BSh) under Köppen-Geiger classification, and closely borders with tropical wet and dry (Aw). The city is part of the Sudano-Sahelian area, with annual rainfall of about 800 mm (31 in). The rainy season stretches from May to October, its height from June to September, with an average temperature of 28 °C (82 °F). The cold season runs from December to January, with a minimum average temperature of 16 °C (61 °F). The maximum temperature during the hot season, which runs from March to May, can reach 43 °C (109 °F). The harmattan (a dry wind) and the monsoon are the two main factors that determine Ouagadougou's climate. Even though Ouagadougou is farther from the equator, its hottest months' temperatures are slightly hotter than those of Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second most populous city.
+Ouagadougou's first municipal elections were held in 1956.[citation needed] The city is governed by a mayor who is elected to a five-year term, two senior councillors, and 90 councillors.
+The city is divided into five arrondissements, consisting of 30 sectors, which are subdivided into districts. Districts of Ouagadougou include Gounghin, Kamsaoghin, Koulouba, Moemmin, Niogsin, Paspanga, Peuloghin, Bilbalogho, and Tiendpalogo. Seventeen villages comprise the Ouagadougou metropolitan area, which is about 219.3 km2 (84.7 sq mi).
+The population of this area is estimated at 1,475,000, 48% of whom are men and 52% women. The rural population is about 5% and the urban population about 95% of the total, and the density is 6,727 inhabitants per square kilometre, according to the 2006 census.
+Ouagadougou's communes have invested in huge city-management projects. This is largely because Ouagadougou constitutes a 'cultural centre' by merit of holding the SIAO (International Arts and Crafts fair) and the FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou). Moreover, the villages' growing affluence allows for such investment, and the population's rapid growth necessitates it.[13]
+Though literacy in Ouagadougou is not high, there are three universities in the city. The largest is the state University of Ouagadougou, which was founded in 1974. In 2010 it had around 40,000 students (83% of the national population of university students).[15]
+The city's official language is French and the principal local languages are More, Dyula and Fulfulde. The bilingual program in schools (French plus one of the local languages) was established in 1994.[13]
+International schools include:
+Ouagadougou's inhabitants play a wide array of sports, including association football, basketball, and volleyball. There are tournaments and activities organized by the local authorities. The Stade du 4-Août is the home of Étoile Filante de Ouagadougou, the city's main Football team.
+Ouagadougou has both state and private hospitals. The two state hospitals in the city are the Centre hospitalier national Yalgado Ouedraogo (CHNYO) and the Centre hospitalier national pédiatrique Charles de Gaulle (CHNP-CDG). Despite that, the local population still largely can only afford traditional local medicine and the "pharmacopée".[13]
+Many residents travel on motorcycles and mopeds. The large private vendor of motorcycles JC Megamonde sells 50,000 motorbikes and mopeds every year.[5]
+Ouagadougou's citizens also travel in green cabs, which take their passengers anywhere in town for 200 to 400 CFA, but the price is higher after 10:00 pm and can then reach 1000 CFA.[citation needed]
+Ouagadougou Airport (code OUA) serves the area with flights to West Africa and Europe. Air Burkina has its head office in the Air Burkina Storey Building (French: Immeuble Air Burkina) in Ouagadougou.[16][17]
+Ouagadougou is connected by passenger rail service to Bobo-Dioulasso, Koudougou and Ivory Coast. As of June 2014, Sitarail operates a passenger train three times a week along the route from Ouagadougou to Abidjan.[18] There are freight services to Kaya in the north of Burkina Faso and in 2014 plans were announced to revive freight services to the Manganese mine at Tambao starting in 2016.[19]
+The economy of Ouagadougou is based on industry and commerce. Some industrial facilities have relocated from Bobo-Dioulasso to Ouagadougou, which has made the city an important industrial centre of Burkina Faso. The industrial areas of Kossodo and Gounghin are home to several processing plants and factories. The industry of Ouagadougou is sector that fuels urban growth, as people move to the city from the countryside to find employment in industry.[20] The Copromof workshop in Ouagadougou sews cotton lingerie for the French label "Atelier Augusti."[21]
+Ouagadougou is an important commercial centre. It is a centre where goods are collected and directed to rural areas. With a large consumer base, large amounts of energy sources, raw materials for buildings, agricultural products and livestock products are imported to the city.[20]
+The economy is dominated by the informal sector, which is characterized by petty commodity production, and workers not necessarily having salaries. Traditional, informal trade is widespread and concentrated around markets and major roads, as well as in outlets in neighborhoods. There are also instances of modern economic practices with workplaces having qualified, stable labor forces, or more traditional forms of business such as family businesses.[20]
+The tertiary sector is also an important part of the economy. This comprises communications, banking, transport, bars, restaurants, hotels, as well as administrative jobs.[20]
+Ouagadougou is twinned with following cities:
+The Bangr-Weoogo urban park (area: 2.63 km2 (1 sq mi)), before colonialism, belonged to the Mosse chiefs. Considering it a sacred forest, many went there for traditional initiations or for refuge. The French colonists, disregarding its local significance and history, established it as a park in the 1930s. In 1985, renovations were done in the park. In January 2001, the park was renamed "Parc Urbain Bangr-Weoogo", meaning "the urban park of the forest of knowledge".
+Another notable park in Ouagadougou is the "L'Unité Pédagogique", which shelters animals in a semi-free state. This botanic garden/biosphere system stretches over 8 hectares (20 acres) and also serves as a museum for the country's history.
+"Jardin de l'amitié Ouaga-Loudun" (Garden of Ouaga-Loudun Friendship), with a green space that was renovated in 1996, is a symbol of the twin-city relationship between Ouagadougou and Loudun in France. It is situated in the centre of the city, near the "Nation Unies' crossroads".
+There are a number of cultural and art venues, such as the Maison du Peuple and Salle des Banquets, in addition to performances of many genres of music, including traditional folk music, modern music, and rap.[13]
+Several international festivals and activities are organized within the municipality, such as FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), which is Africa's largest festival of this type, SIAO (International Art and Craft Fair), FESPAM (Pan-African Music Festival), FITMO (International Theatre and Marionnette Festival) and FESTIVO.[13][25]
+Among the places of worship, they are predominantly Muslim mosques.[26] There are also Christian churches and temples : Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ouagadougou (Catholic Church),  Association of Reformed Evangelical Church of Burkina Faso (World Communion of Reformed Churches), Assemblies of God, Deeper Life Bible Church, International Evangelism Center).

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+Coordinates: 1°N 32°E / 1°N 32°E / 1; 32
+Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Uganda[1]), is a landlocked country in East-Central Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region. Uganda also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally a modified equatorial climate.
+Uganda takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south of the country, including the capital Kampala. The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago, when Bantu-speaking populations migrated to the southern parts of the country.
+Beginning in 1894, the area was ruled as a protectorate by the UK, who established administrative law across the territory. Uganda gained independence from the UK on 9 October 1962. The period since then has been marked by violent conflicts, including an eight-year-long military dictatorship led by Idi Amin. Additionally, a lengthy civil war against the Lord's Resistance Army in the Northern Region led by Joseph Kony, has caused hundreds of thousands of casualties.[10]
+The official languages are English and Swahili, although "any other language may be used as a medium of instruction in schools or other educational institutions or for legislative, administrative or judicial purposes as may be prescribed by law."[2][11] Luganda, a central language, is widely spoken across the country, and several other languages are also spoken, including Lango, Acholi, Runyoro, Runyankole, Rukiga, Luo[3] and Lusoga.
+The current president of Uganda is Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who came to power in January 1986 after a protracted six-year guerrilla war. Following constitutional amendments that removed term limits for the president, he was able to stand and was elected president of Uganda in the 2011 and in the 2016 general elections.[12]
+The residents of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700–2,300 years ago. Bantu-speaking populations, who were probably from central Africa, migrated to the southern parts of the country.[13][14]
+According to oral tradition, the Empire of Kitara covered an important part of the great lakes area, from the northern lakes Albert and Kyoga to the southern lakes Victoria and Tanganyika.[15] Bunyoro-Kitara is claimed as the antecedent of the Buganda, Toro, Ankole, and Busoga kingdoms.[16]
+Some Luo invaded the area of Bunyoro and assimilated with the Bantu there, establishing the Babiito dynasty of the current Omukama (ruler) of Bunyoro-Kitara.[17]
+Arab traders moved inland from the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa in the 1830s. They were followed in the 1860s by British explorers searching for the source of the Nile.[18]:151 British Anglican missionaries arrived in the kingdom of Buganda in 1877 (a situation which gave rise to the death of the Uganda Martyrs) and were followed by French Catholic missionaries in 1879.[19] The British government chartered the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) to negotiate trade agreements in the region beginning in 1888.[20]:51–58 From 1886, there were a series of religious wars in Buganda, initially between Muslims and Christians and then, from 1890, between ba-Ingleza Protestants and ba-Fransa Catholics.[21] Because of civil unrest and financial burdens, IBEAC claimed that it was unable to "maintain their occupation" in the region.[22] British commercial interests were ardent to protect the trade route of the Nile, which prompted the British government to annexe Buganda and adjoining territories to create the Uganda Protectorate in 1894.[20]:3–4[23]
+In the 1890s, 32,000 labourers from British India were recruited to East Africa under indentured labour contracts to construct the Uganda Railway.[24] Most of the surviving Indians returned home, but 6,724 decided to remain in East Africa after the line's completion.[25] Subsequently, some became traders and took control of cotton ginning and sartorial retail.[26]
+From 1900 to 1920, a sleeping sickness epidemic in the southern part of Uganda, along the north shores of Lake Victoria, killed more than 250,000 people.[27]
+Uganda gained independence from the UK on 9 October 1962 with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and Queen of Uganda. In October 1963, Uganda became a republic but maintained its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations.
+The first post-independence election, held in 1962, was won by an alliance between the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) and Kabaka Yekka (KY). UPC and KY formed the first post-independence government with Milton Obote as executive prime minister, with the Buganda Kabaka (King) Edward Muteesa II holding the largely ceremonial position of president.[28][29]
+Uganda's immediate post-independence years were dominated by the relationship between the central government and the largest regional kingdom – Buganda.[30]
+From the moment the British created the Uganda protectorate, the issue of how to manage the largest monarchy within the framework of a unitary state had always been a problem. Colonial governors had failed to come up with a formula that worked. This was further complicated by Buganda's nonchalant attitude to its relationship with the central government. Buganda never sought independence, but rather appeared to be comfortable with a loose arrangement that guaranteed them privileges above the other subjects within the protectorate or a special status when the British left. This was evidenced in part by hostilities between the British colonial authorities and Buganda prior to independence.[31]
+Within Buganda there were divisions – between those who wanted the Kabaka to remain a dominant monarch, and those who wanted to join with the rest of Uganda to create a modern secular state. The split resulted in the creation of two dominant Buganda based parties – the Kabaka Yekka (Kabaka Only) KY, and the Democratic Party (DP) that had roots in the Catholic Church. The bitterness between these two parties was extremely intense especially as the first elections for the post-Colonial parliament approached. The Kabaka particularly disliked the DP leader, Benedicto Kiwanuka.[32]
+Outside Buganda, a quiet-spoken politician from Northern Uganda, Milton Obote, had forged an alliance of non-Buganda politicians to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). The UPC at its heart was dominated by politicians who wanted to rectify what they saw as the regional inequality that favoured Buganda's special status. This drew in substantial support from outside Buganda. The party however remained a loose alliance of interests but Obote showed great skill at negotiating them into a common ground based on a federal formula.[33]
+At Independence, the Buganda question remained unresolved. Uganda was one of the few colonial territories that achieved independence without a dominant political party with a clear majority in parliament. In the pre-Independence elections, the UPC ran no candidates in Buganda and won 37 of the 61 directly elected seats (outside Buganda). The DP won 24 seats outside Buganda. The "special status" granted to Buganda meant that the 21 Buganda seats were elected by proportional representation reflecting the elections to the Buganda parliament – the Lukikko. KY won a resounding victory over DP, winning all 21 seats.
+The UPC reached a high at the end of 1964 when the leader of the DP in parliament, Basil Kiiza Bataringaya crossed the parliamentary floor with five other MPs, leaving DP with only nine seats. The DP MPs were not particularly happy that their leader Benedicto Kiwanuka's hostility towards the Kabaka that was hindering their chances of compromise with KY.[34] The trickle of defections turned into a flood when 10 KY members crossed the floor when they realised the formal coalition with the UPC was no longer viable. Obote's charismatic speeches across the country were sweeping all before him, and the UPC was winning almost every local election held and increasing its control over all district councils and legislatures outside Buganda.[35] The response from the Kabaka was mute – probably content in his ceremonial role and symbolism in his part of the country. However, there were also major divisions within his palace that made it difficult for him to act effectively against Obote. By the time Uganda had become independent, Buganda "was a divided house with contending social and political forces"[36]
+There were however problems brewing inside the UPC. As its ranks swelled, the ethnic, religious, regional and personal interests began to shake the party. The party's apparent strength was eroded in a complex sequence of factional conflicts in its central and regional structures. And by 1966, the UPC was tearing itself apart. The conflicts were further intensified by the newcomers who had crossed the parliamentary floor from DP and KY.[37]
+The UPC delegates arrived in Gulu in 1964 for their delegates conference. Here was the first demonstration as to how Obote was losing control of his party. The battle over the Secretary General of the party was a bitter contest between the new moderate's candidate – Grace Ibingira and the radical John Kakonge. Ibingira subsequently became the symbol of the opposition to Obote within the UPC. This is an important factor when looking at the subsequent events that led to the crisis between Buganda and the Central government. For those outside the UPC (including KY supporters), this was a sign that Obote was vulnerable. Keen observers realised the UPC was not a cohesive unit.[38]
+The collapse of the UPC-KY alliance openly revealed the dissatisfaction Obote and others had about Buganda's "special status". In 1964 The government responded to demands from some parts of the vast Buganda Kingdom that they were not the Kabaka's subjects. Prior to colonial rule Buganda had been rivalled by the neighbouring Bunyoro kingdom. Buganda had conquered parts of Bunyoro and the British colonialists had formalised this in the Buganda Agreements. Known as the "lost counties", the people in these areas wished to revert to being part of Bunyoro. Obote decided to allow a referendum, which angered the Kabaka and most of the rest of Buganda. The residents of the counties voted to return to Bunyoro despite the Kabaka's attempts to influence the vote.[39] Having lost the referendum, KY opposed the bill to pass the counties to Bunyoro, thus ending the alliance with the UPC.
+The tribal nature of Ugandan politics was also manifesting itself in government. The UPC which had previously been a national party began to break along tribal lines when Ibingira challenged Obote in the UPC. The "North/South" ethnic divide that had been evident in economic and social spheres now entrenched itself in politics. Obote surrounded himself with mainly northern politicians – A. A. Neykon, Felix Onama, Alex Ojera – while Ibingira's supporters who were subsequently arrested and jailed with him, were mainly from the South – George Magezi, B. Kirya, Matthias Ngobi. In time, the two factions acquired ethnic labels – "Bantu" (the mainly Southern Ibingira faction) and "Nilotic" (the mainly Northern Obote faction). The perception that the government was at war with the Bantu was further enhanced when Obote arrested and imprisoned the mainly Bantu ministers who backed Ibingira.[40]
+These labels brought into the mix two very powerful influences. First Buganda – the people of Buganda are Bantu and therefore naturally aligned to the Ibingira faction. The Ibingira faction further advanced this alliance by accusing Obote of wanting to overthrow the Kabaka.[40] They were now aligned to opposing Obote. Second – the security forces – the British colonialists had recruited the army and police almost exclusively from Northern Uganda due to their perceived suitability for these roles. At independence, the army and police was dominated by northern tribes – mainly Nilotic. They would now feel more affiliated to Obote, and he took full advantage of this to consolidate his power. In April 1966, Obote passed out eight hundred new army recruits at Moroto, of whom seventy percent came from the Northern Region.[41]
+At the time there was a tendency to perceive central government and security forces as dominated by "northerners" – particularly the Acholi who through the UPC had significant access to government positions at national level.[42] In northern Uganda there were also varied degrees of anti-Buganda feelings, particularly over the kingdom's "special status" before and after independence, and all the economic and social benefits that came with this status. "Obote brought significant numbers of northerners into the central state, both through the civil service and military, and created a patronage machine in Northern Uganda".[42] However, both "Bantu" and "Nilotic" labels represent significant ambiguities. The Bantu category for example includes both Buganda and Bunyoro – historically bitter rivals. The Nilotic label includes the Lugbara, Acholi and Langi who have bitter rivalries that were to define Uganda's military politics later. Despite these ambiguities, these events unwittingly brought to fore the northerner/southerner political divide which to some extent still influences Ugandan politics.
+The UPC fragmentation continued as opponents sensed Obote's vulnerability. At local level where the UPC dominated most councils discontent began to challenge incumbent council leaders. Even in Obote's home district, attempts were made to oust the head of the local district council in 1966. A more worrying fact for the UPC was that the next national elections loomed in 1967 – and without the support of KY (who were now likely to back the DP), and the growing factionalism in the UPC, there was the real possibility that the UPC would be out of power in months.
+Obote went after KY with a new act of parliament in early 1966 that blocked any attempt by KY to expand outside Buganda. KY appeared to respond in parliament through one of their few remaining MPs, the terminally ill Daudi Ochieng. Ochieng was an irony – although from Northern Uganda, he had risen high in the ranks of KY and become a close confidant to the Kabaka who had gifted him with large land titles in Buganda. In Obote's absence from Parliament, Ochieng laid bare the illegal plundering of ivory and gold from the Congo that had been orchestrated by Obote's army chief of staff, Colonel Idi Amin. He further alleged that Obote, Onama and Neykon had all benefited from the scheme.[43] Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favour of a motion to censure Amin and investigate Obote's involvement. This shook the government and raised tensions in the country.
+KY further demonstrated its ability to challenge Obote from within his party at the UPC Buganda conference where Godfrey Binaisa (the Attorney General) was ousted by a faction believed to have the backing of KY, Ibingira and other anti-Obote elements in Buganda.[36] Obote's response was to arrest Ibingira and other ministers at a cabinet meeting and to assume special powers in February 1966. In March 1966, Obote also announced that the offices of President and Vice-President would cease to exist – effectively dismissing the Kabaka. Obote also gave Amin more power – giving him the Army Commander position over the previous holder (Opolot) who had relations to Buganda through marriage (possibly believing Opolot would be reluctant to take military action against the Kabaka if it came to that). Obote abolished the constitution and effectively suspended elections due in a few months. Obote went on television and radio to accuse the Kabaka of various offences including requesting foreign troops which appears to have been explored by the Kabaka following the rumours of Amin plotting a coup.
+Obote further dismantled the authority of the Kabaka by announcing among other measures:
+The lines were now drawn for a show down between Buganda and the Central government. Historians may argue about whether this could have been avoided through compromise. This was unlikely as Obote now felt emboldened and saw the Kabaka as weak. Indeed, by accepting the presidency four years earlier and siding with the UPC, the Kabaka had divided his people and taken the side of one against the other. Within Buganda's political institutions, rivalries driven by religion and personal ambition made the institutions ineffective and unable to respond to the central government moves. The Kabaka was often regarded as aloof and unresponsive to advice from the younger Buganda politicians who better understood the new post-Independence politics, unlike the traditionalists who were ambivalent to what was going on as long as their traditional benefits were maintained. The Kabaka favoured the neo-traditionalists.[44]
+In May 1966, the Kabaka made his move. He asked for foreign help and the Buganda parliament demanded that the Uganda government leave Buganda (including the capital, Kampala). In response Obote ordered Idi Amin to attack the Kabaka's palace. The battle for the Kabaka's palace was fierce – the Kabaka's guards putting up more resistance that had been expected. The British trained Captain – the Kabaka with about 120 armed men kept Idi Amin at bay for twelve hours.[45] It is estimated that up to 2,000 people died in the battle which ended when the army called in heavier guns and overran the palace. The anticipated countryside uprising in Buganda did not materialise and a few hours later a beaming Obote met the press to relish his victory. The Kabaka escaped over the palace walls and was transported into exile in London by supporters. He died there three years later.
+In 1966, following a power struggle between the Obote-led government and King Muteesa, Obote suspended the constitution and removed the ceremonial president and vice-president. In 1967, a new constitution proclaimed Uganda a republic and abolished the traditional kingdoms. Obote was declared the president.[19]
+After a military coup on 25 January 1971, Obote was deposed from power and General Idi Amin seized control of the country. Amin ruled Uganda as dictator with the support of the military for the next eight years.[46] He carried out mass killings within the country to maintain his rule. An estimated 80,000–500,000 Ugandans lost their lives during his regime.[47] Aside from his brutalities, he forcibly removed the entrepreneurial Indian minority from Uganda.
+[48] In June 1976, Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France flight and forced it to land at Entebbe airport. One hundred of the 250 passengers originally on board were held hostage until an Israeli commando raid rescued them ten days later.[49] Amin's reign was ended after the Uganda-Tanzania War in 1979, in which Tanzanian forces aided by Ugandan exiles invaded Uganda.
+Yoweri Museveni has been president since his forces toppled the previous regime in January 1986.
+Political parties in Uganda were restricted in their activities beginning that year, in a measure ostensibly designed to reduce sectarian violence. In the non-party "Movement" system instituted by Museveni, political parties continued to exist, but they could operate only a headquarters office. They could not open branches, hold rallies, or field candidates directly (although electoral candidates could belong to political parties). A constitutional referendum cancelled this nineteen-year ban on multi-party politics in July 2005.
+In the mid-to-late 1990s, Museveni was lauded by western countries as part of a new generation of African leaders.[51]
+His presidency has been marred, however, by invading and occupying the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Second Congo War, resulting in an estimated 5.4 million deaths since 1998, and by participating in other conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa. He has struggled for years in the civil war against the Lord's Resistance Army, which has been guilty of numerous crimes against humanity, including child slavery, the Atiak massacre, and other mass murders. Conflict in northern Uganda has killed thousands and displaced millions.[52]
+Parliament abolished presidential term limits in 2005, allegedly because Museveni used public funds to pay US$2,000 to each member of parliament who supported the measure.[53] Presidential elections were held in February 2006. Museveni ran against several candidates, the most prominent of them being Kizza Besigye.
+On 20 February 2011, the Uganda Electoral Commission declared the incumbent president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni the winning candidate of the 2011 elections that were held on 18 February 2011. The opposition however, were not satisfied with the results, condemning them as full of sham and rigging. According to the official results, Museveni won with 68 percent of the votes. This easily topped his nearest challenger, Besigye, who had been Museveni's physician and told reporters that he and his supporters "downrightly snub" the outcome as well as the unremitting rule of Museveni or any person he may appoint. Besigye added that the rigged elections would definitely lead to an illegitimate leadership and that it is up to Ugandans to critically analyse this. The European Union's Election Observation Mission reported on improvements and flaws of the Ugandan electoral process: "The electoral campaign and polling day were conducted in a peaceful manner [...] However, the electoral process was marred by avoidable administrative and logistical failures that led to an unacceptable number of Ugandan citizens being disfranchised."[54]
+Since August 2012, hacktivist group Anonymous has threatened Ugandan officials and hacked official government websites over its anti-gay bills.[55] Some international donors have threatened to cut financial aid to the country if anti-gay bills continue.[56]
+Indicators of a plan for succession by the president's son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, have increased tensions.[57][58][59][60]
+The country is located on the East African Plateau, lying mostly between latitudes 4°N and 2°S (a small area is north of 4°), and longitudes 29° and 35°E. It averages about 1,100 metres (3,609 ft) above sea level, sloping very steadily downwards to the Sudanese Plain to the north. Some international trade organisations categorize Kenya as part of the Greater Horn of Africa[61]
+Much of the south of the country is heavily influenced by one of the world's biggest lakes, Lake Victoria, which contains many islands. Most important cities are located in the south, near this lake, including the capital Kampala and the nearby city of Entebbe.[62]
+Lake Kyoga is in the centre of the country and is surrounded by extensive marshy areas.[63]
+Although landlocked, Uganda contains many large lakes. Besides Lakes Victoria and Kyoga, there are Lake Albert, Lake Edward, and the smaller Lake George.[62]
+Uganda lies almost completely within the Nile basin. The Victoria Nile drains from Lake Victoria into Lake Kyoga and thence into Lake Albert on the Congolese border. It then runs northwards into South Sudan. An area in eastern Uganda is drained by the Suam River, part of the internal drainage basin of Lake Turkana. The extreme north-eastern part of Uganda drains into the Lotikipi Basin, which is primarily in Kenya.[62]
+Uganda has 60 protected areas, including ten national parks: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Rwenzori Mountains National Park (both UNESCO World Heritage Sites[64]), Kibale National Park, Kidepo Valley National Park, Lake Mburo National Park, Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, Mount Elgon National Park, Murchison Falls National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, and Semuliki National Park.
+The President of Uganda is both head of state and head of government. The president appoints a vice-president and a prime minister to aid him in governing.
+The parliament is formed by the National Assembly, which has 449 members. These include; 290 constituency representatives, 116 district woman representatives, 10 representatives of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces, 5 representatives of the youth, 5 representatives of workers, 5 representatives of persons with disabilities and 18 ex-official members.
+Transparency International has rated Uganda's public sector as one of the most corrupt in the world. In 2016, Uganda ranked 151st worst out of 176 and had a score of 25 on a scale from 0 (perceived as most corrupt) to 100 (perceived as clean).[65]
+The World Bank's 2015 Worldwide Governance Indicators ranked Uganda in the worst 12 percentile of all countries.[66] According to the United States Department of State's 2012 Human Rights Report on Uganda, "The World Bank's most recent Worldwide Governance Indicators reflected corruption was a severe problem" and that "the country annually loses 768.9 billion shillings ($286 million) to corruption."[59]
+Ugandan parliamentarians in 2014 earned 60 times what was earned by most state employees, and they sought a major increase. This caused widespread criticism and protests, including the smuggling of two piglets into the parliament in June 2014 to highlight corruption amongst members of parliament. The protesters, who were arrested, used the word "MPigs" to highlight their grievance.[67]
+A specific scandal, which had significant international consequences and highlighted the presence of corruption in high-level government offices, was the embezzlement of $12.6 million of donor funds from the Office of the Prime Minister in 2012. These funds were "earmarked as crucial support for rebuilding northern Uganda, ravaged by a 20-year war, and Karamoja, Uganda's poorest region." This scandal prompted the EU, the UK, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Norway to suspend aid.[68]
+Widespread grand and petty corruption involving public officials and political patronage systems have also seriously affected the investment climate in Uganda. One of the high corruption risk areas is the public procurement in which non-transparent under-the-table cash payments are often demanded from procurement officers.[69]
+What may ultimately compound this problem is the availability of oil. The Petroleum Bill, passed by parliament in 2012 and touted by the NRM as bringing transparency to the oil sector, has failed to please domestic and international political commentators and economists. For instance, Angelo Izama, a Ugandan energy analyst at the US-based Open Society Foundation said the new law was tantamount to "handing over an ATM (cash) machine" to Museveni and his regime.[70] According to Global Witness in 2012, a non-governmental organisation devoted to international law, Uganda now has "oil reserves that have the potential to double the government's revenue within six to ten years, worth an estimated US $2.4 billion per year."[71]
+The Non-Governmental Organizations (Amendment) Act, passed in 2006, has stifled the productivity of NGOs through erecting barriers to entry, activity, funding and assembly within the sector. Burdensome and corrupt registration procedures (i.e. requiring recommendations from government officials; annual re-registration), unreasonable regulation of operations (i.e. requiring government notification prior to making contact with individuals in NGO's area of interest), and the precondition that all foreign funds be passed through the Bank of Uganda, among other things, are severely limiting the output of the NGO sector. Furthermore, the sector's freedom of speech has been continually infringed upon through the use of intimidation, and the recent Public Order Management Bill (severely limiting freedom of assembly) will only add to the government's stockpile of ammunition.[72]
+As of 2018, Uganda is divided into 121 districts.[73][74] Rural areas of districts are subdivided into sub-counties, parishes, and villages. Municipal and town councils are designated in urban areas of districts.[75]
+Political subdivisions in Uganda are officially served and united by the Uganda Local Governments Association (ULGA), a voluntary and non-profit body which also serves as a forum for support and guidance for Ugandan sub-national governments.[76]
+Parallel with the state administration, five traditional Bantu kingdoms have remained, enjoying some degrees of mainly cultural autonomy. The kingdoms are Toro, Busoga, Bunyoro, Buganda, and Rwenzururu. Furthermore, some groups attempt to restore Ankole as one of the officially recognised traditional kingdoms, to no avail yet.[77] Several other kingdoms and chiefdoms are officially recognised by the government, including the union of Alur chiefdoms, the Iteso paramount chieftaincy, the paramount chieftaincy of Lango and the Padhola state.[78]
+In Uganda, the Uganda People's Defence Force serves as the military. The number of military personnel in Uganda is estimated at 45,000 soldiers on active duty. The Uganda army is involved in several peacekeeping and combat missions in the region, with commentators noting that only the United States Armed Forces is deployed in more countries. Uganda has soldiers deployed in the northern and eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Central African Republic, Somalia, and South Sudan.[79] Uganda is also a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.[80]
+There are many areas which continue to attract concern when it comes to human rights in Uganda.
+Conflict in the northern parts of the country continues to generate reports of abuses by both the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, and the Ugandan Army. A UN official accused the LRA in February 2009 of "appalling brutality" in the Democratic Republic of Congo.[81]
+The number of internally displaced persons is estimated at 1.4 million. Torture continues to be a widespread practice amongst security organisations. Attacks on political freedom in the country, including the arrest and beating of opposition members of parliament, have led to international criticism, culminating in May 2005 in a decision by the British government to withhold part of its aid to the country. The arrest of the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye and the siege of the High Court during a hearing of Besigye's case by heavily armed security forces – before the February 2006 elections – led to condemnation.[82]
+Child labour is common in Uganda. Many child workers are active in agriculture.[83] Children who work on tobacco farms
+in Uganda are exposed to health hazards.[83] Child domestic servants in Uganda risk sexual abuse.[83] Trafficking of children occurs.[83] Slavery
+and forced labour are prohibited by the Ugandan constitution.[83]
+The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants reported several violations of refugee rights in 2007, including forcible deportations by the Ugandan government and violence directed against refugees.[84]
+Torture and extrajudicial killings have been a pervasive problem in Uganda in recent years. For instance, according to a 2012 US State Department report, "the African Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation for Torture Victims registered 170 allegations of torture against police, 214 against the UPDF, 1 against military police, 23 against the Special Investigations Unit, 361 against unspecified security personnel, and 24 against prison officials" between January and September 2012.[59]
+In September 2009 Museveni refused Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi, the Baganda king, permission to visit some areas of Buganda Kingdom, particularly the Kayunga district. Riots occurred and over 40 people were killed while others remain imprisoned to this date. Furthermore, 9 more people were killed during the April 2011 "Walk to Work" demonstrations. According to the Humans Rights Watch 2013 World Report on Uganda, the government has failed to investigate the killings associated with both of these events.[85]
+In 2007, a Ugandan newspaper, the Red Pepper, published a list of allegedly gay men, many of whom suffered harassment as a result.[86]
+On 9 October 2010, the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone published a front-page article titled "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak" that listed the names, addresses, and photographs of 100 homosexuals alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them".[87] The paper also alleged that homosexuals aimed to recruit Ugandan children. This publication attracted international attention and criticism from human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International,[88] No Peace Without Justice[89] and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.[90] According to gay rights activists, many Ugandans have been attacked since the publication.[91] On 27 January 2011, gay rights activist David Kato was murdered.[92]
+In 2009, the Ugandan parliament considered an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would have broadened the criminalisation of homosexuality by introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions, or are HIV-positive, and engage in same-sex sexual acts. The bill also included provisions for Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations outside of Uganda, asserting that they may be extradited back to Uganda for punishment, and included penalties for individuals, companies, media organisations, or non-governmental organisations that support legal protection for homosexuality or sodomy. The private member's bill was submitted by MP David Bahati in Uganda on 14 October 2009, and was believed to have had widespread support in the Uganda parliament.[93] The hacktivist group Anonymous hacked into Ugandan government websites in protest of the bill.[94] The debate of the bill was delayed in response to global condemnation but was eventually passed on 20 December 2013 and signed by President Yoweri Museveni on 24 February 2014. The death penalty was dropped in the final legislation. The law was widely condemned by the international community. Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden said they would withhold aid. The World Bank on 28 February 2014 said it would postpone a US$90 million loan, while the United States said it was reviewing ties with Uganda.[95] On 1 August 2014, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the bill invalid as it was not passed with the required quorum.[96][97][98] A 13 August 2014 news report said that the Ugandan attorney general had dropped all plans to appeal, per a directive from President Museveni who was concerned about foreign reaction to the bill and who also said that any newly introduced bill should not criminalise same-sex relationships between consenting adults.[99] Progress on the continent of Africa has been slow but progressing with South Africa being the only country where same sex marriages are recognised.[100]
+The Bank of Uganda is the central bank of Uganda and handles monetary policy along with the printing of the Ugandan shilling.[101]
+In 2015, Uganda's economy generated export income from the following merchandise: coffee (US$402.63 million), oil re-exports (US$131.25 million), base metals and products (US$120.00 million), fish (US$117.56 million), maize (US$90.97 million), cement (US$80.13 million), tobacco (US$73.13 million), tea (US$69.94 million), sugar (US$66.43 million), hides and skins (US$62.71 million), cocoa beans (US$55.67 million), beans (US$53.88 million), simsim (US$52.20 million), flowers (US$51.44 million), and other products (US$766.77 million).[102]
+The country has been experiencing consistent economic growth. In fiscal year 2015–16, Uganda recorded gross domestic product growth of 4.6 percent in real terms and 11.6 percent in nominal terms. This compares to 5.0 percent real growth in fiscal year 2014–15.[103]:vii
+The country has largely untapped reserves of both crude oil and natural gas.[104] While agriculture accounted for 56 percent of the economy in 1986, with coffee as its main export, it has now been surpassed by the services sector, which accounted for 52 percent of GDP in 2007.[105] In the 1950s, the British colonial regime encouraged some 500,000 subsistence farmers to join co-operatives.[106] Since 1986, the government (with the support of foreign countries and international agencies) has acted to rehabilitate an economy devastated during the regime of Idi Amin and the subsequent civil war.[3]
+In 2012, the World Bank still listed Uganda on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries list.[107]
+Economic growth has not always led to poverty reduction. Despite an average annual growth of 2.5 percent between 2000 and 2003, poverty levels increased by 3.8 percent during that time.[108] This has highlighted the importance of avoiding jobless growth and is part of the rising awareness in development circles of the need for equitable growth not just in Uganda, but across the developing world.[108]
+With the Uganda securities exchanges established in 1996, several equities have been listed. The government has used the stock market as an avenue for privatisation. All government treasury issues are listed on the securities exchange. The Capital Markets Authority has licensed 18 brokers, asset managers, and investment advisors including: African Alliance Investment Bank, Baroda Capital Markets Uganda Limited, Crane Financial Services Uganda Limited, Crested Stocks and Securities Limited, Dyer & Blair Investment Bank, Equity Stock Brokers Uganda Limited, Renaissance Capital Investment Bank and UAP Financial Services Limited.[109] As one of the ways of increasing formal domestic savings, pension sector reform is the centre of attention (2007).[110][111]
+Uganda traditionally depends on Kenya for access to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. Efforts have intensified to establish a second access route to the sea via the lakeside ports of Bukasa in Uganda and Musoma in Tanzania, connected by railway to Arusha in the Tanzanian interior and to the port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean.[112]
+Uganda is a member of the East African Community and a potential member of the planned East African Federation.
+Uganda has a large diaspora, residing mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom. This diaspora has contributed enormously to Uganda's economic growth through remittances and other investments (especially property). According to the World Bank, Uganda received in 2016 an estimated US$1.099 billion in remittances from abroad, second only to Kenya (US$1.574 billion) in the East African Community.[113] Uganda also serves as an economic hub for a number of neighbouring countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[114] South Sudan,[115] and Rwanda.[116]
+The Ugandan Bureau of Statistics announced inflation was 4.6 percent in November 2016.[117] On 29 June 2018, Uganda's statistics agency said the country registered a drop in inflation to 3.4 percent in the financial year ending 2017/18 compared to the 5.7 percent recorded in the financial year 2016/17.[118]
+Uganda ranked as number 102 among the countries of the world in nominal Gross Domestic Product by the International Monetary Fund with a GDP of 26,349 (US$million).[119] The World Bank ranked Uganda as number 99 in nominal GDP with a GDP of 25,891 (US$million).[120]
+Based on the GDP with purchasing power parity the IMF ranked Uganda as number 86 (91,212 million of current Int$) and the World Bank ranked them 90 (79,889 million of current Int$).[119][120]
+Since the 1990s, the economy in Uganda is growing. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average of 6.7% annually during the period 1990–2015, whereas real GDP per capita grew at 3.3% per annum during the same period.[121]
+Uganda is one of the poorest nations in the world. In 2012, 37.8 percent of the population lived on less than $1.25 a day.[122] Despite making enormous progress in reducing the countrywide poverty incidence from 56 percent of the population in 1992 to 24.5 percent in 2009, poverty remains deep-rooted in the country's rural areas, which are home to 84 percent of Ugandans.[123]
+People in rural areas of Uganda depend on farming as the main source of income and 90 per cent of all rural women work in the agricultural sector.[124] In addition to agricultural work, rural women are responsible for the caretaking of their families. The average Ugandan woman spends 9 hours a day on domestic tasks, such as preparing food and clothing, fetching water and firewood, and caring for the elderly, the sick as well as orphans. As such, women on average work longer hours than men, between 12 and 18 hours per day, with a mean of 15 hours, as compared to men, who work between 8 and 10 hours a day.[125]
+To supplement their income, rural women may engage in small-scale entrepreneurial activities such as rearing and selling local breeds of animals. Nonetheless, because of their heavy workload, they have little time for these income-generating activities. The poor cannot support their children at school and in most cases, girls drop out of school to help out in domestic work or to get married. Other girls engage in sex work. As a result, young women tend to have older and more sexually experienced partners and this puts women at a disproportionate risk of getting affected by HIV, accounting for about 57 per cent of all adults living with HIV in Uganda.[126]
+Maternal health in rural Uganda lags behind national policy targets and the Millennium Development Goals, with geographical inaccessibility, lack of transport and financial burdens identified as key demand-side constraints to accessing maternal health services;[127] as such, interventions like intermediate transport mechanisms have been adopted as a means to improve women's access to maternal health care services in rural regions of the country.[128]
+Gender inequality is the main hindrance to reducing women's poverty. Women are subjected to an overall lower social status than men. For many women, this reduces their power to act independently, participate in community life, become educated and escape reliance upon abusive men.[129]
+There are 35 airports in Uganda. Commercial airlines operate scheduled passenger services out of four airports.
+Uganda has an international airport, Entebbe International Airport, which is located 25 miles (40 km) south-west of Kampala. In 2017 the airport traffic hit 1.53 million passengers, 8% more than the previous year.[130]
+A second international airport, Hoima International Airport, is currently under construction.[131]
+Road transportation is the most important way of transportation in Uganda. 95% of freight and passenger traffic is handled by road traffic. The road network in Uganda is approx. 80,448 miles (129,469 km) long. About 4% of these roads are paved which means about 3,293 miles (5,300 km). The different types of roads are national roads (13,676 mi (22,009 km) – 17%), district roads (20,916 mi (33,661 km) — 26%), urban roads (5,631 mi (9,062 km) – 7%), and community roads (40,224 mi (64,734 km) – 50%).[132] The national roads make up about 17% of the road network but carry over 80% of the total road traffic.[133] In Uganda there are 83,000 private cars which means 2.94 cars per 1000 inhabitants.[134]
+The rail network in Uganda is approximately 783 miles (1,260 km) long. The longest lines are the main line from Kampala to Tororo (155 miles (249 km)), the western line from Kampala to Kasese (207 miles (333 km)), the northern line from Tororo to Pakwach (398 miles (641 km)).[135]
+There are seven telecommunications companies serving over 21 million subscribers[136] in a population of over 34 million.[137] More than 95 percent of internet connections are made using mobile phones.[138]
+The total mobile and fixed telephony subscriptions increased from over 20 million to over 21 million yielding an increment of over 1.1 million subscribers (5.4 increase) compared to the 4.1 percent increases realised in the previous quarter Q4 2014 (October–December).[136]
+In the 1980s, the majority of energy in Uganda came from charcoal and wood. However, oil was found in the Lake Albert area, totalling an estimated 95,000,000 m3 (3.354893339×109 cu ft) barrels of crude.[104] Heritage Oil discovered one of the largest crude oil finds in Uganda, and continues operations there.[139]
+According to a 2006 published report, the Ugandan water supply and sanitation sector had made substantial progress in urban areas since the mid-1990s, with substantial increases in coverage as well as in operational and commercial performance.[140]:3–4 Sector reforms in the period 1998–2003 included the commercialisation and modernisation of the National Water and Sewerage Corporation operating in cities and larger towns, as well as decentralisation and private sector participation in small towns.[141]:15
+Although these reforms have attracted significant international attention, 38 percent of the population still had no access to an improved water source in 2010. Concerning access to improved sanitation, figures have varied widely. According to government figures, it was 70 percent in rural areas and 81 percent in urban areas in 2011,[142] while according to UN figures it was only 34 percent.[143]
+The water and sanitation sector was recognised as a key area under the 2004 Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), Uganda's
+main strategy paper to fight poverty.[144]:182–188 According to a 2006 published report, a comprehensive expenditure framework had been introduced to co-ordinate financial support by external donors, the national government, and nongovernmental organisations.[145]:5 The PEAP estimated that from 2001 to 2015, about US$1.4 billion, or US$92 million per year, was needed to increase water supply coverage up to 95 percent, with rural areas needing US$956 million, urban areas and large towns needing US$281 million, and small towns needing US$136 million.[144]:182–183
+At the 2002 census, Uganda had a literacy rate of 66.8 percent (76.8 percent male and 57.7 percent female).[3] Public spending on education was at 5.2 percent of the 2002–2005 GDP.[146]
+There were eight physicians per 100,000 persons in the early 2000s.[146] Uganda's elimination of user fees at state health facilities in 2001 has resulted in an 80 percent increase in visits, with over half of this increase coming from the poorest 20 percent of the population.[147] This policy has been cited as a key factor in helping Uganda achieve its Millennium Development Goals and as an example of the importance of equity in achieving those goals.[108] Despite this policy, many users are denied care if they do not provide their own medical equipment, as happened in the highly publicised case of Jennifer Anguko.[148] Poor communication within hospitals,[149] low satisfaction with health services[150] and distance to health service providers undermine the provision of quality health care to people living in Uganda, and particularly for those in poor and elderly-headed households.[151] The provision of subsidies for poor and rural populations, along with the extension of public private partnerships, have been identified as important provisions to enable vulnerable populations to access health services.[151]
+Life expectancy at birth was estimated to be 53.45 years in 2012.[152] The infant mortality rate was approximately 61 deaths per 1,000 children in 2012.[153]
+In July 2012, there was an Ebola outbreak in the Kibaale District of the country.[154] On 4 October 2012, the Ministry of Health officially declared the end of the outbreak after at least 16 people had died.[155]
+The Health Ministry announced on 16 August 2013 that three people had died in northern Uganda from a suspected outbreak of Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever.[156]
+Uganda has been among the rare HIV success stories.[146] Infection rates of 30 per cent of the population in the 1980s fell to 6.4 percent by the end of 2008.[157][158] Meanwhile, the practice of abstinence was found to have decreased.[159]
+Less than half of all sexually active unmarried women use a modern contraceptive method, a fraction that as barely changed from 2000 to 2011. However, only ~26% of married women used contraceptives in 2011. The use of contraceptives also differs substantially between poor (~15%) and wealthy women (~40%).[160] As a result, Ugandan women have ~6 children while they prefer to have around ~4. According to the 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), more than 40% of births are unplanned. In 2010, the Ugandan Ministry of Health estimated that unsafe abortion accounted for 8% of the country's maternal deaths.[160] The 2006 Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS) indicated that roughly 6,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related complications.[161] Pilot studies in 2012 by Future Health Systems have shown that this rate could be significantly reduced by implementing a voucher scheme for health services and transport to clinics.[162][163]
+The prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) is low: according to a 2013 UNICEF report,[164] only 1 percent of women in Uganda have undergone FGM, with the practice being illegal in the country.[165]
+In Uganda, the Allied Democratic Forces is considered a violent rebel force that opposes the Ugandan government. These rebels are an enemy of the Uganda People's Defence Force and are considered an affiliate of Al-Shabaab.[166]
+The National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy dates from 2009. Its overarching goal is to ‘strengthen national capability to generate, transfer and apply scientific knowledge, skills and technologies that ensure sustainable utilisation of natural resources for the realisation of Uganda's development objectives.’ The policy precedes Uganda Vision 2040, which was launched in April 2013 to transform ‘Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years,’ in the words of the Cabinet. Uganda Vision 2040 vows to strengthen the private sector, improve education and training, modernise infrastructure and the underdeveloped services and agriculture sectors, foster industrialisation and promote good governance, among other goals. Potential areas for economic development include oil and gas, tourism, minerals and information and communication technologies (ICTs).[167]
+Research funding climbed between 2008 and 2010 from 0.33% to 0.48% of GDP. Over the same period, the number of researchers doubled (in head counts) from 1 387 to 2 823, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. This represents a leap from 44 to 83 researchers per million inhabitants over the same period. One in four researchers is a woman.
+Uganda has been able to manufacture prototype of cars called kiira in which the government invested 70usd.
+[167]
+Uganda's population grew from 9.5 million people in 1969 to 34.9 million in 2014. With respect to the last inter-censal period (September 2002), the population increased by 10.6 million people in the past 12 years.[168] Uganda's median age of 15 years is the lowest in the world.[3] Uganda has the fifth highest total fertility rate in the world, at 5.97 children born per woman (2014 estimates).[3]
+There were about 80,000 Indians in Uganda before Idi Amin required the expulsion of Ugandan-Asians (mostly of Indian origin) in 1972, which reduced the population to as low as 7,000. Many Indians, however, returned to Uganda after Amin's fall ouster in 1979. Around 90 percent of Ugandan Indians reside in Kampala.[169]
+According to the UNHCR, Uganda hosts over 1.1 million refugees on its soil as of November 2018.[170] Most come from neighbouring countries in the African Great Lakes region, particularly South Sudan (68.0 percent) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (24.6%).[170]
+Swahili, a widely used language throughout the African Great Lakes region, was approved as the country's second official national language in 2005.[2][171] English was the only official language until the constitution was amended in 2005. Although Swahili has not been favoured by the Bantu-speaking populations of the south and south-west of the country, it is an important lingua franca in the northern regions. It is also widely used in the police and military forces, which may be a historical result of the disproportionate recruitment of northerners into the security forces during the colonial period. The status of Swahili has thus alternated with the political group in power.[172] For example, Idi Amin, who came from the north-west, declared Swahili to be the national language.[173]
+The Roman Catholic Church had the largest number of adherents (39.3 percent, down from 41.6 in 2002), followed by the Anglican Church of Uganda (32 percent, down from 35.9 percent). The category of Evangelical/Pentecostal/Born-Again showed the most growth, rising from 4.7% in 2002 to 11.1% in 2018. Adventist and other Protestant churches claimed most of the remaining Christians, although there was also a small Eastern Orthodox community.[174][175] The next most reported religion of Uganda was Islam, with Muslims representing 13.7 percent of the population, up from 12.1% in 2002.[174]
+The remainder of the population according to the 2014 census followed traditional religions (0.1 percent, down from 1% in 2002), other religions (1.4 percent), or had no religious affiliation (0.2 percent).[174]
+Owing to the large number of communities, culture within Uganda is diverse. Many Asians (mostly from India) who were expelled during the regime of Idi Amin have returned to Uganda.[176]
+Football is the national sport in Uganda. The Uganda national football team, nicknamed "The Cranes" is controlled by the Federation of Uganda Football Associations. They have never qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals. Their best finish in the African Cup of Nations was second in 1978.
+As of 2020[update], Uganda at the Olympics has won a total of two gold, three silver, and two bronze medals; four of which were in boxing and three in athletics. Uganda at the Commonwealth Games has collected 13 gold medals and a total 49 medals, all in boxing and athletics.
+The Uganda national boxing team is called The Bombers.[177] They have won four medals at the Summer Olympics from 1968 to 1980, as well as two medals the 1974 World Amateur Boxing Championships. Notable boxers include Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Justin Juuko, Ayub Kalule, John Mugabi, Eridadi Mukwanga, Joseph Nsubuga, Kassim Ouma, Sam Rukundo and Leo Rwabwogo.
+In athletics, John Akii-Bua won the first Olympic gold medalist for Uganda. At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, he won the 400m hurdles race with a world record time of 47.82 seconds.[178] 400 metres runner Davis Kamoga earned the bronze medal at 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the silver medal at the 1997 World Championships. Dorcus Inzikuru won the 3000 m steeplechase at the 2005 World Championships and the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
+Stephen Kiprotich has won the marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2013 World Championships, and finished second at the 2015 Tokyo Marathon.[179] Joshua Cheptegei has won 10 km races at the World Championships, World Athletics Cross Country Championships and Commonwealth Games, and has set world records in 5 km and 15 km. Halimah Nakaayi won the 800 meters race at the 2019 World Championships.
+In cricket, Uganda was part of the East Africa team that qualified for the Cricket World Cup in 1975.
+The country has an increasingly successful national basketball team. It is nicknamed "The Silverbacks,"[180] and made its debut at the 2015 FIBA Africa Championship.
+In July 2011, Kampala, Uganda qualified for the 2011 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for the first time, beating Saudi Arabian baseball team Dharan LL, although visa complications prevented them from attending the series.[181] Little League teams from Uganda qualified for and attended the 2012 Little League World Series.[182]
+The Ugandan film industry is relatively young. It is developing quickly, but still faces an assortment of challenges. There has been support for the industry as seen in the proliferation of film festivals such as Amakula, Pearl International Film Festival, Maisha African Film Festival and Manya Human Rights Festival. However filmmakers struggle against the competing markets from other countries on the continent such as those in Nigeria and South Africa in addition to the big budget films from Hollywood.[183]
+The first publicly recognised film that was produced solely by Ugandans was Feelings Struggle, which was directed and written by Hajji Ashraf Ssemwogerere in 2005.[184] This marks the year of ascent of film in Uganda, a time where many enthusiasts were proud to classify themselves as cinematographers in varied capacities.[185]
+The local film industry is polarised between two types of filmmakers. The first are filmmakers who use the Nollywood video film era's guerrilla approach to film making, churning out a picture in around two weeks and screening it in makeshift video halls. The second is the filmmaker who has the film aesthetic, but with limited funds has to depend on the competitive scramble for donor cash.[183]
+Though cinema in Uganda is evolving it still faces major challenges. Along with technical problems such as refining acting and editing skills, there are issues regarding funding and lack of government support and investment. There are no schools in the country dedicated to film, banks do not extend credit to film ventures, and distribution and marketing of movies remains poor.[183][185]
+The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is preparing regulations starting in 2014 that require Ugandan television to broadcast 70 percent Ugandan content and of this, 40 percent to be independent productions. With the emphasis on Ugandan Film and the UCC regulations favouring Ugandan productions for mainstream television, Ugandan film may become more prominent and successful in the near future.[185]

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+Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds by detecting vibrations,[1] changes in the pressure of the surrounding medium through time, through an organ such as the ear. The academic field concerned with hearing is auditory science.
+Sound may be heard through solid, liquid, or gaseous matter.[2] It is one of the traditional five senses; partial or total inability to hear is called hearing loss.
+In humans and other vertebrates, hearing is performed primarily by the auditory system: mechanical waves, known as vibrations, are detected by the ear and transduced into nerve impulses that are perceived by the brain (primarily in the temporal lobe). Like touch, audition requires sensitivity to the movement of molecules in the world outside the organism. Both hearing and touch are types of mechanosensation.[3][4]
+There are three main components of the human auditory system: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
+The outer ear includes the pinna, the visible part of the ear, as well as the ear canal, which terminates at the eardrum, also called the tympanic membrane. The pinna serves to focus sound waves through the ear canal toward the eardrum. Because of the asymmetrical character of the outer ear of most mammals, sound is filtered differently on its way into the ear depending on the location of its origin. This gives these animals the ability to localize sound vertically. The eardrum is an airtight membrane, and when sound waves arrive there, they cause it to vibrate following the waveform of the sound. Cerumen (ear wax) is produced by ceruminous and sebaceous glands in the skin of the human ear canal, protecting the ear canal and tympanic membrane from physical damage and microbial invasion.[5]
+The middle ear consists of a small air-filled chamber that is located medial to the eardrum. Within this chamber are the three smallest bones in the body, known collectively as the ossicles which include the malleus, incus, and stapes (also known as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, respectively). They aid in the transmission of the vibrations from the eardrum into the inner ear, the cochlea. The purpose of the middle ear ossicles is to overcome the impedance mismatch between air waves and cochlear waves, by providing impedance matching.
+Also located in the middle ear are the stapedius muscle and tensor tympani muscle, which protect the hearing mechanism through a stiffening reflex. The stapes transmits sound waves to the inner ear through the oval window, a flexible membrane separating the air-filled middle ear from the fluid-filled inner ear. The round window, another flexible membrane, allows for the smooth displacement of the inner ear fluid caused by the entering sound waves.
+The inner ear consists of the cochlea, which is a spiral-shaped, fluid-filled tube. It is divided lengthwise by the organ of Corti, which is the main organ of mechanical to neural transduction. Inside the organ of Corti is the basilar membrane, a structure that vibrates when waves from the middle ear propagate through the cochlear fluid – endolymph. The basilar membrane is tonotopic, so that each frequency has a characteristic place of resonance along it. Characteristic frequencies are high at the basal entrance to the cochlea, and low at the apex. Basilar membrane motion causes depolarization of the hair cells, specialized auditory receptors located within the organ of Corti.[6] While the hair cells do not produce action potentials themselves, they release neurotransmitter at synapses with the fibers of the auditory nerve, which does produce action potentials. In this way, the patterns of oscillations on the basilar membrane are converted to spatiotemporal patterns of firings which transmit information about the sound to the brainstem.[7]
+The sound information from the cochlea travels via the auditory nerve to the cochlear nucleus in the brainstem. From there, the signals are projected to the inferior colliculus in the midbrain tectum. The inferior colliculus integrates auditory input with limited input from other parts of the brain and is involved in subconscious reflexes such as the auditory startle response.
+The inferior colliculus in turn projects to the medial geniculate nucleus, a part of the thalamus where sound information is relayed to the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. Sound is believed to first become consciously experienced at the primary auditory cortex. Around the primary auditory cortex lies Wernickes area, a cortical area involved in interpreting sounds that is necessary to understand spoken words.
+Disturbances (such as stroke or trauma) at any of these levels can cause hearing problems, especially if the disturbance is bilateral. In some instances it can also lead to auditory hallucinations or more complex difficulties in perceiving sound.
+Hearing can be measured by behavioral tests using an audiometer. Electrophysiological tests of hearing can provide accurate measurements of hearing thresholds even in unconscious subjects. Such tests include auditory brainstem evoked potentials (ABR), otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and electrocochleography (ECochG). Technical advances in these tests have allowed hearing screening for infants to become widespread.
+Hearing can be measured by mobile applications which includes audiological hearing test function or hearing aid application. These applications allow the user to measure hearing thresholds at different frequencies (audiogram). Despite possible errors in measurements, hearing loss can be detected.[8][9]
+There are several different types of hearing loss: Conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss and mixed types.
+There are defined degrees of hearing loss:[10][11]
+Hearing protection is the use of devices designed to prevent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), a type of post-lingual hearing impairment. The various means used to prevent hearing loss generally focus on reducing the levels of noise to which people are exposed. One way this is done is through environmental modifications such as acoustic quieting, which may be achieved with as basic a measure as lining a room with curtains, or as complex a measure as employing an anechoic chamber, which absorbs nearly all sound. Another means is the use of devices such as earplugs, which are inserted into the ear canal to block noise, or earmuffs, objects designed to cover a person's ears entirely.
+The loss of hearing, when it is caused by neural loss, cannot presently be cured. Instead, its effects can be mitigated by the use of audioprosthetic devices, i.e. hearing assistive devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants. In a clinical setting, this management is offered by otologists and audiologists.
+Hearing loss is associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia with a greater degree of hearing loss tied to a higher risk.[12] There is also an association between type 2 diabetes and hearing loss.[13]
+Hearing threshold and the ability to localize sound sources are reduced underwater in humans, but not in aquatic animals, including whales, seals, and fish which have ears adapted to process water-borne sound.[14][15]
+Not all sounds are normally audible to all animals. Each species has a range of normal hearing for both amplitude and frequency. Many animals use sound to communicate with each other, and hearing in these species is particularly important for survival and reproduction. In species that use sound as a primary means of communication, hearing is typically most acute for the range of pitches produced in calls and speech.
+Frequencies capable of being heard by humans are called audio or sonic.  The range is typically considered to be between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz.[16]  Frequencies higher than audio are referred to as ultrasonic, while frequencies below audio are referred to as infrasonic. Some bats use ultrasound for echolocation while in flight. Dogs are able to hear ultrasound, which is the principle of 'silent' dog whistles. Snakes sense infrasound through their jaws, and baleen whales, giraffes, dolphins and elephants use it for communication. Some fish have the ability to hear more sensitively due to a well-developed, bony connection between the ear and their swim bladder. This "aid to the deaf" for fishes appears in some species such as carp and herring.[17]
+Even though they don’t have ears, invertebrates have developed other structures and systems to decode vibrations traveling through the air, or “sound.” Charles Henry Turner (zoologist) was the first scientist to formally show this phenomenon through rigorously controlled experiments in ants [18]. Turner ruled out the detection of ground vibration and suggested that other insects likely have auditory systems as well.
+Many insects detect sound through the way air vibrations deflect hairs along their body. Some insects have even developed specialized hairs tuned to detecting particular frequencies, such as certain caterpillar species that have evolved hair with properties such that it resonates most with the sound of buzzing wasps, thus warning them of the presence of natural enemies. [19].
+Some insects possess a tympanal organ. These are "eardrums", that cover air filled chambers on the legs. Similar to the hearing process with vertebrates, the eardrums react to sonar waves. Receptors that are placed on the inside translate the oscillation into electric signals and send them to the brain.  Several groups of flying insects that are preyed upon by echolocating bats  can perceive the ultrasound emissions this way and reflexively practice ultrasound avoidance.

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+Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds by detecting vibrations,[1] changes in the pressure of the surrounding medium through time, through an organ such as the ear. The academic field concerned with hearing is auditory science.
+Sound may be heard through solid, liquid, or gaseous matter.[2] It is one of the traditional five senses; partial or total inability to hear is called hearing loss.
+In humans and other vertebrates, hearing is performed primarily by the auditory system: mechanical waves, known as vibrations, are detected by the ear and transduced into nerve impulses that are perceived by the brain (primarily in the temporal lobe). Like touch, audition requires sensitivity to the movement of molecules in the world outside the organism. Both hearing and touch are types of mechanosensation.[3][4]
+There are three main components of the human auditory system: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
+The outer ear includes the pinna, the visible part of the ear, as well as the ear canal, which terminates at the eardrum, also called the tympanic membrane. The pinna serves to focus sound waves through the ear canal toward the eardrum. Because of the asymmetrical character of the outer ear of most mammals, sound is filtered differently on its way into the ear depending on the location of its origin. This gives these animals the ability to localize sound vertically. The eardrum is an airtight membrane, and when sound waves arrive there, they cause it to vibrate following the waveform of the sound. Cerumen (ear wax) is produced by ceruminous and sebaceous glands in the skin of the human ear canal, protecting the ear canal and tympanic membrane from physical damage and microbial invasion.[5]
+The middle ear consists of a small air-filled chamber that is located medial to the eardrum. Within this chamber are the three smallest bones in the body, known collectively as the ossicles which include the malleus, incus, and stapes (also known as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, respectively). They aid in the transmission of the vibrations from the eardrum into the inner ear, the cochlea. The purpose of the middle ear ossicles is to overcome the impedance mismatch between air waves and cochlear waves, by providing impedance matching.
+Also located in the middle ear are the stapedius muscle and tensor tympani muscle, which protect the hearing mechanism through a stiffening reflex. The stapes transmits sound waves to the inner ear through the oval window, a flexible membrane separating the air-filled middle ear from the fluid-filled inner ear. The round window, another flexible membrane, allows for the smooth displacement of the inner ear fluid caused by the entering sound waves.
+The inner ear consists of the cochlea, which is a spiral-shaped, fluid-filled tube. It is divided lengthwise by the organ of Corti, which is the main organ of mechanical to neural transduction. Inside the organ of Corti is the basilar membrane, a structure that vibrates when waves from the middle ear propagate through the cochlear fluid – endolymph. The basilar membrane is tonotopic, so that each frequency has a characteristic place of resonance along it. Characteristic frequencies are high at the basal entrance to the cochlea, and low at the apex. Basilar membrane motion causes depolarization of the hair cells, specialized auditory receptors located within the organ of Corti.[6] While the hair cells do not produce action potentials themselves, they release neurotransmitter at synapses with the fibers of the auditory nerve, which does produce action potentials. In this way, the patterns of oscillations on the basilar membrane are converted to spatiotemporal patterns of firings which transmit information about the sound to the brainstem.[7]
+The sound information from the cochlea travels via the auditory nerve to the cochlear nucleus in the brainstem. From there, the signals are projected to the inferior colliculus in the midbrain tectum. The inferior colliculus integrates auditory input with limited input from other parts of the brain and is involved in subconscious reflexes such as the auditory startle response.
+The inferior colliculus in turn projects to the medial geniculate nucleus, a part of the thalamus where sound information is relayed to the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. Sound is believed to first become consciously experienced at the primary auditory cortex. Around the primary auditory cortex lies Wernickes area, a cortical area involved in interpreting sounds that is necessary to understand spoken words.
+Disturbances (such as stroke or trauma) at any of these levels can cause hearing problems, especially if the disturbance is bilateral. In some instances it can also lead to auditory hallucinations or more complex difficulties in perceiving sound.
+Hearing can be measured by behavioral tests using an audiometer. Electrophysiological tests of hearing can provide accurate measurements of hearing thresholds even in unconscious subjects. Such tests include auditory brainstem evoked potentials (ABR), otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and electrocochleography (ECochG). Technical advances in these tests have allowed hearing screening for infants to become widespread.
+Hearing can be measured by mobile applications which includes audiological hearing test function or hearing aid application. These applications allow the user to measure hearing thresholds at different frequencies (audiogram). Despite possible errors in measurements, hearing loss can be detected.[8][9]
+There are several different types of hearing loss: Conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss and mixed types.
+There are defined degrees of hearing loss:[10][11]
+Hearing protection is the use of devices designed to prevent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), a type of post-lingual hearing impairment. The various means used to prevent hearing loss generally focus on reducing the levels of noise to which people are exposed. One way this is done is through environmental modifications such as acoustic quieting, which may be achieved with as basic a measure as lining a room with curtains, or as complex a measure as employing an anechoic chamber, which absorbs nearly all sound. Another means is the use of devices such as earplugs, which are inserted into the ear canal to block noise, or earmuffs, objects designed to cover a person's ears entirely.
+The loss of hearing, when it is caused by neural loss, cannot presently be cured. Instead, its effects can be mitigated by the use of audioprosthetic devices, i.e. hearing assistive devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants. In a clinical setting, this management is offered by otologists and audiologists.
+Hearing loss is associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia with a greater degree of hearing loss tied to a higher risk.[12] There is also an association between type 2 diabetes and hearing loss.[13]
+Hearing threshold and the ability to localize sound sources are reduced underwater in humans, but not in aquatic animals, including whales, seals, and fish which have ears adapted to process water-borne sound.[14][15]
+Not all sounds are normally audible to all animals. Each species has a range of normal hearing for both amplitude and frequency. Many animals use sound to communicate with each other, and hearing in these species is particularly important for survival and reproduction. In species that use sound as a primary means of communication, hearing is typically most acute for the range of pitches produced in calls and speech.
+Frequencies capable of being heard by humans are called audio or sonic.  The range is typically considered to be between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz.[16]  Frequencies higher than audio are referred to as ultrasonic, while frequencies below audio are referred to as infrasonic. Some bats use ultrasound for echolocation while in flight. Dogs are able to hear ultrasound, which is the principle of 'silent' dog whistles. Snakes sense infrasound through their jaws, and baleen whales, giraffes, dolphins and elephants use it for communication. Some fish have the ability to hear more sensitively due to a well-developed, bony connection between the ear and their swim bladder. This "aid to the deaf" for fishes appears in some species such as carp and herring.[17]
+Even though they don’t have ears, invertebrates have developed other structures and systems to decode vibrations traveling through the air, or “sound.” Charles Henry Turner (zoologist) was the first scientist to formally show this phenomenon through rigorously controlled experiments in ants [18]. Turner ruled out the detection of ground vibration and suggested that other insects likely have auditory systems as well.
+Many insects detect sound through the way air vibrations deflect hairs along their body. Some insects have even developed specialized hairs tuned to detecting particular frequencies, such as certain caterpillar species that have evolved hair with properties such that it resonates most with the sound of buzzing wasps, thus warning them of the presence of natural enemies. [19].
+Some insects possess a tympanal organ. These are "eardrums", that cover air filled chambers on the legs. Similar to the hearing process with vertebrates, the eardrums react to sonar waves. Receptors that are placed on the inside translate the oscillation into electric signals and send them to the brain.  Several groups of flying insects that are preyed upon by echolocating bats  can perceive the ultrasound emissions this way and reflexively practice ultrasound avoidance.

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+A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain or squalls. Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by different names, including hurricane (/ˈhʌrɪkən, -keɪn/),[1][2][3] typhoon (/taɪˈfuːn/), tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone.[4] A hurricane is a tropical cyclone that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, and a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean; in the south Pacific or Indian Ocean, comparable storms are referred to simply as "tropical cyclones" or "severe cyclonic storms".[4]
+"Tropical" refers to the geographical origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively over tropical seas. "Cyclone" refers to their winds moving in a circle,[5] whirling round their central clear eye, with their winds blowing counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The opposite direction of circulation is due to the Coriolis effect. Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface, which ultimately recondenses into clouds and rain when moist air rises and cools to saturation. This energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as nor'easters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km (62 and 1,243 mi) in diameter.
+The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of angular momentum imparted by the Earth's rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they rarely form within 5° of the equator.[6] Tropical cyclones are almost unknown in the South Atlantic due to a consistently strong wind shear and a weak Intertropical Convergence Zone.[7] Conversely, the African easterly jet and areas of atmospheric instability give rise to cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, while cyclones near Australia owe their genesis to the Asian monsoon and Western Pacific Warm Pool.
+Coastal regions are particularly vulnerable to the impact of a tropical cyclone, compared to inland regions. The primary energy source for these storms is warm ocean waters. These storms are therefore typically strongest when over or near water, and weaken quite rapidly over land. Coastal damage may be caused by strong winds and rain, high waves (due to winds), storm surges (due to wind and severe pressure changes), and the potential of spawning tornadoes. Tropical cyclones also draw in air from a large area—which can be a vast area for the most severe cyclones—and concentrate that air's water content (made up from atmospheric moisture and moisture evaporated from water) into precipitation over a much smaller area. This continual replacement of moisture-bearing air by new moisture-bearing air after its moisture has fallen as rain, may cause multi-hour or multi-day extremely heavy rain up to 40 kilometers (25 mi) from the coastline, far beyond the amount of water that the local atmosphere holds at any one time. This in turn can lead to river flooding, overland flooding, and a general overwhelming of local man-made water control structures across a large area.
+Though their effects on human populations are often devastating, tropical cyclones can relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat energy away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes, which may play an important role in modulating regional and global climate.
+Tropical cyclones are areas of relatively low pressure in the troposphere, with the largest pressure perturbations occurring at low altitudes near the surface. On Earth, the pressures recorded at the centers of tropical cyclones are among the lowest ever observed at sea level.[8] The environment near the center of tropical cyclones is warmer than the surroundings at all altitudes, thus they are characterized as "warm core" systems.[9]
+The near-surface wind field of a tropical cyclone is characterized by air rotating rapidly around a center of circulation while also flowing radially inwards. At the outer edge of the storm, air may be nearly calm; however, due to the Earth's rotation, the air has non-zero absolute angular momentum. As air flows radially inward, it begins to rotate cyclonically (counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere) to conserve angular momentum. At an inner radius, air begins to ascend to the top of the troposphere. This radius is typically coincident with the inner radius of the eyewall, and has the strongest near-surface winds of the storm; consequently, it is known as the radius of maximum winds.[10] Once aloft, air flows away from the storm's center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds.[11]
+The previously mentioned processes result in a nearly axisymmetric wind field: Wind speeds are low at the center, increase rapidly moving outwards to the radius of maximum winds, and then decay more gradually with radius to large radii. However, the wind field often exhibits additional spatial and temporal variability due to the effects of localized processes, such as thunderstorm activity and horizontal flow instabilities. In the vertical direction, winds are strongest near the surface and decay with height within the troposphere.[12]
+At the center of a mature tropical cyclone, air sinks rather than rises. For a sufficiently strong storm, air may sink over a layer deep enough to suppress cloud formation, thereby creating a clear "eye". Weather in the eye is normally calm and free of clouds, although the sea may be extremely violent.[13] The eye is normally circular and is typically 30–65 km (19–40 mi) in diameter, though eyes as small as 3 km (1.9 mi) and as large as 370 km (230 mi) have been observed.[14][15]
+The cloudy outer edge of the eye is called the "eyewall". The eyewall typically expands outward with height, resembling an arena football stadium; this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the "stadium effect".[15] The eyewall is where the greatest wind speeds are found, air rises most rapidly, clouds reach their highest altitude, and precipitation is the heaviest. The heaviest wind damage occurs where a tropical cyclone's eyewall passes over land.[13]
+In a weaker storm, the eye may be obscured by the central dense overcast, which is the upper-level cirrus shield that is associated with a concentrated area of strong thunderstorm activity near the center of a tropical cyclone.[16]
+The eyewall may vary over time in the form of eyewall replacement cycles, particularly in intense tropical cyclones. Outer rainbands can organize into an outer ring of thunderstorms that slowly moves inward, which is believed to rob the primary eyewall of moisture and angular momentum. When the primary eyewall weakens, the tropical cyclone weakens temporarily. The outer eyewall eventually replaces the primary one at the end of the cycle, at which time the storm may return to its original intensity.[17]
+On occasion, tropical cyclones may undergo a process known as rapid intensification, a period in which the maximum sustained winds of a tropical cyclone increase by 30 knots within 24 hours.[18] For rapid intensification to occur, several conditions must be in place. Water temperatures must be extremely high (near or above 30 °C, 86 °F), and water of this temperature must be sufficiently deep such that waves do not up well cooler waters to the surface. Wind shear must be low; when wind shear is high, the convection and circulation in the cyclone will be disrupted. Usually, an anticyclone in the upper layers of the troposphere above the storm must be present as well—for extremely low surface pressures to develop, air must be rising very rapidly in the eyewall of the storm, and an upper-level anticyclone helps channel this air away from the cyclone efficiently.[19]
+There are a variety of metrics commonly used to measure storm size. The most common metrics include the radius of maximum wind, the radius of 34-knot wind (i.e. gale force), the radius of outermost closed isobar (ROCI), and the radius of vanishing wind.[21][22] An additional metric is the radius at which the cyclone's relative vorticity field decreases to 1×10−5 s−1.[15]
+On Earth, tropical cyclones span a large range of sizes, from 100–2,000 kilometres (62–1,243 mi) as measured by the radius of vanishing wind. They are largest on average in the northwest Pacific Ocean basin and smallest in the northeastern Pacific Ocean basin.[23] If the radius of outermost closed isobar is less than two degrees of latitude (222 km (138 mi)), then the cyclone is "very small" or a "midget". A radius of 3–6 latitude degrees (333–670 km (207–416 mi)) is considered "average sized". "Very large" tropical cyclones have a radius of greater than 8 degrees (888 km (552 mi)).[20] Observations indicate that size is only weakly correlated to variables such as storm intensity (i.e. maximum wind speed), radius of maximum wind, latitude, and maximum potential intensity.[22][23]
+Size plays an important role in modulating damage caused by a storm. All else equal, a larger storm will impact a larger area for a longer period of time. Additionally, a larger near-surface wind field can generate higher storm surge due to the combination of longer wind fetch, longer duration, and enhanced wave setup.[24]
+The upper circulation of strong hurricanes extends into the tropopause of the atmosphere, which at low latitudes is 15,000–18,000 metres (50,000–60,000 ft).[25]
+The three-dimensional wind field in a tropical cyclone can be separated into two components: a "primary circulation" and a "secondary circulation". The primary circulation is the rotational part of the flow; it is purely circular. The secondary circulation is the overturning (in-up-out-down) part of the flow; it is in the radial and vertical directions. The primary circulation is larger in magnitude, dominating the surface wind field, and is responsible for the majority of the damage a storm causes, while the secondary circulation is slower but governs the energetics of the storm.
+A tropical cyclone's primary energy source is heat from the evaporation of water from the surface of a warm ocean, previously heated by sunshine. The energetics of the system may be idealized as an atmospheric Carnot heat engine.[27] First, inflowing air near the surface acquires heat primarily via evaporation of water (i.e. latent heat) at the temperature of the warm ocean surface (during evaporation, the ocean cools and the air warms). Second, the warmed air rises and cools within the eyewall while conserving total heat content (latent heat is simply converted to sensible heat during condensation). Third, air outflows and loses heat via infrared radiation to space at the temperature of the cold tropopause. Finally, air subsides and warms at the outer edge of the storm while conserving total heat content. The first and third legs are nearly isothermal, while the second and fourth legs are nearly isentropic. This in-up-out-down overturning flow is known as the secondary circulation. The Carnot perspective provides an upper bound on the maximum wind speed that a storm can attain.
+Scientists estimate that a tropical cyclone releases heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 exajoules (1018 J) per day,[28] equivalent to about 1 PW (1015 watt). This rate of energy release is equivalent to 70 times the world energy consumption of humans and 200 times the worldwide electrical generating capacity, or to exploding a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes.[28][29]
+The primary rotating flow in a tropical cyclone results from the conservation of angular momentum by the secondary circulation. Absolute angular momentum on a rotating planet
+M
+{\displaystyle M}
+ is given by
+where
+f
+{\displaystyle f}
+ is the Coriolis parameter,
+v
+{\displaystyle v}
+ is the azimuthal (i.e. rotating) wind speed, and
+r
+{\displaystyle r}
+ is the radius to the axis of rotation. The first term on the right hand side is the component of planetary angular momentum that projects onto the local vertical (i.e. the axis of rotation). The second term on the right hand side is the relative angular momentum of the circulation itself with respect to the axis of rotation. Because the planetary angular momentum term vanishes at the equator (where
+f
+=
+0
+{\displaystyle f=0}
+ ), tropical cyclones rarely form within 5° of the equator.[6][30]
+As air flows radially inward at low levels, it begins to rotate cyclonically in order to conserve angular momentum. Similarly, as rapidly rotating air flows radially outward near the tropopause, its cyclonic rotation decreases and ultimately changes sign at large enough radius, resulting in an upper-level anti-cyclone. The result is a vertical structure characterized by a strong cyclone at low levels and a strong anti-cyclone near the tropopause; from thermal wind balance, this corresponds to a system that is warmer at its center than in the surrounding environment at all altitudes (i.e. "warm-core"). From hydrostatic balance, the warm core translates to lower pressure at the center at all altitudes, with the maximum pressure drop located at the surface.[12]
+Due to surface friction, the inflow only partially conserves angular momentum. Thus, the sea surface lower boundary acts as both a source (evaporation) and sink (friction) of energy for the system. This fact leads to the existence of a theoretical upper bound on the strongest wind speed that a tropical cyclone can attain. Because evaporation increases linearly with wind speed (just as climbing out of a pool feels much colder on a windy day), there is a positive feedback on energy input into the system known as the Wind-Induced Surface Heat Exchange (WISHE) feedback.[27] This feedback is offset when frictional dissipation, which increases with the cube of the wind speed, becomes sufficiently large. This upper bound is called the "maximum potential intensity",
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+, and is given by
+where
+T
+s
+{\displaystyle T_{s}}
+ is the temperature of the sea surface,
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle T_{o}}
+ is the temperature of the outflow ([K]),
+Δ
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k}
+ is the enthalpy difference between the surface and the overlying air ([J/kg]), and
+C
+k
+{\displaystyle C_{k}}
+ and
+C
+d
+{\displaystyle C_{d}}
+ are the surface exchange coefficients (dimensionless) of enthalpy and momentum, respectively.[31] The surface-air enthalpy difference is taken as
+Δ
+k
+=
+k
+s
+∗
+−
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k=k_{s}^{*}-k}
+, where
+k
+s
+∗
+{\displaystyle k_{s}^{*}}
+ is the saturation enthalpy of air at sea surface temperature and sea-level pressure and
+k
+{\displaystyle k}
+ is the enthalpy of boundary layer air overlying the surface.
+The maximum potential intensity is predominantly a function of the background environment alone (i.e. without a tropical cyclone), and thus this quantity can be used to determine which regions on Earth can support tropical cyclones of a given intensity, and how these regions may evolve in time.[32][33] Specifically, the maximum potential intensity has three components, but its variability in space and time is due predominantly to the variability in the surface-air enthalpy difference component
+Δ
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k}
+.
+A tropical cyclone may be viewed as a heat engine that converts input heat energy from the surface into mechanical energy that can be used to do mechanical work against surface friction. At equilibrium, the rate of net energy production in the system must equal the rate of energy loss due to frictional dissipation at the surface, i.e.
+The rate of energy loss per unit surface area from surface friction,
+W
+o
+u
+t
+{\displaystyle W_{out}}
+, is given by
+where
+ρ
+{\displaystyle \rho }
+ is the density of near-surface air ([kg/m3]) and
+|
+u
+|
+{\displaystyle |\mathbf {u} |}
+ is the near surface wind speed ([m/s]).
+The rate of energy production per unit surface area,
+W
+i
+n
+{\displaystyle W_{in}}
+ is given by
+where
+ϵ
+{\displaystyle \epsilon }
+ is the heat engine efficiency and
+Q
+i
+n
+{\displaystyle Q_{in}}
+ is the total rate of heat input into the system per unit surface area. Given that a tropical cyclone may be idealized as a Carnot heat engine, the Carnot heat engine efficiency is given by
+Heat (enthalpy) per unit mass is given by
+where
+C
+p
+{\displaystyle C_{p}}
+ is the heat capacity of air,
+T
+{\displaystyle T}
+ is air temperature,
+L
+v
+{\displaystyle L_{v}}
+ is the latent heat of vaporization, and
+q
+{\displaystyle q}
+ is the concentration of water vapor. The first component corresponds to sensible heat and the second to latent heat.
+There are two sources of heat input. The dominant source is the input of heat at the surface, primarily due to evaporation. The bulk aerodynamic formula for the rate of heat input per unit area at the surface,
+Q
+i
+n
+:
+k
+{\displaystyle Q_{in:k}}
+, is given by
+where
+Δ
+k
+=
+k
+s
+∗
+−
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k=k_{s}^{*}-k}
+ represents the enthalpy difference between the ocean surface and the overlying air. The second source is the internal sensible heat generated from frictional dissipation (equal to
+W
+o
+u
+t
+{\displaystyle W_{out}}
+), which occurs near the surface within the tropical cyclone and is recycled to the system.
+Thus, the total rate of net energy production per unit surface area is given by
+Setting
+W
+i
+n
+=
+W
+o
+u
+t
+{\displaystyle W_{in}=W_{out}}
+ and taking
+|
+u
+|
+≈
+v
+{\displaystyle |\mathbf {u} |\approx v}
+ (i.e. the rotational wind speed is dominant) leads to the solution for
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+ given above. This derivation assumes that total energy input and loss within the system can be approximated by their values at the radius of maximum wind. The inclusion of
+Q
+i
+n
+:
+f
+r
+i
+c
+t
+i
+o
+n
+{\displaystyle Q_{in:friction}}
+ acts to multiply the total heat input rate by the factor
+T
+s
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle {\frac {T_{s}}{T_{o}}}}
+. Mathematically, this has the effect of replacing
+T
+s
+{\displaystyle T_{s}}
+ with
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle T_{o}}
+ in the denominator of the Carnot efficiency.
+An alternative definition for the maximum potential intensity, which is mathematically equivalent to the above formulation, is
+where CAPE stands for the Convective Available Potential Energy,
+C
+A
+P
+E
+s
+∗
+{\displaystyle CAPE_{s}^{*}}
+ is the CAPE of an air parcel lifted from saturation at sea level in reference to the environmental sounding,
+C
+A
+P
+E
+b
+{\displaystyle CAPE_{b}}
+ is the CAPE of the boundary layer air, and both quantities are calculated at the radius of maximum wind.[34]
+On Earth, a characteristic temperature for
+T
+s
+{\displaystyle T_{s}}
+ is 300 K and for
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle T_{o}}
+ is 200 K, corresponding to a Carnot efficiency of
+ϵ
+=
+1
+/
+3
+{\displaystyle \epsilon =1/3}
+. The ratio of the surface exchange coefficients,
+C
+k
+/
+C
+d
+{\displaystyle C_{k}/C_{d}}
+, is typically taken to be 1. However, observations suggest that the drag coefficient
+C
+d
+{\displaystyle C_{d}}
+ varies with wind speed and may decrease at high wind speeds within the boundary layer of a mature hurricane.[35] Additionally,
+C
+k
+{\displaystyle C_{k}}
+ may vary at high wind speeds due to the effect of sea spray on evaporation within the boundary layer.[36]
+A characteristic value of the maximum potential intensity,
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+, is 80 metres per second (180 mph; 290 km/h). However, this quantity varies significantly across space and time, particularly within the seasonal cycle, spanning a range of 0 to 100 metres per second (0 to 224 mph; 0 to 360 km/h).[34] This variability is primarily due to variability in the surface enthalpy disequilibrium (
+Δ
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k}
+ ) as well as in the thermodynamic structure of the troposphere, which are controlled by the large-scale dynamics of the tropical climate. These processes are modulated by factors including the sea surface temperature (and underlying ocean dynamics), background near-surface wind speed, and the vertical structure of atmospheric radiative heating.[37] The nature of this modulation is complex, particularly on climate time-scales (decades or longer). On shorter time-scales, variability in the maximum potential intensity is commonly linked to sea surface temperature perturbations from the tropical mean, as regions with relatively warm water have thermodynamic states much more capable of sustaining a tropical cyclone than regions with relatively cold water.[38] However, this relationship is indirect via the large-scale dynamics of the tropics; the direct influence of the absolute sea surface temperature on
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+ is weak in comparison.
+The passage of a tropical cyclone over the ocean causes the upper layers of the ocean to cool substantially, which can influence subsequent cyclone development. This cooling is primarily caused by wind-driven mixing of cold water from deeper in the ocean with the warm surface waters. This effect results in a negative feedback process that can inhibit further development or lead to weakening. Additional cooling may come in the form of cold water from falling raindrops (this is because the atmosphere is cooler at higher altitudes). Cloud cover may also play a role in cooling the ocean, by shielding the ocean surface from direct sunlight before and slightly after the storm passage. All these effects can combine to produce a dramatic drop in sea surface temperature over a large area in just a few days.[39] Conversely, the mixing of the sea can result in heat being inserted in deeper waters, with potential effects on global climate.[40]
+There are six Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) worldwide. These organizations are designated by the World Meteorological Organization and are responsible for tracking and issuing bulletins, warnings, and advisories about tropical cyclones in their designated areas of responsibility. Also, there are six Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs) that provide information to smaller regions.[46]
+The RSMCs and TCWCs are not the only organizations that provide information about tropical cyclones to the public. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issues advisories in all basins except the Northern Atlantic for the United States Government.[47] The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issues advisories and names for tropical cyclones that approach the Philippines in the Northwestern Pacific to protect the life and property of its citizens.[48] The Canadian Hurricane Center (CHC) issues advisories on hurricanes and their remnants for Canadian citizens when they affect Canada.[49]
+On March 26, 2004, Hurricane Catarina became the first recorded South Atlantic cyclone, striking southern Brazil with winds equivalent to Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. As the cyclone formed outside the authority of another warning center, Brazilian meteorologists initially treated the system as an extratropical cyclone, but later on, classified it as tropical.[50]
+Worldwide, tropical cyclone activity peaks in late summer, when the difference between temperatures aloft and sea surface temperatures is the greatest. However, each particular basin has its own seasonal patterns. On a worldwide scale, May is the least active month, while September is the most active month. November is the only month in which all the tropical cyclone basins are in season.[51]
+In the Northern Atlantic Ocean, a distinct cyclone season occurs from June 1 to November 30, sharply peaking from late August through September.[51] The statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is September 10. The Northeast Pacific Ocean has a broader period of activity, but in a similar time frame to the Atlantic.[52] The Northwest Pacific sees tropical cyclones year-round, with a minimum in February and March and a peak in early September.[51] In the North Indian basin, storms are most common from April to December, with peaks in May and November.[51] In the Southern Hemisphere, the tropical cyclone year begins on July 1 and runs all year-round encompassing the tropical cyclone seasons, which run from November 1 until the end of April, with peaks in mid-February to early March.[51][45]
+The formation of tropical cyclones is the topic of extensive ongoing research and is still not fully understood.[57] While six factors appear to be generally necessary, tropical cyclones may occasionally form without meeting all of the following conditions. In most situations, water temperatures of at least 26.5 °C (79.7 °F) are needed down to a depth of at least 50 m (160 ft);[58] waters of this temperature cause the overlying atmosphere to be unstable enough to sustain convection and thunderstorms.[59] For tropical transitioning cyclones (i.e. Hurricane Ophelia (2017)) a water temperature of at least 22.5 °C (72.5 °F) has been suggested.[60]
+Another factor is rapid cooling with height, which allows the release of the heat of condensation that powers a tropical cyclone.[58] High humidity is needed, especially in the lower-to-mid troposphere; when there is a great deal of moisture in the atmosphere, conditions are more favorable for disturbances to develop.[58] Low amounts of wind shear are needed, as high shear is disruptive to the storm's circulation.[58] Tropical cyclones generally need to form more than 555 km (345 mi) or five degrees of latitude away from the equator, allowing the Coriolis effect to deflect winds blowing towards the low pressure center and creating a circulation.[58] Lastly, a formative tropical cyclone needs a preexisting system of disturbed weather. Tropical cyclones will not form spontaneously.[58] Low-latitude and low-level westerly wind bursts associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation can create favorable conditions for tropical cyclogenesis by initiating tropical disturbances.[61]
+Most tropical cyclones form in a worldwide band of thunderstorm activity near the equator, referred to as the Intertropical Front (ITF), the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), or the monsoon trough.[62][63][64] Another important source of atmospheric instability is found in tropical waves, which contribute to the development of about 85% of intense tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and become most of the tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific.[65][66][67] The majority forms between 10 and 30 degrees of latitude away of the equator,[68] and 87% forms no farther away than 20 degrees north or south.[69][70] Because the Coriolis effect initiates and maintains their rotation, tropical cyclones rarely form or move within 5 degrees of the equator, where the effect is weakest.[69] However, it is still possible for tropical systems to form within this boundary as Tropical Storm Vamei and Cyclone Agni did in 2001 and 2004, respectively.[71][72]
+The movement of a tropical cyclone (i.e. its "track") is typically approximated as the sum of two terms: "steering" by the background environmental wind and "beta drift".[73]
+Environmental steering is the dominant term. Conceptually, it represents the movement of the storm due to prevailing winds and other wider environmental conditions, similar to "leaves carried along by a stream".[74] Physically, the winds, or flow field, in the vicinity of a tropical cyclone may be treated as having two parts: the flow associated with the storm itself, and the large-scale background flow of the environment in which the storm takes place. In this way, tropical cyclone motion may be represented to first-order simply as advection of the storm by the local environmental flow. This environmental flow is termed the "steering flow".
+Climatologically, tropical cyclones are steered primarily westward by the east-to-west trade winds on the equatorial side of the subtropical ridge—a persistent high-pressure area over the world's subtropical oceans.[74] In the tropical North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific oceans, the trade winds steer tropical easterly waves westward from the African coast toward the Caribbean Sea, North America, and ultimately into the central Pacific Ocean before the waves dampen out.[66] These waves are the precursors to many tropical cyclones within this region.[65] In contrast, in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific in both hemispheres, tropical cyclogenesis is influenced less by tropical easterly waves and more by the seasonal movement of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone and the monsoon trough.[75] Additionally, tropical cyclone motion can be influenced by transient weather systems, such as extratropical cyclones.
+In addition to environmental steering, a tropical cyclone will tend to drift slowly poleward and westward, a motion known as "beta drift". This motion is due to the superposition of a vortex, such as a tropical cyclone, onto an environment in which the Coriolis force varies with latitude, such as on a sphere or beta plane. It is induced indirectly by the storm itself, the result of a feedback between the cyclonic flow of the storm and its environment.
+Physically, the cyclonic circulation of the storm advects environmental air poleward east of center and equatorial west of center. Because air must conserve its angular momentum, this flow configuration induces a cyclonic gyre equatorward and westward of the storm center and an anticyclonic gyre poleward and eastward of the storm center. The combined flow of these gyres acts to advect the storm slowly poleward and westward. This effect occurs even if there is zero environmental flow.
+A third component of motion that occurs relatively infrequently involves the interaction of multiple tropical cyclones. When two cyclones approach one another, their centers will begin orbiting cyclonically about a point between the two systems. Depending on their separation distance and strength, the two vortices may simply orbit around one another or else may spiral into the center point and merge. When the two vortices are of unequal size, the larger vortex will tend to dominate the interaction, and the smaller vortex will orbit around it. This phenomenon is called the Fujiwhara effect, after Sakuhei Fujiwhara.[76]
+Though a tropical cyclone typically moves from east to west in the tropics, its track may shift poleward and eastward either as it moves west of the subtropical ridge axis or else if it interacts with the mid-latitude flow, such as the jet stream or an extratropical cyclone. This motion, termed "recurvature", commonly occurs near the western edge of the major ocean basins, where the jet stream typically has a poleward component and extratropical cyclones are common.[77] An example of tropical cyclone recurvature was Typhoon Ioke in 2006.[78]
+The landfall of a tropical cyclone occurs when a storm's surface center (eye if a stronger cyclone) moves over a coastline.[10] Storm conditions may be experienced on the coast and inland hours before landfall; in fact, a tropical cyclone can launch its strongest winds over land, yet not make landfall. NOAA uses the term "direct hit" to describe when a location (on the left side of the eye) falls within the radius of maximum winds (or twice that radius if on the right side), whether or not the hurricane's eye made landfall.[10]
+Most tropical cyclones form on the side of the subtropical ridge closer to the equator, then move poleward past the ridge axis before recurving into the main belt of the Westerlies.[79] When the subtropical ridge position shifts due to El Niño, so will the preferred tropical cyclone tracks. Areas west of Japan and Korea tend to experience much fewer September–November tropical cyclone impacts during El Niño and neutral years. During El Niño years, the break in the subtropical ridge tends to lie near 130°E which would favor the Japanese archipelago.[80] During El Niño years, Guam's chance of a tropical cyclone impact is one-third more likely than of the long-term average.[81] The tropical Atlantic Ocean experiences depressed activity due to increased vertical wind shear across the region during El Niño years.[82] During La Niña years, the formation of tropical cyclones, along with the subtropical ridge position, shifts westward across the western Pacific Ocean, which increases the landfall threat to China and much greater intensity in the Philippines.[80]
+A tropical cyclone can cease to have tropical characteristics in several different ways. One such way is if it moves over land, thus depriving it of the warm water it needs to power itself, quickly losing strength.[83] Most strong storms lose their strength very rapidly after landfall and become disorganized areas of low pressure within a day or two, or evolve into extratropical cyclones. There is a chance a tropical cyclone could regenerate if it managed to get back over open warm water, such as with Hurricane Ivan. If it remains over mountains for even a short time, weakening will accelerate.[84] Many storm fatalities occur in mountainous terrain, when diminishing cyclones unleash their moisture as torrential rainfall.[85] This rainfall may lead to deadly floods and mudslides, as was the case with Hurricane Mitch around Honduras in October 1998.[86] Without warm surface water, the storm cannot survive.[87]
+A tropical cyclone can dissipate when it moves over waters significantly below 26.5 °C (79.7 °F). This will cause the storm to lose its tropical characteristics, such as a warm core with thunderstorms near the center, and become a remnant low-pressure area. These remnant systems may persist for up to several days before losing their identity. This dissipation mechanism is most common in the eastern North Pacific.[88] Weakening or dissipation can occur if it experiences vertical wind shear, causing the convection and heat engine to move away from the center; this normally ceases development of a tropical cyclone.[89] In addition, its interaction with the main belt of the Westerlies, by means of merging with a nearby frontal zone, can cause tropical cyclones to evolve into extratropical cyclones. This transition can take 1–3 days.[90] Even after a tropical cyclone is said to be extratropical or dissipated, it can still have tropical storm force (or occasionally hurricane/typhoon force) winds and drop several inches of rainfall. In the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, such tropical-derived cyclones of higher latitudes can be violent and may occasionally remain at hurricane or typhoon-force wind speeds when they reach the west coast of North America. These phenomena can also affect Europe, where they are known as European windstorms; Hurricane Iris's extratropical remnants are an example of such a windstorm from 1995.[91] A cyclone can also merge with another area of low pressure, becoming a larger area of low pressure. This can strengthen the resultant system, although it may no longer be a tropical cyclone.[89] Studies in the 2000s have given rise to the hypothesis that large amounts of dust reduce the strength of tropical cyclones.[92]
+In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States government attempted to weaken hurricanes through Project Stormfury by seeding selected storms with silver iodide. It was thought that the seeding would cause supercooled water in the outer rainbands to freeze, causing the inner eyewall to collapse and thus reducing the winds.[93] The winds of Hurricane Debbie—a hurricane seeded in Project Stormfury—dropped as much as 31%, but Debbie regained its strength after each of two seeding forays.[94] In an earlier episode in 1947, disaster struck when a hurricane east of Jacksonville, Florida promptly changed its course after being seeded, and smashed into Savannah, Georgia.[95] Because there was so much uncertainty about the behavior of these storms, the federal government would not approve seeding operations unless the hurricane had a less than 10% chance of making landfall within 48 hours, greatly reducing the number of possible test storms. The project was dropped after it was discovered that eyewall replacement cycles occur naturally in strong hurricanes, casting doubt on the result of the earlier attempts. Today, it is known that silver iodide seeding is not likely to have an effect because the amount of supercooled water in the rainbands of a tropical cyclone is too low.[96]
+Other approaches have been suggested over time, including cooling the water under a tropical cyclone by towing icebergs into the tropical oceans.[97] Other ideas range from covering the ocean in a substance that inhibits evaporation,[98] dropping large quantities of ice into the eye at very early stages of development (so that the latent heat is absorbed by the ice, instead of being converted to kinetic energy that would feed the positive feedback loop),[97] or blasting the cyclone apart with nuclear weapons.[99] Project Cirrus even involved throwing dry ice on a cyclone.[100] These approaches all suffer from one flaw above many others: tropical cyclones are simply too large and long-lived for any of the weakening techniques to be practical.[101]
+Tropical cyclones out at sea cause large waves, heavy rain, flood and high winds, disrupting international shipping and, at times, causing shipwrecks.[102] Tropical cyclones stir up water, leaving a cool wake behind them, which causes the region to be less favorable for subsequent tropical cyclones.[39] On land, strong winds can damage or destroy vehicles, buildings, bridges, and other outside objects, turning loose debris into deadly flying projectiles. The storm surge, or the increase in sea level due to the cyclone, is typically the worst effect from landfalling tropical cyclones, historically resulting in 90% of tropical cyclone deaths.[103]
+The broad rotation of a landfalling tropical cyclone, and vertical wind shear at its periphery, spawns tornadoes. Tornadoes can also be spawned as a result of eyewall mesovortices, which persist until landfall.[104]
+Over the past two centuries, tropical cyclones have been responsible for the deaths of about 1.9 million people worldwide. Large areas of standing water caused by flooding lead to infection, as well as contributing to mosquito-borne illnesses. Crowded evacuees in shelters increase the risk of disease propagation.[103] Tropical cyclones significantly interrupt infrastructure, leading to power outages, bridge destruction, and the hampering of reconstruction efforts.[103][105] On average, the Gulf and east coasts of the United States suffer approximately US$5 billion (1995 US $) in cyclone damage every year. The majority (83%) of tropical cyclone damage is caused by severe hurricanes, category 3 or greater. However, category 3 or greater hurricanes only account for about one-fifth of cyclones that make landfall every year.[106]
+Although cyclones take an enormous toll in lives and personal property, they may be important factors in the precipitation regimes of places they impact, as they may bring much-needed precipitation to otherwise dry regions.[107] Tropical cyclones also help maintain the global heat balance by moving warm, moist tropical air to the middle latitudes and polar regions,[108] and by regulating the thermohaline circulation through upwelling.[109] The storm surge and winds of hurricanes may be destructive to human-made structures, but they also stir up the waters of coastal estuaries, which are typically important fish breeding locales. Tropical cyclone destruction spurs redevelopment, greatly increasing local property values.[110]
+When hurricanes surge upon shore from the ocean, salt is introduced to many freshwater areas and raises the salinity levels too high for some habitats to withstand. Some are able to cope with the salt and recycle it back into the ocean, but others can not release the extra surface water quickly enough or do not have a large enough freshwater source to replace it. Because of this, some species of plants and vegetation die due to the excess salt.[111] In addition, hurricanes can carry toxins and acids onto shore when they make landfall. The flood water can pick up the toxins from different spills and contaminate the land that it passes over. The toxins are very harmful to the people and animals in the area, as well as the environment around them. The flooding water can also spark many dangerous oil spills.[112]
+Hurricane preparedness encompasses the actions and planning taken before a tropical cyclone strikes to mitigate damage and injury from the storm. Knowledge of tropical cyclone impacts on an area help plan for future possibilities. Preparedness may involve preparations made by individuals as well as centralized efforts by governments or other organizations. Tracking storms during the tropical cyclone season helps individuals know current threats. Regional Specialized Meteorological Centers and Tropical Cyclone Warning Centers provide current information and forecasts to help individuals make the best decision possible.
+Hurricane response is the disaster response after a hurricane. Activities performed by hurricane responders include assessment, restoration, and demolition of buildings; removal of debris and waste; repairs to land-based and maritime infrastructure; and public health services including search and rescue operations.[113] Hurricane response requires coordination between federal, tribal, state, local, and private entities.[114] According to the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, potential response volunteers should affiliate with established organizations and should not self-deploy, so that proper training and support can be provided to mitigate the danger and stress of response work.[115]
+Hurricane responders face many hazards. Hurricane responders may be exposed to chemical and biological contaminants including stored chemicals, sewage, human remains, and mold growth encouraged by flooding,[116][117][118] as well as asbestos and lead that may be present in older buildings.[117][119] Common injuries arise from falls from heights, such as from a ladder or from level surfaces; from electrocution in flooded areas, including from backfeed from portable generators; or from motor vehicle accidents.[116][119][120] Long and irregular shifts may lead to sleep deprivation and fatigue, increasing the risk of injuries, and workers may experience mental stress associated with a traumatic incident. Additionally, heat stress is a concern as workers are often exposed to hot and humid temperatures, wear protective clothing and equipment, and have physically difficult tasks.[116][119]
+Intense tropical cyclones pose a particular observation challenge, as they are a dangerous oceanic phenomenon, and weather stations, being relatively sparse, are rarely available on the site of the storm itself. In general, surface observations are available only if the storm is passing over an island or a coastal area, or if there is a nearby ship. Real-time measurements are usually taken in the periphery of the cyclone, where conditions are less catastrophic and its true strength cannot be evaluated. For this reason, there are teams of meteorologists that move into the path of tropical cyclones to help evaluate their strength at the point of landfall.[121]
+Tropical cyclones far from land are tracked by weather satellites capturing visible and infrared images from space, usually at half-hour to quarter-hour intervals. As a storm approaches land, it can be observed by land-based Doppler weather radar. Radar plays a crucial role around landfall by showing a storm's location and intensity every several minutes.[122]
+In situ measurements, in real-time, can be taken by sending specially equipped reconnaissance flights into the cyclone. In the Atlantic basin, these flights are regularly flown by United States government hurricane hunters.[123] The aircraft used are WC-130 Hercules and WP-3D Orions, both four-engine turboprop cargo aircraft. These aircraft fly directly into the cyclone and take direct and remote-sensing measurements. The aircraft also launch GPS dropsondes inside the cyclone. These sondes measure temperature, humidity, pressure, and especially winds between flight level and the ocean's surface. A new era in hurricane observation began when a remotely piloted Aerosonde, a small drone aircraft, was flown through Tropical Storm Ophelia as it passed Virginia's Eastern Shore during the 2005 hurricane season. A similar mission was also completed successfully in the western Pacific Ocean. This demonstrated a new way to probe the storms at low altitudes that human pilots seldom dare.[124]
+Because of the forces that affect tropical cyclone tracks, accurate track predictions depend on determining the position and strength of high- and low-pressure areas, and predicting how those areas will change during the life of a tropical system. The deep layer mean flow, or average wind through the depth of the troposphere, is considered the best tool in determining track direction and speed. If storms are significantly sheared, use of wind speed measurements at a lower altitude, such as at the 70 kPa pressure surface (3,000 metres or 9,800 feet above sea level) will produce better predictions. Tropical forecasters also consider smoothing out short-term wobbles of the storm as it allows them to determine a more accurate long-term trajectory.[125] High-speed computers and sophisticated simulation software allow forecasters to produce computer models that predict tropical cyclone tracks based on the future position and strength of high- and low-pressure systems. Combining forecast models with increased understanding of the forces that act on tropical cyclones, as well as with a wealth of data from Earth-orbiting satellites and other sensors, scientists have increased the accuracy of track forecasts over recent decades.[126] However, scientists are not as skillful at predicting the intensity of tropical cyclones.[127] The lack of improvement in intensity forecasting is attributed to the complexity of tropical systems and an incomplete understanding of factors that affect their development. New tropical cyclone position and forecast information is available at least every six hours from the various warning centers.[46][128][129][130][131]
+Around the world, tropical cyclones are classified in different ways, based on the location, the structure of the system and its intensity. For example, within the Northern Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins, a tropical cyclone with wind speeds of over 65 kn (75 mph; 120 km/h) is called a hurricane, while it is called a typhoon or a severe cyclonic storm within the Western Pacific or North Indian Oceans.[41][42][43] Within the Southern Hemisphere, it is either called a hurricane, tropical cyclone or a severe tropical cyclone, depending on if it is located within the South Atlantic, South-West Indian Ocean, Australian region or the South Pacific Ocean.[44][45] If a tropical cyclone moves from one basin to another, then it is generally classified using that basin's terminology[clarification needed].
+Tropical cyclones that develop around the world are assigned an identification code consisting of a two-digit number and suffix letter by the warning centers that monitor them. These codes start at 01 every year and are assigned in order to systems, which have the potential to develop further, cause significant impact to life and property or when the warning centers start to write advisories on the system.[45][132]
+The practice of using names to identify tropical cyclones goes back many years, with systems named after places or things they hit before the formal start of naming.[141][142] The system currently used provides positive identification of severe weather systems in a brief form, that is readily understood and recognized by the public.[141][142] The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge who named systems between 1887 and 1907.[141][142] This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific.[141][142] Formal naming schemes have subsequently been introduced for the North and South Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern Pacific basins as well as the Australian region and Indian Ocean.[142]
+At present, tropical cyclones are officially named by one of eleven meteorological services and retain their names throughout their lifetimes to provide ease of communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings.[141] Since the systems can last a week or longer and more than one can be occurring in the same basin at the same time, the names are thought to reduce the confusion about what storm is being described.[141] Names are assigned in order from predetermined lists with one, three, or ten-minute sustained wind speeds of more than 65 km/h (40 mph) depending on which basin it originates.[41][43][44] However, standards vary from basin to basin with some tropical depressions named in the Western Pacific, while tropical cyclones have to have a significant amount of gale-force winds occurring around the center before they are named within the Southern Hemisphere.[44][45] The names of significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Australian region are retired from the naming lists and replaced with another name.[41][42][45]
+Tropical cyclones that cause extreme destruction are rare, although when they occur, they can cause great amounts of damage or thousands of fatalities.
+The 1970 Bhola cyclone is considered to be the deadliest tropical cyclone on record, which killed around 300,000 people, after striking the densely populated Ganges Delta region of Bangladesh on November 13, 1970.[143] Its powerful storm surge was responsible for the high death toll.[144] The North Indian cyclone basin has historically been the deadliest basin.[103][145] Elsewhere, Typhoon Nina killed nearly 100,000 in China in 1975 due to a 100-year flood that caused 62 dams including the Banqiao Dam to fail.[146] The Great Hurricane of 1780 is the deadliest North Atlantic hurricane on record, killing about 22,000 people in the Lesser Antilles.[147] A tropical cyclone does not need to be particularly strong to cause memorable damage, primarily if the deaths are from rainfall or mudslides. Tropical Storm Thelma in November 1991 killed thousands in the Philippines,[148] although the strongest typhoon to ever make landfall on record was Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, causing widespread devastation in Eastern Visayas, and killing at least 6,300 people in the Philippines alone. In 1982, the unnamed tropical depression that eventually became Hurricane Paul killed around 1,000 people in Central America.[149]
+Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Katrina are estimated to be the costliest tropical cyclones to impact the United States mainland, each causing damage estimated at $125 billion.[150] Harvey killed at least 90 people in August 2017 after making landfall in Texas as a low-end Category 4 hurricane. Hurricane Katrina is estimated as the second-costliest tropical cyclone worldwide,[151] causing $81.2 billion in property damage (2008 USD) alone,[152] with overall damage estimates exceeding $100 billion (2005 USD).[151] Katrina killed at least 1,836 people after striking Louisiana and Mississippi as a major hurricane in August 2005.[152] Hurricane Maria is the third most destructive tropical cyclone in U.S. history, with damage totaling $91.61 billion (2017 USD), and with damage costs at $68.7 billion (2012 USD), Hurricane Sandy is the fourth most destructive tropical cyclone in U.S history. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster in the United States, killing an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people in Galveston, Texas.[153] Hurricane Mitch caused more than 10,000 fatalities in Central America, making it the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history. Hurricane Iniki in 1992 was the most powerful storm to strike Hawaii in recorded history, hitting Kauai as a Category 4 hurricane, killing six people, and causing U.S. $3 billion in damage.[154] Other destructive Eastern Pacific hurricanes include Pauline and Kenna, both causing severe damage after striking Mexico as major hurricanes.[155][156] In March 2004, Cyclone Gafilo struck northeastern Madagascar as a powerful cyclone, killing 74, affecting more than 200,000 and becoming the worst cyclone to affect the nation for more than 20 years.[157]
+The most intense storm on record is Typhoon Tip in the northwestern Pacific Ocean in 1979, which reached a minimum pressure of 870 hectopascals (25.69 inHg) and maximum sustained wind speeds of 165 knots (85 m/s) or 190 miles per hour (310 km/h).[158] The highest maximum sustained wind speed ever recorded was 185 knots (95 m/s) or 215 miles per hour (346 km/h) in Hurricane Patricia in 2015—the most intense cyclone ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.[159] Typhoon Nancy in 1961 also had recorded wind speeds of 185 knots (95 m/s) or 215 miles per hour (346 km/h), but recent research indicates that wind speeds from the 1940s to the 1960s were gauged too high, and thus it is no longer considered the storm with the highest wind speed on record.[160] Likewise, a surface-level gust caused by Typhoon Paka on Guam in late 1997 was recorded at 205 knots (105 m/s) or 235 miles per hour (378 km/h). Had it been confirmed, it would be the strongest non-tornadic wind ever recorded on the Earth's surface, but the reading had to be discarded since the anemometer was damaged by the storm.[161]
+The World Meteorological Organization established Barrow Island (Queensland) as the location of the highest non-tornado related wind gust at 408 kilometres per hour (254 mph)[162] on April 10, 1996, during Severe Tropical Cyclone Olivia.[163]
+In addition to being the most intense tropical cyclone on record based on pressure, Tip is the largest cyclone on record, with tropical storm-force winds 2,170 kilometres (1,350 mi) in diameter. The smallest storm on record, Tropical Storm Marco, formed during October 2008 and made landfall in Veracruz. Marco generated tropical storm-force winds only 37 kilometres (23 mi) in diameter.[164]
+Hurricane John is the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record, lasting 31 days in 1994. Before the advent of satellite imagery in 1961, however, many tropical cyclones were underestimated in their durations.[165] John is also the longest-tracked tropical cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere on record, with a path of 8,250 mi (13,280 km).[166] Cyclone Rewa of the 1993–94 South Pacific and Australian region cyclone seasons had one of the longest tracks observed within the Southern Hemisphere, traveling a distance of over 5,545 mi (8,920 km) during December 1993 and January 1994.[166]
+While the number of storms in the Atlantic has increased since 1995, there is no obvious global trend; the annual number of tropical cyclones worldwide remains about 87 ± 10 (Between 77 and 97 tropical cyclones annually). However, the ability of climatologists to make long-term data analysis in certain basins is limited by the lack of reliable historical data in some basins, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere,[167] while noting that a significant downward trend in tropical cyclone numbers has been identified for the region near Australia (based on high quality data and accounting for the influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation).[168] In spite of that, there is some evidence that the intensity of hurricanes is increasing. Kerry Emanuel stated, "Records of hurricane activity worldwide show an upswing of both the maximum wind speed in and the duration of hurricanes. The energy released by the average hurricane (again considering all hurricanes worldwide) seems to have increased by around 70% in the past 30 years or so, corresponding to about a 15% increase in the maximum wind speed and a 60% increase in storm lifetime."[169]
+Atlantic storms are becoming more destructive financially, as evidenced by the fact that the ten most expensive storms in United States history have occurred since 1990. According to the World Meteorological Organization, "recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has been caused largely by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions."[170] Political scientist Pielke et al. (2008) normalized mainland US hurricane damage from 1900–2005 to 2005 values and found no remaining trend of increasing absolute damage. The 1970s and 1980s were notable because of the extremely low amounts of damage compared to other decades. The decade 1996–2005 was the second most damaging among the past 11 decades, with only the decade 1926–1935 surpassing its costs.
+Often in part because of the threat of hurricanes, many coastal regions had sparse population between major ports until the advent of automobile tourism; therefore, the most severe portions of hurricanes striking the coast may have gone unmeasured in some instances. The combined effects of ship destruction and remote landfall severely limit the number of intense hurricanes in the official record before the era of hurricane reconnaissance aircraft and satellite meteorology. Although the record shows a distinct increase in the number and strength of intense hurricanes, therefore, experts regard the early data as suspect.[171]
+The number and strength of Atlantic hurricanes may undergo a 50–70 year cycle, also known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Nyberg et al. reconstructed Atlantic major hurricane activity back to the early 18th century and found five periods averaging 3–5 major hurricanes per year and lasting 40–60 years, and six other averaging 1.5–2.5 major hurricanes per year and lasting 10–20 years. These periods are associated with the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Throughout, a decadal oscillation related to solar irradiance was responsible for enhancing/dampening the number of major hurricanes by 1–2 per year.[172]
+Although more common since 1995, few above-normal hurricane seasons occurred during 1970–94.[173] Destructive hurricanes struck frequently from 1926 to 1960, including many major New England hurricanes. Twenty-one Atlantic tropical storms formed in 1933, a record only recently exceeded in 2005, which saw 28 storms. Tropical hurricanes occurred infrequently during the seasons of 1900–25; however, many intense storms formed during 1870–99. During the 1887 season, 19 tropical storms formed, of which a record 4 occurred after November 1 and 11 strengthened into hurricanes. Few hurricanes occurred in the 1840s to 1860s; however, many struck in the early 19th century, including an 1821 storm that made a direct hit on New York City. Some historical weather experts say these storms may have been as high as Category 4 in strength.[174]
+These active hurricane seasons predated satellite coverage of the Atlantic basin. Before the satellite era began in 1960, tropical storms or hurricanes went undetected unless a reconnaissance aircraft encountered one, a ship reported a voyage through the storm, or a storm hit land in a populated area.[171]
+Proxy records based on paleotempestological research have revealed that major hurricane activity along the Gulf of Mexico coast varies on timescales of centuries to millennia.[175][176] Few major hurricanes struck the Gulf coast during 3000–1400 BC and again during the most recent millennium. These quiescent intervals were separated by a hyperactive period during 1400 BC and 1000 AD, when the Gulf coast was struck frequently by catastrophic hurricanes and their landfall probabilities increased by 3–5 times. This millennial-scale variability has been attributed to long-term shifts in the position of the Azores High,[176] which may also be linked to changes in the strength of the North Atlantic oscillation.[177]
+According to the Azores High hypothesis, an anti-phase pattern is expected to exist between the Gulf of Mexico coast and the Atlantic coast. During the quiescent periods, a more northeasterly position of the Azores High would result in more hurricanes being steered towards the Atlantic coast. During the hyperactive period, more hurricanes were steered towards the Gulf coast as the Azores High was shifted to a more southwesterly position near the Caribbean. Such a displacement of the Azores High is consistent with paleoclimatic evidence that shows an abrupt onset of a drier climate in Haiti around 3200 14C years BP,[178] and a change towards more humid conditions in the Great Plains during the late-Holocene as more moisture was pumped up the Mississippi Valley through the Gulf coast. Preliminary data from the northern Atlantic coast seem to support the Azores High hypothesis. A 3000-year proxy record from a coastal lake in Cape Cod suggests that hurricane activity increased significantly during the past 500–1000 years, just as the Gulf coast was amid a quiescent period of the last millennium.
+The 2007 IPCC report noted many observed changes in the climate, including atmospheric composition, global average temperatures, ocean conditions, and others. The report concluded the observed increase in tropical cyclone intensity is larger than climate models predict. In addition, the report considered that it is likely that storm intensity will continue to increase through the 21st century, and declared it more likely than not that there has been some human contribution to the increases in tropical cyclone intensity.[179]
+P.J. Webster and others published in 2005 an article in Science examining the "changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity" over the past 35 years, the period when satellite data has been available. Their main finding was although the number of cyclones decreased throughout the planet excluding the north Atlantic Ocean, there was a great increase in the number and proportion of very strong cyclones.[180] Projections currently show no consensus on how climate change will affect the overall frequency of tropical cyclones.[181]
+According to 2006 studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "the strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere".[182] A greater percentage (+13%) of tropical cyclones are expected to reach Category 4 and 5 strength with 2 °C warming.[181]
+Studies published since 2008, by Kerry Emanuel from MIT, indicate that global warming is likely to increase the intensity but decrease the frequency of hurricane and cyclone activity.[183] In an article in Nature, Kerry Emanuel stated that potential hurricane destructiveness, a measure combining hurricane strength, duration, and frequency, "is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multidecadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming". Emanuel predicted "a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century".[184]
+Research reported in the September 3, 2008 issue of Nature found that the strongest tropical cyclones are getting stronger, in particular over the North Atlantic and Indian oceans. Wind speeds for the strongest tropical storms increased from an average of 225 km/h (140 mph) in 1981 to 251 km/h (156 mph) in 2006, while the ocean temperature, averaged globally over all the regions where tropical cyclones form, increased from 28.2 °C (82.8 °F) to 28.5 °C (83.3 °F) during this period.[185][186]
+A 2017 study looked at compounding effects from floods, storm surge, and terrestrial flooding (rivers), and projects an increase due to global warming.[187][188]
+In 2020 a study was published, saying that climate change is increasing the likelihood of a storm of 3 category or above by 8% per decade.[189]
+In addition to tropical cyclones, there are two other classes of cyclones within the spectrum of cyclone types. These kinds of cyclones, known as extratropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones, can be stages a tropical cyclone passes through during its formation or dissipation.[190] An extratropical cyclone is a storm that derives energy from horizontal temperature differences, which are typical in higher latitudes. A tropical cyclone can become extratropical as it moves toward higher latitudes if its energy source changes from heat released by condensation to differences in temperature between air masses; although not as frequently, an extratropical cyclone can transform into a subtropical storm, and from there into a tropical cyclone.[191] From space, extratropical storms have a characteristic "comma-shaped" cloud pattern.[192] Extratropical cyclones can also be dangerous when their low-pressure centers cause powerful winds and high seas.[193]
+A subtropical cyclone is a weather system that has some characteristics of a tropical cyclone and some characteristics of an extratropical cyclone. They can form in a wide band of latitudes, from the equator to 50°. Although subtropical storms rarely have hurricane-force winds, they may become tropical in nature as their cores warm.[194] From an operational standpoint, a tropical cyclone is usually not considered to become subtropical during its extratropical transition.[195]
+In popular culture, tropical cyclones have made several appearances in different types of media, including films, books, television, music, and electronic games.[196] These media often portray tropical cyclones that are either entirely fictional or based on real events.[196] For example, George Rippey Stewart's Storm, a best-seller published in 1941, is thought to have influenced meteorologists on their decision to assign female names to Pacific tropical cyclones.[142] Another example is the hurricane in The Perfect Storm, which describes the sinking of the Andrea Gail by the 1991 Perfect Storm.[197] Hurricanes have been featured in parts of the plots of series such as The Simpsons, Invasion, Family Guy, Seinfeld, Dawson's Creek, Burn Notice and CSI: Miami.[196][198][199][200][201] The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow includes several mentions of actual tropical cyclones and features fantastical "hurricane-like", albeit non-tropical, Arctic storms.[202][203]

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+A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain or squalls. Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by different names, including hurricane (/ˈhʌrɪkən, -keɪn/),[1][2][3] typhoon (/taɪˈfuːn/), tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone.[4] A hurricane is a tropical cyclone that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, and a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean; in the south Pacific or Indian Ocean, comparable storms are referred to simply as "tropical cyclones" or "severe cyclonic storms".[4]
+"Tropical" refers to the geographical origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively over tropical seas. "Cyclone" refers to their winds moving in a circle,[5] whirling round their central clear eye, with their winds blowing counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The opposite direction of circulation is due to the Coriolis effect. Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface, which ultimately recondenses into clouds and rain when moist air rises and cools to saturation. This energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as nor'easters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km (62 and 1,243 mi) in diameter.
+The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of angular momentum imparted by the Earth's rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they rarely form within 5° of the equator.[6] Tropical cyclones are almost unknown in the South Atlantic due to a consistently strong wind shear and a weak Intertropical Convergence Zone.[7] Conversely, the African easterly jet and areas of atmospheric instability give rise to cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, while cyclones near Australia owe their genesis to the Asian monsoon and Western Pacific Warm Pool.
+Coastal regions are particularly vulnerable to the impact of a tropical cyclone, compared to inland regions. The primary energy source for these storms is warm ocean waters. These storms are therefore typically strongest when over or near water, and weaken quite rapidly over land. Coastal damage may be caused by strong winds and rain, high waves (due to winds), storm surges (due to wind and severe pressure changes), and the potential of spawning tornadoes. Tropical cyclones also draw in air from a large area—which can be a vast area for the most severe cyclones—and concentrate that air's water content (made up from atmospheric moisture and moisture evaporated from water) into precipitation over a much smaller area. This continual replacement of moisture-bearing air by new moisture-bearing air after its moisture has fallen as rain, may cause multi-hour or multi-day extremely heavy rain up to 40 kilometers (25 mi) from the coastline, far beyond the amount of water that the local atmosphere holds at any one time. This in turn can lead to river flooding, overland flooding, and a general overwhelming of local man-made water control structures across a large area.
+Though their effects on human populations are often devastating, tropical cyclones can relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat energy away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes, which may play an important role in modulating regional and global climate.
+Tropical cyclones are areas of relatively low pressure in the troposphere, with the largest pressure perturbations occurring at low altitudes near the surface. On Earth, the pressures recorded at the centers of tropical cyclones are among the lowest ever observed at sea level.[8] The environment near the center of tropical cyclones is warmer than the surroundings at all altitudes, thus they are characterized as "warm core" systems.[9]
+The near-surface wind field of a tropical cyclone is characterized by air rotating rapidly around a center of circulation while also flowing radially inwards. At the outer edge of the storm, air may be nearly calm; however, due to the Earth's rotation, the air has non-zero absolute angular momentum. As air flows radially inward, it begins to rotate cyclonically (counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere) to conserve angular momentum. At an inner radius, air begins to ascend to the top of the troposphere. This radius is typically coincident with the inner radius of the eyewall, and has the strongest near-surface winds of the storm; consequently, it is known as the radius of maximum winds.[10] Once aloft, air flows away from the storm's center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds.[11]
+The previously mentioned processes result in a nearly axisymmetric wind field: Wind speeds are low at the center, increase rapidly moving outwards to the radius of maximum winds, and then decay more gradually with radius to large radii. However, the wind field often exhibits additional spatial and temporal variability due to the effects of localized processes, such as thunderstorm activity and horizontal flow instabilities. In the vertical direction, winds are strongest near the surface and decay with height within the troposphere.[12]
+At the center of a mature tropical cyclone, air sinks rather than rises. For a sufficiently strong storm, air may sink over a layer deep enough to suppress cloud formation, thereby creating a clear "eye". Weather in the eye is normally calm and free of clouds, although the sea may be extremely violent.[13] The eye is normally circular and is typically 30–65 km (19–40 mi) in diameter, though eyes as small as 3 km (1.9 mi) and as large as 370 km (230 mi) have been observed.[14][15]
+The cloudy outer edge of the eye is called the "eyewall". The eyewall typically expands outward with height, resembling an arena football stadium; this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the "stadium effect".[15] The eyewall is where the greatest wind speeds are found, air rises most rapidly, clouds reach their highest altitude, and precipitation is the heaviest. The heaviest wind damage occurs where a tropical cyclone's eyewall passes over land.[13]
+In a weaker storm, the eye may be obscured by the central dense overcast, which is the upper-level cirrus shield that is associated with a concentrated area of strong thunderstorm activity near the center of a tropical cyclone.[16]
+The eyewall may vary over time in the form of eyewall replacement cycles, particularly in intense tropical cyclones. Outer rainbands can organize into an outer ring of thunderstorms that slowly moves inward, which is believed to rob the primary eyewall of moisture and angular momentum. When the primary eyewall weakens, the tropical cyclone weakens temporarily. The outer eyewall eventually replaces the primary one at the end of the cycle, at which time the storm may return to its original intensity.[17]
+On occasion, tropical cyclones may undergo a process known as rapid intensification, a period in which the maximum sustained winds of a tropical cyclone increase by 30 knots within 24 hours.[18] For rapid intensification to occur, several conditions must be in place. Water temperatures must be extremely high (near or above 30 °C, 86 °F), and water of this temperature must be sufficiently deep such that waves do not up well cooler waters to the surface. Wind shear must be low; when wind shear is high, the convection and circulation in the cyclone will be disrupted. Usually, an anticyclone in the upper layers of the troposphere above the storm must be present as well—for extremely low surface pressures to develop, air must be rising very rapidly in the eyewall of the storm, and an upper-level anticyclone helps channel this air away from the cyclone efficiently.[19]
+There are a variety of metrics commonly used to measure storm size. The most common metrics include the radius of maximum wind, the radius of 34-knot wind (i.e. gale force), the radius of outermost closed isobar (ROCI), and the radius of vanishing wind.[21][22] An additional metric is the radius at which the cyclone's relative vorticity field decreases to 1×10−5 s−1.[15]
+On Earth, tropical cyclones span a large range of sizes, from 100–2,000 kilometres (62–1,243 mi) as measured by the radius of vanishing wind. They are largest on average in the northwest Pacific Ocean basin and smallest in the northeastern Pacific Ocean basin.[23] If the radius of outermost closed isobar is less than two degrees of latitude (222 km (138 mi)), then the cyclone is "very small" or a "midget". A radius of 3–6 latitude degrees (333–670 km (207–416 mi)) is considered "average sized". "Very large" tropical cyclones have a radius of greater than 8 degrees (888 km (552 mi)).[20] Observations indicate that size is only weakly correlated to variables such as storm intensity (i.e. maximum wind speed), radius of maximum wind, latitude, and maximum potential intensity.[22][23]
+Size plays an important role in modulating damage caused by a storm. All else equal, a larger storm will impact a larger area for a longer period of time. Additionally, a larger near-surface wind field can generate higher storm surge due to the combination of longer wind fetch, longer duration, and enhanced wave setup.[24]
+The upper circulation of strong hurricanes extends into the tropopause of the atmosphere, which at low latitudes is 15,000–18,000 metres (50,000–60,000 ft).[25]
+The three-dimensional wind field in a tropical cyclone can be separated into two components: a "primary circulation" and a "secondary circulation". The primary circulation is the rotational part of the flow; it is purely circular. The secondary circulation is the overturning (in-up-out-down) part of the flow; it is in the radial and vertical directions. The primary circulation is larger in magnitude, dominating the surface wind field, and is responsible for the majority of the damage a storm causes, while the secondary circulation is slower but governs the energetics of the storm.
+A tropical cyclone's primary energy source is heat from the evaporation of water from the surface of a warm ocean, previously heated by sunshine. The energetics of the system may be idealized as an atmospheric Carnot heat engine.[27] First, inflowing air near the surface acquires heat primarily via evaporation of water (i.e. latent heat) at the temperature of the warm ocean surface (during evaporation, the ocean cools and the air warms). Second, the warmed air rises and cools within the eyewall while conserving total heat content (latent heat is simply converted to sensible heat during condensation). Third, air outflows and loses heat via infrared radiation to space at the temperature of the cold tropopause. Finally, air subsides and warms at the outer edge of the storm while conserving total heat content. The first and third legs are nearly isothermal, while the second and fourth legs are nearly isentropic. This in-up-out-down overturning flow is known as the secondary circulation. The Carnot perspective provides an upper bound on the maximum wind speed that a storm can attain.
+Scientists estimate that a tropical cyclone releases heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 exajoules (1018 J) per day,[28] equivalent to about 1 PW (1015 watt). This rate of energy release is equivalent to 70 times the world energy consumption of humans and 200 times the worldwide electrical generating capacity, or to exploding a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes.[28][29]
+The primary rotating flow in a tropical cyclone results from the conservation of angular momentum by the secondary circulation. Absolute angular momentum on a rotating planet
+M
+{\displaystyle M}
+ is given by
+where
+f
+{\displaystyle f}
+ is the Coriolis parameter,
+v
+{\displaystyle v}
+ is the azimuthal (i.e. rotating) wind speed, and
+r
+{\displaystyle r}
+ is the radius to the axis of rotation. The first term on the right hand side is the component of planetary angular momentum that projects onto the local vertical (i.e. the axis of rotation). The second term on the right hand side is the relative angular momentum of the circulation itself with respect to the axis of rotation. Because the planetary angular momentum term vanishes at the equator (where
+f
+=
+0
+{\displaystyle f=0}
+ ), tropical cyclones rarely form within 5° of the equator.[6][30]
+As air flows radially inward at low levels, it begins to rotate cyclonically in order to conserve angular momentum. Similarly, as rapidly rotating air flows radially outward near the tropopause, its cyclonic rotation decreases and ultimately changes sign at large enough radius, resulting in an upper-level anti-cyclone. The result is a vertical structure characterized by a strong cyclone at low levels and a strong anti-cyclone near the tropopause; from thermal wind balance, this corresponds to a system that is warmer at its center than in the surrounding environment at all altitudes (i.e. "warm-core"). From hydrostatic balance, the warm core translates to lower pressure at the center at all altitudes, with the maximum pressure drop located at the surface.[12]
+Due to surface friction, the inflow only partially conserves angular momentum. Thus, the sea surface lower boundary acts as both a source (evaporation) and sink (friction) of energy for the system. This fact leads to the existence of a theoretical upper bound on the strongest wind speed that a tropical cyclone can attain. Because evaporation increases linearly with wind speed (just as climbing out of a pool feels much colder on a windy day), there is a positive feedback on energy input into the system known as the Wind-Induced Surface Heat Exchange (WISHE) feedback.[27] This feedback is offset when frictional dissipation, which increases with the cube of the wind speed, becomes sufficiently large. This upper bound is called the "maximum potential intensity",
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+, and is given by
+where
+T
+s
+{\displaystyle T_{s}}
+ is the temperature of the sea surface,
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle T_{o}}
+ is the temperature of the outflow ([K]),
+Δ
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k}
+ is the enthalpy difference between the surface and the overlying air ([J/kg]), and
+C
+k
+{\displaystyle C_{k}}
+ and
+C
+d
+{\displaystyle C_{d}}
+ are the surface exchange coefficients (dimensionless) of enthalpy and momentum, respectively.[31] The surface-air enthalpy difference is taken as
+Δ
+k
+=
+k
+s
+∗
+−
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k=k_{s}^{*}-k}
+, where
+k
+s
+∗
+{\displaystyle k_{s}^{*}}
+ is the saturation enthalpy of air at sea surface temperature and sea-level pressure and
+k
+{\displaystyle k}
+ is the enthalpy of boundary layer air overlying the surface.
+The maximum potential intensity is predominantly a function of the background environment alone (i.e. without a tropical cyclone), and thus this quantity can be used to determine which regions on Earth can support tropical cyclones of a given intensity, and how these regions may evolve in time.[32][33] Specifically, the maximum potential intensity has three components, but its variability in space and time is due predominantly to the variability in the surface-air enthalpy difference component
+Δ
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k}
+.
+A tropical cyclone may be viewed as a heat engine that converts input heat energy from the surface into mechanical energy that can be used to do mechanical work against surface friction. At equilibrium, the rate of net energy production in the system must equal the rate of energy loss due to frictional dissipation at the surface, i.e.
+The rate of energy loss per unit surface area from surface friction,
+W
+o
+u
+t
+{\displaystyle W_{out}}
+, is given by
+where
+ρ
+{\displaystyle \rho }
+ is the density of near-surface air ([kg/m3]) and
+|
+u
+|
+{\displaystyle |\mathbf {u} |}
+ is the near surface wind speed ([m/s]).
+The rate of energy production per unit surface area,
+W
+i
+n
+{\displaystyle W_{in}}
+ is given by
+where
+ϵ
+{\displaystyle \epsilon }
+ is the heat engine efficiency and
+Q
+i
+n
+{\displaystyle Q_{in}}
+ is the total rate of heat input into the system per unit surface area. Given that a tropical cyclone may be idealized as a Carnot heat engine, the Carnot heat engine efficiency is given by
+Heat (enthalpy) per unit mass is given by
+where
+C
+p
+{\displaystyle C_{p}}
+ is the heat capacity of air,
+T
+{\displaystyle T}
+ is air temperature,
+L
+v
+{\displaystyle L_{v}}
+ is the latent heat of vaporization, and
+q
+{\displaystyle q}
+ is the concentration of water vapor. The first component corresponds to sensible heat and the second to latent heat.
+There are two sources of heat input. The dominant source is the input of heat at the surface, primarily due to evaporation. The bulk aerodynamic formula for the rate of heat input per unit area at the surface,
+Q
+i
+n
+:
+k
+{\displaystyle Q_{in:k}}
+, is given by
+where
+Δ
+k
+=
+k
+s
+∗
+−
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k=k_{s}^{*}-k}
+ represents the enthalpy difference between the ocean surface and the overlying air. The second source is the internal sensible heat generated from frictional dissipation (equal to
+W
+o
+u
+t
+{\displaystyle W_{out}}
+), which occurs near the surface within the tropical cyclone and is recycled to the system.
+Thus, the total rate of net energy production per unit surface area is given by
+Setting
+W
+i
+n
+=
+W
+o
+u
+t
+{\displaystyle W_{in}=W_{out}}
+ and taking
+|
+u
+|
+≈
+v
+{\displaystyle |\mathbf {u} |\approx v}
+ (i.e. the rotational wind speed is dominant) leads to the solution for
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+ given above. This derivation assumes that total energy input and loss within the system can be approximated by their values at the radius of maximum wind. The inclusion of
+Q
+i
+n
+:
+f
+r
+i
+c
+t
+i
+o
+n
+{\displaystyle Q_{in:friction}}
+ acts to multiply the total heat input rate by the factor
+T
+s
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle {\frac {T_{s}}{T_{o}}}}
+. Mathematically, this has the effect of replacing
+T
+s
+{\displaystyle T_{s}}
+ with
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle T_{o}}
+ in the denominator of the Carnot efficiency.
+An alternative definition for the maximum potential intensity, which is mathematically equivalent to the above formulation, is
+where CAPE stands for the Convective Available Potential Energy,
+C
+A
+P
+E
+s
+∗
+{\displaystyle CAPE_{s}^{*}}
+ is the CAPE of an air parcel lifted from saturation at sea level in reference to the environmental sounding,
+C
+A
+P
+E
+b
+{\displaystyle CAPE_{b}}
+ is the CAPE of the boundary layer air, and both quantities are calculated at the radius of maximum wind.[34]
+On Earth, a characteristic temperature for
+T
+s
+{\displaystyle T_{s}}
+ is 300 K and for
+T
+o
+{\displaystyle T_{o}}
+ is 200 K, corresponding to a Carnot efficiency of
+ϵ
+=
+1
+/
+3
+{\displaystyle \epsilon =1/3}
+. The ratio of the surface exchange coefficients,
+C
+k
+/
+C
+d
+{\displaystyle C_{k}/C_{d}}
+, is typically taken to be 1. However, observations suggest that the drag coefficient
+C
+d
+{\displaystyle C_{d}}
+ varies with wind speed and may decrease at high wind speeds within the boundary layer of a mature hurricane.[35] Additionally,
+C
+k
+{\displaystyle C_{k}}
+ may vary at high wind speeds due to the effect of sea spray on evaporation within the boundary layer.[36]
+A characteristic value of the maximum potential intensity,
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+, is 80 metres per second (180 mph; 290 km/h). However, this quantity varies significantly across space and time, particularly within the seasonal cycle, spanning a range of 0 to 100 metres per second (0 to 224 mph; 0 to 360 km/h).[34] This variability is primarily due to variability in the surface enthalpy disequilibrium (
+Δ
+k
+{\displaystyle \Delta k}
+ ) as well as in the thermodynamic structure of the troposphere, which are controlled by the large-scale dynamics of the tropical climate. These processes are modulated by factors including the sea surface temperature (and underlying ocean dynamics), background near-surface wind speed, and the vertical structure of atmospheric radiative heating.[37] The nature of this modulation is complex, particularly on climate time-scales (decades or longer). On shorter time-scales, variability in the maximum potential intensity is commonly linked to sea surface temperature perturbations from the tropical mean, as regions with relatively warm water have thermodynamic states much more capable of sustaining a tropical cyclone than regions with relatively cold water.[38] However, this relationship is indirect via the large-scale dynamics of the tropics; the direct influence of the absolute sea surface temperature on
+v
+p
+{\displaystyle v_{p}}
+ is weak in comparison.
+The passage of a tropical cyclone over the ocean causes the upper layers of the ocean to cool substantially, which can influence subsequent cyclone development. This cooling is primarily caused by wind-driven mixing of cold water from deeper in the ocean with the warm surface waters. This effect results in a negative feedback process that can inhibit further development or lead to weakening. Additional cooling may come in the form of cold water from falling raindrops (this is because the atmosphere is cooler at higher altitudes). Cloud cover may also play a role in cooling the ocean, by shielding the ocean surface from direct sunlight before and slightly after the storm passage. All these effects can combine to produce a dramatic drop in sea surface temperature over a large area in just a few days.[39] Conversely, the mixing of the sea can result in heat being inserted in deeper waters, with potential effects on global climate.[40]
+There are six Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) worldwide. These organizations are designated by the World Meteorological Organization and are responsible for tracking and issuing bulletins, warnings, and advisories about tropical cyclones in their designated areas of responsibility. Also, there are six Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs) that provide information to smaller regions.[46]
+The RSMCs and TCWCs are not the only organizations that provide information about tropical cyclones to the public. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issues advisories in all basins except the Northern Atlantic for the United States Government.[47] The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issues advisories and names for tropical cyclones that approach the Philippines in the Northwestern Pacific to protect the life and property of its citizens.[48] The Canadian Hurricane Center (CHC) issues advisories on hurricanes and their remnants for Canadian citizens when they affect Canada.[49]
+On March 26, 2004, Hurricane Catarina became the first recorded South Atlantic cyclone, striking southern Brazil with winds equivalent to Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. As the cyclone formed outside the authority of another warning center, Brazilian meteorologists initially treated the system as an extratropical cyclone, but later on, classified it as tropical.[50]
+Worldwide, tropical cyclone activity peaks in late summer, when the difference between temperatures aloft and sea surface temperatures is the greatest. However, each particular basin has its own seasonal patterns. On a worldwide scale, May is the least active month, while September is the most active month. November is the only month in which all the tropical cyclone basins are in season.[51]
+In the Northern Atlantic Ocean, a distinct cyclone season occurs from June 1 to November 30, sharply peaking from late August through September.[51] The statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is September 10. The Northeast Pacific Ocean has a broader period of activity, but in a similar time frame to the Atlantic.[52] The Northwest Pacific sees tropical cyclones year-round, with a minimum in February and March and a peak in early September.[51] In the North Indian basin, storms are most common from April to December, with peaks in May and November.[51] In the Southern Hemisphere, the tropical cyclone year begins on July 1 and runs all year-round encompassing the tropical cyclone seasons, which run from November 1 until the end of April, with peaks in mid-February to early March.[51][45]
+The formation of tropical cyclones is the topic of extensive ongoing research and is still not fully understood.[57] While six factors appear to be generally necessary, tropical cyclones may occasionally form without meeting all of the following conditions. In most situations, water temperatures of at least 26.5 °C (79.7 °F) are needed down to a depth of at least 50 m (160 ft);[58] waters of this temperature cause the overlying atmosphere to be unstable enough to sustain convection and thunderstorms.[59] For tropical transitioning cyclones (i.e. Hurricane Ophelia (2017)) a water temperature of at least 22.5 °C (72.5 °F) has been suggested.[60]
+Another factor is rapid cooling with height, which allows the release of the heat of condensation that powers a tropical cyclone.[58] High humidity is needed, especially in the lower-to-mid troposphere; when there is a great deal of moisture in the atmosphere, conditions are more favorable for disturbances to develop.[58] Low amounts of wind shear are needed, as high shear is disruptive to the storm's circulation.[58] Tropical cyclones generally need to form more than 555 km (345 mi) or five degrees of latitude away from the equator, allowing the Coriolis effect to deflect winds blowing towards the low pressure center and creating a circulation.[58] Lastly, a formative tropical cyclone needs a preexisting system of disturbed weather. Tropical cyclones will not form spontaneously.[58] Low-latitude and low-level westerly wind bursts associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation can create favorable conditions for tropical cyclogenesis by initiating tropical disturbances.[61]
+Most tropical cyclones form in a worldwide band of thunderstorm activity near the equator, referred to as the Intertropical Front (ITF), the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), or the monsoon trough.[62][63][64] Another important source of atmospheric instability is found in tropical waves, which contribute to the development of about 85% of intense tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and become most of the tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific.[65][66][67] The majority forms between 10 and 30 degrees of latitude away of the equator,[68] and 87% forms no farther away than 20 degrees north or south.[69][70] Because the Coriolis effect initiates and maintains their rotation, tropical cyclones rarely form or move within 5 degrees of the equator, where the effect is weakest.[69] However, it is still possible for tropical systems to form within this boundary as Tropical Storm Vamei and Cyclone Agni did in 2001 and 2004, respectively.[71][72]
+The movement of a tropical cyclone (i.e. its "track") is typically approximated as the sum of two terms: "steering" by the background environmental wind and "beta drift".[73]
+Environmental steering is the dominant term. Conceptually, it represents the movement of the storm due to prevailing winds and other wider environmental conditions, similar to "leaves carried along by a stream".[74] Physically, the winds, or flow field, in the vicinity of a tropical cyclone may be treated as having two parts: the flow associated with the storm itself, and the large-scale background flow of the environment in which the storm takes place. In this way, tropical cyclone motion may be represented to first-order simply as advection of the storm by the local environmental flow. This environmental flow is termed the "steering flow".
+Climatologically, tropical cyclones are steered primarily westward by the east-to-west trade winds on the equatorial side of the subtropical ridge—a persistent high-pressure area over the world's subtropical oceans.[74] In the tropical North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific oceans, the trade winds steer tropical easterly waves westward from the African coast toward the Caribbean Sea, North America, and ultimately into the central Pacific Ocean before the waves dampen out.[66] These waves are the precursors to many tropical cyclones within this region.[65] In contrast, in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific in both hemispheres, tropical cyclogenesis is influenced less by tropical easterly waves and more by the seasonal movement of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone and the monsoon trough.[75] Additionally, tropical cyclone motion can be influenced by transient weather systems, such as extratropical cyclones.
+In addition to environmental steering, a tropical cyclone will tend to drift slowly poleward and westward, a motion known as "beta drift". This motion is due to the superposition of a vortex, such as a tropical cyclone, onto an environment in which the Coriolis force varies with latitude, such as on a sphere or beta plane. It is induced indirectly by the storm itself, the result of a feedback between the cyclonic flow of the storm and its environment.
+Physically, the cyclonic circulation of the storm advects environmental air poleward east of center and equatorial west of center. Because air must conserve its angular momentum, this flow configuration induces a cyclonic gyre equatorward and westward of the storm center and an anticyclonic gyre poleward and eastward of the storm center. The combined flow of these gyres acts to advect the storm slowly poleward and westward. This effect occurs even if there is zero environmental flow.
+A third component of motion that occurs relatively infrequently involves the interaction of multiple tropical cyclones. When two cyclones approach one another, their centers will begin orbiting cyclonically about a point between the two systems. Depending on their separation distance and strength, the two vortices may simply orbit around one another or else may spiral into the center point and merge. When the two vortices are of unequal size, the larger vortex will tend to dominate the interaction, and the smaller vortex will orbit around it. This phenomenon is called the Fujiwhara effect, after Sakuhei Fujiwhara.[76]
+Though a tropical cyclone typically moves from east to west in the tropics, its track may shift poleward and eastward either as it moves west of the subtropical ridge axis or else if it interacts with the mid-latitude flow, such as the jet stream or an extratropical cyclone. This motion, termed "recurvature", commonly occurs near the western edge of the major ocean basins, where the jet stream typically has a poleward component and extratropical cyclones are common.[77] An example of tropical cyclone recurvature was Typhoon Ioke in 2006.[78]
+The landfall of a tropical cyclone occurs when a storm's surface center (eye if a stronger cyclone) moves over a coastline.[10] Storm conditions may be experienced on the coast and inland hours before landfall; in fact, a tropical cyclone can launch its strongest winds over land, yet not make landfall. NOAA uses the term "direct hit" to describe when a location (on the left side of the eye) falls within the radius of maximum winds (or twice that radius if on the right side), whether or not the hurricane's eye made landfall.[10]
+Most tropical cyclones form on the side of the subtropical ridge closer to the equator, then move poleward past the ridge axis before recurving into the main belt of the Westerlies.[79] When the subtropical ridge position shifts due to El Niño, so will the preferred tropical cyclone tracks. Areas west of Japan and Korea tend to experience much fewer September–November tropical cyclone impacts during El Niño and neutral years. During El Niño years, the break in the subtropical ridge tends to lie near 130°E which would favor the Japanese archipelago.[80] During El Niño years, Guam's chance of a tropical cyclone impact is one-third more likely than of the long-term average.[81] The tropical Atlantic Ocean experiences depressed activity due to increased vertical wind shear across the region during El Niño years.[82] During La Niña years, the formation of tropical cyclones, along with the subtropical ridge position, shifts westward across the western Pacific Ocean, which increases the landfall threat to China and much greater intensity in the Philippines.[80]
+A tropical cyclone can cease to have tropical characteristics in several different ways. One such way is if it moves over land, thus depriving it of the warm water it needs to power itself, quickly losing strength.[83] Most strong storms lose their strength very rapidly after landfall and become disorganized areas of low pressure within a day or two, or evolve into extratropical cyclones. There is a chance a tropical cyclone could regenerate if it managed to get back over open warm water, such as with Hurricane Ivan. If it remains over mountains for even a short time, weakening will accelerate.[84] Many storm fatalities occur in mountainous terrain, when diminishing cyclones unleash their moisture as torrential rainfall.[85] This rainfall may lead to deadly floods and mudslides, as was the case with Hurricane Mitch around Honduras in October 1998.[86] Without warm surface water, the storm cannot survive.[87]
+A tropical cyclone can dissipate when it moves over waters significantly below 26.5 °C (79.7 °F). This will cause the storm to lose its tropical characteristics, such as a warm core with thunderstorms near the center, and become a remnant low-pressure area. These remnant systems may persist for up to several days before losing their identity. This dissipation mechanism is most common in the eastern North Pacific.[88] Weakening or dissipation can occur if it experiences vertical wind shear, causing the convection and heat engine to move away from the center; this normally ceases development of a tropical cyclone.[89] In addition, its interaction with the main belt of the Westerlies, by means of merging with a nearby frontal zone, can cause tropical cyclones to evolve into extratropical cyclones. This transition can take 1–3 days.[90] Even after a tropical cyclone is said to be extratropical or dissipated, it can still have tropical storm force (or occasionally hurricane/typhoon force) winds and drop several inches of rainfall. In the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, such tropical-derived cyclones of higher latitudes can be violent and may occasionally remain at hurricane or typhoon-force wind speeds when they reach the west coast of North America. These phenomena can also affect Europe, where they are known as European windstorms; Hurricane Iris's extratropical remnants are an example of such a windstorm from 1995.[91] A cyclone can also merge with another area of low pressure, becoming a larger area of low pressure. This can strengthen the resultant system, although it may no longer be a tropical cyclone.[89] Studies in the 2000s have given rise to the hypothesis that large amounts of dust reduce the strength of tropical cyclones.[92]
+In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States government attempted to weaken hurricanes through Project Stormfury by seeding selected storms with silver iodide. It was thought that the seeding would cause supercooled water in the outer rainbands to freeze, causing the inner eyewall to collapse and thus reducing the winds.[93] The winds of Hurricane Debbie—a hurricane seeded in Project Stormfury—dropped as much as 31%, but Debbie regained its strength after each of two seeding forays.[94] In an earlier episode in 1947, disaster struck when a hurricane east of Jacksonville, Florida promptly changed its course after being seeded, and smashed into Savannah, Georgia.[95] Because there was so much uncertainty about the behavior of these storms, the federal government would not approve seeding operations unless the hurricane had a less than 10% chance of making landfall within 48 hours, greatly reducing the number of possible test storms. The project was dropped after it was discovered that eyewall replacement cycles occur naturally in strong hurricanes, casting doubt on the result of the earlier attempts. Today, it is known that silver iodide seeding is not likely to have an effect because the amount of supercooled water in the rainbands of a tropical cyclone is too low.[96]
+Other approaches have been suggested over time, including cooling the water under a tropical cyclone by towing icebergs into the tropical oceans.[97] Other ideas range from covering the ocean in a substance that inhibits evaporation,[98] dropping large quantities of ice into the eye at very early stages of development (so that the latent heat is absorbed by the ice, instead of being converted to kinetic energy that would feed the positive feedback loop),[97] or blasting the cyclone apart with nuclear weapons.[99] Project Cirrus even involved throwing dry ice on a cyclone.[100] These approaches all suffer from one flaw above many others: tropical cyclones are simply too large and long-lived for any of the weakening techniques to be practical.[101]
+Tropical cyclones out at sea cause large waves, heavy rain, flood and high winds, disrupting international shipping and, at times, causing shipwrecks.[102] Tropical cyclones stir up water, leaving a cool wake behind them, which causes the region to be less favorable for subsequent tropical cyclones.[39] On land, strong winds can damage or destroy vehicles, buildings, bridges, and other outside objects, turning loose debris into deadly flying projectiles. The storm surge, or the increase in sea level due to the cyclone, is typically the worst effect from landfalling tropical cyclones, historically resulting in 90% of tropical cyclone deaths.[103]
+The broad rotation of a landfalling tropical cyclone, and vertical wind shear at its periphery, spawns tornadoes. Tornadoes can also be spawned as a result of eyewall mesovortices, which persist until landfall.[104]
+Over the past two centuries, tropical cyclones have been responsible for the deaths of about 1.9 million people worldwide. Large areas of standing water caused by flooding lead to infection, as well as contributing to mosquito-borne illnesses. Crowded evacuees in shelters increase the risk of disease propagation.[103] Tropical cyclones significantly interrupt infrastructure, leading to power outages, bridge destruction, and the hampering of reconstruction efforts.[103][105] On average, the Gulf and east coasts of the United States suffer approximately US$5 billion (1995 US $) in cyclone damage every year. The majority (83%) of tropical cyclone damage is caused by severe hurricanes, category 3 or greater. However, category 3 or greater hurricanes only account for about one-fifth of cyclones that make landfall every year.[106]
+Although cyclones take an enormous toll in lives and personal property, they may be important factors in the precipitation regimes of places they impact, as they may bring much-needed precipitation to otherwise dry regions.[107] Tropical cyclones also help maintain the global heat balance by moving warm, moist tropical air to the middle latitudes and polar regions,[108] and by regulating the thermohaline circulation through upwelling.[109] The storm surge and winds of hurricanes may be destructive to human-made structures, but they also stir up the waters of coastal estuaries, which are typically important fish breeding locales. Tropical cyclone destruction spurs redevelopment, greatly increasing local property values.[110]
+When hurricanes surge upon shore from the ocean, salt is introduced to many freshwater areas and raises the salinity levels too high for some habitats to withstand. Some are able to cope with the salt and recycle it back into the ocean, but others can not release the extra surface water quickly enough or do not have a large enough freshwater source to replace it. Because of this, some species of plants and vegetation die due to the excess salt.[111] In addition, hurricanes can carry toxins and acids onto shore when they make landfall. The flood water can pick up the toxins from different spills and contaminate the land that it passes over. The toxins are very harmful to the people and animals in the area, as well as the environment around them. The flooding water can also spark many dangerous oil spills.[112]
+Hurricane preparedness encompasses the actions and planning taken before a tropical cyclone strikes to mitigate damage and injury from the storm. Knowledge of tropical cyclone impacts on an area help plan for future possibilities. Preparedness may involve preparations made by individuals as well as centralized efforts by governments or other organizations. Tracking storms during the tropical cyclone season helps individuals know current threats. Regional Specialized Meteorological Centers and Tropical Cyclone Warning Centers provide current information and forecasts to help individuals make the best decision possible.
+Hurricane response is the disaster response after a hurricane. Activities performed by hurricane responders include assessment, restoration, and demolition of buildings; removal of debris and waste; repairs to land-based and maritime infrastructure; and public health services including search and rescue operations.[113] Hurricane response requires coordination between federal, tribal, state, local, and private entities.[114] According to the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, potential response volunteers should affiliate with established organizations and should not self-deploy, so that proper training and support can be provided to mitigate the danger and stress of response work.[115]
+Hurricane responders face many hazards. Hurricane responders may be exposed to chemical and biological contaminants including stored chemicals, sewage, human remains, and mold growth encouraged by flooding,[116][117][118] as well as asbestos and lead that may be present in older buildings.[117][119] Common injuries arise from falls from heights, such as from a ladder or from level surfaces; from electrocution in flooded areas, including from backfeed from portable generators; or from motor vehicle accidents.[116][119][120] Long and irregular shifts may lead to sleep deprivation and fatigue, increasing the risk of injuries, and workers may experience mental stress associated with a traumatic incident. Additionally, heat stress is a concern as workers are often exposed to hot and humid temperatures, wear protective clothing and equipment, and have physically difficult tasks.[116][119]
+Intense tropical cyclones pose a particular observation challenge, as they are a dangerous oceanic phenomenon, and weather stations, being relatively sparse, are rarely available on the site of the storm itself. In general, surface observations are available only if the storm is passing over an island or a coastal area, or if there is a nearby ship. Real-time measurements are usually taken in the periphery of the cyclone, where conditions are less catastrophic and its true strength cannot be evaluated. For this reason, there are teams of meteorologists that move into the path of tropical cyclones to help evaluate their strength at the point of landfall.[121]
+Tropical cyclones far from land are tracked by weather satellites capturing visible and infrared images from space, usually at half-hour to quarter-hour intervals. As a storm approaches land, it can be observed by land-based Doppler weather radar. Radar plays a crucial role around landfall by showing a storm's location and intensity every several minutes.[122]
+In situ measurements, in real-time, can be taken by sending specially equipped reconnaissance flights into the cyclone. In the Atlantic basin, these flights are regularly flown by United States government hurricane hunters.[123] The aircraft used are WC-130 Hercules and WP-3D Orions, both four-engine turboprop cargo aircraft. These aircraft fly directly into the cyclone and take direct and remote-sensing measurements. The aircraft also launch GPS dropsondes inside the cyclone. These sondes measure temperature, humidity, pressure, and especially winds between flight level and the ocean's surface. A new era in hurricane observation began when a remotely piloted Aerosonde, a small drone aircraft, was flown through Tropical Storm Ophelia as it passed Virginia's Eastern Shore during the 2005 hurricane season. A similar mission was also completed successfully in the western Pacific Ocean. This demonstrated a new way to probe the storms at low altitudes that human pilots seldom dare.[124]
+Because of the forces that affect tropical cyclone tracks, accurate track predictions depend on determining the position and strength of high- and low-pressure areas, and predicting how those areas will change during the life of a tropical system. The deep layer mean flow, or average wind through the depth of the troposphere, is considered the best tool in determining track direction and speed. If storms are significantly sheared, use of wind speed measurements at a lower altitude, such as at the 70 kPa pressure surface (3,000 metres or 9,800 feet above sea level) will produce better predictions. Tropical forecasters also consider smoothing out short-term wobbles of the storm as it allows them to determine a more accurate long-term trajectory.[125] High-speed computers and sophisticated simulation software allow forecasters to produce computer models that predict tropical cyclone tracks based on the future position and strength of high- and low-pressure systems. Combining forecast models with increased understanding of the forces that act on tropical cyclones, as well as with a wealth of data from Earth-orbiting satellites and other sensors, scientists have increased the accuracy of track forecasts over recent decades.[126] However, scientists are not as skillful at predicting the intensity of tropical cyclones.[127] The lack of improvement in intensity forecasting is attributed to the complexity of tropical systems and an incomplete understanding of factors that affect their development. New tropical cyclone position and forecast information is available at least every six hours from the various warning centers.[46][128][129][130][131]
+Around the world, tropical cyclones are classified in different ways, based on the location, the structure of the system and its intensity. For example, within the Northern Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins, a tropical cyclone with wind speeds of over 65 kn (75 mph; 120 km/h) is called a hurricane, while it is called a typhoon or a severe cyclonic storm within the Western Pacific or North Indian Oceans.[41][42][43] Within the Southern Hemisphere, it is either called a hurricane, tropical cyclone or a severe tropical cyclone, depending on if it is located within the South Atlantic, South-West Indian Ocean, Australian region or the South Pacific Ocean.[44][45] If a tropical cyclone moves from one basin to another, then it is generally classified using that basin's terminology[clarification needed].
+Tropical cyclones that develop around the world are assigned an identification code consisting of a two-digit number and suffix letter by the warning centers that monitor them. These codes start at 01 every year and are assigned in order to systems, which have the potential to develop further, cause significant impact to life and property or when the warning centers start to write advisories on the system.[45][132]
+The practice of using names to identify tropical cyclones goes back many years, with systems named after places or things they hit before the formal start of naming.[141][142] The system currently used provides positive identification of severe weather systems in a brief form, that is readily understood and recognized by the public.[141][142] The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge who named systems between 1887 and 1907.[141][142] This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific.[141][142] Formal naming schemes have subsequently been introduced for the North and South Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern Pacific basins as well as the Australian region and Indian Ocean.[142]
+At present, tropical cyclones are officially named by one of eleven meteorological services and retain their names throughout their lifetimes to provide ease of communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings.[141] Since the systems can last a week or longer and more than one can be occurring in the same basin at the same time, the names are thought to reduce the confusion about what storm is being described.[141] Names are assigned in order from predetermined lists with one, three, or ten-minute sustained wind speeds of more than 65 km/h (40 mph) depending on which basin it originates.[41][43][44] However, standards vary from basin to basin with some tropical depressions named in the Western Pacific, while tropical cyclones have to have a significant amount of gale-force winds occurring around the center before they are named within the Southern Hemisphere.[44][45] The names of significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Australian region are retired from the naming lists and replaced with another name.[41][42][45]
+Tropical cyclones that cause extreme destruction are rare, although when they occur, they can cause great amounts of damage or thousands of fatalities.
+The 1970 Bhola cyclone is considered to be the deadliest tropical cyclone on record, which killed around 300,000 people, after striking the densely populated Ganges Delta region of Bangladesh on November 13, 1970.[143] Its powerful storm surge was responsible for the high death toll.[144] The North Indian cyclone basin has historically been the deadliest basin.[103][145] Elsewhere, Typhoon Nina killed nearly 100,000 in China in 1975 due to a 100-year flood that caused 62 dams including the Banqiao Dam to fail.[146] The Great Hurricane of 1780 is the deadliest North Atlantic hurricane on record, killing about 22,000 people in the Lesser Antilles.[147] A tropical cyclone does not need to be particularly strong to cause memorable damage, primarily if the deaths are from rainfall or mudslides. Tropical Storm Thelma in November 1991 killed thousands in the Philippines,[148] although the strongest typhoon to ever make landfall on record was Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, causing widespread devastation in Eastern Visayas, and killing at least 6,300 people in the Philippines alone. In 1982, the unnamed tropical depression that eventually became Hurricane Paul killed around 1,000 people in Central America.[149]
+Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Katrina are estimated to be the costliest tropical cyclones to impact the United States mainland, each causing damage estimated at $125 billion.[150] Harvey killed at least 90 people in August 2017 after making landfall in Texas as a low-end Category 4 hurricane. Hurricane Katrina is estimated as the second-costliest tropical cyclone worldwide,[151] causing $81.2 billion in property damage (2008 USD) alone,[152] with overall damage estimates exceeding $100 billion (2005 USD).[151] Katrina killed at least 1,836 people after striking Louisiana and Mississippi as a major hurricane in August 2005.[152] Hurricane Maria is the third most destructive tropical cyclone in U.S. history, with damage totaling $91.61 billion (2017 USD), and with damage costs at $68.7 billion (2012 USD), Hurricane Sandy is the fourth most destructive tropical cyclone in U.S history. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster in the United States, killing an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people in Galveston, Texas.[153] Hurricane Mitch caused more than 10,000 fatalities in Central America, making it the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history. Hurricane Iniki in 1992 was the most powerful storm to strike Hawaii in recorded history, hitting Kauai as a Category 4 hurricane, killing six people, and causing U.S. $3 billion in damage.[154] Other destructive Eastern Pacific hurricanes include Pauline and Kenna, both causing severe damage after striking Mexico as major hurricanes.[155][156] In March 2004, Cyclone Gafilo struck northeastern Madagascar as a powerful cyclone, killing 74, affecting more than 200,000 and becoming the worst cyclone to affect the nation for more than 20 years.[157]
+The most intense storm on record is Typhoon Tip in the northwestern Pacific Ocean in 1979, which reached a minimum pressure of 870 hectopascals (25.69 inHg) and maximum sustained wind speeds of 165 knots (85 m/s) or 190 miles per hour (310 km/h).[158] The highest maximum sustained wind speed ever recorded was 185 knots (95 m/s) or 215 miles per hour (346 km/h) in Hurricane Patricia in 2015—the most intense cyclone ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.[159] Typhoon Nancy in 1961 also had recorded wind speeds of 185 knots (95 m/s) or 215 miles per hour (346 km/h), but recent research indicates that wind speeds from the 1940s to the 1960s were gauged too high, and thus it is no longer considered the storm with the highest wind speed on record.[160] Likewise, a surface-level gust caused by Typhoon Paka on Guam in late 1997 was recorded at 205 knots (105 m/s) or 235 miles per hour (378 km/h). Had it been confirmed, it would be the strongest non-tornadic wind ever recorded on the Earth's surface, but the reading had to be discarded since the anemometer was damaged by the storm.[161]
+The World Meteorological Organization established Barrow Island (Queensland) as the location of the highest non-tornado related wind gust at 408 kilometres per hour (254 mph)[162] on April 10, 1996, during Severe Tropical Cyclone Olivia.[163]
+In addition to being the most intense tropical cyclone on record based on pressure, Tip is the largest cyclone on record, with tropical storm-force winds 2,170 kilometres (1,350 mi) in diameter. The smallest storm on record, Tropical Storm Marco, formed during October 2008 and made landfall in Veracruz. Marco generated tropical storm-force winds only 37 kilometres (23 mi) in diameter.[164]
+Hurricane John is the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record, lasting 31 days in 1994. Before the advent of satellite imagery in 1961, however, many tropical cyclones were underestimated in their durations.[165] John is also the longest-tracked tropical cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere on record, with a path of 8,250 mi (13,280 km).[166] Cyclone Rewa of the 1993–94 South Pacific and Australian region cyclone seasons had one of the longest tracks observed within the Southern Hemisphere, traveling a distance of over 5,545 mi (8,920 km) during December 1993 and January 1994.[166]
+While the number of storms in the Atlantic has increased since 1995, there is no obvious global trend; the annual number of tropical cyclones worldwide remains about 87 ± 10 (Between 77 and 97 tropical cyclones annually). However, the ability of climatologists to make long-term data analysis in certain basins is limited by the lack of reliable historical data in some basins, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere,[167] while noting that a significant downward trend in tropical cyclone numbers has been identified for the region near Australia (based on high quality data and accounting for the influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation).[168] In spite of that, there is some evidence that the intensity of hurricanes is increasing. Kerry Emanuel stated, "Records of hurricane activity worldwide show an upswing of both the maximum wind speed in and the duration of hurricanes. The energy released by the average hurricane (again considering all hurricanes worldwide) seems to have increased by around 70% in the past 30 years or so, corresponding to about a 15% increase in the maximum wind speed and a 60% increase in storm lifetime."[169]
+Atlantic storms are becoming more destructive financially, as evidenced by the fact that the ten most expensive storms in United States history have occurred since 1990. According to the World Meteorological Organization, "recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has been caused largely by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions."[170] Political scientist Pielke et al. (2008) normalized mainland US hurricane damage from 1900–2005 to 2005 values and found no remaining trend of increasing absolute damage. The 1970s and 1980s were notable because of the extremely low amounts of damage compared to other decades. The decade 1996–2005 was the second most damaging among the past 11 decades, with only the decade 1926–1935 surpassing its costs.
+Often in part because of the threat of hurricanes, many coastal regions had sparse population between major ports until the advent of automobile tourism; therefore, the most severe portions of hurricanes striking the coast may have gone unmeasured in some instances. The combined effects of ship destruction and remote landfall severely limit the number of intense hurricanes in the official record before the era of hurricane reconnaissance aircraft and satellite meteorology. Although the record shows a distinct increase in the number and strength of intense hurricanes, therefore, experts regard the early data as suspect.[171]
+The number and strength of Atlantic hurricanes may undergo a 50–70 year cycle, also known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Nyberg et al. reconstructed Atlantic major hurricane activity back to the early 18th century and found five periods averaging 3–5 major hurricanes per year and lasting 40–60 years, and six other averaging 1.5–2.5 major hurricanes per year and lasting 10–20 years. These periods are associated with the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Throughout, a decadal oscillation related to solar irradiance was responsible for enhancing/dampening the number of major hurricanes by 1–2 per year.[172]
+Although more common since 1995, few above-normal hurricane seasons occurred during 1970–94.[173] Destructive hurricanes struck frequently from 1926 to 1960, including many major New England hurricanes. Twenty-one Atlantic tropical storms formed in 1933, a record only recently exceeded in 2005, which saw 28 storms. Tropical hurricanes occurred infrequently during the seasons of 1900–25; however, many intense storms formed during 1870–99. During the 1887 season, 19 tropical storms formed, of which a record 4 occurred after November 1 and 11 strengthened into hurricanes. Few hurricanes occurred in the 1840s to 1860s; however, many struck in the early 19th century, including an 1821 storm that made a direct hit on New York City. Some historical weather experts say these storms may have been as high as Category 4 in strength.[174]
+These active hurricane seasons predated satellite coverage of the Atlantic basin. Before the satellite era began in 1960, tropical storms or hurricanes went undetected unless a reconnaissance aircraft encountered one, a ship reported a voyage through the storm, or a storm hit land in a populated area.[171]
+Proxy records based on paleotempestological research have revealed that major hurricane activity along the Gulf of Mexico coast varies on timescales of centuries to millennia.[175][176] Few major hurricanes struck the Gulf coast during 3000–1400 BC and again during the most recent millennium. These quiescent intervals were separated by a hyperactive period during 1400 BC and 1000 AD, when the Gulf coast was struck frequently by catastrophic hurricanes and their landfall probabilities increased by 3–5 times. This millennial-scale variability has been attributed to long-term shifts in the position of the Azores High,[176] which may also be linked to changes in the strength of the North Atlantic oscillation.[177]
+According to the Azores High hypothesis, an anti-phase pattern is expected to exist between the Gulf of Mexico coast and the Atlantic coast. During the quiescent periods, a more northeasterly position of the Azores High would result in more hurricanes being steered towards the Atlantic coast. During the hyperactive period, more hurricanes were steered towards the Gulf coast as the Azores High was shifted to a more southwesterly position near the Caribbean. Such a displacement of the Azores High is consistent with paleoclimatic evidence that shows an abrupt onset of a drier climate in Haiti around 3200 14C years BP,[178] and a change towards more humid conditions in the Great Plains during the late-Holocene as more moisture was pumped up the Mississippi Valley through the Gulf coast. Preliminary data from the northern Atlantic coast seem to support the Azores High hypothesis. A 3000-year proxy record from a coastal lake in Cape Cod suggests that hurricane activity increased significantly during the past 500–1000 years, just as the Gulf coast was amid a quiescent period of the last millennium.
+The 2007 IPCC report noted many observed changes in the climate, including atmospheric composition, global average temperatures, ocean conditions, and others. The report concluded the observed increase in tropical cyclone intensity is larger than climate models predict. In addition, the report considered that it is likely that storm intensity will continue to increase through the 21st century, and declared it more likely than not that there has been some human contribution to the increases in tropical cyclone intensity.[179]
+P.J. Webster and others published in 2005 an article in Science examining the "changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity" over the past 35 years, the period when satellite data has been available. Their main finding was although the number of cyclones decreased throughout the planet excluding the north Atlantic Ocean, there was a great increase in the number and proportion of very strong cyclones.[180] Projections currently show no consensus on how climate change will affect the overall frequency of tropical cyclones.[181]
+According to 2006 studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "the strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere".[182] A greater percentage (+13%) of tropical cyclones are expected to reach Category 4 and 5 strength with 2 °C warming.[181]
+Studies published since 2008, by Kerry Emanuel from MIT, indicate that global warming is likely to increase the intensity but decrease the frequency of hurricane and cyclone activity.[183] In an article in Nature, Kerry Emanuel stated that potential hurricane destructiveness, a measure combining hurricane strength, duration, and frequency, "is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multidecadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming". Emanuel predicted "a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century".[184]
+Research reported in the September 3, 2008 issue of Nature found that the strongest tropical cyclones are getting stronger, in particular over the North Atlantic and Indian oceans. Wind speeds for the strongest tropical storms increased from an average of 225 km/h (140 mph) in 1981 to 251 km/h (156 mph) in 2006, while the ocean temperature, averaged globally over all the regions where tropical cyclones form, increased from 28.2 °C (82.8 °F) to 28.5 °C (83.3 °F) during this period.[185][186]
+A 2017 study looked at compounding effects from floods, storm surge, and terrestrial flooding (rivers), and projects an increase due to global warming.[187][188]
+In 2020 a study was published, saying that climate change is increasing the likelihood of a storm of 3 category or above by 8% per decade.[189]
+In addition to tropical cyclones, there are two other classes of cyclones within the spectrum of cyclone types. These kinds of cyclones, known as extratropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones, can be stages a tropical cyclone passes through during its formation or dissipation.[190] An extratropical cyclone is a storm that derives energy from horizontal temperature differences, which are typical in higher latitudes. A tropical cyclone can become extratropical as it moves toward higher latitudes if its energy source changes from heat released by condensation to differences in temperature between air masses; although not as frequently, an extratropical cyclone can transform into a subtropical storm, and from there into a tropical cyclone.[191] From space, extratropical storms have a characteristic "comma-shaped" cloud pattern.[192] Extratropical cyclones can also be dangerous when their low-pressure centers cause powerful winds and high seas.[193]
+A subtropical cyclone is a weather system that has some characteristics of a tropical cyclone and some characteristics of an extratropical cyclone. They can form in a wide band of latitudes, from the equator to 50°. Although subtropical storms rarely have hurricane-force winds, they may become tropical in nature as their cores warm.[194] From an operational standpoint, a tropical cyclone is usually not considered to become subtropical during its extratropical transition.[195]
+In popular culture, tropical cyclones have made several appearances in different types of media, including films, books, television, music, and electronic games.[196] These media often portray tropical cyclones that are either entirely fictional or based on real events.[196] For example, George Rippey Stewart's Storm, a best-seller published in 1941, is thought to have influenced meteorologists on their decision to assign female names to Pacific tropical cyclones.[142] Another example is the hurricane in The Perfect Storm, which describes the sinking of the Andrea Gail by the 1991 Perfect Storm.[197] Hurricanes have been featured in parts of the plots of series such as The Simpsons, Invasion, Family Guy, Seinfeld, Dawson's Creek, Burn Notice and CSI: Miami.[196][198][199][200][201] The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow includes several mentions of actual tropical cyclones and features fantastical "hurricane-like", albeit non-tropical, Arctic storms.[202][203]

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+Track and field is a sport which includes athletic contests established on the skills of running, jumping, and throwing.[1] The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running, and racewalking.
+The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events, racewalking and hurdling, are won by the athlete who completes it in the least time. The jumping and throwing events are won by those who achieve the greatest distance or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also "combined events" or "multi events", such as the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events, and decathlon consisting of ten events. In these, athletes participate in a combination of track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a single victor; the most prominent team events are relay races, which typically feature teams of four. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the men's and women's competitions are usually held at the same venue. If a race has too many people to run all at once, preliminary heats will be run to narrow down the field of participants.
+Track and field is one of the oldest sports. In ancient times, it was an event held in conjunction with festivals and sports meets such as the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In modern times, the two most prestigious international track and field competitions are the athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships. World Athletics, formerly known as the International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics.
+Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world and national levels, right down to a personal level. However, if athletes are deemed to have violated the event's rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition and their marks are erased.
+In the United States, the term track and field may refer to other athletics events, such as cross country, the marathon and road running, rather than strictly track-based events.[2]
+The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory. Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested: the stadion footrace.[3] The scope of the Games expanded in later years to include further running competitions, but the introduction of the Ancient Olympic pentathlon marked a step towards track and field as it is recognized today—it comprised a five-event competition of the long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, stadion footrace,[3] and wrestling.[4][5]
+Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC.[6][7] After the period of Classical antiquity (in which the sport was largely Greco-Roman influenced) new track and field events began developing in parts of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The stone put and weight throw competitions popular among Celtic societies in Ireland and Scotland were precursors to the modern shot put and hammer throw events. One of the last track and field events to develop was the pole vault, which stemmed from competitions such as the Fierljeppen contests in the Northern European Lowlands in the 18th century.
+Discrete modern track and field competitions, separate from general sporting festivals, were first recorded in the 19th century. These were typically organised by educational institutions, military organisations and sports clubs as competitions between rival establishments.[8] Competitions in the English public schools were conceived as human equivalents of horse racing, fox hunting and hare coursing, influenced by a Classics-rich curriculum. The Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt is the oldest running club in the world, with written records going back to 1831 and evidence that it was established by 1819.[9] The school organised Paper Chase races in which runners followed a trail of paper shreds left by two "foxes";[9] even today RSSH runners are called "hounds" and a race victory is a "kill".[10] The first definite record of Shrewsbury's (cross-country) Annual Steeplechase is in 1834, making it the oldest running race of the modern era.[9] The school also lays claim to the oldest track and field meeting still in existence, originating in the Second Spring Meeting first documented in 1840.[9] This featured a series of throwing and jumping events with mock horse races including the Derby Stakes, the Hurdle Race and the Trial Stakes. Runners were entered by "owners" and named as though they were horses.[9] 13 miles (21 km) away and a decade later, the first Wenlock Olympian Games were held at Much Wenlock racecourse.[11] Events at the 1851 Wenlock Games included a "half-mile foot race" (805 m) and a "leaping in distance" competition.[12]
+In 1865, Dr William Penny Brookes of Wenlock helped set up the National Olympian Association, which held their first Olympian Games in 1866 at The Crystal Palace in London.[12] This national event was a great success, attracting a crowd of over ten thousand people.[12]  In response, that same year the Amateur Athletic Club was formed and held a championship for "gentlemen amateurs" in an attempt to reclaim the sport for the educated elite.[12] Ultimately the "allcomers" ethos of the NOA won through and the AAC was reconstituted as the Amateur Athletic Association in 1880, the first national body for the sport of athletics. The AAA Championships, the de facto British national championships despite being for England only, have been held annually since 3 July 1880 with breaks only during two world wars and 2006–2008.[13] The AAA was effectively a global governing body in the early years of the sport, codifying its rules for the first time.
+Meanwhile, the United States began holding an annual national competition—the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships—first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club.[14] The establishment of general sports governing bodies for the United States (the Amateur Athletic Union in 1888) and France (the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques in 1889) put the sport on a formal footing and meant that international competitions became possible.
+The establishment of the modern Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century marked a new high for track and field. The Olympic athletics programme, comprising track and field events plus a marathon race, contained many of the foremost sporting competitions of the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Olympics also consolidated the use of metric measurements in international track and field events, both for race distances and for measuring jumps and throws. The Olympic athletics programme greatly expanded over the next decades, and track and field contests remained among the Games' most prominent. The Olympics was the elite competition for track and field, and only amateur sportsmen could compete. Track and field continued to be a largely amateur sport, as this rule was strictly enforced: Jim Thorpe was stripped of his track and field medals from the 1912 Olympics after it was revealed that he had taken expense money for playing baseball, violating Olympic amateurism rules, before the 1912 Games. His medals were reinstated 29 years after his death.[15]
+That same year, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was established, becoming the international governing body for track and field, and it enshrined amateurism as one of its founding principles for the sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association held their first Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 1921, making it one of the most prestigious competitions for students, and this was soon followed by the introduction of track and field at the inaugural World Student Games in 1923.[16] The first continental track and field competition was the 1919 South American Championships, which was followed by the European Athletics Championships in 1934.[17]
+Up until the early 1920s, track and field had been almost exclusively a male-only pursuit. Alice Milliat argued for the inclusion of women at the Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee refused. She founded the International Women's Sports Federation in 1921 and, alongside a growing women's sports movement in Europe and North America, the group initiated of the Women's Olympiad (held annually from 1921 to 1923). Working in conjunction with the English Women's Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA), the Women's World Games was held four times between 1922 and 1934, as well as a Women's International and British Games in London in 1924. These events ultimately led to the introduction of five track and field events for women in the athletics at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[18] In China, women's track and field events were being held in the 1920s, but were subject to criticism and disrespect from audiences. National women's events were established in this period, with 1923 seeing the First British Track & Field championships for women and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) sponsoring the First American Track & Field championships for women. Also in 1923, physical education advocate Zhang Ruizhen called for greater equality and participation of women in Chinese track and field.[19] The rise of Kinue Hitomi and her 1928 Olympic medal for Japan signified the growth of women's track and field in East Asia.[20] More women's events were gradually introduced as years progressed (although it was only towards the end of the century that the men's and women's programmes approached parity of events). Marking an increasingly inclusive approach to the sport, major track and field competitions for disabled athletes were first introduced at the 1960 Summer Paralympics.
+With the rise of numerous regional championships, as well as the growth in Olympic-style multi-sport events (such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan-American Games), competitions between international track and field athletes became widespread. From the 1960s onwards, the sport gained more exposure and commercial appeal through television coverage and the increasing wealth of nations. After over half a century of amateurism, the amateur status of the sport began to be displaced by growing professionalism in the late 1970s.[8] As a result, the Amateur Athletic Union was dissolved in the United States and it was replaced with a non-amateur body solely focused on the sport of athletics: The Athletics Congress (later USA Track and Field).[21] The IAAF soon followed suit in 1982, abandoning amateurism, and later removing all references to it from its name by rebranding itself as the International Association of Athletics Federations.[8] While Western countries were limited to amateurs until the early 1980s, Soviet Bloc countries always fielded state-funded athletes who trained full-time. The following year saw the establishment of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics—the first ever global competition just for athletics—which, with the Olympics, became one of track and field's most prestigious competitions.
+The profile of the sport reached a new high in the 1980s, with a number of athletes becoming household names (such as Carl Lewis, Sergey Bubka, Sebastian Coe, Zola Budd and Florence Griffith Joyner). Many world records were broken in this period, and the added political element between competitors of the United States, East Germany, and the Soviet Union, in reaction to the Cold War, only served to stoke the sport's popularity. The increase in the commercial capacity of track and field was also met with developments in the application of sports science, and there were many changes to coaching methods, athlete's diet regimes, training facilities and sports equipment. This was also accompanied by an increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs. State-sponsored doping in 1970s and 1980s East Germany, China,[22] the Soviet Union,[23] and early 21st century Russia, as well as prominent individual cases such as those of Olympic gold medallists Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, damaged the public image and marketability of the sport.
+From the 1990s onwards, track and field became increasingly more professional and international, as the IAAF gained over two hundred member nations. The IAAF World Championships in Athletics became a fully professional competition with the introduction of prize money in 1997,[8] and in 1998 the IAAF Golden League—an annual series of major track and field meetings in Europe—provided a higher level of economic incentive in the form of a US$1 million jackpot. In 2010, the series was replaced by the more lucrative IAAF Diamond League, a fourteen-meeting series held in Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East—the first ever worldwide annual series of track and field meetings.[24]
+Track and field events are divided into three broad categories: track events, field events, and combined events. The majority of athletes tend to specialise in just one event (or event type) with the aim of perfecting their performances, although the aim of combined events athletes is to become proficient in a number of disciplines. Track events involve running on a track over a specified distances and—in the case of the hurdling and steeplechase events—obstacles may be placed on the track. There are also relay races in which teams of athletes run and pass on a baton to their team member at the end of a certain distance.
+There are two types of field events: jumps and throws. In jumping competitions, athletes are judged on either the length or height of their jumps. The performances of jumping events for distance are measured from a board or marker, and any athlete overstepping this mark is judged to have fouled. In the jumps for height, an athlete must clear their body over a crossbar without knocking the bar off the supporting standards. The majority of jumping events are unaided, although athletes propel themselves vertically with purpose-built sticks in the pole vault.
+The throwing events involve hurling an implement (such as a heavy weight, javelin or discus) from a set point, with athletes being judged on the distance that the object is thrown. Combined events involve the same group of athletes contesting a number of different track and field events. Points are given for their performance in each event and the athlete and/or teams with the greatest points total at the end of all events is the winner.
+Races over short distances, or sprints, are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event, the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other.[3] Sprinting events are focused around athletes reaching and sustaining their quickest possible running speed. Three sprinting events are currently held at the Olympics and outdoor World Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres. These events have their roots in races of imperial measurements that later changed to metric: the 100 m evolved from the 100-yard dash,[25] the 200 m distances came from the furlong (or 1/8 of a mile),[26] and the 400 m was the successor to the 440 yard dash or quarter-mile race.[27]
+At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in the starting blocks before leaning forward and gradually moving into an upright position as the race progresses and momentum is gained.[28] Athletes remain in the same lane on the running track throughout all sprinting events,[27] with the sole exception of the 400 m indoors. Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete's maximum speed.[28] All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance.[29] Human physiology dictates that a runner's near-top speed cannot be maintained for more than thirty seconds or so because lactic acid builds up once leg muscles begin to suffer oxygen deprivation.[27]  Top speed can only be maintained for up to 20 metres.[30]
+The 60 metres is a common indoor event and indoor world championship event. Less-common events include the 50 metres, 55 metres, 300 metres and 500 metres which are run in some high school and collegiate competitions in the United States. The 150 metres, though rarely competed, has a star-studded history: Pietro Mennea set a world best in 1983,[31] Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey went head-to-head over the distance in 1997,[32] and Usain Bolt improved Mennea's record in 2009.[31]
+The most common middle-distance track events are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle-distance event.[33] The 880 yard run, or half mile, was the forebear of the 800 m distance and it has its roots in competitions in the United Kingdom in the 1830s.[34] The 1500 m came about as a result of running three laps of a 500 m track, which was commonplace in continental Europe in the 20th century.[35]
+Runners start the race from a standing position along a curved starting line and after hearing the starting pistol they head towards the innermost track to follow the quickest route to the finish. In 800 m races athletes begin at a staggered starting point before the turn in the track and they must remain in their lanes for the first 100 m of the race.[36] This rule was introduced to reduce the amount of physical jostling between runners in the early stages of the race.[34] Physiologically, these middle-distance events demand that athletes have good aerobic and anaerobic energy producing systems, and also that they have strong speed endurance.[37]
+The 1500 m and mile run events have historically been some of the most prestigious track and field events. Swedish rivals Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson broke each other's 1500 m and mile world records on a number of occasions in the 1940s.[38][39] The prominence of the distances were maintained by Roger Bannister, who (in 1954) was the first to run the long-elusive four-minute mile,[40][41] and Jim Ryun's exploits served to popularise interval training.[35] Races between British rivals Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram characterised middle-distance running in the 1980s.[42] From the 1990s onwards, North Africans such as Noureddine Morceli of Algeria and Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco came to dominate the 1500 and mile events.[35]
+Beyond the short distances of sprinting events, factors such as an athlete's reactions and top speed becomes less important, while qualities such as pace, race tactics and endurance become more so.[34][35]
+There are three common long-distance running events in track and field competitions: 3000 metres, 5000 metres and 10,000 metres. The latter two races are both Olympic and World Championship events outdoors, while the 3000 m is held at the IAAF World Indoor Championships. The 5000 m and 10,000 m events have their historical roots in the 3-mile and 6-mile races. The 3000 m was historically used as a women's long-distance event, entering the World Championship programme in 1983 and Olympic programme in 1984, but this was abandoned in favour of a women's 5000 m event in 1995.[43] Marathons, while long-distance races, are typically run on street courses, and often are run separately from other track and field events.
+In terms of competition rules and physical demands, long-distance track races have much in common with middle-distance races, except that pacing, stamina, and race tactics become much greater factors in performances.[44][45] However, a number of athletes have achieved success in both middle- and long-distance events, including Saïd Aouita who set world records from 1500 m to 5000 m.[46] The use of pace-setters in long-distance events is very common at the elite level, although they are not present at championship level competitions as all qualified competitors want to win.[45][47]
+The long-distance track events gained popularity in the 1920s by the achievements of the "Flying Finns", such as multiple Olympic champion Paavo Nurmi. The successes of Emil Zátopek in the 1950s promoted intense interval training methods, but Ron Clarke's world record-breaking feats established the importance of natural training and even-paced running. The 1990s saw the rise of North and East African runners in long-distance events. Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, in particular, have since remained dominant in these events.[43]
+Relay races are the only track and field event in which a team of runners directly compete against other teams.[48] Typically, a team is made up of four runners of the same sex. Each runner completes their specified distance (referred to as a leg) before handing over a baton to a teammate, who then begins their leg upon receiving the baton. There is usually a designated area where athletes must exchange the baton. Teams may be disqualified if they fail to complete the change within the area, or if the baton is dropped during the race. A team may also be disqualified if its runners are deemed to have wilfully impeded other competitors.
+Relay races emerged in the United States in the 1880s as a variation on charity races between firemen, who would hand a red pennant on to teammates every 300 yards. There are two very common relay events: the 4×100 metres relay and the 4×400 metres relay. Both events entered the Olympic programme at the 1912 Summer Games after a one-off men's medley relay featured in 1908 Olympics.[49] The 4 × 100 m event is run strictly within the same lane on the track, meaning that the team collectively runs one complete circuit of the track. Teams in a 4 × 400 m event remain in their own lane until the runner of the second leg passes the first bend, at which point runners can leave their lanes and head towards the inner-most part of the circuit. For the second and third baton change overs, teammates must align themselves in respect of their team position – leading teams take the inner lanes while teammates of the slower teams must await the baton on outer lanes.[48][50]
+The IAAF keeps world records for five different types of track relays. As with 4×100 m and 4×400 m events, all races comprise teams of four athletes running the same distances, with the less commonly contested distances being the 4×200 m, 4×800 m and 4×1500 m relays.[51] Other events include the distance medley relay (comprising legs of 1200 m, 400 m, 800 m, and 1600 m), which is frequently held in the United States, and a sprint relay, known as the Swedish medley relay, which is popular in Scandinavia and was held at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Athletics programme.[52] Relay events have significant participation in the United States, where a number of large meetings (or relay carnivals) are focused almost exclusively on relay events.[53]
+Races with hurdles as obstacles were first popularised in the 19th century in England.[54] The first known event, held in 1830, was a variation of the 100-yard dash that included heavy wooden barriers as obstacles. A competition between the Oxford and Cambridge Athletic Clubs in 1864 refined this, holding a 120-yard race (110 m) with ten hurdles of 3-foot and 6 inches (1.06 m) in height (each placed 10 yards (9 m) apart), with the first and final hurdles 15 yards from the start and finish, respectively. French organisers adapted the race into metric (adding 28 cm) and the basics of this race, the men's 110 metres hurdles, has remained largely unchanged.[55] The origin of the 400 metres hurdles also lies in Oxford, where (around 1860) a competition was held over 440 yards and twelve 1.06 m high wooden barriers were placed along the course. The modern regulations stem from the 1900 Summer Olympics: the distance was fixed to 400 m while ten 3-foot (91.44 cm) hurdles were placed 35 m apart on the track, with the first and final hurdles being 45 m and 40 m away from the start and finish, respectively.[56] Women's hurdles are slightly lower at 84 cm (2 ft 9 in) for the 100 m event and 76 cm (2 ft 6 in) for the 400 m event.[55][56]
+By far the most common events are the 100 metres hurdles for women, 110 m hurdles for men and 400 m hurdles for both sexes. The men's 110 m has been featured at every modern Summer Olympics while the men's 400 m was introduced in the second edition of the Games.[55][56] Women's initially competed in the 80 metres hurdles event, which entered the Olympic programme in 1932. This was extended to the 100 m hurdles at the 1972 Olympics,[55] but it was not until 1984 that a women's 400 m hurdles event took place at the Olympics (having been introduced at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics the previous year).[56]  Other distances and heights of hurdles, such as the 200 metres hurdles and low hurdles, were once common but are now held infrequently.  The 300 metres hurdles is run in some levels of American competition.
+Outside of the hurdles events, the steeplechase race is the other track and field event with obstacles. Just as the hurdling events, the steeplechase finds its origin in student competition in Oxford, England. However, this event was born as a human variation on the original steeplechase competition found in horse racing. A steeplechase event was held on a track for the 1879 English championships and the 1900 Summer Olympics featured men's 2500 m and 4000 m steeplechase races. The event was held over various distances until the 1920 Summer Olympics marked the rise of the 3000 metres steeplechase as the standard event.[57] The IAAF set the standards of the event in 1954, and the event is held on a 400 m circuit that includes a water jump on each lap.[58] Despite the long history of men's steeplechase in track and field, the women's steeplechase only gained World Championship status in 2005, with its first Olympic appearance in 2008.
+The long jump is one of the oldest track and field events, having its roots as one of the events within the ancient Greek pentathlon contest. The athletes would take a short run up and jump into an area of dug up earth, with the winner being the one who jumped farthest.[59] Small weights (Halteres) were held in each hand during the jump then swung back and dropped near the end to gain extra momentum and distance.[60] The modern long jump, standardised in England and the United States around 1860, bears resemblance to the ancient event although no weights are used. Athletes sprint along a length of track that leads to a jumping board and a sandpit.[61] The athletes must jump before a marked line and their achieved distance is measured from the nearest point of sand disturbed by the athlete's body.[62]
+The athletics competition at the first Olympics featured a men's long jump competition and a women's competition was introduced at the 1948 Summer Olympics.[61] Professional long jumpers typically have strong acceleration and sprinting abilities. However, athletes must also have a consistent stride to allow them to take off near the board while still maintaining their maximum speed.[62][63] In addition to the traditional long jump, a standing long jump contest exists which requires that athletes leap from a static position without a run-up. A men's version of this event featured on the Olympic programme from 1900 to 1912.[64]
+Similar to the long jump, the triple jump takes place on a track heading towards a sandpit. Originally, athletes would hop on the same leg twice before jumping into the pit, but this was changed to the current "hop, step and jump" pattern from 1900 onwards.[65] There is some dispute over whether the triple jump was contested in ancient Greece: while some historians claim that a contest of three jumps occurred at Ancient Games,[65] others such as Stephen G. Miller believe this is incorrect, suggesting that the belief stems from a mythologised account of Phayllus of Croton having jumped 55 ancient feet (around 16.3 m).[60][66] The Book of Leinster, a 12th-century Irish manuscript, records the existence of geal-ruith (triple jump) contests at the Tailteann Games.[67]
+The men's triple jump competition has been ever-present at the modern Olympics, but it was not until 1993 that a women's version gained World Championship status and went on to have its first Olympic appearance three years later.[65] The men's standing triple jump event featured at the Olympics in 1900 and 1904, but such competitions have since become very uncommon, although it is still used as a non-competitive exercise drill.[68]
+The first recorded instances of high jumping competitions were in Scotland in the 19th century.[69] Further competitions were organised in 1840 in England and in 1865 the basic rules of the modern event were standardised there.[70] Athletes have a short run up and then take off from one foot to jump over a horizontal bar and fall back onto a cushioned landing area.[71] The men's high jump was included in the 1896 Olympics and a women's competition followed in 1928.
+Jumping technique has played a significant part in the history of the event. High jumpers typically cleared the bar feet first in the late 19th century, using either the Scissors, Eastern cut-off or Western roll technique. The straddle technique became prominent in the mid-20th century, but Dick Fosbury overturned tradition by pioneering a backwards and head-first technique in the late 1960s – the Fosbury Flop – which won him the gold at the 1968 Olympics. This technique has become the overwhelming standard for the sport from the 1980s onwards.[70][72] The standing high jump was contested at the Olympics from 1900 to 1912, but is now relatively uncommon outside of its use as an exercise drill.
+In terms of sport, the use of poles for vaulting distances was recorded in Fierljeppen contests in the Frisian area of Europe, and vaulting for height was seen at gymnastics competitions in Germany in the 1770s.[73] One of the earliest recorded pole vault competitions was in Cumbria, England in 1843.[74] The basic rules and technique of the event originated in the United States. The rules required that athletes do not move their hands along the pole and athletes began clearing the bar with their feet first and twisting so that the stomach faces the bar. Bamboo poles were introduced in the 20th century and a metal box in the runway for planting the pole became standard. Landing mattresses were introduced in the mid-20th century to protect the athletes who were clearing increasingly greater heights.[73]
+The modern event sees athletes run down a strip of track, plant the pole in the metal box, and vault over the horizontal bar before letting go of the pole and falling backwards onto the landing mattress.[75] While earlier versions used wooden, metal or bamboo, modern poles are generally made from artificial materials such as fibreglass or carbon fibre.[76] The pole vault has been an Olympic event since 1896 for men, but it was over 100 years later that the first women's world championship competition was held at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships. The first women's Olympic pole vaulting competition occurred in 2000.[73]
+Track and field contains some of the foremost kinds of throwing sports, and the four major disciplines are the only pure throwing events to feature at the Olympic Games.[77]
+The genesis of the shot put can be traced to pre-historic competitions with rocks:[78] in the Middle ages the stone put was known in Scotland and the steinstossen was recorded in Switzerland. In the 17th century, cannonball throwing competitions within the English military provided a precursor to the modern sport.[79] The term "shot" originates from the use of round shot-style ammunition for the sport.[80] The modern rules were first laid out in 1860 and required that competitors take legal throws within a square throwing area of seven feet (2.13 m) on each side. This was amended to a circle area with a seven-foot diameter in 1906, and the weight of the shot was standardised to 16 pounds (7.26 kg). Throwing technique was also refined over this period, with bent arm throws being banned as they were deemed too dangerous and the side-step and throw technique arising in the United States in 1876.[79]
+The shot put has been an Olympic sport for men since 1896 and a women's competition using a 4 kg (8.82 lb) shot was added in 1948. Further throwing techniques have arisen since the post-war era: in the 1950s Parry O'Brien popularised the 180 degree turn and throw technique commonly known as the "glide", breaking the world record 17 times along the way, while Aleksandr Baryshnikov and Brian Oldfield introduced the "spin" or rotational technique in 1976.[79][81]
+In the discus throw, athletes compete to throw a heavy disc the farthest. In standard competitions, athletes throw the disc from a set circular arc and take turns in a series of throw, with the singular best effort deciding the victor. As one of the events within the ancient pentathlon, the history of the discus throw dates back to 708 BC.[82] In ancient times a heavy circular disc was thrown from a set standing position on a small pedestal, and it was this style that was revived for the 1896 Olympics.[83] This continued until the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, which featured both the ancient style and the increasingly popular modern style of turning and throwing. By the 1912 Olympics, the ancient standing throw style had fallen into disuse and contests starting within a 2.5 m squared throwing area became the standard.[84] The discus implement was standardised to 2 kg (4.4 pounds) in weight and 22 cm (8 inches) in diameter in 1907.[83] The women's discus was among the first women's events on the Olympic programme, being introduced in 1928.[85] The first modern athlete to throw the discus while rotating the whole body was Czech athlete Frantisek Janda-Su, who invented the technique when studying the position of the famous statue of Discobolus and won the 1900 Olympic silver medal.
+As an implement of war and hunting, javelin throwing began in prehistoric times.[86] Along with the discus, the javelin was the second throwing event in the ancient Olympic pentathlon. Records from 708 BC show two javelin competition types co-existing: throwing at a target and throwing the javelin for distance. It was the latter type from which the modern event derives.[87] In ancient competitions, athletes would wrap an ankyle (thin leather strip) around the javelin that acted as a sling to facilitate extra distance.[88] The javelin throw gained much popularity in Scandinavia in the late 19th century and athletes from the region are still among the most dominant throwers in men's competitions.[87] The modern event features a short run up on a track and then the thrower releases the javelin before the foul line.
+The first Olympic men's javelin throw contest was held in 1908 and a women's competition was introduced in 1932.[86][89] The first javelins were made of various types of wood, but in the 1950s, former athlete Bud Held introduced a hollow javelin, then a metal javelin, both of which increased throwers performances.[87] Another former athlete, Miklós Németh invented the rough-tailed javelin and throws reached in excess of 100 m – edging towards the limits of stadia.[90] The distances and the increasing number of horizontal landings led the IAAF to redesign the men's javelin to reduce distance and increase the implement's downward pitching moment to allow for easier measurement. Rough-tailed designs were banned in 1991 and all marks achieved with such javelins were removed from the record books. The women's javelin underwent a similar redesign in 1999.[87] The current javelin specifications are 2.6 to 2.7 m in length and 800 grams in weight for men, and 2.2 to 2.3 m and 600 g for women.[91]
+The earliest recorded precursors to the modern hammer throw stem from the Tailteann Games of ancient Ireland, which featured events such as throwing either a weight attached to a rope, a large rock on a wooden handle, or even a chariot wheel on a wooden axle.[92] Other ancient competitions included throwing a cast iron ball attached to a wooden handle – the root of the term "hammer throw" due to their resemblance to the tools.[93] In 16th century England, contests involving the throwing of actual blacksmith's Sledgehammers were recorded.[92] The hammer implement was standardised in 1887 and the competitions began to resemble the modern event. The weight of the metal ball was set at 16 pounds (7.26 kg) while the attached wire had to measure between 1.175 m and 1.215 m.[93]
+The men's hammer throw became an Olympic event in 1900 but the women's event – using a 4 kg (8.82 lb) weight – was not widely competed until much later, finally featuring on the women's Olympic programme in 2000.[94] The distances thrown by male athletes became greater from the 1950s onwards as a result of improved equipment using the denser metals, a switch to concrete throwing areas, and more advanced training techniques.[95] Professional hammer throwers were historically large, strong, sturdy athletes. However, qualities such as refined technique, speed and flexibility have become increasingly important in the modern era as the legal throwing area has been reduced from 90 to 34.92 degrees and throwing technique involves three to four controlled rotations.[93][96][97]
+Combined (or multi-discipline) events are competitions in which athletes participate in a number of track and field events, earning points for their performance in each event, which adds to a total points score. Outdoors, the most common combined events are the men's decathlon (ten events) and the women's heptathlon (seven events). Due to stadium limitations, indoor combined events competition have a reduced number of events, resulting in the men's heptathlon and the women's pentathlon. Athletes are allocated points based on an international-standard points scoring system, such as the decathlon scoring table.
+The Ancient Olympic pentathlon (comprising long jump, javelin, discus, the stadion race and wrestling) was a precursor to the track and field combined events and this ancient event was restored at the 1906 Summer Olympics (Intercalated Games). A men's all-around was held at the 1904 Summer Olympics, contested between five American and two British athletes.
+The term track and field is intertwined with the stadiums that first hosted such competitions. The two basic features of a track and field stadium are the outer oval-shaped running track and an area of turf within this track—the field. In earlier competitions, track lengths varied: the Panathinaiko Stadium measured 333.33 metres at the 1896 Summer Olympics, while at the 1904 Olympics the distance was a third of a mile (536.45 m) at Francis Field. As the sport developed, the IAAF standardised the length to 400 m and stated that the tracks must be split into six to eight running lanes. Precise widths for the lanes were established, as were regulations regarding the curvature of the track. Tracks made of flattened cinders were popular in the early 20th century but synthetic tracks became standard in the late 1960s. 3M's Tartan track (an all-weather running track of polyurethane) gained popularity after its use at the 1968 US Olympic Trials and the 1968 Summer Olympics and it began the process in which synthetic tracks became the standard for the sport. Many track and field stadiums are multi-purpose stadiums, with the running track surrounding a field built for other sports, such as the various types of football.
+The field of the stadium combines a number of elements for use in the jumping and throwing events. The long jump and triple jump areas comprise a straight, narrow 40-metre running track with a sandpit at one or both ends. Jumps are measured from a take off board—typically a small strip of wood with a plasticine marker attached—which ensures athletes jump from behind the measurement line. The pole vault area is also a 40-metre running track and has an indentation in the ground (the box) where vaulters plant their poles to propel themselves over a crossbar before falling onto cushioned landing mats. The high jump is a stripped-down version of this, with an open area of track or field that leads to a crossbar with a square area of landing mats behind it.
+The four throwing events generally all begin on one side of the stadium. The javelin throw typically takes place on a piece of track that is central and parallel to the straights of the main running track. The javelin throwing area is a sector shape frequently across the Pitch (sports field) in the middle of the stadium, ensuring that the javelin has a minimal chance of causing damage or injury. The discus throw and hammer throw contests begin in a tall metal cage usually situated in one of the corners of the field. The cage reduces the danger of implements being thrown out of the field of play and throws travel diagonally across the field in the centre of the stadium. The shot put features a circular throwing area with a toe board at one end. The throwing area is a sector. Some stadia also have a water jump area on one side of the field specifically for steeplechase races.
+Basic indoor venues may be adapted gymnasiums, which can easily accommodate high jump competitions and short track events. Full-size indoor arenas (i.e. those fully equipped to host all events for the World Indoor Championships) bear similarities with their outdoor equivalents. Typically, a central area is surrounded by a 200-metre oval track with four to eight lanes. The track can be banked at the turns to allow athletes to run around the radius more comfortably. Some have a second running track going straight across the field area, parallel to the straights of the main circuit. This track is used for the 60 metres and 60 metres hurdles events, which are held almost exclusively indoors.
+Another common adaptation in the United States is a 160-yard track (11 laps to a mile) that fits into a common basketball court-sized arena. This was quite popular when races were held at imperial distances, which gradually was phased out by different organizations in the 1970s and 1980s. Examples of this configuration include the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden, and the Sunkist Invitational formerly held in the Los Angeles Sports Arena.[98]
+All four of the common jumping events are held at indoor venues. The long and triple jump areas run alongside the central 60 m track and are mostly identical in form to their outdoor counterparts. The pole vault track and landing area are also alongside the central running track. Shot put and weight throw are the only throwing events held indoors due to size restrictions. The throwing area is similar to the outdoor event, but the landing sector is a rectangular section surrounded by netting or a stop barrier.[99]
+In addition to hosting the World Indoor Championships, the IAAF has hosted the IAAF World Indoor Tour since 2016.
+The rules of track events in athletics as observed in most international athletics competitions are set by the Competition Rules of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The most recent complete set of rules is the 2009 rules that relate only to competitions in 2009.[100] Key rules of track events are those regarding starting, running and finishing.
+The start of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide. In all races that are not run in lanes the start line must be curved, so that all the athletes start the same distance from the finish.[101]
+Starting blocks may be used for all races up to and including 400 m (including the first leg of the 4 × 100 m and 4 × 400 m) and may not be used for any other race. No part of the starting block may overlap the start line or extend into another lane.[102]
+All races must be started by the report of the starter's gun or approved starting apparatus fired upwards after they have ascertained that athletes are steady and in the correct starting position.[103] An athlete may not touch either the start line or the ground in front of it with their hands or feet when on their marks.[104]
+For sprint races up to 400 m, the starter gives two commands: "on your marks" to instruct athletes to approach the start line, followed by "set" to advise the athletes that the start of the race is imminent. The commands of the starter are typically given in the native language in national competitions, or in English or French in international competitions. Once all athletes are set in their starting position, the gun or an approved starting apparatus must be fired or activated. If the starter is not satisfied that all are ready to proceed, the athletes may be called out of the blocks and the process started over.[104]
+There are different types of starts for races of different distances. Middle- and long-distance races mainly use the waterfall start. This is when all athletes begin on a curved line that moves farther out at the outer edge of the track. Competitors are allowed to move towards the inside lane right away, as long as it is safe to do so. For some middle-distance races, such as 800 m, each athlete starts in their own lane. Once the gun fires, they must run in the lane they began in until markers on the track notify them it is time to move towards the inside lane. For sprint races, athletes begin in start blocks and must stay in their own lane for the entire race.[100]
+An athlete, after assuming a final set position, may not commence his starting motion until after receiving the report of the gun, or approved starting apparatus. If, in the judgment of the starter or recallers, he does so any earlier, it is considered a false start. It is deemed a false start if, in the judgment of the starter an athlete fails to comply with the commands "on your marks" or "set" as appropriate after a reasonable time; or an athlete after the command "on your marks" disturbs other athletes in the race through sound or otherwise. If the runner is in the "set" position and moves, then the runner is also disqualified.[105] As of 2010[update], any athlete making a false start is disqualified.[106]
+In International elite competition, electronically tethered starting blocks sense the reaction time of the athletes. If the athlete reacts in less than 0.1 second, an alert sounds for a recall starter and the offending athlete is guilty of a false start.[103]
+For sprinting events (bar the 4 × 400 m relay and the indoor 400 metres), each athlete must run the race within their allocated lane from start to finish. If an athlete leaves their lane or steps on the line demarking each lane the athlete will be disqualified. Lane rules also apply for initial periods of other track races, for example, the beginning of the 800 m. Similar rules apply for longer distance races when a large field of athletes is present and separate starting points are designated, with the field merging into one group shortly after the starting phase.[107][108]
+Any athlete who jostles or obstructs another athlete, in a way that impedes his progress, should be disqualified from that event. However, if an athlete is pushed or forced by another person to run outside his lane, and if no material advantage is gained, the athlete should not be disqualified.[107][108]
+The finish of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide.[109] The finishing position of athletes is determined by the order in which any part of their torso (as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the nearer edge of the finish line.[110] Fully automatic timing systems (photo timing) are becoming more and more common at increasingly lower levels of track meets, improving the accuracy, while eliminating the need for eagle-eyed officials on the finish line. Fully automatic timing (FAT) is required for high level meets and any time a sprint record is set (though distance records can be accepted if timed by three independent stopwatches).[100]
+With the accuracy of the timing systems, ties are rare. Ties between different athletes are resolved as follows: In determining whether there has been a tie in any round for a qualifying position for the next round based on time, a judge (called the chief photo finish judge) must consider the actual time recorded by the athletes to one thousandth of a second. If the judge decides that there has been a tie, the tying athletes must be placed in the next round or, if that is not practicable, lots must be drawn to determine who must be placed in the next round. In the case of a tie for first place in any final, the referee decides whether it is practicable to arrange for the athletes so tying to compete again. If he decides it is not, the result stands. Ties in other placings remain.[100]
+In general, most field events allow a competitor to take their attempt individually, under theoretically the same conditions as the other competitors in the competition. Each attempt is measured to determine who achieved the greatest distance.[100]
+Vertical jumps (high jump and pole vault) set a bar at a particular height. The competitor must clear the bar without knocking it off the standards that are holding the bar (flat). Three failures in a row ends the competitor's participation in the event. The competitor has the option to PASS their attempt, which can be used to strategic advantage (of course that advantage is lost if the competitor misses). A pass could be used to save energy and avoid taking a jump that would not improve their position in the standings. After all competitors have either cleared, passed or failed their attempts at a height, the bar goes up. The amount the bar goes up is predetermined before the competition, though when one competitor remains, that competitor may choose their own heights for the remaining attempts. A record is kept of each attempt by each competitor. After all competitors have taken their attempts, the one jumping the highest is the winner, and so on down the other competitors in the event. Ties are broken by first, the number of attempts taken at the highest height (fewest wins), and then if still tied, by the total number of misses in the competition as a whole. The bar does not go back to a lower height except to break a tie for first place or a qualifying position. If those critical positions are still tied after applying the tiebreakers, all tied competitors take a fourth jump at the last height. If they still miss, the bar goes down one increment where they again jump. This process continues until the tie is broken.[100]
+Horizontal jumps (long jump and triple jump) and all throws must be initiated behind a line. In the case of horizontal jumps, that line is a straight line perpendicular to the runway. In the case of throws, that line is an arc or a circle. Crossing the line while initiating the attempt invalidates the attempt—it becomes a foul. All landings must occur in a sector. For the jumps, that is a sand filled pit, for throws it is a defined sector. A throw landing on the line on the edge of sector is a foul (the inside edge of the line is the outside edge of the sector). Assuming a proper attempt, officials measure the distance from the closest landing point back to the line. The measuring tape is carefully straightened to the shortest distance between the point and the line. To accomplish this, the tape must be perfectly perpendicular to the take off line in jumps, or is pulled through the center point of the arc for throws. The officials at the landing end of the tape have the zero, while the officials at the point of initiation measure and record the length. Whenever a record (or potential record) occurs, that measurement is taken (again) with a steel tape, and observed by at least three officials (plus usually the meet referee). Steel tapes are easily bent and damaged, so are not used to measure everyday competitions. For major competitions, each competitor gets three tries. The top competitors (usually 8 or 9 depending on that competition's rules or the number of lanes on the track) gets three more tries. At that level of competition, the order of competitors for those final three attempts are set—so the competitor in first place at the end of the third round is last, while the last competitor to qualify goes first. Some meets rearrange the competition order again for the final round, so the final attempt is taken by the leader at that point. At other competitions, meet management may choose to limit all competitors to four or three attempts. Whatever the format, all competitors get an equal number of attempts.[100]
+Men and women have different weights for their throwing implements – men's javelin is 800 grams compared to 600 for women, men's weight throw is 35 pounds compared to 20 for women, men's discus is 2 kilograms to women's 1, men's shot put is 16 pounds compared to 8 pounds for women, and men's hammer throw is also 16 pounds to the women's 8. Additionally, men's high hurdles are at height of 42 inches compared to women's hurdles which are 33 inches. For the intermediate hurdles (400 meter hurdles), the men's hurdle height is 36 inches compared to 30 inches for women.
+The international governance of track and field falls under the jurisdiction of athletics organisations. World Athletics is the global governing body for track and field, and athletics as a whole. The governance of track and field at continental and national level is also done by athletics bodies. Some national federations are named after the sport, including USA Track & Field and the Philippine Amateur Track & Field Association, but these organisations govern more than just track and field and are in fact athletics governing bodies.[111][112] These national federations regulate sub-national and local track and field clubs, as well as other types of running clubs.[113]
+The major global track and field competitions are both held under the scope of athletics. Track and field contests make up the majority of events on the Olympic and Paralympic athletics programmes, which occur every four years. Track and field events have held a prominent position at the Summer Olympics since its inception in 1896,[114] and the events are typically held in the main stadium of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Events such as the 100 metres receive some of the highest levels of media coverage of any Olympic or Paralympic sporting event.
+The other two major international competition for track and field are organised by the IAAF. The IAAF had selected the Olympic competition as its world championship event in 1913, but a separate world championships for athletics alone was first held in 1983 – the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The championships comprised track and field competitions plus the marathon and racewalking competitions. Initially, this worked on a quadrennial basis but, after 1991, it changed to a biennial format. In terms of indoor track and field, the IAAF World Indoor Championships has been held every two years since 1985 and this is the only world championships that consists of solely track and field events.
+Similar to the event programmes at the Olympics, Paralympics and World Championships, track and field forms a significant part of continental championships. The South American Championships in Athletics, created in 1919,[115] was the first continental championships and the European Athletics Championships became the second championships of this type in 1934.[116] The Asian Athletics Championships and African Championships in Athletics were created in the 1970s and Oceania started its championships in 1990.
+There are also indoor continental competitions in Europe (European Athletics Indoor Championships) and Asia (Asian Indoor Athletics Championships). There has not been a consistent championships for all of North America, which may be (in part) due to the success of both the Central American and Caribbean Championships and the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Most countries have a national championship in track and field and, for athletes, these often play a role in gaining selection into major competitions. Some countries hold many track and field championships at high school and college-level, which help develop younger athletes. Some of these have gained significant exposure and prestige, such as the NCAA Track and Field Championship in the United States and the Jamaican High School Championships.[117] However, the number and status of such competitions significantly vary from country to country.
+Mirroring the role that track and field events have at the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the sport is featured within the athletics programmes of many major multi-sport events. Among some of the first of these events to follow the Olympic-style model were the World University Games in 1923, the Commonwealth Games in 1930, and the Maccabiah Games in 1932.[118] The number of major multi-sport events greatly increased during the 20th century and thus did the number of track and field events held within them. Typically, track and field events are hosted at the main stadium of the games.
+After the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the most prominent events for track and field athletes include the three IOC-sanctioned continental games: the All-Africa Games, Asian Games, and the Pan American Games. Other games such as the Commonwealth Games and Summer Universiade, and World Masters Games have significant participation from track and field athletes. Track and field is also present at the national games level, with competitions such as the Chinese National Games serving as the most prestigious national competition for domestic track and field athletes.
+One-day track and field meetings form the most common and seasonal aspect of the sport – they are the most basic level of track and field competition. Meetings are generally organised annually either under the patronage of an educational institution or sports club, or by a group or business that serves as the meeting promoter. In the case of the former, athletes are selected to represent their club or institution. In the case of privately run or independent meetings, athletes participate on an invitation-only basis.[119]
+The most basic type of meetings are all-comers track meets, which are largely small, local, informal competitions that allow people of all ages and abilities to compete. As meetings become more organized they can gain official sanctioning by the local or national association for the sport.[120]
+At the professional level, meetings began to offer significant financial incentives for all athletes in the 1990s in Europe with the creation of the "Golden Four" competition, comprising meetings in Zürich, Brussels, Berlin and Oslo. This expanded and received IAAF backing as the IAAF Golden League in 1998,[121] which was later supplemented by the branding of selected meetings worldwide as the IAAF World Athletics Tour. In 2010, the Golden League idea was expanded globally as the Diamond League series and this now forms the top tier of professional one-day track and field meetings.[122]
+The IAAF World Rankings system was introduced for the 2018 season. An athletes position within the ranking will be determined by points scored based on their performance and importance of the competition. The points will be considered for eligibility for the World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games.[123] This system will affect athlete participation, which has typically been determined by national bodies, either through selection panels or national trials events.[124]
+Athletes performances are timed or measured at virtually all track and field competitions. Doing so can not only serve as a way of determining the winner in an event, but it can also be used for historical comparison (i.e. a record). A large variety of record types exist and men's and women's performances are recorded separately. The foremost types of records organise athlete's performances by the region they represent—beginning with national records, then continental records, up to the global or world record level. National governing bodies control the national record lists, the area associations organise their respective continental lists, and the IAAF ratifies world records.
+The IAAF ratifies track and field world records if they meet their set criteria. The IAAF first published a world records list in 1914, initially for men's events only. There were 53 recognised records in running, hurdling and relay, and 12 field records. World records in women's events began in 1936 as more events were gradually added to the list, but significant changes were made in the late 1970s. First, all records in imperial measurements were abandoned in 1976, with the sole exceptional being the mile run due to the prestige and history of the event. The following year, all world records in sprint events would only be recognised if fully automatic electronic timing was used (as opposed to the traditional hand-timing stopwatch method). In 1981, electronic timing was made compulsory for all world record runs in track and field, with times being recorded to within one hundredth of a second. Two additional types of world record were introduced in 1987: world records for indoor competitions, and world records for junior athletes under 20 years old.[125]
+The next most important record type are those achieved at a specific competition. For example, the Olympic records represent the best performances by athletes at the Summer Olympics. All major championships and games have their relevant competition records and a large number of track and field meetings keep a note of their meet records. Other record types include: stadium records, records by age range, records by disability, and records by institution or organisation. Cash bonuses are usually offered to athletes if they break significant records, as doing so can generate greater interest and public attendance in track and field competitions.
+Track and field athletes are banned from ingesting or using certain substances by governing bodies for the sport, from the national to the international level. The IAAF's constitution incorporates the World Anti-Doping Code among other anti-doping measures.[126] Practices such as blood doping and the use of anabolic steroids, peptide hormones, stimulants, or diuretics can give athletes a physical competitive advantage in track and field.[127] The use of such substances in track and field is opposed on both ethical and medical grounds. Given that the sport functions by measuring and comparing athletes' performances, performance-enhancing substances create an uneven playing field — athletes who do not use doping substances have a disadvantage over rivals who do. Medically, the use of banned substances may have an adverse effect upon athletes' health. However, some exemptions are made for athletes who take banned substances for therapeutic use, and athletes are not sanctioned for usage in these cases,[128] such as Kim Collins' failed drug test due to asthma medication.[129]
+Athletes have historically been willing to take legal and health risks to improve their performance, with some even stating their willingness to risk their lives, as exemplified by research by Mirkin,[130] Goldman[131] and Connor[132] in researching attitudes to the so-called Goldman dilemma. To prevent use of performance-enhancing substances, athletes must submit to drug tests that are conducted both in and out of competition by anti-doping officials or accredited medical staff.[128] Penalized athletes are susceptible to higher testing upon return to competition. Athletes found to have taken substances on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list receive sanctions and may be banned from competition for a period of time that corresponds to the seriousness of the infraction.[133] However, the use of substances not on the prohibited list may also result in sanctions if the substance is deemed similar to a banned substance in either composition or effect. Athletes may also be sanctioned for missing tests, seeking to avoid testing or tampering with results, refusing to submit to testing, through circumstantial evidence, or confession of use.[128]
+Doping has played a significant part in the modern history of track and field. State-sponsored doping in East Germany with hormones and anabolic steroids marked the rise of women from East Germany in track and field from the late 1960s to the 1980s. A number of these women, such as Marita Koch, broke world records and were highly successful at international competitions. Some athletes, who were following a doping plan from their teenage years, suffered significant health problems as a result of the regime.[134][135] A similar state-sponsored doping system was developed in the Soviet Union. In 2016, The New York Times published an article detailing the use of doping by the Soviets in preparation for the 1984 Olympics.[23] Ben Johnson ran a new world record in the 100 metres at the 1988 Seoul Olympics but was later banned for using anabolic steroids.[136] In the mid-first decade of the 21st century, the BALCO Scandal eventually resulted in the downfall of prominent sprinters such as Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, among others, through their usage of banned substances.[137] The revelation state-sponsored doping in Russia led to an international ban on all its athletes in 2016, with Russians having to apply to the IAAF to compete as Authorised Neutral Athletes at events such as the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2017 World Championships in Athletics.[138] Doping has affected countries on all continents and has occurred in individual, team and national settings.
+Track and field bears most similarity to the others categorised under the sport of athletics, specifically cross country running, and road forms of racewalking and running. All these forms of racing tend to record finishing times, have strictly defined start and finish points, and are generally individual in nature. Middle- and long-distance runners usually participate in cross country and road events, in addition to the track. Track racewalkers are most typically road specialists as well. It is unusual for track and field athletes outside of these two groups to compete in cross country or road events.
+Varieties of strength athletics, such as the World's Strongest Man and highland games, often incorporate forms of footracing carrying heavy objects as well as throwing events such as the caber toss and keg toss, which bear similarities to track and field throwing events.

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+The Ural Mountains (/ˈjʊərəl/; Russian: Ура́льские го́ры, tr. Uralskiye gory, IPA: [ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈgorɨ]; Bashkir: Урал тауҙары, Ural tauźarı) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.[1]
+The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia. Vaygach Island and the islands of Novaya Zemlya form a further continuation of the chain to the north into the Arctic Ocean.
+The mountains lie within the Ural geographical region and significantly overlap with the Ural Federal District and with the Ural economic region. They have rich resources, including metal ores, coal, and precious and semi-precious stones. Since the 18th century the mountains have contributed significantly to the mineral sector of the Russian economy.
+As attested by Sigismund von Herberstein, in the 16th century Russians called the range by a variety of names derived from the Russian words for rock (stone) and belt. The modern Russian name for the Urals (Урал, Ural), first appearing in the 16th–17th century when the Russian conquest of Siberia was in its heroic phase, was initially applied to its southern parts and gained currency as the name of the entire range during the 18th century. It might have been a borrowing from either Turkic "stone belt"[2] (Bashkir, where the same name is used for the range), or Ob-Ugric.[3] From the 13th century, in Bashkortostan there has been a legend about a hero named Ural. He sacrificed his life for the sake of his people and they poured a stone pile over his grave, which later turned into the Ural Mountains.[4][5][6] Possibilities include Bashkir үр "elevation; upland" and Mansi ур ала "mountain peak, top of the mountain",[7] V.N. Tatischev believes that this oronym is set to "belt" and associates it with the Turkic verb oralu- "gird".[7] I.G. Dobrodomov suggests a transition from Aral to Ural explained on the basis of ancient Bulgar-Chuvash dialects. Geographer E.V. Hawks believes that the name goes back to the Bashkir folklore Ural-Batyr.[7] The Evenk geographical term era "mountain" has also been theorized.[7] Finno-Ugrist scholars consider Ural deriving from the Ostyak word urr meaning "chain of mountains".[8] Turkologists, on the other hand, have achieved majority support for their assertion that 'ural' in Tatar means a belt, and recall that an earlier name for the range was 'stone belt'.[9]
+As Middle-Eastern merchants traded with the Bashkirs and other people living on the western slopes of the Ural as far north as Great Perm, since at least the 10th century medieval mideastern geographers had been aware of the existence of the mountain range in its entirety, stretching as far as to the Arctic Ocean in the north. The first Russian mention of the mountains to the east of the East European Plain is provided by the Primary Chronicle, when it describes the Novgorodian expedition to the upper reaches of the Pechora in 1096. During the next few centuries Novgorodians engaged in fur trading with the local population and collected tribute from Yugra and Great Perm, slowly expanding southwards. The rivers Chusovaya and Belaya were first mentioned in the chronicles of 1396 and 1468, respectively. In 1430 the town of Solikamsk (Kama Salt) was founded on the Kama at the foothills of the Ural, where salt was produced in open pans. Ivan III of Moscow captured Perm, Pechora and Yugra from the declining Novgorod Republic in 1472. With the excursions of 1483 and 1499–1500 across the Ural Moscow managed to subjugate Yugra completely.
+Nevertheless, around that time early 16th century Polish geographer Maciej of Miechów in his influential Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis (1517) argued that there were no mountains in Eastern Europe at all, challenging the point of view of some authors of Classical antiquity, popular during the Renaissance. Only after Sigismund von Herberstein in his Notes on Muscovite Affairs (1549) had reported, following Russian sources, that there are mountains behind the Pechora and identified them with the Riphean Mountains and Hyperboreans of ancient authors, did the existence of the Ural, or at least of its northern part, become firmly established in the Western geography. The Middle and Southern Ural were still largely unavailable and unknown to the Russian or Western European geographers.
+In the 1550s, after the Tsardom of Russia had defeated the Khanate of Kazan and proceeded to gradually annex the lands of the Bashkirs, the Russians finally reached the southern part of the mountain chain. In 1574 they founded Ufa. The upper reaches of the Kama and Chusovaya in the Middle Ural, still unexplored, as well as parts of Transuralia still held by the hostile Siberian Khanate, were granted to the Stroganovs by several decrees of the tsar in 1558–1574. The Stroganovs' land provided the staging ground for Yermak's incursion into Siberia. Yermak crossed the Ural from the Chusovaya to the Tagil around 1581. In 1597 Babinov's road was built across the Ural from Solikamsk to the valley of the Tura, where the town of Verkhoturye (Upper Tura) was founded in 1598. Customs was established in Verkhoturye shortly thereafter and the road was made the only legal connection between European Russia and Siberia for a long time. In 1648 the town of Kungur was founded at the western foothills of the Middle Ural. During the 17th century the first deposits of iron and copper ores, mica, gemstones and other minerals were discovered in the Ural.
+Iron and copper smelting works emerged. They multiplied particularly quickly during the reign of Peter I of Russia. In 1720–1722 he commissioned Vasily Tatishchev to oversee and develop the mining and smelting works in the Ural. Tatishchev proposed a new copper smelting factory in Yegoshikha, which would eventually become the core of the city of Perm and a new iron smelting factory on the Iset, which would become the largest in the world at the time of construction and give birth to the city of Yekaterinburg. Both factories were actually founded by Tatishchev's successor, Georg Wilhelm de Gennin, in 1723. Tatishchev returned to the Ural on the order of Empress Anna to succeed de Gennin in 1734–1737. Transportation of the output of the smelting works to the markets of European Russia necessitated the construction of the Siberian Route from Yekaterinburg across the Ural to Kungur and Yegoshikha (Perm) and further to Moscow, which was completed in 1763 and rendered Babinov's road obsolete. In 1745 gold was discovered in the Ural at Beryozovskoye and later at other deposits. It has been mined since 1747.
+The first ample geographic survey of the Ural Mountains was completed in the early 18th century by the Russian historian and geographer Vasily Tatishchev under the orders of Peter I. Earlier, in the 17th century, rich ore deposits were discovered in the mountains and their systematic extraction began in the early 18th century, eventually turning the region into the largest mineral base of Russia.[1][4]
+One of the first scientific descriptions of the mountains was published in 1770–71. Over the next century, the region was studied by scientists from a number of countries, including Russia (geologist Alexander Karpinsky, botanist Porfiry Krylov and zoologist Leonid Sabaneyev), the United Kingdom (geologist Sir Roderick Murchison), France (paleontologist Édouard de Verneuil), and Germany (naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, geologist Alexander Keyserling).[1][10] In 1845, Murchison, who had according to Encyclopædia Britannica "compiled the first geologic map of the Ural in 1841",[1] published The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains with de Verneuil and Keyserling.[10][11]
+The first railway across the Ural had been built by 1878 and linked Perm to Yekaterinburg via Chusovoy, Kushva and Nizhny Tagil. In 1890 a railway linked Ufa and Chelyabinsk via Zlatoust. In 1896 this section became a part of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 1909 yet another railway connecting Perm and Yekaterinburg passed through Kungur by the way of the Siberian Route. It has eventually replaced the Ufa – Chelyabinsk section as the main trunk of the Trans-Siberian railway.
+The highest peak of the Ural, Mount Narodnaya, (elevation 1,895 m (6,217 ft)) was identified in 1927.[12]
+During the Soviet industrialization in the 1930s the city of Magnitogorsk was founded in the South-Eastern Ural as a center of iron smelting and steelmaking. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941–1942, the mountains became a key element in Nazi planning for the territories which they expected to conquer in the USSR. Faced with the threat of having a significant part of the Soviet territories occupied by the enemy, the government evacuated many of the industrial enterprises of European Russia and Ukraine to the eastern foothills of the Ural, considered a safe place out of reach of the German bombers and troops. Three giant tank factories were established at the Uralmash in Sverdlovsk (as Yekaterinburg used to be known), Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil, and Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant in Chelyabinsk. After the war, in 1947–1948, Chum – Labytnangi railway, built with the forced labor of Gulag inmates, crossed the Polar Ural.
+Mayak, 150 km southeast of Yekaterinburg, was a center of the Soviet nuclear industry[1][13][14][15] and site of the Kyshtym disaster.[14][16]
+The Ural Mountains extend about 2,500 km (1,600 mi) from the Kara Sea to the Kazakh Steppe along the border of Kazakhstan. Vaygach Island and the island of Novaya Zemlya form a further continuation of the chain on the north. Geographically this range marks the northern part of the border between the continents of Europe and Asia. Its highest peak is Mount Narodnaya, approximately 1,895 m (6,217 ft) in elevation.[1]
+By topography and other natural features, the Urals are divided, from north to south, into the Polar (or Arctic), Nether-Polar (or Sub-Arctic), Northern, Central and Southern parts.
+The Polar Urals extend for about 385 kilometers (239 mi) from Mount Konstantinov Kamen in the north to the river Khulga in the south; they have an area of about 25,000 km2 (9,700 sq mi) and a strongly dissected relief. The maximum height is 1,499 m (4,918 ft) at Payer Mountain and the average height is 1,000 to 1,100 m (3,300 to 3,600 ft).
+The mountains of the Polar Ural have exposed rock with sharp ridges, though flattened or rounded tops are also found.[1][4]
+The Nether-Polar Ural are higher, and up to 150 km (93 mi) wider than the Polar Urals. They include the highest peaks of the range: Mount Narodnaya (1,895 m (6,217 ft)), Mount Karpinsky (1,878 m (6,161 ft)) and Manaraga (1,662 m (5,453 ft)). They extend for more than 225 km (140 mi) south to the Shchugor. The many ridges are sawtooth shaped and dissected by river valleys. Both Polar and Nether-Polar Urals are typically Alpine; they bear traces of Pleistocene glaciation, along with permafrost and extensive modern glaciation, including 143 extant glaciers.[1][4]
+The Northern Ural consist of a series of parallel ridges up to 1,000–1,200 m (3,300–3,900 ft) in height and longitudinal hollows. They are elongated from north to south and stretch for about 560 km (350 mi) from the river Usa. Most of the tops are flattened, but those of the highest mountains, such as Telposiz, 1,617 m (5,305 ft) and Konzhakovsky Stone, 1,569 m (5,148 ft) have a dissected topography. Intensive weathering has produced vast areas of eroded stone on the mountain slopes and summits of the northern areas.[1][4]
+The Central Ural are the lowest part of the Ural, with smooth mountain tops, the highest mountain being 994 m (3,261 ft) (Basegi); they extend south from the river Ufa.[4]
+The relief of the Southern Ural is more complex, with numerous valleys and parallel ridges directed south-west and meridionally.  The range includes the Ilmensky Mountains separated from the main ridges by the Miass. The maximum height is 1,640 m (5,380 ft) (Mount Yamantau) and the width reaches 250 km (160 mi). Other notable peaks lie along the Iremel mountain ridge (Bolshoy Iremel and Maly Iremel). The Southern Urals extend some 550 km (340 mi) up to the sharp westward bend of the river Ural and terminate in the wide Mughalzhar Hills.[1]
+The Urals are among the world's oldest extant mountain ranges. For its age of 250 to 300 million years, the elevation of the mountains is unusually high. They formed during the Uralian orogeny due to the collision of the eastern edge of the supercontinent Laurasia with the young and rheologically weak continent of Kazakhstania, which now underlies much of Kazakhstan and West Siberia west of the Irtysh, and intervening island arcs. The collision lasted nearly 90 million years in the late Carboniferous – early Triassic.[17][18][19][20] Unlike the other major orogens of the Paleozoic (Appalachians, Caledonides, Variscides), the Urals have not undergone post-orogenic extensional collapse and are unusually well preserved for their age, being underlaid by a pronounced crustal root.[21][22] East and south of the Urals much of the orogen is buried beneath later Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments.[17] The adjacent Pay-Khoy Ridge to the north and Novaya Zemlya are not a part of the Uralian orogen and formed later.
+Many deformed and metamorphosed rocks, mostly of Paleozoic age, surface within the Urals. The sedimentary and volcanic layers are folded and faulted. The sediments to the west of the Ural Mountains are formed of limestone, dolomite and sandstone left from ancient shallow seas. The eastern side is dominated by basalts.[4]
+The western slope of the Ural Mountains has predominantly karst topography, especially in the Sylva basin, which is a tributary of the Chusovaya. It is composed of severely eroded sedimentary rocks (sandstones and limestones) that are about 350 million years old.  There are many caves, sinkholes and underground streams. The karst topography is much less developed on the eastern slopes. The eastern slopes are relatively flat, with some hills and rocky outcrops and contain alternating volcanic and sedimentary layers dated to the middle Paleozoic Era.[4] Most high mountains consist of weather-resistant rocks such as quartzite, schist and gabbro that are between 570 and 395 million years old. The river valleys are underlain by limestone.[1]
+The Ural Mountains contain about 48 species of economically valuable ores and economically valuable minerals. Eastern regions are rich in chalcopyrite, nickel oxide, gold, platinum, chromite and magnetite ores, as well as in coal (Chelyabinsk Oblast), bauxite, talc, fireclay and abrasives. The Western Urals contain deposits of coal, oil, natural gas (Ishimbay and Krasnokamsk areas) and potassium salts. Both slopes are rich in bituminous coal and lignite, and the largest deposit of bituminous coal is in the north (Pechora field). The specialty of the Urals is precious and semi-precious stones, such as emerald, amethyst, aquamarine, jasper, rhodonite, malachite and diamond. Some of the deposits, such as the magnetite ores at Magnitogorsk, are already nearly depleted.[1][4]
+Many rivers originate in the Ural Mountains. The western slopes south of the border between the Komi Republic and Perm Krai and the eastern slopes south of approximately 54°30'N drain into the Caspian Sea via the Kama and Ural basins. The tributaries of the Kama include the Vishera, Chusovaya, and Belaya and originate on both the eastern and western slopes. The rest of the Urals drain into the Arctic Ocean, mainly via the Pechora basin in the west, which includes the Ilych, Shchugor, and the Usa, and via the Ob basin in the east, which includes the Tobol, Tavda, Iset, Tura and Severnaya Sosva. The rivers are frozen for more than half the year. Generally, the western rivers have higher flow volume than the eastern ones, especially in the Northern and Nether-Polar regions. Rivers are slower in the Southern Urals. This is because of low precipitation and the relatively warm climate resulting in less snow and more evaporation.[1][4]
+The mountains contain a number of deep lakes.[23] The eastern slopes of the Southern and Central Urals have most of these, among the largest of which are the Uvildy, Itkul, Turgoyak, and Tavatuy lakes.[4] The lakes found on the western slopes are less numerous and also smaller. Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye, the deepest lake in the Polar Urals, is 136 meters (446 ft) deep. Other lakes, too, are found in the glacial valleys of this region. Spas and sanatoriums have been built to take advantage of the medicinal muds found in some of the mountain lakes.[1][4]
+The climate of the Urals is continental. The mountain ridges, elongated from north to south, effectively absorb sunlight thereby increasing the temperature. The areas west of the Ural Mountains are 1–2 °C (1.8–3.6 °F) warmer in winter than the eastern regions because the former are warmed by Atlantic winds whereas the eastern slopes are chilled by Siberian air masses. The average January temperatures increase in the western areas from −20 °C (−4 °F) in the Polar to −15 °C (5 °F) in the Southern Urals and the corresponding temperatures in July are 10 °C (50 °F) and 20 °C (68 °F). The western areas also receive more rainfall than the eastern ones by 150–300 mm (5.9–11.8 in) per year. This is because the mountains trap clouds from the Atlantic Ocean. The highest precipitation, approximately 1,000 mm (39 in), is in the Northern Urals with up to 1,000 cm (390 in) snow. The eastern areas receive from 500–600 mm (20–24 in) in the north to 300–400 mm (12–16 in) in the south. Maximum precipitation occurs in the summer: the winter is dry because of the Siberian High.[1][4]
+The landscapes of the Urals vary with both latitude and longitude and are dominated by forests and steppes. The southern area of the Mughalzhar Hills is a semidesert. Steppes lie mostly in the southern and especially south-eastern Urals. Meadow steppes have developed on the lower parts of mountain slopes and are covered with zigzag and mountain clovers, Serratula gmelinii, dropwort, meadow-grass and Bromus inermis, reaching the height of 60–80 cm. Much of the land is cultivated. To the south, the meadow steppes become more sparse, dry and low. The steep gravelly slopes of the mountains and hills of the eastern slopes of the Southern Urals are mostly covered with rocky steppes. River valleys contain willow, poplar and caragana shrubs.[4]
+Forest landscapes of the Urals are diverse, especially in the southern part. The western areas are dominated by dark coniferous taiga forests which change to mixed and deciduous forests in the south. The eastern mountain slopes have light coniferous taiga forests. The Northern Urals are dominated by conifers, namely Siberian fir, Siberian pine, Scots pine, Siberian spruce, Norway spruce and Siberian larch, as well as by silver and downy birches. The forests are much sparser in the Polar Urals. Whereas in other parts of the Ural Mountains they grow up to an altitude of 1000 m, in the Polar Urals the tree line is at 250–400 m. The polar forests are low and are mixed with swamps, lichens, bogs and shrubs. Dwarf birch, mosses and berries (blueberry, cloudberry, black crowberry, etc.) are abundant. The forests of the Southern Urals are the most diverse in composition: here, together with coniferous forests are also abundant broadleaf tree species such as English oak, Norway maple and elm.[4] The Virgin Komi Forests in the northern Urals are recognized as a World Heritage site.
+The Ural forests are inhabited by animals typical of Siberia, such as elk, brown bear, fox, wolf, wolverine, lynx, squirrel, and sable (north only). Because of the easy accessibility of the mountains there are no specifically mountainous species. In the Middle Urals, one can see a rare mixture of sable and pine marten named kidus. In the Southern Urals, badger and black polecat are common. Reptiles and amphibians live mostly in the Southern and Central Ural and are represented by the common viper, lizards and grass snakes. Bird species are represented by capercaillie, black grouse, hazel grouse, spotted nutcracker, and cuckoos. In summers, the South and Middle Urals are visited by songbirds, such as nightingale and redstart.[1][4]
+The steppes of the Southern Urals are dominated by hares and rodents such as hamsters, susliks, and jerboa. There are many birds of prey such as lesser kestrel and buzzards. The animals of the Polar Urals are few and are characteristic of the tundra; they include Arctic fox, lemming, and reindeer. The birds of these areas include rough-legged buzzard, snowy owl, tundra partridge, and rock ptarmigan.[1][4]
+The continuous and intensive economic development of the last centuries has affected the fauna, and wildlife is much diminished around all industrial centers. During World War II, hundreds of factories were evacuated from Western Russia before the German occupation, flooding the Urals with industry. The conservation measures include establishing national wildlife parks.[1] There are nine strict nature reserves in the Urals: the Ilmen, the oldest one, mineralogical reserve founded in 1920 in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Pechora-Ilych in the Komi Republic, Bashkir and its former branch Shulgan-Tash in Bashkortostan, Visim in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Southern Ural in Bashkortostan, Basegi in Perm Krai, Vishera in Perm Krai and Denezhkin Kamen in Sverdlovsk Oblast.
+The area has also been severely damaged by the plutonium-producing facility Mayak opened in Chelyabinsk-40 (later called Chelyabinsk-65, Ozyorsk), in the Southern Ural, after World War II.[1] Its plants went into operation in 1948 and, for the first ten years, dumped unfiltered radioactive waste into the river Techa and Lake Karachay.[1][13][14] In 1990, efforts were underway to contain the radiation in one of the lakes, which was estimated at the time to expose visitors to 500 millirem per day.[14] As of 2006, 500 mrem in the natural environment was the upper limit of exposure considered safe for a member of the general public in an entire year (though workplace exposure over a year could exceed that by a factor of 10).[15] Over 23,000 km2 (8,900 sq mi) of land were contaminated in 1957 from a storage tank explosion, only one of several serious accidents that further polluted the region.[1] The 1957 accident expelled 20 million curies of radioactive material, 90% of which settled into the land immediately around the facility.[16] Although some reactors of Mayak were shut down in 1987 and 1990,[14] the facility keeps producing plutonium.[24]
+The Urals have been viewed by Russians as a "treasure box" of mineral resources, which were the basis for its extensive industrial development. In addition to iron and copper the Urals were a source of gold, malachite, alexandrite, and other gems such as those used by the court jeweller Fabergé. As Russians in other regions gather mushrooms or berries, Uralians gather mineral specimens and gems. Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak (1852–1912) Pavel Bazhov (1879–1950), as well as Aleksey Ivanov and Olga Slavnikova, post-Soviet writers, have written of the region.[25]
+The region served as a military stronghold during Peter the Great's Great Northern War with Sweden, during Stalin's rule when the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Complex was built and Russian industry relocated to the Urals during the Nazi advance at the beginning of World War II, and as the center of the Soviet nuclear industry during the Cold War. Extreme levels of air, water, and radiological contamination and pollution by industrial wastes resulted. Population exodus resulted, and economic depression at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in post-Soviet times additional mineral exploration, particularly in the northern Urals, has been productive and the region has attracted industrial investment.[25]

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+†Ursus maritimus tyrannus(?)
+Ursus eogroenlandicus
+Ursus groenlandicus
+Ursus jenaensis
+Ursus labradorensis
+Ursus marinus
+Ursus polaris
+Ursus spitzbergensis
+Ursus ungavensis
+Thalarctos maritimus
+The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi).[5] A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb),[6] while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Polar bears are the largest land carnivores currently in existence, rivaled only by the Kodiak bear.[7] Although it is the sister species of the brown bear,[8] it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice and open water, and for hunting seals, which make up most of its diet.[9] Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means "maritime bear" and derives from this fact. Polar bears hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present. Because of their dependence on the sea ice, polar bears are classified as marine mammals.[10]
+Because of expected habitat loss caused by climate change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species. For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect.[11] For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of circumpolar peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. Historically, the polar bear has also been known as the "white bear".[12] It is sometimes referred to as the "nanook", based on the Inuit term nanuq.[13]
+Constantine John Phipps was the first to describe the polar bear as a distinct species in 1774.[3][2] He chose the scientific name Ursus maritimus, the Latin for 'maritime bear',[14] due to the animal's native habitat. The Inuit refer to the animal as nanook (transliterated as nanuq in the Inupiat language).[15][13] The Yupik also refer to the bear as nanuuk in Siberian Yupik.[16] The bear is umka in the Chukchi language. In Russian, it is usually called бе́лый медве́дь (bélyj medvédj, the white bear), though an older word still in use is ошку́й (Oshkúj, which comes from the Komi oski, "bear").[17] In Quebec, the polar bear is referred to as ours blanc ("white bear") or ours polaire ("polar bear").[18] In the Norwegian-administered Svalbard archipelago, the polar bear is referred to as Isbjørn ("ice bear").
+The polar bear was previously considered to be in its own genus, Thalarctos.[19] However, evidence of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, and of the recent evolutionary divergence of the two species, does not support the establishment of this separate genus, and the accepted scientific name is now therefore Ursus maritimus, as Phipps originally proposed.[2]
+The bear family, Ursidae, is thought to have split from other carnivorans about 38 million years ago.[20] The subfamily Ursinae originated approximately 4.2 million years ago.[21] The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland in 2004.[22] Fossils show that between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the polar bear's molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear.[23] Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of brown bears that became isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene[4] from the eastern part of Siberia (from Kamchatka and the Kolym Peninsula).[23]
+The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago.[22] Further, some clades of brown bear, as assessed by their mtDNA, were thought to be more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears,[24] meaning that the brown bear might not be considered a species under some species concepts, but paraphyletic.[25] The mtDNA of extinct Irish brown bears is particularly close to polar bears.[26] A comparison of the nuclear genome of polar bears with that of brown bears revealed a different pattern, the two forming genetically distinct clades that diverged approximately 603,000 years ago,[27] although the latest research is based on analysis of the complete genomes (rather than just the mitochondria or partial nuclear genomes) of polar and brown bears, and establishes the divergence of polar and brown bears at 400,000 years ago.[28]
+However, the two species have mated intermittently for all that time, most likely coming into contact with each other during warming periods, when polar bears were driven onto land and brown bears migrated northward. Most brown bears have about 2 percent genetic material from polar bears, but one population, the ABC Islands bears, has between 5 percent and 10 percent polar bear genes, indicating more frequent and recent mating.[29] Polar bears can breed with brown bears to produce fertile grizzly–polar bear hybrids;[4][30] rather than indicating that they have only recently diverged, the new evidence suggests more frequent mating has continued over a longer period of time, and thus the two bears remain genetically similar.[29] However, because neither species can survive long in the other's ecological niche, and because they have different morphology, metabolism, social and feeding behaviours, and other phenotypic characteristics, the two bears are generally classified as separate species.[31]
+When the polar bear was originally documented, two subspecies were identified: the American polar bear (Ursus maritimus maritimus) by Constantine J. Phipps in 1774, and the Siberian polar bear (Ursus maritimus marinus) by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776.[32] This distinction has since been invalidated.[33][34][35] One alleged fossil subspecies has been identified: Ursus maritimus tyrannus, which became extinct during the Pleistocene. U.m. tyrannus was significantly larger than the living subspecies.[4] However, recent reanalysis of the fossil suggests that it was actually a brown bear.[1]
+The polar bear is found in the Arctic Circle and adjacent land masses as far south as Newfoundland. Due to the absence of human development in its remote habitat, it retains more of its original range than any other extant carnivore.[36] While they are rare north of 88°, there is evidence that they range all the way across the Arctic, and as far south as James Bay in Canada. Their southernmost range is near the boundary between the subarctic and humid continental climate zones. They can occasionally drift widely with the sea ice, and there have been anecdotal sightings as far south as Berlevåg on the Norwegian mainland and the Kuril Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. It is difficult to estimate a global population of polar bears as much of the range has been poorly studied; however, biologists use a working estimate of about 20–25,000 or 22–31,000 polar bears worldwide.[2][37][38]
+There are 19 generally recognized, discrete subpopulations, though polar bears are thought to exist only in low densities in the area of the Arctic Basin.[37][39] The subpopulations display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, but DNA studies show that they are not reproductively isolated.[35] The 13 North American subpopulations range from the Beaufort Sea south to Hudson Bay and east to Baffin Bay in western Greenland and account for about 54% of the global population.[40]
+The range includes the territory of five nations: Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard), Russia, the United States (Alaska) and Canada. These five nations are the signatories of the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which mandates cooperation on research and conservation efforts throughout the polar bear's range.[41] Bears sometimes swim to Iceland from Greenland—about 600 sightings since the country's settlement in the 9th century AD, and five in the 21st century as of 2016[update]—and are always killed because of their danger, and the cost and difficulty of repatriation.[42]
+Modern methods of tracking polar bear populations have been implemented only since the mid-1980s, and are expensive to perform consistently over a large area. The most accurate counts require flying a helicopter in the Arctic climate to find polar bears, shooting a tranquilizer dart at the bear to sedate it, and then tagging the bear. In Nunavut, some Inuit have reported increases in bear sightings around human settlements in recent years, leading to a belief that populations are increasing. Scientists have responded by noting that hungry bears may be congregating around human settlements, leading to the illusion that populations are higher than they actually are.[43] The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission takes the position that "estimates of subpopulation size or sustainable harvest levels should not be made solely on the basis of traditional ecological knowledge without supporting scientific studies."[44]
+Of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations, one is in decline, two are increasing, seven are stable, and nine have insufficient data, as of 2017.[45]
+The polar bear is a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea.[46] However, it is the only living marine mammal with powerful, large limbs and feet that allow them to cover kilometres on foot and run on land.[47] Its preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic.[36][48] The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads (temporary stretches of open water in Arctic ice), to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet.[49] Freshwater is limited in these environments because it is either locked up in snow or saline. Polar bears are able to produce water through the metabolism of fats found in seal blubber,[50] and are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low.[51]
+Annual ice contains areas of water that appear and disappear throughout the year as the weather changes. Seals migrate in response to these changes, and polar bears must follow their prey. In Hudson Bay, James Bay, and some other areas, the ice melts completely each summer (an event often referred to as "ice-floe breakup"), forcing polar bears to go onto land and wait through the months until the next freeze-up.[48] In the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, polar bears retreat each summer to the ice further north that remains frozen year-round.
+The only other bear similar in size to the polar bear is the Kodiak bear, which is a subspecies of brown bear.[52] Adult male polar bears weigh 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb) and measure 2.4–3 metres (7 ft 10 in–9 ft 10 in) in total length.[53] Around the Beaufort Sea, however, mature males reportedly average 450 kg (992 lb).[54] Adult females are roughly half the size of males and normally weigh 150–250 kg (331–551 lb), measuring 1.8–2.4 metres (5 ft 11 in–7 ft 10 in) in length. Elsewhere, a slightly larger estimated average weight of 260 kg (573 lb) was claimed for adult females.[55] When pregnant, however, females can weigh as much as 500 kg (1,102 lb).[53] The polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic of mammals, surpassed only by the pinnipeds such as elephant seals.[56] The largest polar bear on record, reportedly weighing 1,002 kg (2,209 lb), was a male shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960. This specimen, when mounted, stood 3.39 m (11 ft 1 in) tall on its hindlegs. The shoulder height of an adult polar bear is 122 to 160 cm (4 ft 0 in to 5 ft 3 in).[57][58] While all bears are short-tailed, the polar bear's tail is relatively the shortest amongst living bears, ranging from 7 to 13 cm (2.8 to 5.1 in) in length.[59]
+Compared with its closest relative, the brown bear, the polar bear has a more elongated body build and a longer skull and nose.[31] As predicted by Allen's rule for a northerly animal, the legs are stocky and the ears and tail are small.[31] However, the feet are very large to distribute load when walking on snow or thin ice and to provide propulsion when swimming; they may measure 30 cm (12 in) across in an adult.[60] The pads of the paws are covered with small, soft papillae (dermal bumps), which provide traction on the ice. The polar bear's claws are short and stocky compared to those of the brown bear, perhaps to serve the former's need to grip heavy prey and ice.[31] The claws are deeply scooped on the underside to assist in digging in the ice of the natural habitat. Research of injury patterns in polar bear forelimbs found injuries to the right forelimb to be more frequent than those to the left, suggesting, perhaps, right-handedness.[61] Unlike the brown bear, polar bears in captivity are rarely overweight or particularly large, possibly as a reaction to the warm conditions of most zoos.
+The 42 teeth of a polar bear reflect its highly carnivorous diet. The cheek teeth are smaller and more jagged than in the brown bear, and the canines are larger and sharper. The dental formula is 3.1.4.23.1.4.3.[31]
+Polar bears are superbly insulated by up to 10 cm (4 in) of adipose tissue,[60] their hide and their fur; they overheat at temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F), and are nearly invisible under infrared photography.[62] Polar bear fur consists of a layer of dense underfur and an outer layer of guard hairs, which appear white to tan but are actually transparent.[60] Two genes that are known to influence melanin production, LYST and AIM1, are both mutated in polar bears, possibly leading to the absence on this pigment in their fur.[63] The guard hair is 5–15 cm (2–6 in) over most of the body.[64] Polar bears gradually moult from May to August,[65] but, unlike other Arctic mammals, they do not shed their coat for a darker shade to provide camouflage in summer conditions.[66] The hollow guard hairs of a polar bear coat were once thought to act as fiber-optic tubes to conduct light to its black skin, where it could be absorbed; however, this hypothesis was disproved by a study in 1998.[67]
+The white coat usually yellows with age. When kept in captivity in warm, humid conditions, the fur may turn a pale shade of green due to algae growing inside the guard hairs.[68] Males have significantly longer hairs on their forelegs, which increase in length until the bear reaches 14 years of age. The male's ornamental foreleg hair is thought to attract females, serving a similar function to the lion's mane.[69]
+The polar bear has an extremely well developed sense of smell, being able to detect seals nearly 1.6 km (1 mi) away and buried under 1 m (3 ft) of snow. Its hearing is about as acute as that of a human, and its vision is also good at long distances.[70]
+The polar bear is an excellent swimmer and often will swim for days.[71] One bear swam continuously for 9 days in the frigid Bering Sea for 700 km (400 mi) to reach ice far from land. She then travelled another 1,800 km (1,100 mi). During the swim, the bear lost 22% of her body mass and her yearling cub died.[72] With its body fat providing buoyancy, the bear swims in a dog paddle fashion using its large forepaws for propulsion. Polar bears can swim 10 km/h (6 mph). When walking, the polar bear tends to have a lumbering gait and maintains an average speed of around 5.6 km/h (3.5 mph).[73] When sprinting, they can reach up to 40 km/h (25 mph).[74]
+Unlike brown bears, polar bears are not territorial. Although stereotyped as being voraciously aggressive, they are normally cautious in confrontations, and often choose to escape rather than fight.[75] Satiated polar bears rarely attack humans unless severely provoked.[76][77] However, due to their lack of prior human interaction, hungry polar bears are extremely unpredictable, fearless towards people and are known to kill and sometimes eat humans.[78] Many attacks by brown bears are the result of surprising the animal, which is not the case with the polar bear. Polar bears are stealth hunters, and the victim is often unaware of the bear's presence until the attack is underway. Whereas brown bears often maul a person and then leave, polar bear attacks are more likely to be predatory and are almost always fatal.[79] However, due to the very small human population around the Arctic, such attacks are rare. Michio Hoshino, a Japanese wildlife photographer, was once pursued briefly by a hungry male polar bear in northern Alaska. According to Hoshino, the bear started running but Hoshino made it to his truck. The bear was able to reach the truck and tore one of the doors off the truck before Hoshino was able to drive off.[80]
+In general, adult polar bears live solitary lives. Yet, they have often been seen playing together for hours at a time and even sleeping in an embrace,[78] and polar bear zoologist Nikita Ovsianikov has described adult males as having "well-developed friendships."[75] Cubs are especially playful as well. Among young males in particular, play-fighting may be a means of practicing for serious competition during mating seasons later in life.[81] Polar bears are usually quiet but do communicate with various sounds and vocalizations. Females communicate with their young with moans and chuffs, and the distress calls of both cubs and subadults consists of bleats.[82] Cubs may hum while nursing.[83] When nervous, bears produce huffs, chuffs and snorts while hisses, growls and roars are signs of aggression.[82] Chemical communication can also be important: bears leave behind their scent in their tracks which allow individuals to keep track of one another in the vast Arctic wilderness.[84]
+In 1992, a photographer near Churchill took a now widely circulated set of photographs of a polar bear playing with a Canadian Eskimo Dog (Canis lupus familiaris) a tenth of its size.[85][86] The pair wrestled harmlessly together each afternoon for 10 days in a row for no apparent reason, although the bear may have been trying to demonstrate its friendliness in the hope of sharing the kennel's food. This kind of social interaction is uncommon; it is far more typical for polar bears to behave aggressively towards dogs.[85]
+The polar bear is the most carnivorous member of the bear family, and throughout most of its range, its diet primarily consists of ringed (Pusa hispida) and bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus).[88] The Arctic is home to millions of seals, which become prey when they surface in holes in the ice in order to breathe, or when they haul out on the ice to rest.[87][89] Polar bears hunt primarily at the interface between ice, water, and air; they only rarely catch seals on land or in open water.[90]
+The polar bear's most common hunting method is called still-hunting:[91] the bear uses its excellent sense of smell to locate a seal breathing hole, and crouches nearby in silence for a seal to appear. The bear may lie in wait for several hours. When the seal exhales, the bear smells its breath, reaches into the hole with a forepaw, and drags it out onto the ice. The polar bear kills the seal by biting its head to crush its skull. The polar bear also hunts by stalking seals resting on the ice: upon spotting a seal, it walks to within 90 m (100 yd), and then crouches. If the seal does not notice, the bear creeps to within 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) of the seal and then suddenly rushes forth to attack.[87] A third hunting method is to raid the birth lairs that female seals create in the snow.[91]
+A widespread legend tells that polar bears cover their black noses with their paws when hunting. This behaviour, if it happens, is rare – although the story exists in the oral history of northern peoples and in accounts by early Arctic explorers, there is no record of an eyewitness account of the behaviour in recent decades.[73]
+Mature bears tend to eat only the calorie-rich skin and blubber of the seal, which are highly digestible,[92] whereas younger bears consume the protein-rich red meat.[87] Studies have also photographed polar bears scaling near-vertical cliffs, to eat birds' chicks and eggs.[93] For subadult bears, which are independent of their mother but have not yet gained enough experience and body size to successfully hunt seals, scavenging the carcasses from other bears' kills is an important source of nutrition. Subadults may also be forced to accept a half-eaten carcass if they kill a seal but cannot defend it from larger polar bears. After feeding, polar bears wash themselves with water or snow.[73]
+Although polar bears are extraordinarily powerful, its primary prey species, the ringed seal, is much smaller than itself, and many of the seals hunted are pups rather than adults. Ringed seals are born weighing 5.4 kg (12 lb) and grown to an estimated average weight of only 60 kg (130 lb).[94][95] They also in places prey heavily upon the harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) or the harbour seal. The bearded seal, on the other hand, can be nearly the same size as the bear itself, averaging 270 kg (600 lb).[95] Adult male bearded seals, at 350 to 500 kg (770 to 1,100 lb) are too large for a female bear to overtake, and so are potential prey only for mature male bears.[96] Large males also occasionally attempt to hunt and kill even larger prey items.[97] It can kill an adult walrus (Odobenus rosmarus),[95][98] although this is rarely attempted. At up to 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) and a typical adult mass range of 600 to 1,500 kg (1,300 to 3,300 lb), a walrus can be more than twice the bear's weight,[99] has extremely thick skin and has up to 1-metre (3 ft)-long ivory tusks that can be used as formidable weapons. A polar bear may charge a group of walruses, with the goal of separating a young, infirm, or injured walrus from the pod. They will even attack adult walruses when their diving holes have frozen over or intercept them before they can get back to the diving hole in the ice. Yet, polar bears will very seldom attack full-grown adult walruses, with the largest male walrus probably invulnerable unless otherwise injured or incapacitated. Since an attack on a walrus tends to be an extremely protracted and exhausting venture, bears have been known to back down from the attack after making the initial injury to the walrus.[98] Polar bears have also been seen to prey on beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)[95] and narwhals (Monodon monoceros),[95] by swiping at them at breathing holes. The whales are of similar size to the walrus and nearly as difficult for the bear to subdue.[100][101] Most terrestrial animals in the Arctic can outrun the polar bear on land as polar bears overheat quickly, and most marine animals the bear encounters can outswim it. In some areas, the polar bear's diet is supplemented by walrus calves and by the carcasses of dead adult walruses or whales, whose blubber is readily devoured even when rotten.[78] Polar bears sometimes swim underwater to catch fish like the Arctic charr or the fourhorn sculpin.[89]
+With the exception of pregnant females, polar bears are active year-round, although they have a vestigial hibernation induction trigger in their blood. Unlike brown and black bears, polar bears are capable of fasting for up to several months during late summer and early fall, when they cannot hunt for seals because the sea is unfrozen.[102] When sea ice is unavailable during summer and early autumn, some populations live off fat reserves for months at a time,[62] as polar bears do not 'hibernate' any time of the year.[103]
+Being both curious animals and scavengers,[99][104] polar bears investigate and consume garbage where they come into contact with humans.[95][99] Polar bears may attempt to consume almost anything they can find, including hazardous substances such as styrofoam, plastic, car batteries, ethylene glycol, hydraulic fluid, and motor oil.[99][104] The dump in Churchill, Manitoba was closed in 2006 to protect bears, and waste is now recycled or transported to Thompson, Manitoba.[105][106]
+Although seal predation is the primary and an indispensable way of life for most polar bears, when alternatives are present they are quite flexible. Polar bears consume a wide variety of other wild foods, including muskox (Ovibos moschatus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), birds, eggs, rodents, crabs, other crustaceans and other polar bears. They may also eat plants, including berries, roots, and kelp;[107] however, none of these have been a significant part of their diet,[99] except for beachcast marine mammal carcasses. Given the change in climate, with ice breaking up in areas such as the Hudson Bay earlier than it used to, polar bears are exploiting food resources such as snow geese and eggs, and plants such as lyme grass in increased quantities.[108]
+When stalking land animals, such as muskox, reindeer,[107] and even willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), polar bears appear to make use of vegetative cover and wind direction to bring them as close to their prey as possible before attacking. Polar bears have been observed to hunt the small Svalbard reindeer (R. t. platyrhynchus), which weigh only 40 to 60 kg (90 to 130 lb) as adults, as well as the barren-ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus), which is about twice as heavy as that.[109][110] Adult muskox, which can weigh 450 kg (1,000 lb) or more, are a more formidable quarry.[111] Although ungulates are not typical prey, the killing of one during the summer months can greatly increase the odds of survival during that lean period. Like the brown bear, most ungulate prey of polar bears is likely to be young, sickly or injured specimens rather than healthy adults.[110] The polar bear's metabolism is specialized to require large amounts of fat from marine mammals, and it cannot derive sufficient caloric intake from terrestrial food.[112][113]
+In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, Canadian polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from.[107] Here, their food ecology shows their dietary flexibility. They still manage to consume some seals, but they are food-deprived in summer as only marine mammal carcasses are an important alternative without sea ice, especially carcasses of the beluga whale. These alternatives may reduce the rate of weight loss of bears when on land.[114] One scientist found that 71% of the Hudson Bay bears had fed on seaweed (marine algae) and that about half were feeding on birds[95] such as the dovekie and sea ducks, especially the long-tailed duck (53%) and common eider, by swimming underwater to catch them. They were also diving to feed on blue mussels and other underwater food sources like the green sea urchin. 24% had eaten moss recently, 19% had consumed grass, 34% had eaten black crowberry and about half had consumed willows.[107] This study illustrates the polar bear's dietary flexibility but it does not represent its life history elsewhere. Most polar bears elsewhere will never have access to these alternatives, except for the marine mammal carcasses that are important wherever they occur.
+In Svalbard, polar bears were observed to kill white-beaked dolphins during spring, when the dolphins were trapped in the sea ice. The bears then proceeded to cache the carcasses, which remained and were eaten during the ice-free summer and autumn.[115]
+Courtship and mating take place on the sea ice in April and May, when polar bears congregate in the best seal hunting areas.[116] A male may follow the tracks of a breeding female for 100 km (60 mi) or more, and after finding her engage in intense fighting with other males over mating rights, fights that often result in scars and broken teeth.[116] Polar bears have a generally polygynous mating system; recent genetic testing of mothers and cubs, however, has uncovered cases of litters in which cubs have different fathers.[117] Partners stay together and mate repeatedly for an entire week; the mating ritual induces ovulation in the female.[118]
+After mating, the fertilized egg remains in a suspended state until August or September. During these four months, the pregnant female eats prodigious amounts of food, gaining at least 200 kg (440 lb) and often more than doubling her body weight.[116]
+When the ice floes are at their minimum in the fall, ending the possibility of hunting, each pregnant female digs a maternity den consisting of a narrow entrance tunnel leading to one to three chambers. Most maternity dens are in snowdrifts, but may also be made underground in permafrost if it is not sufficiently cold yet for snow.[116] In most subpopulations, maternity dens are situated on land a few kilometres from the coast, and the individuals in a subpopulation tend to reuse the same denning areas each year.[36] The polar bears that do not den on land make their dens on the sea ice. In the den, she enters a dormant state similar to hibernation. This hibernation-like state does not consist of continuous sleeping; however, the bear's heart rate slows from 46 to 27 beats per minute.[119] Her body temperature does not decrease during this period as it would for a typical mammal in hibernation.[62][120]
+Between November and February, cubs are born blind, covered with a light down fur, and weighing less than 0.9 kg (2.0 lb),[118] but in captivity they might be delivered in the earlier months. The earliest recorded birth of polar bears in captivity was on 11 October 2011 in the Toronto Zoo.[121] On average, each litter has two cubs. The family remains in the den until mid-February to mid-April, with the mother maintaining her fast while nursing her cubs on a fat-rich milk. By the time the mother breaks open the entrance to the den, her cubs weigh about 10 to 15 kilograms (22 to 33 lb). For about 12 to 15 days, the family spends time outside the den while remaining in its vicinity, the mother grazing on vegetation while the cubs become used to walking and playing. Then they begin the long walk from the denning area to the sea ice, where the mother can once again catch seals. Depending on the timing of ice-floe breakup in the fall, she may have fasted for up to eight months.[116] During this time, cubs playfully imitate the mother's hunting methods in preparation for later life.[122]
+Female polar bears have been known to adopt other cubs. Multiple cases of adoption of wild cubs have been confirmed by genetic testing.[123] Adult bears of either gender occasionally kill and eat polar bear cubs.[124][125] As of 2006, in Alaska, 42% of cubs were reaching 12 months of age, down from 65% in 1991.[126] In most areas, cubs are weaned at two and a half years of age, when the mother chases them away or abandons them. The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation is unusual in that its female polar bears sometimes wean their cubs at only one and a half years.[116] This was the case for 40% of cubs there in the early 1980s; however by the 1990s, fewer than 20% of cubs were weaned this young.[127] After the mother leaves, sibling cubs sometimes travel and share food together for weeks or months.[78]
+Females begin to breed at the age of four years in most areas, and five years in the area of the Beaufort Sea. Males usually reach sexual maturity at six years; however, as competition for females is fierce, many do not breed until the age of eight or ten.[116] A study in Hudson Bay indicated that both the reproductive success and the maternal weight of females peaked in their mid-teens.Maternal success appeared to decline after this point, possibly because of an age-related impairment in the ability to store the fat necessary to rear cubs.[128]
+Polar bears appear to be less affected by infectious diseases and parasites than most terrestrial mammals.[129] Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism,[130] although infections are usually not fatal. Only one case of a polar bear with rabies has been documented, even though polar bears frequently interact with Arctic foxes, which often carry rabies.[129] Bacterial leptospirosis and Morbillivirus have been recorded. Polar bears sometimes have problems with various skin diseases that may be caused by mites or other parasites.
+Polar bears rarely live beyond 25 years.[131] The oldest wild bears on record died at age 32, whereas the oldest captive was a female who died in 1991, age 43.[132] The causes of death in wild adult polar bears are poorly understood, as carcasses are rarely found in the species's frigid habitat. In the wild, old polar bears eventually become too weak to catch food, and gradually starve to death. Polar bears injured in fights or accidents may either die from their injuries, or become unable to hunt effectively, leading to starvation.[129]
+The polar bear is the apex predator within its range, and is a keystone species for the Arctic.[133] Several animal species, particularly Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) and glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus), routinely scavenge polar bear kills.[73]
+The relationship between ringed seals and polar bears is so close that the abundance of ringed seals in some areas appears to regulate the density of polar bears, while polar bear predation in turn regulates density and reproductive success of ringed seals.[90] The evolutionary pressure of polar bear predation on seals probably accounts for some significant differences between Arctic and Antarctic seals. Compared to the Antarctic, where there is no major surface predator, Arctic seals use more breathing holes per individual, appear more restless when hauled out on the ice, and rarely defecate on the ice. The baby fur of most Arctic seal species is white, presumably to provide camouflage from predators, whereas Antarctic seals all have dark fur at birth.[73]
+Brown bears tend to dominate polar bears in disputes over carcasses,[134] and dead polar bear cubs have been found in brown bear dens.[135] Wolves are rarely encountered by polar bears, though there are two records of Arctic wolf (Canis lupus arctos) packs killing polar bear cubs.[136] Adult polar bears are occasionally vulnerable to predation by orcas (Orcinus orca) while swimming, but they are rarely reported as taken and bears are likely to avoid entering the water if possible if they detect an orca pod in the area. The melting sea ice in the Arctic may be causing an increase of orcas in the Arctic sea, which may increase the risk of predation on polar bears but also may benefit the bears by providing more whale carcasses that they can scavenge.[137][138] The remains of polar bears have found in the stomachs of large Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus), although it certainly cannot be ruled out that the bears were merely scavenged by this slow-moving, unusual shark.[139][140] A rather unlikely killer of a grown polar bear has reportedly included a wolverine (Gulo gulo), anecedotely reported to have suffocated a bear in a zoo with a bite to the throat during a conflict. This report may well be dubious, however.[141] Polar bears are sometimes the host of arctic mites such as Alaskozetes antarcticus.[73]
+Researchers tracked 52 sows in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska with GPS system collars; no boars were involved in the study due to males' necks being too thick for the GPS-equipped collars. Fifty long-distance swims were recorded; the longest at 354 kilometres (220 mi), with an average of 155 kilometres (96 mi). The length of these swims ranged from most of a day to ten days. Ten of the sows had a cub swim with them and after a year, six cubs survived. The study did not determine if the others lost their cubs before, during, or some time after their long swims. Researchers do not know whether or not this is a new behaviour; before polar ice shrinkage, they opined that there was probably neither the need nor opportunity to swim such long distances.[142]
+The polar bear may swim underwater for up to three minutes to approach seals on shore or on ice floes.[143][144]
+Polar bears have long provided important raw materials for Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, Yupik, Chukchi, Nenets, Russian Pomors and others. Hunters commonly used teams of dogs to distract the bear, allowing the hunter to spear the bear or shoot it with arrows at closer range.[145] Almost all parts of captured animals had a use.[146] The fur was used in particular to make trousers and, by the Nenets, to make galoshes-like outer footwear called tobok; the meat is edible, despite some risk of trichinosis; the fat was used in food and as a fuel for lighting homes, alongside seal and whale blubber; sinews were used as thread for sewing clothes; the gallbladder and sometimes heart were dried and powdered for medicinal purposes; the large canine teeth were highly valued as talismans.[147] Only the liver was not used, as its high concentration of vitamin A is poisonous. As a carnivore, which feeds largely upon fish-eating carnivores, the polar bear ingests large amounts of vitamin A that is stored in their livers. The resulting high concentrations cause Hypervitaminosis A,[148] Hunters make sure to either toss the liver into the sea or bury it in order to spare their dogs from potential poisoning.[147] Traditional subsistence hunting was on a small enough scale to not significantly affect polar bear populations, mostly because of the sparseness of the human population in polar bear habitat.[149]
+In Russia, polar bear furs were already being commercially traded in the 14th century, though it was of low value compared to Arctic fox or even reindeer fur.[147] The growth of the human population in the Eurasian Arctic in the 16th and 17th century, together with the advent of firearms and increasing trade, dramatically increased the harvest of polar bears.[62][150] However, since polar bear fur has always played a marginal commercial role, data on the historical harvest is fragmentary. It is known, for example, that already in the winter of 1784/1785 Russian Pomors on Spitsbergen harvested 150 polar bears in Magdalenefjorden. In the early 20th century, Norwegian hunters were harvesting 300 bears per year at the same location. Estimates of total historical harvest suggest that from the beginning of the 18th century, roughly 400 to 500 animals were being harvested annually in northern Eurasia, reaching a peak of 1,300 to 1,500 animals in the early 20th century, and falling off as the numbers began dwindling.[147]
+In the first half of the 20th century, mechanized and overpoweringly efficient methods of hunting and trapping came into use in North America as well. Polar bears were chased from snowmobiles, icebreakers, and airplanes, the latter practice described in a 1965 New York Times editorial as being "about as sporting as machine gunning a cow."[151] Norwegians used "self-killing guns", comprising a loaded rifle in a baited box that was placed at the level of a bear's head, and which fired when the string attached to the bait was pulled.[152] The numbers taken grew rapidly in the 1960s, peaking around 1968 with a global total of 1,250 bears that year.[153]
+Concerns over the future survival of the species led to the development of national regulations on polar bear hunting, beginning in the mid-1950s. The Soviet Union banned all hunting in 1956. Canada began imposing hunting quotas in 1968. Norway passed a series of increasingly strict regulations from 1965 to 1973, and has completely banned hunting since then. The United States began regulating hunting in 1971 and adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. In 1973, the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by all five nations whose territory is inhabited by polar bears: Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Member countries agreed to place restrictions on recreational and commercial hunting, ban hunting from aircraft and icebreakers, and conduct further research.[154] The treaty allows hunting "by local people using traditional methods". Norway is the only country of the five in which all harvest of polar bears is banned. The agreement was a rare case of international cooperation during the Cold War. Biologist Ian Stirling commented, "For many years, the conservation of polar bears was the only subject in the entire Arctic that nations from both sides of the Iron Curtain could agree upon sufficiently to sign an agreement. Such was the intensity of human fascination with this magnificent predator, the only marine bear."[155]
+Agreements have been made between countries to co-manage their shared polar bear subpopulations. After several years of negotiations, Russia and the United States signed an agreement in October 2000 to jointly set quotas for indigenous subsistence hunting in Alaska and Chukotka.[156] The treaty was ratified in October 2007.[157] In September 2015, the polar bear range states agreed upon a "circumpolar action plan" describing their conservation strategy for polar bears.[158]
+Although the United States government has proposed that polar bears be transferred to Appendix I of CITES, which would ban all international trade in polar bear parts, polar bears currently remain listed under Appendix II.[159] This decision was approved of by members of the IUCN and TRAFFIC, who determined that such an uplisting was unlikely to confer a conservation benefit.[160]
+Polar bears were designated "Not at Risk" in April 1986 and uplisted to "Special Concern" in April 1991. This status was re-evaluated and confirmed in April 1999, November 2002, and April 2008. Polar bears continue to be listed as a species of special concern in Canada because of their sensitivity to overharvest and because of an expected range contraction caused by loss of Arctic sea ice.[161]
+More than 600 bears are killed per year by humans across Canada,[45] a rate calculated by scientists to be unsustainable for some areas, notably Baffin Bay.[37] Canada has allowed sport hunters accompanied by local guides and dog-sled teams since 1970,[162] but the practice was not common until the 1980s.[163] The guiding of sport hunters provides meaningful employment and an important source of income for northern communities in which economic opportunities are few.[43] Sport hunting can bring CDN$20,000 to $35,000 per bear into northern communities, which until recently has been mostly from American hunters.[164]
+The territory of Nunavut accounts for the location 80% of annual kills in Canada. In 2005, the government of Nunavut increased the quota from 400 to 518 bears,[164] despite protests from the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.[165] In two areas where harvest levels have been increased based on increased sightings, science-based studies have indicated declining populations, and a third area is considered data-deficient.[166] While most of that quota is hunted by the indigenous Inuit people, a growing share is sold to recreational hunters. (0.8% in the 1970s, 7.1% in the 1980s, and 14.6% in the 1990s)[163] Nunavut polar bear biologist, Mitchell Taylor, who was formerly responsible for polar bear conservation in the territory, has insisted that bear numbers are being sustained under current hunting limits.[167] In 2010, the 2005 increase was partially reversed. Government of Nunavut officials announced that the polar bear quota for the Baffin Bay region would be gradually reduced from 105 per year to 65 by the year 2013.[168] The Government of the Northwest Territories maintain their own quota of 72 to 103 bears within the Inuvialuit communities of which some are set aside for sports hunters.[citation needed] Environment Canada also banned the export from Canada of fur, claws, skulls and other products from polar bears harvested in Baffin Bay as of 1 January 2010.[168]
+Because of the way polar bear hunting quotas are managed in Canada, attempts to discourage sport hunting would actually increase the number of bears killed in the short term. Canada allocates a certain number of permits each year to sport and subsistence hunting, and those that are not used for sport hunting are re-allocated to indigenous subsistence hunting. Whereas northern communities kill all the polar bears they are permitted to take each year, only half of sport hunters with permits actually manage to kill a polar bear. If a sport hunter does not kill a polar bear before his or her permit expires, the permit cannot be transferred to another hunter.[43]
+In August 2011, Environment Canada published a national polar bear conservation strategy.[169]
+In Greenland, hunting restrictions were first introduced in 1994 and expanded by executive order in 2005.[39] Until 2005 Greenland placed no limit on hunting by indigenous people. However, in 2006 it imposed a limit of 150, while also allowed recreational hunting for the first time.[170] Other provisions included year-round protection of cubs and mothers, restrictions on weapons used and various administrative requirements to catalogue kills.[39]
+Polar bears were hunted heavily in Svalbard, Norway throughout the 19th century and to as recently as 1973, when the conservation treaty was signed. 900 bears a year were harvested in the 1920s and after World War II, there were as many as 400–500 harvested annually. Some regulations of hunting did exist. In 1927, poisoning was outlawed while in 1939, certain denning sights were declared off limits. The killing of females and cubs was made illegal in 1965. Killing of polar bears decreased somewhat 25–30 years before the treaty. Despite this, the polar bear population continued to decline and by 1973, only around 1000 bears were left in Svalbard. Only with the passage of the treaty did they begin to recover.[171]
+The Soviet Union banned the harvest of polar bears in 1956; however, poaching continued and is estimated to pose a serious threat to the polar bear population.[39] In recent years, polar bears have approached coastal villages in Chukotka more frequently due to the shrinking of the sea ice, endangering humans and raising concerns that illegal hunting would become even more prevalent. In 2007, the Russian government made subsistence hunting legal for indigenous Chukotkan peoples only, a move supported by Russia's most prominent bear researchers and the World Wide Fund for Nature as a means to curb poaching.[172]
+Polar bears are currently listed as "Rare", of "Uncertain Status", or "Rehabilitated and rehabilitating" in the Red Data Book of Russia, depending on population.[173] In 2010, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment published a strategy for polar bear conservation in Russia.[174]
+The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 afforded polar bears some protection in the United States. It banned hunting (except by indigenous subsistence hunters), banned importing of polar bear parts (except polar bear pelts taken legally in Canada), and banned the harassment of polar bears. On 15 May 2008, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, citing the melting of Arctic sea ice as the primary threat to the polar bear.[175] It banned all importing of polar bear trophies. Importing products made from polar bears had been prohibited from 1972 to 1994 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and restricted between 1994 and 2008. Under those restrictions, permits from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service were required to import sport-hunted polar bear trophies taken in hunting expeditions in Canada. The permit process required that the bear be taken from an area with quotas based on sound management principles.[176] Since 1994, hundreds of sport-hunted polar bear trophies have been imported into the U.S.[177] In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a draft conservation management plan for polar bears to improve their status under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.[178]
+Polar bear population sizes and trends are difficult to estimate accurately because they occupy remote home ranges and exist at low population densities. Polar bear fieldwork can also be hazardous to researchers.[179] As of 2015, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that the global population of polar bears is 22,000 to 31,000, and the current population trend is unknown. Nevertheless, polar bears are listed as "Vulnerable" under criterion A3c, which indicates an expected population decrease of ≥30% over the next three generations (~34.5 years) due to "decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat". Risks to the polar bear include climate change, pollution in the form of toxic contaminants, conflicts with shipping, oil and gas exploration and development, and human-bear interactions including harvesting and possible stresses from recreational polar-bear watching.[2]
+According to the World Wildlife Fund, the polar bear is important as an indicator of Arctic ecosystem health. Polar bears are studied to gain understanding of what is happening throughout the Arctic, because at-risk polar bears are often a sign of something wrong with the Arctic marine ecosystem.[180]
+The International Union for Conservation of Nature, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, United States Geological Survey and many leading polar bear biologists have expressed grave concerns about the impact of climate change, including the belief that the current warming trend imperils the survival of the polar bear.[36][181][182][183][184][185]
+The key danger posed by climate change is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals from a platform of sea ice. Rising temperatures cause the sea ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall.[127] Reduction in sea-ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning.[186] Thinner sea ice tends to deform more easily, which appears to make it more difficult for polar bears to access seals.[90] Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears, in addition to poorer body condition in bears of all ages.[36]
+In addition to creating nutritional stress, a warming climate is expected to affect various other aspects of polar bear life: Changes in sea ice affect the ability of pregnant females to build suitable maternity dens.[30] As the distance increases between the pack ice and the coast, females must swim longer distances to reach favoured denning areas on land. Thawing of permafrost would affect the bears who traditionally den underground, and warm winters could result in den roofs collapsing or having reduced insulative value. For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal-hunting areas in the spring.[36] Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.[90]
+Problematic interactions between polar bears and humans, such as foraging by bears in garbage dumps, have historically been more prevalent in years when ice-floe breakup occurred early and local polar bears were relatively thin. Increased human-bear interactions, including fatal attacks on humans, are likely to increase as the sea ice shrinks and hungry bears try to find food on land.[181]
+The effects of climate change are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear's range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed.[185] The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant. The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.[166]
+Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season. The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004.[166] Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%,[187] although the population was listed as "stable" as of 2017.[45] As the climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two-thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050.[188]
+In Alaska, the effects of sea ice shrinkage have contributed to higher mortality rates in polar bear cubs, and have led to changes in the denning locations of pregnant females.[126] The proportion of maternity dens on sea ice has changed from 62% between the years 1985 through 1994, to 37% over the years 1998 through 2004. Thus, now the Alaskan population more resembles the world population in that it is more likely to den on land.[189] In recent years, polar bears in the Arctic have undertaken longer than usual swims to find prey, possibly resulting in four recorded drownings in the unusually large ice pack regression of 2005.[186]
+A new development is that polar bears have begun ranging to new territory. While not unheard of but still uncommon, polar bears have been sighted increasingly in larger numbers ashore, staying on the mainland for longer periods of time during the summer months, particularly in North Canada, traveling farther inland.[190] This may cause an increased reliance on terrestrial diets, such as goose eggs, waterfowl and caribou,[191] as well as increased human–bear conflict.[190]
+Polar bears accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and chlorinated pesticides. Due to their position at the top of the ecological pyramid, with a diet heavy in blubber in which halocarbons concentrate, their bodies are among the most contaminated of Arctic mammals.[192] Halocarbons (also known as organohalogens) are known to be toxic to other animals, because they mimic hormone chemistry, and biomarkers such as immunoglobulin G and retinol suggest similar effects on polar bears. PCBs have received the most study, and they have been associated with birth defects and immune system deficiency.[193]
+Many chemicals, such as PCBs and DDT, have been internationally banned due to the recognition of their harm on the environment. Their concentrations in polar bear tissues continued to rise for decades after being banned, as these chemicals spread through the food chain. Since then, the trend seems to have abated, with tissue concentrations of PCBs declining between studies performed from 1989 to 1993 and studies performed from 1996 to 2002. During the same time periods, DDT was found to be notably lower in the Western Hudson Bay population only.[194]
+Oil and gas development in polar bear habitat can affect the bears in a variety of ways. An oil spill in the Arctic would most likely concentrate in the areas where polar bears and their prey are also concentrated, such as sea ice leads.[2] Because polar bears rely partly on their fur for insulation and soiling of the fur by oil reduces its insulative value, oil spills put bears at risk of dying from hypothermia. Polar bears exposed to oil spill conditions have been observed to lick the oil from their fur, leading to fatal kidney failure.[102] Maternity dens, used by pregnant females and by females with infants, can also be disturbed by nearby oil exploration and development. Disturbance of these sensitive sites may trigger the mother to abandon her den prematurely, or abandon her litter altogether.[2]
+Steven Amstrup and other U.S. Geological Survey scientists have predicted two-thirds of the world's polar bears may disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by climate change,[90][188] though the validity of this study has been debated.[195][196] The bears could disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they could disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic Archipelago.[90] However, in the short term, some polar bear populations in historically colder regions of the Arctic may temporarily benefit from a milder climate, as multiyear ice that is too thick for seals to create breathing holes is replaced by thinner annual ice.[197]
+Polar bears diverged from brown bears 400,000–600,000 years ago and have survived past periods of climate fluctuation. It has been claimed that polar bears will be able to adapt to terrestrial food sources as the sea ice they use to hunt seals disappears.[198] However, most polar bear biologists think that polar bears will be unable to completely offset the loss of calorie-rich seal blubber with terrestrial foods, and that they will be outcompeted by brown bears in this terrestrial niche, ultimately leading to a population decline.[199]
+Warnings about the future of the polar bear are often contrasted with the fact that worldwide population estimates have increased over the past 50 years and are relatively stable today.[200][201] Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000 to 10,000 in the early 1970s;[202] other estimates were 20,000 to 40,000 during the 1980s.[48][62] Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000[39] or 22,000 and 31,000.[2]
+There are several reasons for the apparent discordance between past and projected population trends: estimates from the 1950s and 1960s were based on stories from explorers and hunters rather than on scientific surveys.[203][204][205][206] Second, controls of harvesting were introduced that allowed this previously overhunted species to recover. Third, the recent effects of climate change have affected sea ice abundance in different areas to varying degrees.[203]
+Debate over the listing of the polar bear under endangered species legislation has put conservation groups and Canada's Inuit at opposing positions;[43] the Nunavut government and many northern residents have condemned the U.S. initiative to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.[207][208] Many Inuit believe the polar bear population is increasing, and restrictions on commercial sport-hunting are likely to lead to a loss of income to their communities.[43][209]
+For the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, polar bears have long played an important cultural and material role.[146][147] Polar bear remains have been found at hunting sites dating to 2,500 to 3,000 years ago[149] and 1,500-year-old cave paintings of polar bears have been found in the Chukchi Peninsula. Indeed, it has been suggested that Arctic peoples' skills in seal hunting and igloo construction has been in part acquired from the polar bears themselves.[147]
+The Inuit and Alaska Natives have many folk tales featuring the bears including legends in which bears are humans when inside their own houses and put on bear hides when going outside, and stories of how the constellation that is said to resemble a great bear surrounded by dogs came into being. These legends reveal a deep respect for the polar bear, which is portrayed as both spiritually powerful and closely akin to humans. The human-like posture of bears when standing and sitting, and the resemblance of a skinned bear carcass to the human body, have probably contributed to the belief that the spirits of humans and bears were interchangeable.[145]
+Among the Chukchi and Yupik of eastern Siberia, there was a longstanding shamanistic ritual of "thanksgiving" to the hunted polar bear. After killing the animal, its head and skin were removed and cleaned and brought into the home, and a feast was held in the hunting camp in its honor. To appease the spirit of the bear, traditional song and drum music was played, and the skull was ceremonially fed and offered a pipe.[210] Only once the spirit was appeased was the skull be separated from the skin, taken beyond the bounds of the homestead, and placed in the ground, facing north.[147]
+The Nenets of north-central Siberia placed particular value on the talismanic power of the prominent canine teeth. These were traded in the villages of the lower Yenisei and Khatanga rivers to the forest-dwelling peoples further south, who would sew them into their hats as protection against brown bears. It was believed that the "little nephew" (the brown bear) would not dare to attack a man wearing the tooth of its powerful "big uncle", the polar bear. The skulls of killed polar bears were buried at sacred sites, and altars, called sedyangi, were constructed out of the skulls. Several such sites have been preserved on the Yamal Peninsula.[147]
+Their distinctive appearance and their association with the Arctic have made polar bears popular icons, especially in those areas where they are native. The Canadian two-dollar coin carries an image of a lone polar bear on its reverse side, while a special millennium edition featured three.[211] Vehicle licence plates in the Northwest Territories in Canada are in the shape of a polar bear, as was the case in Nunavut until 2012; these now display polar bear artwork instead.[212] The polar bear is the mascot of Bowdoin College, Maine; the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary.[213][214][215] The Eisbären Berlin hockey team uses a roaring polar bear as their logo, and the Charlotte, North Carolina hockey team the Charlotte Checkers uses a polar bear named Chubby Checker as their mascot. [216]
+Coca-Cola has used images of the polar bear in its advertising,[217] and Polar Beverages, Nelvana, Bundaberg Rum, Klondike bars, and Fox's Glacier Mints all feature polar bears in their logos.
+Polar bears are popular in fiction, particularly in books for children or teenagers. For example, The Polar Bear Son is adapted from a traditional Inuit tale.[218] The animated television series Noah's Island features a polar bear named Noah as the protagonist. Polar bears feature prominently in East (North Child in the UK) by Edith Pattou,[219] The Bear by Raymond Briggs (adapted into an animated short in 1998),[220] and Chris d'Lacey's The Fire Within series.[221] The panserbjørne of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are sapient, dignified polar bears who exhibit anthropomorphic qualities, and feature prominently in the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass.[222] The television series Lost features polar bears living on the tropical island setting.[223]

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+†Ursus maritimus tyrannus(?)
+Ursus eogroenlandicus
+Ursus groenlandicus
+Ursus jenaensis
+Ursus labradorensis
+Ursus marinus
+Ursus polaris
+Ursus spitzbergensis
+Ursus ungavensis
+Thalarctos maritimus
+The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi).[5] A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb),[6] while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Polar bears are the largest land carnivores currently in existence, rivaled only by the Kodiak bear.[7] Although it is the sister species of the brown bear,[8] it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice and open water, and for hunting seals, which make up most of its diet.[9] Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means "maritime bear" and derives from this fact. Polar bears hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present. Because of their dependence on the sea ice, polar bears are classified as marine mammals.[10]
+Because of expected habitat loss caused by climate change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species. For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect.[11] For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of circumpolar peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. Historically, the polar bear has also been known as the "white bear".[12] It is sometimes referred to as the "nanook", based on the Inuit term nanuq.[13]
+Constantine John Phipps was the first to describe the polar bear as a distinct species in 1774.[3][2] He chose the scientific name Ursus maritimus, the Latin for 'maritime bear',[14] due to the animal's native habitat. The Inuit refer to the animal as nanook (transliterated as nanuq in the Inupiat language).[15][13] The Yupik also refer to the bear as nanuuk in Siberian Yupik.[16] The bear is umka in the Chukchi language. In Russian, it is usually called бе́лый медве́дь (bélyj medvédj, the white bear), though an older word still in use is ошку́й (Oshkúj, which comes from the Komi oski, "bear").[17] In Quebec, the polar bear is referred to as ours blanc ("white bear") or ours polaire ("polar bear").[18] In the Norwegian-administered Svalbard archipelago, the polar bear is referred to as Isbjørn ("ice bear").
+The polar bear was previously considered to be in its own genus, Thalarctos.[19] However, evidence of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, and of the recent evolutionary divergence of the two species, does not support the establishment of this separate genus, and the accepted scientific name is now therefore Ursus maritimus, as Phipps originally proposed.[2]
+The bear family, Ursidae, is thought to have split from other carnivorans about 38 million years ago.[20] The subfamily Ursinae originated approximately 4.2 million years ago.[21] The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland in 2004.[22] Fossils show that between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the polar bear's molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear.[23] Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of brown bears that became isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene[4] from the eastern part of Siberia (from Kamchatka and the Kolym Peninsula).[23]
+The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago.[22] Further, some clades of brown bear, as assessed by their mtDNA, were thought to be more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears,[24] meaning that the brown bear might not be considered a species under some species concepts, but paraphyletic.[25] The mtDNA of extinct Irish brown bears is particularly close to polar bears.[26] A comparison of the nuclear genome of polar bears with that of brown bears revealed a different pattern, the two forming genetically distinct clades that diverged approximately 603,000 years ago,[27] although the latest research is based on analysis of the complete genomes (rather than just the mitochondria or partial nuclear genomes) of polar and brown bears, and establishes the divergence of polar and brown bears at 400,000 years ago.[28]
+However, the two species have mated intermittently for all that time, most likely coming into contact with each other during warming periods, when polar bears were driven onto land and brown bears migrated northward. Most brown bears have about 2 percent genetic material from polar bears, but one population, the ABC Islands bears, has between 5 percent and 10 percent polar bear genes, indicating more frequent and recent mating.[29] Polar bears can breed with brown bears to produce fertile grizzly–polar bear hybrids;[4][30] rather than indicating that they have only recently diverged, the new evidence suggests more frequent mating has continued over a longer period of time, and thus the two bears remain genetically similar.[29] However, because neither species can survive long in the other's ecological niche, and because they have different morphology, metabolism, social and feeding behaviours, and other phenotypic characteristics, the two bears are generally classified as separate species.[31]
+When the polar bear was originally documented, two subspecies were identified: the American polar bear (Ursus maritimus maritimus) by Constantine J. Phipps in 1774, and the Siberian polar bear (Ursus maritimus marinus) by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776.[32] This distinction has since been invalidated.[33][34][35] One alleged fossil subspecies has been identified: Ursus maritimus tyrannus, which became extinct during the Pleistocene. U.m. tyrannus was significantly larger than the living subspecies.[4] However, recent reanalysis of the fossil suggests that it was actually a brown bear.[1]
+The polar bear is found in the Arctic Circle and adjacent land masses as far south as Newfoundland. Due to the absence of human development in its remote habitat, it retains more of its original range than any other extant carnivore.[36] While they are rare north of 88°, there is evidence that they range all the way across the Arctic, and as far south as James Bay in Canada. Their southernmost range is near the boundary between the subarctic and humid continental climate zones. They can occasionally drift widely with the sea ice, and there have been anecdotal sightings as far south as Berlevåg on the Norwegian mainland and the Kuril Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. It is difficult to estimate a global population of polar bears as much of the range has been poorly studied; however, biologists use a working estimate of about 20–25,000 or 22–31,000 polar bears worldwide.[2][37][38]
+There are 19 generally recognized, discrete subpopulations, though polar bears are thought to exist only in low densities in the area of the Arctic Basin.[37][39] The subpopulations display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, but DNA studies show that they are not reproductively isolated.[35] The 13 North American subpopulations range from the Beaufort Sea south to Hudson Bay and east to Baffin Bay in western Greenland and account for about 54% of the global population.[40]
+The range includes the territory of five nations: Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard), Russia, the United States (Alaska) and Canada. These five nations are the signatories of the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which mandates cooperation on research and conservation efforts throughout the polar bear's range.[41] Bears sometimes swim to Iceland from Greenland—about 600 sightings since the country's settlement in the 9th century AD, and five in the 21st century as of 2016[update]—and are always killed because of their danger, and the cost and difficulty of repatriation.[42]
+Modern methods of tracking polar bear populations have been implemented only since the mid-1980s, and are expensive to perform consistently over a large area. The most accurate counts require flying a helicopter in the Arctic climate to find polar bears, shooting a tranquilizer dart at the bear to sedate it, and then tagging the bear. In Nunavut, some Inuit have reported increases in bear sightings around human settlements in recent years, leading to a belief that populations are increasing. Scientists have responded by noting that hungry bears may be congregating around human settlements, leading to the illusion that populations are higher than they actually are.[43] The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission takes the position that "estimates of subpopulation size or sustainable harvest levels should not be made solely on the basis of traditional ecological knowledge without supporting scientific studies."[44]
+Of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations, one is in decline, two are increasing, seven are stable, and nine have insufficient data, as of 2017.[45]
+The polar bear is a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea.[46] However, it is the only living marine mammal with powerful, large limbs and feet that allow them to cover kilometres on foot and run on land.[47] Its preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic.[36][48] The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads (temporary stretches of open water in Arctic ice), to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet.[49] Freshwater is limited in these environments because it is either locked up in snow or saline. Polar bears are able to produce water through the metabolism of fats found in seal blubber,[50] and are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low.[51]
+Annual ice contains areas of water that appear and disappear throughout the year as the weather changes. Seals migrate in response to these changes, and polar bears must follow their prey. In Hudson Bay, James Bay, and some other areas, the ice melts completely each summer (an event often referred to as "ice-floe breakup"), forcing polar bears to go onto land and wait through the months until the next freeze-up.[48] In the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, polar bears retreat each summer to the ice further north that remains frozen year-round.
+The only other bear similar in size to the polar bear is the Kodiak bear, which is a subspecies of brown bear.[52] Adult male polar bears weigh 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb) and measure 2.4–3 metres (7 ft 10 in–9 ft 10 in) in total length.[53] Around the Beaufort Sea, however, mature males reportedly average 450 kg (992 lb).[54] Adult females are roughly half the size of males and normally weigh 150–250 kg (331–551 lb), measuring 1.8–2.4 metres (5 ft 11 in–7 ft 10 in) in length. Elsewhere, a slightly larger estimated average weight of 260 kg (573 lb) was claimed for adult females.[55] When pregnant, however, females can weigh as much as 500 kg (1,102 lb).[53] The polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic of mammals, surpassed only by the pinnipeds such as elephant seals.[56] The largest polar bear on record, reportedly weighing 1,002 kg (2,209 lb), was a male shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960. This specimen, when mounted, stood 3.39 m (11 ft 1 in) tall on its hindlegs. The shoulder height of an adult polar bear is 122 to 160 cm (4 ft 0 in to 5 ft 3 in).[57][58] While all bears are short-tailed, the polar bear's tail is relatively the shortest amongst living bears, ranging from 7 to 13 cm (2.8 to 5.1 in) in length.[59]
+Compared with its closest relative, the brown bear, the polar bear has a more elongated body build and a longer skull and nose.[31] As predicted by Allen's rule for a northerly animal, the legs are stocky and the ears and tail are small.[31] However, the feet are very large to distribute load when walking on snow or thin ice and to provide propulsion when swimming; they may measure 30 cm (12 in) across in an adult.[60] The pads of the paws are covered with small, soft papillae (dermal bumps), which provide traction on the ice. The polar bear's claws are short and stocky compared to those of the brown bear, perhaps to serve the former's need to grip heavy prey and ice.[31] The claws are deeply scooped on the underside to assist in digging in the ice of the natural habitat. Research of injury patterns in polar bear forelimbs found injuries to the right forelimb to be more frequent than those to the left, suggesting, perhaps, right-handedness.[61] Unlike the brown bear, polar bears in captivity are rarely overweight or particularly large, possibly as a reaction to the warm conditions of most zoos.
+The 42 teeth of a polar bear reflect its highly carnivorous diet. The cheek teeth are smaller and more jagged than in the brown bear, and the canines are larger and sharper. The dental formula is 3.1.4.23.1.4.3.[31]
+Polar bears are superbly insulated by up to 10 cm (4 in) of adipose tissue,[60] their hide and their fur; they overheat at temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F), and are nearly invisible under infrared photography.[62] Polar bear fur consists of a layer of dense underfur and an outer layer of guard hairs, which appear white to tan but are actually transparent.[60] Two genes that are known to influence melanin production, LYST and AIM1, are both mutated in polar bears, possibly leading to the absence on this pigment in their fur.[63] The guard hair is 5–15 cm (2–6 in) over most of the body.[64] Polar bears gradually moult from May to August,[65] but, unlike other Arctic mammals, they do not shed their coat for a darker shade to provide camouflage in summer conditions.[66] The hollow guard hairs of a polar bear coat were once thought to act as fiber-optic tubes to conduct light to its black skin, where it could be absorbed; however, this hypothesis was disproved by a study in 1998.[67]
+The white coat usually yellows with age. When kept in captivity in warm, humid conditions, the fur may turn a pale shade of green due to algae growing inside the guard hairs.[68] Males have significantly longer hairs on their forelegs, which increase in length until the bear reaches 14 years of age. The male's ornamental foreleg hair is thought to attract females, serving a similar function to the lion's mane.[69]
+The polar bear has an extremely well developed sense of smell, being able to detect seals nearly 1.6 km (1 mi) away and buried under 1 m (3 ft) of snow. Its hearing is about as acute as that of a human, and its vision is also good at long distances.[70]
+The polar bear is an excellent swimmer and often will swim for days.[71] One bear swam continuously for 9 days in the frigid Bering Sea for 700 km (400 mi) to reach ice far from land. She then travelled another 1,800 km (1,100 mi). During the swim, the bear lost 22% of her body mass and her yearling cub died.[72] With its body fat providing buoyancy, the bear swims in a dog paddle fashion using its large forepaws for propulsion. Polar bears can swim 10 km/h (6 mph). When walking, the polar bear tends to have a lumbering gait and maintains an average speed of around 5.6 km/h (3.5 mph).[73] When sprinting, they can reach up to 40 km/h (25 mph).[74]
+Unlike brown bears, polar bears are not territorial. Although stereotyped as being voraciously aggressive, they are normally cautious in confrontations, and often choose to escape rather than fight.[75] Satiated polar bears rarely attack humans unless severely provoked.[76][77] However, due to their lack of prior human interaction, hungry polar bears are extremely unpredictable, fearless towards people and are known to kill and sometimes eat humans.[78] Many attacks by brown bears are the result of surprising the animal, which is not the case with the polar bear. Polar bears are stealth hunters, and the victim is often unaware of the bear's presence until the attack is underway. Whereas brown bears often maul a person and then leave, polar bear attacks are more likely to be predatory and are almost always fatal.[79] However, due to the very small human population around the Arctic, such attacks are rare. Michio Hoshino, a Japanese wildlife photographer, was once pursued briefly by a hungry male polar bear in northern Alaska. According to Hoshino, the bear started running but Hoshino made it to his truck. The bear was able to reach the truck and tore one of the doors off the truck before Hoshino was able to drive off.[80]
+In general, adult polar bears live solitary lives. Yet, they have often been seen playing together for hours at a time and even sleeping in an embrace,[78] and polar bear zoologist Nikita Ovsianikov has described adult males as having "well-developed friendships."[75] Cubs are especially playful as well. Among young males in particular, play-fighting may be a means of practicing for serious competition during mating seasons later in life.[81] Polar bears are usually quiet but do communicate with various sounds and vocalizations. Females communicate with their young with moans and chuffs, and the distress calls of both cubs and subadults consists of bleats.[82] Cubs may hum while nursing.[83] When nervous, bears produce huffs, chuffs and snorts while hisses, growls and roars are signs of aggression.[82] Chemical communication can also be important: bears leave behind their scent in their tracks which allow individuals to keep track of one another in the vast Arctic wilderness.[84]
+In 1992, a photographer near Churchill took a now widely circulated set of photographs of a polar bear playing with a Canadian Eskimo Dog (Canis lupus familiaris) a tenth of its size.[85][86] The pair wrestled harmlessly together each afternoon for 10 days in a row for no apparent reason, although the bear may have been trying to demonstrate its friendliness in the hope of sharing the kennel's food. This kind of social interaction is uncommon; it is far more typical for polar bears to behave aggressively towards dogs.[85]
+The polar bear is the most carnivorous member of the bear family, and throughout most of its range, its diet primarily consists of ringed (Pusa hispida) and bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus).[88] The Arctic is home to millions of seals, which become prey when they surface in holes in the ice in order to breathe, or when they haul out on the ice to rest.[87][89] Polar bears hunt primarily at the interface between ice, water, and air; they only rarely catch seals on land or in open water.[90]
+The polar bear's most common hunting method is called still-hunting:[91] the bear uses its excellent sense of smell to locate a seal breathing hole, and crouches nearby in silence for a seal to appear. The bear may lie in wait for several hours. When the seal exhales, the bear smells its breath, reaches into the hole with a forepaw, and drags it out onto the ice. The polar bear kills the seal by biting its head to crush its skull. The polar bear also hunts by stalking seals resting on the ice: upon spotting a seal, it walks to within 90 m (100 yd), and then crouches. If the seal does not notice, the bear creeps to within 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) of the seal and then suddenly rushes forth to attack.[87] A third hunting method is to raid the birth lairs that female seals create in the snow.[91]
+A widespread legend tells that polar bears cover their black noses with their paws when hunting. This behaviour, if it happens, is rare – although the story exists in the oral history of northern peoples and in accounts by early Arctic explorers, there is no record of an eyewitness account of the behaviour in recent decades.[73]
+Mature bears tend to eat only the calorie-rich skin and blubber of the seal, which are highly digestible,[92] whereas younger bears consume the protein-rich red meat.[87] Studies have also photographed polar bears scaling near-vertical cliffs, to eat birds' chicks and eggs.[93] For subadult bears, which are independent of their mother but have not yet gained enough experience and body size to successfully hunt seals, scavenging the carcasses from other bears' kills is an important source of nutrition. Subadults may also be forced to accept a half-eaten carcass if they kill a seal but cannot defend it from larger polar bears. After feeding, polar bears wash themselves with water or snow.[73]
+Although polar bears are extraordinarily powerful, its primary prey species, the ringed seal, is much smaller than itself, and many of the seals hunted are pups rather than adults. Ringed seals are born weighing 5.4 kg (12 lb) and grown to an estimated average weight of only 60 kg (130 lb).[94][95] They also in places prey heavily upon the harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) or the harbour seal. The bearded seal, on the other hand, can be nearly the same size as the bear itself, averaging 270 kg (600 lb).[95] Adult male bearded seals, at 350 to 500 kg (770 to 1,100 lb) are too large for a female bear to overtake, and so are potential prey only for mature male bears.[96] Large males also occasionally attempt to hunt and kill even larger prey items.[97] It can kill an adult walrus (Odobenus rosmarus),[95][98] although this is rarely attempted. At up to 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) and a typical adult mass range of 600 to 1,500 kg (1,300 to 3,300 lb), a walrus can be more than twice the bear's weight,[99] has extremely thick skin and has up to 1-metre (3 ft)-long ivory tusks that can be used as formidable weapons. A polar bear may charge a group of walruses, with the goal of separating a young, infirm, or injured walrus from the pod. They will even attack adult walruses when their diving holes have frozen over or intercept them before they can get back to the diving hole in the ice. Yet, polar bears will very seldom attack full-grown adult walruses, with the largest male walrus probably invulnerable unless otherwise injured or incapacitated. Since an attack on a walrus tends to be an extremely protracted and exhausting venture, bears have been known to back down from the attack after making the initial injury to the walrus.[98] Polar bears have also been seen to prey on beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)[95] and narwhals (Monodon monoceros),[95] by swiping at them at breathing holes. The whales are of similar size to the walrus and nearly as difficult for the bear to subdue.[100][101] Most terrestrial animals in the Arctic can outrun the polar bear on land as polar bears overheat quickly, and most marine animals the bear encounters can outswim it. In some areas, the polar bear's diet is supplemented by walrus calves and by the carcasses of dead adult walruses or whales, whose blubber is readily devoured even when rotten.[78] Polar bears sometimes swim underwater to catch fish like the Arctic charr or the fourhorn sculpin.[89]
+With the exception of pregnant females, polar bears are active year-round, although they have a vestigial hibernation induction trigger in their blood. Unlike brown and black bears, polar bears are capable of fasting for up to several months during late summer and early fall, when they cannot hunt for seals because the sea is unfrozen.[102] When sea ice is unavailable during summer and early autumn, some populations live off fat reserves for months at a time,[62] as polar bears do not 'hibernate' any time of the year.[103]
+Being both curious animals and scavengers,[99][104] polar bears investigate and consume garbage where they come into contact with humans.[95][99] Polar bears may attempt to consume almost anything they can find, including hazardous substances such as styrofoam, plastic, car batteries, ethylene glycol, hydraulic fluid, and motor oil.[99][104] The dump in Churchill, Manitoba was closed in 2006 to protect bears, and waste is now recycled or transported to Thompson, Manitoba.[105][106]
+Although seal predation is the primary and an indispensable way of life for most polar bears, when alternatives are present they are quite flexible. Polar bears consume a wide variety of other wild foods, including muskox (Ovibos moschatus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), birds, eggs, rodents, crabs, other crustaceans and other polar bears. They may also eat plants, including berries, roots, and kelp;[107] however, none of these have been a significant part of their diet,[99] except for beachcast marine mammal carcasses. Given the change in climate, with ice breaking up in areas such as the Hudson Bay earlier than it used to, polar bears are exploiting food resources such as snow geese and eggs, and plants such as lyme grass in increased quantities.[108]
+When stalking land animals, such as muskox, reindeer,[107] and even willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), polar bears appear to make use of vegetative cover and wind direction to bring them as close to their prey as possible before attacking. Polar bears have been observed to hunt the small Svalbard reindeer (R. t. platyrhynchus), which weigh only 40 to 60 kg (90 to 130 lb) as adults, as well as the barren-ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus), which is about twice as heavy as that.[109][110] Adult muskox, which can weigh 450 kg (1,000 lb) or more, are a more formidable quarry.[111] Although ungulates are not typical prey, the killing of one during the summer months can greatly increase the odds of survival during that lean period. Like the brown bear, most ungulate prey of polar bears is likely to be young, sickly or injured specimens rather than healthy adults.[110] The polar bear's metabolism is specialized to require large amounts of fat from marine mammals, and it cannot derive sufficient caloric intake from terrestrial food.[112][113]
+In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, Canadian polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from.[107] Here, their food ecology shows their dietary flexibility. They still manage to consume some seals, but they are food-deprived in summer as only marine mammal carcasses are an important alternative without sea ice, especially carcasses of the beluga whale. These alternatives may reduce the rate of weight loss of bears when on land.[114] One scientist found that 71% of the Hudson Bay bears had fed on seaweed (marine algae) and that about half were feeding on birds[95] such as the dovekie and sea ducks, especially the long-tailed duck (53%) and common eider, by swimming underwater to catch them. They were also diving to feed on blue mussels and other underwater food sources like the green sea urchin. 24% had eaten moss recently, 19% had consumed grass, 34% had eaten black crowberry and about half had consumed willows.[107] This study illustrates the polar bear's dietary flexibility but it does not represent its life history elsewhere. Most polar bears elsewhere will never have access to these alternatives, except for the marine mammal carcasses that are important wherever they occur.
+In Svalbard, polar bears were observed to kill white-beaked dolphins during spring, when the dolphins were trapped in the sea ice. The bears then proceeded to cache the carcasses, which remained and were eaten during the ice-free summer and autumn.[115]
+Courtship and mating take place on the sea ice in April and May, when polar bears congregate in the best seal hunting areas.[116] A male may follow the tracks of a breeding female for 100 km (60 mi) or more, and after finding her engage in intense fighting with other males over mating rights, fights that often result in scars and broken teeth.[116] Polar bears have a generally polygynous mating system; recent genetic testing of mothers and cubs, however, has uncovered cases of litters in which cubs have different fathers.[117] Partners stay together and mate repeatedly for an entire week; the mating ritual induces ovulation in the female.[118]
+After mating, the fertilized egg remains in a suspended state until August or September. During these four months, the pregnant female eats prodigious amounts of food, gaining at least 200 kg (440 lb) and often more than doubling her body weight.[116]
+When the ice floes are at their minimum in the fall, ending the possibility of hunting, each pregnant female digs a maternity den consisting of a narrow entrance tunnel leading to one to three chambers. Most maternity dens are in snowdrifts, but may also be made underground in permafrost if it is not sufficiently cold yet for snow.[116] In most subpopulations, maternity dens are situated on land a few kilometres from the coast, and the individuals in a subpopulation tend to reuse the same denning areas each year.[36] The polar bears that do not den on land make their dens on the sea ice. In the den, she enters a dormant state similar to hibernation. This hibernation-like state does not consist of continuous sleeping; however, the bear's heart rate slows from 46 to 27 beats per minute.[119] Her body temperature does not decrease during this period as it would for a typical mammal in hibernation.[62][120]
+Between November and February, cubs are born blind, covered with a light down fur, and weighing less than 0.9 kg (2.0 lb),[118] but in captivity they might be delivered in the earlier months. The earliest recorded birth of polar bears in captivity was on 11 October 2011 in the Toronto Zoo.[121] On average, each litter has two cubs. The family remains in the den until mid-February to mid-April, with the mother maintaining her fast while nursing her cubs on a fat-rich milk. By the time the mother breaks open the entrance to the den, her cubs weigh about 10 to 15 kilograms (22 to 33 lb). For about 12 to 15 days, the family spends time outside the den while remaining in its vicinity, the mother grazing on vegetation while the cubs become used to walking and playing. Then they begin the long walk from the denning area to the sea ice, where the mother can once again catch seals. Depending on the timing of ice-floe breakup in the fall, she may have fasted for up to eight months.[116] During this time, cubs playfully imitate the mother's hunting methods in preparation for later life.[122]
+Female polar bears have been known to adopt other cubs. Multiple cases of adoption of wild cubs have been confirmed by genetic testing.[123] Adult bears of either gender occasionally kill and eat polar bear cubs.[124][125] As of 2006, in Alaska, 42% of cubs were reaching 12 months of age, down from 65% in 1991.[126] In most areas, cubs are weaned at two and a half years of age, when the mother chases them away or abandons them. The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation is unusual in that its female polar bears sometimes wean their cubs at only one and a half years.[116] This was the case for 40% of cubs there in the early 1980s; however by the 1990s, fewer than 20% of cubs were weaned this young.[127] After the mother leaves, sibling cubs sometimes travel and share food together for weeks or months.[78]
+Females begin to breed at the age of four years in most areas, and five years in the area of the Beaufort Sea. Males usually reach sexual maturity at six years; however, as competition for females is fierce, many do not breed until the age of eight or ten.[116] A study in Hudson Bay indicated that both the reproductive success and the maternal weight of females peaked in their mid-teens.Maternal success appeared to decline after this point, possibly because of an age-related impairment in the ability to store the fat necessary to rear cubs.[128]
+Polar bears appear to be less affected by infectious diseases and parasites than most terrestrial mammals.[129] Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism,[130] although infections are usually not fatal. Only one case of a polar bear with rabies has been documented, even though polar bears frequently interact with Arctic foxes, which often carry rabies.[129] Bacterial leptospirosis and Morbillivirus have been recorded. Polar bears sometimes have problems with various skin diseases that may be caused by mites or other parasites.
+Polar bears rarely live beyond 25 years.[131] The oldest wild bears on record died at age 32, whereas the oldest captive was a female who died in 1991, age 43.[132] The causes of death in wild adult polar bears are poorly understood, as carcasses are rarely found in the species's frigid habitat. In the wild, old polar bears eventually become too weak to catch food, and gradually starve to death. Polar bears injured in fights or accidents may either die from their injuries, or become unable to hunt effectively, leading to starvation.[129]
+The polar bear is the apex predator within its range, and is a keystone species for the Arctic.[133] Several animal species, particularly Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) and glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus), routinely scavenge polar bear kills.[73]
+The relationship between ringed seals and polar bears is so close that the abundance of ringed seals in some areas appears to regulate the density of polar bears, while polar bear predation in turn regulates density and reproductive success of ringed seals.[90] The evolutionary pressure of polar bear predation on seals probably accounts for some significant differences between Arctic and Antarctic seals. Compared to the Antarctic, where there is no major surface predator, Arctic seals use more breathing holes per individual, appear more restless when hauled out on the ice, and rarely defecate on the ice. The baby fur of most Arctic seal species is white, presumably to provide camouflage from predators, whereas Antarctic seals all have dark fur at birth.[73]
+Brown bears tend to dominate polar bears in disputes over carcasses,[134] and dead polar bear cubs have been found in brown bear dens.[135] Wolves are rarely encountered by polar bears, though there are two records of Arctic wolf (Canis lupus arctos) packs killing polar bear cubs.[136] Adult polar bears are occasionally vulnerable to predation by orcas (Orcinus orca) while swimming, but they are rarely reported as taken and bears are likely to avoid entering the water if possible if they detect an orca pod in the area. The melting sea ice in the Arctic may be causing an increase of orcas in the Arctic sea, which may increase the risk of predation on polar bears but also may benefit the bears by providing more whale carcasses that they can scavenge.[137][138] The remains of polar bears have found in the stomachs of large Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus), although it certainly cannot be ruled out that the bears were merely scavenged by this slow-moving, unusual shark.[139][140] A rather unlikely killer of a grown polar bear has reportedly included a wolverine (Gulo gulo), anecedotely reported to have suffocated a bear in a zoo with a bite to the throat during a conflict. This report may well be dubious, however.[141] Polar bears are sometimes the host of arctic mites such as Alaskozetes antarcticus.[73]
+Researchers tracked 52 sows in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska with GPS system collars; no boars were involved in the study due to males' necks being too thick for the GPS-equipped collars. Fifty long-distance swims were recorded; the longest at 354 kilometres (220 mi), with an average of 155 kilometres (96 mi). The length of these swims ranged from most of a day to ten days. Ten of the sows had a cub swim with them and after a year, six cubs survived. The study did not determine if the others lost their cubs before, during, or some time after their long swims. Researchers do not know whether or not this is a new behaviour; before polar ice shrinkage, they opined that there was probably neither the need nor opportunity to swim such long distances.[142]
+The polar bear may swim underwater for up to three minutes to approach seals on shore or on ice floes.[143][144]
+Polar bears have long provided important raw materials for Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, Yupik, Chukchi, Nenets, Russian Pomors and others. Hunters commonly used teams of dogs to distract the bear, allowing the hunter to spear the bear or shoot it with arrows at closer range.[145] Almost all parts of captured animals had a use.[146] The fur was used in particular to make trousers and, by the Nenets, to make galoshes-like outer footwear called tobok; the meat is edible, despite some risk of trichinosis; the fat was used in food and as a fuel for lighting homes, alongside seal and whale blubber; sinews were used as thread for sewing clothes; the gallbladder and sometimes heart were dried and powdered for medicinal purposes; the large canine teeth were highly valued as talismans.[147] Only the liver was not used, as its high concentration of vitamin A is poisonous. As a carnivore, which feeds largely upon fish-eating carnivores, the polar bear ingests large amounts of vitamin A that is stored in their livers. The resulting high concentrations cause Hypervitaminosis A,[148] Hunters make sure to either toss the liver into the sea or bury it in order to spare their dogs from potential poisoning.[147] Traditional subsistence hunting was on a small enough scale to not significantly affect polar bear populations, mostly because of the sparseness of the human population in polar bear habitat.[149]
+In Russia, polar bear furs were already being commercially traded in the 14th century, though it was of low value compared to Arctic fox or even reindeer fur.[147] The growth of the human population in the Eurasian Arctic in the 16th and 17th century, together with the advent of firearms and increasing trade, dramatically increased the harvest of polar bears.[62][150] However, since polar bear fur has always played a marginal commercial role, data on the historical harvest is fragmentary. It is known, for example, that already in the winter of 1784/1785 Russian Pomors on Spitsbergen harvested 150 polar bears in Magdalenefjorden. In the early 20th century, Norwegian hunters were harvesting 300 bears per year at the same location. Estimates of total historical harvest suggest that from the beginning of the 18th century, roughly 400 to 500 animals were being harvested annually in northern Eurasia, reaching a peak of 1,300 to 1,500 animals in the early 20th century, and falling off as the numbers began dwindling.[147]
+In the first half of the 20th century, mechanized and overpoweringly efficient methods of hunting and trapping came into use in North America as well. Polar bears were chased from snowmobiles, icebreakers, and airplanes, the latter practice described in a 1965 New York Times editorial as being "about as sporting as machine gunning a cow."[151] Norwegians used "self-killing guns", comprising a loaded rifle in a baited box that was placed at the level of a bear's head, and which fired when the string attached to the bait was pulled.[152] The numbers taken grew rapidly in the 1960s, peaking around 1968 with a global total of 1,250 bears that year.[153]
+Concerns over the future survival of the species led to the development of national regulations on polar bear hunting, beginning in the mid-1950s. The Soviet Union banned all hunting in 1956. Canada began imposing hunting quotas in 1968. Norway passed a series of increasingly strict regulations from 1965 to 1973, and has completely banned hunting since then. The United States began regulating hunting in 1971 and adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. In 1973, the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by all five nations whose territory is inhabited by polar bears: Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Member countries agreed to place restrictions on recreational and commercial hunting, ban hunting from aircraft and icebreakers, and conduct further research.[154] The treaty allows hunting "by local people using traditional methods". Norway is the only country of the five in which all harvest of polar bears is banned. The agreement was a rare case of international cooperation during the Cold War. Biologist Ian Stirling commented, "For many years, the conservation of polar bears was the only subject in the entire Arctic that nations from both sides of the Iron Curtain could agree upon sufficiently to sign an agreement. Such was the intensity of human fascination with this magnificent predator, the only marine bear."[155]
+Agreements have been made between countries to co-manage their shared polar bear subpopulations. After several years of negotiations, Russia and the United States signed an agreement in October 2000 to jointly set quotas for indigenous subsistence hunting in Alaska and Chukotka.[156] The treaty was ratified in October 2007.[157] In September 2015, the polar bear range states agreed upon a "circumpolar action plan" describing their conservation strategy for polar bears.[158]
+Although the United States government has proposed that polar bears be transferred to Appendix I of CITES, which would ban all international trade in polar bear parts, polar bears currently remain listed under Appendix II.[159] This decision was approved of by members of the IUCN and TRAFFIC, who determined that such an uplisting was unlikely to confer a conservation benefit.[160]
+Polar bears were designated "Not at Risk" in April 1986 and uplisted to "Special Concern" in April 1991. This status was re-evaluated and confirmed in April 1999, November 2002, and April 2008. Polar bears continue to be listed as a species of special concern in Canada because of their sensitivity to overharvest and because of an expected range contraction caused by loss of Arctic sea ice.[161]
+More than 600 bears are killed per year by humans across Canada,[45] a rate calculated by scientists to be unsustainable for some areas, notably Baffin Bay.[37] Canada has allowed sport hunters accompanied by local guides and dog-sled teams since 1970,[162] but the practice was not common until the 1980s.[163] The guiding of sport hunters provides meaningful employment and an important source of income for northern communities in which economic opportunities are few.[43] Sport hunting can bring CDN$20,000 to $35,000 per bear into northern communities, which until recently has been mostly from American hunters.[164]
+The territory of Nunavut accounts for the location 80% of annual kills in Canada. In 2005, the government of Nunavut increased the quota from 400 to 518 bears,[164] despite protests from the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.[165] In two areas where harvest levels have been increased based on increased sightings, science-based studies have indicated declining populations, and a third area is considered data-deficient.[166] While most of that quota is hunted by the indigenous Inuit people, a growing share is sold to recreational hunters. (0.8% in the 1970s, 7.1% in the 1980s, and 14.6% in the 1990s)[163] Nunavut polar bear biologist, Mitchell Taylor, who was formerly responsible for polar bear conservation in the territory, has insisted that bear numbers are being sustained under current hunting limits.[167] In 2010, the 2005 increase was partially reversed. Government of Nunavut officials announced that the polar bear quota for the Baffin Bay region would be gradually reduced from 105 per year to 65 by the year 2013.[168] The Government of the Northwest Territories maintain their own quota of 72 to 103 bears within the Inuvialuit communities of which some are set aside for sports hunters.[citation needed] Environment Canada also banned the export from Canada of fur, claws, skulls and other products from polar bears harvested in Baffin Bay as of 1 January 2010.[168]
+Because of the way polar bear hunting quotas are managed in Canada, attempts to discourage sport hunting would actually increase the number of bears killed in the short term. Canada allocates a certain number of permits each year to sport and subsistence hunting, and those that are not used for sport hunting are re-allocated to indigenous subsistence hunting. Whereas northern communities kill all the polar bears they are permitted to take each year, only half of sport hunters with permits actually manage to kill a polar bear. If a sport hunter does not kill a polar bear before his or her permit expires, the permit cannot be transferred to another hunter.[43]
+In August 2011, Environment Canada published a national polar bear conservation strategy.[169]
+In Greenland, hunting restrictions were first introduced in 1994 and expanded by executive order in 2005.[39] Until 2005 Greenland placed no limit on hunting by indigenous people. However, in 2006 it imposed a limit of 150, while also allowed recreational hunting for the first time.[170] Other provisions included year-round protection of cubs and mothers, restrictions on weapons used and various administrative requirements to catalogue kills.[39]
+Polar bears were hunted heavily in Svalbard, Norway throughout the 19th century and to as recently as 1973, when the conservation treaty was signed. 900 bears a year were harvested in the 1920s and after World War II, there were as many as 400–500 harvested annually. Some regulations of hunting did exist. In 1927, poisoning was outlawed while in 1939, certain denning sights were declared off limits. The killing of females and cubs was made illegal in 1965. Killing of polar bears decreased somewhat 25–30 years before the treaty. Despite this, the polar bear population continued to decline and by 1973, only around 1000 bears were left in Svalbard. Only with the passage of the treaty did they begin to recover.[171]
+The Soviet Union banned the harvest of polar bears in 1956; however, poaching continued and is estimated to pose a serious threat to the polar bear population.[39] In recent years, polar bears have approached coastal villages in Chukotka more frequently due to the shrinking of the sea ice, endangering humans and raising concerns that illegal hunting would become even more prevalent. In 2007, the Russian government made subsistence hunting legal for indigenous Chukotkan peoples only, a move supported by Russia's most prominent bear researchers and the World Wide Fund for Nature as a means to curb poaching.[172]
+Polar bears are currently listed as "Rare", of "Uncertain Status", or "Rehabilitated and rehabilitating" in the Red Data Book of Russia, depending on population.[173] In 2010, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment published a strategy for polar bear conservation in Russia.[174]
+The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 afforded polar bears some protection in the United States. It banned hunting (except by indigenous subsistence hunters), banned importing of polar bear parts (except polar bear pelts taken legally in Canada), and banned the harassment of polar bears. On 15 May 2008, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, citing the melting of Arctic sea ice as the primary threat to the polar bear.[175] It banned all importing of polar bear trophies. Importing products made from polar bears had been prohibited from 1972 to 1994 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and restricted between 1994 and 2008. Under those restrictions, permits from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service were required to import sport-hunted polar bear trophies taken in hunting expeditions in Canada. The permit process required that the bear be taken from an area with quotas based on sound management principles.[176] Since 1994, hundreds of sport-hunted polar bear trophies have been imported into the U.S.[177] In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a draft conservation management plan for polar bears to improve their status under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.[178]
+Polar bear population sizes and trends are difficult to estimate accurately because they occupy remote home ranges and exist at low population densities. Polar bear fieldwork can also be hazardous to researchers.[179] As of 2015, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that the global population of polar bears is 22,000 to 31,000, and the current population trend is unknown. Nevertheless, polar bears are listed as "Vulnerable" under criterion A3c, which indicates an expected population decrease of ≥30% over the next three generations (~34.5 years) due to "decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat". Risks to the polar bear include climate change, pollution in the form of toxic contaminants, conflicts with shipping, oil and gas exploration and development, and human-bear interactions including harvesting and possible stresses from recreational polar-bear watching.[2]
+According to the World Wildlife Fund, the polar bear is important as an indicator of Arctic ecosystem health. Polar bears are studied to gain understanding of what is happening throughout the Arctic, because at-risk polar bears are often a sign of something wrong with the Arctic marine ecosystem.[180]
+The International Union for Conservation of Nature, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, United States Geological Survey and many leading polar bear biologists have expressed grave concerns about the impact of climate change, including the belief that the current warming trend imperils the survival of the polar bear.[36][181][182][183][184][185]
+The key danger posed by climate change is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals from a platform of sea ice. Rising temperatures cause the sea ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall.[127] Reduction in sea-ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning.[186] Thinner sea ice tends to deform more easily, which appears to make it more difficult for polar bears to access seals.[90] Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears, in addition to poorer body condition in bears of all ages.[36]
+In addition to creating nutritional stress, a warming climate is expected to affect various other aspects of polar bear life: Changes in sea ice affect the ability of pregnant females to build suitable maternity dens.[30] As the distance increases between the pack ice and the coast, females must swim longer distances to reach favoured denning areas on land. Thawing of permafrost would affect the bears who traditionally den underground, and warm winters could result in den roofs collapsing or having reduced insulative value. For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal-hunting areas in the spring.[36] Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.[90]
+Problematic interactions between polar bears and humans, such as foraging by bears in garbage dumps, have historically been more prevalent in years when ice-floe breakup occurred early and local polar bears were relatively thin. Increased human-bear interactions, including fatal attacks on humans, are likely to increase as the sea ice shrinks and hungry bears try to find food on land.[181]
+The effects of climate change are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear's range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed.[185] The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant. The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.[166]
+Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season. The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004.[166] Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%,[187] although the population was listed as "stable" as of 2017.[45] As the climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two-thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050.[188]
+In Alaska, the effects of sea ice shrinkage have contributed to higher mortality rates in polar bear cubs, and have led to changes in the denning locations of pregnant females.[126] The proportion of maternity dens on sea ice has changed from 62% between the years 1985 through 1994, to 37% over the years 1998 through 2004. Thus, now the Alaskan population more resembles the world population in that it is more likely to den on land.[189] In recent years, polar bears in the Arctic have undertaken longer than usual swims to find prey, possibly resulting in four recorded drownings in the unusually large ice pack regression of 2005.[186]
+A new development is that polar bears have begun ranging to new territory. While not unheard of but still uncommon, polar bears have been sighted increasingly in larger numbers ashore, staying on the mainland for longer periods of time during the summer months, particularly in North Canada, traveling farther inland.[190] This may cause an increased reliance on terrestrial diets, such as goose eggs, waterfowl and caribou,[191] as well as increased human–bear conflict.[190]
+Polar bears accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and chlorinated pesticides. Due to their position at the top of the ecological pyramid, with a diet heavy in blubber in which halocarbons concentrate, their bodies are among the most contaminated of Arctic mammals.[192] Halocarbons (also known as organohalogens) are known to be toxic to other animals, because they mimic hormone chemistry, and biomarkers such as immunoglobulin G and retinol suggest similar effects on polar bears. PCBs have received the most study, and they have been associated with birth defects and immune system deficiency.[193]
+Many chemicals, such as PCBs and DDT, have been internationally banned due to the recognition of their harm on the environment. Their concentrations in polar bear tissues continued to rise for decades after being banned, as these chemicals spread through the food chain. Since then, the trend seems to have abated, with tissue concentrations of PCBs declining between studies performed from 1989 to 1993 and studies performed from 1996 to 2002. During the same time periods, DDT was found to be notably lower in the Western Hudson Bay population only.[194]
+Oil and gas development in polar bear habitat can affect the bears in a variety of ways. An oil spill in the Arctic would most likely concentrate in the areas where polar bears and their prey are also concentrated, such as sea ice leads.[2] Because polar bears rely partly on their fur for insulation and soiling of the fur by oil reduces its insulative value, oil spills put bears at risk of dying from hypothermia. Polar bears exposed to oil spill conditions have been observed to lick the oil from their fur, leading to fatal kidney failure.[102] Maternity dens, used by pregnant females and by females with infants, can also be disturbed by nearby oil exploration and development. Disturbance of these sensitive sites may trigger the mother to abandon her den prematurely, or abandon her litter altogether.[2]
+Steven Amstrup and other U.S. Geological Survey scientists have predicted two-thirds of the world's polar bears may disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by climate change,[90][188] though the validity of this study has been debated.[195][196] The bears could disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they could disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic Archipelago.[90] However, in the short term, some polar bear populations in historically colder regions of the Arctic may temporarily benefit from a milder climate, as multiyear ice that is too thick for seals to create breathing holes is replaced by thinner annual ice.[197]
+Polar bears diverged from brown bears 400,000–600,000 years ago and have survived past periods of climate fluctuation. It has been claimed that polar bears will be able to adapt to terrestrial food sources as the sea ice they use to hunt seals disappears.[198] However, most polar bear biologists think that polar bears will be unable to completely offset the loss of calorie-rich seal blubber with terrestrial foods, and that they will be outcompeted by brown bears in this terrestrial niche, ultimately leading to a population decline.[199]
+Warnings about the future of the polar bear are often contrasted with the fact that worldwide population estimates have increased over the past 50 years and are relatively stable today.[200][201] Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000 to 10,000 in the early 1970s;[202] other estimates were 20,000 to 40,000 during the 1980s.[48][62] Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000[39] or 22,000 and 31,000.[2]
+There are several reasons for the apparent discordance between past and projected population trends: estimates from the 1950s and 1960s were based on stories from explorers and hunters rather than on scientific surveys.[203][204][205][206] Second, controls of harvesting were introduced that allowed this previously overhunted species to recover. Third, the recent effects of climate change have affected sea ice abundance in different areas to varying degrees.[203]
+Debate over the listing of the polar bear under endangered species legislation has put conservation groups and Canada's Inuit at opposing positions;[43] the Nunavut government and many northern residents have condemned the U.S. initiative to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.[207][208] Many Inuit believe the polar bear population is increasing, and restrictions on commercial sport-hunting are likely to lead to a loss of income to their communities.[43][209]
+For the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, polar bears have long played an important cultural and material role.[146][147] Polar bear remains have been found at hunting sites dating to 2,500 to 3,000 years ago[149] and 1,500-year-old cave paintings of polar bears have been found in the Chukchi Peninsula. Indeed, it has been suggested that Arctic peoples' skills in seal hunting and igloo construction has been in part acquired from the polar bears themselves.[147]
+The Inuit and Alaska Natives have many folk tales featuring the bears including legends in which bears are humans when inside their own houses and put on bear hides when going outside, and stories of how the constellation that is said to resemble a great bear surrounded by dogs came into being. These legends reveal a deep respect for the polar bear, which is portrayed as both spiritually powerful and closely akin to humans. The human-like posture of bears when standing and sitting, and the resemblance of a skinned bear carcass to the human body, have probably contributed to the belief that the spirits of humans and bears were interchangeable.[145]
+Among the Chukchi and Yupik of eastern Siberia, there was a longstanding shamanistic ritual of "thanksgiving" to the hunted polar bear. After killing the animal, its head and skin were removed and cleaned and brought into the home, and a feast was held in the hunting camp in its honor. To appease the spirit of the bear, traditional song and drum music was played, and the skull was ceremonially fed and offered a pipe.[210] Only once the spirit was appeased was the skull be separated from the skin, taken beyond the bounds of the homestead, and placed in the ground, facing north.[147]
+The Nenets of north-central Siberia placed particular value on the talismanic power of the prominent canine teeth. These were traded in the villages of the lower Yenisei and Khatanga rivers to the forest-dwelling peoples further south, who would sew them into their hats as protection against brown bears. It was believed that the "little nephew" (the brown bear) would not dare to attack a man wearing the tooth of its powerful "big uncle", the polar bear. The skulls of killed polar bears were buried at sacred sites, and altars, called sedyangi, were constructed out of the skulls. Several such sites have been preserved on the Yamal Peninsula.[147]
+Their distinctive appearance and their association with the Arctic have made polar bears popular icons, especially in those areas where they are native. The Canadian two-dollar coin carries an image of a lone polar bear on its reverse side, while a special millennium edition featured three.[211] Vehicle licence plates in the Northwest Territories in Canada are in the shape of a polar bear, as was the case in Nunavut until 2012; these now display polar bear artwork instead.[212] The polar bear is the mascot of Bowdoin College, Maine; the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary.[213][214][215] The Eisbären Berlin hockey team uses a roaring polar bear as their logo, and the Charlotte, North Carolina hockey team the Charlotte Checkers uses a polar bear named Chubby Checker as their mascot. [216]
+Coca-Cola has used images of the polar bear in its advertising,[217] and Polar Beverages, Nelvana, Bundaberg Rum, Klondike bars, and Fox's Glacier Mints all feature polar bears in their logos.
+Polar bears are popular in fiction, particularly in books for children or teenagers. For example, The Polar Bear Son is adapted from a traditional Inuit tale.[218] The animated television series Noah's Island features a polar bear named Noah as the protagonist. Polar bears feature prominently in East (North Child in the UK) by Edith Pattou,[219] The Bear by Raymond Briggs (adapted into an animated short in 1998),[220] and Chris d'Lacey's The Fire Within series.[221] The panserbjørne of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are sapient, dignified polar bears who exhibit anthropomorphic qualities, and feature prominently in the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass.[222] The television series Lost features polar bears living on the tropical island setting.[223]

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+The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a bear species found across Eurasia and North America.[1][2] In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears. It is one of the largest living terrestrial members of the order Carnivora, rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear (Ursus maritimus), which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on average.[3][4][5][6][7] The brown bear's range includes parts of Russia, Central Asia, China, Canada, the United States, Hokkaido, Scandinavia, the Balkans, the Picos de Europa and the Carpathian region, especially Romania, Bulgaria, Iran, Anatolia and the Caucasus.[1][8] The brown bear is recognized as a national and state animal in several European countries.[9]
+While the brown bear's range has shrunk and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with a total population of approximately 200,000. As of 2012[update], this and the American black bear are the only bear species not classified as threatened by the IUCN.[1][2][10] Populations that were hunted to extinction in the 19th and 20th centuries are the Atlas bear of North Africa and the Californian, Ungavan[11][12] and Mexican populations of the grizzly bear of North America. Many of the populations in the southern parts of Eurasia are highly endangered as well.[1][13] One of the smaller-bodied forms, the Himalayan brown bear, is critically endangered, occupying only 2% of its former range and threatened by uncontrolled poaching for its body parts.[14] The Marsican brown bear of central Italy is one of several currently isolated populations of the Eurasian brown bear and is believed to have a population of just 50 to 60 bears.[9][15]
+The brown bear is sometimes referred to as the bruin, from Middle English. This name originated in the fable History of Reynard the Fox translated by William Caxton from Middle Dutch bruun or bruyn, meaning brown (the color).[16] In the mid-19th century United States, the brown bear was termed "Old Ephraim" and sometimes as "Moccasin Joe".[17]
+The scientific name of the brown bear, Ursus arctos, comes from the Latin ursus, meaning "bear",[18] and from ἄρκτος arktos, the Greek word for bear.[19]
+Brown bears are thought to have evolved from Ursus etruscus in Asia.[20][21] The brown bear, per Kurten (1976), has been stated as "clearly derived from the Asian population of Ursus savini about 800,000 years ago; spread into Europe, to the New World."[22] A genetic analysis indicated that the brown bear lineage diverged from the cave bear species complex approximately 1.2–1.4 million years ago, but did not clarify if U. savini persisted as a paraspecies for the brown bear before perishing.[23] The oldest fossils positively identified as from this species occur in China from about 0.5 million years ago. Brown bears entered Europe about 250,000 years ago and North Africa shortly after.[20][24] Brown bear remains from the Pleistocene period are common in the British Isles, where it is thought they might have outcompeted cave bears (Ursus spelaeus). The species entered Alaska 100,000 years ago, though they did not move south until 13,000 years ago.[20] It is speculated that brown bears were unable to migrate south until the extinction of the much larger giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus).[25][26]
+Several paleontologists suggest the possibility of two separate brown bear migrations: inland brown bears, also known as grizzlies, are thought to stem from narrow-skulled bears which migrated from northern Siberia to central Alaska and the rest of the continent, while Kodiak bears descend from broad-skulled bears from Kamchatka, which colonized the Alaskan peninsula. Brown bear fossils discovered in Ontario, Ohio, Kentucky and Labrador show that the species occurred farther east than indicated in historic records.[20] In North America, two types of the subspecies Ursus arctos horribilis are generally recognized—the coastal brown bear and the inland grizzly bear; these two types broadly define the range of sizes of all brown bear subspecies.[13]
+There are many methods used by scientists to define bear species and subspecies, as no one method is always effective. Brown bear taxonomy and subspecies classification has been described as "formidable and confusing," with few authorities listing the same specific set of subspecies.[27] Genetic testing is now perhaps the most important way to scientifically define brown bear relationships and names. Generally, genetic testing uses the word clade rather than species because a genetic test alone cannot define a biological species. Most genetic studies report on how closely related the bears are (or their genetic distance). There are hundreds of obsolete brown bear subspecies, each with its own name, and this can become confusing; Hall (1981) lists 86 different types, and even as many as 90 have been proposed.[28][29] However, recent DNA analysis has identified as few as five main clades which contain all extant brown bears,[30][31] while a 2017 phylogenetic study revealed nine clades, including one representing polar bears.[32] As of 2005[update], 15 extant or recently extinct subspecies were recognized by the general scientific community.[33][34]
+As well as the exact number of overall brown bear subspecies, its precise relationship to the polar bear also remains in debate. The polar bear is a recent offshoot of the brown bear. The point at which the polar bear diverged from the brown bear is unclear, with estimations based on genetics and fossils ranging from 400,000 to 70,000 years ago, but most recent analysis has indicated that the polar bear split somewhere between 275,000 and 150,000 years ago.[35] Under some definitions, the brown bear can be construed as the paraspecies for the polar bear.[36][37][38][39]
+DNA analysis shows that, apart from recent human-caused population fragmentation,[40] brown bears in North America are generally part of a single interconnected population system, with the exception of the population (or subspecies) in the Kodiak Archipelago, which has probably been isolated since the end of the last Ice Age.[41][42] These data demonstrate that U. a. gyas, U. a. horribilis, U. a. sitkensis and U. a. stikeenensis are not distinct or cohesive groups, and would more accurately be described as ecotypes. For example, brown bears in any particular region of the Alaska coast are more closely related to adjacent grizzly bears than to distant populations of brown bears,[43] the morphological distinction seemingly driven by brown bears having access to a rich salmon food source, while grizzly bears live at higher elevation, or further from the coast, where plant material is the base of the diet. The history of the bears of the Alexander Archipelago is unusual in that these island populations carry polar bear DNA, presumably originating from a population of polar bears that was left behind at the end of the Pleistocene, but have since been connected with adjacent mainland populations through movement of males, to the point where their nuclear genomes are now more than 90% of brown bear ancestry.[44]
+Brown bears are apparently divided into five different clades, some of which coexist or co-occur in different regions.[2]
+A grizzly–polar bear hybrid (known either as a pizzly bear or a grolar bear) is a rare ursid hybrid resulting from a crossbreeding of a brown bear and a polar bear. It has occurred both in captivity and in the wild. In 2006, the occurrence of this hybrid in nature was confirmed by testing the DNA of a strange-looking bear that had been shot in the Canadian Arctic, and seven more hybrids have since been confirmed in the same region, all descended from a single female polar bear.[45] Previously, the hybrid had been produced in zoos and was considered a "cryptid" (a hypothesized animal for which there is no scientific proof of existence in the wild).
+Analyses of the genomes of bears have shown that introgression between species was widespread during the evolution of the genus Ursus,[46][47][48] including the introgression of polar bear DNA introduced to brown bears during the Pleistocene.
+A bear shot in autumn 1986 in Michigan, US, was thought by some to be a grizzly/American black bear hybrid, due to its unusually large size and its proportionately larger braincase and skull. DNA testing was unable to determine whether it was a large American black bear or a grizzly bear.[49]
+The brown bear is the most variable in size of modern bears. The typical size depends upon which population it is from, and most accepted subtypes vary widely in size. This is in part due to sexual dimorphism, as male brown bears average at least 30% larger in most subtypes. Individual bears also vary in size seasonally, weighing the least in spring due to lack of foraging during hibernation, and the most in late fall, after a period of hyperphagia to put on additional weight to prepare for hibernation. Therefore, a bear may need to be weighed in both spring and fall to get an idea of its mean annual weight.[50][51]
+The normal range of physical dimensions for a brown bear is a head-and-body length of 1.4 to 2.8 m (4 ft 7 in to 9 ft 2 in) and a shoulder height of 70 to 153 cm (2 ft 4 in to 5 ft 0 in). The tail is relatively short, as in all bears, ranging from 6 to 22 cm (2.4 to 8.7 in) in length.[52][53] The smallest brown bears, females during spring among barren-ground populations, can weigh so little as to roughly match the body mass of males of the smallest living bear species, the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), while the largest coastal populations attain sizes broadly similar to those of the largest living bear species, the polar bear.[54][13][55] Interior brown bears are generally smaller than is often perceived, being around the same weight as an average lion, at an estimate average of 180 kg (400 lb) in males and 135 kg (298 lb) in females, whereas adults of the coastal populations weigh about twice as much.[13][56] The average weight of adult male bears from 19 populations, from around the world and various subspecies (including both large- and small-bodied subspecies), was found to be 217 kg (478 lb) while adult females from 24 populations were found to average 152 kg (335 lb).[13][57][58][59]
+Brown bears are often not fully brown.[60] They have long, thick fur, with a moderately long mane at the back of the neck which varies somewhat across the types.[61] In India, brown bears can be reddish with silver-tipped hairs, while in China brown bears are bicolored, with a yellowish-brown or whitish collar across the neck, chest and shoulders.[60][62] Even within well-defined subspecies, individuals may show highly variable hues of brown. North American grizzlies can be dark brown (almost black) to cream (almost white) or yellowish-brown and often have darker-colored legs. The common name "grizzly" stems from their typical coloration, with the hairs on their back usually being brownish-black at the base and whitish-cream at the tips, giving them their distinctive "grizzled" color. Apart from the cinnamon subspecies of the American black bear (U. americanus cinnamonum), the brown bear is the only modern bear species to typically appear truly brown.[63] The winter fur is very thick and long, especially in northern subspecies, and can reach 11 to 12 centimetres (4 to 5 in) at the withers. The winter hairs are thin, yet rough to the touch. The summer fur is much shorter and sparser and its length and density varies geographically.[64]
+Adults have massive, heavily built concave skulls, which are large in proportion to the body. The forehead is high and rises steeply.[63] The projections of the skull are well developed when compared to those of Asian black bears (Ursus thibetanus): the latter have sagittal crests not exceeding more than 19–20% of the total length of the skull, while the former have sagittal crests comprising up to 40–41% of the skull's length. Skull projections are more weakly developed in females than in males. The braincase is relatively small and elongated. There is a great deal of geographical variation in the skull, and presents itself chiefly in dimensions.[64] Grizzlies, for example, tend to have flatter profiles than European and coastal American brown bears.[65] Skull lengths of Russian brown bears tend to be 31.5 to 45.5 centimetres (12.4 to 17.9 in) for males, and 27.5 to 39.7 centimetres (10.8 to 15.6 in) for females. The width of the zygomatic arches in males is 17.5 to 27.7 centimetres (6.9 to 11 in), and 14.7 to 24.7 centimetres (5.8 to 9.7 in) in females.[64] Brown bears have very strong teeth: the incisors are relatively big and the canine teeth are large, the lower ones being strongly curved. The first three molars of the upper jaw are underdeveloped and single crowned with one root. The second upper molar is smaller than the others, and is usually absent in adults. It is usually lost at an early age, leaving no trace of the alveolus in the jaw. The first three molars of the lower jaw are very weak, and are often lost at an early age.[64] The teeth of brown bears reflect their dietary plasticity and are broadly similar to other bears, excluding the two most herbivorous living bears, the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), which have blunt, small premolars (ideal for grinding down fibrous plants) compared to the jagged premolars of ursid bears that at least seasonally often rely on flesh as a food source.[66][67] The teeth are reliably larger than American black bears, but average smaller in molar length than polar bears.[68][69] Brown bears have the broadest skull of any extant ursine bear; only the aforementioned most herbivorous living bears exceed them in relative breadth of the skull.[13][57][70] Another extant ursine bear, the sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), has a proportionately longer skull than the brown bear and can match the skull length of even large brown bear subtypes, presumably as an aid for foraging heavily on insect colonies for which a long muzzle is helpful as an evolved feature in several unrelated mammalian groups.[63][70]
+Brown bears have very large and curved claws, those present on the forelimbs being longer than those on the hind limbs. They may reach 5 to 6 centimetres (2.0 to 2.4 in) and may measure 7 to 10 centimetres (2.8 to 3.9 in) along the curve.[71] They are generally dark with a light tip, with some forms having completely light claws.[64] Brown bear claws are longer and straighter than those of American black bears (Ursus americanus).[63] The claws are blunt, while those of a black bear are sharp. Due to their claw structure, in addition to their excessive weight, adult brown bears cannot typically climb trees as well as both species of black bear, although in rare cases adult female brown bears have been seen in trees.[72] The claws of a polar bear are also quite different, being notably shorter but broader with a strong curve and sharper point, presumably both as an aid to traveling over ice (sometimes nearly vertically) and procuring active prey.[24][73] The paws of the brown bear are quite large. The rear feet of adult bears have been found to typically measure 21 to 36 cm (8.3 to 14.2 in) long, while the forefeet tend to measure about 40% less in length. All four feet in average sized brown bears tend to be about 17.5 to 20 cm (6.9 to 7.9 in) in width. In large coastal or Kodiak bear males, the hindfoot may measure up to 40 cm (16 in) in length, 28.5 cm (11.2 in) in width, while outsized Kodiak bears having had confirmed measurements of up to 46 cm (18 in) along their rear foot.[74][75][76] Brown bears are the only extant bears with a hump at the top of their shoulder, which is made entirely of muscle, this feature having developed presumably for imparting more force in digging, which is habitual during foraging for most bears of the species and also used heavily in den construction prior to hibernation.[63][77]
+Brown bears were once native to Europe, much of Asia, the Atlas Mountains of Africa, and North America,[78] but are now extinct in some areas, and their populations have greatly decreased in other areas. There are approximately 200,000 brown bears left in the world.[79] The largest populations are in Russia with 120,000,[80] the United States with 32,500, and Canada with around 25,000. About 95% of the brown bear population in the United States is in Alaska, though in the lower 48 states, they are repopulating slowly but steadily along the Rockies and the western Great Plains. Although many people hold the belief some brown bears may be present in Mexico and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, both are almost certainly extinct. The last known Mexican grizzly bear was shot in 1960, while the Atlas bear has been extinct since Roman times. In Europe, there are 14,000 brown bears in ten fragmented populations, from Spain (estimated at only 20–25 animals in the Pyrenees in 2010,[81][82] in a range shared between Spain, France and Andorra, and some 210 animals in Asturias, Cantabria, Galicia and León, in the Picos de Europa and adjacent areas in 2013 [83] in the west, to Russia in the east, and from Sweden and Finland in the north to Romania (4000–5000), Bulgaria (900–1200), Slovakia (with about 600–800 animals), Slovenia (500–700 animals) and Greece (with about 200 animals) in the south. They are extinct in the British Isles, extremely threatened in France, and in trouble in Spain and most of Central Europe. The Carpathian brown bear population of Romania is the largest in Europe outside Russia, estimated at 4,500 to 5,000 bears, although declining alarmingly due to overhunting.[84] There is also a smaller brown bear population in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine (estimated at about 200 in 2005), Slovakia and Poland (estimated at about 100 in 2009 in the latter country).[85] The total Carpathian population is estimated at about 8,000.[86] Northern Europe is home to a large bear population, with an estimated 2,500 (range 2,350–2,900) in Sweden, about 1,600 in Finland,[87] about 700 in Estonia and 70 in Norway. Another large and relatively stable population of brown bears in Europe, consisting of 2,500–3,000 individuals, is the Dinaric-Pindos (Balkans) population, with contiguous distribution in northeast Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece.[88]
+Brown bears live in Alaska, east through the Yukon and Northwest Territories, south through British Columbia and through the western half of Alberta. The Alaskan population is estimated at a healthy 32,000 individuals.[89] Small populations exist in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of northwest Wyoming (with about 600 animals), the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem of northwest Montana (with about 750 animals), the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem of northwest Montana and northeast Idaho (with about 30–40 animals), the Selkirk Ecosystem of northeast Washington and northwest Idaho (with about 40–50 animals), and the North Cascades Ecosystem of northcentral Washington (with about 5–10 animals). These five ecosystems combine for a total of roughly 1,470 wild grizzlies still persisting in the contiguous United States. Unfortunately, these populations are isolated from each other, inhibiting any genetic flow between ecosystems. This poses one of the greatest threats to the future survival of the grizzly bear in the contiguous United States.
+In Asia, brown bears are found primarily throughout Russia, thence more spottily southwest to parts of the Middle East, to as far south as southwestern Iran, and to the southeast in a small area of Northeast China, Western China, and parts of North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. They can also be found on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, which holds the largest number of non-Russian brown bears in eastern Asia with about 2,000–3,000 animals.[74]
+The population of brown bears in the Pyrenees mountain range between Spain and France is extremely low, estimated at 14 to 18, with a shortage of females. Their rarity in this area has led biologists to release bears, mostly female, from Slovenia in spring 2006 to reduce the imbalance and preserve the species' presence in the area. The bears were released despite protests from French farmers. A small population of brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) still lives in central Italy (the Apennine Mountains, Abruzzo and Latium), with no more than 50-60 individuals, protected by strong laws, but endangered by the human presence in the area.[citation needed] In 2020, a film crew working in Natural Park O Invernadeiro in Ourense, Galicia recorded the first brown bear siting in Portugal in 150 years.[90]
+In Arctic areas, the potential habitat of the brown bear is increasing. The warming of that region has allowed the species to move farther north into what was once exclusively the domain of the polar bear. In non-Arctic areas, habitat loss is blamed as the leading cause of endangerment, followed by hunting.
+This species inhabits the broadest range of habitats of any living bear species.[74]
+They seem to have no altitudinal preferences and have been recorded from sea level to an elevation of 5,000 m (16,000 ft) (the latter in the Himalayas).[74] In most of their range, brown bears generally seem to prefer semiopen country, with a scattering of vegetation that can allow them a resting spot during the day. However, they have been recorded as inhabiting every variety of northern temperate forest known to occur.[74] North American brown bears, or grizzly bears, generally seem to prefer open or semi-open landscapes, with the species once having been common on the Great Plains and continues to occur in sizeable numbers in tundra and coastal estuaries and islands. Variable numbers still occur in prairie areas of the northern Rocky Mountains (mostly in Canada but some in the contiguous United States).[74] In western Eurasia, they inhabit mostly mountainous woodlands, in ranges such as the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Caucasus, though they may have been driven into more wooded, precipitous habitats due to the prior extensive persecution of the species in some regions.[91][92][91] Desolate parts of northern and eastern Europe, like large patches of Scandinavia and the Carpathian Mountains, have always been quite heavily forested and have maintained relatively stable populations of bears, indicating that the brown bears here are well-adapted to forest-dwelling.[74] In Central Asia, human disturbances are minimal as this area has a harsher environment and is more sparsely populated. In this part of the world, bears may be found in steppe, alpine meadows and even desert edge. In Siberia, the species seems well-adapted to living in denser pine forests. Eastern Russian forests hold arguably the largest number of brown bears in the world outside of possibly Alaska and northeastern Canada.[74] It is thought the Eurasian bears which colonized America were tundra-adapted and the species is sometimes found around sub-Arctic ice fields. This is indicated by brown bears in the Chukotka Peninsula on the Asian side of Bering Strait, which are the only Asian brown bears to live year-round in lowland tundra like their North American cousins.[93]
+While the brown bear's range has shrunk and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a Least concern species by the IUCN, with a total population of approximately 200,000. As of 2012[update], this and the American black bear are the only bear species not classified as threatened by the IUCN.[1][2] However, the California grizzly bear, Atlas bear and Mexican grizzly bear, as well as brown bear populations in the Pacific Northwest, were hunted to extinction in the 19th and early 20th centuries and many of the southern Asian subspecies are highly endangered.[94] The Syrian brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) is very rare and it has been extirpated from more than half of its historic range.[95] One of the smallest-bodied subspecies, the Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus), is critically endangered, occupying only 2% of its former range and threatened by uncontrolled poaching for its body parts.[14] The Marsican brown bear in central Italy is believed to have a population of just 50-60 bears.
+The brown bear is often described as nocturnal. However, it frequently seems to peak in activity in the morning and early evening hours.[96] Studies have shown that activity throughout the range can occur at nearly any time of night or day, with bears who dwell in areas with more extensive human contact being more likely to be fully nocturnal. Furthermore, yearling and newly independent bears are more likely to be active diurnally and many adult bears in low-disturbance areas are largely crepuscular.[97][98][99] In summer through autumn, a brown bear can double its weight from the spring, gaining up to 180 kg (400 lb) of fat, on which it relies to make it through winter, when it becomes very lethargic.[100][101] Although they are not full hibernators and can be woken easily, both sexes like to den in a protected spot during the winter months. Hibernation dens may consist of any spot that provides cover from the elements and that can accommodate their bodies, such as a cave, crevice, cavernous tree roots, or hollow logs.[102][103]
+Brown bears have one of the largest brains of any extant carnivoran relative to their body size and have been shown to engage in tool use (e.g., using a barnacle-covered rock to scratch its neck), which requires advanced cognitive abilities.[104] This species is mostly solitary, although bears may gather in large numbers at major food sources (e.g.,  open garbage dumps or rivers holding spawning salmon) and form social hierarchies based on age and size.[105][106] Adult male bears are particularly aggressive and are avoided by adolescent and subadult males, both at concentrated feeding opportunities and chance encounters. Female bears with cubs rival adult males in aggression and are much more intolerant of other bears than single females. Young adolescent males tend to be least aggressive and have been observed in nonantagonistic interactions with each other.[107][108] Dominance between bears is asserted by making a frontal orientation, showing off canines, muzzle twisting and neck stretching to which a subordinate will respond with a lateral orientation, by turning away and dropping the head and by sitting or lying down.[109] During combat, bears use their paws to strike their opponents in the chest or shoulders and bite the head or neck. In his Great Bear Almanac, Gary Brown lists 11 different sounds bears produce in nine different contexts. Sounds expressing anger or aggravation include growls, roars, woofs, champs and smacks, while sounds expressing nervousness or pain include woofs, grunts and bawls. Sows will bleat or hum when communicating with their cubs.[63]
+Brown bears usually occur over vast home ranges; however, they are not highly territorial. Several adult bears often roam freely over the same vicinity without issue, unless rights to a fertile female or food sources are being contested.[13][108] Males always cover more area than females each year. Despite their lack of traditional territorial behavior, adult males can seem to have a "personal zone" in which other bears are not tolerated if they are seen.[110] Males always wander further than females, due to both increasing access to females and food sources, while females are advantaged by smaller territories in part since it decreases the likelihood of encounters with male bears who may endanger their cubs.[13][77][57][111] In areas where food is abundant and concentrated, such as coastal Alaska, home ranges for females are up to 24 km2 (9.3 sq mi) and for males are up to 89 km2 (34 sq mi). Similarly, in British Columbia, bears of the two sexes travel relatively compact home ranges of 115 km2 (44 sq mi) and 318 km2 (123 sq mi). In Yellowstone National Park, home ranges for females are up to 281 km2 (108 sq mi) and up to 874 km2 (337 sq mi) for males. In Romania, the largest home range was recorded for adult males (3,143 km2, 1214 sq mi).[112]  In the central Arctic of Canada, where food sources are quite sparse, home ranges range up to 2,434 km2 (940 sq mi) in females and 8,171 km2 (3,155 sq mi) in males.[13][74][77][108]
+A study of male-inherited Y chromosome DNA sequence found that brown bears, over the past few 10,000 years, have shown strong male-biased dispersal.[113] That study found surprisingly similar Y chromosomes in brown bear populations as far apart as Norway and coastal Alaska, indicating extensive gene flow across Eurasia and North America. Notably, this contrasts with genetic signals from female-inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), where brown bears of different geographic regions typically show strong differences in their mtDNA, a result of female philopatry.
+The mating season is from mid-May to early July, shifting later the further north the bears are found.[74][57][114] Being serially monogamous, brown bears remain with the same mate from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.[13][115] Outside of this narrow time frame, adult male and female brown bears show no sexual interest in each other.[13] Females mature sexually between the age of four and eight years of age, with an average age at sexual maturity of 5.2–5.5 years old, while males first mate about a year later on average, when they are large and strong enough to successfully compete with other males for mating rights.[116][110][117] Males will try to mate with as many females as they can; usually a successful one mates with two females in a span of one to three weeks.[53][117] The adult female brown bear is similarly promiscuous, mating with up to four, rarely even eight, males while in heat and potentially breeding with two males in a single day. Females come into oestrus on average every three to four years, with a full range of 2.4 to 5.7 years. The urine markings of a female in oestrus can attract several males via scent.[77][57][118][119][120][121][111][122] Paternity DNA tests have shown that up to 29% of cubs in a litter will be from two to three different males.[111] Dominant males may try to sequester a female for her entire oestrus period of approximately two weeks, but usually are unable to retain her for the entire time.[57][111] Copulation is vigorous and prolonged and can last up to an hour, although the mean time is about 23–24 minutes.[57][123]
+Males take no part in raising their cubs – parenting is left entirely to the females.[108][124] Through the process of delayed implantation, a female's fertilized egg divides and floats freely in the uterus for six months. During winter dormancy, the fetus attaches to the uterine wall. The cubs are born eight weeks later while the mother sleeps. If the mother does not gain enough weight to survive through the winter while gestating, the embryo does not implant and is reabsorbed into the body.[116][125][126] There have been cases of brown bears with as many as six cubs, although the average litter size is one to three, with more than four being considered uncommon.[116][127][128] There are records of females sometimes adopting stray cubs or even trading or kidnapping cubs when they emerge from hibernation (a larger female may claim cubs away from a smaller one).[74][129][130] Older and larger females within a population tend to give birth to larger litters[131] The size of a litter also depends on factors such as geographic location and food supply.[132] At birth, the cubs are blind, toothless and hairless and may weigh from 350 to 510 g (0.77 to 1.12 lb), again reportedly based on the age and condition of the mother.[133] They feed on their mother's milk until spring or even early summer, depending on climate conditions. At this time, the cubs weigh 7 to 9 kg (15 to 20 lb) and have developed enough to follow her over long distances and begin to forage for solid food.[134][135]
+The cubs are fully dependent on the mother and a close bond is formed. During the dependency stage, the cubs learn (rather than inherit as instincts from birth) survival techniques, such as which foods have the highest nutritional value and where to obtain them; how to hunt, fish and defend themselves; and where to den.[77] Increased brain size in large carnivores has been positively linked to whether a given species is solitary, as is the brown bear, or raises their offspring communally, thus female brown bears have relatively large, well-developed brains, presumably key in teaching behavior.[136] The cubs learn by following and imitating their mother's actions during the period they are with her.[137] Cubs remain with their mother for an average of 2.5 years in North America, uncommonly being independent as early as 1.5 years of age or as late as 4.5 years of age.[57] The stage at which independence is attained may generally be earlier in some parts of Eurasia, as the latest date which mother and cubs were together was 2.3 years, most families separated in under two years in a study from Hokkaido and in Sweden most cubs on their own were still yearlings.[138][139] Brown bears practice infanticide, as an adult male bear may kill the cubs of a female bear.[111] When an adult male brown bear kills a cub, it is usually because he is trying to bring the female into oestrus, as she will enter that state within two to four days after the death of her cubs.[111] Cubs flee up a tree, if available, when they see a strange male bear and the mother often successfully defends them, even though the male may be twice as heavy as she, although females have been known to lose their lives in these confrontations.[140][141][142]
+The brown bear is one of the most omnivorous animals in the world and has been recorded as consuming the greatest variety of foods of any bear.[74] Throughout life, this species is regularly curious about the potential of eating virtually any organism or object that they encounter. Food that is both abundant and easily accessed or caught is preferred. Their jaw structure has evolved to fit their dietary habits. Their diet varies enormously throughout their differing areas based on opportunity.
+Despite their reputation, most brown bears are not highly carnivorous, as they derive up to 90% of their dietary food energy from vegetable matter.[143] They often feed on a variety of plant life, including berries, grasses, flowers, acorns and pine cones, as well as fungi such as mushrooms.[13] Among all bears, brown bears are uniquely equipped to dig for tough foods such as roots and shoots. They use their long, strong claws to dig out earth to reach the roots and their powerful jaws to bite through them.[13] In spring, winter-provided carrion, grasses, shoots, sedges and forbs are the dietary mainstays for brown bears internationally.[74] Fruits, including berries, become increasingly important during summer and early autumn. Roots and bulbs become critical in autumn for some inland bear populations if fruit crops are poor.[74] They will also commonly consume animal matter, which in summer and autumn may regularly be in the form of insects, larvae and grubs, including beehives. Bears in Yellowstone eat an enormous number of moths during the summer, sometimes as many as 40,000 army cutworm moths in a single day, and may derive up to half of their annual food energy from these insects.[144] Brown bears living near coastal regions will regularly eat crabs and clams. In Alaska, bears along the beaches of estuaries regularly dig through the sand for clams.[63] This species may eat birds and their eggs, including almost entirely ground- or rock-nesting species.[63]  The diet may be supplemented by rodents or similar smallish mammals, including marmots, ground squirrels, mice, rats, lemmings and voles.[13]  With particular regularity, bears in Denali National Park will wait at burrows of Arctic ground squirrels hoping to pick off a few of the 1 kg (2.2 lb) rodents.[145]
+In the Kamchatka peninsula and several parts of coastal Alaska, brown bears feed mostly on spawning salmon, whose nutrition and abundance explain the enormous size of the bears in these areas. The fishing techniques of bears are well-documented. They often congregate around falls when the salmon are forced to breach the water, at which point the bears will try to catch the fish in mid-air (often with their mouths). They will also wade into shallow waters, hoping to pin a slippery salmon with their claws. While they may eat almost all the parts of the fish, bears at the peak of spawning, when there is usually a glut of fish to feed on, may eat only the most nutrious parts of the salmon (including the eggs and head) and then indifferently leave the rest of the carcass to scavengers, which can include red foxes, bald eagles, common ravens and gulls. Despite their normally solitary habits, brown bears will gather rather closely in numbers at good spawning sites. The largest and most powerful males claim the most fruitful fishing spots and bears (especially males) will sometimes fight over the rights to a prime fishing spot.[63]
+Beyond the regular predation of salmon, most brown bears are not particularly active predators.[63] While perhaps a majority of bears of the species will charge at large prey at one point in their lives and most eat carrion, many predation attempts start with the bear clumsily and half-heartedly pursuing the prey and end with the prey escaping alive.[63] On the other hand, some brown bears are quite self-assured predators who habitually pursue and catch large prey items. Such bears are usually taught how to hunt by their mothers from an early age.[63] Large mammals preyed on can include various ungulate species such as elk, moose, caribou, muskoxen and wild boar.[13] When brown bears attack these large animals, they usually target young or infirm ones, as they are easier to catch. Typically when hunting (especially with young prey), the bear pins its prey to the ground and then immediately tears and eats it alive.[146] It will also bite or swipe some prey in order to stun it enough to knock it over for consumption.[92] To pick out young or infirm individuals, bears will charge at herds so the slower-moving and more vulnerable individuals will be made apparent. Brown bears may also ambush young animals by finding them via scent.[13] When emerging from hibernation, brown bears, whose broad paws allow them to walk over most ice and snow, may pursue large prey such as moose whose hooves cannot support them on encrusted snow.[92] Similarly, predatory attacks on large prey sometimes occur at riverbeds, when it is more difficult for the prey specimen to run away due to muddy or slippery soil.[13] On rare occasions, while confronting fully-grown, dangerous prey, bears kill them by hitting with their powerful forearms, which can break the necks and backs of large creatures such as adult moose and adult bison.[63] They also feed on carrion, and use their size to intimidate other predators, such as wolves, cougars, tigers, and American black bears from their kills. Carrion is especially important in the early spring (when the bears are emerging from hibernation), much of it comprised by winter-killed big game.[13] Cannibalism is not unheard of, though predation is not normally believed to be the primary motivation when brown bears attack each other.[63]
+When forced to live in close proximity with humans and their domesticated animals, bears may potentially predate any type of domestic animal. Among these, domestic cattle are sometimes exploited as prey. Cattle are bitten on the neck, back or head and then the abdominal cavity is opened for eating.[13] Plants and fruit farmed by humans are readily consumed as well, including corn, wheat, sorghum, melons and any form of berries.[63] They will also feed at domestic bee farms, readily consuming both honey and the contents of the honey bee colony.[63] Human foods and trash or refuse is eaten when possible. When an open garbage dump was kept in Yellowstone, brown bears were one of the most voracious and regular scavengers. The dump was closed after both brown and American black bears came to associate humans with food and lost their natural fear of them.[63]
+Adult bears are generally immune to predatory attacks except from tigers and other bears. Siberian tigers prefer preying on young bears but smaller fully grown adult female brown bears outside their dens may also be taken, generally when lethargic from hibernation.[147][148][149] Of 44 recorded encounters between the two predators, 20 resulted in confrontations; in 50% of these, the bears were killed, in 27% the tigers were killed, and 23% of the cases ended with both animals surviving and parting ways.[150] Some bears emerging from hibernation seek out tigers in order to steal their kills.[151] Some large brown bears may actually benefit from the tiger's presence by appropriating tiger kills that the bears may not be able to successfully hunt themselves and follow tiger tracks.[152] Geptner et al. (1972) stated bears are generally afraid of tigers and change their path after coming across tiger trails.[153] In the winters of 1970–1973, Yudakov and Nikolaev recorded 1 case of brown bear showing no fear of the tigers and another case of brown bear changing path upon crossing tiger tracks.[154] Other researchers have observed bears following tiger tracks for various reasons.[155]
+Brown bears regularly intimidate wolves to drive them away from their kills. In Yellowstone National Park, brown bears pirate wolf kills so often, Yellowstone's Wolf Project director Doug Smith wrote, "It's not a matter of if the bears will come calling after a kill, but when." Despite the high animosity between the two species, most confrontations at kill sites or large carcasses end without bloodshed on either side. Though conflict over carcasses is common, on rare occasions the two predators tolerate each other on the same kill. To date, there is a single case of fully-grown wolves being killed by a grizzly bear.[156] Given the opportunity, however, both species will prey on the other's cubs.[157] Conclusively, the individual power of the bear against the collective strength of the wolf pack usually results in a long battle for kills or domination.
+In some areas, the brown bear also regularly displaces cougars from their kills.[158] Cougars kill small bear cubs on rare occasions, but there was one report of a bear killing a cougar of unknown age and condition between 1993 and 1996.[159][160] Smaller carnivorous animals, including coyotes, wolverines, lynxes and any other sympatric carnivores or raptorial birds, are dominated by Brown bears and generally avoid direct interactions with them, unless attempting to steal scraps of food. However, wolverines have been persistent enough to fend off a grizzly bear as much as ten times their weight off a kill.[63] There is one record of a golden eagle predating a Brown bear cub.[161]
+Brown bears usually dominate other bear species in areas where they coexist. Due to their smaller size, American black bears are at a competitive disadvantage to brown bears in open, unforested areas. Although displacement of black bears by brown bears has been documented, actual interspecific killing of black bears by brown bears has only occasionally been reported. Confrontation is mostly avoided due to the black bear's diurnal habits and preference for heavily forested areas, as opposed to the brown bear's largely nocturnal habits and preference for open spaces.[162] Brown bears may also kill Asian black bears, though the latter species probably largely avoids conflicts with the Brown bear due to similar habits and habitat preferences to the American Black species.[163] They will eat the fruit dropped by the Asian black bear from trees, as they themselves are too large and cumbersome to climb.[164]  Improbably, in the Himalayas Brown bears are reportedly intimidated by Asian black bears in confrontations.[165]
+There has been a recent increase in interactions between brown bears and polar bears, theorized to be caused by climate change. Brown bears have been seen moving increasingly northward into territories formerly claimed by polar bears. Brown bears tend to dominate polar bears in disputes over carcasses,[166] and dead polar bear cubs have been found in brown bear dens.[167]
+The brown bear has a naturally long life. Wild females have been observed reproducing up to 28 years of age, which is the oldest known age for reproduction of any ursid in the wild. The peak reproductive age for females ranges from four to 20 years old.[74][168] The lifespan of brown bears of both sexes within minimally hunted populations is estimated at an average of 25 years.[169] The oldest wild brown bear on record was nearly 37 years old.[169] The oldest recorded female in captivity was nearly 40 years old, while males in captivity have been verified to live up to 47 years, with one captive male possibly attaining 50 years of age.[13][53]
+While male bears potentially live longer in captivity, female grizzly bears have a greater annual survival rate than males within wild populations per a study done in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.[170] Annual mortality for bears of any age is estimated at around 10% in most protected areas;[74] however, the average annual mortality rate rises to an estimated 38% in hunted populations.[74] Around 13% to 44% of cubs die within their first year even in well-protected areas.[13] Mortality rates of 75–100% among the cubs of any given year are not uncommon.[171] Beyond predation by large predators including wolves, Siberian tigers and other brown bears, starvation and accidents also claim the lives of cubs. Studies have indicated that the most prevalent source of mortality for first-year cubs is malnutrition.[13][77][142][172] By the second and third years of their lives, the annual mortality rate among cubs in the care of their mothers drops to 10-15%.[77]
+Even in populations living in protected areas, humans are still the leading cause of mortality for brown bears.[2][169][173] The largest amount of legalized brown bear hunting occurs in Canada, Finland, Russia, Slovakia and Alaska.[74] Hunting is unregulated in many areas within the range of the brown bear. Even where hunting is legally permitted, most biologists feel that the numbers hunted are excessive considering the low reproduction rate and sparse distribution of the species.[2][134][171] Brown bears are also killed in collisions with automobiles, which is a significant cause of mortality in the United States and Europe.[174][175]
+Brown bears usually avoid areas where extensive development or urbanization has occurred, unlike the smaller, more inoffensive American black bear which can adapt to peri-urban regions.[176][177][178][179] Under many circumstances, extensive human development may cause brown bears to alter their home ranges.[180][181] High road densities (both paved and gravel roads) are often associated with higher mortality, habitat avoidance and lower bear density.[182] However, brown bears can easily lose their natural cautiousness upon being attracted to human-created food sources, such as garbage dumps, litter bins and dumpsters. Brown bears may even venture into human dwellings or barns in search of food as humans encroach on bear habitats.[183] In other areas, such as Alaska, dumps may continue to be an attractant for brown bears.[184][185] In different parts of their distribution, brown bears sometimes kill and eat domesticated animals.[186][187][188] The saying "A fed bear is a dead bear" has come into use to popularize the idea that allowing a bear to scavenge human garbage, such as trash cans and campers' backpacks, pet food, or other food sources that draw the bear into contact with humans, can result in the bear's death.[189] Results of a 2016 study performed in a southeastern British Columbian valley indicate that areas where attractive bear food and concentrated human settlements overlap, human-bear conflict can create an ecological trap resulting in a lower apparent survival rate for brown bears, as well as attracting additional bears and thereby causing overall population declines.[190]
+When brown bears come to associate human activity with a "food reward", they are likely to continue to become emboldened; the likelihood of human-bear encounters increases, as they may return to the same location despite relocation. Relocation of the bear has been used to separate the bear from the human environment, but it does not address the problem of the bear's newly learned association of humans with food or the environmental situations which created the human-habituated bear. "Placing a bear in habitat used by other bears may lead to competition and social conflict, and result in the injury or death of the less dominant bear."[191] Yellowstone National Park, a reserve located in the western United States, contains prime habitat for the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) and due to the enormous number of visitors, human-bear encounters are common. The scenic beauty of the area has led to an influx of people moving into the area. In addition, because there are so many bear relocations to the same remote areas of Yellowstone, and because male bears tend to dominate the center of the relocation zone, female bears tend to be pushed to the boundaries of the region and beyond. As a result, a large proportion of repeat offenders, bears that are killed for public safety, are females. This creates a further depressive effect on an already-endangered subspecies. The grizzly bear is officially described as "Threatened" in the U.S.. Although the problem is most significant with regard to grizzlies, these issues affect the other types of brown bears as well.[192][193][194]
+In Europe, part of the problem lies with shepherds; over the past two centuries, many sheep and goat herders have gradually abandoned the more traditional practice of using dogs to guard flocks, which have concurrently grown larger. Typically, they allow the herds to graze freely over sizeable tracts of land. As brown bears reclaim parts of their range, they may eat livestock as sheep and goats are relatively easy for a bear to kill. In some cases, the shepherds shoot the bear, thinking their livelihood is under threat. Many are now better informed about the ample compensation available and will make a claim when they lose livestock to a bear.[195][196][197] Another issue in several parts of their range in Europe is supplemental feeding stations where various kind of animal carrion is offered, which are set up mainly in Scandinavia and eastern Europe both to support the locally threatened species and so humans can enjoy watching bears that may otherwise prove evasive. Despite that most stations were cautiously set in remote areas far from human habitations, some brown bears in such areas have become conditioned to associate humans with food and become excessively bold "problem bears". Also, supplemental feeding appears to cause no decrease in livestock predation.[198][199]
+Brown bears seldom attack humans on sight and usually avoid people. In Russia, it is estimated that 1 in 1,000 on-foot encounters with brown bears results in an attack.[200] They are, however, unpredictable in temperament, and may attack if they are surprised or feel threatened.[201] There are an average of two fatal attacks by bears per year in North America.[202] In Scandinavia, there are only four known cases since 1902 of bear encounters which have resulted in death. The two most common causes for bear attack are surprise and curiosity.[203] Some types of bears, such as polar bears, are more likely to attack humans when searching for food, while American black bears are much less likely to attack. Despite their boldness and potential for predation if the bear is hungry, polar bears rarely attack humans, because they are infrequently encountered in the Arctic sea.[202] Aggressive behavior in brown bears is favored by numerous selection variables. Increased aggressiveness also assists female brown bears in better ensuring the survival of their young to reproductive age.[204] Mothers defending cubs are the most prone to attacking, being responsible for 70% of brown bear-caused human fatalities in North America.[205]
+Sows with cubs account for many attacks on humans by brown bears in North America. Habituated or food-conditioned bears can also be dangerous, as their long-term exposure to humans causes them to lose their natural shyness and, in some cases, to associate humans with food. Small parties of one or two people are more often attacked by brown bears than large groups, with only one known case of an attack on a group of six or more. In that instance, it is thought that due to surprise, the grizzly bear may not have recognized the size of the group.[206] In the majority of attacks resulting in injury, brown bears precede the attack with a growl or huffing sound.[201] In contrast to injuries caused by American black bears, which are usually minor, brown bear attacks more often tend to result in serious injury and, in some cases, death.[201] Brown bears seem to confront humans as they would when fighting other bears: they rise up on their hind legs, and attempt to "disarm" their victims by biting and holding on to the lower jaw to avoid being bitten in turn.[25] Due to the bears' enormous physical strength, even a single bite or swipe can be deadly as in tigers, with some human victims having had their heads completely crushed by a bear bite.[65][207] Most attacks occur in the months of July, August and September, the time when the number of outdoor recreationalists, such as hikers or hunters, is higher. People who assert their presence through noises tend to be less vulnerable, as they alert bears to their presence. In direct confrontations, people who run are statistically more likely to be attacked than those who stand their ground. Violent encounters with brown bears usually last only a few minutes, though they can be prolonged if the victims fight back.[201] In Alberta, two common behaviors by human hunters, imitating the calls of deer to attract them and carrying ungulate carcasses, seem to court aggressive behavior and lead to a higher rate of attack from grizzly bears.[208]
+Attacks on humans are considered extremely rare in the former Soviet Union, though exceptions exist in districts where they are not as often pursued by hunters.[64] East Siberian brown bears, for example, tend to be much bolder toward humans than their shyer, more persecuted European counterparts. The delineation in Eurasia between areas where aggressiveness of brown bears tends to increase is the Ural Mountains, although the brown bears of eastern Europe are somewhat more aggressive than those of western Europe.[169][209] In 2008, a platinum mining compound in the Olyotorsky district of northern Kamchatka was besieged by a group of 30 bears, who killed two guards and prevented workers from leaving their homes.[210] 10 people a year on average are killed by brown bears in Russia, more than all the other parts of the brown bear's international range combined, although Russia also holds more brown bears than all other parts of the world combined.[211] In Scandinavia, only three fatal attacks were recorded in the 20th century.[212]
+In Japan, a large brown bear nicknamed "Kesagake" (袈裟懸け, "kesa-style slasher") made history for causing the worst brown bear attack in Japanese history at Tomamae, Hokkaidō during numerous encounters during December 1915. It killed seven people and wounded three others (with possibly another three previous fatalities to its credit) before being gunned down after a large-scale beast-hunt. Today, there is still a shrine at Rokusensawa (六線沢), where the event took place in memory of the victims of the incident.[213]
+Within Yellowstone National Park, injuries caused by grizzly attacks in developed areas averaged approximately one per year during the 1930s through to the 1950s, though it increased to four per year during the 1960s. They then decreased to one injury every two years during the 1970s. Between 1980 and 2002, there have been only two human injuries caused by grizzly bears in a developed area. Although grizzly attacks were rare in the backcountry before 1970, the number of attacks increased to an average of approximately one per year during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.[214] In Alberta, from 1960 to 1998, the number of attacks by grizzly bears ending in injury were nearly three times more common than attacks ending in injury by American black bears, despite the American black bear being an estimated 38 times more numerous in the province than the grizzly bear.[215]
+A study by U.S. and Canadian researchers has found pepper spray to be more effective at stopping aggressive bear behavior than guns, working in 92% of studied incidents versus 67% for guns.[216] Carrying pepper spray is highly recommended by many authorities when traveling in bear country; however, carrying two means of deterrent, one of which is a large caliber gun, is also advised. Solid shotgun slugs, or three buckshot rounds, or a pistol of .44 caliber or more is suggested if a heavy hunting rifle is not available. Guns remain a viable, last resort option to be used in defense of life from aggressive brown bears.[217] Too often, people do not carry a proper caliber weapon to neutralize the bear. According to the Alaska Science Center, a 12-gauge shotgun with slugs has been the most effective weapon. There have been fewer injuries as a result of only carrying lethal loads in the shotgun, as opposed to deterrent rounds. State of Alaska Defense of Life or Property (DLP) laws require one to report the kill to the authorities and salvage the hide, skull and claws.[218] A page at the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources website offers information about how to "select a gun that will stop a bear (12-gauge shotgun or .300 mag rifle)".[219]
+Campers are often told to wear bright-colored red ribbons and bells and carry whistles to ward off bears. They are told to look for grizzly bear scat in camping areas and be careful to carry the bells and whistles in those areas. Grizzly bear scat is difficult to differentiate from American black bear scat, as diet is in a constant state of flux depending on the availability of seasonal food items. If a bear is killed near camp, the bear's carcass must be adequately disposed of, including entrails and blood, if possible. Failure to move the carcass has often resulted in it attracting other bears and further exacerbating a bad situation. Moving camps immediately is another recommended method.[201]
+Brown bears often figure into the literature of Europe and North America, in particular that which is written for children. "The Brown Bear of Norway" is a Scottish fairy tale telling the adventures of a girl who married a prince magically turned into a bear and who managed to get him back into a human form by the force of her love and after many trials and difficulties. With "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", a story from England, the Three Bears are usually depicted as brown bears. In German-speaking countries, children are often told the fairytale of "Snow White and Rose Red"; the handsome prince in this tale has been transfigured into a brown bear. In the United States, parents often read their preschool age children the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? to teach them their colors and how they are associated with different animals.[220]
+The Russian bear is a common national personification for Russia (as well as the former Soviet Union), despite the country having no appointed national animal. The brown bear is Finland's national animal.[221]
+The grizzly bear is the state animal of Montana.[222] The California golden bear is the state animal of California.[223] Both animals are subspecies of the brown bear and the species was extirpated from the latter state.
+The coat of arms of Madrid depicts a bear reaching up into a madroño or strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) to eat some of its fruit, whereas the Swiss city of Bern's coat of arms also depicts a bear and the city's name is popularly thought to derive from the German word for bear. The brown bear is depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 5 kuna coin, minted since 1993.
+The Bundesliga club Bayern Munich has a brown bear mascot named Berni. The National Football League (NFL) franchise in Chicago, Illinois, is named the Bears. In this context, no differentiation between American black and brown bears is needed. The school mascot for Bob Jones University, Brown University, George Fox University, the University of Alberta, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Riverside, and numerous American high schools is the brown bear.
+In the town of Prats de Molló, in Vallespir, southern France, a "bear festival" (festa de l'ós) is celebrated annually at the beginning of spring, in which the locals dress up as bears, cover themselves with soot or coal and oil and "attack" the onlookers, attempting to get everyone dirty. The festival ends with the ball de l'os (bear dance).

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1	+ A bear is a type of mammal.
2	+
3	+ Bear or Bears may also refer to:

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+Amphicynodontinae
+Hemicyoninae
+Ursavinae
+Agriotheriinae
+Ailuropodinae
+Tremarctinae
+Ursinae
+Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. There are eight species in existence: Asiatic black bears (also called moon bears), brown bears (which include grizzly bears), giant pandas, North American black bears, polar bears, sloth bears, spectacled bears (also called Andean bears), and sun bears[1]. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern Hemisphere and partially in the Southern Hemisphere. Bears are found on the continents of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Common characteristics of modern bears include large bodies with stocky legs, long snouts, small rounded ears, shaggy hair, plantigrade paws with five nonretractile claws, and short tails.
+While the polar bear is mostly carnivorous, and the giant panda feeds almost entirely on bamboo, the remaining six species are omnivorous with varied diets. With the exception of courting individuals and mothers with their young, bears are typically solitary animals. They may be diurnal or nocturnal and have an excellent sense of smell. Despite their heavy build and awkward gait, they are adept runners, climbers, and swimmers.  Bears use shelters, such as caves and logs, as their dens; most species occupy their dens during the winter for a long period of hibernation, up to 100 days.
+Bears have been hunted since prehistoric times for their meat and fur; they have been used for bear-baiting and other forms of entertainment, such as being made to dance. With their powerful physical presence, they play a prominent role in the arts, mythology, and other cultural aspects of various human societies. In modern times, bears have come under pressure through encroachment on their habitats and illegal trade in bear parts, including the Asian bile bear market. The IUCN lists six bear species as vulnerable or endangered, and even least concern species, such as the brown bear, are at risk of extirpation in certain countries. The poaching and international trade of these most threatened populations are prohibited, but still ongoing.
+The English word "bear" comes from Old English bera and belongs to a family of names for the bear in Germanic languages, such as Swedish björn, also used as a first name. This form is conventionally said to be related to a Proto-Indo-European word for "brown", so that "bear" would mean "the brown one".[2][3] However, Ringe notes that while this etymology is semantically plausible, a word meaning "brown" of this form cannot be found in Proto-Indo-European. He suggests instead that "bear" is from the Proto-Indo-European word *ǵʰwḗr- ~ *ǵʰwér "wild animal".[4] This terminology for the animal originated as a taboo avoidance term: proto-Germanic tribes replaced their original word for bear—arkto—with this euphemistic expression out of fear that speaking the animal's true name might cause it to appear.[5][6] According to author Ralph Keyes, this is the oldest known euphemism.[7]
+Bear taxon names such as Arctoidea and Helarctos come from the ancient Greek ἄρκτος (arktos), meaning bear,[8] as do the names "arctic" and "antarctic", via the name of the constellation Ursa Major, the "Great Bear", prominent in the northern sky.[9]
+Bear taxon names such as Ursidae and Ursus come from Latin Ursus/Ursa, he-bear/she-bear.[9] The female first name "Ursula", originally derived from a Christian saint's name, means "little she-bear" (diminutive of Latin ursa). In Switzerland, the male first name "Urs" is especially popular, while the name of the canton and city of Bern is derived from Bär, German for bear. The Germanic name Bernard (including Bernhardt and similar forms) means "bear-brave", "bear-hardy", or "bold bear".[10][11] The Old English name Beowulf is a kenning, "bee-wolf",  for bear, in turn meaning a brave warrior.[12]
+The family Ursidae is one of nine families in the suborder Caniformia, or "doglike" carnivorans, within the order Carnivora. Bears' closest living relatives are the pinnipeds, canids, and musteloids.[13] Modern bears comprise eight species in three subfamilies: Ailuropodinae (monotypic with the giant panda), Tremarctinae (monotypic with the spectacled bear), and Ursinae (containing six species divided into one to three genera, depending on the authority). Nuclear chromosome analysis show that the karyotype of the six ursine bears is nearly identical, with each having 74 chromosomes (see Ursid hybrid), whereas the giant panda has 42 chromosomes and the spectacled bear 52. These smaller numbers can be explained by the fusing of some chromosomes, and the banding patterns on these match those of the ursine species, but differ from those of procyonids, which supports the inclusion of these two species in Ursidae rather than in Procyonidae, where they had been placed by some earlier authorities.[14]
+The earliest members of Ursidae belong to the extinct subfamily Amphicynodontinae, including Parictis (late Eocene to early middle Miocene, 38–18 Mya) and the slightly younger Allocyon (early Oligocene, 34–30 Mya), both from North America. These animals looked very different from today's bears, being small and raccoon-like in overall appearance, with diets perhaps more similar to that of a badger. Parictis does not appear in Eurasia and Africa until the Miocene.[15] It is unclear whether late-Eocene ursids were also present in Eurasia, although faunal exchange across the Bering land bridge may have been possible during a major sea level low stand as early as the late Eocene (about 37 Mya) and continuing into the early Oligocene.[16] European genera morphologically very similar to Allocyon, and to the much younger American Kolponomos (about 18 Mya),[17] are known from the Oligocene, including Amphicticeps and Amphicynodon.[16] There has been various morphological evidence linking amphicynodontines with pinnipeds, as both groups were semi-aquatic, otter-like mammals.[18][19][20] In addition to the support of the pinniped–amphicynodontine clade, other morphological and some molecular evidence supports bears being the closet living relatives to pinnipeds.[21][22][23][19][24][19][20]
+The raccoon-sized, dog-like Cephalogale is the oldest-known member of the subfamily Hemicyoninae, which first appeared during the middle Oligocene in Eurasia about 30 Mya.[16] The subfamily includes the younger genera Phoberocyon (20–15 Mya), and Plithocyon (15–7 Mya). A Cephalogale-like species gave rise to the genus Ursavus during the early Oligocene (30–28 Mya); this genus proliferated into many species in Asia and is ancestral to all living bears. Species of Ursavus subsequently entered North America, together with Amphicynodon and Cephalogale, during the early Miocene (21–18 Mya). Members of the living lineages of bears diverged from Ursavus between 15 and 20 Mya,[25][26] likely via the species Ursavus elmensis. Based on genetic and morphological data, the Ailuropodinae (pandas) were the first to diverge from other living bears about 19 Mya, although no fossils of this group have been found before about 5 Mya.[27]
+The New World short-faced bears (Tremarctinae) differentiated from Ursinae following a dispersal event into North America during the mid-Miocene (about 13 Mya).[27] They invaded South America (≈2.5 or 1.2 Ma) following formation of the Isthmus of Panama.[28] Their earliest fossil representative is Plionarctos in North America (c. 10–2 Ma). This genus is probably the direct ancestor to the North American short-faced bears (genus Arctodus), the South American short-faced bears (Arctotherium), and the spectacled bears, Tremarctos, represented by both an extinct North American species (T. floridanus), and the lone surviving representative of the Tremarctinae, the South American spectacled bear (T. ornatus).[16]
+The subfamily Ursinae experienced a dramatic proliferation of taxa about 5.3–4.5 Mya, coincident with major environmental changes; the first members of the genus Ursus appeared around this time.[27] The sloth bear is a modern survivor of one of the earliest lineages to diverge during this radiation event (5.3 Mya); it took on its peculiar morphology, related to its diet of termites and ants, no later than by the early Pleistocene. By 3–4 Mya, the species Ursus minimus appears in the fossil record of Europe; apart from its size, it was nearly identical to today's Asian black bear. It is likely ancestral to all bears within Ursinae, perhaps aside from the sloth bear. Two lineages evolved from U. minimus: the black bears (including the sun bear, the Asian black bear, and the American black bear); and the brown bears (which includes the polar bear). Modern brown bears evolved from U. minimus via Ursus etruscus, which itself is ancestral to the extinct Pleistocene cave bear. Species of Ursinae have migrated repeatedly into North America from Eurasia as early as 4 Mya during the early Pliocene.[29][30] The polar bear is the most recently evolved species and descended from a population of brown bears that became isolated in northern latitudes by glaciation 400,000 years ago.[31]
+The bears form a clade within the Carnivora. The cladogram is based on molecular phylogeny of six genes in Flynn, 2005.[32]
+Feliformia
+Canidae
+†Hemicyonidae
+Ursidae
+Pinnipedia
+Ailuridae
+Procyonidae
+Mustelidae
+Note that although they are called "bears" in some languages, red pandas and raccoons and their close relatives are not bears, but rather musteloids.[32]
+There are two phylogenetic hypotheses on the relationships among extant and fossil bear species. One is all species of bears are classified in seven subfamilies as adopted here and related articles: Amphicynodontinae, Hemicyoninae, Ursavinae, Agriotheriinae, Ailuropodinae, Tremarctinae, and Ursinae.[33][34][35][36] Below is a cladogram of the subfamilies of bears after McLellan and Reiner (1992)[33] and Qiu et al. (2014):[36]
+Amphicynodontinae
+Hemicyoninae
+Ursavinae
+Agriotheriinae
+Ailuropodinae
+Tremarctinae
+Ursinae
+The second alternative phylogenetic hypothesis was implemented by McKenna et al. (1997) is to classify all the bear species into the superfamily Ursoidea, with Hemicyoninae and Agriotheriinae being classified in the family "Hemicyonidae".[37] Amphicynodontinae under this classification were classified as stem-pinnipeds in the superfamily Phocoidea.[37] In the McKenna and Bell classification both bears and pinnipeds in a parvorder of carnivoran mammals known as Ursida, along with the extinct bear dogs of the family Amphicyonidae.[37] Below is the cladogram based on McKenna and Bell (1997) classification:[37]
+Amphicyonidae
+Amphicynodontidae
+Pinnipedia
+Hemicyoninae
+Agriotheriinae
+Ursavinae
+Ailuropodinae
+Tremarctinae
+Ursinae
+The phylogeny of extant bear species is shown in a cladogram based on complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from Yu et al. (2007)[38] The giant panda, followed by the spectacled bear are clearly the oldest species. The relationships of the other species are not very well resolved, though the polar bear and the brown bear form a close grouping.[14]
+Brown bear
+Polar bear
+Asian black bear
+American black bear
+Sun bear
+Sloth bear
+Spectacled bear
+Giant panda
+The bear family includes the most massive extant terrestrial members of the order Carnivora.[a] The polar bear is considered to be the largest extant species,[40] with adult males weighing 350–700 kilograms (770–1,500 pounds) and measuring 2.4–3 metres (7 ft 10 in–9 ft 10 in) in total length.[41] The smallest species is the sun bear, which ranges 25–65 kg (55–145 lb) in weight and 100–140 cm (40–55 in) in length.[42] Prehistoric North and South American short-faced bears were the largest species known to have lived. The latter estimated to have weighed 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) and stood 3.4 m (11 ft 2 in) tall.[43][44] Body weight varies throughout the year in bears of temperate and arctic climates, as they build up fat reserves in the summer and autumn and lose weight during the winter.[45]
+Bears are generally bulky and robust animals with short tails. They are sexually dimorphic with regard to size, with males typically being larger.[46][47] Larger species tend to show increased levels of sexual dimorphism in comparison to smaller species.[47] Relying as they do on strength rather than speed, bears have relatively short limbs with thick bones to support their bulk. The shoulder blades and the pelvis are correspondingly massive. The limbs are much straighter than those of the big cats as there is no need for them to flex in the same way due to the differences in their gait. The strong forelimbs are used to catch prey, to excavate dens, to dig out burrowing animals, to turn over rocks and logs to locate prey, and to club large creatures.[45]
+Unlike most other land carnivorans, bears are plantigrade. They distribute their weight toward the hind feet, which makes them look lumbering when they walk. They are capable of bursts of speed but soon tire, and as a result mostly rely on ambush rather than the chase. Bears can stand on their hind feet and sit up straight with remarkable balance. Their front paws are flexible enough to grasp fruit and leaves. Bears' non-retractable claws are used for digging, climbing, tearing, and catching prey. The claws on the front feet are larger than those on the back and may be a hindrance when climbing trees; black bears are the most arboreal of the bears, and have the shortest claws. Pandas are unique in having a bony extension on the wrist of the front feet which acts as a thumb, and is used for gripping bamboo shoots as the animals feed.[45]
+Most mammals have agouti hair, with each individual hair shaft having bands of color corresponding to two different types of melanin pigment. Bears however have a single type of melanin and the hairs have a single color throughout their length, apart from the tip which is sometimes a different shade. The coat consists of long guard hairs, which form a protective shaggy covering, and short dense hairs which form an insulating layer trapping air close to the skin. The shaggy coat helps maintain body heat during winter hibernation and is shed in the spring leaving a shorter summer coat. Polar bears have hollow, translucent guard hairs which gain heat from the sun and conduct it to the dark-colored skin below. They have a thick layer of blubber for extra insulation, and the soles of their feet have a dense pad of fur.[45] While bears tend to be uniform in color, some species may have markings on the chest or face and the giant panda has a bold black-and-white pelage.[48]
+Bears have small rounded ears so as to minimize heat loss, but neither their hearing or sight are particularly acute. Unlike many other carnivorans they have color vision, perhaps to help them distinguish ripe nuts and fruits. They are unique among carnivorans in not having touch-sensitive whiskers on the muzzle; however, they have an excellent sense of smell, better than that of the dog, or possibly any other mammal. They use smell for signalling to each other (either to warn off rivals or detect mates) and for finding food. Smell is the principal sense used by bears to locate most of their food, and they have excellent memories which helps them to relocate places where they have found food before.[45]
+The skulls of bears are massive, providing anchorage for the powerful masseter and temporal jaw muscles. The canine teeth are large but mostly used for display, and the molar teeth flat and crushing. Unlike most other members of the Carnivora, bears have relatively undeveloped carnassial teeth, and their teeth are adapted for a diet that includes a significant amount of vegetable matter.[45] Considerable variation occurs in dental formula even within a given species. This may indicate bears are still in the process of evolving from a mainly meat-eating diet to a predominantly herbivorous one. Polar bears appear to have secondarily re-evolved carnassial-like cheek teeth, as their diets have switched back towards carnivory.[49] Sloth bears lack lower central incisors and use their protusible lips for sucking up the termites on which they feed.[45] The general dental formula for living bears is:
+3.1.2–4.23.1.2–4.3.[45] The structure of the larynx of bears appears to be the most basal of the caniforms.[50] They possess air pouches connected to the pharynx which may amplify their vocalizations.[51]
+Bears have a fairly simple digestive system typical for carnivorans, with a single stomach, short undifferentiated intestines and no cecum.[52][53] Even the herbivorous giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes. Its ability to digest cellulose is ascribed to the microbes in its gut.[54] Bears must spend much of their time feeding in order to gain enough nutrition from foliage. The panda, in particular, spends 12–15 hours a day feeding.[55]
+Extant bears are found in sixty countries primarily in the Northern Hemisphere and are concentrated in Asia, North America, and Europe. An exception is the spectacled bear; native to South America, it inhabits the Andean region.[56] The sun bear's range extends below the equator in Southeast Asia.[57] The Atlas bear, a subspecies of the brown bear was distributed in North Africa from Morocco to Libya, but it became extinct around the 1870s.[58]
+The most widespread species is the brown bear, which occurs from Western Europe eastwards through Asia to the western areas of North America. The American black bear is restricted to North America, and the polar bear is restricted to the Arctic Sea. All the remaining species of bear are Asian.[56] They occur in a range of habitats which include tropical lowland rainforest, both coniferous and broadleaf forests, prairies, steppes, montane grassland, alpine scree slopes, Arctic tundra and in the case of the polar bear, ice floes.[56][59] Bears may dig their dens in hillsides or use caves, hollow logs and dense vegetation for shelter.[59]
+Brown and American black bears are generally diurnal, meaning that they are active for the most part during the day, though they may forage substantially by night.[60] Other species may be nocturnal, active at night, though female sloth bears with cubs may feed more at daytime to avoid competition from conspecifics and nocturnal predators.[61] Bears are overwhelmingly solitary and are considered to be the most asocial of all the Carnivora. The only times bears are encountered in groups are mothers with young or occasional seasonal bounties of rich food (such as salmon runs).[62][63] Fights between males can occur and older individuals may have extensive scarring, which suggests that maintaining dominance can be intense.[64] With their acute sense of smell, bears can locate carcasses from several kilometres away. They use olfaction to locate other foods, encounter mates, avoid rivals and recognize their cubs.[45]
+Most bears are opportunistic omnivores and consume more plant than animal matter. They eat anything from leaves, roots, and berries to insects, carrion, fresh meat, and fish, and have digestive systems and teeth adapted to such a diet.[56] At the extremes are the almost entirely herbivorous giant panda and the mostly carnivorous polar bear. However, all bears feed on any food source that becomes seasonally available.[55] For example, Asiatic black bears in Taiwan consume large numbers of acorns when these are most common, and switch to ungulates at other times of the year.[65]
+When foraging for plants, bears choose to eat them at the stage when they are at their most nutritious and digestible, typically avoiding older grasses, sedges and leaves.[53][55] Hence, in more northern temperate areas, browsing and grazing is more common early in spring and later becomes more restricted.[66] Knowing when plants are ripe for eating is a learned behavior.[55] Berries may be foraged in bushes or at the tops of trees, and bears try to maximize the number of berries consumed versus foliage.[66] In autumn, some bear species forage large amounts of naturally fermented fruits, which affects their behavior.[67] Smaller bears climb trees to obtain mast (edible reproductive parts, such as acorns).[68] Such masts can be very important to the diets of these species, and mast failures may result in long-range movements by bears looking for alternative food sources.[69] Brown bears, with their powerful digging abilities, commonly eat roots.[66] The panda's diet is over 99% bamboo,[70] of 30 different species. Its strong jaws are adapted for crushing the tough stems of these plants, though they prefer to eat the more nutritious leaves.[71][72] Bromeliads can make up to 50% of the diet of the spectacled bear, which also has strong jaws to bite them open.[73]
+The sloth bear, though not as specialized as polar bears and the panda, has lost several front teeth usually seen in bears, and developed a long, suctioning tongue to feed on the ants, termites, and other burrowing insects they favour. At certain times of the year, these insects can make up 90% of their diets.[74] Some species may raid the nests of wasps and bees for the honey and immature insects, in spite of stinging from the adults.[75] Sun bears use their long tongues to lick up both insects and honey.[76] Fish are an important source of food for some species, and brown bears in particular gather in large numbers at salmon runs. Typically, a bear plunges into the water and seizes a fish with its jaws or front paws. The preferred parts to eat are the brain and eggs. Small burrowing mammals like rodents may be dug out and eaten.[77][66]
+The brown bear and both species of black bears sometimes take large ungulates, such as deer and bovids, mostly the young and weak.[65][78][77] These animals may be taken by a short rush and ambush, though hiding young may be stiffed out and pounced on.[66][79] The polar bear mainly preys on seals, stalking them from the ice or breaking into their dens. They primarily eat the highly digestible blubber.[80][77] Large mammalian prey is typically killed by a bite to the head or neck, or (in the case of young) simply pinned down and mauled.[66][81] Predatory behavior in bears is typically taught to the young by the mother.[77]
+Bears are prolific scavengers and kleptoparasites, stealing food caches from rodents, and carcasses from other predators.[53][82] For hibernating species, weight gain is important as it provides nourishment during winter dormancy. A brown bear can eat 41 kg (90 lb) of food and gain 2–3 kg (4–7 lb) of fat a day prior to entering its den.[83]
+Bears produce a number of vocal and non-vocal sounds. Tongue-clicking, grunting or chuffing many be made in cordial situations, such as between mothers and cubs or courting couples, while moaning, huffing, snorting or blowing air is made when an individual is stressed. Barking is produced during times of alarm, excitement or to give away the animal's position. Warning sounds include jaw-clicking and lip-popping, while teeth-chatters, bellows, growls, roars and pulsing sounds are made in aggressive encounters. Cubs may squeal, bawl, bleat or scream when in distress and make motor-like humming when comfortable or nursing.[50][84][85][86][87][88]
+Bears sometimes communicate with visual displays such as standing upright, which exaggerates the individual's size. The chest markings of some species may add to this intimidating display. Staring is an aggressive act and the facial markings of spectacled bears and giant pandas may help draw attention to the eyes during agonistic encounters.[48] Individuals may approach each other by stiff-legged walking with the head lowered. Dominance between bears is asserted by making a frontal orientation, showing the canine teeth, muzzle twisting and neck stretching.  A subordinate may respond with a lateral orientation, by turning away and dropping the head and by sitting or lying down.[63][89]
+Bears may mark territory by rubbing against trees and other objects which may serve to spread their scent. This is usually accompanied by clawing and biting the object. Bark may be spread around to draw attention to the marking post.[90] Pandas are known to mark objects with urine and a waxy substance from their anal glands.[91] Polar bears leave behind their scent in their tracks which allow individuals to keep track of one another in the vast Arctic wilderness.[92]
+The mating system of bears has variously been described as a form of polygyny, promiscuity and serial monogamy.[93][94][95] During the breeding season, males take notice of females in their vicinity and females become more tolerant of males. A male bear may visit a female continuously over a period of several days or weeks, depending on the species, to test her reproductive state. During this time period, males try to prevent rivals from interacting with their mate. Courtship may be brief, although in some Asian species, courting pairs may engage in wrestling, hugging, mock fighting and vocalizing. Ovulation is induced by mating, which can last up to 30 minutes depending on the species.[94]
+Gestation typically lasts 6–9 months, including delayed implantation, and litter size numbers up to four cubs.[96] Giant pandas may give birth to twins but they can only suckle one young and the other is left to die.[97] In northern living species, birth takes place during winter dormancy. Cubs are born blind and helpless with at most a thin layer of hair, relying on their mother for warmth. The milk of the female bear is rich in fat and antibodies and cubs may suckle for up to a year after they are born. By 2–3 months, cubs can follow their mother outside the den. They usually follow her on foot, but sloth bear cubs may ride on their mother's back.[96][59] Male bears play no role in raising young. Infanticide, where an adult male kills the cubs of another, has been recorded in polar bears, brown bears and American black bears but not in other species.[98] Males kill young to bring the female into estrus.[99] Cubs may flee and the mother defends them even at the cost of her life.[100][101][102]
+In some species, offspring may become independent around the next spring, through some may stay until the female successfully mates again. Bears reach sexual maturity shortly after they disperse; at around 3–6 years depending on the species. Male Alaskan brown bears and polar bears may continue to grow until they are 11 years old.[96] Lifespan may also vary between species. The brown bear can live an average of 25 years.[103]
+Bears of northern regions, including the American black bear and the grizzly bear, hibernate in the winter.[104][105] During hibernation, the bear's metabolism slows down, its body temperature decreases slightly, and its heart rate slows from a normal value of 55 to just 9 beats per minute.[106] Bears normally do not wake during their hibernation, and can go the entire period without eating, drinking, urinating, or defecating.[45] A fecal plug is formed in the colon, and is expelled when the bear wakes in the spring.[107] If they have stored enough body fat, their muscles remain in good condition, and their protein maintenance requirements are met from recycling waste urea.[45] Female bears give birth during the hibernation period, and are roused when doing so.[105]
+Bears do not have many predators. The most important are humans, and as they started cultivating crops, they increasingly came in conflict with the bears that raided them. Since the invention of firearms, people have been able to kill bears with greater ease.[108] Felids like the tiger may also prey on bears,[109][110] particularly cubs, which may also be threatened by canids.[14][95]
+Bears are parasitized by eighty species of parasites, including single-celled protozoans and gastro-intestinal worms, and nematodes and flukes in their heart, liver, lungs and bloodstream. Externally they have ticks, fleas and lice. A study of American black bears found seventeen species of endoparasite including the protozoan Sarcocystis, the parasitic worm Diphyllobothrium mansonoides, and the nematodes Dirofilaria immitis, Capillaria aerophila, Physaloptera sp., Strongyloides sp. and others. Of these, D. mansonoides and adult C. aerophila were causing pathological symptoms.[111] By contrast, polar bears have few parasites; many parasitic species need a secondary, usually terrestrial, host, and the polar bear's life style is such that few alternative hosts exist in their environment. The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii has been found in polar bears, and the nematode Trichinella nativa can cause a serious infection and decline in older polar bears.[112] Bears in North America are sometimes infected by a Morbillivirus similar to the canine distemper virus.[113] They are susceptible to infectious canine hepatitis (CAV-1), with free-living black bears dying rapidly of encephalitis and hepatitis.[114]
+In modern times, bears have come under pressure through encroachment on their habitats[115] and illegal trade in bear parts, including the Asian bile bear market, though hunting is now banned, largely replaced by farming.[116] The IUCN lists six bear species as vulnerable;[117] even the two least concern species, the brown bear and the American black bear,[117] are at risk of extirpation in certain areas. In general these two species inhabit remote areas with little interaction with humans, and the main non-natural causes of mortality are hunting, trapping, road-kill and depredation.[118]
+Laws have been passed in many areas of the world to protect bears from habitat destruction. Public perception of bears is often positive, as people identify with bears due to their omnivorous diets, their ability to stand on two legs, and their symbolic importance.[119] Support for bear protection is widespread, at least in more affluent societies.[120] The giant panda has become a worldwide symbol of conservation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, which are home to around 30% of the wild panda population, gained a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation in 2006.[121] Where bears raid crops or attack livestock, they may come into conflict with humans.[122][123] In poorer rural regions, attitudes may be more shaped by the dangers posed by bears, and the economic costs they cause to farmers and ranchers.[122]
+Several bear species are dangerous to humans, especially in areas where they have become used to people; elsewhere, they generally avoid humans. Injuries caused by bears are rare, but are widely reported.[124] Bears may attack humans in response to being startled, in defense of young or food, or even for predatory reasons.[125]
+Bears in captivity have for centuries been used for entertainment. They have been trained to dance,[126] and were kept for baiting in Europe at least since the 16th century. There were five bear-baiting gardens in Southwark, London at that time; archaeological remains of three of these have survived.[127] Across Europe, nomadic Romani bear handlers called Ursari lived by busking with their bears from the 12th century.[128]
+Bears have been hunted for sport, food, and folk medicine. Their meat is dark and stringy, like a tough cut of beef. In Cantonese cuisine, bear paws are considered a delicacy. Bear meat should be cooked thoroughly, as it can be infected with the parasite Trichinella spiralis.[129][130]
+The peoples of eastern Asia use bears' body parts and secretions (notably their gallbladders and bile) as part of traditional Chinese medicine. More than 12,000 bears are thought to be kept on farms in China, Vietnam, and South Korea for the production of bile. Trade in bear products is prohibited under CITES, but bear bile has been detected in shampoos, wine and herbal medicines sold in Canada, the United States and Australia.[131]
+There is evidence of prehistoric bear worship, though this is disputed by archaeologists.[132] It is possible that bear worship existed in early Chinese and Ainu cultures.[133] The prehistoric Finns,[134] Siberian peoples[135] and more recently Koreans considered the bear as the spirit of their forefathers.[136] In many Native American cultures, the bear is a symbol of rebirth because of its hibernation and re-emergence.[137] The image of the mother bear was prevalent throughout societies in North America and Eurasia, based on the female's devotion and protection of her cubs.[138] Japanese folklore features the Onikuma, a "demon bear" that walks upright.[139] The Ainu of northern Japan, a different people from the Japanese, saw the bear instead as sacred; Hirasawa Byozan painted a scene in documentary style of a bear sacrifice in an Ainu temple, complete with offerings to the dead animal's spirit.[140]
+In Korean mythology, a tiger and a bear prayed to Hwanung, the son of the Lord of Heaven, that they might become human. Upon hearing their prayers, Hwanung gave them 20 cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort, ordering them to eat only this sacred food and remain out of the sunlight for 100 days. The tiger gave up after about twenty days and left the cave. However, the bear persevered and was transformed into a woman. The bear and the tiger are said to represent two tribes that sought the favor of the heavenly prince.[141] The bear-woman (Ungnyeo; 웅녀/熊女) was grateful and made offerings to Hwanung.  However, she lacked a husband, and soon became sad and prayed beneath a  "divine birch" tree (Korean: 신단수; Hanja: 神檀樹; RR: shindansu) to be blessed with a child. Hwanung, moved by her prayers, took her for his wife and soon she gave birth to a son named Dangun Wanggeom – who was the legendary founder of Gojoseon, the first ever Korean kingdom.[142]
+Artio (Dea Artio in the Gallo-Roman religion) was a Celtic bear goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern, itself named for the bear. Her name is derived from the Celtic word for "bear", artos.[143] In ancient Greece, archaic cult of Artemis in bear form survived into Classical times at Brauron, where young Athenian girls passed an initiation right as arktai "she bears".[144] For Artemis and one of her nymphs as a she-bear, see the myth of Callisto.
+The constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the great and little bears, are named for their supposed resemblance to bears, from the time of Ptolemy.[b][9] The nearby star Arcturus means "guardian of the bear", as if it were watching the two constellations.[146] Ursa Major has been associated with a bear for as much as 13,000 years since Paleolithic times, in the widespread Cosmic Hunt myths. These are found on both sides of the Bering land bridge, which was lost to the sea some 11,000 years ago.[147]
+Pliny the Elder's Natural History (1st century AD) claims that "when first born, [bears] are shapeless masses of white flesh, a little larger than mice; their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape."[148] This belief was echoed by authors of bestiaries throughout the medieval period.[149]
+Bears are mentioned in the Bible; the Second Book of Kings relates the story of the prophet Elisha calling on them to eat the youths who taunted him.[150]  Legends of saints taming bears are common in the Alpine zone. In the arms of the bishopric of Freising, the bear is the dangerous totem animal tamed by St. Corbinian and made to carry his civilized baggage over the mountains. Bears similarly feature in the legends of St. Romedius, Saint Gall and Saint Columbanus. This recurrent motif was used by the Church as a symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism.[151] In the Norse settlements of northern England during the 10th century, a type of "hogback" grave cover of a long narrow block of stone, with a shaped apex like the roof beam of a long house, is carved with a muzzled, thus Christianized, bear clasping each gable end, as in the church at Brompton, North Yorkshire and across the British Isles.[152]
+Lāčplēsis, meaning "Bear-slayer", is a Latvian legendary hero who is said to have killed a bear by ripping its jaws apart with his bare hands. However, as revealed in the end of the long epic describing his life, Lāčplēsis' own mother had been a she-bear, and his superhuman strength resided in his bear ears. The modern Latvian military award Order of Lāčplēsis, called for the hero, is also known as The Order of the Bear-Slayer.[citation needed]
+In the Hindu epic poem The Ramayana, the sloth bear or Asian black bear Jambavan is depicted as the king of bears and helps the title hero Rama defeat the epic's antagonist Ravana and reunite with his queen Sita.[153][154]
+Bears are popular in children's stories, including Winnie the Pooh,[155] Paddington Bear,[156] Gentle Ben[157] and "The Brown Bear of Norway".[158] An early version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears",[159] was published as "The Three Bears" in 1837 by Robert Southey, many times retold, and illustrated in 1918 by Arthur Rackham.[160] The Hanna-Barbera character Yogi Bear has appeared in numerous comic books, animated television shows and films.[161][162] The Care Bears began as greeting cards in 1982, and were featured as toys, on clothing and in film.[163] Around the world, many children—and some adults—have teddy bears, stuffed toys in the form of bears, named after the American statesman Theodore Roosevelt when in 1902 he had refused to shoot an American black bear tied to a tree.[164]
+Bears, like other animals, may symbolize nations. In 1911, the British satirical magazine Punch published a cartoon about the Anglo-Russian Entente by Leonard Raven-Hill in which the British lion watches as the Russian bear sits on the tail of the Persian cat.[165] The Russian Bear has been a common national personification for Russia from the 16th century onward.[166] Smokey Bear has become a part of American culture since his introduction in 1944, with his message "Only you can prevent forest fires".[167] In the United Kingdom, the bear and staff feature on the heraldic arms of the county of Warwickshire.[168] Bears appear in the canting arms of two cities, Bern and Berlin.[169]
+The International Association for Bear Research & Management, also known as the International Bear Association, and the Bear Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission, a part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature focus on the natural history, management, and conservation of bears. Bear Trust International works for wild bears and other wildlife through four core program initiatives, namely Conservation Education, Wild Bear Research, Wild Bear Management, and Habitat Conservation.[170]
+Specialty organizations for each of the eight species of bears worldwide include:

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+Amphicynodontinae
+Hemicyoninae
+Ursavinae
+Agriotheriinae
+Ailuropodinae
+Tremarctinae
+Ursinae
+Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. There are eight species in existence: Asiatic black bears (also called moon bears), brown bears (which include grizzly bears), giant pandas, North American black bears, polar bears, sloth bears, spectacled bears (also called Andean bears), and sun bears[1]. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern Hemisphere and partially in the Southern Hemisphere. Bears are found on the continents of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Common characteristics of modern bears include large bodies with stocky legs, long snouts, small rounded ears, shaggy hair, plantigrade paws with five nonretractile claws, and short tails.
+While the polar bear is mostly carnivorous, and the giant panda feeds almost entirely on bamboo, the remaining six species are omnivorous with varied diets. With the exception of courting individuals and mothers with their young, bears are typically solitary animals. They may be diurnal or nocturnal and have an excellent sense of smell. Despite their heavy build and awkward gait, they are adept runners, climbers, and swimmers.  Bears use shelters, such as caves and logs, as their dens; most species occupy their dens during the winter for a long period of hibernation, up to 100 days.
+Bears have been hunted since prehistoric times for their meat and fur; they have been used for bear-baiting and other forms of entertainment, such as being made to dance. With their powerful physical presence, they play a prominent role in the arts, mythology, and other cultural aspects of various human societies. In modern times, bears have come under pressure through encroachment on their habitats and illegal trade in bear parts, including the Asian bile bear market. The IUCN lists six bear species as vulnerable or endangered, and even least concern species, such as the brown bear, are at risk of extirpation in certain countries. The poaching and international trade of these most threatened populations are prohibited, but still ongoing.
+The English word "bear" comes from Old English bera and belongs to a family of names for the bear in Germanic languages, such as Swedish björn, also used as a first name. This form is conventionally said to be related to a Proto-Indo-European word for "brown", so that "bear" would mean "the brown one".[2][3] However, Ringe notes that while this etymology is semantically plausible, a word meaning "brown" of this form cannot be found in Proto-Indo-European. He suggests instead that "bear" is from the Proto-Indo-European word *ǵʰwḗr- ~ *ǵʰwér "wild animal".[4] This terminology for the animal originated as a taboo avoidance term: proto-Germanic tribes replaced their original word for bear—arkto—with this euphemistic expression out of fear that speaking the animal's true name might cause it to appear.[5][6] According to author Ralph Keyes, this is the oldest known euphemism.[7]
+Bear taxon names such as Arctoidea and Helarctos come from the ancient Greek ἄρκτος (arktos), meaning bear,[8] as do the names "arctic" and "antarctic", via the name of the constellation Ursa Major, the "Great Bear", prominent in the northern sky.[9]
+Bear taxon names such as Ursidae and Ursus come from Latin Ursus/Ursa, he-bear/she-bear.[9] The female first name "Ursula", originally derived from a Christian saint's name, means "little she-bear" (diminutive of Latin ursa). In Switzerland, the male first name "Urs" is especially popular, while the name of the canton and city of Bern is derived from Bär, German for bear. The Germanic name Bernard (including Bernhardt and similar forms) means "bear-brave", "bear-hardy", or "bold bear".[10][11] The Old English name Beowulf is a kenning, "bee-wolf",  for bear, in turn meaning a brave warrior.[12]
+The family Ursidae is one of nine families in the suborder Caniformia, or "doglike" carnivorans, within the order Carnivora. Bears' closest living relatives are the pinnipeds, canids, and musteloids.[13] Modern bears comprise eight species in three subfamilies: Ailuropodinae (monotypic with the giant panda), Tremarctinae (monotypic with the spectacled bear), and Ursinae (containing six species divided into one to three genera, depending on the authority). Nuclear chromosome analysis show that the karyotype of the six ursine bears is nearly identical, with each having 74 chromosomes (see Ursid hybrid), whereas the giant panda has 42 chromosomes and the spectacled bear 52. These smaller numbers can be explained by the fusing of some chromosomes, and the banding patterns on these match those of the ursine species, but differ from those of procyonids, which supports the inclusion of these two species in Ursidae rather than in Procyonidae, where they had been placed by some earlier authorities.[14]
+The earliest members of Ursidae belong to the extinct subfamily Amphicynodontinae, including Parictis (late Eocene to early middle Miocene, 38–18 Mya) and the slightly younger Allocyon (early Oligocene, 34–30 Mya), both from North America. These animals looked very different from today's bears, being small and raccoon-like in overall appearance, with diets perhaps more similar to that of a badger. Parictis does not appear in Eurasia and Africa until the Miocene.[15] It is unclear whether late-Eocene ursids were also present in Eurasia, although faunal exchange across the Bering land bridge may have been possible during a major sea level low stand as early as the late Eocene (about 37 Mya) and continuing into the early Oligocene.[16] European genera morphologically very similar to Allocyon, and to the much younger American Kolponomos (about 18 Mya),[17] are known from the Oligocene, including Amphicticeps and Amphicynodon.[16] There has been various morphological evidence linking amphicynodontines with pinnipeds, as both groups were semi-aquatic, otter-like mammals.[18][19][20] In addition to the support of the pinniped–amphicynodontine clade, other morphological and some molecular evidence supports bears being the closet living relatives to pinnipeds.[21][22][23][19][24][19][20]
+The raccoon-sized, dog-like Cephalogale is the oldest-known member of the subfamily Hemicyoninae, which first appeared during the middle Oligocene in Eurasia about 30 Mya.[16] The subfamily includes the younger genera Phoberocyon (20–15 Mya), and Plithocyon (15–7 Mya). A Cephalogale-like species gave rise to the genus Ursavus during the early Oligocene (30–28 Mya); this genus proliferated into many species in Asia and is ancestral to all living bears. Species of Ursavus subsequently entered North America, together with Amphicynodon and Cephalogale, during the early Miocene (21–18 Mya). Members of the living lineages of bears diverged from Ursavus between 15 and 20 Mya,[25][26] likely via the species Ursavus elmensis. Based on genetic and morphological data, the Ailuropodinae (pandas) were the first to diverge from other living bears about 19 Mya, although no fossils of this group have been found before about 5 Mya.[27]
+The New World short-faced bears (Tremarctinae) differentiated from Ursinae following a dispersal event into North America during the mid-Miocene (about 13 Mya).[27] They invaded South America (≈2.5 or 1.2 Ma) following formation of the Isthmus of Panama.[28] Their earliest fossil representative is Plionarctos in North America (c. 10–2 Ma). This genus is probably the direct ancestor to the North American short-faced bears (genus Arctodus), the South American short-faced bears (Arctotherium), and the spectacled bears, Tremarctos, represented by both an extinct North American species (T. floridanus), and the lone surviving representative of the Tremarctinae, the South American spectacled bear (T. ornatus).[16]
+The subfamily Ursinae experienced a dramatic proliferation of taxa about 5.3–4.5 Mya, coincident with major environmental changes; the first members of the genus Ursus appeared around this time.[27] The sloth bear is a modern survivor of one of the earliest lineages to diverge during this radiation event (5.3 Mya); it took on its peculiar morphology, related to its diet of termites and ants, no later than by the early Pleistocene. By 3–4 Mya, the species Ursus minimus appears in the fossil record of Europe; apart from its size, it was nearly identical to today's Asian black bear. It is likely ancestral to all bears within Ursinae, perhaps aside from the sloth bear. Two lineages evolved from U. minimus: the black bears (including the sun bear, the Asian black bear, and the American black bear); and the brown bears (which includes the polar bear). Modern brown bears evolved from U. minimus via Ursus etruscus, which itself is ancestral to the extinct Pleistocene cave bear. Species of Ursinae have migrated repeatedly into North America from Eurasia as early as 4 Mya during the early Pliocene.[29][30] The polar bear is the most recently evolved species and descended from a population of brown bears that became isolated in northern latitudes by glaciation 400,000 years ago.[31]
+The bears form a clade within the Carnivora. The cladogram is based on molecular phylogeny of six genes in Flynn, 2005.[32]
+Feliformia
+Canidae
+†Hemicyonidae
+Ursidae
+Pinnipedia
+Ailuridae
+Procyonidae
+Mustelidae
+Note that although they are called "bears" in some languages, red pandas and raccoons and their close relatives are not bears, but rather musteloids.[32]
+There are two phylogenetic hypotheses on the relationships among extant and fossil bear species. One is all species of bears are classified in seven subfamilies as adopted here and related articles: Amphicynodontinae, Hemicyoninae, Ursavinae, Agriotheriinae, Ailuropodinae, Tremarctinae, and Ursinae.[33][34][35][36] Below is a cladogram of the subfamilies of bears after McLellan and Reiner (1992)[33] and Qiu et al. (2014):[36]
+Amphicynodontinae
+Hemicyoninae
+Ursavinae
+Agriotheriinae
+Ailuropodinae
+Tremarctinae
+Ursinae
+The second alternative phylogenetic hypothesis was implemented by McKenna et al. (1997) is to classify all the bear species into the superfamily Ursoidea, with Hemicyoninae and Agriotheriinae being classified in the family "Hemicyonidae".[37] Amphicynodontinae under this classification were classified as stem-pinnipeds in the superfamily Phocoidea.[37] In the McKenna and Bell classification both bears and pinnipeds in a parvorder of carnivoran mammals known as Ursida, along with the extinct bear dogs of the family Amphicyonidae.[37] Below is the cladogram based on McKenna and Bell (1997) classification:[37]
+Amphicyonidae
+Amphicynodontidae
+Pinnipedia
+Hemicyoninae
+Agriotheriinae
+Ursavinae
+Ailuropodinae
+Tremarctinae
+Ursinae
+The phylogeny of extant bear species is shown in a cladogram based on complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from Yu et al. (2007)[38] The giant panda, followed by the spectacled bear are clearly the oldest species. The relationships of the other species are not very well resolved, though the polar bear and the brown bear form a close grouping.[14]
+Brown bear
+Polar bear
+Asian black bear
+American black bear
+Sun bear
+Sloth bear
+Spectacled bear
+Giant panda
+The bear family includes the most massive extant terrestrial members of the order Carnivora.[a] The polar bear is considered to be the largest extant species,[40] with adult males weighing 350–700 kilograms (770–1,500 pounds) and measuring 2.4–3 metres (7 ft 10 in–9 ft 10 in) in total length.[41] The smallest species is the sun bear, which ranges 25–65 kg (55–145 lb) in weight and 100–140 cm (40–55 in) in length.[42] Prehistoric North and South American short-faced bears were the largest species known to have lived. The latter estimated to have weighed 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) and stood 3.4 m (11 ft 2 in) tall.[43][44] Body weight varies throughout the year in bears of temperate and arctic climates, as they build up fat reserves in the summer and autumn and lose weight during the winter.[45]
+Bears are generally bulky and robust animals with short tails. They are sexually dimorphic with regard to size, with males typically being larger.[46][47] Larger species tend to show increased levels of sexual dimorphism in comparison to smaller species.[47] Relying as they do on strength rather than speed, bears have relatively short limbs with thick bones to support their bulk. The shoulder blades and the pelvis are correspondingly massive. The limbs are much straighter than those of the big cats as there is no need for them to flex in the same way due to the differences in their gait. The strong forelimbs are used to catch prey, to excavate dens, to dig out burrowing animals, to turn over rocks and logs to locate prey, and to club large creatures.[45]
+Unlike most other land carnivorans, bears are plantigrade. They distribute their weight toward the hind feet, which makes them look lumbering when they walk. They are capable of bursts of speed but soon tire, and as a result mostly rely on ambush rather than the chase. Bears can stand on their hind feet and sit up straight with remarkable balance. Their front paws are flexible enough to grasp fruit and leaves. Bears' non-retractable claws are used for digging, climbing, tearing, and catching prey. The claws on the front feet are larger than those on the back and may be a hindrance when climbing trees; black bears are the most arboreal of the bears, and have the shortest claws. Pandas are unique in having a bony extension on the wrist of the front feet which acts as a thumb, and is used for gripping bamboo shoots as the animals feed.[45]
+Most mammals have agouti hair, with each individual hair shaft having bands of color corresponding to two different types of melanin pigment. Bears however have a single type of melanin and the hairs have a single color throughout their length, apart from the tip which is sometimes a different shade. The coat consists of long guard hairs, which form a protective shaggy covering, and short dense hairs which form an insulating layer trapping air close to the skin. The shaggy coat helps maintain body heat during winter hibernation and is shed in the spring leaving a shorter summer coat. Polar bears have hollow, translucent guard hairs which gain heat from the sun and conduct it to the dark-colored skin below. They have a thick layer of blubber for extra insulation, and the soles of their feet have a dense pad of fur.[45] While bears tend to be uniform in color, some species may have markings on the chest or face and the giant panda has a bold black-and-white pelage.[48]
+Bears have small rounded ears so as to minimize heat loss, but neither their hearing or sight are particularly acute. Unlike many other carnivorans they have color vision, perhaps to help them distinguish ripe nuts and fruits. They are unique among carnivorans in not having touch-sensitive whiskers on the muzzle; however, they have an excellent sense of smell, better than that of the dog, or possibly any other mammal. They use smell for signalling to each other (either to warn off rivals or detect mates) and for finding food. Smell is the principal sense used by bears to locate most of their food, and they have excellent memories which helps them to relocate places where they have found food before.[45]
+The skulls of bears are massive, providing anchorage for the powerful masseter and temporal jaw muscles. The canine teeth are large but mostly used for display, and the molar teeth flat and crushing. Unlike most other members of the Carnivora, bears have relatively undeveloped carnassial teeth, and their teeth are adapted for a diet that includes a significant amount of vegetable matter.[45] Considerable variation occurs in dental formula even within a given species. This may indicate bears are still in the process of evolving from a mainly meat-eating diet to a predominantly herbivorous one. Polar bears appear to have secondarily re-evolved carnassial-like cheek teeth, as their diets have switched back towards carnivory.[49] Sloth bears lack lower central incisors and use their protusible lips for sucking up the termites on which they feed.[45] The general dental formula for living bears is:
+3.1.2–4.23.1.2–4.3.[45] The structure of the larynx of bears appears to be the most basal of the caniforms.[50] They possess air pouches connected to the pharynx which may amplify their vocalizations.[51]
+Bears have a fairly simple digestive system typical for carnivorans, with a single stomach, short undifferentiated intestines and no cecum.[52][53] Even the herbivorous giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes. Its ability to digest cellulose is ascribed to the microbes in its gut.[54] Bears must spend much of their time feeding in order to gain enough nutrition from foliage. The panda, in particular, spends 12–15 hours a day feeding.[55]
+Extant bears are found in sixty countries primarily in the Northern Hemisphere and are concentrated in Asia, North America, and Europe. An exception is the spectacled bear; native to South America, it inhabits the Andean region.[56] The sun bear's range extends below the equator in Southeast Asia.[57] The Atlas bear, a subspecies of the brown bear was distributed in North Africa from Morocco to Libya, but it became extinct around the 1870s.[58]
+The most widespread species is the brown bear, which occurs from Western Europe eastwards through Asia to the western areas of North America. The American black bear is restricted to North America, and the polar bear is restricted to the Arctic Sea. All the remaining species of bear are Asian.[56] They occur in a range of habitats which include tropical lowland rainforest, both coniferous and broadleaf forests, prairies, steppes, montane grassland, alpine scree slopes, Arctic tundra and in the case of the polar bear, ice floes.[56][59] Bears may dig their dens in hillsides or use caves, hollow logs and dense vegetation for shelter.[59]
+Brown and American black bears are generally diurnal, meaning that they are active for the most part during the day, though they may forage substantially by night.[60] Other species may be nocturnal, active at night, though female sloth bears with cubs may feed more at daytime to avoid competition from conspecifics and nocturnal predators.[61] Bears are overwhelmingly solitary and are considered to be the most asocial of all the Carnivora. The only times bears are encountered in groups are mothers with young or occasional seasonal bounties of rich food (such as salmon runs).[62][63] Fights between males can occur and older individuals may have extensive scarring, which suggests that maintaining dominance can be intense.[64] With their acute sense of smell, bears can locate carcasses from several kilometres away. They use olfaction to locate other foods, encounter mates, avoid rivals and recognize their cubs.[45]
+Most bears are opportunistic omnivores and consume more plant than animal matter. They eat anything from leaves, roots, and berries to insects, carrion, fresh meat, and fish, and have digestive systems and teeth adapted to such a diet.[56] At the extremes are the almost entirely herbivorous giant panda and the mostly carnivorous polar bear. However, all bears feed on any food source that becomes seasonally available.[55] For example, Asiatic black bears in Taiwan consume large numbers of acorns when these are most common, and switch to ungulates at other times of the year.[65]
+When foraging for plants, bears choose to eat them at the stage when they are at their most nutritious and digestible, typically avoiding older grasses, sedges and leaves.[53][55] Hence, in more northern temperate areas, browsing and grazing is more common early in spring and later becomes more restricted.[66] Knowing when plants are ripe for eating is a learned behavior.[55] Berries may be foraged in bushes or at the tops of trees, and bears try to maximize the number of berries consumed versus foliage.[66] In autumn, some bear species forage large amounts of naturally fermented fruits, which affects their behavior.[67] Smaller bears climb trees to obtain mast (edible reproductive parts, such as acorns).[68] Such masts can be very important to the diets of these species, and mast failures may result in long-range movements by bears looking for alternative food sources.[69] Brown bears, with their powerful digging abilities, commonly eat roots.[66] The panda's diet is over 99% bamboo,[70] of 30 different species. Its strong jaws are adapted for crushing the tough stems of these plants, though they prefer to eat the more nutritious leaves.[71][72] Bromeliads can make up to 50% of the diet of the spectacled bear, which also has strong jaws to bite them open.[73]
+The sloth bear, though not as specialized as polar bears and the panda, has lost several front teeth usually seen in bears, and developed a long, suctioning tongue to feed on the ants, termites, and other burrowing insects they favour. At certain times of the year, these insects can make up 90% of their diets.[74] Some species may raid the nests of wasps and bees for the honey and immature insects, in spite of stinging from the adults.[75] Sun bears use their long tongues to lick up both insects and honey.[76] Fish are an important source of food for some species, and brown bears in particular gather in large numbers at salmon runs. Typically, a bear plunges into the water and seizes a fish with its jaws or front paws. The preferred parts to eat are the brain and eggs. Small burrowing mammals like rodents may be dug out and eaten.[77][66]
+The brown bear and both species of black bears sometimes take large ungulates, such as deer and bovids, mostly the young and weak.[65][78][77] These animals may be taken by a short rush and ambush, though hiding young may be stiffed out and pounced on.[66][79] The polar bear mainly preys on seals, stalking them from the ice or breaking into their dens. They primarily eat the highly digestible blubber.[80][77] Large mammalian prey is typically killed by a bite to the head or neck, or (in the case of young) simply pinned down and mauled.[66][81] Predatory behavior in bears is typically taught to the young by the mother.[77]
+Bears are prolific scavengers and kleptoparasites, stealing food caches from rodents, and carcasses from other predators.[53][82] For hibernating species, weight gain is important as it provides nourishment during winter dormancy. A brown bear can eat 41 kg (90 lb) of food and gain 2–3 kg (4–7 lb) of fat a day prior to entering its den.[83]
+Bears produce a number of vocal and non-vocal sounds. Tongue-clicking, grunting or chuffing many be made in cordial situations, such as between mothers and cubs or courting couples, while moaning, huffing, snorting or blowing air is made when an individual is stressed. Barking is produced during times of alarm, excitement or to give away the animal's position. Warning sounds include jaw-clicking and lip-popping, while teeth-chatters, bellows, growls, roars and pulsing sounds are made in aggressive encounters. Cubs may squeal, bawl, bleat or scream when in distress and make motor-like humming when comfortable or nursing.[50][84][85][86][87][88]
+Bears sometimes communicate with visual displays such as standing upright, which exaggerates the individual's size. The chest markings of some species may add to this intimidating display. Staring is an aggressive act and the facial markings of spectacled bears and giant pandas may help draw attention to the eyes during agonistic encounters.[48] Individuals may approach each other by stiff-legged walking with the head lowered. Dominance between bears is asserted by making a frontal orientation, showing the canine teeth, muzzle twisting and neck stretching.  A subordinate may respond with a lateral orientation, by turning away and dropping the head and by sitting or lying down.[63][89]
+Bears may mark territory by rubbing against trees and other objects which may serve to spread their scent. This is usually accompanied by clawing and biting the object. Bark may be spread around to draw attention to the marking post.[90] Pandas are known to mark objects with urine and a waxy substance from their anal glands.[91] Polar bears leave behind their scent in their tracks which allow individuals to keep track of one another in the vast Arctic wilderness.[92]
+The mating system of bears has variously been described as a form of polygyny, promiscuity and serial monogamy.[93][94][95] During the breeding season, males take notice of females in their vicinity and females become more tolerant of males. A male bear may visit a female continuously over a period of several days or weeks, depending on the species, to test her reproductive state. During this time period, males try to prevent rivals from interacting with their mate. Courtship may be brief, although in some Asian species, courting pairs may engage in wrestling, hugging, mock fighting and vocalizing. Ovulation is induced by mating, which can last up to 30 minutes depending on the species.[94]
+Gestation typically lasts 6–9 months, including delayed implantation, and litter size numbers up to four cubs.[96] Giant pandas may give birth to twins but they can only suckle one young and the other is left to die.[97] In northern living species, birth takes place during winter dormancy. Cubs are born blind and helpless with at most a thin layer of hair, relying on their mother for warmth. The milk of the female bear is rich in fat and antibodies and cubs may suckle for up to a year after they are born. By 2–3 months, cubs can follow their mother outside the den. They usually follow her on foot, but sloth bear cubs may ride on their mother's back.[96][59] Male bears play no role in raising young. Infanticide, where an adult male kills the cubs of another, has been recorded in polar bears, brown bears and American black bears but not in other species.[98] Males kill young to bring the female into estrus.[99] Cubs may flee and the mother defends them even at the cost of her life.[100][101][102]
+In some species, offspring may become independent around the next spring, through some may stay until the female successfully mates again. Bears reach sexual maturity shortly after they disperse; at around 3–6 years depending on the species. Male Alaskan brown bears and polar bears may continue to grow until they are 11 years old.[96] Lifespan may also vary between species. The brown bear can live an average of 25 years.[103]
+Bears of northern regions, including the American black bear and the grizzly bear, hibernate in the winter.[104][105] During hibernation, the bear's metabolism slows down, its body temperature decreases slightly, and its heart rate slows from a normal value of 55 to just 9 beats per minute.[106] Bears normally do not wake during their hibernation, and can go the entire period without eating, drinking, urinating, or defecating.[45] A fecal plug is formed in the colon, and is expelled when the bear wakes in the spring.[107] If they have stored enough body fat, their muscles remain in good condition, and their protein maintenance requirements are met from recycling waste urea.[45] Female bears give birth during the hibernation period, and are roused when doing so.[105]
+Bears do not have many predators. The most important are humans, and as they started cultivating crops, they increasingly came in conflict with the bears that raided them. Since the invention of firearms, people have been able to kill bears with greater ease.[108] Felids like the tiger may also prey on bears,[109][110] particularly cubs, which may also be threatened by canids.[14][95]
+Bears are parasitized by eighty species of parasites, including single-celled protozoans and gastro-intestinal worms, and nematodes and flukes in their heart, liver, lungs and bloodstream. Externally they have ticks, fleas and lice. A study of American black bears found seventeen species of endoparasite including the protozoan Sarcocystis, the parasitic worm Diphyllobothrium mansonoides, and the nematodes Dirofilaria immitis, Capillaria aerophila, Physaloptera sp., Strongyloides sp. and others. Of these, D. mansonoides and adult C. aerophila were causing pathological symptoms.[111] By contrast, polar bears have few parasites; many parasitic species need a secondary, usually terrestrial, host, and the polar bear's life style is such that few alternative hosts exist in their environment. The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii has been found in polar bears, and the nematode Trichinella nativa can cause a serious infection and decline in older polar bears.[112] Bears in North America are sometimes infected by a Morbillivirus similar to the canine distemper virus.[113] They are susceptible to infectious canine hepatitis (CAV-1), with free-living black bears dying rapidly of encephalitis and hepatitis.[114]
+In modern times, bears have come under pressure through encroachment on their habitats[115] and illegal trade in bear parts, including the Asian bile bear market, though hunting is now banned, largely replaced by farming.[116] The IUCN lists six bear species as vulnerable;[117] even the two least concern species, the brown bear and the American black bear,[117] are at risk of extirpation in certain areas. In general these two species inhabit remote areas with little interaction with humans, and the main non-natural causes of mortality are hunting, trapping, road-kill and depredation.[118]
+Laws have been passed in many areas of the world to protect bears from habitat destruction. Public perception of bears is often positive, as people identify with bears due to their omnivorous diets, their ability to stand on two legs, and their symbolic importance.[119] Support for bear protection is widespread, at least in more affluent societies.[120] The giant panda has become a worldwide symbol of conservation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, which are home to around 30% of the wild panda population, gained a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation in 2006.[121] Where bears raid crops or attack livestock, they may come into conflict with humans.[122][123] In poorer rural regions, attitudes may be more shaped by the dangers posed by bears, and the economic costs they cause to farmers and ranchers.[122]
+Several bear species are dangerous to humans, especially in areas where they have become used to people; elsewhere, they generally avoid humans. Injuries caused by bears are rare, but are widely reported.[124] Bears may attack humans in response to being startled, in defense of young or food, or even for predatory reasons.[125]
+Bears in captivity have for centuries been used for entertainment. They have been trained to dance,[126] and were kept for baiting in Europe at least since the 16th century. There were five bear-baiting gardens in Southwark, London at that time; archaeological remains of three of these have survived.[127] Across Europe, nomadic Romani bear handlers called Ursari lived by busking with their bears from the 12th century.[128]
+Bears have been hunted for sport, food, and folk medicine. Their meat is dark and stringy, like a tough cut of beef. In Cantonese cuisine, bear paws are considered a delicacy. Bear meat should be cooked thoroughly, as it can be infected with the parasite Trichinella spiralis.[129][130]
+The peoples of eastern Asia use bears' body parts and secretions (notably their gallbladders and bile) as part of traditional Chinese medicine. More than 12,000 bears are thought to be kept on farms in China, Vietnam, and South Korea for the production of bile. Trade in bear products is prohibited under CITES, but bear bile has been detected in shampoos, wine and herbal medicines sold in Canada, the United States and Australia.[131]
+There is evidence of prehistoric bear worship, though this is disputed by archaeologists.[132] It is possible that bear worship existed in early Chinese and Ainu cultures.[133] The prehistoric Finns,[134] Siberian peoples[135] and more recently Koreans considered the bear as the spirit of their forefathers.[136] In many Native American cultures, the bear is a symbol of rebirth because of its hibernation and re-emergence.[137] The image of the mother bear was prevalent throughout societies in North America and Eurasia, based on the female's devotion and protection of her cubs.[138] Japanese folklore features the Onikuma, a "demon bear" that walks upright.[139] The Ainu of northern Japan, a different people from the Japanese, saw the bear instead as sacred; Hirasawa Byozan painted a scene in documentary style of a bear sacrifice in an Ainu temple, complete with offerings to the dead animal's spirit.[140]
+In Korean mythology, a tiger and a bear prayed to Hwanung, the son of the Lord of Heaven, that they might become human. Upon hearing their prayers, Hwanung gave them 20 cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort, ordering them to eat only this sacred food and remain out of the sunlight for 100 days. The tiger gave up after about twenty days and left the cave. However, the bear persevered and was transformed into a woman. The bear and the tiger are said to represent two tribes that sought the favor of the heavenly prince.[141] The bear-woman (Ungnyeo; 웅녀/熊女) was grateful and made offerings to Hwanung.  However, she lacked a husband, and soon became sad and prayed beneath a  "divine birch" tree (Korean: 신단수; Hanja: 神檀樹; RR: shindansu) to be blessed with a child. Hwanung, moved by her prayers, took her for his wife and soon she gave birth to a son named Dangun Wanggeom – who was the legendary founder of Gojoseon, the first ever Korean kingdom.[142]
+Artio (Dea Artio in the Gallo-Roman religion) was a Celtic bear goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern, itself named for the bear. Her name is derived from the Celtic word for "bear", artos.[143] In ancient Greece, archaic cult of Artemis in bear form survived into Classical times at Brauron, where young Athenian girls passed an initiation right as arktai "she bears".[144] For Artemis and one of her nymphs as a she-bear, see the myth of Callisto.
+The constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the great and little bears, are named for their supposed resemblance to bears, from the time of Ptolemy.[b][9] The nearby star Arcturus means "guardian of the bear", as if it were watching the two constellations.[146] Ursa Major has been associated with a bear for as much as 13,000 years since Paleolithic times, in the widespread Cosmic Hunt myths. These are found on both sides of the Bering land bridge, which was lost to the sea some 11,000 years ago.[147]
+Pliny the Elder's Natural History (1st century AD) claims that "when first born, [bears] are shapeless masses of white flesh, a little larger than mice; their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape."[148] This belief was echoed by authors of bestiaries throughout the medieval period.[149]
+Bears are mentioned in the Bible; the Second Book of Kings relates the story of the prophet Elisha calling on them to eat the youths who taunted him.[150]  Legends of saints taming bears are common in the Alpine zone. In the arms of the bishopric of Freising, the bear is the dangerous totem animal tamed by St. Corbinian and made to carry his civilized baggage over the mountains. Bears similarly feature in the legends of St. Romedius, Saint Gall and Saint Columbanus. This recurrent motif was used by the Church as a symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism.[151] In the Norse settlements of northern England during the 10th century, a type of "hogback" grave cover of a long narrow block of stone, with a shaped apex like the roof beam of a long house, is carved with a muzzled, thus Christianized, bear clasping each gable end, as in the church at Brompton, North Yorkshire and across the British Isles.[152]
+Lāčplēsis, meaning "Bear-slayer", is a Latvian legendary hero who is said to have killed a bear by ripping its jaws apart with his bare hands. However, as revealed in the end of the long epic describing his life, Lāčplēsis' own mother had been a she-bear, and his superhuman strength resided in his bear ears. The modern Latvian military award Order of Lāčplēsis, called for the hero, is also known as The Order of the Bear-Slayer.[citation needed]
+In the Hindu epic poem The Ramayana, the sloth bear or Asian black bear Jambavan is depicted as the king of bears and helps the title hero Rama defeat the epic's antagonist Ravana and reunite with his queen Sita.[153][154]
+Bears are popular in children's stories, including Winnie the Pooh,[155] Paddington Bear,[156] Gentle Ben[157] and "The Brown Bear of Norway".[158] An early version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears",[159] was published as "The Three Bears" in 1837 by Robert Southey, many times retold, and illustrated in 1918 by Arthur Rackham.[160] The Hanna-Barbera character Yogi Bear has appeared in numerous comic books, animated television shows and films.[161][162] The Care Bears began as greeting cards in 1982, and were featured as toys, on clothing and in film.[163] Around the world, many children—and some adults—have teddy bears, stuffed toys in the form of bears, named after the American statesman Theodore Roosevelt when in 1902 he had refused to shoot an American black bear tied to a tree.[164]
+Bears, like other animals, may symbolize nations. In 1911, the British satirical magazine Punch published a cartoon about the Anglo-Russian Entente by Leonard Raven-Hill in which the British lion watches as the Russian bear sits on the tail of the Persian cat.[165] The Russian Bear has been a common national personification for Russia from the 16th century onward.[166] Smokey Bear has become a part of American culture since his introduction in 1944, with his message "Only you can prevent forest fires".[167] In the United Kingdom, the bear and staff feature on the heraldic arms of the county of Warwickshire.[168] Bears appear in the canting arms of two cities, Bern and Berlin.[169]
+The International Association for Bear Research & Management, also known as the International Bear Association, and the Bear Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission, a part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature focus on the natural history, management, and conservation of bears. Bear Trust International works for wild bears and other wildlife through four core program initiatives, namely Conservation Education, Wild Bear Research, Wild Bear Management, and Habitat Conservation.[170]
+Specialty organizations for each of the eight species of bears worldwide include:

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+†Ursus maritimus tyrannus(?)
+Ursus eogroenlandicus
+Ursus groenlandicus
+Ursus jenaensis
+Ursus labradorensis
+Ursus marinus
+Ursus polaris
+Ursus spitzbergensis
+Ursus ungavensis
+Thalarctos maritimus
+The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi).[5] A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb),[6] while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Polar bears are the largest land carnivores currently in existence, rivaled only by the Kodiak bear.[7] Although it is the sister species of the brown bear,[8] it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice and open water, and for hunting seals, which make up most of its diet.[9] Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means "maritime bear" and derives from this fact. Polar bears hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present. Because of their dependence on the sea ice, polar bears are classified as marine mammals.[10]
+Because of expected habitat loss caused by climate change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species. For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect.[11] For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of circumpolar peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. Historically, the polar bear has also been known as the "white bear".[12] It is sometimes referred to as the "nanook", based on the Inuit term nanuq.[13]
+Constantine John Phipps was the first to describe the polar bear as a distinct species in 1774.[3][2] He chose the scientific name Ursus maritimus, the Latin for 'maritime bear',[14] due to the animal's native habitat. The Inuit refer to the animal as nanook (transliterated as nanuq in the Inupiat language).[15][13] The Yupik also refer to the bear as nanuuk in Siberian Yupik.[16] The bear is umka in the Chukchi language. In Russian, it is usually called бе́лый медве́дь (bélyj medvédj, the white bear), though an older word still in use is ошку́й (Oshkúj, which comes from the Komi oski, "bear").[17] In Quebec, the polar bear is referred to as ours blanc ("white bear") or ours polaire ("polar bear").[18] In the Norwegian-administered Svalbard archipelago, the polar bear is referred to as Isbjørn ("ice bear").
+The polar bear was previously considered to be in its own genus, Thalarctos.[19] However, evidence of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, and of the recent evolutionary divergence of the two species, does not support the establishment of this separate genus, and the accepted scientific name is now therefore Ursus maritimus, as Phipps originally proposed.[2]
+The bear family, Ursidae, is thought to have split from other carnivorans about 38 million years ago.[20] The subfamily Ursinae originated approximately 4.2 million years ago.[21] The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland in 2004.[22] Fossils show that between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the polar bear's molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear.[23] Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of brown bears that became isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene[4] from the eastern part of Siberia (from Kamchatka and the Kolym Peninsula).[23]
+The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago.[22] Further, some clades of brown bear, as assessed by their mtDNA, were thought to be more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears,[24] meaning that the brown bear might not be considered a species under some species concepts, but paraphyletic.[25] The mtDNA of extinct Irish brown bears is particularly close to polar bears.[26] A comparison of the nuclear genome of polar bears with that of brown bears revealed a different pattern, the two forming genetically distinct clades that diverged approximately 603,000 years ago,[27] although the latest research is based on analysis of the complete genomes (rather than just the mitochondria or partial nuclear genomes) of polar and brown bears, and establishes the divergence of polar and brown bears at 400,000 years ago.[28]
+However, the two species have mated intermittently for all that time, most likely coming into contact with each other during warming periods, when polar bears were driven onto land and brown bears migrated northward. Most brown bears have about 2 percent genetic material from polar bears, but one population, the ABC Islands bears, has between 5 percent and 10 percent polar bear genes, indicating more frequent and recent mating.[29] Polar bears can breed with brown bears to produce fertile grizzly–polar bear hybrids;[4][30] rather than indicating that they have only recently diverged, the new evidence suggests more frequent mating has continued over a longer period of time, and thus the two bears remain genetically similar.[29] However, because neither species can survive long in the other's ecological niche, and because they have different morphology, metabolism, social and feeding behaviours, and other phenotypic characteristics, the two bears are generally classified as separate species.[31]
+When the polar bear was originally documented, two subspecies were identified: the American polar bear (Ursus maritimus maritimus) by Constantine J. Phipps in 1774, and the Siberian polar bear (Ursus maritimus marinus) by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776.[32] This distinction has since been invalidated.[33][34][35] One alleged fossil subspecies has been identified: Ursus maritimus tyrannus, which became extinct during the Pleistocene. U.m. tyrannus was significantly larger than the living subspecies.[4] However, recent reanalysis of the fossil suggests that it was actually a brown bear.[1]
+The polar bear is found in the Arctic Circle and adjacent land masses as far south as Newfoundland. Due to the absence of human development in its remote habitat, it retains more of its original range than any other extant carnivore.[36] While they are rare north of 88°, there is evidence that they range all the way across the Arctic, and as far south as James Bay in Canada. Their southernmost range is near the boundary between the subarctic and humid continental climate zones. They can occasionally drift widely with the sea ice, and there have been anecdotal sightings as far south as Berlevåg on the Norwegian mainland and the Kuril Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. It is difficult to estimate a global population of polar bears as much of the range has been poorly studied; however, biologists use a working estimate of about 20–25,000 or 22–31,000 polar bears worldwide.[2][37][38]
+There are 19 generally recognized, discrete subpopulations, though polar bears are thought to exist only in low densities in the area of the Arctic Basin.[37][39] The subpopulations display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, but DNA studies show that they are not reproductively isolated.[35] The 13 North American subpopulations range from the Beaufort Sea south to Hudson Bay and east to Baffin Bay in western Greenland and account for about 54% of the global population.[40]
+The range includes the territory of five nations: Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard), Russia, the United States (Alaska) and Canada. These five nations are the signatories of the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which mandates cooperation on research and conservation efforts throughout the polar bear's range.[41] Bears sometimes swim to Iceland from Greenland—about 600 sightings since the country's settlement in the 9th century AD, and five in the 21st century as of 2016[update]—and are always killed because of their danger, and the cost and difficulty of repatriation.[42]
+Modern methods of tracking polar bear populations have been implemented only since the mid-1980s, and are expensive to perform consistently over a large area. The most accurate counts require flying a helicopter in the Arctic climate to find polar bears, shooting a tranquilizer dart at the bear to sedate it, and then tagging the bear. In Nunavut, some Inuit have reported increases in bear sightings around human settlements in recent years, leading to a belief that populations are increasing. Scientists have responded by noting that hungry bears may be congregating around human settlements, leading to the illusion that populations are higher than they actually are.[43] The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission takes the position that "estimates of subpopulation size or sustainable harvest levels should not be made solely on the basis of traditional ecological knowledge without supporting scientific studies."[44]
+Of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations, one is in decline, two are increasing, seven are stable, and nine have insufficient data, as of 2017.[45]
+The polar bear is a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea.[46] However, it is the only living marine mammal with powerful, large limbs and feet that allow them to cover kilometres on foot and run on land.[47] Its preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic.[36][48] The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads (temporary stretches of open water in Arctic ice), to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet.[49] Freshwater is limited in these environments because it is either locked up in snow or saline. Polar bears are able to produce water through the metabolism of fats found in seal blubber,[50] and are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low.[51]
+Annual ice contains areas of water that appear and disappear throughout the year as the weather changes. Seals migrate in response to these changes, and polar bears must follow their prey. In Hudson Bay, James Bay, and some other areas, the ice melts completely each summer (an event often referred to as "ice-floe breakup"), forcing polar bears to go onto land and wait through the months until the next freeze-up.[48] In the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, polar bears retreat each summer to the ice further north that remains frozen year-round.
+The only other bear similar in size to the polar bear is the Kodiak bear, which is a subspecies of brown bear.[52] Adult male polar bears weigh 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb) and measure 2.4–3 metres (7 ft 10 in–9 ft 10 in) in total length.[53] Around the Beaufort Sea, however, mature males reportedly average 450 kg (992 lb).[54] Adult females are roughly half the size of males and normally weigh 150–250 kg (331–551 lb), measuring 1.8–2.4 metres (5 ft 11 in–7 ft 10 in) in length. Elsewhere, a slightly larger estimated average weight of 260 kg (573 lb) was claimed for adult females.[55] When pregnant, however, females can weigh as much as 500 kg (1,102 lb).[53] The polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic of mammals, surpassed only by the pinnipeds such as elephant seals.[56] The largest polar bear on record, reportedly weighing 1,002 kg (2,209 lb), was a male shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960. This specimen, when mounted, stood 3.39 m (11 ft 1 in) tall on its hindlegs. The shoulder height of an adult polar bear is 122 to 160 cm (4 ft 0 in to 5 ft 3 in).[57][58] While all bears are short-tailed, the polar bear's tail is relatively the shortest amongst living bears, ranging from 7 to 13 cm (2.8 to 5.1 in) in length.[59]
+Compared with its closest relative, the brown bear, the polar bear has a more elongated body build and a longer skull and nose.[31] As predicted by Allen's rule for a northerly animal, the legs are stocky and the ears and tail are small.[31] However, the feet are very large to distribute load when walking on snow or thin ice and to provide propulsion when swimming; they may measure 30 cm (12 in) across in an adult.[60] The pads of the paws are covered with small, soft papillae (dermal bumps), which provide traction on the ice. The polar bear's claws are short and stocky compared to those of the brown bear, perhaps to serve the former's need to grip heavy prey and ice.[31] The claws are deeply scooped on the underside to assist in digging in the ice of the natural habitat. Research of injury patterns in polar bear forelimbs found injuries to the right forelimb to be more frequent than those to the left, suggesting, perhaps, right-handedness.[61] Unlike the brown bear, polar bears in captivity are rarely overweight or particularly large, possibly as a reaction to the warm conditions of most zoos.
+The 42 teeth of a polar bear reflect its highly carnivorous diet. The cheek teeth are smaller and more jagged than in the brown bear, and the canines are larger and sharper. The dental formula is 3.1.4.23.1.4.3.[31]
+Polar bears are superbly insulated by up to 10 cm (4 in) of adipose tissue,[60] their hide and their fur; they overheat at temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F), and are nearly invisible under infrared photography.[62] Polar bear fur consists of a layer of dense underfur and an outer layer of guard hairs, which appear white to tan but are actually transparent.[60] Two genes that are known to influence melanin production, LYST and AIM1, are both mutated in polar bears, possibly leading to the absence on this pigment in their fur.[63] The guard hair is 5–15 cm (2–6 in) over most of the body.[64] Polar bears gradually moult from May to August,[65] but, unlike other Arctic mammals, they do not shed their coat for a darker shade to provide camouflage in summer conditions.[66] The hollow guard hairs of a polar bear coat were once thought to act as fiber-optic tubes to conduct light to its black skin, where it could be absorbed; however, this hypothesis was disproved by a study in 1998.[67]
+The white coat usually yellows with age. When kept in captivity in warm, humid conditions, the fur may turn a pale shade of green due to algae growing inside the guard hairs.[68] Males have significantly longer hairs on their forelegs, which increase in length until the bear reaches 14 years of age. The male's ornamental foreleg hair is thought to attract females, serving a similar function to the lion's mane.[69]
+The polar bear has an extremely well developed sense of smell, being able to detect seals nearly 1.6 km (1 mi) away and buried under 1 m (3 ft) of snow. Its hearing is about as acute as that of a human, and its vision is also good at long distances.[70]
+The polar bear is an excellent swimmer and often will swim for days.[71] One bear swam continuously for 9 days in the frigid Bering Sea for 700 km (400 mi) to reach ice far from land. She then travelled another 1,800 km (1,100 mi). During the swim, the bear lost 22% of her body mass and her yearling cub died.[72] With its body fat providing buoyancy, the bear swims in a dog paddle fashion using its large forepaws for propulsion. Polar bears can swim 10 km/h (6 mph). When walking, the polar bear tends to have a lumbering gait and maintains an average speed of around 5.6 km/h (3.5 mph).[73] When sprinting, they can reach up to 40 km/h (25 mph).[74]
+Unlike brown bears, polar bears are not territorial. Although stereotyped as being voraciously aggressive, they are normally cautious in confrontations, and often choose to escape rather than fight.[75] Satiated polar bears rarely attack humans unless severely provoked.[76][77] However, due to their lack of prior human interaction, hungry polar bears are extremely unpredictable, fearless towards people and are known to kill and sometimes eat humans.[78] Many attacks by brown bears are the result of surprising the animal, which is not the case with the polar bear. Polar bears are stealth hunters, and the victim is often unaware of the bear's presence until the attack is underway. Whereas brown bears often maul a person and then leave, polar bear attacks are more likely to be predatory and are almost always fatal.[79] However, due to the very small human population around the Arctic, such attacks are rare. Michio Hoshino, a Japanese wildlife photographer, was once pursued briefly by a hungry male polar bear in northern Alaska. According to Hoshino, the bear started running but Hoshino made it to his truck. The bear was able to reach the truck and tore one of the doors off the truck before Hoshino was able to drive off.[80]
+In general, adult polar bears live solitary lives. Yet, they have often been seen playing together for hours at a time and even sleeping in an embrace,[78] and polar bear zoologist Nikita Ovsianikov has described adult males as having "well-developed friendships."[75] Cubs are especially playful as well. Among young males in particular, play-fighting may be a means of practicing for serious competition during mating seasons later in life.[81] Polar bears are usually quiet but do communicate with various sounds and vocalizations. Females communicate with their young with moans and chuffs, and the distress calls of both cubs and subadults consists of bleats.[82] Cubs may hum while nursing.[83] When nervous, bears produce huffs, chuffs and snorts while hisses, growls and roars are signs of aggression.[82] Chemical communication can also be important: bears leave behind their scent in their tracks which allow individuals to keep track of one another in the vast Arctic wilderness.[84]
+In 1992, a photographer near Churchill took a now widely circulated set of photographs of a polar bear playing with a Canadian Eskimo Dog (Canis lupus familiaris) a tenth of its size.[85][86] The pair wrestled harmlessly together each afternoon for 10 days in a row for no apparent reason, although the bear may have been trying to demonstrate its friendliness in the hope of sharing the kennel's food. This kind of social interaction is uncommon; it is far more typical for polar bears to behave aggressively towards dogs.[85]
+The polar bear is the most carnivorous member of the bear family, and throughout most of its range, its diet primarily consists of ringed (Pusa hispida) and bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus).[88] The Arctic is home to millions of seals, which become prey when they surface in holes in the ice in order to breathe, or when they haul out on the ice to rest.[87][89] Polar bears hunt primarily at the interface between ice, water, and air; they only rarely catch seals on land or in open water.[90]
+The polar bear's most common hunting method is called still-hunting:[91] the bear uses its excellent sense of smell to locate a seal breathing hole, and crouches nearby in silence for a seal to appear. The bear may lie in wait for several hours. When the seal exhales, the bear smells its breath, reaches into the hole with a forepaw, and drags it out onto the ice. The polar bear kills the seal by biting its head to crush its skull. The polar bear also hunts by stalking seals resting on the ice: upon spotting a seal, it walks to within 90 m (100 yd), and then crouches. If the seal does not notice, the bear creeps to within 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) of the seal and then suddenly rushes forth to attack.[87] A third hunting method is to raid the birth lairs that female seals create in the snow.[91]
+A widespread legend tells that polar bears cover their black noses with their paws when hunting. This behaviour, if it happens, is rare – although the story exists in the oral history of northern peoples and in accounts by early Arctic explorers, there is no record of an eyewitness account of the behaviour in recent decades.[73]
+Mature bears tend to eat only the calorie-rich skin and blubber of the seal, which are highly digestible,[92] whereas younger bears consume the protein-rich red meat.[87] Studies have also photographed polar bears scaling near-vertical cliffs, to eat birds' chicks and eggs.[93] For subadult bears, which are independent of their mother but have not yet gained enough experience and body size to successfully hunt seals, scavenging the carcasses from other bears' kills is an important source of nutrition. Subadults may also be forced to accept a half-eaten carcass if they kill a seal but cannot defend it from larger polar bears. After feeding, polar bears wash themselves with water or snow.[73]
+Although polar bears are extraordinarily powerful, its primary prey species, the ringed seal, is much smaller than itself, and many of the seals hunted are pups rather than adults. Ringed seals are born weighing 5.4 kg (12 lb) and grown to an estimated average weight of only 60 kg (130 lb).[94][95] They also in places prey heavily upon the harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) or the harbour seal. The bearded seal, on the other hand, can be nearly the same size as the bear itself, averaging 270 kg (600 lb).[95] Adult male bearded seals, at 350 to 500 kg (770 to 1,100 lb) are too large for a female bear to overtake, and so are potential prey only for mature male bears.[96] Large males also occasionally attempt to hunt and kill even larger prey items.[97] It can kill an adult walrus (Odobenus rosmarus),[95][98] although this is rarely attempted. At up to 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) and a typical adult mass range of 600 to 1,500 kg (1,300 to 3,300 lb), a walrus can be more than twice the bear's weight,[99] has extremely thick skin and has up to 1-metre (3 ft)-long ivory tusks that can be used as formidable weapons. A polar bear may charge a group of walruses, with the goal of separating a young, infirm, or injured walrus from the pod. They will even attack adult walruses when their diving holes have frozen over or intercept them before they can get back to the diving hole in the ice. Yet, polar bears will very seldom attack full-grown adult walruses, with the largest male walrus probably invulnerable unless otherwise injured or incapacitated. Since an attack on a walrus tends to be an extremely protracted and exhausting venture, bears have been known to back down from the attack after making the initial injury to the walrus.[98] Polar bears have also been seen to prey on beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)[95] and narwhals (Monodon monoceros),[95] by swiping at them at breathing holes. The whales are of similar size to the walrus and nearly as difficult for the bear to subdue.[100][101] Most terrestrial animals in the Arctic can outrun the polar bear on land as polar bears overheat quickly, and most marine animals the bear encounters can outswim it. In some areas, the polar bear's diet is supplemented by walrus calves and by the carcasses of dead adult walruses or whales, whose blubber is readily devoured even when rotten.[78] Polar bears sometimes swim underwater to catch fish like the Arctic charr or the fourhorn sculpin.[89]
+With the exception of pregnant females, polar bears are active year-round, although they have a vestigial hibernation induction trigger in their blood. Unlike brown and black bears, polar bears are capable of fasting for up to several months during late summer and early fall, when they cannot hunt for seals because the sea is unfrozen.[102] When sea ice is unavailable during summer and early autumn, some populations live off fat reserves for months at a time,[62] as polar bears do not 'hibernate' any time of the year.[103]
+Being both curious animals and scavengers,[99][104] polar bears investigate and consume garbage where they come into contact with humans.[95][99] Polar bears may attempt to consume almost anything they can find, including hazardous substances such as styrofoam, plastic, car batteries, ethylene glycol, hydraulic fluid, and motor oil.[99][104] The dump in Churchill, Manitoba was closed in 2006 to protect bears, and waste is now recycled or transported to Thompson, Manitoba.[105][106]
+Although seal predation is the primary and an indispensable way of life for most polar bears, when alternatives are present they are quite flexible. Polar bears consume a wide variety of other wild foods, including muskox (Ovibos moschatus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), birds, eggs, rodents, crabs, other crustaceans and other polar bears. They may also eat plants, including berries, roots, and kelp;[107] however, none of these have been a significant part of their diet,[99] except for beachcast marine mammal carcasses. Given the change in climate, with ice breaking up in areas such as the Hudson Bay earlier than it used to, polar bears are exploiting food resources such as snow geese and eggs, and plants such as lyme grass in increased quantities.[108]
+When stalking land animals, such as muskox, reindeer,[107] and even willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), polar bears appear to make use of vegetative cover and wind direction to bring them as close to their prey as possible before attacking. Polar bears have been observed to hunt the small Svalbard reindeer (R. t. platyrhynchus), which weigh only 40 to 60 kg (90 to 130 lb) as adults, as well as the barren-ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus), which is about twice as heavy as that.[109][110] Adult muskox, which can weigh 450 kg (1,000 lb) or more, are a more formidable quarry.[111] Although ungulates are not typical prey, the killing of one during the summer months can greatly increase the odds of survival during that lean period. Like the brown bear, most ungulate prey of polar bears is likely to be young, sickly or injured specimens rather than healthy adults.[110] The polar bear's metabolism is specialized to require large amounts of fat from marine mammals, and it cannot derive sufficient caloric intake from terrestrial food.[112][113]
+In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, Canadian polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from.[107] Here, their food ecology shows their dietary flexibility. They still manage to consume some seals, but they are food-deprived in summer as only marine mammal carcasses are an important alternative without sea ice, especially carcasses of the beluga whale. These alternatives may reduce the rate of weight loss of bears when on land.[114] One scientist found that 71% of the Hudson Bay bears had fed on seaweed (marine algae) and that about half were feeding on birds[95] such as the dovekie and sea ducks, especially the long-tailed duck (53%) and common eider, by swimming underwater to catch them. They were also diving to feed on blue mussels and other underwater food sources like the green sea urchin. 24% had eaten moss recently, 19% had consumed grass, 34% had eaten black crowberry and about half had consumed willows.[107] This study illustrates the polar bear's dietary flexibility but it does not represent its life history elsewhere. Most polar bears elsewhere will never have access to these alternatives, except for the marine mammal carcasses that are important wherever they occur.
+In Svalbard, polar bears were observed to kill white-beaked dolphins during spring, when the dolphins were trapped in the sea ice. The bears then proceeded to cache the carcasses, which remained and were eaten during the ice-free summer and autumn.[115]
+Courtship and mating take place on the sea ice in April and May, when polar bears congregate in the best seal hunting areas.[116] A male may follow the tracks of a breeding female for 100 km (60 mi) or more, and after finding her engage in intense fighting with other males over mating rights, fights that often result in scars and broken teeth.[116] Polar bears have a generally polygynous mating system; recent genetic testing of mothers and cubs, however, has uncovered cases of litters in which cubs have different fathers.[117] Partners stay together and mate repeatedly for an entire week; the mating ritual induces ovulation in the female.[118]
+After mating, the fertilized egg remains in a suspended state until August or September. During these four months, the pregnant female eats prodigious amounts of food, gaining at least 200 kg (440 lb) and often more than doubling her body weight.[116]
+When the ice floes are at their minimum in the fall, ending the possibility of hunting, each pregnant female digs a maternity den consisting of a narrow entrance tunnel leading to one to three chambers. Most maternity dens are in snowdrifts, but may also be made underground in permafrost if it is not sufficiently cold yet for snow.[116] In most subpopulations, maternity dens are situated on land a few kilometres from the coast, and the individuals in a subpopulation tend to reuse the same denning areas each year.[36] The polar bears that do not den on land make their dens on the sea ice. In the den, she enters a dormant state similar to hibernation. This hibernation-like state does not consist of continuous sleeping; however, the bear's heart rate slows from 46 to 27 beats per minute.[119] Her body temperature does not decrease during this period as it would for a typical mammal in hibernation.[62][120]
+Between November and February, cubs are born blind, covered with a light down fur, and weighing less than 0.9 kg (2.0 lb),[118] but in captivity they might be delivered in the earlier months. The earliest recorded birth of polar bears in captivity was on 11 October 2011 in the Toronto Zoo.[121] On average, each litter has two cubs. The family remains in the den until mid-February to mid-April, with the mother maintaining her fast while nursing her cubs on a fat-rich milk. By the time the mother breaks open the entrance to the den, her cubs weigh about 10 to 15 kilograms (22 to 33 lb). For about 12 to 15 days, the family spends time outside the den while remaining in its vicinity, the mother grazing on vegetation while the cubs become used to walking and playing. Then they begin the long walk from the denning area to the sea ice, where the mother can once again catch seals. Depending on the timing of ice-floe breakup in the fall, she may have fasted for up to eight months.[116] During this time, cubs playfully imitate the mother's hunting methods in preparation for later life.[122]
+Female polar bears have been known to adopt other cubs. Multiple cases of adoption of wild cubs have been confirmed by genetic testing.[123] Adult bears of either gender occasionally kill and eat polar bear cubs.[124][125] As of 2006, in Alaska, 42% of cubs were reaching 12 months of age, down from 65% in 1991.[126] In most areas, cubs are weaned at two and a half years of age, when the mother chases them away or abandons them. The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation is unusual in that its female polar bears sometimes wean their cubs at only one and a half years.[116] This was the case for 40% of cubs there in the early 1980s; however by the 1990s, fewer than 20% of cubs were weaned this young.[127] After the mother leaves, sibling cubs sometimes travel and share food together for weeks or months.[78]
+Females begin to breed at the age of four years in most areas, and five years in the area of the Beaufort Sea. Males usually reach sexual maturity at six years; however, as competition for females is fierce, many do not breed until the age of eight or ten.[116] A study in Hudson Bay indicated that both the reproductive success and the maternal weight of females peaked in their mid-teens.Maternal success appeared to decline after this point, possibly because of an age-related impairment in the ability to store the fat necessary to rear cubs.[128]
+Polar bears appear to be less affected by infectious diseases and parasites than most terrestrial mammals.[129] Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism,[130] although infections are usually not fatal. Only one case of a polar bear with rabies has been documented, even though polar bears frequently interact with Arctic foxes, which often carry rabies.[129] Bacterial leptospirosis and Morbillivirus have been recorded. Polar bears sometimes have problems with various skin diseases that may be caused by mites or other parasites.
+Polar bears rarely live beyond 25 years.[131] The oldest wild bears on record died at age 32, whereas the oldest captive was a female who died in 1991, age 43.[132] The causes of death in wild adult polar bears are poorly understood, as carcasses are rarely found in the species's frigid habitat. In the wild, old polar bears eventually become too weak to catch food, and gradually starve to death. Polar bears injured in fights or accidents may either die from their injuries, or become unable to hunt effectively, leading to starvation.[129]
+The polar bear is the apex predator within its range, and is a keystone species for the Arctic.[133] Several animal species, particularly Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) and glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus), routinely scavenge polar bear kills.[73]
+The relationship between ringed seals and polar bears is so close that the abundance of ringed seals in some areas appears to regulate the density of polar bears, while polar bear predation in turn regulates density and reproductive success of ringed seals.[90] The evolutionary pressure of polar bear predation on seals probably accounts for some significant differences between Arctic and Antarctic seals. Compared to the Antarctic, where there is no major surface predator, Arctic seals use more breathing holes per individual, appear more restless when hauled out on the ice, and rarely defecate on the ice. The baby fur of most Arctic seal species is white, presumably to provide camouflage from predators, whereas Antarctic seals all have dark fur at birth.[73]
+Brown bears tend to dominate polar bears in disputes over carcasses,[134] and dead polar bear cubs have been found in brown bear dens.[135] Wolves are rarely encountered by polar bears, though there are two records of Arctic wolf (Canis lupus arctos) packs killing polar bear cubs.[136] Adult polar bears are occasionally vulnerable to predation by orcas (Orcinus orca) while swimming, but they are rarely reported as taken and bears are likely to avoid entering the water if possible if they detect an orca pod in the area. The melting sea ice in the Arctic may be causing an increase of orcas in the Arctic sea, which may increase the risk of predation on polar bears but also may benefit the bears by providing more whale carcasses that they can scavenge.[137][138] The remains of polar bears have found in the stomachs of large Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus), although it certainly cannot be ruled out that the bears were merely scavenged by this slow-moving, unusual shark.[139][140] A rather unlikely killer of a grown polar bear has reportedly included a wolverine (Gulo gulo), anecedotely reported to have suffocated a bear in a zoo with a bite to the throat during a conflict. This report may well be dubious, however.[141] Polar bears are sometimes the host of arctic mites such as Alaskozetes antarcticus.[73]
+Researchers tracked 52 sows in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska with GPS system collars; no boars were involved in the study due to males' necks being too thick for the GPS-equipped collars. Fifty long-distance swims were recorded; the longest at 354 kilometres (220 mi), with an average of 155 kilometres (96 mi). The length of these swims ranged from most of a day to ten days. Ten of the sows had a cub swim with them and after a year, six cubs survived. The study did not determine if the others lost their cubs before, during, or some time after their long swims. Researchers do not know whether or not this is a new behaviour; before polar ice shrinkage, they opined that there was probably neither the need nor opportunity to swim such long distances.[142]
+The polar bear may swim underwater for up to three minutes to approach seals on shore or on ice floes.[143][144]
+Polar bears have long provided important raw materials for Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, Yupik, Chukchi, Nenets, Russian Pomors and others. Hunters commonly used teams of dogs to distract the bear, allowing the hunter to spear the bear or shoot it with arrows at closer range.[145] Almost all parts of captured animals had a use.[146] The fur was used in particular to make trousers and, by the Nenets, to make galoshes-like outer footwear called tobok; the meat is edible, despite some risk of trichinosis; the fat was used in food and as a fuel for lighting homes, alongside seal and whale blubber; sinews were used as thread for sewing clothes; the gallbladder and sometimes heart were dried and powdered for medicinal purposes; the large canine teeth were highly valued as talismans.[147] Only the liver was not used, as its high concentration of vitamin A is poisonous. As a carnivore, which feeds largely upon fish-eating carnivores, the polar bear ingests large amounts of vitamin A that is stored in their livers. The resulting high concentrations cause Hypervitaminosis A,[148] Hunters make sure to either toss the liver into the sea or bury it in order to spare their dogs from potential poisoning.[147] Traditional subsistence hunting was on a small enough scale to not significantly affect polar bear populations, mostly because of the sparseness of the human population in polar bear habitat.[149]
+In Russia, polar bear furs were already being commercially traded in the 14th century, though it was of low value compared to Arctic fox or even reindeer fur.[147] The growth of the human population in the Eurasian Arctic in the 16th and 17th century, together with the advent of firearms and increasing trade, dramatically increased the harvest of polar bears.[62][150] However, since polar bear fur has always played a marginal commercial role, data on the historical harvest is fragmentary. It is known, for example, that already in the winter of 1784/1785 Russian Pomors on Spitsbergen harvested 150 polar bears in Magdalenefjorden. In the early 20th century, Norwegian hunters were harvesting 300 bears per year at the same location. Estimates of total historical harvest suggest that from the beginning of the 18th century, roughly 400 to 500 animals were being harvested annually in northern Eurasia, reaching a peak of 1,300 to 1,500 animals in the early 20th century, and falling off as the numbers began dwindling.[147]
+In the first half of the 20th century, mechanized and overpoweringly efficient methods of hunting and trapping came into use in North America as well. Polar bears were chased from snowmobiles, icebreakers, and airplanes, the latter practice described in a 1965 New York Times editorial as being "about as sporting as machine gunning a cow."[151] Norwegians used "self-killing guns", comprising a loaded rifle in a baited box that was placed at the level of a bear's head, and which fired when the string attached to the bait was pulled.[152] The numbers taken grew rapidly in the 1960s, peaking around 1968 with a global total of 1,250 bears that year.[153]
+Concerns over the future survival of the species led to the development of national regulations on polar bear hunting, beginning in the mid-1950s. The Soviet Union banned all hunting in 1956. Canada began imposing hunting quotas in 1968. Norway passed a series of increasingly strict regulations from 1965 to 1973, and has completely banned hunting since then. The United States began regulating hunting in 1971 and adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. In 1973, the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by all five nations whose territory is inhabited by polar bears: Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Member countries agreed to place restrictions on recreational and commercial hunting, ban hunting from aircraft and icebreakers, and conduct further research.[154] The treaty allows hunting "by local people using traditional methods". Norway is the only country of the five in which all harvest of polar bears is banned. The agreement was a rare case of international cooperation during the Cold War. Biologist Ian Stirling commented, "For many years, the conservation of polar bears was the only subject in the entire Arctic that nations from both sides of the Iron Curtain could agree upon sufficiently to sign an agreement. Such was the intensity of human fascination with this magnificent predator, the only marine bear."[155]
+Agreements have been made between countries to co-manage their shared polar bear subpopulations. After several years of negotiations, Russia and the United States signed an agreement in October 2000 to jointly set quotas for indigenous subsistence hunting in Alaska and Chukotka.[156] The treaty was ratified in October 2007.[157] In September 2015, the polar bear range states agreed upon a "circumpolar action plan" describing their conservation strategy for polar bears.[158]
+Although the United States government has proposed that polar bears be transferred to Appendix I of CITES, which would ban all international trade in polar bear parts, polar bears currently remain listed under Appendix II.[159] This decision was approved of by members of the IUCN and TRAFFIC, who determined that such an uplisting was unlikely to confer a conservation benefit.[160]
+Polar bears were designated "Not at Risk" in April 1986 and uplisted to "Special Concern" in April 1991. This status was re-evaluated and confirmed in April 1999, November 2002, and April 2008. Polar bears continue to be listed as a species of special concern in Canada because of their sensitivity to overharvest and because of an expected range contraction caused by loss of Arctic sea ice.[161]
+More than 600 bears are killed per year by humans across Canada,[45] a rate calculated by scientists to be unsustainable for some areas, notably Baffin Bay.[37] Canada has allowed sport hunters accompanied by local guides and dog-sled teams since 1970,[162] but the practice was not common until the 1980s.[163] The guiding of sport hunters provides meaningful employment and an important source of income for northern communities in which economic opportunities are few.[43] Sport hunting can bring CDN$20,000 to $35,000 per bear into northern communities, which until recently has been mostly from American hunters.[164]
+The territory of Nunavut accounts for the location 80% of annual kills in Canada. In 2005, the government of Nunavut increased the quota from 400 to 518 bears,[164] despite protests from the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.[165] In two areas where harvest levels have been increased based on increased sightings, science-based studies have indicated declining populations, and a third area is considered data-deficient.[166] While most of that quota is hunted by the indigenous Inuit people, a growing share is sold to recreational hunters. (0.8% in the 1970s, 7.1% in the 1980s, and 14.6% in the 1990s)[163] Nunavut polar bear biologist, Mitchell Taylor, who was formerly responsible for polar bear conservation in the territory, has insisted that bear numbers are being sustained under current hunting limits.[167] In 2010, the 2005 increase was partially reversed. Government of Nunavut officials announced that the polar bear quota for the Baffin Bay region would be gradually reduced from 105 per year to 65 by the year 2013.[168] The Government of the Northwest Territories maintain their own quota of 72 to 103 bears within the Inuvialuit communities of which some are set aside for sports hunters.[citation needed] Environment Canada also banned the export from Canada of fur, claws, skulls and other products from polar bears harvested in Baffin Bay as of 1 January 2010.[168]
+Because of the way polar bear hunting quotas are managed in Canada, attempts to discourage sport hunting would actually increase the number of bears killed in the short term. Canada allocates a certain number of permits each year to sport and subsistence hunting, and those that are not used for sport hunting are re-allocated to indigenous subsistence hunting. Whereas northern communities kill all the polar bears they are permitted to take each year, only half of sport hunters with permits actually manage to kill a polar bear. If a sport hunter does not kill a polar bear before his or her permit expires, the permit cannot be transferred to another hunter.[43]
+In August 2011, Environment Canada published a national polar bear conservation strategy.[169]
+In Greenland, hunting restrictions were first introduced in 1994 and expanded by executive order in 2005.[39] Until 2005 Greenland placed no limit on hunting by indigenous people. However, in 2006 it imposed a limit of 150, while also allowed recreational hunting for the first time.[170] Other provisions included year-round protection of cubs and mothers, restrictions on weapons used and various administrative requirements to catalogue kills.[39]
+Polar bears were hunted heavily in Svalbard, Norway throughout the 19th century and to as recently as 1973, when the conservation treaty was signed. 900 bears a year were harvested in the 1920s and after World War II, there were as many as 400–500 harvested annually. Some regulations of hunting did exist. In 1927, poisoning was outlawed while in 1939, certain denning sights were declared off limits. The killing of females and cubs was made illegal in 1965. Killing of polar bears decreased somewhat 25–30 years before the treaty. Despite this, the polar bear population continued to decline and by 1973, only around 1000 bears were left in Svalbard. Only with the passage of the treaty did they begin to recover.[171]
+The Soviet Union banned the harvest of polar bears in 1956; however, poaching continued and is estimated to pose a serious threat to the polar bear population.[39] In recent years, polar bears have approached coastal villages in Chukotka more frequently due to the shrinking of the sea ice, endangering humans and raising concerns that illegal hunting would become even more prevalent. In 2007, the Russian government made subsistence hunting legal for indigenous Chukotkan peoples only, a move supported by Russia's most prominent bear researchers and the World Wide Fund for Nature as a means to curb poaching.[172]
+Polar bears are currently listed as "Rare", of "Uncertain Status", or "Rehabilitated and rehabilitating" in the Red Data Book of Russia, depending on population.[173] In 2010, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment published a strategy for polar bear conservation in Russia.[174]
+The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 afforded polar bears some protection in the United States. It banned hunting (except by indigenous subsistence hunters), banned importing of polar bear parts (except polar bear pelts taken legally in Canada), and banned the harassment of polar bears. On 15 May 2008, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, citing the melting of Arctic sea ice as the primary threat to the polar bear.[175] It banned all importing of polar bear trophies. Importing products made from polar bears had been prohibited from 1972 to 1994 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and restricted between 1994 and 2008. Under those restrictions, permits from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service were required to import sport-hunted polar bear trophies taken in hunting expeditions in Canada. The permit process required that the bear be taken from an area with quotas based on sound management principles.[176] Since 1994, hundreds of sport-hunted polar bear trophies have been imported into the U.S.[177] In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a draft conservation management plan for polar bears to improve their status under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.[178]
+Polar bear population sizes and trends are difficult to estimate accurately because they occupy remote home ranges and exist at low population densities. Polar bear fieldwork can also be hazardous to researchers.[179] As of 2015, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that the global population of polar bears is 22,000 to 31,000, and the current population trend is unknown. Nevertheless, polar bears are listed as "Vulnerable" under criterion A3c, which indicates an expected population decrease of ≥30% over the next three generations (~34.5 years) due to "decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat". Risks to the polar bear include climate change, pollution in the form of toxic contaminants, conflicts with shipping, oil and gas exploration and development, and human-bear interactions including harvesting and possible stresses from recreational polar-bear watching.[2]
+According to the World Wildlife Fund, the polar bear is important as an indicator of Arctic ecosystem health. Polar bears are studied to gain understanding of what is happening throughout the Arctic, because at-risk polar bears are often a sign of something wrong with the Arctic marine ecosystem.[180]
+The International Union for Conservation of Nature, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, United States Geological Survey and many leading polar bear biologists have expressed grave concerns about the impact of climate change, including the belief that the current warming trend imperils the survival of the polar bear.[36][181][182][183][184][185]
+The key danger posed by climate change is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals from a platform of sea ice. Rising temperatures cause the sea ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall.[127] Reduction in sea-ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning.[186] Thinner sea ice tends to deform more easily, which appears to make it more difficult for polar bears to access seals.[90] Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears, in addition to poorer body condition in bears of all ages.[36]
+In addition to creating nutritional stress, a warming climate is expected to affect various other aspects of polar bear life: Changes in sea ice affect the ability of pregnant females to build suitable maternity dens.[30] As the distance increases between the pack ice and the coast, females must swim longer distances to reach favoured denning areas on land. Thawing of permafrost would affect the bears who traditionally den underground, and warm winters could result in den roofs collapsing or having reduced insulative value. For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal-hunting areas in the spring.[36] Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.[90]
+Problematic interactions between polar bears and humans, such as foraging by bears in garbage dumps, have historically been more prevalent in years when ice-floe breakup occurred early and local polar bears were relatively thin. Increased human-bear interactions, including fatal attacks on humans, are likely to increase as the sea ice shrinks and hungry bears try to find food on land.[181]
+The effects of climate change are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear's range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed.[185] The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant. The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.[166]
+Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season. The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004.[166] Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%,[187] although the population was listed as "stable" as of 2017.[45] As the climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two-thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050.[188]
+In Alaska, the effects of sea ice shrinkage have contributed to higher mortality rates in polar bear cubs, and have led to changes in the denning locations of pregnant females.[126] The proportion of maternity dens on sea ice has changed from 62% between the years 1985 through 1994, to 37% over the years 1998 through 2004. Thus, now the Alaskan population more resembles the world population in that it is more likely to den on land.[189] In recent years, polar bears in the Arctic have undertaken longer than usual swims to find prey, possibly resulting in four recorded drownings in the unusually large ice pack regression of 2005.[186]
+A new development is that polar bears have begun ranging to new territory. While not unheard of but still uncommon, polar bears have been sighted increasingly in larger numbers ashore, staying on the mainland for longer periods of time during the summer months, particularly in North Canada, traveling farther inland.[190] This may cause an increased reliance on terrestrial diets, such as goose eggs, waterfowl and caribou,[191] as well as increased human–bear conflict.[190]
+Polar bears accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and chlorinated pesticides. Due to their position at the top of the ecological pyramid, with a diet heavy in blubber in which halocarbons concentrate, their bodies are among the most contaminated of Arctic mammals.[192] Halocarbons (also known as organohalogens) are known to be toxic to other animals, because they mimic hormone chemistry, and biomarkers such as immunoglobulin G and retinol suggest similar effects on polar bears. PCBs have received the most study, and they have been associated with birth defects and immune system deficiency.[193]
+Many chemicals, such as PCBs and DDT, have been internationally banned due to the recognition of their harm on the environment. Their concentrations in polar bear tissues continued to rise for decades after being banned, as these chemicals spread through the food chain. Since then, the trend seems to have abated, with tissue concentrations of PCBs declining between studies performed from 1989 to 1993 and studies performed from 1996 to 2002. During the same time periods, DDT was found to be notably lower in the Western Hudson Bay population only.[194]
+Oil and gas development in polar bear habitat can affect the bears in a variety of ways. An oil spill in the Arctic would most likely concentrate in the areas where polar bears and their prey are also concentrated, such as sea ice leads.[2] Because polar bears rely partly on their fur for insulation and soiling of the fur by oil reduces its insulative value, oil spills put bears at risk of dying from hypothermia. Polar bears exposed to oil spill conditions have been observed to lick the oil from their fur, leading to fatal kidney failure.[102] Maternity dens, used by pregnant females and by females with infants, can also be disturbed by nearby oil exploration and development. Disturbance of these sensitive sites may trigger the mother to abandon her den prematurely, or abandon her litter altogether.[2]
+Steven Amstrup and other U.S. Geological Survey scientists have predicted two-thirds of the world's polar bears may disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by climate change,[90][188] though the validity of this study has been debated.[195][196] The bears could disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they could disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic Archipelago.[90] However, in the short term, some polar bear populations in historically colder regions of the Arctic may temporarily benefit from a milder climate, as multiyear ice that is too thick for seals to create breathing holes is replaced by thinner annual ice.[197]
+Polar bears diverged from brown bears 400,000–600,000 years ago and have survived past periods of climate fluctuation. It has been claimed that polar bears will be able to adapt to terrestrial food sources as the sea ice they use to hunt seals disappears.[198] However, most polar bear biologists think that polar bears will be unable to completely offset the loss of calorie-rich seal blubber with terrestrial foods, and that they will be outcompeted by brown bears in this terrestrial niche, ultimately leading to a population decline.[199]
+Warnings about the future of the polar bear are often contrasted with the fact that worldwide population estimates have increased over the past 50 years and are relatively stable today.[200][201] Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000 to 10,000 in the early 1970s;[202] other estimates were 20,000 to 40,000 during the 1980s.[48][62] Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000[39] or 22,000 and 31,000.[2]
+There are several reasons for the apparent discordance between past and projected population trends: estimates from the 1950s and 1960s were based on stories from explorers and hunters rather than on scientific surveys.[203][204][205][206] Second, controls of harvesting were introduced that allowed this previously overhunted species to recover. Third, the recent effects of climate change have affected sea ice abundance in different areas to varying degrees.[203]
+Debate over the listing of the polar bear under endangered species legislation has put conservation groups and Canada's Inuit at opposing positions;[43] the Nunavut government and many northern residents have condemned the U.S. initiative to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.[207][208] Many Inuit believe the polar bear population is increasing, and restrictions on commercial sport-hunting are likely to lead to a loss of income to their communities.[43][209]
+For the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, polar bears have long played an important cultural and material role.[146][147] Polar bear remains have been found at hunting sites dating to 2,500 to 3,000 years ago[149] and 1,500-year-old cave paintings of polar bears have been found in the Chukchi Peninsula. Indeed, it has been suggested that Arctic peoples' skills in seal hunting and igloo construction has been in part acquired from the polar bears themselves.[147]
+The Inuit and Alaska Natives have many folk tales featuring the bears including legends in which bears are humans when inside their own houses and put on bear hides when going outside, and stories of how the constellation that is said to resemble a great bear surrounded by dogs came into being. These legends reveal a deep respect for the polar bear, which is portrayed as both spiritually powerful and closely akin to humans. The human-like posture of bears when standing and sitting, and the resemblance of a skinned bear carcass to the human body, have probably contributed to the belief that the spirits of humans and bears were interchangeable.[145]
+Among the Chukchi and Yupik of eastern Siberia, there was a longstanding shamanistic ritual of "thanksgiving" to the hunted polar bear. After killing the animal, its head and skin were removed and cleaned and brought into the home, and a feast was held in the hunting camp in its honor. To appease the spirit of the bear, traditional song and drum music was played, and the skull was ceremonially fed and offered a pipe.[210] Only once the spirit was appeased was the skull be separated from the skin, taken beyond the bounds of the homestead, and placed in the ground, facing north.[147]
+The Nenets of north-central Siberia placed particular value on the talismanic power of the prominent canine teeth. These were traded in the villages of the lower Yenisei and Khatanga rivers to the forest-dwelling peoples further south, who would sew them into their hats as protection against brown bears. It was believed that the "little nephew" (the brown bear) would not dare to attack a man wearing the tooth of its powerful "big uncle", the polar bear. The skulls of killed polar bears were buried at sacred sites, and altars, called sedyangi, were constructed out of the skulls. Several such sites have been preserved on the Yamal Peninsula.[147]
+Their distinctive appearance and their association with the Arctic have made polar bears popular icons, especially in those areas where they are native. The Canadian two-dollar coin carries an image of a lone polar bear on its reverse side, while a special millennium edition featured three.[211] Vehicle licence plates in the Northwest Territories in Canada are in the shape of a polar bear, as was the case in Nunavut until 2012; these now display polar bear artwork instead.[212] The polar bear is the mascot of Bowdoin College, Maine; the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary.[213][214][215] The Eisbären Berlin hockey team uses a roaring polar bear as their logo, and the Charlotte, North Carolina hockey team the Charlotte Checkers uses a polar bear named Chubby Checker as their mascot. [216]
+Coca-Cola has used images of the polar bear in its advertising,[217] and Polar Beverages, Nelvana, Bundaberg Rum, Klondike bars, and Fox's Glacier Mints all feature polar bears in their logos.
+Polar bears are popular in fiction, particularly in books for children or teenagers. For example, The Polar Bear Son is adapted from a traditional Inuit tale.[218] The animated television series Noah's Island features a polar bear named Noah as the protagonist. Polar bears feature prominently in East (North Child in the UK) by Edith Pattou,[219] The Bear by Raymond Briggs (adapted into an animated short in 1998),[220] and Chris d'Lacey's The Fire Within series.[221] The panserbjørne of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are sapient, dignified polar bears who exhibit anthropomorphic qualities, and feature prominently in the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass.[222] The television series Lost features polar bears living on the tropical island setting.[223]

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+†Ursus maritimus tyrannus(?)
+Ursus eogroenlandicus
+Ursus groenlandicus
+Ursus jenaensis
+Ursus labradorensis
+Ursus marinus
+Ursus polaris
+Ursus spitzbergensis
+Ursus ungavensis
+Thalarctos maritimus
+The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi).[5] A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb),[6] while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Polar bears are the largest land carnivores currently in existence, rivaled only by the Kodiak bear.[7] Although it is the sister species of the brown bear,[8] it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice and open water, and for hunting seals, which make up most of its diet.[9] Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means "maritime bear" and derives from this fact. Polar bears hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present. Because of their dependence on the sea ice, polar bears are classified as marine mammals.[10]
+Because of expected habitat loss caused by climate change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species. For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect.[11] For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of circumpolar peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. Historically, the polar bear has also been known as the "white bear".[12] It is sometimes referred to as the "nanook", based on the Inuit term nanuq.[13]
+Constantine John Phipps was the first to describe the polar bear as a distinct species in 1774.[3][2] He chose the scientific name Ursus maritimus, the Latin for 'maritime bear',[14] due to the animal's native habitat. The Inuit refer to the animal as nanook (transliterated as nanuq in the Inupiat language).[15][13] The Yupik also refer to the bear as nanuuk in Siberian Yupik.[16] The bear is umka in the Chukchi language. In Russian, it is usually called бе́лый медве́дь (bélyj medvédj, the white bear), though an older word still in use is ошку́й (Oshkúj, which comes from the Komi oski, "bear").[17] In Quebec, the polar bear is referred to as ours blanc ("white bear") or ours polaire ("polar bear").[18] In the Norwegian-administered Svalbard archipelago, the polar bear is referred to as Isbjørn ("ice bear").
+The polar bear was previously considered to be in its own genus, Thalarctos.[19] However, evidence of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, and of the recent evolutionary divergence of the two species, does not support the establishment of this separate genus, and the accepted scientific name is now therefore Ursus maritimus, as Phipps originally proposed.[2]
+The bear family, Ursidae, is thought to have split from other carnivorans about 38 million years ago.[20] The subfamily Ursinae originated approximately 4.2 million years ago.[21] The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland in 2004.[22] Fossils show that between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the polar bear's molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear.[23] Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of brown bears that became isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene[4] from the eastern part of Siberia (from Kamchatka and the Kolym Peninsula).[23]
+The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago.[22] Further, some clades of brown bear, as assessed by their mtDNA, were thought to be more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears,[24] meaning that the brown bear might not be considered a species under some species concepts, but paraphyletic.[25] The mtDNA of extinct Irish brown bears is particularly close to polar bears.[26] A comparison of the nuclear genome of polar bears with that of brown bears revealed a different pattern, the two forming genetically distinct clades that diverged approximately 603,000 years ago,[27] although the latest research is based on analysis of the complete genomes (rather than just the mitochondria or partial nuclear genomes) of polar and brown bears, and establishes the divergence of polar and brown bears at 400,000 years ago.[28]
+However, the two species have mated intermittently for all that time, most likely coming into contact with each other during warming periods, when polar bears were driven onto land and brown bears migrated northward. Most brown bears have about 2 percent genetic material from polar bears, but one population, the ABC Islands bears, has between 5 percent and 10 percent polar bear genes, indicating more frequent and recent mating.[29] Polar bears can breed with brown bears to produce fertile grizzly–polar bear hybrids;[4][30] rather than indicating that they have only recently diverged, the new evidence suggests more frequent mating has continued over a longer period of time, and thus the two bears remain genetically similar.[29] However, because neither species can survive long in the other's ecological niche, and because they have different morphology, metabolism, social and feeding behaviours, and other phenotypic characteristics, the two bears are generally classified as separate species.[31]
+When the polar bear was originally documented, two subspecies were identified: the American polar bear (Ursus maritimus maritimus) by Constantine J. Phipps in 1774, and the Siberian polar bear (Ursus maritimus marinus) by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776.[32] This distinction has since been invalidated.[33][34][35] One alleged fossil subspecies has been identified: Ursus maritimus tyrannus, which became extinct during the Pleistocene. U.m. tyrannus was significantly larger than the living subspecies.[4] However, recent reanalysis of the fossil suggests that it was actually a brown bear.[1]
+The polar bear is found in the Arctic Circle and adjacent land masses as far south as Newfoundland. Due to the absence of human development in its remote habitat, it retains more of its original range than any other extant carnivore.[36] While they are rare north of 88°, there is evidence that they range all the way across the Arctic, and as far south as James Bay in Canada. Their southernmost range is near the boundary between the subarctic and humid continental climate zones. They can occasionally drift widely with the sea ice, and there have been anecdotal sightings as far south as Berlevåg on the Norwegian mainland and the Kuril Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. It is difficult to estimate a global population of polar bears as much of the range has been poorly studied; however, biologists use a working estimate of about 20–25,000 or 22–31,000 polar bears worldwide.[2][37][38]
+There are 19 generally recognized, discrete subpopulations, though polar bears are thought to exist only in low densities in the area of the Arctic Basin.[37][39] The subpopulations display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, but DNA studies show that they are not reproductively isolated.[35] The 13 North American subpopulations range from the Beaufort Sea south to Hudson Bay and east to Baffin Bay in western Greenland and account for about 54% of the global population.[40]
+The range includes the territory of five nations: Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard), Russia, the United States (Alaska) and Canada. These five nations are the signatories of the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which mandates cooperation on research and conservation efforts throughout the polar bear's range.[41] Bears sometimes swim to Iceland from Greenland—about 600 sightings since the country's settlement in the 9th century AD, and five in the 21st century as of 2016[update]—and are always killed because of their danger, and the cost and difficulty of repatriation.[42]
+Modern methods of tracking polar bear populations have been implemented only since the mid-1980s, and are expensive to perform consistently over a large area. The most accurate counts require flying a helicopter in the Arctic climate to find polar bears, shooting a tranquilizer dart at the bear to sedate it, and then tagging the bear. In Nunavut, some Inuit have reported increases in bear sightings around human settlements in recent years, leading to a belief that populations are increasing. Scientists have responded by noting that hungry bears may be congregating around human settlements, leading to the illusion that populations are higher than they actually are.[43] The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission takes the position that "estimates of subpopulation size or sustainable harvest levels should not be made solely on the basis of traditional ecological knowledge without supporting scientific studies."[44]
+Of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations, one is in decline, two are increasing, seven are stable, and nine have insufficient data, as of 2017.[45]
+The polar bear is a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea.[46] However, it is the only living marine mammal with powerful, large limbs and feet that allow them to cover kilometres on foot and run on land.[47] Its preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic.[36][48] The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads (temporary stretches of open water in Arctic ice), to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet.[49] Freshwater is limited in these environments because it is either locked up in snow or saline. Polar bears are able to produce water through the metabolism of fats found in seal blubber,[50] and are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low.[51]
+Annual ice contains areas of water that appear and disappear throughout the year as the weather changes. Seals migrate in response to these changes, and polar bears must follow their prey. In Hudson Bay, James Bay, and some other areas, the ice melts completely each summer (an event often referred to as "ice-floe breakup"), forcing polar bears to go onto land and wait through the months until the next freeze-up.[48] In the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, polar bears retreat each summer to the ice further north that remains frozen year-round.
+The only other bear similar in size to the polar bear is the Kodiak bear, which is a subspecies of brown bear.[52] Adult male polar bears weigh 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb) and measure 2.4–3 metres (7 ft 10 in–9 ft 10 in) in total length.[53] Around the Beaufort Sea, however, mature males reportedly average 450 kg (992 lb).[54] Adult females are roughly half the size of males and normally weigh 150–250 kg (331–551 lb), measuring 1.8–2.4 metres (5 ft 11 in–7 ft 10 in) in length. Elsewhere, a slightly larger estimated average weight of 260 kg (573 lb) was claimed for adult females.[55] When pregnant, however, females can weigh as much as 500 kg (1,102 lb).[53] The polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic of mammals, surpassed only by the pinnipeds such as elephant seals.[56] The largest polar bear on record, reportedly weighing 1,002 kg (2,209 lb), was a male shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960. This specimen, when mounted, stood 3.39 m (11 ft 1 in) tall on its hindlegs. The shoulder height of an adult polar bear is 122 to 160 cm (4 ft 0 in to 5 ft 3 in).[57][58] While all bears are short-tailed, the polar bear's tail is relatively the shortest amongst living bears, ranging from 7 to 13 cm (2.8 to 5.1 in) in length.[59]
+Compared with its closest relative, the brown bear, the polar bear has a more elongated body build and a longer skull and nose.[31] As predicted by Allen's rule for a northerly animal, the legs are stocky and the ears and tail are small.[31] However, the feet are very large to distribute load when walking on snow or thin ice and to provide propulsion when swimming; they may measure 30 cm (12 in) across in an adult.[60] The pads of the paws are covered with small, soft papillae (dermal bumps), which provide traction on the ice. The polar bear's claws are short and stocky compared to those of the brown bear, perhaps to serve the former's need to grip heavy prey and ice.[31] The claws are deeply scooped on the underside to assist in digging in the ice of the natural habitat. Research of injury patterns in polar bear forelimbs found injuries to the right forelimb to be more frequent than those to the left, suggesting, perhaps, right-handedness.[61] Unlike the brown bear, polar bears in captivity are rarely overweight or particularly large, possibly as a reaction to the warm conditions of most zoos.
+The 42 teeth of a polar bear reflect its highly carnivorous diet. The cheek teeth are smaller and more jagged than in the brown bear, and the canines are larger and sharper. The dental formula is 3.1.4.23.1.4.3.[31]
+Polar bears are superbly insulated by up to 10 cm (4 in) of adipose tissue,[60] their hide and their fur; they overheat at temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F), and are nearly invisible under infrared photography.[62] Polar bear fur consists of a layer of dense underfur and an outer layer of guard hairs, which appear white to tan but are actually transparent.[60] Two genes that are known to influence melanin production, LYST and AIM1, are both mutated in polar bears, possibly leading to the absence on this pigment in their fur.[63] The guard hair is 5–15 cm (2–6 in) over most of the body.[64] Polar bears gradually moult from May to August,[65] but, unlike other Arctic mammals, they do not shed their coat for a darker shade to provide camouflage in summer conditions.[66] The hollow guard hairs of a polar bear coat were once thought to act as fiber-optic tubes to conduct light to its black skin, where it could be absorbed; however, this hypothesis was disproved by a study in 1998.[67]
+The white coat usually yellows with age. When kept in captivity in warm, humid conditions, the fur may turn a pale shade of green due to algae growing inside the guard hairs.[68] Males have significantly longer hairs on their forelegs, which increase in length until the bear reaches 14 years of age. The male's ornamental foreleg hair is thought to attract females, serving a similar function to the lion's mane.[69]
+The polar bear has an extremely well developed sense of smell, being able to detect seals nearly 1.6 km (1 mi) away and buried under 1 m (3 ft) of snow. Its hearing is about as acute as that of a human, and its vision is also good at long distances.[70]
+The polar bear is an excellent swimmer and often will swim for days.[71] One bear swam continuously for 9 days in the frigid Bering Sea for 700 km (400 mi) to reach ice far from land. She then travelled another 1,800 km (1,100 mi). During the swim, the bear lost 22% of her body mass and her yearling cub died.[72] With its body fat providing buoyancy, the bear swims in a dog paddle fashion using its large forepaws for propulsion. Polar bears can swim 10 km/h (6 mph). When walking, the polar bear tends to have a lumbering gait and maintains an average speed of around 5.6 km/h (3.5 mph).[73] When sprinting, they can reach up to 40 km/h (25 mph).[74]
+Unlike brown bears, polar bears are not territorial. Although stereotyped as being voraciously aggressive, they are normally cautious in confrontations, and often choose to escape rather than fight.[75] Satiated polar bears rarely attack humans unless severely provoked.[76][77] However, due to their lack of prior human interaction, hungry polar bears are extremely unpredictable, fearless towards people and are known to kill and sometimes eat humans.[78] Many attacks by brown bears are the result of surprising the animal, which is not the case with the polar bear. Polar bears are stealth hunters, and the victim is often unaware of the bear's presence until the attack is underway. Whereas brown bears often maul a person and then leave, polar bear attacks are more likely to be predatory and are almost always fatal.[79] However, due to the very small human population around the Arctic, such attacks are rare. Michio Hoshino, a Japanese wildlife photographer, was once pursued briefly by a hungry male polar bear in northern Alaska. According to Hoshino, the bear started running but Hoshino made it to his truck. The bear was able to reach the truck and tore one of the doors off the truck before Hoshino was able to drive off.[80]
+In general, adult polar bears live solitary lives. Yet, they have often been seen playing together for hours at a time and even sleeping in an embrace,[78] and polar bear zoologist Nikita Ovsianikov has described adult males as having "well-developed friendships."[75] Cubs are especially playful as well. Among young males in particular, play-fighting may be a means of practicing for serious competition during mating seasons later in life.[81] Polar bears are usually quiet but do communicate with various sounds and vocalizations. Females communicate with their young with moans and chuffs, and the distress calls of both cubs and subadults consists of bleats.[82] Cubs may hum while nursing.[83] When nervous, bears produce huffs, chuffs and snorts while hisses, growls and roars are signs of aggression.[82] Chemical communication can also be important: bears leave behind their scent in their tracks which allow individuals to keep track of one another in the vast Arctic wilderness.[84]
+In 1992, a photographer near Churchill took a now widely circulated set of photographs of a polar bear playing with a Canadian Eskimo Dog (Canis lupus familiaris) a tenth of its size.[85][86] The pair wrestled harmlessly together each afternoon for 10 days in a row for no apparent reason, although the bear may have been trying to demonstrate its friendliness in the hope of sharing the kennel's food. This kind of social interaction is uncommon; it is far more typical for polar bears to behave aggressively towards dogs.[85]
+The polar bear is the most carnivorous member of the bear family, and throughout most of its range, its diet primarily consists of ringed (Pusa hispida) and bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus).[88] The Arctic is home to millions of seals, which become prey when they surface in holes in the ice in order to breathe, or when they haul out on the ice to rest.[87][89] Polar bears hunt primarily at the interface between ice, water, and air; they only rarely catch seals on land or in open water.[90]
+The polar bear's most common hunting method is called still-hunting:[91] the bear uses its excellent sense of smell to locate a seal breathing hole, and crouches nearby in silence for a seal to appear. The bear may lie in wait for several hours. When the seal exhales, the bear smells its breath, reaches into the hole with a forepaw, and drags it out onto the ice. The polar bear kills the seal by biting its head to crush its skull. The polar bear also hunts by stalking seals resting on the ice: upon spotting a seal, it walks to within 90 m (100 yd), and then crouches. If the seal does not notice, the bear creeps to within 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) of the seal and then suddenly rushes forth to attack.[87] A third hunting method is to raid the birth lairs that female seals create in the snow.[91]
+A widespread legend tells that polar bears cover their black noses with their paws when hunting. This behaviour, if it happens, is rare – although the story exists in the oral history of northern peoples and in accounts by early Arctic explorers, there is no record of an eyewitness account of the behaviour in recent decades.[73]
+Mature bears tend to eat only the calorie-rich skin and blubber of the seal, which are highly digestible,[92] whereas younger bears consume the protein-rich red meat.[87] Studies have also photographed polar bears scaling near-vertical cliffs, to eat birds' chicks and eggs.[93] For subadult bears, which are independent of their mother but have not yet gained enough experience and body size to successfully hunt seals, scavenging the carcasses from other bears' kills is an important source of nutrition. Subadults may also be forced to accept a half-eaten carcass if they kill a seal but cannot defend it from larger polar bears. After feeding, polar bears wash themselves with water or snow.[73]
+Although polar bears are extraordinarily powerful, its primary prey species, the ringed seal, is much smaller than itself, and many of the seals hunted are pups rather than adults. Ringed seals are born weighing 5.4 kg (12 lb) and grown to an estimated average weight of only 60 kg (130 lb).[94][95] They also in places prey heavily upon the harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) or the harbour seal. The bearded seal, on the other hand, can be nearly the same size as the bear itself, averaging 270 kg (600 lb).[95] Adult male bearded seals, at 350 to 500 kg (770 to 1,100 lb) are too large for a female bear to overtake, and so are potential prey only for mature male bears.[96] Large males also occasionally attempt to hunt and kill even larger prey items.[97] It can kill an adult walrus (Odobenus rosmarus),[95][98] although this is rarely attempted. At up to 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) and a typical adult mass range of 600 to 1,500 kg (1,300 to 3,300 lb), a walrus can be more than twice the bear's weight,[99] has extremely thick skin and has up to 1-metre (3 ft)-long ivory tusks that can be used as formidable weapons. A polar bear may charge a group of walruses, with the goal of separating a young, infirm, or injured walrus from the pod. They will even attack adult walruses when their diving holes have frozen over or intercept them before they can get back to the diving hole in the ice. Yet, polar bears will very seldom attack full-grown adult walruses, with the largest male walrus probably invulnerable unless otherwise injured or incapacitated. Since an attack on a walrus tends to be an extremely protracted and exhausting venture, bears have been known to back down from the attack after making the initial injury to the walrus.[98] Polar bears have also been seen to prey on beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)[95] and narwhals (Monodon monoceros),[95] by swiping at them at breathing holes. The whales are of similar size to the walrus and nearly as difficult for the bear to subdue.[100][101] Most terrestrial animals in the Arctic can outrun the polar bear on land as polar bears overheat quickly, and most marine animals the bear encounters can outswim it. In some areas, the polar bear's diet is supplemented by walrus calves and by the carcasses of dead adult walruses or whales, whose blubber is readily devoured even when rotten.[78] Polar bears sometimes swim underwater to catch fish like the Arctic charr or the fourhorn sculpin.[89]
+With the exception of pregnant females, polar bears are active year-round, although they have a vestigial hibernation induction trigger in their blood. Unlike brown and black bears, polar bears are capable of fasting for up to several months during late summer and early fall, when they cannot hunt for seals because the sea is unfrozen.[102] When sea ice is unavailable during summer and early autumn, some populations live off fat reserves for months at a time,[62] as polar bears do not 'hibernate' any time of the year.[103]
+Being both curious animals and scavengers,[99][104] polar bears investigate and consume garbage where they come into contact with humans.[95][99] Polar bears may attempt to consume almost anything they can find, including hazardous substances such as styrofoam, plastic, car batteries, ethylene glycol, hydraulic fluid, and motor oil.[99][104] The dump in Churchill, Manitoba was closed in 2006 to protect bears, and waste is now recycled or transported to Thompson, Manitoba.[105][106]
+Although seal predation is the primary and an indispensable way of life for most polar bears, when alternatives are present they are quite flexible. Polar bears consume a wide variety of other wild foods, including muskox (Ovibos moschatus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), birds, eggs, rodents, crabs, other crustaceans and other polar bears. They may also eat plants, including berries, roots, and kelp;[107] however, none of these have been a significant part of their diet,[99] except for beachcast marine mammal carcasses. Given the change in climate, with ice breaking up in areas such as the Hudson Bay earlier than it used to, polar bears are exploiting food resources such as snow geese and eggs, and plants such as lyme grass in increased quantities.[108]
+When stalking land animals, such as muskox, reindeer,[107] and even willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), polar bears appear to make use of vegetative cover and wind direction to bring them as close to their prey as possible before attacking. Polar bears have been observed to hunt the small Svalbard reindeer (R. t. platyrhynchus), which weigh only 40 to 60 kg (90 to 130 lb) as adults, as well as the barren-ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus), which is about twice as heavy as that.[109][110] Adult muskox, which can weigh 450 kg (1,000 lb) or more, are a more formidable quarry.[111] Although ungulates are not typical prey, the killing of one during the summer months can greatly increase the odds of survival during that lean period. Like the brown bear, most ungulate prey of polar bears is likely to be young, sickly or injured specimens rather than healthy adults.[110] The polar bear's metabolism is specialized to require large amounts of fat from marine mammals, and it cannot derive sufficient caloric intake from terrestrial food.[112][113]
+In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, Canadian polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from.[107] Here, their food ecology shows their dietary flexibility. They still manage to consume some seals, but they are food-deprived in summer as only marine mammal carcasses are an important alternative without sea ice, especially carcasses of the beluga whale. These alternatives may reduce the rate of weight loss of bears when on land.[114] One scientist found that 71% of the Hudson Bay bears had fed on seaweed (marine algae) and that about half were feeding on birds[95] such as the dovekie and sea ducks, especially the long-tailed duck (53%) and common eider, by swimming underwater to catch them. They were also diving to feed on blue mussels and other underwater food sources like the green sea urchin. 24% had eaten moss recently, 19% had consumed grass, 34% had eaten black crowberry and about half had consumed willows.[107] This study illustrates the polar bear's dietary flexibility but it does not represent its life history elsewhere. Most polar bears elsewhere will never have access to these alternatives, except for the marine mammal carcasses that are important wherever they occur.
+In Svalbard, polar bears were observed to kill white-beaked dolphins during spring, when the dolphins were trapped in the sea ice. The bears then proceeded to cache the carcasses, which remained and were eaten during the ice-free summer and autumn.[115]
+Courtship and mating take place on the sea ice in April and May, when polar bears congregate in the best seal hunting areas.[116] A male may follow the tracks of a breeding female for 100 km (60 mi) or more, and after finding her engage in intense fighting with other males over mating rights, fights that often result in scars and broken teeth.[116] Polar bears have a generally polygynous mating system; recent genetic testing of mothers and cubs, however, has uncovered cases of litters in which cubs have different fathers.[117] Partners stay together and mate repeatedly for an entire week; the mating ritual induces ovulation in the female.[118]
+After mating, the fertilized egg remains in a suspended state until August or September. During these four months, the pregnant female eats prodigious amounts of food, gaining at least 200 kg (440 lb) and often more than doubling her body weight.[116]
+When the ice floes are at their minimum in the fall, ending the possibility of hunting, each pregnant female digs a maternity den consisting of a narrow entrance tunnel leading to one to three chambers. Most maternity dens are in snowdrifts, but may also be made underground in permafrost if it is not sufficiently cold yet for snow.[116] In most subpopulations, maternity dens are situated on land a few kilometres from the coast, and the individuals in a subpopulation tend to reuse the same denning areas each year.[36] The polar bears that do not den on land make their dens on the sea ice. In the den, she enters a dormant state similar to hibernation. This hibernation-like state does not consist of continuous sleeping; however, the bear's heart rate slows from 46 to 27 beats per minute.[119] Her body temperature does not decrease during this period as it would for a typical mammal in hibernation.[62][120]
+Between November and February, cubs are born blind, covered with a light down fur, and weighing less than 0.9 kg (2.0 lb),[118] but in captivity they might be delivered in the earlier months. The earliest recorded birth of polar bears in captivity was on 11 October 2011 in the Toronto Zoo.[121] On average, each litter has two cubs. The family remains in the den until mid-February to mid-April, with the mother maintaining her fast while nursing her cubs on a fat-rich milk. By the time the mother breaks open the entrance to the den, her cubs weigh about 10 to 15 kilograms (22 to 33 lb). For about 12 to 15 days, the family spends time outside the den while remaining in its vicinity, the mother grazing on vegetation while the cubs become used to walking and playing. Then they begin the long walk from the denning area to the sea ice, where the mother can once again catch seals. Depending on the timing of ice-floe breakup in the fall, she may have fasted for up to eight months.[116] During this time, cubs playfully imitate the mother's hunting methods in preparation for later life.[122]
+Female polar bears have been known to adopt other cubs. Multiple cases of adoption of wild cubs have been confirmed by genetic testing.[123] Adult bears of either gender occasionally kill and eat polar bear cubs.[124][125] As of 2006, in Alaska, 42% of cubs were reaching 12 months of age, down from 65% in 1991.[126] In most areas, cubs are weaned at two and a half years of age, when the mother chases them away or abandons them. The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation is unusual in that its female polar bears sometimes wean their cubs at only one and a half years.[116] This was the case for 40% of cubs there in the early 1980s; however by the 1990s, fewer than 20% of cubs were weaned this young.[127] After the mother leaves, sibling cubs sometimes travel and share food together for weeks or months.[78]
+Females begin to breed at the age of four years in most areas, and five years in the area of the Beaufort Sea. Males usually reach sexual maturity at six years; however, as competition for females is fierce, many do not breed until the age of eight or ten.[116] A study in Hudson Bay indicated that both the reproductive success and the maternal weight of females peaked in their mid-teens.Maternal success appeared to decline after this point, possibly because of an age-related impairment in the ability to store the fat necessary to rear cubs.[128]
+Polar bears appear to be less affected by infectious diseases and parasites than most terrestrial mammals.[129] Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism,[130] although infections are usually not fatal. Only one case of a polar bear with rabies has been documented, even though polar bears frequently interact with Arctic foxes, which often carry rabies.[129] Bacterial leptospirosis and Morbillivirus have been recorded. Polar bears sometimes have problems with various skin diseases that may be caused by mites or other parasites.
+Polar bears rarely live beyond 25 years.[131] The oldest wild bears on record died at age 32, whereas the oldest captive was a female who died in 1991, age 43.[132] The causes of death in wild adult polar bears are poorly understood, as carcasses are rarely found in the species's frigid habitat. In the wild, old polar bears eventually become too weak to catch food, and gradually starve to death. Polar bears injured in fights or accidents may either die from their injuries, or become unable to hunt effectively, leading to starvation.[129]
+The polar bear is the apex predator within its range, and is a keystone species for the Arctic.[133] Several animal species, particularly Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) and glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus), routinely scavenge polar bear kills.[73]
+The relationship between ringed seals and polar bears is so close that the abundance of ringed seals in some areas appears to regulate the density of polar bears, while polar bear predation in turn regulates density and reproductive success of ringed seals.[90] The evolutionary pressure of polar bear predation on seals probably accounts for some significant differences between Arctic and Antarctic seals. Compared to the Antarctic, where there is no major surface predator, Arctic seals use more breathing holes per individual, appear more restless when hauled out on the ice, and rarely defecate on the ice. The baby fur of most Arctic seal species is white, presumably to provide camouflage from predators, whereas Antarctic seals all have dark fur at birth.[73]
+Brown bears tend to dominate polar bears in disputes over carcasses,[134] and dead polar bear cubs have been found in brown bear dens.[135] Wolves are rarely encountered by polar bears, though there are two records of Arctic wolf (Canis lupus arctos) packs killing polar bear cubs.[136] Adult polar bears are occasionally vulnerable to predation by orcas (Orcinus orca) while swimming, but they are rarely reported as taken and bears are likely to avoid entering the water if possible if they detect an orca pod in the area. The melting sea ice in the Arctic may be causing an increase of orcas in the Arctic sea, which may increase the risk of predation on polar bears but also may benefit the bears by providing more whale carcasses that they can scavenge.[137][138] The remains of polar bears have found in the stomachs of large Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus), although it certainly cannot be ruled out that the bears were merely scavenged by this slow-moving, unusual shark.[139][140] A rather unlikely killer of a grown polar bear has reportedly included a wolverine (Gulo gulo), anecedotely reported to have suffocated a bear in a zoo with a bite to the throat during a conflict. This report may well be dubious, however.[141] Polar bears are sometimes the host of arctic mites such as Alaskozetes antarcticus.[73]
+Researchers tracked 52 sows in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska with GPS system collars; no boars were involved in the study due to males' necks being too thick for the GPS-equipped collars. Fifty long-distance swims were recorded; the longest at 354 kilometres (220 mi), with an average of 155 kilometres (96 mi). The length of these swims ranged from most of a day to ten days. Ten of the sows had a cub swim with them and after a year, six cubs survived. The study did not determine if the others lost their cubs before, during, or some time after their long swims. Researchers do not know whether or not this is a new behaviour; before polar ice shrinkage, they opined that there was probably neither the need nor opportunity to swim such long distances.[142]
+The polar bear may swim underwater for up to three minutes to approach seals on shore or on ice floes.[143][144]
+Polar bears have long provided important raw materials for Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, Yupik, Chukchi, Nenets, Russian Pomors and others. Hunters commonly used teams of dogs to distract the bear, allowing the hunter to spear the bear or shoot it with arrows at closer range.[145] Almost all parts of captured animals had a use.[146] The fur was used in particular to make trousers and, by the Nenets, to make galoshes-like outer footwear called tobok; the meat is edible, despite some risk of trichinosis; the fat was used in food and as a fuel for lighting homes, alongside seal and whale blubber; sinews were used as thread for sewing clothes; the gallbladder and sometimes heart were dried and powdered for medicinal purposes; the large canine teeth were highly valued as talismans.[147] Only the liver was not used, as its high concentration of vitamin A is poisonous. As a carnivore, which feeds largely upon fish-eating carnivores, the polar bear ingests large amounts of vitamin A that is stored in their livers. The resulting high concentrations cause Hypervitaminosis A,[148] Hunters make sure to either toss the liver into the sea or bury it in order to spare their dogs from potential poisoning.[147] Traditional subsistence hunting was on a small enough scale to not significantly affect polar bear populations, mostly because of the sparseness of the human population in polar bear habitat.[149]
+In Russia, polar bear furs were already being commercially traded in the 14th century, though it was of low value compared to Arctic fox or even reindeer fur.[147] The growth of the human population in the Eurasian Arctic in the 16th and 17th century, together with the advent of firearms and increasing trade, dramatically increased the harvest of polar bears.[62][150] However, since polar bear fur has always played a marginal commercial role, data on the historical harvest is fragmentary. It is known, for example, that already in the winter of 1784/1785 Russian Pomors on Spitsbergen harvested 150 polar bears in Magdalenefjorden. In the early 20th century, Norwegian hunters were harvesting 300 bears per year at the same location. Estimates of total historical harvest suggest that from the beginning of the 18th century, roughly 400 to 500 animals were being harvested annually in northern Eurasia, reaching a peak of 1,300 to 1,500 animals in the early 20th century, and falling off as the numbers began dwindling.[147]
+In the first half of the 20th century, mechanized and overpoweringly efficient methods of hunting and trapping came into use in North America as well. Polar bears were chased from snowmobiles, icebreakers, and airplanes, the latter practice described in a 1965 New York Times editorial as being "about as sporting as machine gunning a cow."[151] Norwegians used "self-killing guns", comprising a loaded rifle in a baited box that was placed at the level of a bear's head, and which fired when the string attached to the bait was pulled.[152] The numbers taken grew rapidly in the 1960s, peaking around 1968 with a global total of 1,250 bears that year.[153]
+Concerns over the future survival of the species led to the development of national regulations on polar bear hunting, beginning in the mid-1950s. The Soviet Union banned all hunting in 1956. Canada began imposing hunting quotas in 1968. Norway passed a series of increasingly strict regulations from 1965 to 1973, and has completely banned hunting since then. The United States began regulating hunting in 1971 and adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. In 1973, the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by all five nations whose territory is inhabited by polar bears: Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Member countries agreed to place restrictions on recreational and commercial hunting, ban hunting from aircraft and icebreakers, and conduct further research.[154] The treaty allows hunting "by local people using traditional methods". Norway is the only country of the five in which all harvest of polar bears is banned. The agreement was a rare case of international cooperation during the Cold War. Biologist Ian Stirling commented, "For many years, the conservation of polar bears was the only subject in the entire Arctic that nations from both sides of the Iron Curtain could agree upon sufficiently to sign an agreement. Such was the intensity of human fascination with this magnificent predator, the only marine bear."[155]
+Agreements have been made between countries to co-manage their shared polar bear subpopulations. After several years of negotiations, Russia and the United States signed an agreement in October 2000 to jointly set quotas for indigenous subsistence hunting in Alaska and Chukotka.[156] The treaty was ratified in October 2007.[157] In September 2015, the polar bear range states agreed upon a "circumpolar action plan" describing their conservation strategy for polar bears.[158]
+Although the United States government has proposed that polar bears be transferred to Appendix I of CITES, which would ban all international trade in polar bear parts, polar bears currently remain listed under Appendix II.[159] This decision was approved of by members of the IUCN and TRAFFIC, who determined that such an uplisting was unlikely to confer a conservation benefit.[160]
+Polar bears were designated "Not at Risk" in April 1986 and uplisted to "Special Concern" in April 1991. This status was re-evaluated and confirmed in April 1999, November 2002, and April 2008. Polar bears continue to be listed as a species of special concern in Canada because of their sensitivity to overharvest and because of an expected range contraction caused by loss of Arctic sea ice.[161]
+More than 600 bears are killed per year by humans across Canada,[45] a rate calculated by scientists to be unsustainable for some areas, notably Baffin Bay.[37] Canada has allowed sport hunters accompanied by local guides and dog-sled teams since 1970,[162] but the practice was not common until the 1980s.[163] The guiding of sport hunters provides meaningful employment and an important source of income for northern communities in which economic opportunities are few.[43] Sport hunting can bring CDN$20,000 to $35,000 per bear into northern communities, which until recently has been mostly from American hunters.[164]
+The territory of Nunavut accounts for the location 80% of annual kills in Canada. In 2005, the government of Nunavut increased the quota from 400 to 518 bears,[164] despite protests from the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.[165] In two areas where harvest levels have been increased based on increased sightings, science-based studies have indicated declining populations, and a third area is considered data-deficient.[166] While most of that quota is hunted by the indigenous Inuit people, a growing share is sold to recreational hunters. (0.8% in the 1970s, 7.1% in the 1980s, and 14.6% in the 1990s)[163] Nunavut polar bear biologist, Mitchell Taylor, who was formerly responsible for polar bear conservation in the territory, has insisted that bear numbers are being sustained under current hunting limits.[167] In 2010, the 2005 increase was partially reversed. Government of Nunavut officials announced that the polar bear quota for the Baffin Bay region would be gradually reduced from 105 per year to 65 by the year 2013.[168] The Government of the Northwest Territories maintain their own quota of 72 to 103 bears within the Inuvialuit communities of which some are set aside for sports hunters.[citation needed] Environment Canada also banned the export from Canada of fur, claws, skulls and other products from polar bears harvested in Baffin Bay as of 1 January 2010.[168]
+Because of the way polar bear hunting quotas are managed in Canada, attempts to discourage sport hunting would actually increase the number of bears killed in the short term. Canada allocates a certain number of permits each year to sport and subsistence hunting, and those that are not used for sport hunting are re-allocated to indigenous subsistence hunting. Whereas northern communities kill all the polar bears they are permitted to take each year, only half of sport hunters with permits actually manage to kill a polar bear. If a sport hunter does not kill a polar bear before his or her permit expires, the permit cannot be transferred to another hunter.[43]
+In August 2011, Environment Canada published a national polar bear conservation strategy.[169]
+In Greenland, hunting restrictions were first introduced in 1994 and expanded by executive order in 2005.[39] Until 2005 Greenland placed no limit on hunting by indigenous people. However, in 2006 it imposed a limit of 150, while also allowed recreational hunting for the first time.[170] Other provisions included year-round protection of cubs and mothers, restrictions on weapons used and various administrative requirements to catalogue kills.[39]
+Polar bears were hunted heavily in Svalbard, Norway throughout the 19th century and to as recently as 1973, when the conservation treaty was signed. 900 bears a year were harvested in the 1920s and after World War II, there were as many as 400–500 harvested annually. Some regulations of hunting did exist. In 1927, poisoning was outlawed while in 1939, certain denning sights were declared off limits. The killing of females and cubs was made illegal in 1965. Killing of polar bears decreased somewhat 25–30 years before the treaty. Despite this, the polar bear population continued to decline and by 1973, only around 1000 bears were left in Svalbard. Only with the passage of the treaty did they begin to recover.[171]
+The Soviet Union banned the harvest of polar bears in 1956; however, poaching continued and is estimated to pose a serious threat to the polar bear population.[39] In recent years, polar bears have approached coastal villages in Chukotka more frequently due to the shrinking of the sea ice, endangering humans and raising concerns that illegal hunting would become even more prevalent. In 2007, the Russian government made subsistence hunting legal for indigenous Chukotkan peoples only, a move supported by Russia's most prominent bear researchers and the World Wide Fund for Nature as a means to curb poaching.[172]
+Polar bears are currently listed as "Rare", of "Uncertain Status", or "Rehabilitated and rehabilitating" in the Red Data Book of Russia, depending on population.[173] In 2010, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment published a strategy for polar bear conservation in Russia.[174]
+The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 afforded polar bears some protection in the United States. It banned hunting (except by indigenous subsistence hunters), banned importing of polar bear parts (except polar bear pelts taken legally in Canada), and banned the harassment of polar bears. On 15 May 2008, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, citing the melting of Arctic sea ice as the primary threat to the polar bear.[175] It banned all importing of polar bear trophies. Importing products made from polar bears had been prohibited from 1972 to 1994 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and restricted between 1994 and 2008. Under those restrictions, permits from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service were required to import sport-hunted polar bear trophies taken in hunting expeditions in Canada. The permit process required that the bear be taken from an area with quotas based on sound management principles.[176] Since 1994, hundreds of sport-hunted polar bear trophies have been imported into the U.S.[177] In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a draft conservation management plan for polar bears to improve their status under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.[178]
+Polar bear population sizes and trends are difficult to estimate accurately because they occupy remote home ranges and exist at low population densities. Polar bear fieldwork can also be hazardous to researchers.[179] As of 2015, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that the global population of polar bears is 22,000 to 31,000, and the current population trend is unknown. Nevertheless, polar bears are listed as "Vulnerable" under criterion A3c, which indicates an expected population decrease of ≥30% over the next three generations (~34.5 years) due to "decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat". Risks to the polar bear include climate change, pollution in the form of toxic contaminants, conflicts with shipping, oil and gas exploration and development, and human-bear interactions including harvesting and possible stresses from recreational polar-bear watching.[2]
+According to the World Wildlife Fund, the polar bear is important as an indicator of Arctic ecosystem health. Polar bears are studied to gain understanding of what is happening throughout the Arctic, because at-risk polar bears are often a sign of something wrong with the Arctic marine ecosystem.[180]
+The International Union for Conservation of Nature, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, United States Geological Survey and many leading polar bear biologists have expressed grave concerns about the impact of climate change, including the belief that the current warming trend imperils the survival of the polar bear.[36][181][182][183][184][185]
+The key danger posed by climate change is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals from a platform of sea ice. Rising temperatures cause the sea ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall.[127] Reduction in sea-ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning.[186] Thinner sea ice tends to deform more easily, which appears to make it more difficult for polar bears to access seals.[90] Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears, in addition to poorer body condition in bears of all ages.[36]
+In addition to creating nutritional stress, a warming climate is expected to affect various other aspects of polar bear life: Changes in sea ice affect the ability of pregnant females to build suitable maternity dens.[30] As the distance increases between the pack ice and the coast, females must swim longer distances to reach favoured denning areas on land. Thawing of permafrost would affect the bears who traditionally den underground, and warm winters could result in den roofs collapsing or having reduced insulative value. For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal-hunting areas in the spring.[36] Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.[90]
+Problematic interactions between polar bears and humans, such as foraging by bears in garbage dumps, have historically been more prevalent in years when ice-floe breakup occurred early and local polar bears were relatively thin. Increased human-bear interactions, including fatal attacks on humans, are likely to increase as the sea ice shrinks and hungry bears try to find food on land.[181]
+The effects of climate change are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear's range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed.[185] The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant. The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.[166]
+Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season. The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004.[166] Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%,[187] although the population was listed as "stable" as of 2017.[45] As the climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two-thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050.[188]
+In Alaska, the effects of sea ice shrinkage have contributed to higher mortality rates in polar bear cubs, and have led to changes in the denning locations of pregnant females.[126] The proportion of maternity dens on sea ice has changed from 62% between the years 1985 through 1994, to 37% over the years 1998 through 2004. Thus, now the Alaskan population more resembles the world population in that it is more likely to den on land.[189] In recent years, polar bears in the Arctic have undertaken longer than usual swims to find prey, possibly resulting in four recorded drownings in the unusually large ice pack regression of 2005.[186]
+A new development is that polar bears have begun ranging to new territory. While not unheard of but still uncommon, polar bears have been sighted increasingly in larger numbers ashore, staying on the mainland for longer periods of time during the summer months, particularly in North Canada, traveling farther inland.[190] This may cause an increased reliance on terrestrial diets, such as goose eggs, waterfowl and caribou,[191] as well as increased human–bear conflict.[190]
+Polar bears accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and chlorinated pesticides. Due to their position at the top of the ecological pyramid, with a diet heavy in blubber in which halocarbons concentrate, their bodies are among the most contaminated of Arctic mammals.[192] Halocarbons (also known as organohalogens) are known to be toxic to other animals, because they mimic hormone chemistry, and biomarkers such as immunoglobulin G and retinol suggest similar effects on polar bears. PCBs have received the most study, and they have been associated with birth defects and immune system deficiency.[193]
+Many chemicals, such as PCBs and DDT, have been internationally banned due to the recognition of their harm on the environment. Their concentrations in polar bear tissues continued to rise for decades after being banned, as these chemicals spread through the food chain. Since then, the trend seems to have abated, with tissue concentrations of PCBs declining between studies performed from 1989 to 1993 and studies performed from 1996 to 2002. During the same time periods, DDT was found to be notably lower in the Western Hudson Bay population only.[194]
+Oil and gas development in polar bear habitat can affect the bears in a variety of ways. An oil spill in the Arctic would most likely concentrate in the areas where polar bears and their prey are also concentrated, such as sea ice leads.[2] Because polar bears rely partly on their fur for insulation and soiling of the fur by oil reduces its insulative value, oil spills put bears at risk of dying from hypothermia. Polar bears exposed to oil spill conditions have been observed to lick the oil from their fur, leading to fatal kidney failure.[102] Maternity dens, used by pregnant females and by females with infants, can also be disturbed by nearby oil exploration and development. Disturbance of these sensitive sites may trigger the mother to abandon her den prematurely, or abandon her litter altogether.[2]
+Steven Amstrup and other U.S. Geological Survey scientists have predicted two-thirds of the world's polar bears may disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by climate change,[90][188] though the validity of this study has been debated.[195][196] The bears could disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they could disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic Archipelago.[90] However, in the short term, some polar bear populations in historically colder regions of the Arctic may temporarily benefit from a milder climate, as multiyear ice that is too thick for seals to create breathing holes is replaced by thinner annual ice.[197]
+Polar bears diverged from brown bears 400,000–600,000 years ago and have survived past periods of climate fluctuation. It has been claimed that polar bears will be able to adapt to terrestrial food sources as the sea ice they use to hunt seals disappears.[198] However, most polar bear biologists think that polar bears will be unable to completely offset the loss of calorie-rich seal blubber with terrestrial foods, and that they will be outcompeted by brown bears in this terrestrial niche, ultimately leading to a population decline.[199]
+Warnings about the future of the polar bear are often contrasted with the fact that worldwide population estimates have increased over the past 50 years and are relatively stable today.[200][201] Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000 to 10,000 in the early 1970s;[202] other estimates were 20,000 to 40,000 during the 1980s.[48][62] Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000[39] or 22,000 and 31,000.[2]
+There are several reasons for the apparent discordance between past and projected population trends: estimates from the 1950s and 1960s were based on stories from explorers and hunters rather than on scientific surveys.[203][204][205][206] Second, controls of harvesting were introduced that allowed this previously overhunted species to recover. Third, the recent effects of climate change have affected sea ice abundance in different areas to varying degrees.[203]
+Debate over the listing of the polar bear under endangered species legislation has put conservation groups and Canada's Inuit at opposing positions;[43] the Nunavut government and many northern residents have condemned the U.S. initiative to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.[207][208] Many Inuit believe the polar bear population is increasing, and restrictions on commercial sport-hunting are likely to lead to a loss of income to their communities.[43][209]
+For the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, polar bears have long played an important cultural and material role.[146][147] Polar bear remains have been found at hunting sites dating to 2,500 to 3,000 years ago[149] and 1,500-year-old cave paintings of polar bears have been found in the Chukchi Peninsula. Indeed, it has been suggested that Arctic peoples' skills in seal hunting and igloo construction has been in part acquired from the polar bears themselves.[147]
+The Inuit and Alaska Natives have many folk tales featuring the bears including legends in which bears are humans when inside their own houses and put on bear hides when going outside, and stories of how the constellation that is said to resemble a great bear surrounded by dogs came into being. These legends reveal a deep respect for the polar bear, which is portrayed as both spiritually powerful and closely akin to humans. The human-like posture of bears when standing and sitting, and the resemblance of a skinned bear carcass to the human body, have probably contributed to the belief that the spirits of humans and bears were interchangeable.[145]
+Among the Chukchi and Yupik of eastern Siberia, there was a longstanding shamanistic ritual of "thanksgiving" to the hunted polar bear. After killing the animal, its head and skin were removed and cleaned and brought into the home, and a feast was held in the hunting camp in its honor. To appease the spirit of the bear, traditional song and drum music was played, and the skull was ceremonially fed and offered a pipe.[210] Only once the spirit was appeased was the skull be separated from the skin, taken beyond the bounds of the homestead, and placed in the ground, facing north.[147]
+The Nenets of north-central Siberia placed particular value on the talismanic power of the prominent canine teeth. These were traded in the villages of the lower Yenisei and Khatanga rivers to the forest-dwelling peoples further south, who would sew them into their hats as protection against brown bears. It was believed that the "little nephew" (the brown bear) would not dare to attack a man wearing the tooth of its powerful "big uncle", the polar bear. The skulls of killed polar bears were buried at sacred sites, and altars, called sedyangi, were constructed out of the skulls. Several such sites have been preserved on the Yamal Peninsula.[147]
+Their distinctive appearance and their association with the Arctic have made polar bears popular icons, especially in those areas where they are native. The Canadian two-dollar coin carries an image of a lone polar bear on its reverse side, while a special millennium edition featured three.[211] Vehicle licence plates in the Northwest Territories in Canada are in the shape of a polar bear, as was the case in Nunavut until 2012; these now display polar bear artwork instead.[212] The polar bear is the mascot of Bowdoin College, Maine; the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary.[213][214][215] The Eisbären Berlin hockey team uses a roaring polar bear as their logo, and the Charlotte, North Carolina hockey team the Charlotte Checkers uses a polar bear named Chubby Checker as their mascot. [216]
+Coca-Cola has used images of the polar bear in its advertising,[217] and Polar Beverages, Nelvana, Bundaberg Rum, Klondike bars, and Fox's Glacier Mints all feature polar bears in their logos.
+Polar bears are popular in fiction, particularly in books for children or teenagers. For example, The Polar Bear Son is adapted from a traditional Inuit tale.[218] The animated television series Noah's Island features a polar bear named Noah as the protagonist. Polar bears feature prominently in East (North Child in the UK) by Edith Pattou,[219] The Bear by Raymond Briggs (adapted into an animated short in 1998),[220] and Chris d'Lacey's The Fire Within series.[221] The panserbjørne of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are sapient, dignified polar bears who exhibit anthropomorphic qualities, and feature prominently in the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass.[222] The television series Lost features polar bears living on the tropical island setting.[223]

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+A tool is an object used to extend the ability of an individual to modify features of the surrounding environment. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates back hundreds of millennia, have been observed using tools to make other tools.  The set of tools required to perform different tasks that are part of the same activity is called gear or equipment.
+While one may apply the term tool loosely to many things that are means to an end (e.g., a fork), strictly speaking an object is a tool only if, besides being constructed to be held, it is also made of a material that allows its user to apply to it various degrees of force. If repeated use wears part of the tool down (like a knife blade), it may be possible to restore it; if it wears the tool out or breaks it, the tool must be replaced.   Thus tool falls under the  taxonomic category implement, and is on the same taxonomic rank as instrument, utensil, device, or ware.
+Anthropologists believe that the use of tools was an important step in the evolution of mankind.[1] Because tools are used extensively by both humans and wild chimpanzees, it is widely assumed that the first routine use of tools took place prior to the divergence between the two species.[2] These early tools, however, were likely made of perishable materials such as sticks, or consisted of unmodified stones that cannot be distinguished from other stones as tools.
+Stone artifacts only date back to about 2.5 million years ago.[3] However, a 2010 study suggests the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis ate meat by carving animal carcasses with stone implements. This finding pushes back the earliest known use of stone tools among hominins to about 3.4 million years ago.[4]
+Finds of actual tools date back at least 2.6 million years in Ethiopia.[5] One of the earliest distinguishable stone tool forms is the hand axe.
+Up until recently, weapons found in digs were the only tools of “early man” that were studied and given importance. Now, more tools are recognized as culturally and historically relevant. As well as hunting, other activities required tools such as preparing food, “...nutting, leatherworking, grain harvesting and woodworking...” Included in this group are “flake stone tools".
+Tools are the most important items that the ancient humans used to climb to the top of the food chain; by inventing tools, they were able to accomplish tasks that human bodies could not, such as using a spear or bow and arrow to kill prey, since their teeth were not sharp enough to pierce many animals' skins. “Man the hunter” as the catalyst for Hominin change has been questioned. Based on marks on the bones at archaeological sites, it is now more evident that pre-humans were scavenging off of other predators' carcasses rather than killing their own food.[6]
+Mechanical devices experienced a major expansion in their use in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome with the systematic employment of new energy sources, especially waterwheels. Their use expanded through the Dark Ages with the addition of windmills.
+Machine tools occasioned a surge in producing new tools in the industrial revolution. Advocates of nanotechnology expect a similar surge as tools become microscopic in size.[7][8]
+One can classify tools according to their basic functions:
+Some tools may be combinations of other tools. An alarm-clock is for example a combination of a measuring tool (the clock) and a perception tool (the alarm). This enables the alarm-clock to be a tool that falls outside of all the categories mentioned above.
+There is some debate on whether to consider protective gear items as tools, because they do not directly help perform work, just protect the worker like ordinary clothing. They do meet the general definition of tools and in many cases are necessary for the completion of the work.  Personal protective equipment includes such items as gloves, safety glasses, ear defenders and biohazard suits.
+A simple machine is a  mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force.[9]  In general, they are the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force.[10]   The six classical simple machines which were defined by Renaissance scientists are:[11]
+Often, by design or coincidence, a tool may share key functional attributes with one or more other tools. In this case, some tools can substitute for other tools, either as a makeshift solution or as a matter of practical efficiency. "One tool does it all" is a motto of some importance for workers who cannot practically carry every specialized tool to the location of every work task; such as a carpenter who does not necessarily work in a shop all day and needs to do jobs in a customer's house. Tool substitution may be divided broadly into two classes: substitution "by-design", or "multi-purpose", and substitution as makeshift. Substitution "by-design" would be tools that are designed specifically to accomplish multiple tasks using only that one tool.
+Substitution as makeshift is when human ingenuity comes into play and a tool is used for its unintended purpose such as a mechanic using a long screw driver to separate a cars control arm from a ball joint instead of using a tuning fork. In many cases, the designed secondary functions of tools are not widely known. As an example of the former, many wood-cutting hand saws integrate a carpenter's square by incorporating a specially shaped handle that allows 90° and 45° angles to be marked by aligning the appropriate part of the handle with an edge and scribing along the back edge of the saw. The latter is illustrated by the saying "All tools can be used as hammers." Nearly all tools can be used to function as a hammer, even though very few tools are intentionally designed for it and even fewer work as well as the original.
+Tools are also often used to substitute for many mechanical apparatuses, especially in older mechanical devices.  In many cases a cheap tool could be used to occupy the place of a missing mechanical part. A window roller in a car could easily be replaced with a pair of vise-grips or regular pliers. A transmission shifter or ignition switch would be able to be replaced with a screw-driver. Again, these would be considered tools that are being used for their unintended purposes, substitution as makeshift. Tools such as a rotary tool would be considered the substitution "by-design", or "multi-purpose". This class of tools allows the use of one tool that has at least two different capabilities. "Multi-purpose" tools are basically multiple tools in one device/tool. Tools such as this are often power tools that come with many different attachments like a rotary tool does, so you could say that a power drill is a "multi-purpose" tool because you can do more than just one thing with a power drill.
+A multi-tool is a hand tool that incorporates several tools into a single, portable device; the Swiss army knife represents one of the earliest examples. Other tools have a primary purpose but also incorporate other functionality – for example, lineman's pliers incorporate a gripper and cutter, and are often used as a hammer; and some hand saws incorporate a carpenter's square in the right-angle between the blade's dull edge and the saw's handle. This would also be the category of "multi-purpose" tools, since they are also multiple tools in one (multi-use and multi-purpose can be used interchangeably – compare hand axe). These types of tools were specifically made[by whom?] to catch the eye of many different craftsman who traveled to do their work. To these workers these types of tools were revolutionary because they were one tool or one device that could do several different things. With this new revolution of tools the traveling craftsman would not have to carry so many tools with them to job sites, in that their space would be limited to the vehicle or to the beast of burden they were driving. Multi-use tools solve the problem of having to deal with many different tools.
+Observation has confirmed that a number of species can use tools including monkeys, apes, elephants, several birds, and sea otters. Philosophers originally thought that only humans had the ability to make tools, until zoologists observed birds[12] and apes[13][14][15] making tools. Now the unique relationship of humans with tools is considered to be that we are the only species that uses tools to make other tools.[16]
+Recently, a Visayan warty pig was observed using a stick in digging a hole on the ground at a French zoo.[17]
+A telephone is a communication tool that interfaces between two people engaged in conversation at one level. It also interfaces between each user and the communication network at another level. It is in the domain of media and communications technology that a counter-intuitive aspect of our relationships with our tools first began to gain popular recognition. Marshall McLuhan famously said "We shape our tools. And then our tools shape us." McLuhan was referring to the fact that our social practices co-evolve with our use of new tools and the refinements we make to existing tools.

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+Track and field is a sport which includes athletic contests established on the skills of running, jumping, and throwing.[1] The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running, and racewalking.
+The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events, racewalking and hurdling, are won by the athlete who completes it in the least time. The jumping and throwing events are won by those who achieve the greatest distance or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also "combined events" or "multi events", such as the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events, and decathlon consisting of ten events. In these, athletes participate in a combination of track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a single victor; the most prominent team events are relay races, which typically feature teams of four. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the men's and women's competitions are usually held at the same venue. If a race has too many people to run all at once, preliminary heats will be run to narrow down the field of participants.
+Track and field is one of the oldest sports. In ancient times, it was an event held in conjunction with festivals and sports meets such as the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In modern times, the two most prestigious international track and field competitions are the athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships. World Athletics, formerly known as the International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics.
+Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world and national levels, right down to a personal level. However, if athletes are deemed to have violated the event's rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition and their marks are erased.
+In the United States, the term track and field may refer to other athletics events, such as cross country, the marathon and road running, rather than strictly track-based events.[2]
+The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory. Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested: the stadion footrace.[3] The scope of the Games expanded in later years to include further running competitions, but the introduction of the Ancient Olympic pentathlon marked a step towards track and field as it is recognized today—it comprised a five-event competition of the long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, stadion footrace,[3] and wrestling.[4][5]
+Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC.[6][7] After the period of Classical antiquity (in which the sport was largely Greco-Roman influenced) new track and field events began developing in parts of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The stone put and weight throw competitions popular among Celtic societies in Ireland and Scotland were precursors to the modern shot put and hammer throw events. One of the last track and field events to develop was the pole vault, which stemmed from competitions such as the Fierljeppen contests in the Northern European Lowlands in the 18th century.
+Discrete modern track and field competitions, separate from general sporting festivals, were first recorded in the 19th century. These were typically organised by educational institutions, military organisations and sports clubs as competitions between rival establishments.[8] Competitions in the English public schools were conceived as human equivalents of horse racing, fox hunting and hare coursing, influenced by a Classics-rich curriculum. The Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt is the oldest running club in the world, with written records going back to 1831 and evidence that it was established by 1819.[9] The school organised Paper Chase races in which runners followed a trail of paper shreds left by two "foxes";[9] even today RSSH runners are called "hounds" and a race victory is a "kill".[10] The first definite record of Shrewsbury's (cross-country) Annual Steeplechase is in 1834, making it the oldest running race of the modern era.[9] The school also lays claim to the oldest track and field meeting still in existence, originating in the Second Spring Meeting first documented in 1840.[9] This featured a series of throwing and jumping events with mock horse races including the Derby Stakes, the Hurdle Race and the Trial Stakes. Runners were entered by "owners" and named as though they were horses.[9] 13 miles (21 km) away and a decade later, the first Wenlock Olympian Games were held at Much Wenlock racecourse.[11] Events at the 1851 Wenlock Games included a "half-mile foot race" (805 m) and a "leaping in distance" competition.[12]
+In 1865, Dr William Penny Brookes of Wenlock helped set up the National Olympian Association, which held their first Olympian Games in 1866 at The Crystal Palace in London.[12] This national event was a great success, attracting a crowd of over ten thousand people.[12]  In response, that same year the Amateur Athletic Club was formed and held a championship for "gentlemen amateurs" in an attempt to reclaim the sport for the educated elite.[12] Ultimately the "allcomers" ethos of the NOA won through and the AAC was reconstituted as the Amateur Athletic Association in 1880, the first national body for the sport of athletics. The AAA Championships, the de facto British national championships despite being for England only, have been held annually since 3 July 1880 with breaks only during two world wars and 2006–2008.[13] The AAA was effectively a global governing body in the early years of the sport, codifying its rules for the first time.
+Meanwhile, the United States began holding an annual national competition—the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships—first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club.[14] The establishment of general sports governing bodies for the United States (the Amateur Athletic Union in 1888) and France (the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques in 1889) put the sport on a formal footing and meant that international competitions became possible.
+The establishment of the modern Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century marked a new high for track and field. The Olympic athletics programme, comprising track and field events plus a marathon race, contained many of the foremost sporting competitions of the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Olympics also consolidated the use of metric measurements in international track and field events, both for race distances and for measuring jumps and throws. The Olympic athletics programme greatly expanded over the next decades, and track and field contests remained among the Games' most prominent. The Olympics was the elite competition for track and field, and only amateur sportsmen could compete. Track and field continued to be a largely amateur sport, as this rule was strictly enforced: Jim Thorpe was stripped of his track and field medals from the 1912 Olympics after it was revealed that he had taken expense money for playing baseball, violating Olympic amateurism rules, before the 1912 Games. His medals were reinstated 29 years after his death.[15]
+That same year, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was established, becoming the international governing body for track and field, and it enshrined amateurism as one of its founding principles for the sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association held their first Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 1921, making it one of the most prestigious competitions for students, and this was soon followed by the introduction of track and field at the inaugural World Student Games in 1923.[16] The first continental track and field competition was the 1919 South American Championships, which was followed by the European Athletics Championships in 1934.[17]
+Up until the early 1920s, track and field had been almost exclusively a male-only pursuit. Alice Milliat argued for the inclusion of women at the Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee refused. She founded the International Women's Sports Federation in 1921 and, alongside a growing women's sports movement in Europe and North America, the group initiated of the Women's Olympiad (held annually from 1921 to 1923). Working in conjunction with the English Women's Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA), the Women's World Games was held four times between 1922 and 1934, as well as a Women's International and British Games in London in 1924. These events ultimately led to the introduction of five track and field events for women in the athletics at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[18] In China, women's track and field events were being held in the 1920s, but were subject to criticism and disrespect from audiences. National women's events were established in this period, with 1923 seeing the First British Track & Field championships for women and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) sponsoring the First American Track & Field championships for women. Also in 1923, physical education advocate Zhang Ruizhen called for greater equality and participation of women in Chinese track and field.[19] The rise of Kinue Hitomi and her 1928 Olympic medal for Japan signified the growth of women's track and field in East Asia.[20] More women's events were gradually introduced as years progressed (although it was only towards the end of the century that the men's and women's programmes approached parity of events). Marking an increasingly inclusive approach to the sport, major track and field competitions for disabled athletes were first introduced at the 1960 Summer Paralympics.
+With the rise of numerous regional championships, as well as the growth in Olympic-style multi-sport events (such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan-American Games), competitions between international track and field athletes became widespread. From the 1960s onwards, the sport gained more exposure and commercial appeal through television coverage and the increasing wealth of nations. After over half a century of amateurism, the amateur status of the sport began to be displaced by growing professionalism in the late 1970s.[8] As a result, the Amateur Athletic Union was dissolved in the United States and it was replaced with a non-amateur body solely focused on the sport of athletics: The Athletics Congress (later USA Track and Field).[21] The IAAF soon followed suit in 1982, abandoning amateurism, and later removing all references to it from its name by rebranding itself as the International Association of Athletics Federations.[8] While Western countries were limited to amateurs until the early 1980s, Soviet Bloc countries always fielded state-funded athletes who trained full-time. The following year saw the establishment of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics—the first ever global competition just for athletics—which, with the Olympics, became one of track and field's most prestigious competitions.
+The profile of the sport reached a new high in the 1980s, with a number of athletes becoming household names (such as Carl Lewis, Sergey Bubka, Sebastian Coe, Zola Budd and Florence Griffith Joyner). Many world records were broken in this period, and the added political element between competitors of the United States, East Germany, and the Soviet Union, in reaction to the Cold War, only served to stoke the sport's popularity. The increase in the commercial capacity of track and field was also met with developments in the application of sports science, and there were many changes to coaching methods, athlete's diet regimes, training facilities and sports equipment. This was also accompanied by an increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs. State-sponsored doping in 1970s and 1980s East Germany, China,[22] the Soviet Union,[23] and early 21st century Russia, as well as prominent individual cases such as those of Olympic gold medallists Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, damaged the public image and marketability of the sport.
+From the 1990s onwards, track and field became increasingly more professional and international, as the IAAF gained over two hundred member nations. The IAAF World Championships in Athletics became a fully professional competition with the introduction of prize money in 1997,[8] and in 1998 the IAAF Golden League—an annual series of major track and field meetings in Europe—provided a higher level of economic incentive in the form of a US$1 million jackpot. In 2010, the series was replaced by the more lucrative IAAF Diamond League, a fourteen-meeting series held in Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East—the first ever worldwide annual series of track and field meetings.[24]
+Track and field events are divided into three broad categories: track events, field events, and combined events. The majority of athletes tend to specialise in just one event (or event type) with the aim of perfecting their performances, although the aim of combined events athletes is to become proficient in a number of disciplines. Track events involve running on a track over a specified distances and—in the case of the hurdling and steeplechase events—obstacles may be placed on the track. There are also relay races in which teams of athletes run and pass on a baton to their team member at the end of a certain distance.
+There are two types of field events: jumps and throws. In jumping competitions, athletes are judged on either the length or height of their jumps. The performances of jumping events for distance are measured from a board or marker, and any athlete overstepping this mark is judged to have fouled. In the jumps for height, an athlete must clear their body over a crossbar without knocking the bar off the supporting standards. The majority of jumping events are unaided, although athletes propel themselves vertically with purpose-built sticks in the pole vault.
+The throwing events involve hurling an implement (such as a heavy weight, javelin or discus) from a set point, with athletes being judged on the distance that the object is thrown. Combined events involve the same group of athletes contesting a number of different track and field events. Points are given for their performance in each event and the athlete and/or teams with the greatest points total at the end of all events is the winner.
+Races over short distances, or sprints, are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event, the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other.[3] Sprinting events are focused around athletes reaching and sustaining their quickest possible running speed. Three sprinting events are currently held at the Olympics and outdoor World Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres. These events have their roots in races of imperial measurements that later changed to metric: the 100 m evolved from the 100-yard dash,[25] the 200 m distances came from the furlong (or 1/8 of a mile),[26] and the 400 m was the successor to the 440 yard dash or quarter-mile race.[27]
+At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in the starting blocks before leaning forward and gradually moving into an upright position as the race progresses and momentum is gained.[28] Athletes remain in the same lane on the running track throughout all sprinting events,[27] with the sole exception of the 400 m indoors. Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete's maximum speed.[28] All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance.[29] Human physiology dictates that a runner's near-top speed cannot be maintained for more than thirty seconds or so because lactic acid builds up once leg muscles begin to suffer oxygen deprivation.[27]  Top speed can only be maintained for up to 20 metres.[30]
+The 60 metres is a common indoor event and indoor world championship event. Less-common events include the 50 metres, 55 metres, 300 metres and 500 metres which are run in some high school and collegiate competitions in the United States. The 150 metres, though rarely competed, has a star-studded history: Pietro Mennea set a world best in 1983,[31] Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey went head-to-head over the distance in 1997,[32] and Usain Bolt improved Mennea's record in 2009.[31]
+The most common middle-distance track events are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle-distance event.[33] The 880 yard run, or half mile, was the forebear of the 800 m distance and it has its roots in competitions in the United Kingdom in the 1830s.[34] The 1500 m came about as a result of running three laps of a 500 m track, which was commonplace in continental Europe in the 20th century.[35]
+Runners start the race from a standing position along a curved starting line and after hearing the starting pistol they head towards the innermost track to follow the quickest route to the finish. In 800 m races athletes begin at a staggered starting point before the turn in the track and they must remain in their lanes for the first 100 m of the race.[36] This rule was introduced to reduce the amount of physical jostling between runners in the early stages of the race.[34] Physiologically, these middle-distance events demand that athletes have good aerobic and anaerobic energy producing systems, and also that they have strong speed endurance.[37]
+The 1500 m and mile run events have historically been some of the most prestigious track and field events. Swedish rivals Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson broke each other's 1500 m and mile world records on a number of occasions in the 1940s.[38][39] The prominence of the distances were maintained by Roger Bannister, who (in 1954) was the first to run the long-elusive four-minute mile,[40][41] and Jim Ryun's exploits served to popularise interval training.[35] Races between British rivals Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram characterised middle-distance running in the 1980s.[42] From the 1990s onwards, North Africans such as Noureddine Morceli of Algeria and Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco came to dominate the 1500 and mile events.[35]
+Beyond the short distances of sprinting events, factors such as an athlete's reactions and top speed becomes less important, while qualities such as pace, race tactics and endurance become more so.[34][35]
+There are three common long-distance running events in track and field competitions: 3000 metres, 5000 metres and 10,000 metres. The latter two races are both Olympic and World Championship events outdoors, while the 3000 m is held at the IAAF World Indoor Championships. The 5000 m and 10,000 m events have their historical roots in the 3-mile and 6-mile races. The 3000 m was historically used as a women's long-distance event, entering the World Championship programme in 1983 and Olympic programme in 1984, but this was abandoned in favour of a women's 5000 m event in 1995.[43] Marathons, while long-distance races, are typically run on street courses, and often are run separately from other track and field events.
+In terms of competition rules and physical demands, long-distance track races have much in common with middle-distance races, except that pacing, stamina, and race tactics become much greater factors in performances.[44][45] However, a number of athletes have achieved success in both middle- and long-distance events, including Saïd Aouita who set world records from 1500 m to 5000 m.[46] The use of pace-setters in long-distance events is very common at the elite level, although they are not present at championship level competitions as all qualified competitors want to win.[45][47]
+The long-distance track events gained popularity in the 1920s by the achievements of the "Flying Finns", such as multiple Olympic champion Paavo Nurmi. The successes of Emil Zátopek in the 1950s promoted intense interval training methods, but Ron Clarke's world record-breaking feats established the importance of natural training and even-paced running. The 1990s saw the rise of North and East African runners in long-distance events. Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, in particular, have since remained dominant in these events.[43]
+Relay races are the only track and field event in which a team of runners directly compete against other teams.[48] Typically, a team is made up of four runners of the same sex. Each runner completes their specified distance (referred to as a leg) before handing over a baton to a teammate, who then begins their leg upon receiving the baton. There is usually a designated area where athletes must exchange the baton. Teams may be disqualified if they fail to complete the change within the area, or if the baton is dropped during the race. A team may also be disqualified if its runners are deemed to have wilfully impeded other competitors.
+Relay races emerged in the United States in the 1880s as a variation on charity races between firemen, who would hand a red pennant on to teammates every 300 yards. There are two very common relay events: the 4×100 metres relay and the 4×400 metres relay. Both events entered the Olympic programme at the 1912 Summer Games after a one-off men's medley relay featured in 1908 Olympics.[49] The 4 × 100 m event is run strictly within the same lane on the track, meaning that the team collectively runs one complete circuit of the track. Teams in a 4 × 400 m event remain in their own lane until the runner of the second leg passes the first bend, at which point runners can leave their lanes and head towards the inner-most part of the circuit. For the second and third baton change overs, teammates must align themselves in respect of their team position – leading teams take the inner lanes while teammates of the slower teams must await the baton on outer lanes.[48][50]
+The IAAF keeps world records for five different types of track relays. As with 4×100 m and 4×400 m events, all races comprise teams of four athletes running the same distances, with the less commonly contested distances being the 4×200 m, 4×800 m and 4×1500 m relays.[51] Other events include the distance medley relay (comprising legs of 1200 m, 400 m, 800 m, and 1600 m), which is frequently held in the United States, and a sprint relay, known as the Swedish medley relay, which is popular in Scandinavia and was held at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Athletics programme.[52] Relay events have significant participation in the United States, where a number of large meetings (or relay carnivals) are focused almost exclusively on relay events.[53]
+Races with hurdles as obstacles were first popularised in the 19th century in England.[54] The first known event, held in 1830, was a variation of the 100-yard dash that included heavy wooden barriers as obstacles. A competition between the Oxford and Cambridge Athletic Clubs in 1864 refined this, holding a 120-yard race (110 m) with ten hurdles of 3-foot and 6 inches (1.06 m) in height (each placed 10 yards (9 m) apart), with the first and final hurdles 15 yards from the start and finish, respectively. French organisers adapted the race into metric (adding 28 cm) and the basics of this race, the men's 110 metres hurdles, has remained largely unchanged.[55] The origin of the 400 metres hurdles also lies in Oxford, where (around 1860) a competition was held over 440 yards and twelve 1.06 m high wooden barriers were placed along the course. The modern regulations stem from the 1900 Summer Olympics: the distance was fixed to 400 m while ten 3-foot (91.44 cm) hurdles were placed 35 m apart on the track, with the first and final hurdles being 45 m and 40 m away from the start and finish, respectively.[56] Women's hurdles are slightly lower at 84 cm (2 ft 9 in) for the 100 m event and 76 cm (2 ft 6 in) for the 400 m event.[55][56]
+By far the most common events are the 100 metres hurdles for women, 110 m hurdles for men and 400 m hurdles for both sexes. The men's 110 m has been featured at every modern Summer Olympics while the men's 400 m was introduced in the second edition of the Games.[55][56] Women's initially competed in the 80 metres hurdles event, which entered the Olympic programme in 1932. This was extended to the 100 m hurdles at the 1972 Olympics,[55] but it was not until 1984 that a women's 400 m hurdles event took place at the Olympics (having been introduced at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics the previous year).[56]  Other distances and heights of hurdles, such as the 200 metres hurdles and low hurdles, were once common but are now held infrequently.  The 300 metres hurdles is run in some levels of American competition.
+Outside of the hurdles events, the steeplechase race is the other track and field event with obstacles. Just as the hurdling events, the steeplechase finds its origin in student competition in Oxford, England. However, this event was born as a human variation on the original steeplechase competition found in horse racing. A steeplechase event was held on a track for the 1879 English championships and the 1900 Summer Olympics featured men's 2500 m and 4000 m steeplechase races. The event was held over various distances until the 1920 Summer Olympics marked the rise of the 3000 metres steeplechase as the standard event.[57] The IAAF set the standards of the event in 1954, and the event is held on a 400 m circuit that includes a water jump on each lap.[58] Despite the long history of men's steeplechase in track and field, the women's steeplechase only gained World Championship status in 2005, with its first Olympic appearance in 2008.
+The long jump is one of the oldest track and field events, having its roots as one of the events within the ancient Greek pentathlon contest. The athletes would take a short run up and jump into an area of dug up earth, with the winner being the one who jumped farthest.[59] Small weights (Halteres) were held in each hand during the jump then swung back and dropped near the end to gain extra momentum and distance.[60] The modern long jump, standardised in England and the United States around 1860, bears resemblance to the ancient event although no weights are used. Athletes sprint along a length of track that leads to a jumping board and a sandpit.[61] The athletes must jump before a marked line and their achieved distance is measured from the nearest point of sand disturbed by the athlete's body.[62]
+The athletics competition at the first Olympics featured a men's long jump competition and a women's competition was introduced at the 1948 Summer Olympics.[61] Professional long jumpers typically have strong acceleration and sprinting abilities. However, athletes must also have a consistent stride to allow them to take off near the board while still maintaining their maximum speed.[62][63] In addition to the traditional long jump, a standing long jump contest exists which requires that athletes leap from a static position without a run-up. A men's version of this event featured on the Olympic programme from 1900 to 1912.[64]
+Similar to the long jump, the triple jump takes place on a track heading towards a sandpit. Originally, athletes would hop on the same leg twice before jumping into the pit, but this was changed to the current "hop, step and jump" pattern from 1900 onwards.[65] There is some dispute over whether the triple jump was contested in ancient Greece: while some historians claim that a contest of three jumps occurred at Ancient Games,[65] others such as Stephen G. Miller believe this is incorrect, suggesting that the belief stems from a mythologised account of Phayllus of Croton having jumped 55 ancient feet (around 16.3 m).[60][66] The Book of Leinster, a 12th-century Irish manuscript, records the existence of geal-ruith (triple jump) contests at the Tailteann Games.[67]
+The men's triple jump competition has been ever-present at the modern Olympics, but it was not until 1993 that a women's version gained World Championship status and went on to have its first Olympic appearance three years later.[65] The men's standing triple jump event featured at the Olympics in 1900 and 1904, but such competitions have since become very uncommon, although it is still used as a non-competitive exercise drill.[68]
+The first recorded instances of high jumping competitions were in Scotland in the 19th century.[69] Further competitions were organised in 1840 in England and in 1865 the basic rules of the modern event were standardised there.[70] Athletes have a short run up and then take off from one foot to jump over a horizontal bar and fall back onto a cushioned landing area.[71] The men's high jump was included in the 1896 Olympics and a women's competition followed in 1928.
+Jumping technique has played a significant part in the history of the event. High jumpers typically cleared the bar feet first in the late 19th century, using either the Scissors, Eastern cut-off or Western roll technique. The straddle technique became prominent in the mid-20th century, but Dick Fosbury overturned tradition by pioneering a backwards and head-first technique in the late 1960s – the Fosbury Flop – which won him the gold at the 1968 Olympics. This technique has become the overwhelming standard for the sport from the 1980s onwards.[70][72] The standing high jump was contested at the Olympics from 1900 to 1912, but is now relatively uncommon outside of its use as an exercise drill.
+In terms of sport, the use of poles for vaulting distances was recorded in Fierljeppen contests in the Frisian area of Europe, and vaulting for height was seen at gymnastics competitions in Germany in the 1770s.[73] One of the earliest recorded pole vault competitions was in Cumbria, England in 1843.[74] The basic rules and technique of the event originated in the United States. The rules required that athletes do not move their hands along the pole and athletes began clearing the bar with their feet first and twisting so that the stomach faces the bar. Bamboo poles were introduced in the 20th century and a metal box in the runway for planting the pole became standard. Landing mattresses were introduced in the mid-20th century to protect the athletes who were clearing increasingly greater heights.[73]
+The modern event sees athletes run down a strip of track, plant the pole in the metal box, and vault over the horizontal bar before letting go of the pole and falling backwards onto the landing mattress.[75] While earlier versions used wooden, metal or bamboo, modern poles are generally made from artificial materials such as fibreglass or carbon fibre.[76] The pole vault has been an Olympic event since 1896 for men, but it was over 100 years later that the first women's world championship competition was held at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships. The first women's Olympic pole vaulting competition occurred in 2000.[73]
+Track and field contains some of the foremost kinds of throwing sports, and the four major disciplines are the only pure throwing events to feature at the Olympic Games.[77]
+The genesis of the shot put can be traced to pre-historic competitions with rocks:[78] in the Middle ages the stone put was known in Scotland and the steinstossen was recorded in Switzerland. In the 17th century, cannonball throwing competitions within the English military provided a precursor to the modern sport.[79] The term "shot" originates from the use of round shot-style ammunition for the sport.[80] The modern rules were first laid out in 1860 and required that competitors take legal throws within a square throwing area of seven feet (2.13 m) on each side. This was amended to a circle area with a seven-foot diameter in 1906, and the weight of the shot was standardised to 16 pounds (7.26 kg). Throwing technique was also refined over this period, with bent arm throws being banned as they were deemed too dangerous and the side-step and throw technique arising in the United States in 1876.[79]
+The shot put has been an Olympic sport for men since 1896 and a women's competition using a 4 kg (8.82 lb) shot was added in 1948. Further throwing techniques have arisen since the post-war era: in the 1950s Parry O'Brien popularised the 180 degree turn and throw technique commonly known as the "glide", breaking the world record 17 times along the way, while Aleksandr Baryshnikov and Brian Oldfield introduced the "spin" or rotational technique in 1976.[79][81]
+In the discus throw, athletes compete to throw a heavy disc the farthest. In standard competitions, athletes throw the disc from a set circular arc and take turns in a series of throw, with the singular best effort deciding the victor. As one of the events within the ancient pentathlon, the history of the discus throw dates back to 708 BC.[82] In ancient times a heavy circular disc was thrown from a set standing position on a small pedestal, and it was this style that was revived for the 1896 Olympics.[83] This continued until the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, which featured both the ancient style and the increasingly popular modern style of turning and throwing. By the 1912 Olympics, the ancient standing throw style had fallen into disuse and contests starting within a 2.5 m squared throwing area became the standard.[84] The discus implement was standardised to 2 kg (4.4 pounds) in weight and 22 cm (8 inches) in diameter in 1907.[83] The women's discus was among the first women's events on the Olympic programme, being introduced in 1928.[85] The first modern athlete to throw the discus while rotating the whole body was Czech athlete Frantisek Janda-Su, who invented the technique when studying the position of the famous statue of Discobolus and won the 1900 Olympic silver medal.
+As an implement of war and hunting, javelin throwing began in prehistoric times.[86] Along with the discus, the javelin was the second throwing event in the ancient Olympic pentathlon. Records from 708 BC show two javelin competition types co-existing: throwing at a target and throwing the javelin for distance. It was the latter type from which the modern event derives.[87] In ancient competitions, athletes would wrap an ankyle (thin leather strip) around the javelin that acted as a sling to facilitate extra distance.[88] The javelin throw gained much popularity in Scandinavia in the late 19th century and athletes from the region are still among the most dominant throwers in men's competitions.[87] The modern event features a short run up on a track and then the thrower releases the javelin before the foul line.
+The first Olympic men's javelin throw contest was held in 1908 and a women's competition was introduced in 1932.[86][89] The first javelins were made of various types of wood, but in the 1950s, former athlete Bud Held introduced a hollow javelin, then a metal javelin, both of which increased throwers performances.[87] Another former athlete, Miklós Németh invented the rough-tailed javelin and throws reached in excess of 100 m – edging towards the limits of stadia.[90] The distances and the increasing number of horizontal landings led the IAAF to redesign the men's javelin to reduce distance and increase the implement's downward pitching moment to allow for easier measurement. Rough-tailed designs were banned in 1991 and all marks achieved with such javelins were removed from the record books. The women's javelin underwent a similar redesign in 1999.[87] The current javelin specifications are 2.6 to 2.7 m in length and 800 grams in weight for men, and 2.2 to 2.3 m and 600 g for women.[91]
+The earliest recorded precursors to the modern hammer throw stem from the Tailteann Games of ancient Ireland, which featured events such as throwing either a weight attached to a rope, a large rock on a wooden handle, or even a chariot wheel on a wooden axle.[92] Other ancient competitions included throwing a cast iron ball attached to a wooden handle – the root of the term "hammer throw" due to their resemblance to the tools.[93] In 16th century England, contests involving the throwing of actual blacksmith's Sledgehammers were recorded.[92] The hammer implement was standardised in 1887 and the competitions began to resemble the modern event. The weight of the metal ball was set at 16 pounds (7.26 kg) while the attached wire had to measure between 1.175 m and 1.215 m.[93]
+The men's hammer throw became an Olympic event in 1900 but the women's event – using a 4 kg (8.82 lb) weight – was not widely competed until much later, finally featuring on the women's Olympic programme in 2000.[94] The distances thrown by male athletes became greater from the 1950s onwards as a result of improved equipment using the denser metals, a switch to concrete throwing areas, and more advanced training techniques.[95] Professional hammer throwers were historically large, strong, sturdy athletes. However, qualities such as refined technique, speed and flexibility have become increasingly important in the modern era as the legal throwing area has been reduced from 90 to 34.92 degrees and throwing technique involves three to four controlled rotations.[93][96][97]
+Combined (or multi-discipline) events are competitions in which athletes participate in a number of track and field events, earning points for their performance in each event, which adds to a total points score. Outdoors, the most common combined events are the men's decathlon (ten events) and the women's heptathlon (seven events). Due to stadium limitations, indoor combined events competition have a reduced number of events, resulting in the men's heptathlon and the women's pentathlon. Athletes are allocated points based on an international-standard points scoring system, such as the decathlon scoring table.
+The Ancient Olympic pentathlon (comprising long jump, javelin, discus, the stadion race and wrestling) was a precursor to the track and field combined events and this ancient event was restored at the 1906 Summer Olympics (Intercalated Games). A men's all-around was held at the 1904 Summer Olympics, contested between five American and two British athletes.
+The term track and field is intertwined with the stadiums that first hosted such competitions. The two basic features of a track and field stadium are the outer oval-shaped running track and an area of turf within this track—the field. In earlier competitions, track lengths varied: the Panathinaiko Stadium measured 333.33 metres at the 1896 Summer Olympics, while at the 1904 Olympics the distance was a third of a mile (536.45 m) at Francis Field. As the sport developed, the IAAF standardised the length to 400 m and stated that the tracks must be split into six to eight running lanes. Precise widths for the lanes were established, as were regulations regarding the curvature of the track. Tracks made of flattened cinders were popular in the early 20th century but synthetic tracks became standard in the late 1960s. 3M's Tartan track (an all-weather running track of polyurethane) gained popularity after its use at the 1968 US Olympic Trials and the 1968 Summer Olympics and it began the process in which synthetic tracks became the standard for the sport. Many track and field stadiums are multi-purpose stadiums, with the running track surrounding a field built for other sports, such as the various types of football.
+The field of the stadium combines a number of elements for use in the jumping and throwing events. The long jump and triple jump areas comprise a straight, narrow 40-metre running track with a sandpit at one or both ends. Jumps are measured from a take off board—typically a small strip of wood with a plasticine marker attached—which ensures athletes jump from behind the measurement line. The pole vault area is also a 40-metre running track and has an indentation in the ground (the box) where vaulters plant their poles to propel themselves over a crossbar before falling onto cushioned landing mats. The high jump is a stripped-down version of this, with an open area of track or field that leads to a crossbar with a square area of landing mats behind it.
+The four throwing events generally all begin on one side of the stadium. The javelin throw typically takes place on a piece of track that is central and parallel to the straights of the main running track. The javelin throwing area is a sector shape frequently across the Pitch (sports field) in the middle of the stadium, ensuring that the javelin has a minimal chance of causing damage or injury. The discus throw and hammer throw contests begin in a tall metal cage usually situated in one of the corners of the field. The cage reduces the danger of implements being thrown out of the field of play and throws travel diagonally across the field in the centre of the stadium. The shot put features a circular throwing area with a toe board at one end. The throwing area is a sector. Some stadia also have a water jump area on one side of the field specifically for steeplechase races.
+Basic indoor venues may be adapted gymnasiums, which can easily accommodate high jump competitions and short track events. Full-size indoor arenas (i.e. those fully equipped to host all events for the World Indoor Championships) bear similarities with their outdoor equivalents. Typically, a central area is surrounded by a 200-metre oval track with four to eight lanes. The track can be banked at the turns to allow athletes to run around the radius more comfortably. Some have a second running track going straight across the field area, parallel to the straights of the main circuit. This track is used for the 60 metres and 60 metres hurdles events, which are held almost exclusively indoors.
+Another common adaptation in the United States is a 160-yard track (11 laps to a mile) that fits into a common basketball court-sized arena. This was quite popular when races were held at imperial distances, which gradually was phased out by different organizations in the 1970s and 1980s. Examples of this configuration include the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden, and the Sunkist Invitational formerly held in the Los Angeles Sports Arena.[98]
+All four of the common jumping events are held at indoor venues. The long and triple jump areas run alongside the central 60 m track and are mostly identical in form to their outdoor counterparts. The pole vault track and landing area are also alongside the central running track. Shot put and weight throw are the only throwing events held indoors due to size restrictions. The throwing area is similar to the outdoor event, but the landing sector is a rectangular section surrounded by netting or a stop barrier.[99]
+In addition to hosting the World Indoor Championships, the IAAF has hosted the IAAF World Indoor Tour since 2016.
+The rules of track events in athletics as observed in most international athletics competitions are set by the Competition Rules of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The most recent complete set of rules is the 2009 rules that relate only to competitions in 2009.[100] Key rules of track events are those regarding starting, running and finishing.
+The start of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide. In all races that are not run in lanes the start line must be curved, so that all the athletes start the same distance from the finish.[101]
+Starting blocks may be used for all races up to and including 400 m (including the first leg of the 4 × 100 m and 4 × 400 m) and may not be used for any other race. No part of the starting block may overlap the start line or extend into another lane.[102]
+All races must be started by the report of the starter's gun or approved starting apparatus fired upwards after they have ascertained that athletes are steady and in the correct starting position.[103] An athlete may not touch either the start line or the ground in front of it with their hands or feet when on their marks.[104]
+For sprint races up to 400 m, the starter gives two commands: "on your marks" to instruct athletes to approach the start line, followed by "set" to advise the athletes that the start of the race is imminent. The commands of the starter are typically given in the native language in national competitions, or in English or French in international competitions. Once all athletes are set in their starting position, the gun or an approved starting apparatus must be fired or activated. If the starter is not satisfied that all are ready to proceed, the athletes may be called out of the blocks and the process started over.[104]
+There are different types of starts for races of different distances. Middle- and long-distance races mainly use the waterfall start. This is when all athletes begin on a curved line that moves farther out at the outer edge of the track. Competitors are allowed to move towards the inside lane right away, as long as it is safe to do so. For some middle-distance races, such as 800 m, each athlete starts in their own lane. Once the gun fires, they must run in the lane they began in until markers on the track notify them it is time to move towards the inside lane. For sprint races, athletes begin in start blocks and must stay in their own lane for the entire race.[100]
+An athlete, after assuming a final set position, may not commence his starting motion until after receiving the report of the gun, or approved starting apparatus. If, in the judgment of the starter or recallers, he does so any earlier, it is considered a false start. It is deemed a false start if, in the judgment of the starter an athlete fails to comply with the commands "on your marks" or "set" as appropriate after a reasonable time; or an athlete after the command "on your marks" disturbs other athletes in the race through sound or otherwise. If the runner is in the "set" position and moves, then the runner is also disqualified.[105] As of 2010[update], any athlete making a false start is disqualified.[106]
+In International elite competition, electronically tethered starting blocks sense the reaction time of the athletes. If the athlete reacts in less than 0.1 second, an alert sounds for a recall starter and the offending athlete is guilty of a false start.[103]
+For sprinting events (bar the 4 × 400 m relay and the indoor 400 metres), each athlete must run the race within their allocated lane from start to finish. If an athlete leaves their lane or steps on the line demarking each lane the athlete will be disqualified. Lane rules also apply for initial periods of other track races, for example, the beginning of the 800 m. Similar rules apply for longer distance races when a large field of athletes is present and separate starting points are designated, with the field merging into one group shortly after the starting phase.[107][108]
+Any athlete who jostles or obstructs another athlete, in a way that impedes his progress, should be disqualified from that event. However, if an athlete is pushed or forced by another person to run outside his lane, and if no material advantage is gained, the athlete should not be disqualified.[107][108]
+The finish of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide.[109] The finishing position of athletes is determined by the order in which any part of their torso (as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the nearer edge of the finish line.[110] Fully automatic timing systems (photo timing) are becoming more and more common at increasingly lower levels of track meets, improving the accuracy, while eliminating the need for eagle-eyed officials on the finish line. Fully automatic timing (FAT) is required for high level meets and any time a sprint record is set (though distance records can be accepted if timed by three independent stopwatches).[100]
+With the accuracy of the timing systems, ties are rare. Ties between different athletes are resolved as follows: In determining whether there has been a tie in any round for a qualifying position for the next round based on time, a judge (called the chief photo finish judge) must consider the actual time recorded by the athletes to one thousandth of a second. If the judge decides that there has been a tie, the tying athletes must be placed in the next round or, if that is not practicable, lots must be drawn to determine who must be placed in the next round. In the case of a tie for first place in any final, the referee decides whether it is practicable to arrange for the athletes so tying to compete again. If he decides it is not, the result stands. Ties in other placings remain.[100]
+In general, most field events allow a competitor to take their attempt individually, under theoretically the same conditions as the other competitors in the competition. Each attempt is measured to determine who achieved the greatest distance.[100]
+Vertical jumps (high jump and pole vault) set a bar at a particular height. The competitor must clear the bar without knocking it off the standards that are holding the bar (flat). Three failures in a row ends the competitor's participation in the event. The competitor has the option to PASS their attempt, which can be used to strategic advantage (of course that advantage is lost if the competitor misses). A pass could be used to save energy and avoid taking a jump that would not improve their position in the standings. After all competitors have either cleared, passed or failed their attempts at a height, the bar goes up. The amount the bar goes up is predetermined before the competition, though when one competitor remains, that competitor may choose their own heights for the remaining attempts. A record is kept of each attempt by each competitor. After all competitors have taken their attempts, the one jumping the highest is the winner, and so on down the other competitors in the event. Ties are broken by first, the number of attempts taken at the highest height (fewest wins), and then if still tied, by the total number of misses in the competition as a whole. The bar does not go back to a lower height except to break a tie for first place or a qualifying position. If those critical positions are still tied after applying the tiebreakers, all tied competitors take a fourth jump at the last height. If they still miss, the bar goes down one increment where they again jump. This process continues until the tie is broken.[100]
+Horizontal jumps (long jump and triple jump) and all throws must be initiated behind a line. In the case of horizontal jumps, that line is a straight line perpendicular to the runway. In the case of throws, that line is an arc or a circle. Crossing the line while initiating the attempt invalidates the attempt—it becomes a foul. All landings must occur in a sector. For the jumps, that is a sand filled pit, for throws it is a defined sector. A throw landing on the line on the edge of sector is a foul (the inside edge of the line is the outside edge of the sector). Assuming a proper attempt, officials measure the distance from the closest landing point back to the line. The measuring tape is carefully straightened to the shortest distance between the point and the line. To accomplish this, the tape must be perfectly perpendicular to the take off line in jumps, or is pulled through the center point of the arc for throws. The officials at the landing end of the tape have the zero, while the officials at the point of initiation measure and record the length. Whenever a record (or potential record) occurs, that measurement is taken (again) with a steel tape, and observed by at least three officials (plus usually the meet referee). Steel tapes are easily bent and damaged, so are not used to measure everyday competitions. For major competitions, each competitor gets three tries. The top competitors (usually 8 or 9 depending on that competition's rules or the number of lanes on the track) gets three more tries. At that level of competition, the order of competitors for those final three attempts are set—so the competitor in first place at the end of the third round is last, while the last competitor to qualify goes first. Some meets rearrange the competition order again for the final round, so the final attempt is taken by the leader at that point. At other competitions, meet management may choose to limit all competitors to four or three attempts. Whatever the format, all competitors get an equal number of attempts.[100]
+Men and women have different weights for their throwing implements – men's javelin is 800 grams compared to 600 for women, men's weight throw is 35 pounds compared to 20 for women, men's discus is 2 kilograms to women's 1, men's shot put is 16 pounds compared to 8 pounds for women, and men's hammer throw is also 16 pounds to the women's 8. Additionally, men's high hurdles are at height of 42 inches compared to women's hurdles which are 33 inches. For the intermediate hurdles (400 meter hurdles), the men's hurdle height is 36 inches compared to 30 inches for women.
+The international governance of track and field falls under the jurisdiction of athletics organisations. World Athletics is the global governing body for track and field, and athletics as a whole. The governance of track and field at continental and national level is also done by athletics bodies. Some national federations are named after the sport, including USA Track & Field and the Philippine Amateur Track & Field Association, but these organisations govern more than just track and field and are in fact athletics governing bodies.[111][112] These national federations regulate sub-national and local track and field clubs, as well as other types of running clubs.[113]
+The major global track and field competitions are both held under the scope of athletics. Track and field contests make up the majority of events on the Olympic and Paralympic athletics programmes, which occur every four years. Track and field events have held a prominent position at the Summer Olympics since its inception in 1896,[114] and the events are typically held in the main stadium of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Events such as the 100 metres receive some of the highest levels of media coverage of any Olympic or Paralympic sporting event.
+The other two major international competition for track and field are organised by the IAAF. The IAAF had selected the Olympic competition as its world championship event in 1913, but a separate world championships for athletics alone was first held in 1983 – the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The championships comprised track and field competitions plus the marathon and racewalking competitions. Initially, this worked on a quadrennial basis but, after 1991, it changed to a biennial format. In terms of indoor track and field, the IAAF World Indoor Championships has been held every two years since 1985 and this is the only world championships that consists of solely track and field events.
+Similar to the event programmes at the Olympics, Paralympics and World Championships, track and field forms a significant part of continental championships. The South American Championships in Athletics, created in 1919,[115] was the first continental championships and the European Athletics Championships became the second championships of this type in 1934.[116] The Asian Athletics Championships and African Championships in Athletics were created in the 1970s and Oceania started its championships in 1990.
+There are also indoor continental competitions in Europe (European Athletics Indoor Championships) and Asia (Asian Indoor Athletics Championships). There has not been a consistent championships for all of North America, which may be (in part) due to the success of both the Central American and Caribbean Championships and the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Most countries have a national championship in track and field and, for athletes, these often play a role in gaining selection into major competitions. Some countries hold many track and field championships at high school and college-level, which help develop younger athletes. Some of these have gained significant exposure and prestige, such as the NCAA Track and Field Championship in the United States and the Jamaican High School Championships.[117] However, the number and status of such competitions significantly vary from country to country.
+Mirroring the role that track and field events have at the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the sport is featured within the athletics programmes of many major multi-sport events. Among some of the first of these events to follow the Olympic-style model were the World University Games in 1923, the Commonwealth Games in 1930, and the Maccabiah Games in 1932.[118] The number of major multi-sport events greatly increased during the 20th century and thus did the number of track and field events held within them. Typically, track and field events are hosted at the main stadium of the games.
+After the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the most prominent events for track and field athletes include the three IOC-sanctioned continental games: the All-Africa Games, Asian Games, and the Pan American Games. Other games such as the Commonwealth Games and Summer Universiade, and World Masters Games have significant participation from track and field athletes. Track and field is also present at the national games level, with competitions such as the Chinese National Games serving as the most prestigious national competition for domestic track and field athletes.
+One-day track and field meetings form the most common and seasonal aspect of the sport – they are the most basic level of track and field competition. Meetings are generally organised annually either under the patronage of an educational institution or sports club, or by a group or business that serves as the meeting promoter. In the case of the former, athletes are selected to represent their club or institution. In the case of privately run or independent meetings, athletes participate on an invitation-only basis.[119]
+The most basic type of meetings are all-comers track meets, which are largely small, local, informal competitions that allow people of all ages and abilities to compete. As meetings become more organized they can gain official sanctioning by the local or national association for the sport.[120]
+At the professional level, meetings began to offer significant financial incentives for all athletes in the 1990s in Europe with the creation of the "Golden Four" competition, comprising meetings in Zürich, Brussels, Berlin and Oslo. This expanded and received IAAF backing as the IAAF Golden League in 1998,[121] which was later supplemented by the branding of selected meetings worldwide as the IAAF World Athletics Tour. In 2010, the Golden League idea was expanded globally as the Diamond League series and this now forms the top tier of professional one-day track and field meetings.[122]
+The IAAF World Rankings system was introduced for the 2018 season. An athletes position within the ranking will be determined by points scored based on their performance and importance of the competition. The points will be considered for eligibility for the World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games.[123] This system will affect athlete participation, which has typically been determined by national bodies, either through selection panels or national trials events.[124]
+Athletes performances are timed or measured at virtually all track and field competitions. Doing so can not only serve as a way of determining the winner in an event, but it can also be used for historical comparison (i.e. a record). A large variety of record types exist and men's and women's performances are recorded separately. The foremost types of records organise athlete's performances by the region they represent—beginning with national records, then continental records, up to the global or world record level. National governing bodies control the national record lists, the area associations organise their respective continental lists, and the IAAF ratifies world records.
+The IAAF ratifies track and field world records if they meet their set criteria. The IAAF first published a world records list in 1914, initially for men's events only. There were 53 recognised records in running, hurdling and relay, and 12 field records. World records in women's events began in 1936 as more events were gradually added to the list, but significant changes were made in the late 1970s. First, all records in imperial measurements were abandoned in 1976, with the sole exceptional being the mile run due to the prestige and history of the event. The following year, all world records in sprint events would only be recognised if fully automatic electronic timing was used (as opposed to the traditional hand-timing stopwatch method). In 1981, electronic timing was made compulsory for all world record runs in track and field, with times being recorded to within one hundredth of a second. Two additional types of world record were introduced in 1987: world records for indoor competitions, and world records for junior athletes under 20 years old.[125]
+The next most important record type are those achieved at a specific competition. For example, the Olympic records represent the best performances by athletes at the Summer Olympics. All major championships and games have their relevant competition records and a large number of track and field meetings keep a note of their meet records. Other record types include: stadium records, records by age range, records by disability, and records by institution or organisation. Cash bonuses are usually offered to athletes if they break significant records, as doing so can generate greater interest and public attendance in track and field competitions.
+Track and field athletes are banned from ingesting or using certain substances by governing bodies for the sport, from the national to the international level. The IAAF's constitution incorporates the World Anti-Doping Code among other anti-doping measures.[126] Practices such as blood doping and the use of anabolic steroids, peptide hormones, stimulants, or diuretics can give athletes a physical competitive advantage in track and field.[127] The use of such substances in track and field is opposed on both ethical and medical grounds. Given that the sport functions by measuring and comparing athletes' performances, performance-enhancing substances create an uneven playing field — athletes who do not use doping substances have a disadvantage over rivals who do. Medically, the use of banned substances may have an adverse effect upon athletes' health. However, some exemptions are made for athletes who take banned substances for therapeutic use, and athletes are not sanctioned for usage in these cases,[128] such as Kim Collins' failed drug test due to asthma medication.[129]
+Athletes have historically been willing to take legal and health risks to improve their performance, with some even stating their willingness to risk their lives, as exemplified by research by Mirkin,[130] Goldman[131] and Connor[132] in researching attitudes to the so-called Goldman dilemma. To prevent use of performance-enhancing substances, athletes must submit to drug tests that are conducted both in and out of competition by anti-doping officials or accredited medical staff.[128] Penalized athletes are susceptible to higher testing upon return to competition. Athletes found to have taken substances on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list receive sanctions and may be banned from competition for a period of time that corresponds to the seriousness of the infraction.[133] However, the use of substances not on the prohibited list may also result in sanctions if the substance is deemed similar to a banned substance in either composition or effect. Athletes may also be sanctioned for missing tests, seeking to avoid testing or tampering with results, refusing to submit to testing, through circumstantial evidence, or confession of use.[128]
+Doping has played a significant part in the modern history of track and field. State-sponsored doping in East Germany with hormones and anabolic steroids marked the rise of women from East Germany in track and field from the late 1960s to the 1980s. A number of these women, such as Marita Koch, broke world records and were highly successful at international competitions. Some athletes, who were following a doping plan from their teenage years, suffered significant health problems as a result of the regime.[134][135] A similar state-sponsored doping system was developed in the Soviet Union. In 2016, The New York Times published an article detailing the use of doping by the Soviets in preparation for the 1984 Olympics.[23] Ben Johnson ran a new world record in the 100 metres at the 1988 Seoul Olympics but was later banned for using anabolic steroids.[136] In the mid-first decade of the 21st century, the BALCO Scandal eventually resulted in the downfall of prominent sprinters such as Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, among others, through their usage of banned substances.[137] The revelation state-sponsored doping in Russia led to an international ban on all its athletes in 2016, with Russians having to apply to the IAAF to compete as Authorised Neutral Athletes at events such as the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2017 World Championships in Athletics.[138] Doping has affected countries on all continents and has occurred in individual, team and national settings.
+Track and field bears most similarity to the others categorised under the sport of athletics, specifically cross country running, and road forms of racewalking and running. All these forms of racing tend to record finishing times, have strictly defined start and finish points, and are generally individual in nature. Middle- and long-distance runners usually participate in cross country and road events, in addition to the track. Track racewalkers are most typically road specialists as well. It is unusual for track and field athletes outside of these two groups to compete in cross country or road events.
+Varieties of strength athletics, such as the World's Strongest Man and highland games, often incorporate forms of footracing carrying heavy objects as well as throwing events such as the caber toss and keg toss, which bear similarities to track and field throwing events.

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+Coordinates: 42°N 63°E / 42°N 63°E / 42; 63
+Uzbekistan (UK: /ʊzˌbɛkɪˈstɑːn, ʌz-, -ˈstæn/, US: /ʊzˈbɛkɪstæn, -stɑːn/;[11][12] Uzbek: Oʻzbekiston, pronounced [ozbekiˈstɒn]), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: Oʻzbekiston Respublikasi), is a country in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south and Turkmenistan to the south-west. Along with Liechtenstein, it is one of two doubly landlocked countries.
+As a sovereign state, Uzbekistan is a secular, unitary constitutional republic. It comprises 12 provinces (vilayats) and one autonomous republic, Karakalpakstan. The capital and largest city of Uzbekistan is Tashkent.
+What is now Uzbekistan was in ancient times part of the Iranian-speaking region of Transoxiana and Turan. The first recorded settlers were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm (8th–6th centuries BC), Bactria (8th–6th centuries BCE), Sogdia (8th–6th centuries BCE), Fergana (3rd century BCE – 6th century CE), and Margiana (3rd century BCE – 6th century CE). The area was incorporated into the Iranian Achaemenid Empire and, after a period of Macedonian Greek rule, was ruled by the Iranian Parthian Empire and later by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century. The Muslim conquest in the 7th century converted the majority of the population, including the local ruling classes, into adherents of Islam. During this period, cities such as Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara began to grow rich from the Silk Road, and witnessed the emergence of leading figures of the Islamic Golden Age, including Muhammad al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, Ismail Samani, al-Biruni, and Avicenna. The local Khwarazmian dynasty, and Central Asia as a whole, were decimated by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. After the Mongol Conquests, the area became increasingly dominated by Turkic peoples. The city of Shahrisabz was the birthplace of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), who in the 14th century established the Timurid Empire and was proclaimed the Supreme Emir of Turan with his capital in Samarkand, which became a world centre of science under the rule of Ulugh Beg, giving birth to the Timurid Renaissance. The territories of the Timurid dynasty were conquered by Uzbek Shaybanids in the 16th century, moving the centre of power from Samarkand to Bukhara. The region was split into three states: Khanate of Khiva, Khanate of Kokand and Emirate of Bukhara. Conquests by Emperor Babur towards the East led the foundation of India's proto-industrialised Mughal Empire. It was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19th century, with Tashkent becoming the political center of Russian Turkestan. In 1924, after national delimitation, the constituent republic of the Soviet Union known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was created. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991.
+Uzbekistan has a diverse cultural heritage due to its storied history and strategic location. Its constitutional official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in a modified Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population. Russian has widespread use as an inter-ethnic communication language and as a language of governance. Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians (5.4%), Tajiks (4.0%), Kazakhs (3.0%) and others (6.5%). Muslims constitute 79% of the population while 5% of the population follow Russian Orthodox Christianity and 16% of the population follow other religions or are non-religious. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims.[13] Uzbekistan is a member of the CIS, OSCE, UN and the SCO. While officially a democratic republic,[14] by 2008 non-governmental human rights organisations defined Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights".[15]
+Following the death of Islam Karimov in 2016, the second president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, started a new course, which was described as a A Quiet Revolution and Revolution from Above. He stated he intended to abolish cotton slavery, systematic use of child labour,[16] and exit visas, and to introduce a tax reform and create four new free economic zones and he has amnestied some political prisoners. Relations with the neighbouring countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan drastically improved.[17][18][19][20] However, the Amnesty International report on human rights in the country for 2017/2018 described continued repressive measures, including forced labour in cotton harvesting, and restrictions on the movement of 'freed' prisoners.[21]
+The Uzbek economy is in a gradual transition to the market economy, with foreign trade policy being based on import substitution. In September 2017, the country's currency became fully convertible at market rates. Uzbekistan is a major producer and exporter of cotton. With the gigantic power-generation facilities of the Soviet era and an ample supply of natural gas, Uzbekistan has become the largest electricity producer in Central Asia.[22] Renewable energy constitutes more than 23% of the country's energy sector, with hydroelectricity and solar energy having 21.4% and 2% respectively.[citation needed]
+As of late 2018, the republic was given a BB- rating by both Standard and Poor (S&P) and Fitch. Strengths indicated by Brookings Institution include Uzbekistan having large liquid assets, high economic growth and low public debt. Among the constraints holding the republic back are low GDP per capita, something the government could influence by changing how it accounts for sectors of the economy not currently included.[23]
+Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres (172,700 sq mi). It is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population.[24] Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area and the 2nd largest by population.[25]
+Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres (885 mi) from west to east and 930 kilometres (580 mi) from north to south. Bordering Kazakhstan and the Aralkum Desert (former Aral Sea) to the north and northwest, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to the southwest, Tajikistan to the southeast, and Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Uzbekistan is one of the largest Central Asian states and the only Central Asian state to border all the other four. Uzbekistan also shares a short border (less than 150 km or 93 mi) with Afghanistan to the south.
+Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country. It is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world (that is, a country completely surrounded by landlocked countries), the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, none of its rivers lead to the sea. Less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases, and formerly in the Aral Sea, which has largely desiccated. The rest is the vast Kyzylkum Desert and mountains.
+The highest point in Uzbekistan is Khazret Sultan at 4,643 metres (15,233 ft) above sea level, in the southern part of the Gissar Range in the Surxondaryo Region on the border with Tajikistan, just northwest of Dushanbe (formerly called Peak of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party).[25]
+The climate in Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually (100–200 millimetres, or 3.9–7.9 inches). The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C (104 °F), while the average winter low temperature is around −23 °C (−9 °F).[26]
+Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment. However, decades of questionable Soviet policies in pursuit of greater cotton production have resulted in a catastrophic scenario with the agricultural industry being the main contributor to the pollution and devastation of both air and water in the country.[27]
+The Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use.[28] Since the 1960s, the decade when the overuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to about 10% of its former area and divided into parts, with only the southern part of the narrow western lobe of the South Aral Sea remaining permanently in Uzbekistan. Reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organisation or official agency.[citation needed] Much of the water was and continues to be used for the irrigation of cotton fields,[29] a crop requiring a large amount of water to grow.[30]
+Due to the Aral Sea problem, high salinity and contamination of the soil with heavy elements are especially widespread in Karakalpakstan, the region of Uzbekistan adjacent to the Aral Sea. The bulk of the nation's water resources is used for farming, which accounts for nearly 84% of the water usage and contributes to high soil salinity. Heavy use of pesticides and fertilisers for cotton growing further aggravates soil contamination.[26]
+According to the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), climate risk management in Uzbekistan needs to consider its ecological safety.[31]
+Numerous oil and gas deposits have been discovered in the south of the country.
+Uzbekistan has also been home to seismic activity, as evidenced by the 1902 Andijan earthquake, 2011 Fergana Valley earthquake, and 1966 Tashkent earthquake.[32]
+A dam collapse at Sardoba reservoir in May 2020 flooded a lot of farmland and villages; the devastation extended into areas inside neighbouring Kazakhstan.[33]
+The first people known to have inhabited Central Asia were Scythians who came from the northern grasslands of what is now Uzbekistan, sometime in the first millennium BC; when these nomads settled in the region they built an extensive irrigation system along the rivers.[34] At this time, cities such as Bukhoro (Bukhara) and Samarqand (Samarkand) emerged as centres of government and high culture.[34] By the fifth century BC, the Bactrian, Soghdian, and Tokharian states dominated the region.[34]
+As East Asian countries began to develop its silk trade with the West, Persian cities took advantage of this commerce by becoming centres of trade. Using an extensive network of cities and rural settlements in the province of Transoxiana, and further east in what is today China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Sogdian intermediaries became the wealthiest of these Iranian merchants. As a result of this trade on what became known as the Silk Route, Bukhara and Samarkand eventually became extremely wealthy cities, and at times Transoxiana (Mawarannahr) was one of the most influential and powerful Persian provinces of antiquity.[34]
+In 327 BC Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire provinces of Sogdiana and Bactria, which contained the territories of modern Uzbekistan. A conquest was supposedly of little help to Alexander as popular resistance was fierce, causing Alexander's army to be bogged down in the region that became the northern part of the Macedonian Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The kingdom was replaced with the Yuezhi dominated Kushan Empire in the 1st century BC. For many centuries the region of Uzbekistan was ruled by the Persian empires, including the Parthian and Sassanid Empires, as well as by other empires, for example those formed by the Turko-Persian Hephthalite and Turkic Gokturk peoples.
+In the 8th century, Transoxiana, the territory between the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers, was conquered by the Arabs (Ali ibn Sattor) becoming a focal point soon after of the Islamic Golden Age. Many notable scientists lived there and contributed to its development after the conquest. Among the achievements of the scholars during this period were the development of trigonometry into its modern form (simplifying its practical application to calculate the phases of the moon), advances in optics, in astronomy, as well as in poetry, philosophy, art, calligraphy and many others, which set the foundation for the Muslim Renaissance.[citation needed]
+In the 9th and 10th centuries, Transoxiana was included into the Samanid State. Later, Transoxiana saw the incursion of the Turkic-ruled Karakhanids, as well as the Seljuks (Sultan Sanjar) and Kara-Khitans.[35]
+The Mongol conquest under Genghis Khan during the 13th century would bring about a change to the region. The Mongol invasion of Central Asia led to the displacement of some of the Iranian-speaking people of the region, their culture and heritage being superseded by that of the Mongolian-Turkic peoples who came thereafter. The invasions of Bukhara, Samarkand, Urgench and others resulted in mass murders and unprecedented destruction, such as portions of Khwarezmia being completely razed.[36]
+Following the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, his empire was divided among his four sons and his family members. Despite the potential for serious fragmentation, the Mongol law of the Mongol Empire maintained orderly succession for several more generations, and control of most of Transoxiana stayed in the hands of the direct descendants of Chagatai Khan, the second son of Genghis Khan. Orderly succession, prosperity, and internal peace prevailed in the Chaghatai lands, and the Mongol Empire as a whole remained a strong and united kingdom (Ulus Batiy, Sattarkhan).[37]
+During this period, most of present Uzbekistan was part of the Chagatai Khanate except Khwarezm was part of the Golden Horde. After the decline of the Golden Horde, Khwarezm was briefly ruled by the Sufi Dynasty till Timur's conquest of it in 1388.[38] Sufids rules Khwarezm as vassals of alternatively Timurids, Golden Horde and Uzbek Khanate till Persian occupation in 1510.
+In the early 14th century, however, as the empire began to break up into its constituent parts, the Chaghatai territory was disrupted as the princes of various tribal groups competed for influence. One tribal chieftain, Timur (Tamerlane),[39] emerged from these struggles in the 1380s as the dominant force in Transoxiana. Although he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan, Timur became the de facto ruler of Transoxiana and proceeded to conquer all of western Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the southern steppe region north of the Aral Sea. He also invaded Russia before dying during an invasion of China in 1405.[37]
+Timur was known for his extreme brutality and his conquests were accompanied by genocidal massacres in the cities he occupied.[40]
+Timur initiated the last flowering of Transoxiana by gathering together numerous artisans and scholars from the vast lands he had conquered into his capital, Samarqand. By supporting such people, he imbued his empire with a rich Perso-Islamic culture. During his reign and the reigns of his immediate descendants, a wide range of religious and palatial construction masterpieces were undertaken in Samarqand and other population centres.[41] Amir Timur initiated an exchange of medical discoveries and patronised physicians, scientists and artists from the neighbouring regions such as India;[42] His grandson Ulugh Beg was one of the world's first great astronomers. It was during the Timurid dynasty that Turkic, in the form of the Chaghatai dialect, became a literary language in its own right in Transoxiana, although the Timurids were Persianate in nature. The greatest Chaghataid writer, Ali-Shir Nava'i, was active in the city of Herat (now in northwestern Afghanistan) in the second half of the 15th century.[37]
+The Timurid state quickly split in half after the death of Timur. The chronic internal fighting of the Timurids attracted the attention of the Uzbek nomadic tribes living to the north of the Aral Sea. In 1501 the Uzbek forces began a wholesale invasion of Transoxiana.[37] The slave trade in the Khanate of Bukhara became prominent and was firmly established.[43] Before the arrival of the Russians, present Uzbekistan was divided between Emirate of Bukhara and khanates of Khiva and Kokand.
+In the 19th century, the Russian Empire began to expand and spread into Central Asia. There were 210,306 Russians living in Uzbekistan in 1912.[44] The "Great Game" period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A second, less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. At the start of the 19th century, there were some 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) separating British India and the outlying regions of Tsarist Russia. Much of the land between was unmapped.
+By the beginning of 1920, Central Asia was firmly in the hands of Russia and, despite some early resistance to the Bolsheviks, Uzbekistan and the rest of the Central Asia became a part of the Soviet Union. On 27 October 1924 the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was created. From 1941 to 1945, during World War II, 1,433,230 people from Uzbekistan fought in the Red Army against Nazi Germany. A number also fought on the German side. As many as 263,005 Uzbek soldiers died in the battlefields of the Eastern Front, and 32,670 went missing in action.[45]
+On 20 June 1990, Uzbekistan declared its state sovereignty. On 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan declared independence after the failed coup attempt in Moscow. 1 September was proclaimed the National Independence Day. The Soviet Union was dissolved on 26 December of that year.
+Islam Karimov, ruler of Uzbekistan since independence, died on 2 September 2016.[46] He was replaced by his long-time Prime Minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, on 14 December of the same year.
+After Uzbekistan declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, an election was held, and Islam Karimov was elected as the first President of Uzbekistan on 29 December 1991.
+The elections of the Oliy Majlis (Parliament or Supreme Assembly) were held under a resolution adopted by the 16th Supreme Soviet in 1994. In that year, the Supreme Soviet was replaced by the Oliy Majlis.
+The third elections for the bicameral 150-member Oliy Majlis, the Legislative Chamber, and the 100-member Senate for five-year terms, were held on 27 December 2009. The second elections were held in December 2004 to January 2005. The Oliy Majlis was unicameral up to 2004. Its size increased from 69 deputies (members) in 1994 to 120 in 2004–05, and currently stands at 150.
+Karimov's first presidential term was extended to 2000 via a referendum, and he was re-elected in 2000, 2007 and 2015, each time receiving over 90% of the vote. Most international observers refused to participate in the process and did not recognise the results, dismissing them as not meeting basic standards.
+The 2002 referendum also included a plan for a bicameral parliament consisting of a lower house (the Oliy Majlis) and an upper house (Senate). Members of the lower house are to be "full-time" legislators. Elections for the new bicameral parliament took place on 26 December.
+Following Islam Karimov's death on 2 September 2016, the Supreme Assembly appointed then prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, as interim president of Uzbekistan on 8 September 2016. Although the chairman of the Senate, Nigmatilla Yuldashev, was constitutionally designated as Karimov's successor, Yuldashev proposed that Mirziyoyev take the post of interim president instead in light of Mirziyoyev's "many years of experience". Mirziyoyev was subsequently elected as the country's second president in the December 2016 presidential election, winning 88.6% of the vote, and was sworn in on 14 December 2016. On 12 December 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov was nominated to take over from Mirziyoyev as prime minister.
+Mirziyoyev removed most of Karimov's officials and urged the government to employ "new, young people who love their country." After a year of in office, Mirziyoyev is increasingly moving away from his predecessor's policy, which is especially visibly in his active foreign policy. He visited all the Uzbek regions and big cities to get acquainted with the implementation of the projects and reforms which he ordered. Many analysts and Western media compared his rule with Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping or Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. His rule has been quoted as being an "Uzbek Spring"[citation needed].
+In May 2018, Mirziyoyev was nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize by Olimzhon Tukhtanazarov, who is a representative of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. By the end of that year, he had been named the "Asian of the Year of 2018" by the Asia Journalist Association (AJA).
+The Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan asserts that "democracy in the Republic of Uzbekistan shall be based upon common human principles, according to which the highest value shall be the human being, his life, freedom, honour, dignity and other inalienable rights."
+The official position is summarised in a memorandum "The measures taken by the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the field of providing and encouraging human rights"[47] and amounts to the following: the government does everything that is in its power to protect and to guarantee the human rights of Uzbekistan's citizens. Uzbekistan continuously improves its laws and institutions in order to create a more humane society. Over 300 laws regulating the rights and basic freedoms of the people have been passed by the parliament. For instance, an office of Ombudsman was established in 1996.[48] On 2 August 2005, President Islam Karimov signed a decree that abolished capital punishment in Uzbekistan on 1 January 2008.[49]
+However, non-governmental human rights organisations, such as IHF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as United States Department of State and Council of the European Union, define Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights"[15] and express profound concern about "wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights".[50]
+According to the reports, the most widespread violations are torture, arbitrary arrests, and various restrictions of freedoms: of religion, of speech and press, of free association and assembly. It has also been reported that forced sterilisation of rural Uzbek women has been sanctioned by the government.[51][52]
+The reports maintain that the violations are most often committed against members of religious organisations, independent journalists, human rights activists and political activists, including members of the banned opposition parties. As of 2015, reports on violations on human rights in Uzbekistan indicated that violations were still going on without any improvement.[53] The Freedom House has consistently ranked Uzbekistan near the bottom of its Freedom in the World ranking since the country's founding in 1991. In the 2018 report, Uzbekistan was one of the 11 worst countries for Political Rights and Civil Liberties.[54]
+The 2005 civil unrest in Uzbekistan, which resulted in several hundred people being killed, is viewed by many as a landmark event in the history of human rights abuse in Uzbekistan.[55][56][57]
+A concern has been expressed and a request for an independent investigation of the events has been made by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
+The government of Uzbekistan is accused of unlawful termination of human life and of denying its citizens freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. The government vehemently rebuffs the accusations, maintaining that it merely conducted an anti-terrorist operation, exercising only necessary force.[58] In addition, some officials claim that "an information war on Uzbekistan has been declared" and the human rights violations in Andijan are invented by the enemies of Uzbekistan as a convenient pretext for intervention in the country's internal affairs.[59] Male homosexuality is illegal in Uzbekistan.[60] Punishment ranges from a fine to 3 years in prison.[61]
+Uzbekistan also maintains the world's second-highest rate of modern slavery, 3.97%[62] of the country's population working as modern slaves. In real terms, this means that there are 1.2 million modern slaves[62] in Uzbekistan. Most work in the cotton industry. The government allegedly forces state employees to pick cotton in the autumn months.[63] World Bank loans have been connected to projects that use child labour and forced labour practices in the cotton industry.[64]
+Islam Karimov died in 2016 and his successor Shavkat Mirziyoyev is considered by most to be pursuing a less autocratic path by increasing co-operation with human rights NGOs,[65][66] scheduling Soviet-style exit visas to be abolished in 2019,[67] and reducing sentences for certain misdemeanor offences.[68]
+However, the Amnesty International report on the country for 2017/2018 details many continued repressive measures.[21]
+Uzbekistan is divided into twelve provinces (viloyatlar, singular viloyat, compound noun viloyati e.g., Toshkent viloyati, Samarqand viloyati, etc.), one autonomous republic (respublika, compound noun respublikasi e.g. Qoraqalpogʻiston Muxtor Respublikasi, Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, etc.), and one independent city (shahar, compound noun shahri, e.g., Toshkent shahri). Names are given below in Uzbek, Russian, and Karakalpak languages when applicable, although numerous variations of the transliterations of each name exist.
+The provinces are further divided into districts (tuman).
+Uzbekistan mines 80 tons of gold annually, seventh in the world. Uzbekistan's copper deposits rank tenth in the world and its uranium deposits twelfth. The country's uranium production ranks seventh globally.[70][71][72] The Uzbek national gas company, Uzbekneftegas, ranks 11th in the world in natural gas production with an annual output of 60 to 70 billion cubic metres (2.1–2.5 trillion cubic feet). The country has significant untapped reserves of oil and gas: there are 194 deposits of hydrocarbons in Uzbekistan, including 98 condensate and natural gas deposits and 96 gas condensate deposits.[73][74]
+Uzbekistan improved marginally in the 2020 Ease of Doing Business ranking by the World Bank.[75]
+The largest corporations involved in Uzbekistan's energy sector are the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Petronas, the Korea National Oil Corporation, Gazprom, Lukoil, and Uzbekneftegas.[citation needed]
+Along with many Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS economies, Uzbekistan's economy declined during the first years of transition and then recovered after 1995, as the cumulative effect of policy reforms began to be felt.[76] It has shown robust growth, rising by 4% per year between 1998 and 2003 and accelerating thereafter to 7%–8% per year. According to IMF estimates,[77] the GDP in 2008 will be almost double its value in 1995 (in constant prices). Since 2003 annual inflation rates averaged less than 10%.
+Uzbekistan has GNI per capita of US$2,020 in current dollars in 2018, giving a PPP equivalent of US$7,230.[78] Economic production is concentrated in commodities. In 2011, Uzbekistan was the world's seventh-largest producer and fifth-largest exporter of cotton[79] as well as the seventh-largest world producer of gold. It is also a regionally significant producer of natural gas, coal, copper, oil, silver and uranium.[80]
+Agriculture employs 27% of Uzbekistan's labour force and contributes 17.4% of its GDP (2012 data).[25] Cultivable land is 4.4 million hectares, or about 10% of Uzbekistan's total area. While official unemployment is very low, underemployment – especially in rural areas – is estimated to be at least 20%.[81] Cotton production in Uzbekistan is important to the national economy of the country.[29] Uzbek cotton is even used to make banknotes in South Korea.[82] The use of child labour in Uzbekistan has led several companies, including Tesco,[83] C&A,[84] Marks & Spencer, Gap, and H&M, to boycott Uzbek cotton.[85]
+Facing a multitude of economic challenges upon acquiring independence, the government adopted an evolutionary reform strategy, with an emphasis on state control, reduction of imports and self-sufficiency in energy. Since 1994, the state-controlled media have repeatedly proclaimed the success of this "Uzbekistan Economic Model"[86] and suggested that it is a unique example of a smooth transition to the market economy while avoiding shock, pauperism and stagnation. As of 2019, Uzbekistan's economy is one of the most diversified in Central Asia what makes the country an attractive economic partner for China.[87]
+The gradualist reform strategy has involved postponing significant macroeconomic and structural reforms. The state in the hands of the bureaucracy has remained a dominant influence in the economy. Corruption permeates the society and grows more rampant over time: Uzbekistan's 2005 Corruption Perception Index was 137 out of 159 countries, whereas in 2007 Uzbekistan was 175th out of 179 countries. A February 2006 report on the country by the International Crisis Group suggests that revenues earned from key exports, especially cotton, gold, corn and increasingly gas, are distributed among a very small circle of the ruling elite, with little or no benefit for the populace at large.[88] The recent high-profile corruption scandals involving government contracts and large international companies, notably TeliaSoneria, have shown that businesses are particularly vulnerable to corruption when operating in Uzbekistan.[89]
+According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, "the government is hostile to allowing the development of an independent private sector, over which it would have no control".[90]
+The economic policies have repelled foreign investment, which is the lowest per capita in the CIS.[91] For years, the largest barrier to foreign companies entering the Uzbekistan market has been the difficulty of converting currency. In 2003 the government accepted the obligations of Article VIII under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)[92] providing for full currency convertibility. However, strict currency controls and the tightening of borders have lessened the effect of this measure.
+Uzbekistan experienced rampant inflation of around 1000% per year immediately after independence (1992–1994). Stabilisation efforts implemented with guidance from the IMF[93] paid off. The inflation rates were brought down to 50% in 1997 and then to 22% in 2002. Since 2003 annual inflation rates averaged less than 10%.[77] Tight economic policies in 2004 resulted in a drastic reduction of inflation to 3.8% (although alternative estimates based on the price of a true market basket put it at 15%).[94] The inflation rates moved up to 6.9% in 2006 and 7.6% in 2007 but have remained in the single-digit range.[95]
+The government of Uzbekistan restricts foreign imports in many ways, including high import duties. Excise taxes are applied in a highly discriminatory manner to protect locally produced goods. Official tariffs are combined with unofficial, discriminatory charges resulting in total charges amounting to as much as 100 to 150% of the actual value of the product, making imported products virtually unaffordable.[96] Import substitution is an officially declared policy and the government proudly reports a reduction by a factor of two in the volume of consumer goods imported. A number of CIS countries are officially exempt from Uzbekistan import duties. Uzbekistan has a Bilateral Investment Treaty with fifty other countries.[97]
+The Republican Stock Exchange (RSE) opened in 1994. The stocks of all Uzbek joint stock companies (around 1,250) are traded on RSE. The number of listed companies as of January 2013 exceeds 110. Securities market volume reached 2 trillion in 2012, and the number is rapidly growing due to the rising interest by companies of attracting necessary resources through the capital market. According to Central Depository as of January 2013 par value of outstanding shares of Uzbek emitters exceeded nine trillion.
+Thanks in part to the recovery of world market prices of gold and cotton (the country's key export commodities), expanded natural gas and some manufacturing exports, and increasing labour migrant transfers, the current account turned into a large surplus (between 9% and 11% of GDP from 2003 to 2005). In 2018, foreign exchange reserves, including gold, totalled around US$25 billion.[98]
+Foreign exchange reserves amounted in 2010 to 13 billion US$.[99]
+Uzbekistan is predicted to be one of the fastest-growing economies in the world (top 26) in future decades, according to a survey by global bank HSBC.[100]
+As of 2019[update], Uzbekistan has the largest population out of all the countries in Central Asia, and is the second-largest (if Kazakhstan is excluded). Its 32,768,725[103] citizens comprise nearly half the region's total population. The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 34.1% of its people are younger than 14 (2008 estimate).[81] According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (80%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups include Russians 2%, Tajiks 5%, Kazakhs 3%, Karakalpaks 2.5% and Tatars 1.5% (1996 estimates).[81]
+There is some controversy about the percentage of the Tajik population. While official state numbers from Uzbekistan put the number at 5%, the number is said to be an understatement and according to unverifiable reports, some Western scholars put the number up to 20%–30%.[104][105][106][107] The Uzbeks intermixed with Sarts, a Turko-Persian population of Central Asia. Today, the majority of Uzbeks are admixed and represent varying degrees of diversity.[108] Uzbekistan has an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to the region by Stalin from the Soviet Far East in 1937–1938. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand. The nation is 88% Muslim (mostly Sunni, with a 5% Shi'a minority), 9% Eastern Orthodox and 3% other faiths. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2004 reports that 0.2% of the population are Buddhist (these being ethnic Koreans). The Bukharan Jews have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989[109] (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but now, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the United States, Germany, or Israel. Fewer than 5,000 Jews remained in Uzbekistan in 2007.[110]
+Russians in Uzbekistan represented 5.5% of the total population in 1989. During the Soviet period, Russians and Ukrainians constituted more than half the population of Tashkent.[111] The country counted nearly 1.5 million Russians, 12.5% of the population, in the 1970 census.[112] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, significant emigration of ethnic Russians has taken place, mostly for economic reasons.[113]
+In the 1940s, the Crimean Tatars, along with the Volga Germans, Chechens, Pontic[114] Greeks, Kumaks and many other nationalities were deported to Central Asia. Approximately 100,000 Crimean Tatars continue to live in Uzbekistan.[115] The number of Greeks in Tashkent has decreased from 35,000 in 1974 to about 12,000 in 2004.[116] The majority of Meskhetian Turks left the country after the pogroms in the Fergana valley in June 1989.[117]
+At least 10% of Uzbekistan's labour force works abroad (mostly in Russia and Kazakhstan) and other countries.[118][119]
+Uzbekistan has a 99.3% literacy rate among adults older than 15 (2003 estimate),[81] which is attributable to the free and universal education system of the Soviet Union.
+Life expectancy in Uzbekistan is 66 years among men and 72 years among women.[120]
+Islam is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan, although Soviet power (1924–1991) discouraged the expression of religious belief, and they were repressed during its existence as a Soviet Republic. The CIA Factbook estimate that Muslims constitute 88% of the population (mostly Sunni) while 9% of the population follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, 4% other religious and non-religious.[121] While a 2010 Pew Research Center report stated that Uzbekistan's population is 96.5% Muslim.[122][123] Russian Orthodox Christians comprised 2.3% of the population in 2010.[124] An estimated 93,000 Jews lived in the country in the early 1990s.[125]
+In addition, there are about 7,400 Zoroastrians left in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tajik areas like Khojand.[126]
+Despite the predominance of Islam and its rich history in the country, the practice of the faith is far from monolithic. Uzbeks have practised many versions of Islam. The conflict of Islamic tradition with various agendas of reform or secularisation throughout the 20th century has left a wide variety of Islamic practices in Central Asia.[125] 96.3% are Sunni Muslim and rest secular or non-believers; 1% are Shias.[127]
+The end of Soviet control in Uzbekistan in 1991 did not bring an immediate upsurge of religion-associated fundamentalism, as many had predicted, but rather a gradual re-acquaintance with the precepts of the Islamic faith and a gradual resiurgence of Islam in the country.[128] However, since 2015 there has been a slight increase in Islamist activity, with small organisations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan declaring allegiance to ISIL and contributing fighters abroad,[129] although the terror threat in Uzbekistan itself remains low.[130] (See Terrorism in Uzbekistan).
+The Jewish community in the Uzbek lands flourished for centuries, with occasional hardships during the reigns of certain rulers. During the rule of Tamerlane in the 14th century Jews contributed greatly to his efforts to rebuild Samarkand and a great Jewish centre was established there.[131]
+After the area came under Russian rule in 1868, Jews were granted equal rights with the local Muslim population.[131] In that period some 50,000 Jews lived in Samarkand and 20,000 in Bukhara.[131] After the Russian revolutions in 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet regime, Jewish religious life (including all other religions) became restricted. By 1935 only one synagogue out of 30 remained in Samarkand; nevertheless, underground Jewish community life continued during the Soviet era.[131]
+By 1970 there were 103,000 Jews registered in the Uzbek SSR.[131]
+Since 1980s most of the Jews of Uzbekistan emigrated to Israel or to the United States of America.[132] A small community of several thousand remained in the country as of 2013[update]: some 7,000 lived in Tashkent, 3,000 in Bukhara and 700 in Samarkand.[133]
+The Uzbek language is one of the Turkic languages close to Uyghur language and both of them belong to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is the only official national language and since 1992 is officially written in the Latin alphabet.[134]
+Before the 1920s, the written language of Uzbeks was called Turki (known to Western scholars as Chagatai) and used the Nastaʿlīq script. In 1926 the Latin alphabet was introduced and went through several revisions throughout the 1930s. Finally, in 1940, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced by Soviet authorities and was used until the fall of Soviet Union. In 1993 Uzbekistan shifted back to the Latin script (Uzbek alphabet), which was modified in 1996 and is being taught in schools since 2000. Educational establishments teach only the Latin notation. At the same time, the Cyrillic notation is common among the older generation.[135] Even though the Cyrillic notation of Uzbek has now been abolished for official documents, it is still used by a number of popular newspapers and websites whilst a few TV channels duplicate the Latin notation with the Cyrillic one.
+Karakalpak, a Turkic language closer to Kazakh and spoken by half a million people, is spoken primarily in the Republic of Karakalpakstan and has an official status on the territory.
+Although the Russian language is not an official language in the country, it is widely used in many fields. Digital information from the government is bilingual.[136][137][138] Russian is an important language for interethnic communication, especially in the cities, including much day-to-day social, technical, scientific, governmental and business use. The country is also home to approximately one million native Russian speakers.[139][140][141][142][143][144][143]
+The Tajik language (a variety of Persian) is widespread in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand because of their relatively large population of ethnic Tajiks.[145][104][105] It is also found in large pockets in Kasansay, Chust, Rishtan and Sokh in Ferghana Valley, as well as in Burchmulla, Ahangaran, Baghistan in the middle Syr Darya district, and finally in, Shahrisabz, Qarshi, Kitab and the river valleys of Kafiringan and Chaganian, forming altogether, approximately 10–15% of the population of Uzbekistan.[104][105][106]
+More than 800,000 people also speak the Kazakh language.
+There are no language requirements to attain citizenship in Uzbekistan.[143]
+According to the official source report, as of 10 March 2008, the number of cellular phone users in Uzbekistan reached 7 million, up from 3.7 million on 1 July 2007.[146] Mobile users in 2017 were more than 24 million.[147] The largest mobile operator in terms of number of subscribers is MTS-Uzbekistan (former Uzdunrobita and part of Russian Mobile TeleSystems) and it is followed by Beeline (part of Russia's Beeline) and UCell (ex Coscom) (originally part of the U.S. MCT Corp., now a subsidiary of the Nordic/Baltic telecommunication company TeliaSonera AB).[148]
+As of 1 July 2007, the estimated number of internet users was 1.8 million, according to UzACI.[citation needed]
+Internet Censorship exists in Uzbekistan and in October 2012 the government toughened internet censorship by blocking access to proxy servers.[149] Reporters Without Borders has named Uzbekistan's government an "Enemy of the Internet" and government control over the internet has increased dramatically since the start of the Arab Spring.[150]
+The press in Uzbekistan practices self-censorship and foreign journalists have been gradually expelled from the country since the Andijan massacre of 2005 when government troops fired into crowds of protesters killing 187 according to official reports and estimates of several hundred by unofficial and witness accounts.[150]
+Tashkent, the nation's capital and largest city, has a three-line rapid transit system built in 1977, and expanded in 2001 after ten years' independence from the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are currently the only two countries in Central Asia with a subway system. It is promoted as one of the cleanest systems in the former Soviet Union.[151] The stations are exceedingly ornate. For example, the station Metro Kosmonavtov built in 1984 is decorated using a space travel theme to recognise the achievements of mankind in space exploration and to commemorate the role of Vladimir Dzhanibekov, the Soviet cosmonaut of Uzbek origin. A statue of Vladimir Dzhanibekov stands near a station entrance.
+There are government-operated trams and buses running across the city. There are also many taxis, registered and unregistered. Uzbekistan has plants that produce modern cars. The car production is supported by the government and the Korean auto company Daewoo. In May 2007 UzDaewooAuto, the car maker, signed a strategic agreement with General Motors-Daewoo Auto and Technology (GMDAT, see GM Uzbekistan also).[152] The government bought a stake in Turkey's Koc in SamKochAvto, a producer of small buses and lorries. Afterward, it signed an agreement with Isuzu Motors of Japan to produce Isuzu buses and lorries.[153]
+Train links connect many towns in Uzbekistan, as well as neighbouring former republics of the Soviet Union. Moreover, after independence two fast-running train systems were established. Uzbekistan launched the first high-speed railway in Central Asia in September 2011 between Tashkent and Samarqand. The new high-speed electric train Talgo 250, called Afrosiyob, was manufactured by Patentes Talgo S.L. (Spain) and took its first trip from Tashkent to Samarkand on 26 August 2011.[154]
+There is a large aeroplane plant that was built during the Soviet era – Tashkent Chkalov Aviation Manufacturing Plant or ТАПОиЧ in Russian. The plant originated during World War II, when production facilities were evacuated south and east to avoid capture by advancing Nazi forces. Until the late 1980s, the plant was one of the leading aeroplane production centres in the USSR. With dissolution of the Soviet Union its manufacturing equipment became outdated; most of the workers were laid off. Now it produces only a few planes a year, but with interest from Russian companies growing, there are rumours of production-enhancement plans.
+With close to 65,000 servicemen, Uzbekistan possesses the largest armed forces in Central Asia Bobur. The military structure is largely inherited from the Turkestan Military District of the Soviet Army, although it is going through a reform to be based mainly on motorised infantry with some light and special forces[citation needed]. The Uzbek Armed Forces' equipment is standard, mostly consisting those of post-Soviet inheritance and newly crafted Russian and some American equipment.
+The government has accepted the arms control obligations of the former Soviet Union, acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (as a non-nuclear state), and supported an active program by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in western Uzbekistan (Nukus and Vozrozhdeniye Island). The Government of Uzbekistan spends about 3.7% of GDP on the military but has received a growing infusion of Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and other security assistance funds since 1998.
+Following 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Uzbekistan approved the U.S. Central Command's request for access to an air base, the Karshi-Khanabad airfield, in southern Uzbekistan. However, Uzbekistan demanded that the U.S. withdraw from the airbases after the Andijan massacre and the U.S. reaction to this massacre. The last US troops left Uzbekistan in November 2005.
+On 23 June 2006, Uzbekistan became a full participant in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), but informed the CSTO to suspend its membership in June 2012.[155]
+Uzbekistan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991. However, it is opposed to reintegration and withdrew from the CIS collective security arrangement in 1999. Since that time, Uzbekistan has participated in the CIS peacekeeping force in Tajikistan and in UN-organized groups to help resolve the Tajikistan and Afghanistan conflicts, both of which it sees as posing threats to its own stability.
+Previously close to Washington (which gave Uzbekistan half a billion dollars in aid in 2004, about a quarter of its military budget), the government of Uzbekistan has recently restricted American military use of the airbase at Karshi-Khanabad for air operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.[156] Uzbekistan was an active supporter of U.S. efforts against worldwide terrorism and joined the coalitions that have dealt with both Afghanistan and Iraq.[citation needed]
+The relationship between Uzbekistan and the United States began to deteriorate after the so-called "colour revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine (and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan). When the U.S. joined in a call for an independent international investigation of the bloody events at Andijan, the relationship further declined, and President Islam Karimov changed the political alignment of the country to bring it closer to Russia and China.
+In late July 2005, the government of Uzbekistan ordered the United States to vacate an air base in Karshi-Kanabad (near Uzbekistan's border with Afghanistan) within 180 days. Karimov had offered use of the base to the U.S. shortly after 9/11. It is also believed by some Uzbeks that the protests in Andijan were brought about by the UK and U.S. influences in the area of Andijan. This is another reason for the hostility between Uzbekistan and the West.
+Uzbekistan is a member of the United Nations (UN) (since 2 March 1992), the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), Partnership for Peace (PfP), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It belongs to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) (comprising the five Central Asian countries, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the GUAM alliance (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova), which was formed in 1997 (making it GUUAM), but pulled out of the organisation in 2005.
+Uzbekistan is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and hosts the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. Uzbekistan joined the new Central Asian Cooperation Organisation (CACO) in 2002. The CACO consists of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is a founding member of, and remains involved in, the Central Asian Union, formed with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and joined in March 1998 by Tajikistan.
+In September 2006, UNESCO presented Islam Karimov an award for Uzbekistan's preservation of its rich culture and traditions. Despite criticism, this seems to be a sign of improving relationships between Uzbekistan and the West.
+The month of October 2006 also saw a decrease in the isolation of Uzbekistan from the West. The EU announced that it was planning to send a delegation to Uzbekistan to talk about human rights and liberties, after a long period of hostile relations between the two. Although it is equivocal about whether the official or unofficial version of the Andijan Massacre is true, the EU is evidently willing to ease its economic sanctions against Uzbekistan. Nevertheless, it is generally assumed among Uzbekistan's population that the government will stand firm in maintaining its close ties with the Russian Federation and in its theory that the 2004–2005 protests in Uzbekistan were promoted by the US and UK.
+In January 2008, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was appointed to her current role as Uzbekistan's ambassador to UNESCO. Karimova-Tillyaeva and her team have been instrumental in promoting inter-cultural dialogue by increasing European society's awareness of Uzbekistan's cultural and historical heritage.
+Uzbekistan has a wide mix of ethnic groups and cultures, with the Uzbek being the majority group. In 1995 about 71% of Uzbekistan's population was Uzbek. The chief minority groups were Russians (8%), Tajiks (3–4.7%),[104][105][106][107] Kazakhs (4%), Tatars (2.5%) and Karakalpaks (2%). It is said, however, that the number of non-Uzbek people living in Uzbekistan is decreasing as Russians and other minority groups slowly leave and Uzbeks return from other parts of the former Soviet Union.
+When Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, there was concern that Muslim fundamentalism would spread across the region. The expectation was that a country long denied freedom of religious practice would undergo a very rapid increase in the expression of its dominant faith. As of 1994, over half of Uzbekistan's population was said to be Muslim, though in an official survey few of that number had any real knowledge of the religion or knew how to practice it. However, Islamic observance is increasing in the region.
+Central Asian classical music is called Shashmaqam, which arose in Bukhara in the late 16th century when that city was a regional capital. Shashmaqam is closely related to Azerbaijani Mugam and Uyghur muqam. The name, which translates as six maqams refers to the structure of the music, which contains six sections in six different Musical modes, similar to classical Persian traditional music. Interludes of spoken Sufi poetry interrupt the music, typically beginning at a lower register and gradually ascending to a climax before calming back down to the beginning tone.
+Uzbekistan has a high literacy rate, with about 99.3% of adults above the age of 15 being able to read and write. However, with only 76% of the under-15 population currently enrolled in education (and only 20% of the 3–6 year olds attending pre-school), this figure may drop in the future. Students attend school Monday through Saturday during the school year, and education officially concludes at the end of the 12th grade. There are two international schools operating in Uzbekistan, both in Tashkent: The British School catering for elementary students only, and Tashkent International School, a K-12 international curriculum school.
+Uzbekistan has encountered severe budget shortfalls in its education program. The education law of 1992 began the process of theoretical reform, but the physical base has deteriorated and curriculum revision has been slow. A large contributor to this decline is the low level of wages received by teachers and the lack of spending on infrastructure, buildings and resources on behalf of the government. Corruption within the education system is also rampant, with students from wealthier families routinely bribing teachers and school executives to achieve high grades without attending school, or undertaking official examinations.[157]
+Uzbekistan's universities create almost 600,000 graduates annually, though the general standard of university graduates, and the overall level of education within the tertiary system, is low. Several universities, including Westminster University, Turin University, Management University Institute of Singapore, Bucheon University in Tashkent and Inha University Tashkent maintain a campus in Tashkent offering English language courses across several disciplines. The Russian-language high education is provided by most national universities, including foreign Moscow State University and Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, maintaining campuses in Tashkent. As of 2019, Webster University, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, has opened a graduate school offering an MBA in Project Management and a MA in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).
+Variable date
+Uzbek cuisine is influenced by local agriculture, as in most nations. There is a great deal of grain farming in Uzbekistan, so breads and noodles are of importance and Uzbek cuisine has been characterised as "noodle-rich". Mutton is a popular variety of meat due to the abundance of sheep in the country and it is part of various Uzbek dishes.
+Uzbekistan's signature dish is palov (plov or osh), a main course typically made with rice, pieces of meat, and grated carrots and onions. Oshi nahor, or morning plov, is served in the early morning (between 6 am and 9 am) to large gatherings of guests, typically as part of an ongoing wedding celebration. Other notable national dishes include shurpa (shurva or shorva), a soup made of large pieces of fatty meat (usually mutton), and fresh vegetables; norin and laghman, noodle-based dishes that may be served as a soup or a main course; manti, chuchvara, and somsa, stuffed pockets of dough served as an appetiser or a main course; dimlama, a meat and vegetable stew; and various kebabs, usually served as a main course.
+Green tea is the national hot beverage consumed throughout the day; teahouses (chaikhanas) are of cultural importance. Black tea is preferred in Tashkent, but both green and black teas are consumed daily, without milk or sugar. Tea always accompanies a meal, but it is also a drink of hospitality that is automatically offered: green or black to every guest. Ayran, a chilled yogurt drink, is popular in summer, but does not replace hot tea.
+The use of alcohol is less widespread than in the West, but wine is comparatively popular for a Muslim nation as Uzbekistan is largely secular. Uzbekistan has 14 wineries, the oldest and most famous being the Khovrenko Winery in Samarkand (established in 1927). The Samarkand Winery produces a range of dessert wines from local grape varieties: Gulyakandoz, Shirin, Aleatiko, and Kabernet likernoe (literally Cabernet dessert wine in Russian). Uzbek wines have received international awards and are exported to Russia and other countries.
+Uzbekistan is home to former racing cyclist Djamolidine Abdoujaparov. Abdoujaparov has won the green jersey points contest in the Tour de France three times.[158] Abdoujaparov was a specialist at winning stages in tours or one-day races when the bunch or peloton would finish together. He would often 'sprint' in the final kilometre and had a reputation as being dangerous in these bunch sprints as he would weave from side to side. This reputation earned him the nickname 'The Terror of Tashkent'.
+Artur Taymazov won Uzbekistan's inaugural wrestling medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, followed by three Olympic gold medals in Men's 120 kg in 2004, 2008 and 2012.
+Ruslan Chagaev is a former professional boxer representing Uzbekistan in the WBA. He won the WBA champion title in 2007 after defeating Nikolai Valuev. Chagaev defended his title twice before losing it to Vladimir Klitschko in 2009. Another young talented boxer Hasanboy Dusmatov, light flyweight champion at the 2016 Summer Olympics, won the Val Barker Trophy for the outstanding male boxer of Rio 2016 on 21 August 2016.[159] On 21 December 2016 Dusmatov was honoured with the AIBA Boxer of the Year award at a 70-year anniversary event of AIBA.[160]
+Michael Kolganov, a sprint canoer, was world champion and won an Olympic bronze in the K-1 500-meter. In 2009 and 2011, gymnast Alexander Shatilov won a world bronze medal as an artistic gymnast in floor exercise, though he lives in and represents Israel in international competition. Oksana Chusovitina has attended 7 Olympic games, and won many medals in artistic gymnastics. Some of those medals were won while representing Germany, though she currently competes for Uzbekistan.
+Uzbekistan is the home of the International Kurash Association. Kurash is an internationalised and modernised form of traditional Uzbek wrestling.
+Football is the most popular sport in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan's premier football league is the Uzbek League, which has consisted of 16 teams since 2015. The current champions (2016) are Lokomotiv Tashkent. Pakhtakor holds the record for the most Uzbekistan champion titles, having won the league ten times. The current Player of the Year (2015) is Odil Akhmedov. Uzbekistan's football clubs regularly participate in the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup. Nasaf won AFC Cup in 2011, the first international club cup for Uzbek football.
+Humo Tashkent, a professional ice hockey team was established in 2019 with the aim of joining Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), a top level Eurasian league in future. Humo will join the second-tier Supreme Hockey League (VHL) for the 2019–20 season. Humo play their games at the Humo Ice Dome which cost over €175 million in construction; both the team and arena derive their name from the mythical Huma bird, a symbol of happiness and freedom.[161] Uzbekistan Hockey Federation (UHF) began preparation for forming national ice hockey team in joining IIHF competitions.
+Before Uzbekistan's independence in 1991, the country was part of the Soviet Union football, rugby union, basketball, ice hockey, and handball national teams. After independence, Uzbekistan created its own football, rugby union, basketball and futsal national teams.
+Tennis is a very popular sport in Uzbekistan, especially after Uzbekistan's sovereignty in 1991. Uzbekistan has its own Tennis Federation called the "UTF" (Uzbekistan Tennis Federation), created in 2002. Uzbekistan also hosts an International WTA tennis tournament, the "Tashkent Open", held in Uzbekistan's capital city. This tournament has been held since 1999, and is played on outdoor hard courts. The most notable active players from Uzbekistan are Denis Istomin and Akgul Amanmuradova.
+Chess is quite popular in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan-born Rustam Kasimdzhanov was the FIDE World Chess Champion in 2004.
+Other popular sports in Uzbekistan include basketball, judo, team handball, baseball, taekwondo, and futsal.
+General information
+Media

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+Oviparous animals are animals that  lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and the monotremes.
+In traditional usage, most insects (one being Culex pipiens, or the common house mosquito), molluscs, and arachnids are also described as oviparous.
+The traditional modes of reproduction include oviparity, taken to be the ancestral condition, traditionally where either unfertilised oocytes or fertilised eggs are spawned, and viviparity traditionally including any mechanism where young are born live, or where the development of the young is supported by either parent in or on any part of their body.[1]
+However, the biologist Thierry Lodé recently divided the traditional category of oviparous reproduction into two modes that he named ovuliparity and (true) oviparity respectively. He distinguished the two on the basis of the relationship between the zygote (fertilised egg) and the parents :[1][2]
+In all but special cases of both ovuliparity and oviparity the overwhelming source of nourishment for the embryo is the yolk material deposited in the egg by the reproductive system of the mother (the vitellogenesis); offspring that depend on yolk in this manner are said to be lecithotrophic (opposed to matrotrophic), which literally means "feeding on yolk".
+Distinguishing between the definitions of oviparity and ovuliparity necessarily reduces the number of species whose modes of reproduction are classified as oviparous, as they no longer include the ovuliparous species such as most fish, most frogs and many invertebrates. Such classifications are largely for convenience and as such can be important in practice, but speaking loosely in contexts in which the distinction is not relevant, it is common to lump both categories together as "oviparous".

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+Oviparous animals are animals that  lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and the monotremes.
+In traditional usage, most insects (one being Culex pipiens, or the common house mosquito), molluscs, and arachnids are also described as oviparous.
+The traditional modes of reproduction include oviparity, taken to be the ancestral condition, traditionally where either unfertilised oocytes or fertilised eggs are spawned, and viviparity traditionally including any mechanism where young are born live, or where the development of the young is supported by either parent in or on any part of their body.[1]
+However, the biologist Thierry Lodé recently divided the traditional category of oviparous reproduction into two modes that he named ovuliparity and (true) oviparity respectively. He distinguished the two on the basis of the relationship between the zygote (fertilised egg) and the parents :[1][2]
+In all but special cases of both ovuliparity and oviparity the overwhelming source of nourishment for the embryo is the yolk material deposited in the egg by the reproductive system of the mother (the vitellogenesis); offspring that depend on yolk in this manner are said to be lecithotrophic (opposed to matrotrophic), which literally means "feeding on yolk".
+Distinguishing between the definitions of oviparity and ovuliparity necessarily reduces the number of species whose modes of reproduction are classified as oviparous, as they no longer include the ovuliparous species such as most fish, most frogs and many invertebrates. Such classifications are largely for convenience and as such can be important in practice, but speaking loosely in contexts in which the distinction is not relevant, it is common to lump both categories together as "oviparous".

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+Oviraptor is a genus of small Mongolian theropod dinosaurs, first discovered by technician George Olsen in a 1923 expedition led by Roy Chapman Andrews, and first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn, in 1924. Its name is Latin for 'egg taker' or "egg seizer", referring to the fact that the first fossil specimen was discovered atop a pile of what was thought to be Protoceratops eggs, and the specific name philoceratops means "lover of ceratopsians", also given as a result of this find. In his 1924 paper, Osborn explained that the name was given due to the close proximity of the skull of Oviraptor to the nest (it was separated from the eggs by only 10 centimetres (3.9 in) of sand). However, Osborn also suggested that the name Oviraptor "may entirely mislead us as to its feeding habits and belie its character".[1] In the 1990s, the discovery of nesting oviraptorids like Citipati proved that Osborn was correct in his caution regarding the name. These finds showed that the eggs in question probably belonged to Oviraptor itself and that the specimen was actually brooding its eggs when it died at the nest.
+Oviraptor lived in the late Cretaceous period, during the late Campanian stage about 75 million years ago; only one definitive specimen is known (with associated eggs), from the Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia, though a possible second specimen (also with eggs) comes from the Bayan Mandahu Formation in the northeast of Inner Mongolia, China.[2]
+Oviraptor philoceratops is known from a single partial skeleton (specimen number AMNH 6517), as well as a nest of about fifteen eggs that have been referred to this species (AMNH 6508).
+When living, Oviraptor was one of the most bird-like of the non-Avian theropod dinosaurs. Its rib cage, in particular, displayed several features that are typical of birds, including a set of processes on each rib that would have kept the rib cage rigid. A relative of Oviraptor called Nomingia was found with a pygostyle, which is a set of fused vertebrae that would later help support the tail feathers of birds. Skin impressions from more primitive oviraptorosaurs, like Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx, clearly show an extensive covering of feathers on the body, feathered wings, and feathered tail fans. A tail fan is also indicated by the presence of a pygostyle in Nomingia, suggesting that this feature was widespread among oviraptorosaurs. Additionally, the nesting position of the brooding Citipati specimens implies the use of feathered wings to cover the eggs.[3] Given the close anatomical similarity between these species and Oviraptor, it is highly likely that Oviraptor had feathers as well.
+Oviraptor is traditionally depicted with a distinctive crest, similar to that of the cassowary. However, a re-examination of several oviraptorids show that this well-known, tall-crested species may actually belong to the genus Citipati, a relative of Oviraptor.[4] It is likely that Oviraptor did have a crest, but its exact size and shape are unknown due to crushing in the skull of the only recognized specimen.
+The Oviraptor has two long, well developed hind limbs, each had three clawed fingers that were used to hold, rip and tear their prey. The Oviraptor had large eyes with bony rings and an unusual cranial crests along with a toothless beak.[5]
+Oviraptor was originally allied with the ornithomimids by Osborn due to its toothless beak. Osborn also found similarities with Chirostenotes, which is still considered a close relative of Oviraptor.[1] In 1976, Barsbold erected a new family to contain Oviraptor and its close kin, making Oviraptor the type genus of the Oviraptoridae.[6]
+While the original specimen of Oviraptor was poorly preserved, especially the crushed and deformed skull, new and more complete oviraptorid specimens were assigned to the genus in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1976, Barsbold referred six additional specimens to the genus Oviraptor (including IGM 100/20 and 100/21),[6] but these were later reclassified in the new genus Conchoraptor.[7] Another specimen, IGN 100/42, is perhaps the most famous, owing to its well-preserved complete skull and large size. This specimen was referred to the genus Oviraptor by Barsbold in 1981[8] and came to represent Oviraptor in most popular depictions and in scientific studies of oviraptorids.[9] However, this specimen, with its distinctive tall, cassowary-like crest, was re-examined by the scientists who described the nesting oviraptorids, and found to resemble them more closely than the original specimens of Oviraptor. For this reason, they removed IGN 100/42 from the genus Oviraptor, provisionally re-classifying it as a species of Citipati.[4]
+The cladogram below follows an analysis by Fanti et al., 2012.[10]
+Oviraptor
+Rinchenia
+Citipati
+Khaan
+Conchoraptor
+Machairasaurus
+"Ingenia" (=Ajancingenia)
+Nemegtomaia
+Heyuannia
+As its name suggests, Oviraptor was originally presumed to have eaten eggs, based on its association with a fossilized nest (specimen number AMNH FR 6508) thought to belong to Protoceratops.[1] The idea of a crushing jaw was first proposed by H. F. Osborn, who believed that the toothless beak of the original skull, together with an extension of several bones below the jaw from the palate, would have made an "egg-piercing" tool. In 1977, Barsbold argued that the strength of its beak would indicate that it was strong enough to break the shells of mollusks such as clams, which are found in the same geological formation as Oviraptor.[11] These bones form part of the main upper jaw bone or maxilla, which converge in the middle to form a pair of prongs. The rest of the bony palate, unlike all other dinosaurs, is extended below the jaw line and would have pushed into the space between the toothless lower jaws. A beak (rhamphotheca) covered the edges of the upper and lower jaws and probably the palate, as proposed by Barsbold and Osborn.
+The discovery of nesting specimens of the related Citipati, with the same types of egg in the original Oviraptor specimen, showed that the eggs actually belonged to Oviraptor, not Protoceratops, and that the type specimen was likely brooding the eggs, not feeding on them. While this discovery did not rule out the possibility that Oviraptor included eggs in its diet, its exact feeding strategies remain unknown. The only Oviraptor philoceratops skeleton preserved the remains of a lizard in the region of its stomach cavity,[12] implying that the species was at least partially carnivorous.[13]

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+Oxford (/ˈɒksfərd/)[3][4] is a university city in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 154,600.[1] It is 56 miles (90 km) northwest of London, 64 miles (103 km) from Birmingham and 24 miles (39 km) from Reading by road.
+The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world,[5] and has buildings in every style of English architecture from late Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, information technology and science.
+Oxford was first settled by the Anglo-Saxons and was initially known as Oxenaforda, meaning "ford of the oxen",[6] as referenced in Florence of Worcester's Chronicon ex chronicis.[7] A river crossing for oxen began around AD 900.
+In the 10th century, Oxford became an important military frontier town between the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex and was raided by Danes. In 1002, many Danes were killed in Oxford during the St. Brice's Day massacre ordered by Æthelred the Unready.[8] The skeletons of more than thirty suspected victims were unearthed in 2008 during the course of building work at St John's College.[9] The ‘massacre’ was a contributing factor to King Sweyn I of Denmark’s invasion of England in 1003 and the sacking of Oxford by the Danes in 1004.[10]
+Oxford was heavily damaged during the Norman Invasion of 1066. Following the conquest, the town was assigned to a governor, Robert D'Oyly, who ordered the construction of Oxford Castle to confirm Norman authority over the area. The castle has never been used for military purposes[dubious  – discuss] and its remains survive to this day. D'Oyly set up a monastic community in the castle consisting of a chapel and living quarters for monks (St George in the Castle). The community never grew large but it earned its place in history as one of Britain's oldest places of formal education. It was there that in 1139 Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his History of the Kings of Britain, a compilation of Arthurian legends.[11] Additionally, there is evidence of Jews living in the city as early as 1141, and during the 12th century the Jewish community is estimated to have numbered about 80–100.[12] The city was besieged during The Anarchy in 1142.[13]
+In 1191, a city charter stated in Latin,[14]
+"Be it known to all those present and future that we, the citizens of Oxford of the Commune of the City and of the Merchant Guild have given, and by this, our present charter, confirm the donation of the island of Midney with all those things pertaining to it, to the Church of St. Mary at Oseney and to the canons serving God in that place.
+Since, every year, at Michaelmas the said canons render half a mark of silver for their tenure at the time when we have ordered it as witnesses the legal deed of our ancestors which they made concerning the gift of this same island; and besides, because we have undertaken on our own part and on behalf of our heirs to guarantee the aforesaid island to the same canons wheresoever and against all men; they themselves, by this guarantee, will pay to us and our heirs each year at Easter another half mark which we have demanded; and we and our heirs faithfully will guarantee the aforesaid tenement to them for the service of the aforesaid mark annually for all matters and all services.
+We have made this concession and confirmation in the Common council of the City and we have confirmed it with our common seal. These are those who have made this concession and confirmation.
+(There follows a list of witnesses, ending with the phrase, "... and all the Commune of the City of Oxford.")
+Oxford's prestige was enhanced by its charter granted by King Henry II, granting its citizens the same privileges and exemptions as those enjoyed by the capital of the kingdom; and various important religious houses were founded in or near the city. Oxford's status as a liberty obtained from this period until the 19th century.[15] A grandson of King John established Rewley Abbey for the Cistercian Order; and friars of various orders (Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustinians and Trinitarians) all had houses of varying importance at Oxford. Parliaments were often held in the city during the 13th century. The Provisions of Oxford were instigated by a group of barons led by Simon de Montfort; these documents are often regarded as England's first written constitution.
+Richard I of England (reigned 6 July 1189 – 6 April 1199) and John, King of England (reigned 6 April 1199 – 19 October 1216) the sons of Henry II of England, were both born at Beaumont Palace in Oxford, on 8 September 1157 and 24 December 1166 respectively. A plaque in Beaumont Street commemorates these events.[16]
+The University of Oxford is first mentioned in 12th-century records. Of the hundreds of aularian houses that sprang up across the city, only St Edmund Hall (c. 1225) remains. What put an end to the halls was the emergence of colleges. Oxford's earliest colleges were University College (1249), Balliol (1263) and Merton (1264). These colleges were established at a time when Europeans were starting to translate the writings of Greek philosophers. These writings challenged European ideology, inspiring scientific discoveries and advancements in the arts, as society began to see itself in a new way. These colleges at Oxford were supported by the Church in the hope of reconciling Greek philosophy and Christian theology. The relationship between "town and gown" has often been uneasy – as many as 93 students and townspeople were killed in the St Scholastica Day Riot of 1355.
+The sweating sickness epidemic in 1517 was particularly devastating to Oxford and Cambridge where it killed half of both cities' populations, including many students and dons.[17]
+Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford is unique in combining a college chapel and a cathedral in one foundation. Originally the Priory Church of St Frideswide, the building was extended and incorporated into the structure of the Cardinal's College shortly before its refounding as Christ Church in 1546, since when it has functioned as the cathedral of the Diocese of Oxford.
+The Oxford Martyrs were tried for heresy in 1555 and subsequently burnt at the stake, on what is now Broad Street, for their religious beliefs and teachings. The three martyrs were the bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and the archbishop Thomas Cranmer.[18] The Martyrs' Memorial stands nearby, round the corner to the north on St. Giles.
+During the English Civil War, Oxford housed the court of Charles I in 1642, after the king was expelled from London. The town yielded to Parliamentarian forces under General Fairfax in the Siege of Oxford of 1646. It later housed the court of Charles II during the Great Plague of London in 1665–66. Although reluctant to do so, he was forced to evacuate when the plague got too close. The city suffered two serious fires in 1644 and 1671.[19]
+In 1790, the Oxford Canal connected the city with Coventry. The Duke's Cut was completed by the Duke of Marlborough in 1789 to link the new canal with the River Thames; and, in 1796, the Oxford Canal company built its own link to the Thames, at Isis Lock. In 1844, the Great Western Railway linked Oxford with London via Didcot and Reading,[20][21] and other rail routes soon followed.
+In the 19th century, the controversy surrounding the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church drew attention to the city as a focus of theological thought.
+A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Cowley Barracks in 1876.[22]
+Local government in Oxford was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and the boundaries of the borough were extended to include a small area east of the River Cherwell. The boundaries were further extended in 1889 to add the areas of Grandpont and New Hinksey, south of the Thames, which were transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire. At the same time Summertown and the western part of Cowley were also added to the borough. In 1890 Oxford became a county borough.[15]
+Oxford Town Hall was built by Henry T. Hare; the foundation stone was laid on 6 July 1893 and opened by the future King Edward VII on 12 May 1897. The site has been the seat of local government since the Guild Hall of 1292 and though Oxford is a city and a Lord Mayoralty, the building is still called by its traditional name of "Town Hall".
+During the First World War, the population of Oxford changed. The number of University members was significantly reduced as students, fellows and staff enlisted. Some of their places in college accommodation were taken by soldiers in training. Another reminder of the ongoing war was found in the influx of wounded and disabled soldiers, who were treated in new hospitals housed in buildings such as the university's Examination School, the town hall and Somerville College.[23]
+By the early 20th century, there was rapid industrial and population growth, with the printing and publishing industries becoming well established by the 1920s. In 1929 the boundaries of the city were extended to include the suburbs of Headington, Cowley and Iffley to the east, and Wolvercote to the north.[15]
+Also during the 1920s, the economy and society of Oxford underwent a huge transformation as William Morris established Morris Motors Limited to mass-produce cars in Cowley, on the south-eastern edge of the city. By the early 1970s over 20,000 people worked in Cowley at the huge Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher plants. Oxford was now a city of two halves: the university city to the west of Magdalen Bridge and the car town to the east. This led to the witticism that "Oxford is the left bank of Cowley". Cowley suffered major job losses in the 1980s and 1990s during the decline of British Leyland, but is now producing the successful Mini for BMW on a smaller site. Much of the original car factories at Cowley was demolished in the 1990s, and is now the site of the Oxford Business Park.[24]
+During the Second World War, Oxford was largely ignored by the German air raids during the Blitz, perhaps due to the lack of heavy industry such as steelworks or shipbuilding that would have made it a target, although it was still affected by the rationing and influx of refugees fleeing London and other cities.[25] The university's colleges served as temporary military barracks and training areas for soldiers before deployment.[26]
+On 6 May 1954, Roger Bannister, a 25-year-old medical student, ran the first authenticated sub-four-minute mile at the Iffley Road running track in Oxford. Although he had previously studied at Oxford University, Bannister was studying at St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London at the time.[27] He later returned to Oxford University and became Master of Pembroke College.
+Oxford's second university, Oxford Brookes University, formerly the Oxford School of Art, then Oxford Polytechnic, based at Headington Hill, was given its charter in 1991 and for ten years has been voted the best new university in the UK.[28] It was named to honour the school's founding principal, John Henry Brookes.
+The influx of migrant labour to the car plants and hospitals, recent immigration from south Asia, and a large student population, have given Oxford a notably cosmopolitan character, especially in the Headington and Cowley Road areas with their many bars, cafes, restaurants, clubs, Asian shops and fast food outlets and the annual Cowley Road Carnival. Oxford is one of the most diverse small cities in Britain: the most recent population estimates for 2011[2] showed that 22% of the population were from black or minority ethnic groups, compared to 13% in England.[29]
+Oxford's latitude and longitude are 51°45′07″N 1°15′28″W / 51.75194°N 1.25778°W / 51.75194; -1.25778Coordinates: 51°45′07″N 1°15′28″W / 51.75194°N 1.25778°W / 51.75194; -1.25778 or grid reference SP513061 (at Carfax Tower, which is usually considered the centre).
+Oxford is 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Reading, 26 miles (42 km) north-east of Swindon, 36 miles (58 km) east of Cheltenham and 43 miles (69 km) east of Gloucester, 29 miles (47 km) south-west of Milton Keynes, 38 miles (61 km) south-east of Evesham, 43 miles (69 km) south of Rugby and 51 miles (82 km) west-north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames (also sometimes known as the Isis locally, supposedly from the Latinised name Thamesis) run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre. These rivers and their flood plains constrain the size of the city centre.
+Oxford has a maritime temperate climate (Köppen: Cfb). Precipitation is uniformly distributed throughout the year and is provided mostly by weather systems that arrive from the Atlantic. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Oxford was −17.8 °C (0.0 °F) on 24 December 1860. The highest temperature ever recorded in Oxford is 36.5 °C (98 °F) on 25 July 2019.[30]
+The average conditions below are from the Radcliffe Meteorological Station. It boasts the longest series of temperature and rainfall records for one site in Britain. These records are continuous from January 1815. Irregular observations of rainfall, cloud and temperature exist from 1767.[31]
+The driest year on record was 1788, with 336.7 mm (13.26 in) of rainfall. Whereas, the wettest year was 2012, with 979.5 mm (38.56 in). The wettest month on record was September 1774, with a total fall of 223.9 mm (8.81 in). The warmest month on record is July 1983, with an average of 21.1 °C (70 °F) and the coldest is January 1963, with an average of −3.0 °C (27 °F). The warmest year on record is 2014, with an average of 11.8 °C (53 °F) and the coldest is 1879, both with a mean temperature of 7.7 °C (46 °F). The sunniest month on record is May 2020, with 331.7 hours and December 1890 is the least sunny, with 5.0 hours. The greatest one-day rainfall occurred on 10 July 1968, with a total of 87.9 mm (3.46 in). The greatest one-day snowfall is 46.7 cm (18.4 in) on 25 April 1908. The greatest known snow depth was 61.0 cm (24.0 in) in February 1888.[32]
+Twenty-two percent of the population come from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups.[35]
+Aside from the city centre, there are several suburbs and neighbourhoods within the borders of city of Oxford, including:
+Suburbs and neighbourhoods outside the city boundaries include:
+Oxford is at the centre of the Oxford Green Belt, which is an environmental and planning policy that regulates the rural space in Oxfordshire surrounding the city which aims to prevent urban sprawl and minimize convergence with nearby settlements.[36] The policy has been blamed for the large rise in house prices in Oxford, making it the least affordable city in the UK outside London, with estate agents calling for brownfield land inside the green belt to be released for new housing.[37][38][39] The vast majority of area covered is outside the city, but there are some green spaces within that are covered by the designation such as much of the Thames and Cherwell river flood-meadows, and the village of Binsey, along with several smaller portions on the fringes. Other landscape features and places of interest covered include Cutteslowe Park and the mini railway attraction, the University Parks, Hogacre Common Eco Park, numerous sports grounds, Aston's Eyot, St Margaret's Church and well, and Wolvercote Common and community orchard.[40]
+Oxford's economy includes manufacturing, publishing and science-based industries as well as education, research and tourism.
+Oxford has been an important centre of motor manufacturing since Morris Motors was established in the city in 1910. The principal production site for Mini cars, owned by BMW since 2000, is in the Oxford suburb of Cowley. The plant, which survived the threat of closure in the early 1990s, also produced cars under the Austin and Rover brands following the demise of the Morris brand in 1984, although the last Morris-badged car was produced there in 1982.
+Oxford University Press, a department of the University of Oxford, is based in the city, although it no longer operates its own paper mill and printing house. The city is also home to the UK operations of Wiley-Blackwell, Elsevier and several smaller publishing houses.
+The presence of the university has given rise to many science and technology based businesses, including Oxford Instruments, Research Machines and Sophos. The university established Isis Innovation in 1987 to promote technology transfer. The Oxford Science Park was established in 1990, and the Begbroke Science Park, owned by the university, lies north of the city.
+Oxford increasingly has a reputation for being a centre of digital innovation, as epitomized by Digital Oxford.[41] Several startups including Passle,[42] Brainomix,[43] Labstep,[44] and more, are based in Oxford.
+The presence of the university has also led to Oxford becoming a centre for the education industry. Companies often draw their teaching staff from the pool of Oxford University students and graduates, and, especially for EFL education, use their Oxford location as a selling point.[45]
+There is a long history of brewing in Oxford. Several of the colleges had private breweries, one of which, at Brasenose, survived until 1889. In the 16th century brewing and malting appear to have been the most popular trades in the city. There were breweries in Brewer Street and Paradise Street, near the Castle Mill Stream.
+The rapid expansion of Oxford and the development of its railway links after the 1840s facilitated expansion of the brewing trade.[46] As well as expanding the market for Oxford's brewers, railways enabled brewers further from the city to compete for a share of its market.[46] By 1874 there were nine breweries in Oxford and 13 brewers' agents in Oxford shipping beer in from elsewhere.[46] The nine breweries were: Flowers & Co in Cowley Road, Hall's St Giles Brewery, Hall's Swan Brewery (see below), Hanley's City Brewery in Queen Street, Le Mills's Brewery in St. Ebbes, Morrell's Lion Brewery in St Thomas Street (see below), Simonds's Brewery in Queen Street, Weaving's Eagle Brewery (by 1869 the Eagle Steam Brewery) in Park End Street and Wootten and Cole's St. Clement's Brewery.[46]
+The Swan's Nest Brewery, later the Swan Brewery, was established by the early 18th century in Paradise Street, and in 1795 was acquired by William Hall.[47] The brewery became known as Hall's Oxford Brewery, which acquired other local breweries. Hall's Brewery was acquired by Samuel Allsopp & Sons in 1926, after which it ceased brewing in Oxford.[48]
+Morrell's was founded in 1743 by Richard Tawney. He formed a partnership in 1782 with Mark and James Morrell, who eventually became the owners.[49] After an acrimonious family dispute this much-loved brewery was closed in 1998,[50] the beer brand names being taken over by the Thomas Hardy Burtonwood brewery,[51] while the 132 tied pubs were bought by Michael Cannon, owner of the American hamburger chain Fuddruckers, through a new company, Morrells of Oxford.[52] The new owners sold most of the pubs on to Greene King in 2002.[53] The Lion Brewery was converted into luxury apartments in 2002.[54]
+The Taylor family of Loughborough had a bell-foundry in Oxford between 1786 and 1854.[55]
+Outside the city centre:
+Oxford has numerous major tourist attractions, many belonging to the university and colleges. As well as several famous institutions, the town centre is home to Carfax Tower and the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, both of which offer views over the spires of the city. Many tourists shop at the historic Covered Market. In the summer punting on the Thames/Isis and the Cherwell is popular.
+The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world[56] and one of the most famous and prestigious higher education institutions of the world, averaging nine applications to every available place, and attracting 40% of its academic staff and 17% of undergraduates from overseas.[57] It is currently ranked as the world's number one university, according to The Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[58]
+Oxford is renowned for its tutorial-based method of teaching, with students attending an average of one one-hour tutorial a week.[57]
+As well as being a major draw for tourists (9.1 million in 2008, similar in 2009)[out of date],[59] Oxford city centre has many shops, several theatres and an ice rink. The historic buildings make this location a popular target for film and TV crews.
+The city centre is relatively small, and is centred on Carfax, a crossroads which forms the junction of Cornmarket Street (pedestrianised), Queen Street (mainly pedestrianised), St Aldate's and the High Street ("the High"; blocked for through traffic). Cornmarket Street and Queen Street are home to Oxford's various chain stores, as well as a small number of independent retailers, one of the longest established of which is Boswell's, founded in 1738.[60] St Aldate's has few shops but several local government buildings, including the town hall, the city police station and local council offices. The High (the word street is traditionally omitted) is the longest of the four streets and has a number of independent and high-end chain stores, but mostly university and college buildings.
+There are two small shopping malls in the city centre: The Clarendon Centre[61] and the Westgate Centre.[62] The Westgate Centre is named for the original West Gate in the city wall, and is at the west end of Queen Street. A major redevelopment and expansion to 750,000 sq ft (70,000 m2), with a new 230,000 sq ft (21,000 m2) John Lewis department store and a number of new homes, was completed in October 2017.
+Blackwell's Bookshop is a large bookshop which claims the largest single room devoted to book sales in the whole of Europe, the cavernous Norrington Room (10,000 sq ft).[63]
+The University of Oxford maintains the largest university library system in the UK,[64] and, with over 11 million volumes housed on 120 miles (190 km) of shelving, the Bodleian group is the second-largest library in the UK, after the British Library. The Bodleian is a legal deposit library, which means that it is entitled to request a free copy of every book published in the UK. As such, its collection is growing at a rate of over three miles (five kilometres) of shelving every year.[65]
+Visitors can take a guided tour of the Old Bodleian Library to see inside its historic rooms, including the 15th-century Divinity School, medieval Duke Humfrey's Library, and the Radcliffe Camera. The Weston Library was redeveloped and reopened in 2015, with a new shop, café and exhibition galleries for visitors.[66]
+Oxford is home to many museums, galleries, and collections, most of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions. The majority are departments of the University of Oxford.
+The first of these to be established was the Ashmolean Museum, the world's first university museum,[67] and the oldest museum in the UK.[68] Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house a cabinet of curiosities given to the University of Oxford in 1677. The museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment. It holds significant collections of art and archaeology, including works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Turner, and Picasso, as well as treasures such as the Scorpion Macehead, the Parian Marble and the Alfred Jewel. It also contains "The Messiah", a pristine Stradivarius violin, regarded by some as one of the finest examples in existence.[69]
+The University Museum of Natural History holds the University's zoological, entomological and geological specimens. It is housed in a large neo-Gothic building on Parks Road, in the University's Science Area.[70][71] Among its collection are the skeletons of a Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, and the most complete remains of a dodo found anywhere in the world. It also hosts the Simonyi Professorship of the Public Understanding of Science, currently held by Marcus du Sautoy.
+Adjoining the Museum of Natural History is the Pitt Rivers Museum, founded in 1884, which displays the University's archaeological and anthropological collections, currently holding over 500,000 items. It recently built a new research annexe; its staff have been involved with the teaching of anthropology at Oxford since its foundation, when as part of his donation General Augustus Pitt Rivers stipulated that the University establish a lectureship in anthropology.[72]
+The Museum of the History of Science is housed on Broad St in the world's oldest-surviving purpose-built museum building.[73] It contains 15,000 artefacts, from antiquity to the 20th century, representing almost all aspects of the history of science.
+In the University's Faculty of Music on St Aldate's is the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, a collection mostly of instruments from Western classical music, from the medieval period onwards. Christ Church Picture Gallery holds a collection of over 200 old master paintings. The University also has an archive at the Oxford University Press Museum.[74]
+Other museums and galleries in Oxford include Modern Art Oxford, the Museum of Oxford, the Oxford Castle, and The Story Museum.[75]
+Galleries at the Museum of Natural History
+Museum of the History of Science
+The Pitt Rivers Museum
+Oxford Botanic Garden
+Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
+Sheldonian Theatre
+The University Church of St Mary the Virgin
+The Headington Shark
+Oxford Malmaison Hotel
+Oxford is a very green city, with several parks and nature walks within the ring road, as well as several sites just outside the ring road. In total, 28 nature reserves exist within or just outside Oxford ring road, including:
+In addition to the larger airports in the region, Oxford is served by nearby Oxford Airport, in Kidlington. The airport is also home to CAE Oxford Aviation Academy and Airways Aviation[76] airline pilot flight training centres, and several private jet companies. The airport is also home to Airbus Helicopters UK headquarters.[77]
+Bus services in Oxford and its suburbs are run by the Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach Oxfordshire as well as other operators including Arriva Shires & Essex and Thames Travel.
+Arriva Shires & Essex operates Sapphire route 280 to Aylesbury via Wheatley, Thame and Haddenham seven days a week, at a frequency of up to every 20 minutes.[78] The new Sapphire buses have three-pin power sockets, leather seats and free, onboard Wi-Fi.[79]
+Oxford has five park and ride car parks with frequent bus links to the city centre:
+There are also bus services to the John Radcliffe Hospital (from Thornhill and Water Eaton/Oxford Parkway) and to the Churchill and Nuffield Hospitals (from Thornhill). As of 2015[update], Oxford has one of the largest urban park and ride networks in the UK. Its five sites have a combined capacity of 4,930 car parking spaces,[80] served by 20 Oxford Bus Company double deck buses with a combined capacity of 1,695 seats.[81] By comparison, York park and ride has six sites with a combined total of 4,970 parking spaces[82] served by 35 First York buses, but they are single deckers with a combined capacity of 1,548 seats.[83]
+More than 58% of Oxford Bus Company customers use the ITSO Ltd smartcard. Secondary school students are able to gain either a reduced price pass, like pay a set fee for the month, or a free riding pass for the school year. [84]
+In November 2014 all Oxford Bus Company buses within the Oxford SmartZone area have free WiFi installed.[85][86][87]
+Hybrid buses, which use battery power with a small diesel generator, began to be used in Oxford on 15 July 2010, on Stagecoach Oxfordshire's Route 1 (City centre – Cowley – Blackbird Leys). Both Stagecoach and Oxford Bus Company now operate numerous hybrid buses in the city.[88] In 2014 Oxford Bus introduced a fleet of 20 new buses with flywheel energy storage (FES) on the services it operates under contract for Brookes University.[89] Whereas electric hybrids use battery storage and an electric motor to save fuel, FES uses a high-speed flywheel.
+The Oxford to London coach route offers a frequent coach service to London. The Oxford Tube is operated by Stagecoach Oxfordshire and the Oxford Bus Company runs the Airline services to Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
+There is a bus station at Gloucester Green, used mainly by the London and airport buses, National Express coaches and other long-distance buses including route X5 to Milton Keynes and Cambridge and Stagecoach Gold routes S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S8 and S9.
+Among UK cities, Oxford has the second highest percentage of people cycling to work.[90]
+In 1844, the Great Western Railway linked Oxford with London Paddington via Didcot and Reading;[20][21] in 1851, the London and North Western Railway opened its own route from Oxford to London Euston, via Bicester, Bletchley and Watford;[91] and in 1864 a third route, also to Paddington, running via Thame, High Wycombe and Maidenhead, was provided;[92] this was shortened in 1906 by the opening of a direct route between High Wycombe and London Paddington by way of Denham.[93] The distance from Oxford to London was 78 miles (125.5 km) via Bletchley; 63.5 miles (102.2 km) via Didcot and Reading; 63.25 miles (101.8 km) via Thame and Maidenhead;[94] and 55.75 miles (89.7 km) via Denham.[93] Only the original (Didcot) route is still in use for its full length, portions of the others remain.
+There were also routes to the north and west. The line to Banbury was opened in 1850,[95] and was extended to Birmingham Snow Hill in 1852;[96] a route to Worcester opened in 1853.[97] A branch to Witney was opened in 1862,[98] which was extended to Fairford in 1873.[99] The line to Witney and Fairford closed in 1962, but the others remain open.
+Oxford has had three main railway stations. The first was opened at Grandpont in 1844,[100] but this was a terminus, inconvenient for routes to the north;[95] it was replaced by the present station on Park End Street in 1852 with the opening of the Birmingham route.[96] Another terminus, at Rewley Road, was opened in 1851 to serve the Bletchley route;[101] this station closed in 1951.[102] There have also been a number of local railway stations, all of which are now closed.  A fourth station, Oxford Parkway, is just outside the city, at the park and ride site near Kidlington.
+Oxford railway station is half a mile (about 1 km) west of the city centre. The station is served by CrossCountry services to Bournemouth, Manchester Piccadilly and Newcastle, Great Western Railway (who manage the station) services to London Paddington, Banbury and Hereford and Chiltern Railways services to London Marylebone.
+The present railway station opened in 1852. Oxford is the junction for a short branch line to Bicester, a remnant of the former Varsity line to Cambridge. This Oxford–Bicester line was upgraded to 100 mph (161 km/h) running during an 18-month closure in 2014/2015 – and is scheduled to be extended to form the planned East West Rail line to Cambridge.[103] Chiltern Railways now connects Oxford to London Marylebone via Bicester Village, having sponsored the building of about 400 metres of new track between Bicester Village and the Chiltern Main Line southwards in 2014. The route serves High Wycombe and London Marylebone, avoiding London Paddington and Didcot Parkway. East West Rail is proposed to continue through Bletchley (for Milton Keynes Central) to Bedford,[104] Cambridge,[105] and ultimately Ipswich and Norwich,[106] thus providing alternative route to East Anglia without needing to travel via, and connect between, the London mainline terminals.
+From Oxford station direct trains run to London Paddington where interchange with the Heathrow Express train links with Heathrow Airport. Passengers can change at Reading for connecting trains to Gatwick Airport. Some CrossCountry trains run direct services to Birmingham International as well as further afield Southampton Airport Parkway.
+Oxford was historically an important port on the River Thames, with this section of the river being called the Isis; the Oxford-Burcot Commission in the 17th century attempted to improve navigation to Oxford.[107] Iffley Lock and Osney Lock lie within the bounds of the city. In the 18th century the Oxford Canal was built to connect Oxford with the Midlands.[108]
+Commercial traffic has given way to recreational use of the river and canal. Oxford was the original base of Salters Steamers (founded in 1858), which was a leading racing-boat-builder that played an important role in popularising pleasure boating on the Upper Thames. The firm runs a regular service from Folly Bridge downstream to Abingdon and beyond.
+Oxford's central location on several transport routes means that it has long been a crossroads city with many coaching inns, although road traffic is now strongly discouraged from using the city centre. From 2020, a new Zero Emission Zone will mean any vehicles which are not zero-emission will be banned from the city centre during certain hours.[109]
+The Oxford Ring Road surrounds the city centre and close suburbs Marston, Iffley, Cowley and Headington; it consists of the A34 to the west, a 330-yard section of the A44, the A40 north and north-east, A4142/A423 to the east. It is a dual carriageway, except for a 330-yard section of the A40 where two residential service roads adjoin, and was completed in 1966.
+The main roads to/from Oxford are:
+The city is served by the M40 motorway, which connects London to Birmingham. The M40 approached Oxford in 1974, leading from London to Waterstock, where the A40 continued to Oxford. When the M40 extension to Birmingham was completed in January 1991, it curved sharply north, and a mile of the old motorway became a spur. The M40 comes no closer than 6 miles (9.7 km) away from the city centre, curving to the east of Otmoor. The M40 meets the A34 to the north of Oxford.
+There are two universities in Oxford, the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, as well as the specialist further and higher education institution Ruskin College that is an Affiliate of the University of Oxford. The Islamic Azad University also has a campus near Oxford.
+As well as the BBC national radio stations, Oxford and the surrounding area has several local stations, including BBC Oxford, Heart Thames Valley, Destiny 105, Jack FM and Jack FM 2 along with Oxide: Oxford Student Radio[110] (which went on terrestrial radio at 87.7 MHz FM in late May 2005). A local TV station, Six TV: The Oxford Channel, was also available[111] but closed in April 2009; a service operated by That's TV, originally called That's Oxford (now That's Oxfordshire), took to the airwaves in 2015.[112][113] The city is home to a BBC TV newsroom which produces an opt-out from the main South Today programme broadcast from Southampton.
+Popular local papers include The Oxford Times (compact; weekly), its sister papers the Oxford Mail (tabloid; daily) and the Oxford Star (tabloid; free and delivered), and Oxford Journal (tabloid; weekly free pick-up). Oxford is also home to several advertising agencies.
+Daily Information (known locally as Daily Info) is an events and advertising news sheet which has been published since 1964 and now provides a connected website.
+Nightshift is a monthly local free magazine that has covered the Oxford music scene since 1991.[114]
+In 2003 DIY grassroots non-corporate media has begun to spread.[115] Independent and community newspapers include the Jericho Echo[116] and Oxford Prospect.[117]
+{{{annotations}}}
+Well-known Oxford-based authors include:
+Oxford appears in the following works:[citation needed]
+Holywell Music Room is said to be the oldest purpose-built music room in Europe, and hence Britain's first concert hall.[119] Tradition has it that George Frideric Handel performed there, though there is little evidence.[120] Joseph Haydn was awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford University in 1791, an event commemorated by three concerts of his music at the Sheldonian Theatre, directed by the composer and from which his Symphony No. 92 earned the nickname of the "Oxford" Symphony.[121] Victorian composer Sir John Stainer was organist at Magdalen College and later Professor of Music at the university, and is buried in Holywell Cemetery.[122]
+Oxford, and its surrounding towns and villages, have produced many successful bands and musicians in the field of popular music. The most notable Oxford act is Radiohead, who all met at nearby Abingdon School, though other well known local bands include Supergrass, Ride, Swervedriver, Lab 4, Talulah Gosh, the Candyskins, Medal, the Egg, Unbelievable Truth, Hurricane No. 1, Crackout, Goldrush and more recently, Young Knives, Foals, Glass Animals, Dive Dive and Stornoway. These and many other bands from over 30 years of the Oxford music scene's history feature in the documentary film Anyone Can Play Guitar?. In 1997, Oxford played host to Radio 1's Sound City, with acts such as Travis, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Embrace, Spiritualized and DJ Shadow playing in various venues around the city including Oxford Brookes University.[123]
+It is also home to several brass bands, notably the City of Oxford Silver Band, founded in 1887.
+The city's leading football club, Oxford United, are currently in League One, the third tier of league football, though they enjoyed some success in the past in the upper reaches of the league. They were elected to the Football League in 1962, reached the Third Division after three years and the Second Division after six, and most notably reached the First Division in 1985 – 23 years after joining the Football League. They spent three seasons in the top flight, winning the Football League Cup a year after promotion. The 18 years that followed relegation in 1988 saw their fortunes decline gradually, though a brief respite in 1996 saw them win promotion to the new (post Premier League) Division One in 1996 and stay there for three years. They were relegated to the Football Conference in 2006, staying there for four seasons before returning to the Football League in 2010. They play at the Kassam Stadium (named after former chairman Firoz Kassam), which is near the Blackbird Leys housing estate and has been their home since relocation from the Manor Ground in 2001. The club's notable former managers include Ian Greaves, Jim Smith, Maurice Evans, Brian Horton, Ramon Diaz and Denis Smith. Notable former players include John Aldridge, Ray Houghton, Tommy Caton, Matt Elliott, Dean Saunders and Dean Whitehead.
+Oxford City F.C. is a semi-professional football club, separate from Oxford United. It plays in the Conference South, the sixth tier, two levels below the Football League in the pyramid. Oxford City Nomads F.C. was a semi-professional football club who ground-shared with Oxford City and played in the Hellenic league.
+In 2013, Oxford Rugby League entered rugby league's semi-professional Championship 1, the third tier of British rugby league. Oxford Cavaliers, who were formed in 1996, compete at the next level, the Conference League South. Oxford University (The Blues)[124] and Oxford Brookes University (The Bulls)[125] both compete in the rugby league BUCS university League.
+Oxford Harlequins RFC is the city's main Rugby Union team and currently plays in the South West Division.
+Oxford R.F.C is the oldest city team and currently plays in the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Championship. Their most famous player was arguably Michael James Parsons known as Jim Parsons who was capped by England.[126]
+Oxford University RFC are the most famous club with more than 300 Oxford players gaining International honours; including Phil de Glanville, Joe Roff, Tyrone Howe, Anton Oliver, Simon Halliday, David Kirk and Rob Egerton.[127]
+London Welsh RFC moved to the Kassam Stadium in 2012 to fulfil their Premiership entry criteria regarding stadium capacity. At the end of the 2015 season, following relegation, the club left Oxford.[128]
+Oxford Cheetahs motorcycle speedway team has raced at Oxford Stadium in Cowley on and off since 1939. The Cheetahs competed in the Elite League and then the Conference League until 2007. They were Britain's most successful club in the late 1980s, becoming British League champions in 1985, 1986 and 1989. Four-times world champion Hans Nielsen was the club's most successful rider.
+Greyhound racing took place at the Oxford Stadium from 1939 until 2012 and hosted some of the sport's leading events such as the Pall Mall Stakes, The Cesarewitch and Trafalgar Cup. The stadium remains intact but unused after closing in 2012.
+There are several hockey clubs based in Oxford. The Oxford Hockey Club (formed after a merger of City of Oxford HC and Rover Oxford HC in 2011) plays most of its home games on the pitch at Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus and also uses the pitches at Headington Girls' School and Iffley Road. Oxford Hawks has two astroturf pitches at Banbury Road North, by Cutteslowe Park to the north of the city.
+Oxford City Stars is the local Ice Hockey Team which plays at Oxford Ice Rink. There is a senior/adults’ team[129] and a junior/children's team.[130] The Oxford University Ice Hockey Club was formed as an official University sports club in 1921, and traces its history back to a match played against Cambridge in St Moritz, Switzerland in 1885.[131] The club currently competes in Checking Division 1 of the British Universities Ice Hockey Association.[132]
+Oxford Saints is Oxford's senior American Football team. One of the longest running American football clubs in the UK, the Saints were founded in 1983 and have competed for over 30 years against other British teams across the country.
+Oxford University Cricket Club is Oxford's most famous club with more than 300 Oxford players gaining international honours, including Colin Cowdrey, Douglas Jardine and Imran Khan.[133]
+Oxfordshire County Cricket Club play in the Minor Counties League.
+Oxford University Boat Club compete in the world-famous Boat Race. Since 2007 the club has been based at a training facility and boathouse in Wallingford,[134] south of Oxford, after the original boathouse burnt down in 1999. Oxford is also home to the City of Oxford Rowing Club, based near Donnington Bridge.
+Headington Road Runners based at the OXSRAD sports facility in Marsh Lane (next to Oxford City F.C.) is Oxford's only road running club with an average annual membership exceeding 300. It was the club at which double Olympian Mara Yamauchi started her running career.
+Oxford is twinned with:
+Sheldonian Theatre in 2009
+Somerville College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford
+Keble College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford
+Night view of High Street with Christmas lights - one of Oxford's main streets
+Floral display in Oxford city centre in 2001
+All Souls' College looking east up the High Street from St Mary's Church
+The Bridge of Sighs links sections of Hertford College: as seen from New College Lane with the Sheldonian Theatre in the background.
+University Church of St Mary the Virgin as seen from Radcliffe Square.
+Broad Street, showing the main entrances to Trinity and Balliol Colleges, and obliquely, the frontage of Exeter College from the Sheldonian Theatre.
+Carfax Tower at Carfax, the junction of the High Street, Queen Street, Cornmarket and St Aldate's streets at what is considered by many to be the centre of the city.
+High Street as viewed from St Mary's, looking east, with Magdalen College in the distant background.
+Merton College Chapel and Corpus Christi College as viewed from the Oriel Square entrance to Merton Street.
+The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the City of Oxford.
+[143]

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+Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. After hydrogen and helium, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe by mass. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O2. Diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20.95% of the Earth's atmosphere. Oxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of oxides.[2]
+Dioxygen provides the energy released in combustion[3] and aerobic cellular respiration,[4] and many major classes of organic molecules in living organisms contain oxygen atoms, such as proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and fats, as do the major constituent inorganic compounds of animal shells, teeth, and bone. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, the major constituent of lifeforms. Oxygen is continuously replenished in Earth's atmosphere by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms. Another form (allotrope) of oxygen, ozone (O3), strongly absorbs ultraviolet UVB radiation and the high-altitude ozone layer helps protect the biosphere from ultraviolet radiation. However, ozone present at the surface is a byproduct of smog and thus a pollutant.
+Oxygen was isolated by Michael Sendivogius before 1604, but it is commonly believed that the element was discovered independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, in 1773 or earlier, and Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire, in 1774. Priority is often given for Priestley because his work was published first. Priestley, however, called oxygen "dephlogisticated air", and did not recognize it as a chemical element. The name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, who first recognized oxygen as a chemical element and correctly characterized the role it plays in combustion.
+Common uses of oxygen include production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight and diving.
+One of the first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium. In his work Pneumatica, Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle and surrounding the vessel's neck with water resulted in some water rising into the neck.[5] Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in the vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass. Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philo's work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration.[6]
+In the late 17th century, Robert Boyle proved that air is necessary for combustion. English chemist John Mayow (1641–1679) refined this work by showing that fire requires only a part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus.[7] In one experiment, he found that placing either a mouse or a lit candle in a closed container over water caused the water to rise and replace one-fourteenth of the air's volume before extinguishing the subjects.[8] From this he surmised that nitroaereus is consumed in both respiration and combustion.
+Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that the nitroaereus must have combined with it.[7] He also thought that the lungs separate nitroaereus from air and pass it into the blood and that animal heat and muscle movement result from the reaction of nitroaereus with certain substances in the body.[7] Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract "De respiratione".[8]
+Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element.[9] This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes.[10]
+Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, and modified by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl by 1731,[11] phlogiston theory stated that all combustible materials were made of two parts. One part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx.[6]
+Highly combustible materials that leave little residue, such as wood or coal, were thought to be made mostly of phlogiston; non-combustible substances that corrode, such as iron, contained very little. Air did not play a role in phlogiston theory, nor were any initial quantitative experiments conducted to test the idea; instead, it was based on observations of what happens when something burns, that most common objects appear to become lighter and seem to lose something in the process.[6]
+Polish alchemist, philosopher, and physician Michael Sendivogius (Michał Sędziwój) in his work De Lapide Philosophorum Tractatus duodecim e naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromti (1604) described a substance contained in air, referring to it as 'cibus vitae' (food of life[12]), and this substance is identical with oxygen.[13] Sendivogius, during his experiments performed between 1598 and 1604, properly recognized that the substance is equivalent to the gaseous byproduct released by the thermal decomposition of potassium nitrate. In Bugaj's view, the isolation of oxygen and the proper association of the substance to that part of air which is required for life, lends sufficient weight to the discovery of oxygen by Sendivogius.[13] This discovery of Sendivogius was however frequently denied by the generations of scientists and chemists which succeeded him.[12]
+It is also commonly claimed that oxygen was first discovered by Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. He had produced oxygen gas by heating mercuric oxide and various nitrates in 1771–2.[14][15][6] Scheele called the gas "fire air" because it was then the only known agent to support combustion. He wrote an account of this discovery in a manuscript titled Treatise on Air and Fire, which he sent to his publisher in 1775. That document was published in 1777.[16]
+In the meantime, on August 1, 1774, an experiment conducted by the British clergyman Joseph Priestley focused sunlight on mercuric oxide (HgO) contained in a glass tube, which liberated a gas he named "dephlogisticated air".[15] He noted that candles burned brighter in the gas and that a mouse was more active and lived longer while breathing it. After breathing the gas himself, Priestley wrote: "The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards."[9] Priestley published his findings in 1775 in a paper titled "An Account of Further Discoveries in Air", which was included in the second volume of his book titled Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air.[6][17] Because he published his findings first, Priestley is usually given priority in the discovery.
+The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier later claimed to have discovered the new substance independently. Priestley visited Lavoisier in October 1774 and told him about his experiment and how he liberated the new gas. Scheele had also dispatched a letter to Lavoisier on September 30, 1774, which described his discovery of the previously unknown substance, but Lavoisier never acknowledged receiving it. (A copy of the letter was found in Scheele's belongings after his death.)[16]
+Lavoisier conducted the first adequate quantitative experiments on oxidation and gave the first correct explanation of how combustion works.[15] He used these and similar experiments, all started in 1774, to discredit the phlogiston theory and to prove that the substance discovered by Priestley and Scheele was a chemical element.
+In one experiment, Lavoisier observed that there was no overall increase in weight when tin and air were heated in a closed container.[15] He noted that air rushed in when he opened the container, which indicated that part of the trapped air had been consumed. He also noted that the tin had increased in weight and that increase was the same as the weight of the air that rushed back in. This and other experiments on combustion were documented in his book Sur la combustion en général, which was published in 1777.[15] In that work, he proved that air is a mixture of two gases; 'vital air', which is essential to combustion and respiration, and azote (Gk. ἄζωτον "lifeless"), which did not support either. Azote later became nitrogen in English, although it has kept the earlier name in French and several other European languages.[15]
+Lavoisier renamed 'vital air' to oxygène in 1777 from the Greek roots ὀξύς (oxys) (acid, literally "sharp", from the taste of acids) and -γενής (-genēs) (producer, literally begetter), because he mistakenly believed that oxygen was a constituent of all acids.[18] Chemists (such as Sir Humphry Davy in 1812) eventually determined that Lavoisier was wrong in this regard (hydrogen forms the basis for acid chemistry), but by then the name was too well established.[19]
+Oxygen entered the English language despite opposition by English scientists and the fact that the Englishman Priestley had first isolated the gas and written about it. This is partly due to a poem praising the gas titled "Oxygen" in the popular book The Botanic Garden (1791) by Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin.[16]
+John Dalton's original atomic hypothesis presumed that all elements were monatomic and that the atoms in compounds would normally have the simplest atomic ratios with respect to one another. For example, Dalton assumed that water's formula was HO, leading to the conclusion that the atomic mass of oxygen was 8 times that of hydrogen, instead of the modern value of about 16.[20] In 1805, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt showed that water is formed of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen; and by 1811 Amedeo Avogadro had arrived at the correct interpretation of water's composition, based on what is now called Avogadro's law and the diatomic elemental molecules in those gases.[21][a]
+By the late 19th century scientists realized that air could be liquefied and its components isolated by compressing and cooling it. Using a cascade method, Swiss chemist and physicist Raoul Pierre Pictet evaporated liquid sulfur dioxide in order to liquefy carbon dioxide, which in turn was evaporated to cool oxygen gas enough to liquefy it. He sent a telegram on December 22, 1877 to the French Academy of Sciences in Paris announcing his discovery of liquid oxygen.[22] Just two days later, French physicist Louis Paul Cailletet announced his own method of liquefying molecular oxygen.[22] Only a few drops of the liquid were produced in each case and no meaningful analysis could be conducted. Oxygen was liquefied in a stable state for the first time on March 29, 1883 by Polish scientists from Jagiellonian University, Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski.[23]
+In 1891 Scottish chemist James Dewar was able to produce enough liquid oxygen for study.[24] The first commercially viable process for producing liquid oxygen was independently developed in 1895 by German engineer Carl von Linde and British engineer William Hampson. Both men lowered the temperature of air until it liquefied and then distilled the component gases by boiling them off one at a time and capturing them separately.[25] Later, in 1901, oxyacetylene welding was demonstrated for the first time by burning a mixture of acetylene and compressed O2. This method of welding and cutting metal later became common.[25]
+In 1923, the American scientist Robert H. Goddard became the first person to develop a rocket engine that burned liquid fuel; the engine used gasoline for fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Goddard successfully flew a small liquid-fueled rocket 56 m at 97 km/h on March 16, 1926 in Auburn, Massachusetts, US.[25][26]
+In academic laboratories, oxygen can be prepared by heating together potassium chlorate mixed with a small proportion of manganese dioxide.[27]
+Oxygen levels in the atmosphere are trending slightly downward globally, possibly because of fossil-fuel burning.[28]
+At standard temperature and pressure, oxygen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas with the molecular formula O2, referred to as dioxygen.[30]
+As dioxygen, two oxygen atoms are chemically bound to each other. The bond can be variously described based on level of theory, but is reasonably and simply described as a covalent double bond that results from the filling of molecular orbitals formed from the atomic orbitals of the individual oxygen atoms, the filling of which results in a bond order of two. More specifically, the double bond is the result of sequential, low-to-high energy, or Aufbau, filling of orbitals, and the resulting cancellation of contributions from the 2s electrons, after sequential filling of the low σ and σ* orbitals; σ overlap of the two atomic 2p orbitals that lie along the O-O molecular axis and π overlap of two pairs of atomic 2p orbitals perpendicular to the O-O molecular axis, and then cancellation of contributions from the remaining two of the six 2p electrons after their partial filling of the lowest π and π* orbitals.[29]
+This combination of cancellations and σ and π overlaps results in dioxygen's double bond character and reactivity, and a triplet electronic ground state. An electron configuration with two unpaired electrons, as is found in dioxygen orbitals (see the filled π* orbitals in the diagram) that are of equal energy—i.e., degenerate—is a configuration termed a spin triplet state. Hence, the ground state of the O2 molecule is referred to as triplet oxygen.[31][b] The highest energy, partially filled orbitals are antibonding, and so their filling weakens the bond order from three to two. Because of its unpaired electrons, triplet oxygen reacts only slowly with most organic molecules, which have paired electron spins; this prevents spontaneous combustion.[3]
+In the triplet form, O2 molecules are paramagnetic. That is, they impart magnetic character to oxygen when it is in the presence of a magnetic field, because of the spin magnetic moments of the unpaired electrons in the molecule, and the negative exchange energy between neighboring O2 molecules.[24] Liquid oxygen is so magnetic that, in laboratory demonstrations, a bridge of liquid oxygen may be supported against its own weight between the poles of a powerful magnet.[32][c]
+Singlet oxygen is a name given to several higher-energy species of molecular O2 in which all the electron spins are paired. It is much more reactive with common organic molecules than is molecular oxygen per se. In nature, singlet oxygen is commonly formed from water during photosynthesis, using the energy of sunlight.[33] It is also produced in the troposphere by the photolysis of ozone by light of short wavelength,[34] and by the immune system as a source of active oxygen.[35] Carotenoids in photosynthetic organisms (and possibly animals) play a major role in absorbing energy from singlet oxygen and converting it to the unexcited ground state before it can cause harm to tissues.[36]
+The common allotrope of elemental oxygen on Earth is called dioxygen, O2, the major part of the Earth's atmospheric oxygen (see Occurrence). O2 has a bond length of 121 pm and a bond energy of 498 kJ/mol,[37] which is smaller than the energy of other double bonds or pairs of single bonds in the biosphere and responsible for the exothermic reaction of O2 with any organic molecule.[3][38] Due to its energy content, O2 is used by complex forms of life, such as animals, in cellular respiration. Other aspects of O2 are covered in the remainder of this article.
+Trioxygen (O3) is usually known as ozone and is a very reactive allotrope of oxygen that is damaging to lung tissue.[39] Ozone is produced in the upper atmosphere when O2 combines with atomic oxygen made by the splitting of O2 by ultraviolet (UV) radiation.[18] Since ozone absorbs strongly in the UV region of the spectrum, the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere functions as a protective radiation shield for the planet.[18] Near the Earth's surface, it is a pollutant formed as a by-product of automobile exhaust.[39] At low earth orbit altitudes, sufficient atomic oxygen is present to cause corrosion of spacecraft.[40]
+The metastable molecule tetraoxygen (O4) was discovered in 2001,[41][42] and was assumed to exist in one of the six phases of solid oxygen. It was proven in 2006 that this phase, created by pressurizing O2 to 20 GPa, is in fact a rhombohedral O8 cluster.[43] This cluster has the potential to be a much more powerful oxidizer than either O2 or O3 and may therefore be used in rocket fuel.[41][42] A metallic phase was discovered in 1990 when solid oxygen is subjected to a pressure of above 96 GPa[44] and it was shown in 1998 that at very low temperatures, this phase becomes superconducting.[45]
+Oxygen dissolves more readily in water than nitrogen, and in freshwater more readily than seawater. Water in equilibrium with air contains approximately 1 molecule of dissolved O2 for every 2 molecules of N2 (1:2), compared with an atmospheric ratio of approximately 1:4. The solubility of oxygen in water is temperature-dependent, and about twice as much (14.6 mg·L−1) dissolves at 0 °C than at 20 °C (7.6 mg·L−1).[9][46] At 25 °C and 1 standard atmosphere (101.3 kPa) of air, freshwater contains about 6.04 milliliters (mL) of oxygen per liter, and seawater contains about 4.95 mL per liter.[47] At 5 °C the solubility increases to 9.0 mL (50% more than at 25 °C) per liter for water and 7.2 mL (45% more) per liter for sea water.
+Oxygen condenses at 90.20 K (−182.95 °C, −297.31 °F), and freezes at 54.36 K (−218.79 °C, −361.82 °F).[48] Both liquid and solid O2 are clear substances with a light sky-blue color caused by absorption in the red (in contrast with the blue color of the sky, which is due to Rayleigh scattering of blue light). High-purity liquid O2 is usually obtained by the fractional distillation of liquefied air.[49] Liquid oxygen may also be condensed from air using liquid nitrogen as a coolant.[50]
+Oxygen is a highly reactive substance and must be segregated from combustible materials.[50]
+The spectroscopy of molecular oxygen is associated with the atmospheric processes of aurora and airglow.[51] The absorption in the Herzberg continuum and Schumann–Runge bands in the ultraviolet produces atomic oxygen that is important in the chemistry of the middle atmosphere.[52] Excited state singlet molecular oxygen is responsible for red chemiluminescence in solution.[53]
+Naturally occurring oxygen is composed of three stable isotopes, 16O, 17O, and 18O, with 16O being the most abundant (99.762% natural abundance).[54]
+Most 16O is synthesized at the end of the helium fusion process in massive stars but some is made in the neon burning process.[55] 17O is primarily made by the burning of hydrogen into helium during the CNO cycle, making it a common isotope in the hydrogen burning zones of stars.[55] Most 18O is produced when 14N (made abundant from CNO burning) captures a 4He nucleus, making 18O common in the helium-rich zones of evolved, massive stars.[55]
+Fourteen radioisotopes have been characterized. The most stable are 15O with a half-life of 122.24 seconds and 14O with a half-life of 70.606 seconds.[54] All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 27 s and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 83 milliseconds.[54] The most common decay mode of the isotopes lighter than 16O is β+ decay[56][57][58] to yield nitrogen, and the most common mode for the isotopes heavier than 18O is beta decay to yield fluorine.[54]
+Oxygen is the most abundant chemical element by mass in the Earth's biosphere, air, sea and land. Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium.[60] About 0.9% of the Sun's mass is oxygen.[15] Oxygen constitutes 49.2% of the Earth's crust by mass[61] as part of oxide compounds such as silicon dioxide and is the most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust. It is also the major component of the world's oceans (88.8% by mass).[15] Oxygen gas is the second most common component of the Earth's atmosphere, taking up 20.8% of its volume and 23.1% of its mass (some 1015 tonnes).[15][62][d] Earth is unusual among the planets of the Solar System in having such a high concentration of oxygen gas in its atmosphere: Mars (with 0.1% O2 by volume) and Venus have much less. The O2 surrounding those planets is produced solely by the action of ultraviolet radiation on oxygen-containing molecules such as carbon dioxide.
+The unusually high concentration of oxygen gas on Earth is the result of the oxygen cycle. This biogeochemical cycle describes the movement of oxygen within and between its three main reservoirs on Earth: the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the lithosphere. The main driving factor of the oxygen cycle is photosynthesis, which is responsible for modern Earth's atmosphere. Photosynthesis releases oxygen into the atmosphere, while respiration, decay, and combustion remove it from the atmosphere. In the present equilibrium, production and consumption occur at the same rate.[63]
+Free oxygen also occurs in solution in the world's water bodies. The increased solubility of O2 at lower temperatures (see Physical properties) has important implications for ocean life, as polar oceans support a much higher density of life due to their higher oxygen content.[64] Water polluted with plant nutrients such as nitrates or phosphates may stimulate growth of algae by a process called eutrophication and the decay of these organisms and other biomaterials may reduce the O2 content in eutrophic water bodies. Scientists assess this aspect of water quality by measuring the water's biochemical oxygen demand, or the amount of O2 needed to restore it to a normal concentration.[65]
+Paleoclimatologists measure the ratio of oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 in the shells and skeletons of marine organisms to determine the climate millions of years ago (see oxygen isotope ratio cycle). Seawater molecules that contain the lighter isotope, oxygen-16, evaporate at a slightly faster rate than water molecules containing the 12% heavier oxygen-18, and this disparity increases at lower temperatures.[66] During periods of lower global temperatures, snow and rain from that evaporated water tends to be higher in oxygen-16, and the seawater left behind tends to be higher in oxygen-18. Marine organisms then incorporate more oxygen-18 into their skeletons and shells than they would in a warmer climate.[66] Paleoclimatologists also directly measure this ratio in the water molecules of ice core samples as old as hundreds of thousands of years.
+Planetary geologists have measured the relative quantities of oxygen isotopes in samples from the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and meteorites, but were long unable to obtain reference values for the isotope ratios in the Sun, believed to be the same as those of the primordial solar nebula. Analysis of a silicon wafer exposed to the solar wind in space and returned by the crashed Genesis spacecraft has shown that the Sun has a higher proportion of oxygen-16 than does the Earth. The measurement implies that an unknown process depleted oxygen-16 from the Sun's disk of protoplanetary material prior to the coalescence of dust grains that formed the Earth.[67]
+Oxygen presents two spectrophotometric absorption bands peaking at the wavelengths 687 and 760 nm. Some remote sensing scientists have proposed using the measurement of the radiance coming from vegetation canopies in those bands to characterize plant health status from a satellite platform.[68] This approach exploits the fact that in those bands it is possible to discriminate the vegetation's reflectance from its fluorescence, which is much weaker. The measurement is technically difficult owing to the low signal-to-noise ratio and the physical structure of vegetation; but it has been proposed as a possible method of monitoring the carbon cycle from satellites on a global scale.
+In nature, free oxygen is produced by the light-driven splitting of water during oxygenic photosynthesis. According to some estimates, green algae and cyanobacteria in marine environments provide about 70% of the free oxygen produced on Earth, and the rest is produced by terrestrial plants.[69] Other estimates of the oceanic contribution to atmospheric oxygen are higher, while some estimates are lower, suggesting oceans produce ~45% of Earth's atmospheric oxygen each year.[70]
+A simplified overall formula for photosynthesis is:[71]
+or simply
+Photolytic oxygen evolution occurs in the thylakoid membranes of photosynthetic organisms and requires the energy of four photons.[e] Many steps are involved, but the result is the formation of a proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane, which is used to synthesize adenosine triphosphate (ATP) via photophosphorylation.[72] The O2 remaining (after production of the water molecule) is released into the atmosphere.[f]
+The chemical energy of oxygen is released in mitochondria to generate ATP during oxidative phosphorylation.[4] The reaction for aerobic respiration is essentially the reverse of photosynthesis and is simplified as:
+In vertebrates, O2 diffuses through membranes in the lungs and into red blood cells. Hemoglobin binds O2, changing color from bluish red to bright red[39] (CO2 is released from another part of hemoglobin through the Bohr effect). Other animals use hemocyanin (molluscs and some arthropods) or hemerythrin (spiders and lobsters).[62] A liter of blood can dissolve 200 cm3 of O2.[62]
+Until the discovery of anaerobic metazoa,[73] oxygen was thought to be a requirement for all complex life.[74]
+Reactive oxygen species, such as superoxide ion (O−2) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), are reactive by-products of oxygen use in organisms.[62] Parts of the immune system of higher organisms create peroxide, superoxide, and singlet oxygen to destroy invading microbes. Reactive oxygen species also play an important role in the hypersensitive response of plants against pathogen attack.[72] Oxygen is damaging to obligately anaerobic organisms, which were the dominant form of early life on Earth until O2 began to accumulate in the atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event, about a billion years after the first appearance of these organisms.[75][76]
+An adult human at rest inhales 1.8 to 2.4 grams of oxygen per minute.[77] This amounts to more than 6 billion tonnes of oxygen inhaled by humanity per year.[g]
+The free oxygen partial pressure in the body of a living vertebrate organism is highest in the respiratory system, and decreases along any arterial system, peripheral tissues, and venous system, respectively. Partial pressure is the pressure that oxygen would have if it alone occupied the volume.[81]
+Free oxygen gas was almost nonexistent in Earth's atmosphere before photosynthetic archaea and bacteria evolved, probably about 3.5 billion years ago. Free oxygen first appeared in significant quantities during the Paleoproterozoic eon (between 3.0 and 2.3 billion years ago).[82] Even if there was much dissolved iron in the oceans when oxygenic photosynthesis was getting more common, it appears the banded iron formations were created by anoxyenic or micro-aerophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria which dominated the deeper areas of the photic zone, while oxygen-producing cyanobacteria covered the shallows.[83] Free oxygen began to outgas from the oceans 3–2.7 billion years ago, reaching 10% of its present level around 1.7 billion years ago.[82][84]
+The presence of large amounts of dissolved and free oxygen in the oceans and atmosphere may have driven most of the extant anaerobic organisms to extinction during the Great Oxygenation Event (oxygen catastrophe) about 2.4 billion years ago. Cellular respiration using O2 enables aerobic organisms to produce much more ATP than anaerobic organisms.[85] Cellular respiration of O2 occurs in all eukaryotes, including all complex multicellular organisms such as plants and animals.
+Since the beginning of the Cambrian period 540 million years ago, atmospheric O2 levels have fluctuated between 15% and 30% by volume.[86] Towards the end of the Carboniferous period (about 300 million years ago) atmospheric O2 levels reached a maximum of 35% by volume,[86] which may have contributed to the large size of insects and amphibians at this time.[87]
+Variations in atmospheric oxygen concentration have shaped past climates. When oxygen declined, atmospheric density dropped, which in turn increased surface evaporation, causing precipitation increases and warmer temperatures.[88]
+At the current rate of photosynthesis it would take about 2,000 years to regenerate the entire O2 in the present atmosphere.[89]
+One hundred million tonnes of O2 are extracted from air for industrial uses annually by two primary methods.[16] The most common method is fractional distillation of liquefied air, with N2 distilling as a vapor while O2 is left as a liquid.[16]
+The other primary method of producing O2 is passing a stream of clean, dry air through one bed of a pair of identical zeolite molecular sieves, which absorbs the nitrogen and delivers a gas stream that is 90% to 93% O2.[16] Simultaneously, nitrogen gas is released from the other nitrogen-saturated zeolite bed, by reducing the chamber operating pressure and diverting part of the oxygen gas from the producer bed through it, in the reverse direction of flow. After a set cycle time the operation of the two beds is interchanged, thereby allowing for a continuous supply of gaseous oxygen to be pumped through a pipeline. This is known as pressure swing adsorption. Oxygen gas is increasingly obtained by these non-cryogenic technologies (see also the related vacuum swing adsorption).[90]
+Oxygen gas can also be produced through electrolysis of water into molecular oxygen and hydrogen. DC electricity must be used: if AC is used, the gases in each limb consist of hydrogen and oxygen in the explosive ratio 2:1. A similar method is the electrocatalytic O2 evolution from oxides and oxoacids. Chemical catalysts can be used as well, such as in chemical oxygen generators or oxygen candles that are used as part of the life-support equipment on submarines, and are still part of standard equipment on commercial airliners in case of depressurization emergencies. Another air separation method is forcing air to dissolve through ceramic membranes based on zirconium dioxide by either high pressure or an electric current, to produce nearly pure O2 gas.[65]
+Oxygen storage methods include high pressure oxygen tanks, cryogenics and chemical compounds. For reasons of economy, oxygen is often transported in bulk as a liquid in specially insulated tankers, since one liter of liquefied oxygen is equivalent to 840 liters of gaseous oxygen at atmospheric pressure and 20 °C (68 °F).[16] Such tankers are used to refill bulk liquid oxygen storage containers, which stand outside hospitals and other institutions that need large volumes of pure oxygen gas. Liquid oxygen is passed through heat exchangers, which convert the cryogenic liquid into gas before it enters the building. Oxygen is also stored and shipped in smaller cylinders containing the compressed gas; a form that is useful in certain portable medical applications and oxy-fuel welding and cutting.[16]
+Uptake of O2 from the air is the essential purpose of respiration, so oxygen supplementation is used in medicine. Treatment not only increases oxygen levels in the patient's blood, but has the secondary effect of decreasing resistance to blood flow in many types of diseased lungs, easing work load on the heart. Oxygen therapy is used to treat emphysema, pneumonia, some heart disorders (congestive heart failure), some disorders that cause increased pulmonary artery pressure, and any disease that impairs the body's ability to take up and use gaseous oxygen.[91]
+Treatments are flexible enough to be used in hospitals, the patient's home, or increasingly by portable devices. Oxygen tents were once commonly used in oxygen supplementation, but have since been replaced mostly by the use of oxygen masks or nasal cannulas.[92]
+Hyperbaric (high-pressure) medicine uses special oxygen chambers to increase the partial pressure of O2 around the patient and, when needed, the medical staff.[93] Carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene, and decompression sickness (the 'bends') are sometimes addressed with this therapy.[94] Increased O2 concentration in the lungs helps to displace carbon monoxide from the heme group of hemoglobin.[95][96] Oxygen gas is poisonous to the anaerobic bacteria that cause gas gangrene, so increasing its partial pressure helps kill them.[97][98] Decompression sickness occurs in divers who decompress too quickly after a dive, resulting in bubbles of inert gas, mostly nitrogen and helium, forming in the blood. Increasing the pressure of O2 as soon as possible helps to redissolve the bubbles back into the blood so that these excess gasses can be exhaled naturally through the lungs.[91][99][100]
+Normobaric oxygen administration at the highest available concentration is frequently used as first aid for any diving injury that may involve inert gas bubble formation in the tissues. There is epidemiological support for its use from a statistical study of cases recorded in a long term database.[101][102][103]
+An application of O2 as a low-pressure breathing gas is in modern space suits, which surround their occupant's body with the breathing gas. These devices use nearly pure oxygen at about one-third normal pressure, resulting in a normal blood partial pressure of O2. This trade-off of higher oxygen concentration for lower pressure is needed to maintain suit flexibility.[104][105]
+Scuba and surface-supplied underwater divers and submariners also rely on artificially delivered O2. Submarines, submersibles and atmospheric diving suits usually operate at normal atmospheric pressure. Breathing air is scrubbed of carbon dioxide by chemical extraction and oxygen is replaced to maintain a constant partial pressure. Ambient pressure divers breathe air or gas mixtures with an oxygen fraction suited to the operating depth. Pure or nearly pure O2 use in diving at pressures higher than atmospheric is usually limited to rebreathers, or decompression at relatively shallow depths (~6 meters depth, or less),[106][107] or medical treatment in recompression chambers at pressures up to 2.8 bar, where acute oxygen toxicity can be managed without the risk of drowning. Deeper diving requires significant dilution of O2 with other gases, such as nitrogen or helium, to prevent oxygen toxicity.[106]
+People who climb mountains or fly in non-pressurized fixed-wing aircraft sometimes have supplemental O2 supplies.[h] Pressurized commercial airplanes have an emergency supply of O2 automatically supplied to the passengers in case of cabin depressurization. Sudden cabin pressure loss activates chemical oxygen generators above each seat, causing oxygen masks to drop. Pulling on the masks "to start the flow of oxygen" as cabin safety instructions dictate, forces iron filings into the sodium chlorate inside the canister.[65] A steady stream of oxygen gas is then produced by the exothermic reaction.
+Oxygen, as a mild euphoric, has a history of recreational use in oxygen bars and in sports. Oxygen bars are establishments found in the United States since the late 1990s that offer higher than normal O2 exposure for a minimal fee.[108] Professional athletes, especially in American football, sometimes go off-field between plays to don oxygen masks to boost performance. The pharmacological effect is doubted; a placebo effect is a more likely explanation.[108] Available studies support a performance boost from oxygen enriched mixtures only if it is breathed during aerobic exercise.[109]
+Other recreational uses that do not involve breathing include pyrotechnic applications, such as George Goble's five-second ignition of barbecue grills.[110]
+Smelting of iron ore into steel consumes 55% of commercially produced oxygen.[65] In this process, O2 is injected through a high-pressure lance into molten iron, which removes sulfur impurities and excess carbon as the respective oxides, SO2 and CO2. The reactions are exothermic, so the temperature increases to 1,700 °C.[65]
+Another 25% of commercially produced oxygen is used by the chemical industry.[65] Ethylene is reacted with O2 to create ethylene oxide, which, in turn, is converted into ethylene glycol; the primary feeder material used to manufacture a host of products, including antifreeze and polyester polymers (the precursors of many plastics and fabrics).[65] Large quantities of oxygen or air is used in oxy-cracking process[111] and for the production of acrylic acid[112], diformyl-furane[113], benzylic acid[114]. On the other hand, the electrochemical synthesis of hydrogen peroxide from oxygen is a promising technology to replace the currently used hydroquinone-process. Last but not least, catalytic oxidation is used in afterburners to get rid of hazardous gases [115][116].
+Most of the remaining 20% of commercially produced oxygen is used in medical applications, metal cutting and welding, as an oxidizer in rocket fuel, and in water treatment.[65] Oxygen is used in oxyacetylene welding burning acetylene with O2 to produce a very hot flame. In this process, metal up to 60 cm (24 in) thick is first heated with a small oxy-acetylene flame and then quickly cut by a large stream of O2.[117]
+The oxidation state of oxygen is −2 in almost all known compounds of oxygen. The oxidation state −1 is found in a few compounds such as peroxides.[118] Compounds containing oxygen in other oxidation states are very uncommon: −1/2 (superoxides), −1/3 (ozonides), 0 (elemental, hypofluorous acid), +1/2 (dioxygenyl), +1 (dioxygen difluoride), and +2 (oxygen difluoride).[119]
+Water (H2O) is an oxide of hydrogen and the most familiar oxygen compound. Hydrogen atoms are covalently bonded to oxygen in a water molecule but also have an additional attraction (about 23.3 kJ/mol per hydrogen atom) to an adjacent oxygen atom in a separate molecule.[120] These hydrogen bonds between water molecules hold them approximately 15% closer than what would be expected in a simple liquid with just van der Waals forces.[121][i]
+Due to its electronegativity, oxygen forms chemical bonds with almost all other elements to give corresponding oxides. The surface of most metals, such as aluminium and titanium, are oxidized in the presence of air and become coated with a thin film of oxide that passivates the metal and slows further corrosion. Many oxides of the transition metals are non-stoichiometric compounds, with slightly less metal than the chemical formula would show. For example, the mineral FeO (wüstite) is written as
+Fe
+1
+−
+x
+O
+{\displaystyle {\ce {Fe}}_{1-x}{\ce {O}}}
+, where x is usually around 0.05.[122]
+Oxygen is present in the atmosphere in trace quantities in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). The Earth's crustal rock is composed in large part of oxides of silicon (silica SiO2, as found in granite and quartz), aluminium (aluminium oxide Al2O3, in bauxite and corundum), iron (iron(III) oxide Fe2O3, in hematite and rust), and calcium carbonate (in limestone). The rest of the Earth's crust is also made of oxygen compounds, in particular various complex silicates (in silicate minerals). The Earth's mantle, of much larger mass than the crust, is largely composed of silicates of magnesium and iron.
+Water-soluble silicates in the form of Na4SiO4, Na2SiO3, and Na2Si2O5 are used as detergents and adhesives.[123]
+Oxygen also acts as a ligand for transition metals, forming transition metal dioxygen complexes, which feature metal–O2. This class of compounds includes the heme proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin.[124] An exotic and unusual reaction occurs with PtF6, which oxidizes oxygen to give O2+PtF6−, dioxygenyl hexafluoroplatinate.[125]
+Among the most important classes of organic compounds that contain oxygen are (where "R" is an organic group): alcohols (R-OH); ethers (R-O-R); ketones (R-CO-R); aldehydes (R-CO-H); carboxylic acids (R-COOH); esters (R-COO-R); acid anhydrides (R-CO-O-CO-R); and amides (R-C(O)-NR2). There are many important organic solvents that contain oxygen, including: acetone, methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, furan, THF, diethyl ether, dioxane, ethyl acetate, DMF, DMSO, acetic acid, and formic acid. Acetone ((CH3)2CO) and phenol (C6H5OH) are used as feeder materials in the synthesis of many different substances. Other important organic compounds that contain oxygen are: glycerol, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, citric acid, acetic anhydride, and acetamide. Epoxides are ethers in which the oxygen atom is part of a ring of three atoms. The element is similarly found in almost all biomolecules that are important to (or generated by) life.
+Oxygen reacts spontaneously with many organic compounds at or below room temperature in a process called autoxidation.[126] Most of the organic compounds that contain oxygen are not made by direct action of O2. Organic compounds important in industry and commerce that are made by direct oxidation of a precursor include ethylene oxide and peracetic acid.[123]
+The NFPA 704 standard rates compressed oxygen gas as nonhazardous to health, nonflammable and nonreactive, but an oxidizer. Refrigerated liquid oxygen (LOX) is given a health hazard rating of 3 (for increased risk of hyperoxia from condensed vapors, and for hazards common to cryogenic liquids such as frostbite), and all other ratings are the same as the compressed gas form.[127]
+Oxygen gas (O2) can be toxic at elevated partial pressures, leading to convulsions and other health problems.[106][j][129] Oxygen toxicity usually begins to occur at partial pressures more than 50 kilopascals (kPa), equal to about 50% oxygen composition at standard pressure or 2.5 times the normal sea-level O2 partial pressure of about 21 kPa. This is not a problem except for patients on mechanical ventilators, since gas supplied through oxygen masks in medical applications is typically composed of only 30%–50% O2 by volume (about 30 kPa at standard pressure).[9]
+At one time, premature babies were placed in incubators containing O2-rich air, but this practice was discontinued after some babies were blinded by the oxygen content being too high.[9]
+Breathing pure O2 in space applications, such as in some modern space suits, or in early spacecraft such as Apollo, causes no damage due to the low total pressures used.[104][130] In the case of spacesuits, the O2 partial pressure in the breathing gas is, in general, about 30 kPa (1.4 times normal), and the resulting O2 partial pressure in the astronaut's arterial blood is only marginally more than normal sea-level O2 partial pressure.[131]
+Oxygen toxicity to the lungs and central nervous system can also occur in deep scuba diving and surface supplied diving.[9][106] Prolonged breathing of an air mixture with an O2 partial pressure more than 60 kPa can eventually lead to permanent pulmonary fibrosis.[132] Exposure to a O2 partial pressures greater than 160 kPa (about 1.6 atm) may lead to convulsions (normally fatal for divers). Acute oxygen toxicity (causing seizures, its most feared effect for divers) can occur by breathing an air mixture with 21% O2 at 66 m (217 ft) or more of depth; the same thing can occur by breathing 100% O2 at only 6 m (20 ft).[132][133][134][135]
+Highly concentrated sources of oxygen promote rapid combustion. Fire and explosion hazards exist when concentrated oxidants and fuels are brought into close proximity; an ignition event, such as heat or a spark, is needed to trigger combustion.[3][136] Oxygen is the oxidant, not the fuel, but nevertheless the source of most of the chemical energy released in combustion.[3][38]
+Concentrated O2 will allow combustion to proceed rapidly and energetically.[136] Steel pipes and storage vessels used to store and transmit both gaseous and liquid oxygen will act as a fuel; and therefore the design and manufacture of O2 systems requires special training to ensure that ignition sources are minimized.[136] The fire that killed the Apollo 1 crew in a launch pad test spread so rapidly because the capsule was pressurized with pure O2 but at slightly more than atmospheric pressure, instead of the 1⁄3 normal pressure that would be used in a mission.[k][138]
+Liquid oxygen spills, if allowed to soak into organic matter, such as wood, petrochemicals, and asphalt can cause these materials to detonate unpredictably on subsequent mechanical impact.[136]

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+Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. After hydrogen and helium, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe by mass. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O2. Diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20.95% of the Earth's atmosphere. Oxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of oxides.[2]
+Dioxygen provides the energy released in combustion[3] and aerobic cellular respiration,[4] and many major classes of organic molecules in living organisms contain oxygen atoms, such as proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and fats, as do the major constituent inorganic compounds of animal shells, teeth, and bone. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, the major constituent of lifeforms. Oxygen is continuously replenished in Earth's atmosphere by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms. Another form (allotrope) of oxygen, ozone (O3), strongly absorbs ultraviolet UVB radiation and the high-altitude ozone layer helps protect the biosphere from ultraviolet radiation. However, ozone present at the surface is a byproduct of smog and thus a pollutant.
+Oxygen was isolated by Michael Sendivogius before 1604, but it is commonly believed that the element was discovered independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, in 1773 or earlier, and Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire, in 1774. Priority is often given for Priestley because his work was published first. Priestley, however, called oxygen "dephlogisticated air", and did not recognize it as a chemical element. The name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, who first recognized oxygen as a chemical element and correctly characterized the role it plays in combustion.
+Common uses of oxygen include production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight and diving.
+One of the first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium. In his work Pneumatica, Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle and surrounding the vessel's neck with water resulted in some water rising into the neck.[5] Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in the vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass. Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philo's work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration.[6]
+In the late 17th century, Robert Boyle proved that air is necessary for combustion. English chemist John Mayow (1641–1679) refined this work by showing that fire requires only a part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus.[7] In one experiment, he found that placing either a mouse or a lit candle in a closed container over water caused the water to rise and replace one-fourteenth of the air's volume before extinguishing the subjects.[8] From this he surmised that nitroaereus is consumed in both respiration and combustion.
+Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that the nitroaereus must have combined with it.[7] He also thought that the lungs separate nitroaereus from air and pass it into the blood and that animal heat and muscle movement result from the reaction of nitroaereus with certain substances in the body.[7] Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract "De respiratione".[8]
+Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element.[9] This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes.[10]
+Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, and modified by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl by 1731,[11] phlogiston theory stated that all combustible materials were made of two parts. One part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx.[6]
+Highly combustible materials that leave little residue, such as wood or coal, were thought to be made mostly of phlogiston; non-combustible substances that corrode, such as iron, contained very little. Air did not play a role in phlogiston theory, nor were any initial quantitative experiments conducted to test the idea; instead, it was based on observations of what happens when something burns, that most common objects appear to become lighter and seem to lose something in the process.[6]
+Polish alchemist, philosopher, and physician Michael Sendivogius (Michał Sędziwój) in his work De Lapide Philosophorum Tractatus duodecim e naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromti (1604) described a substance contained in air, referring to it as 'cibus vitae' (food of life[12]), and this substance is identical with oxygen.[13] Sendivogius, during his experiments performed between 1598 and 1604, properly recognized that the substance is equivalent to the gaseous byproduct released by the thermal decomposition of potassium nitrate. In Bugaj's view, the isolation of oxygen and the proper association of the substance to that part of air which is required for life, lends sufficient weight to the discovery of oxygen by Sendivogius.[13] This discovery of Sendivogius was however frequently denied by the generations of scientists and chemists which succeeded him.[12]
+It is also commonly claimed that oxygen was first discovered by Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. He had produced oxygen gas by heating mercuric oxide and various nitrates in 1771–2.[14][15][6] Scheele called the gas "fire air" because it was then the only known agent to support combustion. He wrote an account of this discovery in a manuscript titled Treatise on Air and Fire, which he sent to his publisher in 1775. That document was published in 1777.[16]
+In the meantime, on August 1, 1774, an experiment conducted by the British clergyman Joseph Priestley focused sunlight on mercuric oxide (HgO) contained in a glass tube, which liberated a gas he named "dephlogisticated air".[15] He noted that candles burned brighter in the gas and that a mouse was more active and lived longer while breathing it. After breathing the gas himself, Priestley wrote: "The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards."[9] Priestley published his findings in 1775 in a paper titled "An Account of Further Discoveries in Air", which was included in the second volume of his book titled Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air.[6][17] Because he published his findings first, Priestley is usually given priority in the discovery.
+The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier later claimed to have discovered the new substance independently. Priestley visited Lavoisier in October 1774 and told him about his experiment and how he liberated the new gas. Scheele had also dispatched a letter to Lavoisier on September 30, 1774, which described his discovery of the previously unknown substance, but Lavoisier never acknowledged receiving it. (A copy of the letter was found in Scheele's belongings after his death.)[16]
+Lavoisier conducted the first adequate quantitative experiments on oxidation and gave the first correct explanation of how combustion works.[15] He used these and similar experiments, all started in 1774, to discredit the phlogiston theory and to prove that the substance discovered by Priestley and Scheele was a chemical element.
+In one experiment, Lavoisier observed that there was no overall increase in weight when tin and air were heated in a closed container.[15] He noted that air rushed in when he opened the container, which indicated that part of the trapped air had been consumed. He also noted that the tin had increased in weight and that increase was the same as the weight of the air that rushed back in. This and other experiments on combustion were documented in his book Sur la combustion en général, which was published in 1777.[15] In that work, he proved that air is a mixture of two gases; 'vital air', which is essential to combustion and respiration, and azote (Gk. ἄζωτον "lifeless"), which did not support either. Azote later became nitrogen in English, although it has kept the earlier name in French and several other European languages.[15]
+Lavoisier renamed 'vital air' to oxygène in 1777 from the Greek roots ὀξύς (oxys) (acid, literally "sharp", from the taste of acids) and -γενής (-genēs) (producer, literally begetter), because he mistakenly believed that oxygen was a constituent of all acids.[18] Chemists (such as Sir Humphry Davy in 1812) eventually determined that Lavoisier was wrong in this regard (hydrogen forms the basis for acid chemistry), but by then the name was too well established.[19]
+Oxygen entered the English language despite opposition by English scientists and the fact that the Englishman Priestley had first isolated the gas and written about it. This is partly due to a poem praising the gas titled "Oxygen" in the popular book The Botanic Garden (1791) by Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin.[16]
+John Dalton's original atomic hypothesis presumed that all elements were monatomic and that the atoms in compounds would normally have the simplest atomic ratios with respect to one another. For example, Dalton assumed that water's formula was HO, leading to the conclusion that the atomic mass of oxygen was 8 times that of hydrogen, instead of the modern value of about 16.[20] In 1805, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt showed that water is formed of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen; and by 1811 Amedeo Avogadro had arrived at the correct interpretation of water's composition, based on what is now called Avogadro's law and the diatomic elemental molecules in those gases.[21][a]
+By the late 19th century scientists realized that air could be liquefied and its components isolated by compressing and cooling it. Using a cascade method, Swiss chemist and physicist Raoul Pierre Pictet evaporated liquid sulfur dioxide in order to liquefy carbon dioxide, which in turn was evaporated to cool oxygen gas enough to liquefy it. He sent a telegram on December 22, 1877 to the French Academy of Sciences in Paris announcing his discovery of liquid oxygen.[22] Just two days later, French physicist Louis Paul Cailletet announced his own method of liquefying molecular oxygen.[22] Only a few drops of the liquid were produced in each case and no meaningful analysis could be conducted. Oxygen was liquefied in a stable state for the first time on March 29, 1883 by Polish scientists from Jagiellonian University, Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski.[23]
+In 1891 Scottish chemist James Dewar was able to produce enough liquid oxygen for study.[24] The first commercially viable process for producing liquid oxygen was independently developed in 1895 by German engineer Carl von Linde and British engineer William Hampson. Both men lowered the temperature of air until it liquefied and then distilled the component gases by boiling them off one at a time and capturing them separately.[25] Later, in 1901, oxyacetylene welding was demonstrated for the first time by burning a mixture of acetylene and compressed O2. This method of welding and cutting metal later became common.[25]
+In 1923, the American scientist Robert H. Goddard became the first person to develop a rocket engine that burned liquid fuel; the engine used gasoline for fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Goddard successfully flew a small liquid-fueled rocket 56 m at 97 km/h on March 16, 1926 in Auburn, Massachusetts, US.[25][26]
+In academic laboratories, oxygen can be prepared by heating together potassium chlorate mixed with a small proportion of manganese dioxide.[27]
+Oxygen levels in the atmosphere are trending slightly downward globally, possibly because of fossil-fuel burning.[28]
+At standard temperature and pressure, oxygen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas with the molecular formula O2, referred to as dioxygen.[30]
+As dioxygen, two oxygen atoms are chemically bound to each other. The bond can be variously described based on level of theory, but is reasonably and simply described as a covalent double bond that results from the filling of molecular orbitals formed from the atomic orbitals of the individual oxygen atoms, the filling of which results in a bond order of two. More specifically, the double bond is the result of sequential, low-to-high energy, or Aufbau, filling of orbitals, and the resulting cancellation of contributions from the 2s electrons, after sequential filling of the low σ and σ* orbitals; σ overlap of the two atomic 2p orbitals that lie along the O-O molecular axis and π overlap of two pairs of atomic 2p orbitals perpendicular to the O-O molecular axis, and then cancellation of contributions from the remaining two of the six 2p electrons after their partial filling of the lowest π and π* orbitals.[29]
+This combination of cancellations and σ and π overlaps results in dioxygen's double bond character and reactivity, and a triplet electronic ground state. An electron configuration with two unpaired electrons, as is found in dioxygen orbitals (see the filled π* orbitals in the diagram) that are of equal energy—i.e., degenerate—is a configuration termed a spin triplet state. Hence, the ground state of the O2 molecule is referred to as triplet oxygen.[31][b] The highest energy, partially filled orbitals are antibonding, and so their filling weakens the bond order from three to two. Because of its unpaired electrons, triplet oxygen reacts only slowly with most organic molecules, which have paired electron spins; this prevents spontaneous combustion.[3]
+In the triplet form, O2 molecules are paramagnetic. That is, they impart magnetic character to oxygen when it is in the presence of a magnetic field, because of the spin magnetic moments of the unpaired electrons in the molecule, and the negative exchange energy between neighboring O2 molecules.[24] Liquid oxygen is so magnetic that, in laboratory demonstrations, a bridge of liquid oxygen may be supported against its own weight between the poles of a powerful magnet.[32][c]
+Singlet oxygen is a name given to several higher-energy species of molecular O2 in which all the electron spins are paired. It is much more reactive with common organic molecules than is molecular oxygen per se. In nature, singlet oxygen is commonly formed from water during photosynthesis, using the energy of sunlight.[33] It is also produced in the troposphere by the photolysis of ozone by light of short wavelength,[34] and by the immune system as a source of active oxygen.[35] Carotenoids in photosynthetic organisms (and possibly animals) play a major role in absorbing energy from singlet oxygen and converting it to the unexcited ground state before it can cause harm to tissues.[36]
+The common allotrope of elemental oxygen on Earth is called dioxygen, O2, the major part of the Earth's atmospheric oxygen (see Occurrence). O2 has a bond length of 121 pm and a bond energy of 498 kJ/mol,[37] which is smaller than the energy of other double bonds or pairs of single bonds in the biosphere and responsible for the exothermic reaction of O2 with any organic molecule.[3][38] Due to its energy content, O2 is used by complex forms of life, such as animals, in cellular respiration. Other aspects of O2 are covered in the remainder of this article.
+Trioxygen (O3) is usually known as ozone and is a very reactive allotrope of oxygen that is damaging to lung tissue.[39] Ozone is produced in the upper atmosphere when O2 combines with atomic oxygen made by the splitting of O2 by ultraviolet (UV) radiation.[18] Since ozone absorbs strongly in the UV region of the spectrum, the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere functions as a protective radiation shield for the planet.[18] Near the Earth's surface, it is a pollutant formed as a by-product of automobile exhaust.[39] At low earth orbit altitudes, sufficient atomic oxygen is present to cause corrosion of spacecraft.[40]
+The metastable molecule tetraoxygen (O4) was discovered in 2001,[41][42] and was assumed to exist in one of the six phases of solid oxygen. It was proven in 2006 that this phase, created by pressurizing O2 to 20 GPa, is in fact a rhombohedral O8 cluster.[43] This cluster has the potential to be a much more powerful oxidizer than either O2 or O3 and may therefore be used in rocket fuel.[41][42] A metallic phase was discovered in 1990 when solid oxygen is subjected to a pressure of above 96 GPa[44] and it was shown in 1998 that at very low temperatures, this phase becomes superconducting.[45]
+Oxygen dissolves more readily in water than nitrogen, and in freshwater more readily than seawater. Water in equilibrium with air contains approximately 1 molecule of dissolved O2 for every 2 molecules of N2 (1:2), compared with an atmospheric ratio of approximately 1:4. The solubility of oxygen in water is temperature-dependent, and about twice as much (14.6 mg·L−1) dissolves at 0 °C than at 20 °C (7.6 mg·L−1).[9][46] At 25 °C and 1 standard atmosphere (101.3 kPa) of air, freshwater contains about 6.04 milliliters (mL) of oxygen per liter, and seawater contains about 4.95 mL per liter.[47] At 5 °C the solubility increases to 9.0 mL (50% more than at 25 °C) per liter for water and 7.2 mL (45% more) per liter for sea water.
+Oxygen condenses at 90.20 K (−182.95 °C, −297.31 °F), and freezes at 54.36 K (−218.79 °C, −361.82 °F).[48] Both liquid and solid O2 are clear substances with a light sky-blue color caused by absorption in the red (in contrast with the blue color of the sky, which is due to Rayleigh scattering of blue light). High-purity liquid O2 is usually obtained by the fractional distillation of liquefied air.[49] Liquid oxygen may also be condensed from air using liquid nitrogen as a coolant.[50]
+Oxygen is a highly reactive substance and must be segregated from combustible materials.[50]
+The spectroscopy of molecular oxygen is associated with the atmospheric processes of aurora and airglow.[51] The absorption in the Herzberg continuum and Schumann–Runge bands in the ultraviolet produces atomic oxygen that is important in the chemistry of the middle atmosphere.[52] Excited state singlet molecular oxygen is responsible for red chemiluminescence in solution.[53]
+Naturally occurring oxygen is composed of three stable isotopes, 16O, 17O, and 18O, with 16O being the most abundant (99.762% natural abundance).[54]
+Most 16O is synthesized at the end of the helium fusion process in massive stars but some is made in the neon burning process.[55] 17O is primarily made by the burning of hydrogen into helium during the CNO cycle, making it a common isotope in the hydrogen burning zones of stars.[55] Most 18O is produced when 14N (made abundant from CNO burning) captures a 4He nucleus, making 18O common in the helium-rich zones of evolved, massive stars.[55]
+Fourteen radioisotopes have been characterized. The most stable are 15O with a half-life of 122.24 seconds and 14O with a half-life of 70.606 seconds.[54] All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 27 s and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 83 milliseconds.[54] The most common decay mode of the isotopes lighter than 16O is β+ decay[56][57][58] to yield nitrogen, and the most common mode for the isotopes heavier than 18O is beta decay to yield fluorine.[54]
+Oxygen is the most abundant chemical element by mass in the Earth's biosphere, air, sea and land. Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium.[60] About 0.9% of the Sun's mass is oxygen.[15] Oxygen constitutes 49.2% of the Earth's crust by mass[61] as part of oxide compounds such as silicon dioxide and is the most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust. It is also the major component of the world's oceans (88.8% by mass).[15] Oxygen gas is the second most common component of the Earth's atmosphere, taking up 20.8% of its volume and 23.1% of its mass (some 1015 tonnes).[15][62][d] Earth is unusual among the planets of the Solar System in having such a high concentration of oxygen gas in its atmosphere: Mars (with 0.1% O2 by volume) and Venus have much less. The O2 surrounding those planets is produced solely by the action of ultraviolet radiation on oxygen-containing molecules such as carbon dioxide.
+The unusually high concentration of oxygen gas on Earth is the result of the oxygen cycle. This biogeochemical cycle describes the movement of oxygen within and between its three main reservoirs on Earth: the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the lithosphere. The main driving factor of the oxygen cycle is photosynthesis, which is responsible for modern Earth's atmosphere. Photosynthesis releases oxygen into the atmosphere, while respiration, decay, and combustion remove it from the atmosphere. In the present equilibrium, production and consumption occur at the same rate.[63]
+Free oxygen also occurs in solution in the world's water bodies. The increased solubility of O2 at lower temperatures (see Physical properties) has important implications for ocean life, as polar oceans support a much higher density of life due to their higher oxygen content.[64] Water polluted with plant nutrients such as nitrates or phosphates may stimulate growth of algae by a process called eutrophication and the decay of these organisms and other biomaterials may reduce the O2 content in eutrophic water bodies. Scientists assess this aspect of water quality by measuring the water's biochemical oxygen demand, or the amount of O2 needed to restore it to a normal concentration.[65]
+Paleoclimatologists measure the ratio of oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 in the shells and skeletons of marine organisms to determine the climate millions of years ago (see oxygen isotope ratio cycle). Seawater molecules that contain the lighter isotope, oxygen-16, evaporate at a slightly faster rate than water molecules containing the 12% heavier oxygen-18, and this disparity increases at lower temperatures.[66] During periods of lower global temperatures, snow and rain from that evaporated water tends to be higher in oxygen-16, and the seawater left behind tends to be higher in oxygen-18. Marine organisms then incorporate more oxygen-18 into their skeletons and shells than they would in a warmer climate.[66] Paleoclimatologists also directly measure this ratio in the water molecules of ice core samples as old as hundreds of thousands of years.
+Planetary geologists have measured the relative quantities of oxygen isotopes in samples from the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and meteorites, but were long unable to obtain reference values for the isotope ratios in the Sun, believed to be the same as those of the primordial solar nebula. Analysis of a silicon wafer exposed to the solar wind in space and returned by the crashed Genesis spacecraft has shown that the Sun has a higher proportion of oxygen-16 than does the Earth. The measurement implies that an unknown process depleted oxygen-16 from the Sun's disk of protoplanetary material prior to the coalescence of dust grains that formed the Earth.[67]
+Oxygen presents two spectrophotometric absorption bands peaking at the wavelengths 687 and 760 nm. Some remote sensing scientists have proposed using the measurement of the radiance coming from vegetation canopies in those bands to characterize plant health status from a satellite platform.[68] This approach exploits the fact that in those bands it is possible to discriminate the vegetation's reflectance from its fluorescence, which is much weaker. The measurement is technically difficult owing to the low signal-to-noise ratio and the physical structure of vegetation; but it has been proposed as a possible method of monitoring the carbon cycle from satellites on a global scale.
+In nature, free oxygen is produced by the light-driven splitting of water during oxygenic photosynthesis. According to some estimates, green algae and cyanobacteria in marine environments provide about 70% of the free oxygen produced on Earth, and the rest is produced by terrestrial plants.[69] Other estimates of the oceanic contribution to atmospheric oxygen are higher, while some estimates are lower, suggesting oceans produce ~45% of Earth's atmospheric oxygen each year.[70]
+A simplified overall formula for photosynthesis is:[71]
+or simply
+Photolytic oxygen evolution occurs in the thylakoid membranes of photosynthetic organisms and requires the energy of four photons.[e] Many steps are involved, but the result is the formation of a proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane, which is used to synthesize adenosine triphosphate (ATP) via photophosphorylation.[72] The O2 remaining (after production of the water molecule) is released into the atmosphere.[f]
+The chemical energy of oxygen is released in mitochondria to generate ATP during oxidative phosphorylation.[4] The reaction for aerobic respiration is essentially the reverse of photosynthesis and is simplified as:
+In vertebrates, O2 diffuses through membranes in the lungs and into red blood cells. Hemoglobin binds O2, changing color from bluish red to bright red[39] (CO2 is released from another part of hemoglobin through the Bohr effect). Other animals use hemocyanin (molluscs and some arthropods) or hemerythrin (spiders and lobsters).[62] A liter of blood can dissolve 200 cm3 of O2.[62]
+Until the discovery of anaerobic metazoa,[73] oxygen was thought to be a requirement for all complex life.[74]
+Reactive oxygen species, such as superoxide ion (O−2) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), are reactive by-products of oxygen use in organisms.[62] Parts of the immune system of higher organisms create peroxide, superoxide, and singlet oxygen to destroy invading microbes. Reactive oxygen species also play an important role in the hypersensitive response of plants against pathogen attack.[72] Oxygen is damaging to obligately anaerobic organisms, which were the dominant form of early life on Earth until O2 began to accumulate in the atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event, about a billion years after the first appearance of these organisms.[75][76]
+An adult human at rest inhales 1.8 to 2.4 grams of oxygen per minute.[77] This amounts to more than 6 billion tonnes of oxygen inhaled by humanity per year.[g]
+The free oxygen partial pressure in the body of a living vertebrate organism is highest in the respiratory system, and decreases along any arterial system, peripheral tissues, and venous system, respectively. Partial pressure is the pressure that oxygen would have if it alone occupied the volume.[81]
+Free oxygen gas was almost nonexistent in Earth's atmosphere before photosynthetic archaea and bacteria evolved, probably about 3.5 billion years ago. Free oxygen first appeared in significant quantities during the Paleoproterozoic eon (between 3.0 and 2.3 billion years ago).[82] Even if there was much dissolved iron in the oceans when oxygenic photosynthesis was getting more common, it appears the banded iron formations were created by anoxyenic or micro-aerophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria which dominated the deeper areas of the photic zone, while oxygen-producing cyanobacteria covered the shallows.[83] Free oxygen began to outgas from the oceans 3–2.7 billion years ago, reaching 10% of its present level around 1.7 billion years ago.[82][84]
+The presence of large amounts of dissolved and free oxygen in the oceans and atmosphere may have driven most of the extant anaerobic organisms to extinction during the Great Oxygenation Event (oxygen catastrophe) about 2.4 billion years ago. Cellular respiration using O2 enables aerobic organisms to produce much more ATP than anaerobic organisms.[85] Cellular respiration of O2 occurs in all eukaryotes, including all complex multicellular organisms such as plants and animals.
+Since the beginning of the Cambrian period 540 million years ago, atmospheric O2 levels have fluctuated between 15% and 30% by volume.[86] Towards the end of the Carboniferous period (about 300 million years ago) atmospheric O2 levels reached a maximum of 35% by volume,[86] which may have contributed to the large size of insects and amphibians at this time.[87]
+Variations in atmospheric oxygen concentration have shaped past climates. When oxygen declined, atmospheric density dropped, which in turn increased surface evaporation, causing precipitation increases and warmer temperatures.[88]
+At the current rate of photosynthesis it would take about 2,000 years to regenerate the entire O2 in the present atmosphere.[89]
+One hundred million tonnes of O2 are extracted from air for industrial uses annually by two primary methods.[16] The most common method is fractional distillation of liquefied air, with N2 distilling as a vapor while O2 is left as a liquid.[16]
+The other primary method of producing O2 is passing a stream of clean, dry air through one bed of a pair of identical zeolite molecular sieves, which absorbs the nitrogen and delivers a gas stream that is 90% to 93% O2.[16] Simultaneously, nitrogen gas is released from the other nitrogen-saturated zeolite bed, by reducing the chamber operating pressure and diverting part of the oxygen gas from the producer bed through it, in the reverse direction of flow. After a set cycle time the operation of the two beds is interchanged, thereby allowing for a continuous supply of gaseous oxygen to be pumped through a pipeline. This is known as pressure swing adsorption. Oxygen gas is increasingly obtained by these non-cryogenic technologies (see also the related vacuum swing adsorption).[90]
+Oxygen gas can also be produced through electrolysis of water into molecular oxygen and hydrogen. DC electricity must be used: if AC is used, the gases in each limb consist of hydrogen and oxygen in the explosive ratio 2:1. A similar method is the electrocatalytic O2 evolution from oxides and oxoacids. Chemical catalysts can be used as well, such as in chemical oxygen generators or oxygen candles that are used as part of the life-support equipment on submarines, and are still part of standard equipment on commercial airliners in case of depressurization emergencies. Another air separation method is forcing air to dissolve through ceramic membranes based on zirconium dioxide by either high pressure or an electric current, to produce nearly pure O2 gas.[65]
+Oxygen storage methods include high pressure oxygen tanks, cryogenics and chemical compounds. For reasons of economy, oxygen is often transported in bulk as a liquid in specially insulated tankers, since one liter of liquefied oxygen is equivalent to 840 liters of gaseous oxygen at atmospheric pressure and 20 °C (68 °F).[16] Such tankers are used to refill bulk liquid oxygen storage containers, which stand outside hospitals and other institutions that need large volumes of pure oxygen gas. Liquid oxygen is passed through heat exchangers, which convert the cryogenic liquid into gas before it enters the building. Oxygen is also stored and shipped in smaller cylinders containing the compressed gas; a form that is useful in certain portable medical applications and oxy-fuel welding and cutting.[16]
+Uptake of O2 from the air is the essential purpose of respiration, so oxygen supplementation is used in medicine. Treatment not only increases oxygen levels in the patient's blood, but has the secondary effect of decreasing resistance to blood flow in many types of diseased lungs, easing work load on the heart. Oxygen therapy is used to treat emphysema, pneumonia, some heart disorders (congestive heart failure), some disorders that cause increased pulmonary artery pressure, and any disease that impairs the body's ability to take up and use gaseous oxygen.[91]
+Treatments are flexible enough to be used in hospitals, the patient's home, or increasingly by portable devices. Oxygen tents were once commonly used in oxygen supplementation, but have since been replaced mostly by the use of oxygen masks or nasal cannulas.[92]
+Hyperbaric (high-pressure) medicine uses special oxygen chambers to increase the partial pressure of O2 around the patient and, when needed, the medical staff.[93] Carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene, and decompression sickness (the 'bends') are sometimes addressed with this therapy.[94] Increased O2 concentration in the lungs helps to displace carbon monoxide from the heme group of hemoglobin.[95][96] Oxygen gas is poisonous to the anaerobic bacteria that cause gas gangrene, so increasing its partial pressure helps kill them.[97][98] Decompression sickness occurs in divers who decompress too quickly after a dive, resulting in bubbles of inert gas, mostly nitrogen and helium, forming in the blood. Increasing the pressure of O2 as soon as possible helps to redissolve the bubbles back into the blood so that these excess gasses can be exhaled naturally through the lungs.[91][99][100]
+Normobaric oxygen administration at the highest available concentration is frequently used as first aid for any diving injury that may involve inert gas bubble formation in the tissues. There is epidemiological support for its use from a statistical study of cases recorded in a long term database.[101][102][103]
+An application of O2 as a low-pressure breathing gas is in modern space suits, which surround their occupant's body with the breathing gas. These devices use nearly pure oxygen at about one-third normal pressure, resulting in a normal blood partial pressure of O2. This trade-off of higher oxygen concentration for lower pressure is needed to maintain suit flexibility.[104][105]
+Scuba and surface-supplied underwater divers and submariners also rely on artificially delivered O2. Submarines, submersibles and atmospheric diving suits usually operate at normal atmospheric pressure. Breathing air is scrubbed of carbon dioxide by chemical extraction and oxygen is replaced to maintain a constant partial pressure. Ambient pressure divers breathe air or gas mixtures with an oxygen fraction suited to the operating depth. Pure or nearly pure O2 use in diving at pressures higher than atmospheric is usually limited to rebreathers, or decompression at relatively shallow depths (~6 meters depth, or less),[106][107] or medical treatment in recompression chambers at pressures up to 2.8 bar, where acute oxygen toxicity can be managed without the risk of drowning. Deeper diving requires significant dilution of O2 with other gases, such as nitrogen or helium, to prevent oxygen toxicity.[106]
+People who climb mountains or fly in non-pressurized fixed-wing aircraft sometimes have supplemental O2 supplies.[h] Pressurized commercial airplanes have an emergency supply of O2 automatically supplied to the passengers in case of cabin depressurization. Sudden cabin pressure loss activates chemical oxygen generators above each seat, causing oxygen masks to drop. Pulling on the masks "to start the flow of oxygen" as cabin safety instructions dictate, forces iron filings into the sodium chlorate inside the canister.[65] A steady stream of oxygen gas is then produced by the exothermic reaction.
+Oxygen, as a mild euphoric, has a history of recreational use in oxygen bars and in sports. Oxygen bars are establishments found in the United States since the late 1990s that offer higher than normal O2 exposure for a minimal fee.[108] Professional athletes, especially in American football, sometimes go off-field between plays to don oxygen masks to boost performance. The pharmacological effect is doubted; a placebo effect is a more likely explanation.[108] Available studies support a performance boost from oxygen enriched mixtures only if it is breathed during aerobic exercise.[109]
+Other recreational uses that do not involve breathing include pyrotechnic applications, such as George Goble's five-second ignition of barbecue grills.[110]
+Smelting of iron ore into steel consumes 55% of commercially produced oxygen.[65] In this process, O2 is injected through a high-pressure lance into molten iron, which removes sulfur impurities and excess carbon as the respective oxides, SO2 and CO2. The reactions are exothermic, so the temperature increases to 1,700 °C.[65]
+Another 25% of commercially produced oxygen is used by the chemical industry.[65] Ethylene is reacted with O2 to create ethylene oxide, which, in turn, is converted into ethylene glycol; the primary feeder material used to manufacture a host of products, including antifreeze and polyester polymers (the precursors of many plastics and fabrics).[65] Large quantities of oxygen or air is used in oxy-cracking process[111] and for the production of acrylic acid[112], diformyl-furane[113], benzylic acid[114]. On the other hand, the electrochemical synthesis of hydrogen peroxide from oxygen is a promising technology to replace the currently used hydroquinone-process. Last but not least, catalytic oxidation is used in afterburners to get rid of hazardous gases [115][116].
+Most of the remaining 20% of commercially produced oxygen is used in medical applications, metal cutting and welding, as an oxidizer in rocket fuel, and in water treatment.[65] Oxygen is used in oxyacetylene welding burning acetylene with O2 to produce a very hot flame. In this process, metal up to 60 cm (24 in) thick is first heated with a small oxy-acetylene flame and then quickly cut by a large stream of O2.[117]
+The oxidation state of oxygen is −2 in almost all known compounds of oxygen. The oxidation state −1 is found in a few compounds such as peroxides.[118] Compounds containing oxygen in other oxidation states are very uncommon: −1/2 (superoxides), −1/3 (ozonides), 0 (elemental, hypofluorous acid), +1/2 (dioxygenyl), +1 (dioxygen difluoride), and +2 (oxygen difluoride).[119]
+Water (H2O) is an oxide of hydrogen and the most familiar oxygen compound. Hydrogen atoms are covalently bonded to oxygen in a water molecule but also have an additional attraction (about 23.3 kJ/mol per hydrogen atom) to an adjacent oxygen atom in a separate molecule.[120] These hydrogen bonds between water molecules hold them approximately 15% closer than what would be expected in a simple liquid with just van der Waals forces.[121][i]
+Due to its electronegativity, oxygen forms chemical bonds with almost all other elements to give corresponding oxides. The surface of most metals, such as aluminium and titanium, are oxidized in the presence of air and become coated with a thin film of oxide that passivates the metal and slows further corrosion. Many oxides of the transition metals are non-stoichiometric compounds, with slightly less metal than the chemical formula would show. For example, the mineral FeO (wüstite) is written as
+Fe
+1
+−
+x
+O
+{\displaystyle {\ce {Fe}}_{1-x}{\ce {O}}}
+, where x is usually around 0.05.[122]
+Oxygen is present in the atmosphere in trace quantities in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). The Earth's crustal rock is composed in large part of oxides of silicon (silica SiO2, as found in granite and quartz), aluminium (aluminium oxide Al2O3, in bauxite and corundum), iron (iron(III) oxide Fe2O3, in hematite and rust), and calcium carbonate (in limestone). The rest of the Earth's crust is also made of oxygen compounds, in particular various complex silicates (in silicate minerals). The Earth's mantle, of much larger mass than the crust, is largely composed of silicates of magnesium and iron.
+Water-soluble silicates in the form of Na4SiO4, Na2SiO3, and Na2Si2O5 are used as detergents and adhesives.[123]
+Oxygen also acts as a ligand for transition metals, forming transition metal dioxygen complexes, which feature metal–O2. This class of compounds includes the heme proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin.[124] An exotic and unusual reaction occurs with PtF6, which oxidizes oxygen to give O2+PtF6−, dioxygenyl hexafluoroplatinate.[125]
+Among the most important classes of organic compounds that contain oxygen are (where "R" is an organic group): alcohols (R-OH); ethers (R-O-R); ketones (R-CO-R); aldehydes (R-CO-H); carboxylic acids (R-COOH); esters (R-COO-R); acid anhydrides (R-CO-O-CO-R); and amides (R-C(O)-NR2). There are many important organic solvents that contain oxygen, including: acetone, methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, furan, THF, diethyl ether, dioxane, ethyl acetate, DMF, DMSO, acetic acid, and formic acid. Acetone ((CH3)2CO) and phenol (C6H5OH) are used as feeder materials in the synthesis of many different substances. Other important organic compounds that contain oxygen are: glycerol, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, citric acid, acetic anhydride, and acetamide. Epoxides are ethers in which the oxygen atom is part of a ring of three atoms. The element is similarly found in almost all biomolecules that are important to (or generated by) life.
+Oxygen reacts spontaneously with many organic compounds at or below room temperature in a process called autoxidation.[126] Most of the organic compounds that contain oxygen are not made by direct action of O2. Organic compounds important in industry and commerce that are made by direct oxidation of a precursor include ethylene oxide and peracetic acid.[123]
+The NFPA 704 standard rates compressed oxygen gas as nonhazardous to health, nonflammable and nonreactive, but an oxidizer. Refrigerated liquid oxygen (LOX) is given a health hazard rating of 3 (for increased risk of hyperoxia from condensed vapors, and for hazards common to cryogenic liquids such as frostbite), and all other ratings are the same as the compressed gas form.[127]
+Oxygen gas (O2) can be toxic at elevated partial pressures, leading to convulsions and other health problems.[106][j][129] Oxygen toxicity usually begins to occur at partial pressures more than 50 kilopascals (kPa), equal to about 50% oxygen composition at standard pressure or 2.5 times the normal sea-level O2 partial pressure of about 21 kPa. This is not a problem except for patients on mechanical ventilators, since gas supplied through oxygen masks in medical applications is typically composed of only 30%–50% O2 by volume (about 30 kPa at standard pressure).[9]
+At one time, premature babies were placed in incubators containing O2-rich air, but this practice was discontinued after some babies were blinded by the oxygen content being too high.[9]
+Breathing pure O2 in space applications, such as in some modern space suits, or in early spacecraft such as Apollo, causes no damage due to the low total pressures used.[104][130] In the case of spacesuits, the O2 partial pressure in the breathing gas is, in general, about 30 kPa (1.4 times normal), and the resulting O2 partial pressure in the astronaut's arterial blood is only marginally more than normal sea-level O2 partial pressure.[131]
+Oxygen toxicity to the lungs and central nervous system can also occur in deep scuba diving and surface supplied diving.[9][106] Prolonged breathing of an air mixture with an O2 partial pressure more than 60 kPa can eventually lead to permanent pulmonary fibrosis.[132] Exposure to a O2 partial pressures greater than 160 kPa (about 1.6 atm) may lead to convulsions (normally fatal for divers). Acute oxygen toxicity (causing seizures, its most feared effect for divers) can occur by breathing an air mixture with 21% O2 at 66 m (217 ft) or more of depth; the same thing can occur by breathing 100% O2 at only 6 m (20 ft).[132][133][134][135]
+Highly concentrated sources of oxygen promote rapid combustion. Fire and explosion hazards exist when concentrated oxidants and fuels are brought into close proximity; an ignition event, such as heat or a spark, is needed to trigger combustion.[3][136] Oxygen is the oxidant, not the fuel, but nevertheless the source of most of the chemical energy released in combustion.[3][38]
+Concentrated O2 will allow combustion to proceed rapidly and energetically.[136] Steel pipes and storage vessels used to store and transmit both gaseous and liquid oxygen will act as a fuel; and therefore the design and manufacture of O2 systems requires special training to ensure that ignition sources are minimized.[136] The fire that killed the Apollo 1 crew in a launch pad test spread so rapidly because the capsule was pressurized with pure O2 but at slightly more than atmospheric pressure, instead of the 1⁄3 normal pressure that would be used in a mission.[k][138]
+Liquid oxygen spills, if allowed to soak into organic matter, such as wood, petrochemicals, and asphalt can cause these materials to detonate unpredictably on subsequent mechanical impact.[136]

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+The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet  radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in relation to other gases in the stratosphere. The ozone layer contains less than 10 parts per million of ozone, while the average ozone concentration in Earth's atmosphere as a whole is about 0.3 parts per million. The ozone layer is mainly found in the lower portion of the stratosphere, from approximately 15 to 35 kilometers (9.3 to 21.7 mi) above Earth, although its thickness varies seasonally and geographically.[1]
+The ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by the French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson. Measurements of the sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body with a temperature in the range of 5,500–6,000 K (5,227 to 5,727 °C), except that there was no radiation below a wavelength of about 310 nm at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. Eventually the spectrum of the missing radiation was matched to only one known chemical, ozone.[2] Its properties were explored in detail by the British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson, who developed a simple spectrophotometer (the Dobsonmeter) that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Between 1928 and 1958, Dobson established a worldwide network of ozone monitoring stations, which continue to operate to this day. The "Dobson unit", a convenient measure of the amount of ozone overhead, is named in his honor.
+The ozone layer absorbs 97 to 99 percent of the Sun's medium-frequency ultraviolet light (from about 200 nm to 315 nm wavelength), which otherwise would potentially damage exposed life forms near the surface.[3]
+In 1976, atmospheric research revealed that the ozone layer was being depleted by chemicals released by industry, mainly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Concerns that increased UV radiation due to ozone depletion threatened life on Earth, including increased skin cancer in humans and other ecological problems,[4] led to bans on the chemicals, and the latest evidence is that ozone depletion has slowed or stopped. The United Nations General Assembly has designated September 16 as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
+Venus also has a thin ozone layer at an altitude of 100 kilometers above the planet's surface.[5]
+The photochemical mechanisms that give rise to the ozone layer were discovered by the British physicist Sydney Chapman in 1930. Ozone in the Earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking ordinary oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O2), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen); the atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken O2 to create ozone, O3. The ozone molecule is unstable (although, in the stratosphere, long-lived) and when ultraviolet light hits ozone it splits into a molecule of O2 and an individual atom of oxygen, a continuing process called the ozone-oxygen cycle. Chemically, this can be described as:
+About 90 percent of the ozone in the atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere. Ozone concentrations are greatest between about 20 and 40 kilometres (66,000 and 131,000 ft), where they range from about 2 to 8 parts per million. If all of the ozone were compressed to the pressure of the air at sea level, it would be only 3 millimetres (1⁄8 inch) thick.[6]
+Although the concentration of the ozone in the ozone layer is very small, it is vitally important to life because it absorbs biologically harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming from the sun. Extremely short or vacuum UV (10–100 nm) is screened out by nitrogen. UV radiation capable of penetrating nitrogen is divided into three categories, based on its wavelength; these are referred to as UV-A (400–315 nm), UV-B (315–280 nm), and UV-C (280–100 nm).
+UV-C, which is very harmful to all living things, is entirely screened out by a combination of dioxygen (< 200 nm) and ozone (> about 200 nm) by around 35 kilometres (115,000 ft) altitude. UV-B radiation can be harmful to the skin and is the main cause of sunburn; excessive exposure can also cause cataracts, immune system suppression, and genetic damage, resulting in problems such as skin cancer. The ozone layer (which absorbs from about 200 nm to 310 nm with a maximal absorption at about 250 nm)[7] is very effective at screening out UV-B; for radiation with a wavelength of 290 nm, the intensity at the top of the atmosphere is 350 million times stronger than at the Earth's surface. Nevertheless, some UV-B, particularly at its longest wavelengths, reaches the surface, and is important for the skin's production of vitamin D.
+Ozone is transparent to most UV-A, so most of this longer-wavelength UV radiation reaches the surface, and it constitutes most of the UV reaching the Earth. This type of UV radiation is significantly less harmful to DNA, although it may still potentially cause physical damage, premature aging of the skin, indirect genetic damage, and skin cancer.[8]
+The thickness of the ozone layer varies worldwide and is generally thinner near the equator and thicker near the poles.[9] Thickness refers to how much ozone is in a column over a given area and varies from season to season. The reasons for these variations are due to atmospheric circulation patterns and solar intensity.
+The majority of ozone is produced over the tropics and is transported towards the poles by stratospheric wind patterns. In the northern hemisphere these patterns, known as the Brewer-Dobson circulation, make the ozone layer thickest in the spring and thinnest in the fall.[9] When ozone is produced by solar UV radiation in the tropics, it is done so by circulation lifting ozone-poor air out of the troposphere and into the stratosphere where the sun photolyzes oxygen molecules and turns them into ozone. Then, the ozone-rich air is carried to higher latitudes and drops into lower layers of the atmosphere.[9]
+Research has found that the ozone levels in the United States are highest in the spring months of April and May and lowest in October. While the total amount of ozone increases moving from the tropics to higher latitudes, the concentrations are greater in high northern latitudes than in high southern latitudes, due to the ozone hole phenomenon.[9] The highest amounts of ozone are found over the Arctic during the spring months of March and April, but the Antarctic has their lowest amounts of ozone during their summer months of September and October,
+The ozone layer can be depleted by free radical catalysts, including nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydroxyl (OH), atomic chlorine (Cl), and atomic bromine (Br). While there are natural sources for all of these species, the concentrations of chlorine and bromine increased markedly in recent decades because of the release of large quantities of man-made organohalogen compounds, especially chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and bromofluorocarbons.[10] These highly stable compounds are capable of surviving the rise to the stratosphere, where Cl and Br radicals are liberated by the action of ultraviolet light. Each radical is then free to initiate and catalyze a chain reaction capable of breaking down over 100,000 ozone molecules. By 2009, nitrous oxide was the largest ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emitted through human activities.[11]
+The breakdown of ozone in the stratosphere results in reduced absorption of ultraviolet radiation. Consequently, unabsorbed and dangerous ultraviolet radiation is able to reach the Earth's surface at a higher intensity. Ozone levels have dropped by a worldwide average of about 4 percent since the late 1970s. For approximately 5 percent of the Earth's surface, around the north and south poles, much larger seasonal declines have been seen, and are described as "ozone holes".[12] The discovery of the annual depletion of ozone above the Antarctic was first announced by Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin, in a paper which appeared in Nature on May 16, 1985.[13]
+To support successful regulation attempts, the ozone case was communicated to lay persons "with easy-to-understand bridging metaphors derived from the popular culture" and related to "immediate risks with everyday relevance".[citation needed] The specific metaphors used in the discussion (ozone shield, ozone hole) proved quite useful[14] and, compared to global climate change, the ozone case was much more seen as a "hot issue" and imminent risk.[15] Lay people were cautious about a depletion of the ozone layer and the risks of skin cancer.
+In 1978, the United States, Canada and Norway enacted bans on CFC-containing aerosol sprays that damage the ozone layer. The European Community rejected an analogous proposal to do the same. In the U.S., chlorofluorocarbons continued to be used in other applications, such as refrigeration and industrial cleaning, until after the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. After negotiation of an international treaty (the Montreal Protocol), CFC production was capped at 1986 levels with commitments to long-term reductions.[16] This allowed for a ten-year phase-in for developing countries[17] (identified in Article 5 of the protocol). Since that time, the treaty was amended to ban CFC production after 1995 in the developed countries, and later in developing countries.[18] Today, all of the world's 197 countries have signed the treaty. Beginning January 1, 1996, only recycled and stockpiled CFCs were available for use in developed countries like the US. This production phaseout was possible because of efforts to ensure that there would be substitute chemicals and technologies for all ODS uses.[19]
+On August 2, 2003, scientists announced that the global depletion of the ozone layer may be slowing down because of the international regulation of ozone-depleting substances. In a study organized by the American Geophysical Union, three satellites and three ground stations confirmed that the upper-atmosphere ozone-depletion rate slowed significantly during the previous decade. Some breakdown can be expected to continue because of ODSs used by nations which have not banned them, and because of gases which are already in the stratosphere. Some ODSs, including CFCs, have very long atmospheric lifetimes, ranging from 50 to over 100 years. It has been estimated that the ozone layer will recover to 1980 levels near the middle of the 21st century.[12] A gradual trend toward "healing" was reported in 2016.[20]
+Compounds containing C–H bonds (such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs) have been designed to replace CFCs in certain applications. These replacement compounds are more reactive and less likely to survive long enough in the atmosphere to reach the stratosphere where they could affect the ozone layer. While being less damaging than CFCs, HCFCs can have a negative impact on the ozone layer, so they are also being phased out.[21] These in turn are being replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and other compounds that do not destroy stratospheric ozone at all.
+The residual effects of CFCs accumulating within the atmosphere lead to a concentration gradient between the atmosphere and the ocean. This organohalogen compound is able to dissolve into the ocean's surface waters and is able to act as a time-dependent tracer. This tracer helps scientists study ocean circulation by tracing biological, physical and chemical pathways [22]
+As ozone in the atmosphere prevents most energetic ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface of the Earth, astronomical data in these wavelengths have to be gathered from satellites orbiting above the atmosphere and ozone layer. Most of the light from young hot stars is in the ultraviolet and so study of these wavelengths is important for studying the origins of galaxies. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer, GALEX, is an orbiting ultraviolet space telescope launched on April 28, 2003, which operated until early 2012.
+This GALEX image of the Cygnus Loop nebula could not have been taken from the surface of the Earth because the ozone layer blocks the ultra-violet radiation emitted by the nebula.

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+Pablo Ruiz Picasso[a][b] (UK: /ˈpæbloʊ pɪˈkæsoʊ/, US: /ˈpɑːbloʊ pɪˈkɑːsoʊ, -ˈkæs-/,[2][3][4] Spanish: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso]; 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture,[5][6] the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian airforces during the Spanish Civil War.
+Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.[7][8][9][10]
+Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
+Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
+Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso,[1] a series of names honouring various saints and relatives.[11] Ruiz y Picasso were included for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish tradition. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López.[12] Though baptized a Catholic, Picasso would later become an atheist.[13]
+The surname "Picasso" comes from Liguria, a coastal region of north-western Italy; its capital is Genoa.[14] There was a painter from the area named Matteo Picasso [fr] (1794–1879), born in Recco (Genoa), of late neoclassical style portraiture,[14] though investigations have not definitively determined his kinship with the branch of ancestors related to Pablo Picasso. The direct branch from Sori, Liguria (Genoa), can be traced back to Tommaso Picasso (1728–1813). His son Giovanni Battista, married to Isabella Musante, was Pablo's great-great-grandfather. Of this marriage was born Tommaso (Sori, 1787–Málaga, 1851). Pablo's maternal great-grandfather, Tommaso Picasso moved to Spain around 1807.[14]
+Picasso's family was of middle-class background. His father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life, Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz's ancestors were minor aristocrats.
+Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil".[15] From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional academic artist and instructor, who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork.
+The family moved to A Coruña in 1891, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, an apocryphal story relates, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting,[16] though paintings by him exist from later years.
+In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria.[17] After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.[18] Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the jury admitted him, at just 13. As a student, Picasso lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented a small room for him close to home so he could work alone, yet he checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his drawings. The two argued frequently.[19]
+Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the country's foremost art school.[18] At age 16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he disliked formal instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrollment. Madrid held many other attractions. The Prado housed paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; elements such as his elongated limbs, arresting colours, and mystical visages are echoed in Picasso's later work.[20]
+Picasso's training under his father began before 1890. His progress can be traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive records extant of any major artist's beginnings.[21] During 1893 the juvenile quality of his earliest work falls away, and by 1894 his career as a painter can be said to have begun.[22] The academic realism apparent in the works of the mid-1890s is well displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his sister, Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a vigorous and dramatic portrait that Juan-Eduardo Cirlot has called "without a doubt one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."[23]
+In 1897, his realism began to show a Symbolist influence, for example, in a series of landscape paintings rendered in non-naturalistic violet and green tones. What some call his Modernist period (1899–1900) followed. His exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his admiration for favourite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of this period.[24]
+Picasso made his first trip to Paris, then the art capital of Europe, in 1900. There, he met his first Parisian friend, journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Soon they shared an apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work was burned to keep the small room warm. During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asís Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five issues. Soler solicited articles and Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901, by which time the artist had started to sign his work Picasso.[25] From 1898 he signed his works as "Pablo Ruiz Picasso", then as "Pablo R. Picasso" until 1901. The change does not seem to imply a rejection of the father figure. Rather, he wanted to distinguish himself from others; initiated by his Catalan friends who habitually called him by his maternal surname, much less current than the paternal Ruiz.[26]
+Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904), characterized by sombre paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colours, began either in Spain in early 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.[27] Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from the Blue Period, during which Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In his austere use of colour and sometimes doleful subject matter – prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects – Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carles Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie (1903), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.[28]
+The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast (1904),[29] which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, seated at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso's works of this period, also represented in The Blindman's Meal (1903, the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina (1903). Other Blue Period works include Portrait of Soler and Portrait of Suzanne Bloch.
+The Rose Period (1904–1906)[30] is characterized by a lighter tone and style utilizing orange and pink colours, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a bohemian artist who became his mistress, in Paris in 1904.[17] Olivier appears in many of his Rose Period paintings, many of which are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the 1899–1901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered a transition year between the two periods.
+By 1905, Picasso became a favourite of American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein and her nephew Allan Stein. Gertrude Stein became Picasso's principal patron, acquiring his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon at her home in Paris.[32] At one of her gatherings in 1905, he met Henri Matisse, who was to become a lifelong friend and rival. The Steins introduced him to Claribel Cone and her sister Etta who were American art collectors; they also began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved to Italy. Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.[33]
+In 1907, Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was a German art historian and art collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism that they jointly developed. Kahnweiler promoted burgeoning artists such as André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who had come from all over the globe to live and work in Montparnasse at the time.[34]
+Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Picasso painted this composition in a style inspired by Iberian sculpture, but repainted the faces of the two figures on the right after being powerfully impressed by African artefacts he saw in June 1907 in the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro.[35] When he displayed the painting to acquaintances in his studio later that year, the nearly universal reaction was shock and revulsion; Matisse angrily dismissed the work as a hoax.[36] Picasso did not exhibit Le Demoiselles publicly until 1916.
+Other works from this period include Nude with Raised Arms (1907) and Three Women (1908). Formal ideas developed during this period lead directly into the Cubist period that follows.
+Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colours. Both artists took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque's paintings at this time share many similarities.
+In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Alfred Jarry and Gertrude Stein. In 1911, Picasso was arrested and questioned about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Suspicion for the crime had initially fallen upon Apollinaire due to his links to Géry Pieret, an artist with a history of thefts from the gallery. Apollinaire in turn implicated his close friend Picasso, who had also purchased stolen artworks from the artist in the past. Afraid of a conviction that could result in his deportation to Spain, Picasso denied having ever met Apollinaire. Both were later cleared of any involvement in the painting's disappearance.[37][38]
+Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre of cubism, in which cut paper fragments – often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages – were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.
+Between 1915 and 1917, Picasso began a series of paintings depicting highly geometric and minimalist Cubist objects, consisting of either a pipe, a guitar or a glass, with an occasional element of collage. "Hard-edged square-cut diamonds", notes art historian John Richardson, "these gems do not always have upside or downside".[39][40] "We need a new name to designate them," wrote Picasso to Gertrude Stein: Maurice Raynal suggested "Crystal Cubism".[39][41] These "little gems" may have been produced by Picasso in response to critics who had claimed his defection from the movement, through his experimentation with classicism within the so-called return to order following the war.[39][42]
+After acquiring some fame and fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom he called Eva Gouel. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works. Picasso was devastated by her premature death from illness at the age of 30 in 1915.[43]
+At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Picasso was living in Avignon. Braque and Derain were mobilized and Apollinaire joined the French artillery, while the Spaniard Juan Gris remained from the Cubist circle. During the war, Picasso was able to continue painting uninterrupted, unlike his French comrades. His paintings became more sombre and his life changed with dramatic consequences. Kahnweiler's contract had terminated on his exile from France. At this point Picasso's work would be taken on by the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. After the loss of Eva Gouel, Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse. During the spring of 1916, Apollinaire returned from the front wounded. They renewed their friendship, but Picasso began to frequent new social circles.[44]
+Towards the end of World War I, Picasso became involved with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris, and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Erik Satie's Parade, in Rome; they spent their honeymoon near Biarritz in the villa of glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz.
+After returning from his honeymoon and in need of money, Picasso started his exclusive relationship with the French-Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg. As part of his first duties, Rosenberg agreed to rent the couple an apartment in Paris at his own expense, which was located next to his own house. This was the start of a deep brother-like friendship between two very different men, that would last until the outbreak of World War II.
+Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and other dimensions of the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo Picasso,[45] who would grow up to be a motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev's troupe, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several drawings of the composer.[46]
+In 1927, Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter with her, named Maya. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death.
+1909, Femme assise (Sitzende Frau), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, Staatliche Museen, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
+1909–10, Figure dans un Fauteuil (Seated Nude, Femme nue assise), oil on canvas, 92.1 × 73 cm, Tate Modern, London. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921
+1910, Woman with Mustard Pot (La Femme au pot de moutarde), oil on canvas, 73 × 60 cm, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague. Exhibited at the Armory Show, New York, Chicago, Boston 1913
+1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+1910, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Art Institute of Chicago. Picasso wrote of Kahnweiler "What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense?"
+1910–11, Guitariste, La mandoliniste (Woman playing guitar or mandolin), oil on canvas
+c.1911, Le Guitariste. Reproduced in Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, Du "Cubisme", 1912
+1911, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, oil on canvas, 61.3 × 50.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
+1911, The Poet (Le poète), oil on linen, 131.2 × 89.5 cm (51 5/8 × 35 1/4 in), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
+1911–12, Violon (Violin), oil on canvas, 100 × 73 cm (oval), Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921
+1913, Bouteille, clarinet, violon, journal, verre, 55 × 45 cm. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921
+1913, Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Eva), Woman in a Chemise in an Armchair, oil on canvas, 149.9 × 99.4 cm, Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art
+1913–14, Head (Tête), cut and pasted coloured paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 × 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
+1913–14, L'Homme aux cartes (Card Player), oil on canvas, 108 × 89.5 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+1914–15, Nature morte au compotier (Still Life with Compote and Glass), oil on canvas, 63.5 × 78.7 cm (25 × 31 in), Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
+1916, L'anis del mono (Bottle of Anis del Mono), oil on canvas, 46 × 54.6 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
+Parade, 1917, curtain designed for the ballet Parade. The work is the largest of Picasso's paintings. Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, May 2012
+In February 1917, Picasso made his first trip to Italy.[47] In the period following the upheaval of World War I, Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style. This "return to order" is evident in the work of many European artists in the 1920s, including André Derain, Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, Jean Metzinger, the artists of the New Objectivity movement and of the Novecento Italiano movement. Picasso's paintings and drawings from this period frequently recall the work of Raphael and Ingres.
+In 1925 the Surrealist writer and poet André Breton declared Picasso as 'one of ours' in his article Le Surréalisme et la peinture, published in Révolution surréaliste. Les Demoiselles was reproduced for the first time in Europe in the same issue. Yet Picasso exhibited Cubist works at the first Surrealist group exhibition in 1925; the concept of 'psychic automatism in its pure state' defined in the Manifeste du surréalisme never appealed to him entirely. He did at the time develop new imagery and formal syntax for expressing himself emotionally, "releasing the violence, the psychic fears and the eroticism that had been largely contained or sublimated since 1909", writes art historian Melissa McQuillan.[48] Although this transition in Picasso's work was informed by Cubism for its spatial relations, "the fusion of ritual and abandon in the imagery recalls the primitivism of the Demoiselles and the elusive psychological resonances of his Symbolist work", writes McQuillan.[48] Surrealism revived Picasso's attraction to primitivism and eroticism.[48]
+Pablo Picasso, 1918, Pierrot, oil on canvas, 92.7 × 73 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+Pablo Picasso, 1919, Sleeping Peasants, gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper, 31.1 × 48.9 cm, Museum of Modern Art
+Portrait d'Olga dans un fauteuil (Olga in an Armchair), 1918, Musée Picasso, Paris, France
+During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a common motif in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and it appears in Picasso's Guernica. The minotaur and Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter are heavily featured in his celebrated Vollard Suite of etchings.[49]
+Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War – Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, "It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."[50][51] Guernica was exhibited in July 1937 at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition, and then became the centerpiece of an exhibition of 118 works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Henri Laurens that toured Scandinavia and England. After the victory of Francisco Franco in Spain, the painting was sent to the United States to raise funds and support for Spanish refugees. Until 1981 it was entrusted to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, as it was Picasso's expressed desire that the painting should not be delivered to Spain until liberty and democracy had been established in the country.
+In 1939 and 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, under its director Alfred Barr, a Picasso enthusiast, held a major retrospective of Picasso's principal works until that time. This exhibition lionized Picasso, brought into full public view in America the scope of his artistry, and resulted in a reinterpretation of his work by contemporary art historians and scholars.[52] According to Jonathan Weinberg, "Given the extraordinary quality of the show and Picasso's enormous prestige, generally heightened by the political impact of Guernica ... the critics were surprisingly ambivalent".[53] Picasso's "multiplicity of styles" was disturbing to one journalist; another described him as "wayward and even malicious"; Alfred Frankenstein's review in ARTnews concluded that Picasso was both charlatan and genius.[53]
+During the Second World War, Picasso remained in Paris while the Germans occupied the city. Picasso's artistic style did not fit the Nazi ideal of art, so he did not exhibit during this time. He was often harassed by the Gestapo. During one search of his apartment, an officer saw a photograph of the painting Guernica. "Did you do that?" the German asked Picasso. "No," he replied, "You did".[55]
+Retreating to his studio, he continued to paint, producing works such as the Still Life with Guitar (1942) and The Charnel House (1944–48).[56] Although the Germans outlawed bronze casting in Paris, Picasso continued regardless, using bronze smuggled to him by the French Resistance.[57]
+Around this time, Picasso wrote poetry as an alternative outlet. Between 1935 and 1959 he wrote over 300 poems. Largely untitled except for a date and sometimes the location of where it was written (for example "Paris 16 May 1936"), these works were gustatory, erotic and at times scatological, as were his two full-length plays Desire Caught by the Tail (1941) and The Four Little Girls (1949).[58][59]
+In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Picasso, then 63 years old, began a romantic relationship with a young art student named Françoise Gilot. She was 40 years younger than he was. Picasso grew tired of his mistress Dora Maar; Picasso and Gilot began to live together. Eventually they had two children: Claude Picasso, born in 1947 and Paloma Picasso, born in 1949. In her 1964 book Life with Picasso,[60] Gilot describes his abusive treatment and myriad infidelities which led her to leave him, taking the children with her. This was a severe blow to Picasso.
+Picasso had affairs with women of an even greater age disparity than his and Gilot's. While still involved with Gilot, in 1951 Picasso had a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who was four years younger than Gilot. By his 70s, many paintings, ink drawings and prints have as their theme an old, grotesque dwarf as the doting lover of a beautiful young model. Jacqueline Roque (1927–1986) worked at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris on the French Riviera, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. She became his lover, and then his second wife in 1961. The two were together for the remainder of Picasso's life.
+His marriage to Roque was also a means of revenge against Gilot; with Picasso's encouragement, Gilot had divorced her then husband, Luc Simon, with the plan to marry Picasso to secure the rights of her children as Picasso's legitimate heirs. Picasso had already secretly married Roque, after Gilot had filed for divorce. His strained relationship with Claude and Paloma was never healed.[61]
+By this time, Picasso had constructed a huge Gothic home, and could afford large villas in the south of France, such as Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie on the outskirts of Mougins, and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. He was an international celebrity, with often as much interest in his personal life as his art.[62]
+Picasso was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in mid-1949. In the 1950s, Picasso's style changed once again, as he took to producing reinterpretations of the art of the great masters. He made a series of works based on Velázquez's painting of Las Meninas. He also based paintings on works by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix.
+In addition to his artistic accomplishments, Picasso made a few film appearances, always as himself, including a cameo in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus (1960). In 1955, he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
+He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50-foot (15 m)-high public sculpture to be built in Chicago, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a sculpture which was ambiguous and somewhat controversial. What the figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago, was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city.
+Picasso's final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colourful and expressive, and from 1968 to 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime.[63][64] Only later, after Picasso's death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see the late works of Picasso as prefiguring Neo-Expressionism.[65]
+Pablo Picasso died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France from pulmonary edema and heart failure, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He was interred at the Château of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.[66] Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline Roque killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.[67]
+Picasso remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it. He did not join the armed forces for any side or country during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II. As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either world war. However, in 1940, he did apply for French citizenship, but it was refused on the grounds of his "extremist ideas evolving towards communism". This information was not revealed until 2003.[68]
+At the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Picasso was 54 years of age. Soon after hostilities began, the Republicans appointed him "director of the Prado, albeit in absentia", and "he took his duties very seriously", according to John Richardson, supplying the funds to evacuate the museum's collection to Geneva.[69] The war provided the impetus for Picasso's first overtly political work. He expressed anger and condemnation of Francisco Franco and fascists in The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937), which was produced "specifically for propagandistic and fundraising purposes".[70] This surreal fusion of words and images was intended to be sold as a series of postcards to raise funds for the Spanish Republican cause.[70][71]
+In 1944, Picasso joined the French Communist Party, attended the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Poland, and in 1950 received the Stalin Peace Prize from the Soviet government.[72] Party criticism in 1953 of his portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso's interest in Soviet politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death.[69] His dealer, D-H. Kahnweiler, a socialist, termed Picasso's communism "sentimental" rather than political, saying "He has never read a line of Karl Marx, nor of Engels of course."[69] In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: "I am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting. ... But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in a special way to show my politics."[73] His commitment to communism, common among continental intellectuals and artists at the time, has long been the subject of some controversy; a notable demonstration thereof was a quote commonly attributed to Salvador Dalí (with whom Picasso had a rather strained relationship[74]):
+In the late 1940s, his old friend the surrealist poet and Trotskyist[78] and anti-Stalinist André Breton was more blunt; refusing to shake hands with Picasso, he told him: "I don't approve of your joining the Communist Party nor with the stand you have taken concerning the purges of the intellectuals after the Liberation".[79]
+Picasso was against the intervention of the United Nations and the United States in the Korean War and he depicted it in Massacre in Korea.[80][81] The art critic Kirsten Hoving Keen says that it is "inspired by reports of American atrocities" and considers it one of Picasso's communist works.[82]
+In 1962, he received the Lenin Peace Prize.[83] Biographer and art critic John Berger felt his talents as an artist were "wasted" by the communists.[84] According to Jean Cocteau's diaries, Picasso once said to him in reference to the communists: "I have joined a family, and like all families, it's full of shit".[85]
+Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.[86]
+The medium in which Picasso made his most important contribution was painting.[87] In his paintings, Picasso used colour as an expressive element, but relied on drawing rather than subtleties of colour to create form and space.[87] He sometimes added sand to his paint to vary its texture. A nanoprobe of Picasso's The Red Armchair (1931) by physicists at Argonne National Laboratory in 2012 confirmed art historians' belief that Picasso used common house paint in many of his paintings.[88] Much of his painting was done at night by artificial light.
+Picasso's early sculptures were carved from wood or modelled in wax or clay, but from 1909 to 1928 Picasso abandoned modelling and instead made sculptural constructions using diverse materials.[87] An example is Guitar (1912), a relief construction made of sheet metal and wire that Jane Fluegel terms a "three-dimensional planar counterpart of Cubist painting" that marks a "revolutionary departure from the traditional approaches, modeling and carving".[89]
+From the beginning of his career, Picasso displayed an interest in subject matter of every kind,[90] and demonstrated a great stylistic versatility that enabled him to work in several styles at once. For example, his paintings of 1917 included the pointillist Woman with a Mantilla, the Cubist Figure in an Armchair, and the naturalistic Harlequin (all in the Museu Picasso, Barcelona). In 1919, he made a number of drawings from postcards and photographs that reflect his interest in the stylistic conventions and static character of posed photographs.[91] In 1921 he simultaneously painted several large neoclassical paintings and two versions of the Cubist composition Three Musicians (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art).[47] In an interview published in 1923, Picasso said, "The several manners I have used in my art must not be considered as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of painting ... If the subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression I have never hesitated to adopt them."[47]
+Although his Cubist works approach abstraction, Picasso never relinquished the objects of the real world as subject matter. Prominent in his Cubist paintings are forms easily recognized as guitars, violins, and bottles.[92] When Picasso depicted complex narrative scenes it was usually in prints, drawings, and small-scale works; Guernica (1937) is one of his few large narrative paintings.[91]
+Picasso painted mostly from imagination or memory. According to William Rubin, Picasso "could only make great art from subjects that truly involved him ... Unlike Matisse, Picasso had eschewed models virtually all his mature life, preferring to paint individuals whose lives had both impinged on, and had real significance for, his own."[93] The art critic Arthur Danto said Picasso's work constitutes a "vast pictorial autobiography" that provides some basis for the popular conception that "Picasso invented a new style each time he fell in love with a new woman".[93] The autobiographical nature of Picasso's art is reinforced by his habit of dating his works, often to the day. He explained: "I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible. That's why I put a date on everything I do."[93]
+Picasso's influence was and remains immense and widely acknowledged by his admirers and detractors alike. On the occasion of his 1939 retrospective at MoMA, Life magazine wrote: "During the 25 years he has dominated modern European art, his enemies say he has been a corrupting influence. With equal violence, his friends say he is the greatest artist alive."[94] In 1998, Robert Hughes wrote of him: "To say that Pablo Picasso dominated Western art in the 20th century is, by now, the merest commonplace. ... No painter or sculptor, not even Michelangelo, had been as famous as this in his own lifetime. ... Though Marcel Duchamp, that cunning old fox of conceptual irony, has certainly had more influence on nominally vanguard art over the past 30 years than Picasso, the Spaniard was the last great beneficiary of the belief that the language of painting and sculpture really mattered to people other than their devotees."[95]
+At the time of Picasso's death many of his paintings were in his possession, as he had kept off the art market what he did not need to sell. In addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other famous artists, some his contemporaries, such as Henri Matisse, with whom he had exchanged works. Since Picasso left no will, his death duties (estate tax) to the French state were paid in the form of his works and others from his collection. These works form the core of the immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain, the Museo Picasso Málaga.
+The Museu Picasso in Barcelona features many of his early works, created while he was living in Spain, including many rarely seen works which reveal his firm grounding in classical techniques. The museum also holds many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father's tutelage, as well as the extensive collection of Jaime Sabartés, his close friend and personal secretary.
+Guernica was on display in New York's Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981, it was returned to Spain and was on exhibit at the Casón del Buen Retiro of the Museo del Prado. In 1992, the painting was put on display in Madrid's Reina Sofía Museum when it opened.
+In the 1996 movie Surviving Picasso, Picasso is portrayed by actor Anthony Hopkins.[96] Picasso is also a character in Steve Martin's 1993 play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. In A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway tells Gertrude Stein that he would like to have some Picassos, but cannot afford them. Later in the book, Hemingway mentions looking at one of Picasso's paintings. He refers to it as Picasso's nude of the girl with the basket of flowers, possibly related to Young Naked Girl with Flower Basket.
+On 8 October 2010, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, an exhibition of 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs from the Musée National Picasso in Paris, opened at the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, US. The exhibition subsequently travelled to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia: the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, US.;[97] the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;[98] and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
+As of 2015[update], Picasso remained the top-ranked artist (based on sales of his works at auctions) according to the Art Market Trends report.[99] More of his paintings have been stolen than any other artist's;[100] in 2012, the Art Loss Register had 1,147 of his works listed as stolen.[101] The Picasso Administration functions as his official Estate. The US copyright representative for the Picasso Administration is the Artists Rights Society.[102]
+Picasso is played by Antonio Banderas in the 2018 season of Genius, which focuses on his life and art.
+In the 1940s, a Swiss insurance company based in Basel had bought two paintings by Picasso to diversify its investments and serve as a guarantee for the insured risks. Following an air disaster in 1967, the company had to pay out heavy reimbursements. The company decided to part with the two paintings, which were deposited in the Kunstmuseum Basel. In 1968, a large number of Basel citizens called for a local referendum on the purchase of the Picassos by the Canton of Basel-Stadt, which was successful, making it the first time in democratic history that the population of a city voted on the purchase of works of art for a public art museum.[103] The paintings therefore remained in the museum in Basel. Informed of this, Picasso offered three paintings and a sketch to the city and its museum and was later made an honorary citizen by the city.[104]
+Several paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. Garçon à la pipe sold for US$104 million at Sotheby's on 4 May 2004, establishing a new price record. Dora Maar au Chat sold for US$95.2 million at Sotheby's on 3 May 2006.[105] On 4 May 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold at Christie's for $106.5 million. The 1932 work, which depicts Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter reclining and as a bust, was in the personal collection of Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died in November 2009.[106] On 11 May 2015 his painting Women of Algiers set the record for the highest price ever paid for a painting when it sold for US$179.3 million at Christie's in New York.[107]
+On 21 June 2016, a painting by Pablo Picasso titled Femme Assise (1909) sold for £43.2 million ($63.4 million) at Sotheby's London, exceeding the estimate by nearly $20 million, setting a world record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a Cubist work.[108][109]
+On 17 May 2017, The Jerusalem Post in an article titled "Picasso Work Stolen By Nazis Sells for $45 Million at Auction" reported the sale of a portrait painted by Picasso, the 1939 Femme assise, robe bleu, which was previously misappropriated during the early years of WWII. The painting has changed hands several times since its recovery, most recently through auction in May 2017 at Christie's in New York City.[110]
+In March 2018, his Femme au Béret et à la Robe Quadrillée (1937), a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, sold for  £49.8m at Sotheby's in London.[111]
+Throughout his life Picasso maintained several mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women:
+Photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.
+The women in Picasso’s life played an important role in the emotional and erotic aspects of his creative expression, and the tumultuous nature of these relationships has been considered vital to his artistic process. Many of these women functioned as muses for him, and their inclusion in his extensive oeuvre granted them a place in art history.[112]  A largely recurring motif in his body of work is the female form. The variations in his relationships informed and collided with his progression of style throughout his career. For example, portraits created of his first wife, Olga, were rendered in a naturalistic style during his Neoclassical period. His relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter inspired many of his surrealist pieces, as well as what is referred to as his "Year of Wonders."[113] An early lover, Fernande Olivier, may have inspired the switch from his "Blue Period to his "Rose Period."[114]
+Picasso has been commonly characterised as a womaniser and a misogynist, being quoted as having said to one of his mistresses, François Gilot, "Women are machines for suffering."[115] He later told her, "For me there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats." [116] In her memoir, Picasso, My Grandfather, Marina Picasso writes of his treatment of women, "He submitted them to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them."[117]
+Of the several important women in his life, two, Marie-Thèrése Walter, a mistress, and Jacqueline Roque, his second wife, committed suicide. Others, notably his first wife Olga Khokhlova, and his mistress Dora Maar, succumbed to nervous breakdowns. His son, Paulo, developed a fatal alcoholism due to depression. His grandson, Pablito, also committed suicide when he was barred by Jacqueline Roque from attending the artist’s funeral.[115]
+Picasso entrusted Christian Zervos to constitute the catalogue raisonné of his work (painted and drawn). The first volume of the catalogue, Works from 1895 to 1906, published in 1932, entailed the financial ruin of Zervos, self-publishing under the name Cahiers d'art, forcing him to sell part of his art collection at auction to avoid bankruptcy.[118][119]
+From 1932 to 1978, Zervos constituted the catalogue raisonné of the complete works of Picasso in the company of the artist who had become one of his friends in 1924. Following the death of Zervos, Mila Gagarin supervised the publication of 11 additional volumes from 1970 to 1978.[120]
+The 33 volumes cover the entire work from 1895 to 1972, with close to 16,000 black and white photographs, in accord with the will of the artist.[121]
+Further publications by Zervos

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+Pablo Ruiz Picasso[a][b] (UK: /ˈpæbloʊ pɪˈkæsoʊ/, US: /ˈpɑːbloʊ pɪˈkɑːsoʊ, -ˈkæs-/,[2][3][4] Spanish: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso]; 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture,[5][6] the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian airforces during the Spanish Civil War.
+Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.[7][8][9][10]
+Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
+Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
+Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso,[1] a series of names honouring various saints and relatives.[11] Ruiz y Picasso were included for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish tradition. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López.[12] Though baptized a Catholic, Picasso would later become an atheist.[13]
+The surname "Picasso" comes from Liguria, a coastal region of north-western Italy; its capital is Genoa.[14] There was a painter from the area named Matteo Picasso [fr] (1794–1879), born in Recco (Genoa), of late neoclassical style portraiture,[14] though investigations have not definitively determined his kinship with the branch of ancestors related to Pablo Picasso. The direct branch from Sori, Liguria (Genoa), can be traced back to Tommaso Picasso (1728–1813). His son Giovanni Battista, married to Isabella Musante, was Pablo's great-great-grandfather. Of this marriage was born Tommaso (Sori, 1787–Málaga, 1851). Pablo's maternal great-grandfather, Tommaso Picasso moved to Spain around 1807.[14]
+Picasso's family was of middle-class background. His father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life, Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz's ancestors were minor aristocrats.
+Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil".[15] From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional academic artist and instructor, who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork.
+The family moved to A Coruña in 1891, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, an apocryphal story relates, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting,[16] though paintings by him exist from later years.
+In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria.[17] After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.[18] Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the jury admitted him, at just 13. As a student, Picasso lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented a small room for him close to home so he could work alone, yet he checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his drawings. The two argued frequently.[19]
+Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the country's foremost art school.[18] At age 16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he disliked formal instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrollment. Madrid held many other attractions. The Prado housed paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; elements such as his elongated limbs, arresting colours, and mystical visages are echoed in Picasso's later work.[20]
+Picasso's training under his father began before 1890. His progress can be traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive records extant of any major artist's beginnings.[21] During 1893 the juvenile quality of his earliest work falls away, and by 1894 his career as a painter can be said to have begun.[22] The academic realism apparent in the works of the mid-1890s is well displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his sister, Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a vigorous and dramatic portrait that Juan-Eduardo Cirlot has called "without a doubt one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."[23]
+In 1897, his realism began to show a Symbolist influence, for example, in a series of landscape paintings rendered in non-naturalistic violet and green tones. What some call his Modernist period (1899–1900) followed. His exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his admiration for favourite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of this period.[24]
+Picasso made his first trip to Paris, then the art capital of Europe, in 1900. There, he met his first Parisian friend, journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Soon they shared an apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work was burned to keep the small room warm. During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asís Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five issues. Soler solicited articles and Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901, by which time the artist had started to sign his work Picasso.[25] From 1898 he signed his works as "Pablo Ruiz Picasso", then as "Pablo R. Picasso" until 1901. The change does not seem to imply a rejection of the father figure. Rather, he wanted to distinguish himself from others; initiated by his Catalan friends who habitually called him by his maternal surname, much less current than the paternal Ruiz.[26]
+Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904), characterized by sombre paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colours, began either in Spain in early 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.[27] Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from the Blue Period, during which Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In his austere use of colour and sometimes doleful subject matter – prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects – Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carles Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie (1903), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.[28]
+The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast (1904),[29] which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, seated at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso's works of this period, also represented in The Blindman's Meal (1903, the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina (1903). Other Blue Period works include Portrait of Soler and Portrait of Suzanne Bloch.
+The Rose Period (1904–1906)[30] is characterized by a lighter tone and style utilizing orange and pink colours, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a bohemian artist who became his mistress, in Paris in 1904.[17] Olivier appears in many of his Rose Period paintings, many of which are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the 1899–1901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered a transition year between the two periods.
+By 1905, Picasso became a favourite of American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein and her nephew Allan Stein. Gertrude Stein became Picasso's principal patron, acquiring his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon at her home in Paris.[32] At one of her gatherings in 1905, he met Henri Matisse, who was to become a lifelong friend and rival. The Steins introduced him to Claribel Cone and her sister Etta who were American art collectors; they also began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved to Italy. Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.[33]
+In 1907, Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was a German art historian and art collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism that they jointly developed. Kahnweiler promoted burgeoning artists such as André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who had come from all over the globe to live and work in Montparnasse at the time.[34]
+Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Picasso painted this composition in a style inspired by Iberian sculpture, but repainted the faces of the two figures on the right after being powerfully impressed by African artefacts he saw in June 1907 in the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro.[35] When he displayed the painting to acquaintances in his studio later that year, the nearly universal reaction was shock and revulsion; Matisse angrily dismissed the work as a hoax.[36] Picasso did not exhibit Le Demoiselles publicly until 1916.
+Other works from this period include Nude with Raised Arms (1907) and Three Women (1908). Formal ideas developed during this period lead directly into the Cubist period that follows.
+Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colours. Both artists took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque's paintings at this time share many similarities.
+In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Alfred Jarry and Gertrude Stein. In 1911, Picasso was arrested and questioned about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Suspicion for the crime had initially fallen upon Apollinaire due to his links to Géry Pieret, an artist with a history of thefts from the gallery. Apollinaire in turn implicated his close friend Picasso, who had also purchased stolen artworks from the artist in the past. Afraid of a conviction that could result in his deportation to Spain, Picasso denied having ever met Apollinaire. Both were later cleared of any involvement in the painting's disappearance.[37][38]
+Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre of cubism, in which cut paper fragments – often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages – were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.
+Between 1915 and 1917, Picasso began a series of paintings depicting highly geometric and minimalist Cubist objects, consisting of either a pipe, a guitar or a glass, with an occasional element of collage. "Hard-edged square-cut diamonds", notes art historian John Richardson, "these gems do not always have upside or downside".[39][40] "We need a new name to designate them," wrote Picasso to Gertrude Stein: Maurice Raynal suggested "Crystal Cubism".[39][41] These "little gems" may have been produced by Picasso in response to critics who had claimed his defection from the movement, through his experimentation with classicism within the so-called return to order following the war.[39][42]
+After acquiring some fame and fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom he called Eva Gouel. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works. Picasso was devastated by her premature death from illness at the age of 30 in 1915.[43]
+At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Picasso was living in Avignon. Braque and Derain were mobilized and Apollinaire joined the French artillery, while the Spaniard Juan Gris remained from the Cubist circle. During the war, Picasso was able to continue painting uninterrupted, unlike his French comrades. His paintings became more sombre and his life changed with dramatic consequences. Kahnweiler's contract had terminated on his exile from France. At this point Picasso's work would be taken on by the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. After the loss of Eva Gouel, Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse. During the spring of 1916, Apollinaire returned from the front wounded. They renewed their friendship, but Picasso began to frequent new social circles.[44]
+Towards the end of World War I, Picasso became involved with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris, and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Erik Satie's Parade, in Rome; they spent their honeymoon near Biarritz in the villa of glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz.
+After returning from his honeymoon and in need of money, Picasso started his exclusive relationship with the French-Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg. As part of his first duties, Rosenberg agreed to rent the couple an apartment in Paris at his own expense, which was located next to his own house. This was the start of a deep brother-like friendship between two very different men, that would last until the outbreak of World War II.
+Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and other dimensions of the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo Picasso,[45] who would grow up to be a motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev's troupe, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several drawings of the composer.[46]
+In 1927, Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter with her, named Maya. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death.
+1909, Femme assise (Sitzende Frau), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, Staatliche Museen, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
+1909–10, Figure dans un Fauteuil (Seated Nude, Femme nue assise), oil on canvas, 92.1 × 73 cm, Tate Modern, London. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921
+1910, Woman with Mustard Pot (La Femme au pot de moutarde), oil on canvas, 73 × 60 cm, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague. Exhibited at the Armory Show, New York, Chicago, Boston 1913
+1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+1910, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Art Institute of Chicago. Picasso wrote of Kahnweiler "What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense?"
+1910–11, Guitariste, La mandoliniste (Woman playing guitar or mandolin), oil on canvas
+c.1911, Le Guitariste. Reproduced in Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, Du "Cubisme", 1912
+1911, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, oil on canvas, 61.3 × 50.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
+1911, The Poet (Le poète), oil on linen, 131.2 × 89.5 cm (51 5/8 × 35 1/4 in), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
+1911–12, Violon (Violin), oil on canvas, 100 × 73 cm (oval), Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921
+1913, Bouteille, clarinet, violon, journal, verre, 55 × 45 cm. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921
+1913, Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Eva), Woman in a Chemise in an Armchair, oil on canvas, 149.9 × 99.4 cm, Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art
+1913–14, Head (Tête), cut and pasted coloured paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 × 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
+1913–14, L'Homme aux cartes (Card Player), oil on canvas, 108 × 89.5 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+1914–15, Nature morte au compotier (Still Life with Compote and Glass), oil on canvas, 63.5 × 78.7 cm (25 × 31 in), Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
+1916, L'anis del mono (Bottle of Anis del Mono), oil on canvas, 46 × 54.6 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
+Parade, 1917, curtain designed for the ballet Parade. The work is the largest of Picasso's paintings. Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, May 2012
+In February 1917, Picasso made his first trip to Italy.[47] In the period following the upheaval of World War I, Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style. This "return to order" is evident in the work of many European artists in the 1920s, including André Derain, Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, Jean Metzinger, the artists of the New Objectivity movement and of the Novecento Italiano movement. Picasso's paintings and drawings from this period frequently recall the work of Raphael and Ingres.
+In 1925 the Surrealist writer and poet André Breton declared Picasso as 'one of ours' in his article Le Surréalisme et la peinture, published in Révolution surréaliste. Les Demoiselles was reproduced for the first time in Europe in the same issue. Yet Picasso exhibited Cubist works at the first Surrealist group exhibition in 1925; the concept of 'psychic automatism in its pure state' defined in the Manifeste du surréalisme never appealed to him entirely. He did at the time develop new imagery and formal syntax for expressing himself emotionally, "releasing the violence, the psychic fears and the eroticism that had been largely contained or sublimated since 1909", writes art historian Melissa McQuillan.[48] Although this transition in Picasso's work was informed by Cubism for its spatial relations, "the fusion of ritual and abandon in the imagery recalls the primitivism of the Demoiselles and the elusive psychological resonances of his Symbolist work", writes McQuillan.[48] Surrealism revived Picasso's attraction to primitivism and eroticism.[48]
+Pablo Picasso, 1918, Pierrot, oil on canvas, 92.7 × 73 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+Pablo Picasso, 1919, Sleeping Peasants, gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper, 31.1 × 48.9 cm, Museum of Modern Art
+Portrait d'Olga dans un fauteuil (Olga in an Armchair), 1918, Musée Picasso, Paris, France
+During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a common motif in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and it appears in Picasso's Guernica. The minotaur and Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter are heavily featured in his celebrated Vollard Suite of etchings.[49]
+Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War – Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, "It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."[50][51] Guernica was exhibited in July 1937 at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition, and then became the centerpiece of an exhibition of 118 works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Henri Laurens that toured Scandinavia and England. After the victory of Francisco Franco in Spain, the painting was sent to the United States to raise funds and support for Spanish refugees. Until 1981 it was entrusted to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, as it was Picasso's expressed desire that the painting should not be delivered to Spain until liberty and democracy had been established in the country.
+In 1939 and 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, under its director Alfred Barr, a Picasso enthusiast, held a major retrospective of Picasso's principal works until that time. This exhibition lionized Picasso, brought into full public view in America the scope of his artistry, and resulted in a reinterpretation of his work by contemporary art historians and scholars.[52] According to Jonathan Weinberg, "Given the extraordinary quality of the show and Picasso's enormous prestige, generally heightened by the political impact of Guernica ... the critics were surprisingly ambivalent".[53] Picasso's "multiplicity of styles" was disturbing to one journalist; another described him as "wayward and even malicious"; Alfred Frankenstein's review in ARTnews concluded that Picasso was both charlatan and genius.[53]
+During the Second World War, Picasso remained in Paris while the Germans occupied the city. Picasso's artistic style did not fit the Nazi ideal of art, so he did not exhibit during this time. He was often harassed by the Gestapo. During one search of his apartment, an officer saw a photograph of the painting Guernica. "Did you do that?" the German asked Picasso. "No," he replied, "You did".[55]
+Retreating to his studio, he continued to paint, producing works such as the Still Life with Guitar (1942) and The Charnel House (1944–48).[56] Although the Germans outlawed bronze casting in Paris, Picasso continued regardless, using bronze smuggled to him by the French Resistance.[57]
+Around this time, Picasso wrote poetry as an alternative outlet. Between 1935 and 1959 he wrote over 300 poems. Largely untitled except for a date and sometimes the location of where it was written (for example "Paris 16 May 1936"), these works were gustatory, erotic and at times scatological, as were his two full-length plays Desire Caught by the Tail (1941) and The Four Little Girls (1949).[58][59]
+In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Picasso, then 63 years old, began a romantic relationship with a young art student named Françoise Gilot. She was 40 years younger than he was. Picasso grew tired of his mistress Dora Maar; Picasso and Gilot began to live together. Eventually they had two children: Claude Picasso, born in 1947 and Paloma Picasso, born in 1949. In her 1964 book Life with Picasso,[60] Gilot describes his abusive treatment and myriad infidelities which led her to leave him, taking the children with her. This was a severe blow to Picasso.
+Picasso had affairs with women of an even greater age disparity than his and Gilot's. While still involved with Gilot, in 1951 Picasso had a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who was four years younger than Gilot. By his 70s, many paintings, ink drawings and prints have as their theme an old, grotesque dwarf as the doting lover of a beautiful young model. Jacqueline Roque (1927–1986) worked at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris on the French Riviera, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. She became his lover, and then his second wife in 1961. The two were together for the remainder of Picasso's life.
+His marriage to Roque was also a means of revenge against Gilot; with Picasso's encouragement, Gilot had divorced her then husband, Luc Simon, with the plan to marry Picasso to secure the rights of her children as Picasso's legitimate heirs. Picasso had already secretly married Roque, after Gilot had filed for divorce. His strained relationship with Claude and Paloma was never healed.[61]
+By this time, Picasso had constructed a huge Gothic home, and could afford large villas in the south of France, such as Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie on the outskirts of Mougins, and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. He was an international celebrity, with often as much interest in his personal life as his art.[62]
+Picasso was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in mid-1949. In the 1950s, Picasso's style changed once again, as he took to producing reinterpretations of the art of the great masters. He made a series of works based on Velázquez's painting of Las Meninas. He also based paintings on works by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix.
+In addition to his artistic accomplishments, Picasso made a few film appearances, always as himself, including a cameo in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus (1960). In 1955, he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
+He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50-foot (15 m)-high public sculpture to be built in Chicago, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a sculpture which was ambiguous and somewhat controversial. What the figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago, was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city.
+Picasso's final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colourful and expressive, and from 1968 to 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime.[63][64] Only later, after Picasso's death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see the late works of Picasso as prefiguring Neo-Expressionism.[65]
+Pablo Picasso died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France from pulmonary edema and heart failure, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He was interred at the Château of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.[66] Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline Roque killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.[67]
+Picasso remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it. He did not join the armed forces for any side or country during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II. As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either world war. However, in 1940, he did apply for French citizenship, but it was refused on the grounds of his "extremist ideas evolving towards communism". This information was not revealed until 2003.[68]
+At the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Picasso was 54 years of age. Soon after hostilities began, the Republicans appointed him "director of the Prado, albeit in absentia", and "he took his duties very seriously", according to John Richardson, supplying the funds to evacuate the museum's collection to Geneva.[69] The war provided the impetus for Picasso's first overtly political work. He expressed anger and condemnation of Francisco Franco and fascists in The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937), which was produced "specifically for propagandistic and fundraising purposes".[70] This surreal fusion of words and images was intended to be sold as a series of postcards to raise funds for the Spanish Republican cause.[70][71]
+In 1944, Picasso joined the French Communist Party, attended the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Poland, and in 1950 received the Stalin Peace Prize from the Soviet government.[72] Party criticism in 1953 of his portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso's interest in Soviet politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death.[69] His dealer, D-H. Kahnweiler, a socialist, termed Picasso's communism "sentimental" rather than political, saying "He has never read a line of Karl Marx, nor of Engels of course."[69] In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: "I am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting. ... But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in a special way to show my politics."[73] His commitment to communism, common among continental intellectuals and artists at the time, has long been the subject of some controversy; a notable demonstration thereof was a quote commonly attributed to Salvador Dalí (with whom Picasso had a rather strained relationship[74]):
+In the late 1940s, his old friend the surrealist poet and Trotskyist[78] and anti-Stalinist André Breton was more blunt; refusing to shake hands with Picasso, he told him: "I don't approve of your joining the Communist Party nor with the stand you have taken concerning the purges of the intellectuals after the Liberation".[79]
+Picasso was against the intervention of the United Nations and the United States in the Korean War and he depicted it in Massacre in Korea.[80][81] The art critic Kirsten Hoving Keen says that it is "inspired by reports of American atrocities" and considers it one of Picasso's communist works.[82]
+In 1962, he received the Lenin Peace Prize.[83] Biographer and art critic John Berger felt his talents as an artist were "wasted" by the communists.[84] According to Jean Cocteau's diaries, Picasso once said to him in reference to the communists: "I have joined a family, and like all families, it's full of shit".[85]
+Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.[86]
+The medium in which Picasso made his most important contribution was painting.[87] In his paintings, Picasso used colour as an expressive element, but relied on drawing rather than subtleties of colour to create form and space.[87] He sometimes added sand to his paint to vary its texture. A nanoprobe of Picasso's The Red Armchair (1931) by physicists at Argonne National Laboratory in 2012 confirmed art historians' belief that Picasso used common house paint in many of his paintings.[88] Much of his painting was done at night by artificial light.
+Picasso's early sculptures were carved from wood or modelled in wax or clay, but from 1909 to 1928 Picasso abandoned modelling and instead made sculptural constructions using diverse materials.[87] An example is Guitar (1912), a relief construction made of sheet metal and wire that Jane Fluegel terms a "three-dimensional planar counterpart of Cubist painting" that marks a "revolutionary departure from the traditional approaches, modeling and carving".[89]
+From the beginning of his career, Picasso displayed an interest in subject matter of every kind,[90] and demonstrated a great stylistic versatility that enabled him to work in several styles at once. For example, his paintings of 1917 included the pointillist Woman with a Mantilla, the Cubist Figure in an Armchair, and the naturalistic Harlequin (all in the Museu Picasso, Barcelona). In 1919, he made a number of drawings from postcards and photographs that reflect his interest in the stylistic conventions and static character of posed photographs.[91] In 1921 he simultaneously painted several large neoclassical paintings and two versions of the Cubist composition Three Musicians (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art).[47] In an interview published in 1923, Picasso said, "The several manners I have used in my art must not be considered as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of painting ... If the subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression I have never hesitated to adopt them."[47]
+Although his Cubist works approach abstraction, Picasso never relinquished the objects of the real world as subject matter. Prominent in his Cubist paintings are forms easily recognized as guitars, violins, and bottles.[92] When Picasso depicted complex narrative scenes it was usually in prints, drawings, and small-scale works; Guernica (1937) is one of his few large narrative paintings.[91]
+Picasso painted mostly from imagination or memory. According to William Rubin, Picasso "could only make great art from subjects that truly involved him ... Unlike Matisse, Picasso had eschewed models virtually all his mature life, preferring to paint individuals whose lives had both impinged on, and had real significance for, his own."[93] The art critic Arthur Danto said Picasso's work constitutes a "vast pictorial autobiography" that provides some basis for the popular conception that "Picasso invented a new style each time he fell in love with a new woman".[93] The autobiographical nature of Picasso's art is reinforced by his habit of dating his works, often to the day. He explained: "I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible. That's why I put a date on everything I do."[93]
+Picasso's influence was and remains immense and widely acknowledged by his admirers and detractors alike. On the occasion of his 1939 retrospective at MoMA, Life magazine wrote: "During the 25 years he has dominated modern European art, his enemies say he has been a corrupting influence. With equal violence, his friends say he is the greatest artist alive."[94] In 1998, Robert Hughes wrote of him: "To say that Pablo Picasso dominated Western art in the 20th century is, by now, the merest commonplace. ... No painter or sculptor, not even Michelangelo, had been as famous as this in his own lifetime. ... Though Marcel Duchamp, that cunning old fox of conceptual irony, has certainly had more influence on nominally vanguard art over the past 30 years than Picasso, the Spaniard was the last great beneficiary of the belief that the language of painting and sculpture really mattered to people other than their devotees."[95]
+At the time of Picasso's death many of his paintings were in his possession, as he had kept off the art market what he did not need to sell. In addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other famous artists, some his contemporaries, such as Henri Matisse, with whom he had exchanged works. Since Picasso left no will, his death duties (estate tax) to the French state were paid in the form of his works and others from his collection. These works form the core of the immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain, the Museo Picasso Málaga.
+The Museu Picasso in Barcelona features many of his early works, created while he was living in Spain, including many rarely seen works which reveal his firm grounding in classical techniques. The museum also holds many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father's tutelage, as well as the extensive collection of Jaime Sabartés, his close friend and personal secretary.
+Guernica was on display in New York's Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981, it was returned to Spain and was on exhibit at the Casón del Buen Retiro of the Museo del Prado. In 1992, the painting was put on display in Madrid's Reina Sofía Museum when it opened.
+In the 1996 movie Surviving Picasso, Picasso is portrayed by actor Anthony Hopkins.[96] Picasso is also a character in Steve Martin's 1993 play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. In A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway tells Gertrude Stein that he would like to have some Picassos, but cannot afford them. Later in the book, Hemingway mentions looking at one of Picasso's paintings. He refers to it as Picasso's nude of the girl with the basket of flowers, possibly related to Young Naked Girl with Flower Basket.
+On 8 October 2010, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, an exhibition of 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs from the Musée National Picasso in Paris, opened at the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, US. The exhibition subsequently travelled to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia: the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, US.;[97] the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;[98] and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
+As of 2015[update], Picasso remained the top-ranked artist (based on sales of his works at auctions) according to the Art Market Trends report.[99] More of his paintings have been stolen than any other artist's;[100] in 2012, the Art Loss Register had 1,147 of his works listed as stolen.[101] The Picasso Administration functions as his official Estate. The US copyright representative for the Picasso Administration is the Artists Rights Society.[102]
+Picasso is played by Antonio Banderas in the 2018 season of Genius, which focuses on his life and art.
+In the 1940s, a Swiss insurance company based in Basel had bought two paintings by Picasso to diversify its investments and serve as a guarantee for the insured risks. Following an air disaster in 1967, the company had to pay out heavy reimbursements. The company decided to part with the two paintings, which were deposited in the Kunstmuseum Basel. In 1968, a large number of Basel citizens called for a local referendum on the purchase of the Picassos by the Canton of Basel-Stadt, which was successful, making it the first time in democratic history that the population of a city voted on the purchase of works of art for a public art museum.[103] The paintings therefore remained in the museum in Basel. Informed of this, Picasso offered three paintings and a sketch to the city and its museum and was later made an honorary citizen by the city.[104]
+Several paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. Garçon à la pipe sold for US$104 million at Sotheby's on 4 May 2004, establishing a new price record. Dora Maar au Chat sold for US$95.2 million at Sotheby's on 3 May 2006.[105] On 4 May 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold at Christie's for $106.5 million. The 1932 work, which depicts Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter reclining and as a bust, was in the personal collection of Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died in November 2009.[106] On 11 May 2015 his painting Women of Algiers set the record for the highest price ever paid for a painting when it sold for US$179.3 million at Christie's in New York.[107]
+On 21 June 2016, a painting by Pablo Picasso titled Femme Assise (1909) sold for £43.2 million ($63.4 million) at Sotheby's London, exceeding the estimate by nearly $20 million, setting a world record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a Cubist work.[108][109]
+On 17 May 2017, The Jerusalem Post in an article titled "Picasso Work Stolen By Nazis Sells for $45 Million at Auction" reported the sale of a portrait painted by Picasso, the 1939 Femme assise, robe bleu, which was previously misappropriated during the early years of WWII. The painting has changed hands several times since its recovery, most recently through auction in May 2017 at Christie's in New York City.[110]
+In March 2018, his Femme au Béret et à la Robe Quadrillée (1937), a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, sold for  £49.8m at Sotheby's in London.[111]
+Throughout his life Picasso maintained several mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women:
+Photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.
+The women in Picasso’s life played an important role in the emotional and erotic aspects of his creative expression, and the tumultuous nature of these relationships has been considered vital to his artistic process. Many of these women functioned as muses for him, and their inclusion in his extensive oeuvre granted them a place in art history.[112]  A largely recurring motif in his body of work is the female form. The variations in his relationships informed and collided with his progression of style throughout his career. For example, portraits created of his first wife, Olga, were rendered in a naturalistic style during his Neoclassical period. His relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter inspired many of his surrealist pieces, as well as what is referred to as his "Year of Wonders."[113] An early lover, Fernande Olivier, may have inspired the switch from his "Blue Period to his "Rose Period."[114]
+Picasso has been commonly characterised as a womaniser and a misogynist, being quoted as having said to one of his mistresses, François Gilot, "Women are machines for suffering."[115] He later told her, "For me there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats." [116] In her memoir, Picasso, My Grandfather, Marina Picasso writes of his treatment of women, "He submitted them to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them."[117]
+Of the several important women in his life, two, Marie-Thèrése Walter, a mistress, and Jacqueline Roque, his second wife, committed suicide. Others, notably his first wife Olga Khokhlova, and his mistress Dora Maar, succumbed to nervous breakdowns. His son, Paulo, developed a fatal alcoholism due to depression. His grandson, Pablito, also committed suicide when he was barred by Jacqueline Roque from attending the artist’s funeral.[115]
+Picasso entrusted Christian Zervos to constitute the catalogue raisonné of his work (painted and drawn). The first volume of the catalogue, Works from 1895 to 1906, published in 1932, entailed the financial ruin of Zervos, self-publishing under the name Cahiers d'art, forcing him to sell part of his art collection at auction to avoid bankruptcy.[118][119]
+From 1932 to 1978, Zervos constituted the catalogue raisonné of the complete works of Picasso in the company of the artist who had become one of his friends in 1924. Following the death of Zervos, Mila Gagarin supervised the publication of 11 additional volumes from 1970 to 1978.[120]
+The 33 volumes cover the entire work from 1895 to 1972, with close to 16,000 black and white photographs, in accord with the will of the artist.[121]
+Further publications by Zervos

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+Track and field is a sport which includes athletic contests established on the skills of running, jumping, and throwing.[1] The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running, and racewalking.
+The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events, racewalking and hurdling, are won by the athlete who completes it in the least time. The jumping and throwing events are won by those who achieve the greatest distance or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also "combined events" or "multi events", such as the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events, and decathlon consisting of ten events. In these, athletes participate in a combination of track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a single victor; the most prominent team events are relay races, which typically feature teams of four. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the men's and women's competitions are usually held at the same venue. If a race has too many people to run all at once, preliminary heats will be run to narrow down the field of participants.
+Track and field is one of the oldest sports. In ancient times, it was an event held in conjunction with festivals and sports meets such as the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In modern times, the two most prestigious international track and field competitions are the athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships. World Athletics, formerly known as the International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics.
+Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world and national levels, right down to a personal level. However, if athletes are deemed to have violated the event's rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition and their marks are erased.
+In the United States, the term track and field may refer to other athletics events, such as cross country, the marathon and road running, rather than strictly track-based events.[2]
+The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory. Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested: the stadion footrace.[3] The scope of the Games expanded in later years to include further running competitions, but the introduction of the Ancient Olympic pentathlon marked a step towards track and field as it is recognized today—it comprised a five-event competition of the long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, stadion footrace,[3] and wrestling.[4][5]
+Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC.[6][7] After the period of Classical antiquity (in which the sport was largely Greco-Roman influenced) new track and field events began developing in parts of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The stone put and weight throw competitions popular among Celtic societies in Ireland and Scotland were precursors to the modern shot put and hammer throw events. One of the last track and field events to develop was the pole vault, which stemmed from competitions such as the Fierljeppen contests in the Northern European Lowlands in the 18th century.
+Discrete modern track and field competitions, separate from general sporting festivals, were first recorded in the 19th century. These were typically organised by educational institutions, military organisations and sports clubs as competitions between rival establishments.[8] Competitions in the English public schools were conceived as human equivalents of horse racing, fox hunting and hare coursing, influenced by a Classics-rich curriculum. The Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt is the oldest running club in the world, with written records going back to 1831 and evidence that it was established by 1819.[9] The school organised Paper Chase races in which runners followed a trail of paper shreds left by two "foxes";[9] even today RSSH runners are called "hounds" and a race victory is a "kill".[10] The first definite record of Shrewsbury's (cross-country) Annual Steeplechase is in 1834, making it the oldest running race of the modern era.[9] The school also lays claim to the oldest track and field meeting still in existence, originating in the Second Spring Meeting first documented in 1840.[9] This featured a series of throwing and jumping events with mock horse races including the Derby Stakes, the Hurdle Race and the Trial Stakes. Runners were entered by "owners" and named as though they were horses.[9] 13 miles (21 km) away and a decade later, the first Wenlock Olympian Games were held at Much Wenlock racecourse.[11] Events at the 1851 Wenlock Games included a "half-mile foot race" (805 m) and a "leaping in distance" competition.[12]
+In 1865, Dr William Penny Brookes of Wenlock helped set up the National Olympian Association, which held their first Olympian Games in 1866 at The Crystal Palace in London.[12] This national event was a great success, attracting a crowd of over ten thousand people.[12]  In response, that same year the Amateur Athletic Club was formed and held a championship for "gentlemen amateurs" in an attempt to reclaim the sport for the educated elite.[12] Ultimately the "allcomers" ethos of the NOA won through and the AAC was reconstituted as the Amateur Athletic Association in 1880, the first national body for the sport of athletics. The AAA Championships, the de facto British national championships despite being for England only, have been held annually since 3 July 1880 with breaks only during two world wars and 2006–2008.[13] The AAA was effectively a global governing body in the early years of the sport, codifying its rules for the first time.
+Meanwhile, the United States began holding an annual national competition—the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships—first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club.[14] The establishment of general sports governing bodies for the United States (the Amateur Athletic Union in 1888) and France (the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques in 1889) put the sport on a formal footing and meant that international competitions became possible.
+The establishment of the modern Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century marked a new high for track and field. The Olympic athletics programme, comprising track and field events plus a marathon race, contained many of the foremost sporting competitions of the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Olympics also consolidated the use of metric measurements in international track and field events, both for race distances and for measuring jumps and throws. The Olympic athletics programme greatly expanded over the next decades, and track and field contests remained among the Games' most prominent. The Olympics was the elite competition for track and field, and only amateur sportsmen could compete. Track and field continued to be a largely amateur sport, as this rule was strictly enforced: Jim Thorpe was stripped of his track and field medals from the 1912 Olympics after it was revealed that he had taken expense money for playing baseball, violating Olympic amateurism rules, before the 1912 Games. His medals were reinstated 29 years after his death.[15]
+That same year, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was established, becoming the international governing body for track and field, and it enshrined amateurism as one of its founding principles for the sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association held their first Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 1921, making it one of the most prestigious competitions for students, and this was soon followed by the introduction of track and field at the inaugural World Student Games in 1923.[16] The first continental track and field competition was the 1919 South American Championships, which was followed by the European Athletics Championships in 1934.[17]
+Up until the early 1920s, track and field had been almost exclusively a male-only pursuit. Alice Milliat argued for the inclusion of women at the Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee refused. She founded the International Women's Sports Federation in 1921 and, alongside a growing women's sports movement in Europe and North America, the group initiated of the Women's Olympiad (held annually from 1921 to 1923). Working in conjunction with the English Women's Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA), the Women's World Games was held four times between 1922 and 1934, as well as a Women's International and British Games in London in 1924. These events ultimately led to the introduction of five track and field events for women in the athletics at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[18] In China, women's track and field events were being held in the 1920s, but were subject to criticism and disrespect from audiences. National women's events were established in this period, with 1923 seeing the First British Track & Field championships for women and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) sponsoring the First American Track & Field championships for women. Also in 1923, physical education advocate Zhang Ruizhen called for greater equality and participation of women in Chinese track and field.[19] The rise of Kinue Hitomi and her 1928 Olympic medal for Japan signified the growth of women's track and field in East Asia.[20] More women's events were gradually introduced as years progressed (although it was only towards the end of the century that the men's and women's programmes approached parity of events). Marking an increasingly inclusive approach to the sport, major track and field competitions for disabled athletes were first introduced at the 1960 Summer Paralympics.
+With the rise of numerous regional championships, as well as the growth in Olympic-style multi-sport events (such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan-American Games), competitions between international track and field athletes became widespread. From the 1960s onwards, the sport gained more exposure and commercial appeal through television coverage and the increasing wealth of nations. After over half a century of amateurism, the amateur status of the sport began to be displaced by growing professionalism in the late 1970s.[8] As a result, the Amateur Athletic Union was dissolved in the United States and it was replaced with a non-amateur body solely focused on the sport of athletics: The Athletics Congress (later USA Track and Field).[21] The IAAF soon followed suit in 1982, abandoning amateurism, and later removing all references to it from its name by rebranding itself as the International Association of Athletics Federations.[8] While Western countries were limited to amateurs until the early 1980s, Soviet Bloc countries always fielded state-funded athletes who trained full-time. The following year saw the establishment of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics—the first ever global competition just for athletics—which, with the Olympics, became one of track and field's most prestigious competitions.
+The profile of the sport reached a new high in the 1980s, with a number of athletes becoming household names (such as Carl Lewis, Sergey Bubka, Sebastian Coe, Zola Budd and Florence Griffith Joyner). Many world records were broken in this period, and the added political element between competitors of the United States, East Germany, and the Soviet Union, in reaction to the Cold War, only served to stoke the sport's popularity. The increase in the commercial capacity of track and field was also met with developments in the application of sports science, and there were many changes to coaching methods, athlete's diet regimes, training facilities and sports equipment. This was also accompanied by an increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs. State-sponsored doping in 1970s and 1980s East Germany, China,[22] the Soviet Union,[23] and early 21st century Russia, as well as prominent individual cases such as those of Olympic gold medallists Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, damaged the public image and marketability of the sport.
+From the 1990s onwards, track and field became increasingly more professional and international, as the IAAF gained over two hundred member nations. The IAAF World Championships in Athletics became a fully professional competition with the introduction of prize money in 1997,[8] and in 1998 the IAAF Golden League—an annual series of major track and field meetings in Europe—provided a higher level of economic incentive in the form of a US$1 million jackpot. In 2010, the series was replaced by the more lucrative IAAF Diamond League, a fourteen-meeting series held in Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East—the first ever worldwide annual series of track and field meetings.[24]
+Track and field events are divided into three broad categories: track events, field events, and combined events. The majority of athletes tend to specialise in just one event (or event type) with the aim of perfecting their performances, although the aim of combined events athletes is to become proficient in a number of disciplines. Track events involve running on a track over a specified distances and—in the case of the hurdling and steeplechase events—obstacles may be placed on the track. There are also relay races in which teams of athletes run and pass on a baton to their team member at the end of a certain distance.
+There are two types of field events: jumps and throws. In jumping competitions, athletes are judged on either the length or height of their jumps. The performances of jumping events for distance are measured from a board or marker, and any athlete overstepping this mark is judged to have fouled. In the jumps for height, an athlete must clear their body over a crossbar without knocking the bar off the supporting standards. The majority of jumping events are unaided, although athletes propel themselves vertically with purpose-built sticks in the pole vault.
+The throwing events involve hurling an implement (such as a heavy weight, javelin or discus) from a set point, with athletes being judged on the distance that the object is thrown. Combined events involve the same group of athletes contesting a number of different track and field events. Points are given for their performance in each event and the athlete and/or teams with the greatest points total at the end of all events is the winner.
+Races over short distances, or sprints, are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event, the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other.[3] Sprinting events are focused around athletes reaching and sustaining their quickest possible running speed. Three sprinting events are currently held at the Olympics and outdoor World Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres. These events have their roots in races of imperial measurements that later changed to metric: the 100 m evolved from the 100-yard dash,[25] the 200 m distances came from the furlong (or 1/8 of a mile),[26] and the 400 m was the successor to the 440 yard dash or quarter-mile race.[27]
+At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in the starting blocks before leaning forward and gradually moving into an upright position as the race progresses and momentum is gained.[28] Athletes remain in the same lane on the running track throughout all sprinting events,[27] with the sole exception of the 400 m indoors. Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete's maximum speed.[28] All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance.[29] Human physiology dictates that a runner's near-top speed cannot be maintained for more than thirty seconds or so because lactic acid builds up once leg muscles begin to suffer oxygen deprivation.[27]  Top speed can only be maintained for up to 20 metres.[30]
+The 60 metres is a common indoor event and indoor world championship event. Less-common events include the 50 metres, 55 metres, 300 metres and 500 metres which are run in some high school and collegiate competitions in the United States. The 150 metres, though rarely competed, has a star-studded history: Pietro Mennea set a world best in 1983,[31] Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey went head-to-head over the distance in 1997,[32] and Usain Bolt improved Mennea's record in 2009.[31]
+The most common middle-distance track events are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle-distance event.[33] The 880 yard run, or half mile, was the forebear of the 800 m distance and it has its roots in competitions in the United Kingdom in the 1830s.[34] The 1500 m came about as a result of running three laps of a 500 m track, which was commonplace in continental Europe in the 20th century.[35]
+Runners start the race from a standing position along a curved starting line and after hearing the starting pistol they head towards the innermost track to follow the quickest route to the finish. In 800 m races athletes begin at a staggered starting point before the turn in the track and they must remain in their lanes for the first 100 m of the race.[36] This rule was introduced to reduce the amount of physical jostling between runners in the early stages of the race.[34] Physiologically, these middle-distance events demand that athletes have good aerobic and anaerobic energy producing systems, and also that they have strong speed endurance.[37]
+The 1500 m and mile run events have historically been some of the most prestigious track and field events. Swedish rivals Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson broke each other's 1500 m and mile world records on a number of occasions in the 1940s.[38][39] The prominence of the distances were maintained by Roger Bannister, who (in 1954) was the first to run the long-elusive four-minute mile,[40][41] and Jim Ryun's exploits served to popularise interval training.[35] Races between British rivals Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram characterised middle-distance running in the 1980s.[42] From the 1990s onwards, North Africans such as Noureddine Morceli of Algeria and Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco came to dominate the 1500 and mile events.[35]
+Beyond the short distances of sprinting events, factors such as an athlete's reactions and top speed becomes less important, while qualities such as pace, race tactics and endurance become more so.[34][35]
+There are three common long-distance running events in track and field competitions: 3000 metres, 5000 metres and 10,000 metres. The latter two races are both Olympic and World Championship events outdoors, while the 3000 m is held at the IAAF World Indoor Championships. The 5000 m and 10,000 m events have their historical roots in the 3-mile and 6-mile races. The 3000 m was historically used as a women's long-distance event, entering the World Championship programme in 1983 and Olympic programme in 1984, but this was abandoned in favour of a women's 5000 m event in 1995.[43] Marathons, while long-distance races, are typically run on street courses, and often are run separately from other track and field events.
+In terms of competition rules and physical demands, long-distance track races have much in common with middle-distance races, except that pacing, stamina, and race tactics become much greater factors in performances.[44][45] However, a number of athletes have achieved success in both middle- and long-distance events, including Saïd Aouita who set world records from 1500 m to 5000 m.[46] The use of pace-setters in long-distance events is very common at the elite level, although they are not present at championship level competitions as all qualified competitors want to win.[45][47]
+The long-distance track events gained popularity in the 1920s by the achievements of the "Flying Finns", such as multiple Olympic champion Paavo Nurmi. The successes of Emil Zátopek in the 1950s promoted intense interval training methods, but Ron Clarke's world record-breaking feats established the importance of natural training and even-paced running. The 1990s saw the rise of North and East African runners in long-distance events. Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, in particular, have since remained dominant in these events.[43]
+Relay races are the only track and field event in which a team of runners directly compete against other teams.[48] Typically, a team is made up of four runners of the same sex. Each runner completes their specified distance (referred to as a leg) before handing over a baton to a teammate, who then begins their leg upon receiving the baton. There is usually a designated area where athletes must exchange the baton. Teams may be disqualified if they fail to complete the change within the area, or if the baton is dropped during the race. A team may also be disqualified if its runners are deemed to have wilfully impeded other competitors.
+Relay races emerged in the United States in the 1880s as a variation on charity races between firemen, who would hand a red pennant on to teammates every 300 yards. There are two very common relay events: the 4×100 metres relay and the 4×400 metres relay. Both events entered the Olympic programme at the 1912 Summer Games after a one-off men's medley relay featured in 1908 Olympics.[49] The 4 × 100 m event is run strictly within the same lane on the track, meaning that the team collectively runs one complete circuit of the track. Teams in a 4 × 400 m event remain in their own lane until the runner of the second leg passes the first bend, at which point runners can leave their lanes and head towards the inner-most part of the circuit. For the second and third baton change overs, teammates must align themselves in respect of their team position – leading teams take the inner lanes while teammates of the slower teams must await the baton on outer lanes.[48][50]
+The IAAF keeps world records for five different types of track relays. As with 4×100 m and 4×400 m events, all races comprise teams of four athletes running the same distances, with the less commonly contested distances being the 4×200 m, 4×800 m and 4×1500 m relays.[51] Other events include the distance medley relay (comprising legs of 1200 m, 400 m, 800 m, and 1600 m), which is frequently held in the United States, and a sprint relay, known as the Swedish medley relay, which is popular in Scandinavia and was held at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Athletics programme.[52] Relay events have significant participation in the United States, where a number of large meetings (or relay carnivals) are focused almost exclusively on relay events.[53]
+Races with hurdles as obstacles were first popularised in the 19th century in England.[54] The first known event, held in 1830, was a variation of the 100-yard dash that included heavy wooden barriers as obstacles. A competition between the Oxford and Cambridge Athletic Clubs in 1864 refined this, holding a 120-yard race (110 m) with ten hurdles of 3-foot and 6 inches (1.06 m) in height (each placed 10 yards (9 m) apart), with the first and final hurdles 15 yards from the start and finish, respectively. French organisers adapted the race into metric (adding 28 cm) and the basics of this race, the men's 110 metres hurdles, has remained largely unchanged.[55] The origin of the 400 metres hurdles also lies in Oxford, where (around 1860) a competition was held over 440 yards and twelve 1.06 m high wooden barriers were placed along the course. The modern regulations stem from the 1900 Summer Olympics: the distance was fixed to 400 m while ten 3-foot (91.44 cm) hurdles were placed 35 m apart on the track, with the first and final hurdles being 45 m and 40 m away from the start and finish, respectively.[56] Women's hurdles are slightly lower at 84 cm (2 ft 9 in) for the 100 m event and 76 cm (2 ft 6 in) for the 400 m event.[55][56]
+By far the most common events are the 100 metres hurdles for women, 110 m hurdles for men and 400 m hurdles for both sexes. The men's 110 m has been featured at every modern Summer Olympics while the men's 400 m was introduced in the second edition of the Games.[55][56] Women's initially competed in the 80 metres hurdles event, which entered the Olympic programme in 1932. This was extended to the 100 m hurdles at the 1972 Olympics,[55] but it was not until 1984 that a women's 400 m hurdles event took place at the Olympics (having been introduced at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics the previous year).[56]  Other distances and heights of hurdles, such as the 200 metres hurdles and low hurdles, were once common but are now held infrequently.  The 300 metres hurdles is run in some levels of American competition.
+Outside of the hurdles events, the steeplechase race is the other track and field event with obstacles. Just as the hurdling events, the steeplechase finds its origin in student competition in Oxford, England. However, this event was born as a human variation on the original steeplechase competition found in horse racing. A steeplechase event was held on a track for the 1879 English championships and the 1900 Summer Olympics featured men's 2500 m and 4000 m steeplechase races. The event was held over various distances until the 1920 Summer Olympics marked the rise of the 3000 metres steeplechase as the standard event.[57] The IAAF set the standards of the event in 1954, and the event is held on a 400 m circuit that includes a water jump on each lap.[58] Despite the long history of men's steeplechase in track and field, the women's steeplechase only gained World Championship status in 2005, with its first Olympic appearance in 2008.
+The long jump is one of the oldest track and field events, having its roots as one of the events within the ancient Greek pentathlon contest. The athletes would take a short run up and jump into an area of dug up earth, with the winner being the one who jumped farthest.[59] Small weights (Halteres) were held in each hand during the jump then swung back and dropped near the end to gain extra momentum and distance.[60] The modern long jump, standardised in England and the United States around 1860, bears resemblance to the ancient event although no weights are used. Athletes sprint along a length of track that leads to a jumping board and a sandpit.[61] The athletes must jump before a marked line and their achieved distance is measured from the nearest point of sand disturbed by the athlete's body.[62]
+The athletics competition at the first Olympics featured a men's long jump competition and a women's competition was introduced at the 1948 Summer Olympics.[61] Professional long jumpers typically have strong acceleration and sprinting abilities. However, athletes must also have a consistent stride to allow them to take off near the board while still maintaining their maximum speed.[62][63] In addition to the traditional long jump, a standing long jump contest exists which requires that athletes leap from a static position without a run-up. A men's version of this event featured on the Olympic programme from 1900 to 1912.[64]
+Similar to the long jump, the triple jump takes place on a track heading towards a sandpit. Originally, athletes would hop on the same leg twice before jumping into the pit, but this was changed to the current "hop, step and jump" pattern from 1900 onwards.[65] There is some dispute over whether the triple jump was contested in ancient Greece: while some historians claim that a contest of three jumps occurred at Ancient Games,[65] others such as Stephen G. Miller believe this is incorrect, suggesting that the belief stems from a mythologised account of Phayllus of Croton having jumped 55 ancient feet (around 16.3 m).[60][66] The Book of Leinster, a 12th-century Irish manuscript, records the existence of geal-ruith (triple jump) contests at the Tailteann Games.[67]
+The men's triple jump competition has been ever-present at the modern Olympics, but it was not until 1993 that a women's version gained World Championship status and went on to have its first Olympic appearance three years later.[65] The men's standing triple jump event featured at the Olympics in 1900 and 1904, but such competitions have since become very uncommon, although it is still used as a non-competitive exercise drill.[68]
+The first recorded instances of high jumping competitions were in Scotland in the 19th century.[69] Further competitions were organised in 1840 in England and in 1865 the basic rules of the modern event were standardised there.[70] Athletes have a short run up and then take off from one foot to jump over a horizontal bar and fall back onto a cushioned landing area.[71] The men's high jump was included in the 1896 Olympics and a women's competition followed in 1928.
+Jumping technique has played a significant part in the history of the event. High jumpers typically cleared the bar feet first in the late 19th century, using either the Scissors, Eastern cut-off or Western roll technique. The straddle technique became prominent in the mid-20th century, but Dick Fosbury overturned tradition by pioneering a backwards and head-first technique in the late 1960s – the Fosbury Flop – which won him the gold at the 1968 Olympics. This technique has become the overwhelming standard for the sport from the 1980s onwards.[70][72] The standing high jump was contested at the Olympics from 1900 to 1912, but is now relatively uncommon outside of its use as an exercise drill.
+In terms of sport, the use of poles for vaulting distances was recorded in Fierljeppen contests in the Frisian area of Europe, and vaulting for height was seen at gymnastics competitions in Germany in the 1770s.[73] One of the earliest recorded pole vault competitions was in Cumbria, England in 1843.[74] The basic rules and technique of the event originated in the United States. The rules required that athletes do not move their hands along the pole and athletes began clearing the bar with their feet first and twisting so that the stomach faces the bar. Bamboo poles were introduced in the 20th century and a metal box in the runway for planting the pole became standard. Landing mattresses were introduced in the mid-20th century to protect the athletes who were clearing increasingly greater heights.[73]
+The modern event sees athletes run down a strip of track, plant the pole in the metal box, and vault over the horizontal bar before letting go of the pole and falling backwards onto the landing mattress.[75] While earlier versions used wooden, metal or bamboo, modern poles are generally made from artificial materials such as fibreglass or carbon fibre.[76] The pole vault has been an Olympic event since 1896 for men, but it was over 100 years later that the first women's world championship competition was held at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships. The first women's Olympic pole vaulting competition occurred in 2000.[73]
+Track and field contains some of the foremost kinds of throwing sports, and the four major disciplines are the only pure throwing events to feature at the Olympic Games.[77]
+The genesis of the shot put can be traced to pre-historic competitions with rocks:[78] in the Middle ages the stone put was known in Scotland and the steinstossen was recorded in Switzerland. In the 17th century, cannonball throwing competitions within the English military provided a precursor to the modern sport.[79] The term "shot" originates from the use of round shot-style ammunition for the sport.[80] The modern rules were first laid out in 1860 and required that competitors take legal throws within a square throwing area of seven feet (2.13 m) on each side. This was amended to a circle area with a seven-foot diameter in 1906, and the weight of the shot was standardised to 16 pounds (7.26 kg). Throwing technique was also refined over this period, with bent arm throws being banned as they were deemed too dangerous and the side-step and throw technique arising in the United States in 1876.[79]
+The shot put has been an Olympic sport for men since 1896 and a women's competition using a 4 kg (8.82 lb) shot was added in 1948. Further throwing techniques have arisen since the post-war era: in the 1950s Parry O'Brien popularised the 180 degree turn and throw technique commonly known as the "glide", breaking the world record 17 times along the way, while Aleksandr Baryshnikov and Brian Oldfield introduced the "spin" or rotational technique in 1976.[79][81]
+In the discus throw, athletes compete to throw a heavy disc the farthest. In standard competitions, athletes throw the disc from a set circular arc and take turns in a series of throw, with the singular best effort deciding the victor. As one of the events within the ancient pentathlon, the history of the discus throw dates back to 708 BC.[82] In ancient times a heavy circular disc was thrown from a set standing position on a small pedestal, and it was this style that was revived for the 1896 Olympics.[83] This continued until the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, which featured both the ancient style and the increasingly popular modern style of turning and throwing. By the 1912 Olympics, the ancient standing throw style had fallen into disuse and contests starting within a 2.5 m squared throwing area became the standard.[84] The discus implement was standardised to 2 kg (4.4 pounds) in weight and 22 cm (8 inches) in diameter in 1907.[83] The women's discus was among the first women's events on the Olympic programme, being introduced in 1928.[85] The first modern athlete to throw the discus while rotating the whole body was Czech athlete Frantisek Janda-Su, who invented the technique when studying the position of the famous statue of Discobolus and won the 1900 Olympic silver medal.
+As an implement of war and hunting, javelin throwing began in prehistoric times.[86] Along with the discus, the javelin was the second throwing event in the ancient Olympic pentathlon. Records from 708 BC show two javelin competition types co-existing: throwing at a target and throwing the javelin for distance. It was the latter type from which the modern event derives.[87] In ancient competitions, athletes would wrap an ankyle (thin leather strip) around the javelin that acted as a sling to facilitate extra distance.[88] The javelin throw gained much popularity in Scandinavia in the late 19th century and athletes from the region are still among the most dominant throwers in men's competitions.[87] The modern event features a short run up on a track and then the thrower releases the javelin before the foul line.
+The first Olympic men's javelin throw contest was held in 1908 and a women's competition was introduced in 1932.[86][89] The first javelins were made of various types of wood, but in the 1950s, former athlete Bud Held introduced a hollow javelin, then a metal javelin, both of which increased throwers performances.[87] Another former athlete, Miklós Németh invented the rough-tailed javelin and throws reached in excess of 100 m – edging towards the limits of stadia.[90] The distances and the increasing number of horizontal landings led the IAAF to redesign the men's javelin to reduce distance and increase the implement's downward pitching moment to allow for easier measurement. Rough-tailed designs were banned in 1991 and all marks achieved with such javelins were removed from the record books. The women's javelin underwent a similar redesign in 1999.[87] The current javelin specifications are 2.6 to 2.7 m in length and 800 grams in weight for men, and 2.2 to 2.3 m and 600 g for women.[91]
+The earliest recorded precursors to the modern hammer throw stem from the Tailteann Games of ancient Ireland, which featured events such as throwing either a weight attached to a rope, a large rock on a wooden handle, or even a chariot wheel on a wooden axle.[92] Other ancient competitions included throwing a cast iron ball attached to a wooden handle – the root of the term "hammer throw" due to their resemblance to the tools.[93] In 16th century England, contests involving the throwing of actual blacksmith's Sledgehammers were recorded.[92] The hammer implement was standardised in 1887 and the competitions began to resemble the modern event. The weight of the metal ball was set at 16 pounds (7.26 kg) while the attached wire had to measure between 1.175 m and 1.215 m.[93]
+The men's hammer throw became an Olympic event in 1900 but the women's event – using a 4 kg (8.82 lb) weight – was not widely competed until much later, finally featuring on the women's Olympic programme in 2000.[94] The distances thrown by male athletes became greater from the 1950s onwards as a result of improved equipment using the denser metals, a switch to concrete throwing areas, and more advanced training techniques.[95] Professional hammer throwers were historically large, strong, sturdy athletes. However, qualities such as refined technique, speed and flexibility have become increasingly important in the modern era as the legal throwing area has been reduced from 90 to 34.92 degrees and throwing technique involves three to four controlled rotations.[93][96][97]
+Combined (or multi-discipline) events are competitions in which athletes participate in a number of track and field events, earning points for their performance in each event, which adds to a total points score. Outdoors, the most common combined events are the men's decathlon (ten events) and the women's heptathlon (seven events). Due to stadium limitations, indoor combined events competition have a reduced number of events, resulting in the men's heptathlon and the women's pentathlon. Athletes are allocated points based on an international-standard points scoring system, such as the decathlon scoring table.
+The Ancient Olympic pentathlon (comprising long jump, javelin, discus, the stadion race and wrestling) was a precursor to the track and field combined events and this ancient event was restored at the 1906 Summer Olympics (Intercalated Games). A men's all-around was held at the 1904 Summer Olympics, contested between five American and two British athletes.
+The term track and field is intertwined with the stadiums that first hosted such competitions. The two basic features of a track and field stadium are the outer oval-shaped running track and an area of turf within this track—the field. In earlier competitions, track lengths varied: the Panathinaiko Stadium measured 333.33 metres at the 1896 Summer Olympics, while at the 1904 Olympics the distance was a third of a mile (536.45 m) at Francis Field. As the sport developed, the IAAF standardised the length to 400 m and stated that the tracks must be split into six to eight running lanes. Precise widths for the lanes were established, as were regulations regarding the curvature of the track. Tracks made of flattened cinders were popular in the early 20th century but synthetic tracks became standard in the late 1960s. 3M's Tartan track (an all-weather running track of polyurethane) gained popularity after its use at the 1968 US Olympic Trials and the 1968 Summer Olympics and it began the process in which synthetic tracks became the standard for the sport. Many track and field stadiums are multi-purpose stadiums, with the running track surrounding a field built for other sports, such as the various types of football.
+The field of the stadium combines a number of elements for use in the jumping and throwing events. The long jump and triple jump areas comprise a straight, narrow 40-metre running track with a sandpit at one or both ends. Jumps are measured from a take off board—typically a small strip of wood with a plasticine marker attached—which ensures athletes jump from behind the measurement line. The pole vault area is also a 40-metre running track and has an indentation in the ground (the box) where vaulters plant their poles to propel themselves over a crossbar before falling onto cushioned landing mats. The high jump is a stripped-down version of this, with an open area of track or field that leads to a crossbar with a square area of landing mats behind it.
+The four throwing events generally all begin on one side of the stadium. The javelin throw typically takes place on a piece of track that is central and parallel to the straights of the main running track. The javelin throwing area is a sector shape frequently across the Pitch (sports field) in the middle of the stadium, ensuring that the javelin has a minimal chance of causing damage or injury. The discus throw and hammer throw contests begin in a tall metal cage usually situated in one of the corners of the field. The cage reduces the danger of implements being thrown out of the field of play and throws travel diagonally across the field in the centre of the stadium. The shot put features a circular throwing area with a toe board at one end. The throwing area is a sector. Some stadia also have a water jump area on one side of the field specifically for steeplechase races.
+Basic indoor venues may be adapted gymnasiums, which can easily accommodate high jump competitions and short track events. Full-size indoor arenas (i.e. those fully equipped to host all events for the World Indoor Championships) bear similarities with their outdoor equivalents. Typically, a central area is surrounded by a 200-metre oval track with four to eight lanes. The track can be banked at the turns to allow athletes to run around the radius more comfortably. Some have a second running track going straight across the field area, parallel to the straights of the main circuit. This track is used for the 60 metres and 60 metres hurdles events, which are held almost exclusively indoors.
+Another common adaptation in the United States is a 160-yard track (11 laps to a mile) that fits into a common basketball court-sized arena. This was quite popular when races were held at imperial distances, which gradually was phased out by different organizations in the 1970s and 1980s. Examples of this configuration include the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden, and the Sunkist Invitational formerly held in the Los Angeles Sports Arena.[98]
+All four of the common jumping events are held at indoor venues. The long and triple jump areas run alongside the central 60 m track and are mostly identical in form to their outdoor counterparts. The pole vault track and landing area are also alongside the central running track. Shot put and weight throw are the only throwing events held indoors due to size restrictions. The throwing area is similar to the outdoor event, but the landing sector is a rectangular section surrounded by netting or a stop barrier.[99]
+In addition to hosting the World Indoor Championships, the IAAF has hosted the IAAF World Indoor Tour since 2016.
+The rules of track events in athletics as observed in most international athletics competitions are set by the Competition Rules of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The most recent complete set of rules is the 2009 rules that relate only to competitions in 2009.[100] Key rules of track events are those regarding starting, running and finishing.
+The start of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide. In all races that are not run in lanes the start line must be curved, so that all the athletes start the same distance from the finish.[101]
+Starting blocks may be used for all races up to and including 400 m (including the first leg of the 4 × 100 m and 4 × 400 m) and may not be used for any other race. No part of the starting block may overlap the start line or extend into another lane.[102]
+All races must be started by the report of the starter's gun or approved starting apparatus fired upwards after they have ascertained that athletes are steady and in the correct starting position.[103] An athlete may not touch either the start line or the ground in front of it with their hands or feet when on their marks.[104]
+For sprint races up to 400 m, the starter gives two commands: "on your marks" to instruct athletes to approach the start line, followed by "set" to advise the athletes that the start of the race is imminent. The commands of the starter are typically given in the native language in national competitions, or in English or French in international competitions. Once all athletes are set in their starting position, the gun or an approved starting apparatus must be fired or activated. If the starter is not satisfied that all are ready to proceed, the athletes may be called out of the blocks and the process started over.[104]
+There are different types of starts for races of different distances. Middle- and long-distance races mainly use the waterfall start. This is when all athletes begin on a curved line that moves farther out at the outer edge of the track. Competitors are allowed to move towards the inside lane right away, as long as it is safe to do so. For some middle-distance races, such as 800 m, each athlete starts in their own lane. Once the gun fires, they must run in the lane they began in until markers on the track notify them it is time to move towards the inside lane. For sprint races, athletes begin in start blocks and must stay in their own lane for the entire race.[100]
+An athlete, after assuming a final set position, may not commence his starting motion until after receiving the report of the gun, or approved starting apparatus. If, in the judgment of the starter or recallers, he does so any earlier, it is considered a false start. It is deemed a false start if, in the judgment of the starter an athlete fails to comply with the commands "on your marks" or "set" as appropriate after a reasonable time; or an athlete after the command "on your marks" disturbs other athletes in the race through sound or otherwise. If the runner is in the "set" position and moves, then the runner is also disqualified.[105] As of 2010[update], any athlete making a false start is disqualified.[106]
+In International elite competition, electronically tethered starting blocks sense the reaction time of the athletes. If the athlete reacts in less than 0.1 second, an alert sounds for a recall starter and the offending athlete is guilty of a false start.[103]
+For sprinting events (bar the 4 × 400 m relay and the indoor 400 metres), each athlete must run the race within their allocated lane from start to finish. If an athlete leaves their lane or steps on the line demarking each lane the athlete will be disqualified. Lane rules also apply for initial periods of other track races, for example, the beginning of the 800 m. Similar rules apply for longer distance races when a large field of athletes is present and separate starting points are designated, with the field merging into one group shortly after the starting phase.[107][108]
+Any athlete who jostles or obstructs another athlete, in a way that impedes his progress, should be disqualified from that event. However, if an athlete is pushed or forced by another person to run outside his lane, and if no material advantage is gained, the athlete should not be disqualified.[107][108]
+The finish of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide.[109] The finishing position of athletes is determined by the order in which any part of their torso (as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the nearer edge of the finish line.[110] Fully automatic timing systems (photo timing) are becoming more and more common at increasingly lower levels of track meets, improving the accuracy, while eliminating the need for eagle-eyed officials on the finish line. Fully automatic timing (FAT) is required for high level meets and any time a sprint record is set (though distance records can be accepted if timed by three independent stopwatches).[100]
+With the accuracy of the timing systems, ties are rare. Ties between different athletes are resolved as follows: In determining whether there has been a tie in any round for a qualifying position for the next round based on time, a judge (called the chief photo finish judge) must consider the actual time recorded by the athletes to one thousandth of a second. If the judge decides that there has been a tie, the tying athletes must be placed in the next round or, if that is not practicable, lots must be drawn to determine who must be placed in the next round. In the case of a tie for first place in any final, the referee decides whether it is practicable to arrange for the athletes so tying to compete again. If he decides it is not, the result stands. Ties in other placings remain.[100]
+In general, most field events allow a competitor to take their attempt individually, under theoretically the same conditions as the other competitors in the competition. Each attempt is measured to determine who achieved the greatest distance.[100]
+Vertical jumps (high jump and pole vault) set a bar at a particular height. The competitor must clear the bar without knocking it off the standards that are holding the bar (flat). Three failures in a row ends the competitor's participation in the event. The competitor has the option to PASS their attempt, which can be used to strategic advantage (of course that advantage is lost if the competitor misses). A pass could be used to save energy and avoid taking a jump that would not improve their position in the standings. After all competitors have either cleared, passed or failed their attempts at a height, the bar goes up. The amount the bar goes up is predetermined before the competition, though when one competitor remains, that competitor may choose their own heights for the remaining attempts. A record is kept of each attempt by each competitor. After all competitors have taken their attempts, the one jumping the highest is the winner, and so on down the other competitors in the event. Ties are broken by first, the number of attempts taken at the highest height (fewest wins), and then if still tied, by the total number of misses in the competition as a whole. The bar does not go back to a lower height except to break a tie for first place or a qualifying position. If those critical positions are still tied after applying the tiebreakers, all tied competitors take a fourth jump at the last height. If they still miss, the bar goes down one increment where they again jump. This process continues until the tie is broken.[100]
+Horizontal jumps (long jump and triple jump) and all throws must be initiated behind a line. In the case of horizontal jumps, that line is a straight line perpendicular to the runway. In the case of throws, that line is an arc or a circle. Crossing the line while initiating the attempt invalidates the attempt—it becomes a foul. All landings must occur in a sector. For the jumps, that is a sand filled pit, for throws it is a defined sector. A throw landing on the line on the edge of sector is a foul (the inside edge of the line is the outside edge of the sector). Assuming a proper attempt, officials measure the distance from the closest landing point back to the line. The measuring tape is carefully straightened to the shortest distance between the point and the line. To accomplish this, the tape must be perfectly perpendicular to the take off line in jumps, or is pulled through the center point of the arc for throws. The officials at the landing end of the tape have the zero, while the officials at the point of initiation measure and record the length. Whenever a record (or potential record) occurs, that measurement is taken (again) with a steel tape, and observed by at least three officials (plus usually the meet referee). Steel tapes are easily bent and damaged, so are not used to measure everyday competitions. For major competitions, each competitor gets three tries. The top competitors (usually 8 or 9 depending on that competition's rules or the number of lanes on the track) gets three more tries. At that level of competition, the order of competitors for those final three attempts are set—so the competitor in first place at the end of the third round is last, while the last competitor to qualify goes first. Some meets rearrange the competition order again for the final round, so the final attempt is taken by the leader at that point. At other competitions, meet management may choose to limit all competitors to four or three attempts. Whatever the format, all competitors get an equal number of attempts.[100]
+Men and women have different weights for their throwing implements – men's javelin is 800 grams compared to 600 for women, men's weight throw is 35 pounds compared to 20 for women, men's discus is 2 kilograms to women's 1, men's shot put is 16 pounds compared to 8 pounds for women, and men's hammer throw is also 16 pounds to the women's 8. Additionally, men's high hurdles are at height of 42 inches compared to women's hurdles which are 33 inches. For the intermediate hurdles (400 meter hurdles), the men's hurdle height is 36 inches compared to 30 inches for women.
+The international governance of track and field falls under the jurisdiction of athletics organisations. World Athletics is the global governing body for track and field, and athletics as a whole. The governance of track and field at continental and national level is also done by athletics bodies. Some national federations are named after the sport, including USA Track & Field and the Philippine Amateur Track & Field Association, but these organisations govern more than just track and field and are in fact athletics governing bodies.[111][112] These national federations regulate sub-national and local track and field clubs, as well as other types of running clubs.[113]
+The major global track and field competitions are both held under the scope of athletics. Track and field contests make up the majority of events on the Olympic and Paralympic athletics programmes, which occur every four years. Track and field events have held a prominent position at the Summer Olympics since its inception in 1896,[114] and the events are typically held in the main stadium of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Events such as the 100 metres receive some of the highest levels of media coverage of any Olympic or Paralympic sporting event.
+The other two major international competition for track and field are organised by the IAAF. The IAAF had selected the Olympic competition as its world championship event in 1913, but a separate world championships for athletics alone was first held in 1983 – the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The championships comprised track and field competitions plus the marathon and racewalking competitions. Initially, this worked on a quadrennial basis but, after 1991, it changed to a biennial format. In terms of indoor track and field, the IAAF World Indoor Championships has been held every two years since 1985 and this is the only world championships that consists of solely track and field events.
+Similar to the event programmes at the Olympics, Paralympics and World Championships, track and field forms a significant part of continental championships. The South American Championships in Athletics, created in 1919,[115] was the first continental championships and the European Athletics Championships became the second championships of this type in 1934.[116] The Asian Athletics Championships and African Championships in Athletics were created in the 1970s and Oceania started its championships in 1990.
+There are also indoor continental competitions in Europe (European Athletics Indoor Championships) and Asia (Asian Indoor Athletics Championships). There has not been a consistent championships for all of North America, which may be (in part) due to the success of both the Central American and Caribbean Championships and the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Most countries have a national championship in track and field and, for athletes, these often play a role in gaining selection into major competitions. Some countries hold many track and field championships at high school and college-level, which help develop younger athletes. Some of these have gained significant exposure and prestige, such as the NCAA Track and Field Championship in the United States and the Jamaican High School Championships.[117] However, the number and status of such competitions significantly vary from country to country.
+Mirroring the role that track and field events have at the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the sport is featured within the athletics programmes of many major multi-sport events. Among some of the first of these events to follow the Olympic-style model were the World University Games in 1923, the Commonwealth Games in 1930, and the Maccabiah Games in 1932.[118] The number of major multi-sport events greatly increased during the 20th century and thus did the number of track and field events held within them. Typically, track and field events are hosted at the main stadium of the games.
+After the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the most prominent events for track and field athletes include the three IOC-sanctioned continental games: the All-Africa Games, Asian Games, and the Pan American Games. Other games such as the Commonwealth Games and Summer Universiade, and World Masters Games have significant participation from track and field athletes. Track and field is also present at the national games level, with competitions such as the Chinese National Games serving as the most prestigious national competition for domestic track and field athletes.
+One-day track and field meetings form the most common and seasonal aspect of the sport – they are the most basic level of track and field competition. Meetings are generally organised annually either under the patronage of an educational institution or sports club, or by a group or business that serves as the meeting promoter. In the case of the former, athletes are selected to represent their club or institution. In the case of privately run or independent meetings, athletes participate on an invitation-only basis.[119]
+The most basic type of meetings are all-comers track meets, which are largely small, local, informal competitions that allow people of all ages and abilities to compete. As meetings become more organized they can gain official sanctioning by the local or national association for the sport.[120]
+At the professional level, meetings began to offer significant financial incentives for all athletes in the 1990s in Europe with the creation of the "Golden Four" competition, comprising meetings in Zürich, Brussels, Berlin and Oslo. This expanded and received IAAF backing as the IAAF Golden League in 1998,[121] which was later supplemented by the branding of selected meetings worldwide as the IAAF World Athletics Tour. In 2010, the Golden League idea was expanded globally as the Diamond League series and this now forms the top tier of professional one-day track and field meetings.[122]
+The IAAF World Rankings system was introduced for the 2018 season. An athletes position within the ranking will be determined by points scored based on their performance and importance of the competition. The points will be considered for eligibility for the World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games.[123] This system will affect athlete participation, which has typically been determined by national bodies, either through selection panels or national trials events.[124]
+Athletes performances are timed or measured at virtually all track and field competitions. Doing so can not only serve as a way of determining the winner in an event, but it can also be used for historical comparison (i.e. a record). A large variety of record types exist and men's and women's performances are recorded separately. The foremost types of records organise athlete's performances by the region they represent—beginning with national records, then continental records, up to the global or world record level. National governing bodies control the national record lists, the area associations organise their respective continental lists, and the IAAF ratifies world records.
+The IAAF ratifies track and field world records if they meet their set criteria. The IAAF first published a world records list in 1914, initially for men's events only. There were 53 recognised records in running, hurdling and relay, and 12 field records. World records in women's events began in 1936 as more events were gradually added to the list, but significant changes were made in the late 1970s. First, all records in imperial measurements were abandoned in 1976, with the sole exceptional being the mile run due to the prestige and history of the event. The following year, all world records in sprint events would only be recognised if fully automatic electronic timing was used (as opposed to the traditional hand-timing stopwatch method). In 1981, electronic timing was made compulsory for all world record runs in track and field, with times being recorded to within one hundredth of a second. Two additional types of world record were introduced in 1987: world records for indoor competitions, and world records for junior athletes under 20 years old.[125]
+The next most important record type are those achieved at a specific competition. For example, the Olympic records represent the best performances by athletes at the Summer Olympics. All major championships and games have their relevant competition records and a large number of track and field meetings keep a note of their meet records. Other record types include: stadium records, records by age range, records by disability, and records by institution or organisation. Cash bonuses are usually offered to athletes if they break significant records, as doing so can generate greater interest and public attendance in track and field competitions.
+Track and field athletes are banned from ingesting or using certain substances by governing bodies for the sport, from the national to the international level. The IAAF's constitution incorporates the World Anti-Doping Code among other anti-doping measures.[126] Practices such as blood doping and the use of anabolic steroids, peptide hormones, stimulants, or diuretics can give athletes a physical competitive advantage in track and field.[127] The use of such substances in track and field is opposed on both ethical and medical grounds. Given that the sport functions by measuring and comparing athletes' performances, performance-enhancing substances create an uneven playing field — athletes who do not use doping substances have a disadvantage over rivals who do. Medically, the use of banned substances may have an adverse effect upon athletes' health. However, some exemptions are made for athletes who take banned substances for therapeutic use, and athletes are not sanctioned for usage in these cases,[128] such as Kim Collins' failed drug test due to asthma medication.[129]
+Athletes have historically been willing to take legal and health risks to improve their performance, with some even stating their willingness to risk their lives, as exemplified by research by Mirkin,[130] Goldman[131] and Connor[132] in researching attitudes to the so-called Goldman dilemma. To prevent use of performance-enhancing substances, athletes must submit to drug tests that are conducted both in and out of competition by anti-doping officials or accredited medical staff.[128] Penalized athletes are susceptible to higher testing upon return to competition. Athletes found to have taken substances on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list receive sanctions and may be banned from competition for a period of time that corresponds to the seriousness of the infraction.[133] However, the use of substances not on the prohibited list may also result in sanctions if the substance is deemed similar to a banned substance in either composition or effect. Athletes may also be sanctioned for missing tests, seeking to avoid testing or tampering with results, refusing to submit to testing, through circumstantial evidence, or confession of use.[128]
+Doping has played a significant part in the modern history of track and field. State-sponsored doping in East Germany with hormones and anabolic steroids marked the rise of women from East Germany in track and field from the late 1960s to the 1980s. A number of these women, such as Marita Koch, broke world records and were highly successful at international competitions. Some athletes, who were following a doping plan from their teenage years, suffered significant health problems as a result of the regime.[134][135] A similar state-sponsored doping system was developed in the Soviet Union. In 2016, The New York Times published an article detailing the use of doping by the Soviets in preparation for the 1984 Olympics.[23] Ben Johnson ran a new world record in the 100 metres at the 1988 Seoul Olympics but was later banned for using anabolic steroids.[136] In the mid-first decade of the 21st century, the BALCO Scandal eventually resulted in the downfall of prominent sprinters such as Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, among others, through their usage of banned substances.[137] The revelation state-sponsored doping in Russia led to an international ban on all its athletes in 2016, with Russians having to apply to the IAAF to compete as Authorised Neutral Athletes at events such as the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2017 World Championships in Athletics.[138] Doping has affected countries on all continents and has occurred in individual, team and national settings.
+Track and field bears most similarity to the others categorised under the sport of athletics, specifically cross country running, and road forms of racewalking and running. All these forms of racing tend to record finishing times, have strictly defined start and finish points, and are generally individual in nature. Middle- and long-distance runners usually participate in cross country and road events, in addition to the track. Track racewalkers are most typically road specialists as well. It is unusual for track and field athletes outside of these two groups to compete in cross country or road events.
+Varieties of strength athletics, such as the World's Strongest Man and highland games, often incorporate forms of footracing carrying heavy objects as well as throwing events such as the caber toss and keg toss, which bear similarities to track and field throwing events.

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+The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
+At 165,250,000 square kilometers (63,800,000 square miles) in area (as defined with an Antarctic southern border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of its total surface area, making it larger than all of Earth's land area combined.[1] The centers of both the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean. The equator subdivides it into the North(ern) Pacific Ocean and South(ern) Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific.[2]
+Its mean depth is 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).[3] Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, located in the western north Pacific, is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,928 meters (35,853 feet).[4] The Pacific also contains the deepest point in the Southern Hemisphere, the Horizon Deep in the Tonga Trench, at 10,823 meters (35,509 feet).[5] The third deepest point on Earth, the Sirena Deep, is also located in the Mariana Trench.
+The western Pacific has many major marginal seas, including the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Philippine Sea, the Coral Sea, and the Tasman Sea.
+Though the peoples of Asia and Oceania have traveled the Pacific Ocean since prehistoric times, the eastern Pacific was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur (in Spanish). The ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favorable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means "peaceful sea".[6]
+Important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. About 3000 BC, the Austronesian peoples on the island of Taiwan mastered the art of long-distance canoe travel and spread themselves and their languages south to the Philippines, Indonesia, and maritime Southeast Asia; west towards Madagascar; southeast towards New Guinea and Melanesia (intermarrying with native Papuans); and east to the islands of Micronesia, Oceania and Polynesia.[8]
+Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan. Trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of this trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality. From 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean.
+The first contact of European navigators with the western edge of the Pacific Ocean was made by the Portuguese expeditions of António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão, via the Lesser Sunda Islands, to the Maluku Islands, in 1512,[9][10] and with Jorge Álvares's expedition to southern China in 1513,[11] both ordered by Afonso de Albuquerque from Malacca.
+The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean.[12] He named it Mar del Sur (literally, "Sea of the South" or "South Sea") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific.
+In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Spanish expedition to the Spice Islands that would eventually result in the first world circumnavigation. Magellan called the ocean Pacífico (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century.[13] Magellan stopped at one uninhabited Pacific island before stopping at Guam in March 1521.[14] Although Magellan himself died in the Philippines in 1521, Spanish Basque navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano led the remains of the expedition back to Spain across the Indian Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope, completing the first world circumnavigation in a single expedition in 1522.[15] Sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands,[16] the Aru Islands,[17] and Papua New Guinea.[18] In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan.[19]
+In 1564, five Spanish ships carrying 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi, and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands.[20] For the remainder of the 16th century, Spanish influence was paramount, with ships sailing from Mexico and Peru across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines via Guam, and establishing the Spanish East Indies. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries, linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history. Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific.[21]
+Later, in the quest for Terra Australis ("the [great] Southern Land"), Spanish explorations in the 17th century, such as the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, discovered the Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos, and sailed the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, named after navigator Luís Vaz de Torres. Dutch explorers, sailing around southern Africa, also engaged in discovery and trade; Willem Janszoon, made the first completely documented European landing in Australia (1606), in Cape York Peninsula,[22] and Abel Janszoon Tasman circumnavigated and landed on parts of the Australian continental coast and discovered Tasmania and New Zealand in 1642.[23]
+In the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers. As the only known entrance from the Atlantic, the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western side of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines.[24]
+The 18th century marked the beginning of major exploration by the Russians in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, such as the First Kamchatka expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, led by the Danish Russian navy officer Vitus Bering. Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest. In 1768, Pierre-Antoine Véron, a young astronomer accompanying Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his voyage of exploration, established the width of the Pacific with precision for the first time in history.[25] One of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific.[21]
+Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by European powers, and later Japan and the United States. Significant contributions to oceanographic knowledge were made by the voyages of HMS Beagle in the 1830s, with Charles Darwin aboard;[26] HMS Challenger during the 1870s;[27] the USS Tuscarora (1873–76);[28] and the German Gazelle (1874–76).[29]
+In Oceania, France obtained a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853, respectively.[30] After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro negotiated the incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888. By occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations.[31](p53) By 1900 nearly all Pacific islands were in control of Britain, France, United States, Germany, Japan, and Chile.[30]
+Although the United States gained control of Guam and the Philippines from Spain in 1898,[32] Japan controlled most of the western Pacific by 1914 and occupied many other islands during the Pacific War; however, by the end of that war, Japan was defeated and the U.S. Pacific Fleet was the virtual master of the ocean. The Japanese-ruled Northern Mariana Islands came under the control of the United States.[33] Since the end of World War II, many former colonies in the Pacific have become independent states.
+The Pacific separates Asia and Australia from the Americas. It may be further subdivided by the equator into northern (North Pacific) and southern (South Pacific) portions. It extends from the Antarctic region in the South to the Arctic in the north.[1] The Pacific Ocean encompasses approximately one-third of the Earth's surface, having an area of 165,200,000 km2 (63,800,000 sq mi)— larger than Earth's entire landmass combined, 150,000,000 km2 (58,000,000 sq mi).[34]
+Extending approximately 15,500 km (9,600 mi) from the Bering Sea in the Arctic to the northern extent of the circumpolar Southern Ocean at 60°S (older definitions extend it to Antarctica's Ross Sea), the Pacific reaches its greatest east–west width at about 5°N latitude, where it stretches approximately 19,800 km (12,300 mi) from Indonesia to the coast of Colombia—halfway around the world, and more than five times the diameter of the Moon.[35] The lowest known point on Earth—the Mariana Trench—lies 10,911 m (35,797 ft; 5,966 fathoms) below sea level. Its average depth is 4,280 m (14,040 ft; 2,340 fathoms), putting the total water volume at roughly 710,000,000 km3 (170,000,000 cu mi).[1]
+Due to the effects of plate tectonics, the Pacific Ocean is currently shrinking by roughly 2.5 cm (1 in) per year on three sides, roughly averaging 0.52 km2 (0.20 sq mi) a year. By contrast, the Atlantic Ocean is increasing in size.[36][37]
+Along the Pacific Ocean's irregular western margins lie many seas, the largest of which are the Celebes Sea, Coral Sea, East China Sea (East Sea), Philippine Sea, Sea of Japan, South China Sea (South Sea), Sulu Sea, Tasman Sea, and Yellow Sea (West Sea of Korea). The Indonesian Seaway (including the Strait of Malacca and Torres Strait) joins the Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the west, and Drake Passage and the Strait of Magellan link the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean on the east. To the north, the Bering Strait connects the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.[38]
+As the Pacific straddles the 180th meridian, the West Pacific (or western Pacific, near Asia) is in the Eastern Hemisphere, while the East Pacific (or eastern Pacific, near the Americas) is in the Western Hemisphere.[39]
+The Southern Pacific Ocean harbors the Southeast Indian Ridge crossing from south of Australia turning into the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge (north of the South Pole) and merges with another ridge (south of South America) to form the East Pacific Rise which also connects with another ridge (south of North America) which overlooks the Juan de Fuca Ridge.
+For most of Magellan's voyage from the Strait of Magellan to the Philippines, the explorer indeed found the ocean peaceful; however, the Pacific is not always peaceful. Many tropical storms batter the islands of the Pacific.[40] The lands around the Pacific Rim are full of volcanoes and often affected by earthquakes.[41] Tsunamis, caused by underwater earthquakes, have devastated many islands and in some cases destroyed entire towns.[42]
+The Martin Waldseemüller map of 1507 was the first to show the Americas separating two distinct oceans.[43] Later, the Diogo Ribeiro map of 1529 was the first to show the Pacific at about its proper size.[44]
+1 The status of Taiwan is disputed. For more information, see political status of Taiwan.
+The ocean has most of the islands in the world. There are about 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean.[45][46][47] The islands entirely within the Pacific Ocean can be divided into three main groups known as Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. Micronesia, which lies north of the equator and west of the International Date Line, includes the Mariana Islands in the northwest, the Caroline Islands in the center, the Marshall Islands to the east and the islands of Kiribati in the southeast.[48][49]
+Melanesia, to the southwest, includes New Guinea, the world's second largest island after Greenland and by far the largest of the Pacific islands. The other main Melanesian groups from north to south are the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.[50]
+The largest area, Polynesia, stretching from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south, also encompasses Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and the Kermadec Islands to the west, the Cook Islands, Society Islands and Austral Islands in the center, and the Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu, Mangareva Islands, and Easter Island to the east.[51]
+Islands in the Pacific Ocean are of four basic types: continental islands, high islands, coral reefs and uplifted coral platforms. Continental islands lie outside the andesite line and include New Guinea, the islands of New Zealand, and the Philippines. Some of these islands are structurally associated with nearby continents. High islands are of volcanic origin, and many contain active volcanoes. Among these are Bougainville, Hawaii, and the Solomon Islands.[52]
+The coral reefs of the South Pacific are low-lying structures that have built up on basaltic lava flows under the ocean's surface. One of the most dramatic is the Great Barrier Reef off northeastern Australia with chains of reef patches. A second island type formed of coral is the uplifted coral platform, which is usually slightly larger than the low coral islands. Examples include Banaba (formerly Ocean Island) and Makatea in the Tuamotu group of French Polynesia.[53][54]
+Ladrilleros Beach in Colombia on the coast of Chocó natural region
+Point Reyes headlands, Point Reyes National Seashore, California
+Tahuna maru islet, French Polynesia
+Los Molinos on the coast of Southern Chile
+The volume of the Pacific Ocean, representing about 50.1 percent of the world's oceanic water, has been estimated at some 714 million cubic kilometers (171 million cubic miles).[55] Surface water temperatures in the Pacific can vary from −1.4 °C (29.5 °F), the freezing point of sea water, in the poleward areas to about 30 °C (86 °F) near the equator.[56] Salinity also varies latitudinally, reaching a maximum of 37 parts per thousand in the southeastern area. The water near the equator, which can have a salinity as low as 34 parts per thousand, is less salty than that found in the mid-latitudes because of abundant equatorial precipitation throughout the year. The lowest counts of less than 32 parts per thousand are found in the far north as less evaporation of seawater takes place in these frigid areas.[57] The motion of Pacific waters is generally clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere (the North Pacific gyre) and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The North Equatorial Current, driven westward along latitude 15°N by the trade winds, turns north near the Philippines to become the warm Japan or Kuroshio Current.[58]
+Turning eastward at about 45°N, the Kuroshio forks and some water moves northward as the Aleutian Current, while the rest turns southward to rejoin the North Equatorial Current.[59] The Aleutian Current branches as it approaches North America and forms the base of a counter-clockwise circulation in the Bering Sea. Its southern arm becomes the chilled slow, south-flowing California Current.[60] The South Equatorial Current, flowing west along the equator, swings southward east of New Guinea, turns east at about 50°S, and joins the main westerly circulation of the South Pacific, which includes the Earth-circling Antarctic Circumpolar Current. As it approaches the Chilean coast, the South Equatorial Current divides; one branch flows around Cape Horn and the other turns north to form the Peru or Humboldt Current.[61]
+The climate patterns of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres generally mirror each other. The trade winds in the southern and eastern Pacific are remarkably steady while conditions in the North Pacific are far more varied with, for example, cold winter temperatures on the east coast of Russia contrasting with the milder weather off British Columbia during the winter months due to the preferred flow of ocean currents.[62]
+In the tropical and subtropical Pacific, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects weather conditions.  To determine the phase of ENSO, the most recent three-month sea surface temperature average for the area approximately 3,000 km (1,900 mi) to the southeast of Hawaii is computed, and if the region is more than 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) above or below normal for that period, then an El Niño or La Niña is considered in progress.[63]
+In the tropical western Pacific, the monsoon and the related wet season during the summer months contrast with dry winds in the winter which blow over the ocean from the Asian landmass.[64] Worldwide, tropical cyclone activity peaks in late summer, when the difference between temperatures aloft and sea surface temperatures is the greatest; however, each particular basin has its own seasonal patterns. On a worldwide scale, May is the least active month, while September is the most active month. November is the only month in which all the tropical cyclone basins are active.[65] The Pacific hosts the two most active tropical cyclone basins, which are the northwestern Pacific and the eastern Pacific. Pacific hurricanes form south of Mexico, sometimes striking the western Mexican coast and occasionally the southwestern United States between June and October, while typhoons forming in the northwestern Pacific moving into southeast and east Asia from May to December. Tropical cyclones also form in the South Pacific basin, where they occasionally impact island nations.
+In the arctic, icing from October to May can present a hazard for shipping while persistent fog occurs from June to December.[66] A climatological low in the Gulf of Alaska keeps the southern coast wet and mild during the winter months.  The Westerlies and associated jet stream within the Mid-Latitudes can be particularly strong, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, due to the temperature difference between the tropics and Antarctica,[67] which records the coldest temperature readings on the planet.  In the Southern hemisphere, because of the stormy and cloudy conditions associated with extratropical cyclones riding the jet stream, it is usual to refer to the Westerlies as the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Shrieking Sixties according to the varying degrees of latitude.[68]
+The ocean was first mapped by Abraham Ortelius; he called it Maris Pacifici following Ferdinand Magellan's description of it as "a pacific sea" during his circumnavigation from 1519 to 1522. To Magellan, it seemed much more calm (pacific) than the Atlantic.[69]
+The andesite line is the most significant regional distinction in the Pacific. A petrologic boundary, it separates the deeper, mafic igneous rock of the Central Pacific Basin from the partially submerged continental areas of felsic igneous rock on its margins.[70] The andesite line follows the western edge of the islands off California and passes south of the Aleutian arc, along the eastern edge of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan, the Mariana Islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand's North Island.[71][72]
+The dissimilarity continues northeastward along the western edge of the Andes Cordillera along South America to Mexico, returning then to the islands off California. Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, New Guinea, and New Zealand lie outside the andesite line.
+Within the closed loop of the andesite line are most of the deep troughs, submerged volcanic mountains, and oceanic volcanic islands that characterize the Pacific basin. Here basaltic lavas gently flow out of rifts to build huge dome-shaped volcanic mountains whose eroded summits form island arcs, chains, and clusters. Outside the andesite line, volcanism is of the explosive type, and the Pacific Ring of Fire is the world's foremost belt of explosive volcanism.[48] The Ring of Fire is named after the several hundred active volcanoes that sit above the various subduction zones.
+The Pacific Ocean is the only ocean which is almost totally bounded by subduction zones. Only the Antarctic and Australian coasts have no nearby subduction zones.
+The Pacific Ocean was born 750 million years ago at the breakup of Rodinia, although it is generally called the Panthalassic Ocean until the breakup of Pangea, about 200 million years ago.[73] The oldest Pacific Ocean floor is only around 180 Ma old, with older crust subducted by now.[74]
+The Pacific Ocean contains several long seamount chains, formed by hotspot volcanism.[citation needed]
+The exploitation of the Pacific's mineral wealth is hampered by the ocean's great depths. In shallow waters of the continental shelves off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, petroleum and natural gas are extracted, and pearls are harvested along the coasts of Australia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Philippines, although in sharply declining volume in some cases.[75]
+Fish are an important economic asset in the Pacific. The shallower shoreline waters of the continents and the more temperate islands yield herring, salmon, sardines, snapper, swordfish, and tuna, as well as shellfish.[76] Overfishing has become a serious problem in some areas. For example, catches in the rich fishing grounds of the Okhotsk Sea off the Russian coast have been reduced by at least half since the 1990s as a result of overfishing.[77]
+The quantity of small plastic fragments floating in the north-east Pacific Ocean increased a hundredfold between 1972 and 2012.[79] The ever-growing Great Pacific garbage patch between California and Japan is three times the size of France.[80] An estimated 80,000 metric tons of plastic inhabit the patch, totaling 1.8 trillion pieces.[81]
+Marine pollution is a generic term for the harmful entry into the ocean of chemicals or particles. The main culprits are those using the rivers for disposing of their waste.[82] The rivers then empty into the ocean, often also bringing chemicals used as fertilizers in agriculture. The excess of oxygen-depleting chemicals in the water leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.[83]
+Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has ended up floating in a lake, sea, ocean, or waterway. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter.[82]
+From 1946 to 1958, Marshall Islands served as the Pacific Proving Grounds for the United States and was the site of 67 nuclear tests on various atolls.[84][85] Several nuclear weapons were lost in the Pacific Ocean,[86] including one-megaton bomb lost during the 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident.[87]
+In addition, the Pacific Ocean has served as the crash site of satellites, including Mars 96, Fobos-Grunt, and Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.

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+Pac-Man[a] is a maze arcade game developed and released by Namco in 1980. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was changed to Pac-Man for international releases as a preventative measure against defacement of the arcade machines by changing the P to an F.[2] Outside Japan, the game was published by Midway Games as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "energizers" causes the ghosts to turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
+The development of the game began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was, reportedly, the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he also rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Japanese: 口). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puckman was derived from the titular character's hockey-puck shape.
+Pac-Man was a widespread critical and commercial success, and it has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy. The game is considered important and influential, and it is commonly listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. The success of the game led to several sequels, merchandise, and two television series, as well as a hit single by Buckner and Garcia. The Pac-Man video game franchise remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling game series of all time, generating more than $14 billion in revenue (as of 2016[update]) and $43 million in sales combined. The character of Pac-Man is the mascot and flagship icon of Bandai Namco Entertainment and has the highest brand awareness of any video game character in North America.
+Pac-Man is a maze chase video game; the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts — Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange) — that pursue him. When all of the dots are eaten, the player advances to the next level. If Pac-Man makes contact with a ghost, he will lose a life; the game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four ghosts have their own unique, distinct artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personalities"; Blinky gives direct chase to Pac-Man, Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him, and Clyde will switch between chasing Pac-Man and fleeing from him.[3][4][4]
+Placed at the four corners of the maze are large flashing "energizers", or "power pellets". Eating these will cause the ghosts to turn blue with a dizzied expression and reverse direction. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points; when eaten, their eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze, where the ghosts are "regenerated" and resume their normal activity. Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value. After a certain amount of time, blue-colored ghosts will flash white before turning back into their normal, lethal form. Eating a certain number of dots in a level will cause a bonus item, usually in the form of a fruit, to appear underneath the center box, which can be eaten for bonus points.
+The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses; the ghosts become faster and the energizers' effect decreases in duration, to the point where the ghosts will no longer turn blue and edible. To the sides of the maze are two "warp tunnels", which allow Pac-Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen. Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels. Levels are indicated by the fruit icon at the bottom of the screen. In-between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky in humorous, comical situations. The game becomes unplayable at the 256th level due to an integer overflow that affects the game's memory.[5]
+After acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, video game developer Namco had begun producing their own video games in-house, as opposed to simply licensing them from other developers and distributing them in Japan.[6][7] Company president Masaya Nakamura created a small video game development group within the company and ordered them to study several NEC-produced microcomputers to potentially create new games with.[8][9] One of the first people assigned to this division was a young 24-year-old employee named Toru Iwatani.[10] He created Namco's first video game Gee Bee in 1978, which while unsuccessful helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly-growing video game industry.[11][12] He also assisted in the production of two sequels, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q, both released in 1979.[13][14]
+The Japanese video game industry had surged in popularity with games such as Space Invaders and Breakout, which lead to the market being flooded with similar titles from other manufacturers in an attempt to cash in on the success.[15][16] Iwatani felt that arcade games only appealed to men for their crude graphics and violence,[15] and that arcades in general were seen as seedy environments.[17] For his next project, Iwatani chose to create a non-violent, cheerful video game that appealed mostly to women,[18] as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would potentially make them appear to be much-more family friendly in tone.[15] Iwatani began thinking of things that women liked to do in their time; he decided to center his game around eating, basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets.[19] His game was initially called Pakkuman, based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term “paku paku taberu”,[20] referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession.[18]
+The game that later became Pac-Man began development in early 1979 and took a year and five months to complete, the longest ever for a video game up to that point.[21] Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production, including composer Toshio Kai, programmer Shigeo Funaki, and designer Shigeichi Ishimura.[22] Care was taken to make the game appeal to a “non-violent” audience, particularly women, with its usage of simple gameplay and cute, attractive character designs.[21][17] When the game was being developed, Namco was underway with designing Galaxian, which utilized a then-revolutionary RGB color display, allowing sprites to use several colors at once instead of utilizing colored strips of cellophane that was commonplace at the time;[21] this technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors, which he felt would help attract players.[21] The idea for energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from Popeye the Sailor, a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach;[19] it is also believed that Iwatani was also partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about a creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them.[21]
+Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac-Man himself was designed after the shape of a pizza with a missing slice while he was at lunch; in a 1986 interview he said that this was only half-truth,[10] and that the Pac-Man character was also based on him rounding out and simplifying the Japanese character “kuchi” (口), meaning “mouth”.[23][10] The four ghosts were made to be cute, colorful and appealing, utilizing bright, pastel colors and expressive blue eyes.[21] Iwatani had used this idea before in Cutie Q, which features similar ghost-like characters, and decided to incorporate it into Pac-Man.[15] He was also inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga Obake no Q-Taro.[19] Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists due to them being used as villainous characters in animation.[19]
+Originally, Namco president Masaya Nakamura had requested that all of the ghosts be red and thus indistinguishable from one another.[24] Iwatani believed that the ghosts should be different colors, and he received unanimous support from his colleagues for this idea.[24] Each of the ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct personalities, so as to keep the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play.[21][25] Each ghost's name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac-Man: Shadow ("Blinky") always chases Pac-Man, Speedy ("Pinky") tries to get ahead of him, Bashful ("Inky") uses a more complicated strategy to zero in on him, and Pokey ("Clyde") alternates between chasing him and running away.[21] (The ghosts' Japanese names, translated into English, are Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle, and Stupid, respectively.) To break up the tension of constantly being pursued, humorous intermissions between Pac-Man and Blinky were added.[16] The sound effects were among the last things added to the game,[21] created by Toshio Kai.[17] In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound.[17] Upon completion, the game was titled Puck Man, based on the working title and the titular character's distinct hockey puck-like shape.[7]
+Location testing for Puck Man began on May 22, 1980 in Shibuya, Tokyo, to a relatively positive fanfare from players.[19] A private showing for the game was done in June, followed by a nation-wide release in July.[7] Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initialized plans to bring the game to international countries, particularly the United States.[21] Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America made a number of changes, such as altering the names of the ghosts.[21] The biggest of these was the game's title; executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change the “P” in Puck Man to an “F”, forming an obscene name.[7][26] Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to Pac-Man, as he felt it was closer to the game's original Japanese title of Pakkuman.[7] When Namco presented Pac-Man and Rally-X to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOU tradeshow in November,[27] executives believed that Rally-X would be the best-selling game of that year.[7][28] Midway Games agreed to distribute both games in North America, announcing their acquisition of the manufacturing rights on November 22[29] and releasing them in December.[30]
+Pac-Man was ported to a plethora of home video game systems and personal computers; the most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion, designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari.[31] This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, most notably the flickering effect of the ghosts.[32][33][34] Although the game proved to be a success initially, Atari overestimated the game's demand and produced 12 million cartridges, selling seven million and leaving five million unsold.[35][36][37][38] The conversion's poor quality severely damaged the company's reputation and contributed to the company's demise and the North American video game crash of 1983.[35][39] Atari also released versions for the Intellivision, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, IBM PC, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari 8-bit family of computers. A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983, a version that many have seen as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version.[40]
+Namco themselves released a version for the Family Computer in 1984 as one of the console's first third-party titles,[41] as well as a port for the MSX computer.[42] The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games. Tengen also produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell, released during a time where Tengen and Nintendo were in bitter disagreements over the latter's stance on quality control for their consoles; this version was later re-released by Namco as an official title in 1993, featuring a new cartridge label and box. The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores.[41] The same year, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for the Game Boy, which allowed for two-player co-operative play via the Game Link Cable peripheral. A version for the Game Gear was released a year later, which also enabled support for multiplayer. In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary in 1999, Namco re-released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color, bundled with Pac-Attack and titled Pac-Man: Special Color Edition.[43] The same year, Namco and SNK co-published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which came with a circular "Cross Ring" that attached to the d-pad to restrict it to four-directional movement.[44]
+In 2001, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for various Japanese mobile phones, being one of the company's very first mobile game releases.[45] The Famicom version of the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series, released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Famicom; this version was also released in North America and Europe under the Classic NES Series label.[46] Namco Networks released Pac-Man for BREW mobile devices in 2005.[47] The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006, featuring achievements and online leaderboards. In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published; this release was later rebranded as Pac-Man + Tournaments in 2013, featuring new mazes and leaderboards. The NES version was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007. A Roku version was released in 2011,[48] alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console. Pac-Man was one of four titles released under the Arcade Game Series brand, which was published for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.[49]
+Pac-Man was included in many Namco compilations, including Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995),[50] Namco Museum 64 (1996),[51] Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (2005), Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005), Namco Museum DS (2007), Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (2008), Namco Museum Essentials (2009),[52] and Namco Museum Megamix (2010).[53] In 1996, it was re-released for arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, alongside Dig Dug, Rally-X and special "Arrangement" remakes of all three titles. Microsoft included Pac-Man in Microsoft Return of Arcade (1996) as a way to help attract video game companies to their Windows 95 operating system. Namco released the game in the third volume of Namco History in Japan in 1998. The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation Pac-Man Collection compiles Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack and Pac-Man Arrangement onto one cartridge.[54] Pac-Man is also a hidden extra in the arcade game Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (2001).[55][56] A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured Pac-Man as the central game.[57] Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1993) and Pac-Man World 2 (2002) have Pac-Man as an unlockable extra. Alongside the Xbox 360 sequel Pac-Man Championship Edition, it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions.[58] The 2010 Wii game Pac-Man Party and its 2011 3DS remake also include Pac-Man as a bonus game, alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Galaga.[59][60] In 2014, Pac-Man was included again in the compilation title Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, alongside several other Pac-Man games.[61] The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition.[62]
+When it was first released in Japan, Pac-Man was only a modest success; Namco's own Galaxian had quickly outdone the game in popularity, due to the predominately male playerbase being familiar with its shooting gameplay as opposed to Pac-Man's cute characters and maze-chase theme.[21] Iwatani claims that the game was very popular with women, which he had hoped to accomplish during development. By comparison, in North America, Pac-Man became a nation-wide success. Within one year, more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold which grossed more than US$1 billion in quarters.[63][64] Pac-Man overtook Asteroids as the best-selling arcade game in the country,[65] and surpassed Star Wars: A New Hope with more than US$1 billion in revenue.[66][67] By 1982, it was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States.[68] Some arcades purchased entire rows of Pac-Man cabinets.[7]
+The number of arcade units sold had tripled to 400,000 by 1982, receiving an estimated total of seven billion coins.[69] Pac-Man themed merchandise sales had also exceeded US$1 billion.[69] In a 1983 interview, Nakamura said that though he did expect Pac-Man to be successful, "I never thought it would be this big."[6] Pac-Man is the best-selling arcade game of all time with more than US$2.5 billion in revenue, surpassing Space Invaders[64][70] — in 2016, USgamer calculated that the machines' inflation-adjusted takings were equivalent to $7.68 billion.[71]
+Pac-Man was awarded "Best Commercial Arcade Game" at the 1981 Arcade Awards.[citation needed] II Computing listed the Atarisoft port tenth on the magazine's list of top Apple II games as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data.[79] In 2001, Pac-Man was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK.[80] The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Pac-Man as the #53rd top game of all-time & game of the year.[81]
+The game of Pac-Man is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time;[82][83][84] its title character was the first original gaming mascot, the game established the maze chase game genre, it demonstrated the potential of characters in video games, it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences, and it was gaming's first broad licensing success.[82] It was the first video game with power-ups,[85] and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence (AI) that reacts to player actions.[86] It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes (in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other),[87]:2 though actually Space Invaders Part II employed a similar style of between-level intermissions in 1979.[88]
+"Maze chase" games exploded on home computers after the release of Pac-Man. Some of them appeared before official ports and garnered more attention from consumers, and sometimes lawyers, as a result. These include Taxman (1981) and Snack Attack (1982) for the Apple II, Jawbreaker (1981) for the Atari 8-bit family, Scarfman (1981) for the TRS-80, and K.C. Munchkin! (1981) for the Odyssey². Namco themselves produced several other maze chase games, including Rally-X (1980), Dig Dug (1982), Exvania (1992), and Tinkle Pit (1994).
+Pac-Man also inspired 3D variants of the concept, such as Monster Maze (1982),[89] Spectre (1982), and early first-person shooters such as MIDI Maze (1987; which also had similar character designs).[87]:5[90] John Romero credited Pac-Man as the game that had the biggest influence on his career;[91] Wolfenstein 3D includes a Pac-Man level from a first-person perspective.[92][93] Many post-Pac-Man titles include power-ups that briefly turn the tables on the enemy. The game's artificial intelligence inspired programmers who later worked for companies like Bethesda.[86]
+Guinness World Records has awarded the Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, including "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator Toru Iwatani officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed worldwide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, but finally actually awarded in 2010.[94]
+The Pac-Man character and game series became an icon of video game culture during the 1980s. A wide variety of Pac-Man merchandise has been marketed with the character's image, including t-shirts, toys, hand-held video game imitations, pasta, and cereal.
+The game has inspired various real-life recreations, involving real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004.[95][96][97] The business term "Pac-Man defense" in mergers and acquisitions refers to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and instead acquire its attempted acquirer, a reference to Pac-Man's energizers.[98] The game's popularity has led to "Pac-Man" being adopted as a nickname, such as by boxer Manny Pacquiao[99] and the American football player Adam Jones. The "Pac-Man renormalization" is named for a cosmetic resemblance to the character, in the mathematical study of the Mandelbrot set.[100][101]
+On August 21, 2016, in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, during a video which showcases Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics, a small segment shows Pac-Man and the ghosts racing and eating dots on a running track.[102]
+The Pac-Man animated TV series produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983.[103] A computer-generated animated series titled Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures aired on Disney XD in June 2013.[104][105] As of February 2019, the series was also planned to air on Universal Kids, but it was ultimately canceled due to low coverage of NBCUniversal.
+The Buckner & Garcia song "Pac-Man Fever" (1981) went to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts,[106] and received a Gold certification for more than 1 million records sold by 1982,[107] and a total of 2.5 million copies sold as of 2008.[108] More than one million copies of the group's Pac-Man Fever album (1982) were sold.[109]
+In 1982, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Taxman" by the Beatles as "Pac-Man". It was eventually released in 2017 as part of Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic.[110][111] In 1992, Aphex Twin (with the name Power-Pill) released Pac-Man, a techno album which consists mostly of samples from the game.
+On July 20th, 2020, Gorillaz and ScHoolboy Q, released a track entitled "PAC-MAN" as a part of Gorillaz' Song Machine series to commemorate the game's 40th anniversary, with the music video depicting the band's frontman, 2-D, playing a Gorillaz-themed Pac-Man game.[112]
+The Pac-Man character appears in the film Pixels (2015), with Denis Akiyama playing series creator Toru Iwatani.[113][114] Pac-Man is referenced and makes an appearance in the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy 2.[115] The game, the character, and the ghosts all also appear in the film Wreck-It Ralph,[116][117] as well as the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet.
+In Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale where Kirito and his friends beat a virtual reality game called PAC-Man 2024.[118] Iwatani makes a cameo at the beginning of the film as an arcade technician. In the Japanese tokusatsu film Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders, a Pac-Man-like character is the main villain.[119]
+The 2018 film Relaxer uses Pac-Man as a strong plot element in the story of a 1999 couch-bound man who attempts to beat the game (and encounters the famous Level 256 glitch) before the year 2000 problem occurs.[120]
+In 2008, a feature film based on the game was in development.[121][122]
+In 1982, Milton Bradley released a board game based on Pac-Man.[123] Players move up to four Pac-Man characters (traditional yellow plus red, green, and blue) plus two ghosts as per the throws of a pair of dice. The two ghost pieces were randomly packed with one of four colors.[124]
+Sticker manufacturer Fleer included rub-off game cards with its Pac-Man stickers. The card packages contain a Pac-Man style maze with all points along the path hidden with opaque coverings. From the starting position, the player moves around the maze while scratching off the coverings to score points.[125]
+Pac-Man is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. The 3DS version has a stage based on the original arcade game, called Pac-Maze.[126] Nintendo released an Amiibo figurine of Pac-Man. Pac-Man is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
+A Pac-Man-themed downloadable content package for Minecraft was released in 2020 in commemoration of the game's 40th anniversary. This pack introduced a new ghost called 'Creepy', based off the Creeper.[127]
+A perfect score on the original Pac-Man arcade game is 3,333,360 points, achieved when the player obtains the maximum score on the first 255 levels by eating every dot, energizer, fruit and blue ghost without losing a man, then uses all six men to obtain the maximum possible number of points on level 256.[128][129]
+The first person to achieve a publicly witnessed and verified perfect score without manipulating the game's hardware to freeze play was Billy Mitchell, who performed the feat on July 3, 1999.[129][130] Some recordkeeping organizations removed Mitchell's score after a 2018 investigation by Twin Galaxies concluded that two unrelated Donkey Kong score performances submitted by Mitchell had not used an unmodified original circuit board.[131] As of July 2020, seven other gamers had achieved perfect Pac-Man scores on original arcade hardware.[132] The world record for the fastest completion of a perfect score, according to Twin Galaxies, is currently held by David Race with a time of 3 hours, 28 minutes, 49 seconds.[133][134]
+In December 1982, eight-year-old boy Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from United States president Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a world record score of 6,131,940 points, possible only if he had passed level 256.[129] In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies at the time, took the U.S. National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit gamers who claimed the ability to pass that level. None demonstrated such an ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could pass level 256 before January 1, 2000. The offer expired with the prize unclaimed.[129]
+After announcing in 2018 that it would no longer recognize the first perfect score on Pac-Man, Guinness World Records reversed that decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's 1999 performance on June 18, 2020.[135]
+Pac-Man inspired a long series of sequels, remakes, and re-imaginings, and is one of the longest-running video game franchises in history. The first of these was Ms. Pac-Man, developed by the American-based General Computer Corporation and published by Midway in 1982. The character's gender was changed to female in response to Pac-Man's popularity and women, with new mazes, moving bonus items, and faster gameplay being implemented to increase its appeal. Ms. Pac-Man is one of the best-selling arcade games in North America, and it is often seen as being superior to its predecessor. Legal concerns raised over who owned the game caused Ms. Pac-Man to become owned by Namco, who assisted in production of the game. Ms. Pac-Man inspired its own line of remakes, including Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (2000), and Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze, and is also included in many Namco and Pac-Man collections for consoles.
+Namco's own follow-up to the original was Super Pac-Man, released in 1982. This was followed by the Japan-exclusive Pac & Pal in 1983.[136] Midway produced many other Pac-Man sequels during the early 1980s, including Pac-Man Plus (1982), Jr. Pac-Man (1983), Baby Pac-Man (1983), and Professor Pac-Man (1984). Other games include the isometric Pac-Mania (1987), the side-scrollers Pac-Land (1984), Hello! Pac-Man (1994), and Pac-In-Time (1995),[137] the 3D platformer Pac-Man World (1999), and the puzzle games Pac-Attack (1991) and Pac-Pix (2005). Iwatani designed Pac-Land and Pac-Mania, both of which remain his favorite games in the series. Pac-Man Championship Edition, published for the Xbox 360 in 2007, was Iwatani's final game before leaving the company. Its neon visuals and fast-paced gameplay was met with acclaim,[138] leading to the creation of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (2010) and Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (2016).[139]
+Coleco's tabletop Mini-Arcade versions of the game yielded 1.5 million units sold in 1982.[140][141] Nelsonic Industries produced a Pac-Man LCD wristwatch game with a simplified maze also in 1982.[142]
+Namco Networks sold a downloadable Windows PC version of Pac-Man in 2009 which also includes an enhanced mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from Pac-Man Championship Edition. Namco Networks made a downloadable bundle which includes its PC version of Pac-Man and its port of Dig Dug called Namco All-Stars: Pac-Man and Dig Dug. In 2010, Namco Bandai announced the release of the game on Windows Phone 7 as an Xbox Live game.[143]
+For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game[144] in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The Google Doodle version of Pac-Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010,[145] so Google later gave the game its own page.[146]
+In April 2011, Soap Creative published World's Biggest Pac-Man, working together with Microsoft and Namco-Bandai to celebrate Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. It is a multiplayer browser-based game with user-created, interlocking mazes.[147]

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+Pac-Man[a] is a maze arcade game developed and released by Namco in 1980. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was changed to Pac-Man for international releases as a preventative measure against defacement of the arcade machines by changing the P to an F.[2] Outside Japan, the game was published by Midway Games as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "energizers" causes the ghosts to turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
+The development of the game began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was, reportedly, the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he also rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Japanese: 口). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puckman was derived from the titular character's hockey-puck shape.
+Pac-Man was a widespread critical and commercial success, and it has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy. The game is considered important and influential, and it is commonly listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. The success of the game led to several sequels, merchandise, and two television series, as well as a hit single by Buckner and Garcia. The Pac-Man video game franchise remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling game series of all time, generating more than $14 billion in revenue (as of 2016[update]) and $43 million in sales combined. The character of Pac-Man is the mascot and flagship icon of Bandai Namco Entertainment and has the highest brand awareness of any video game character in North America.
+Pac-Man is a maze chase video game; the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts — Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange) — that pursue him. When all of the dots are eaten, the player advances to the next level. If Pac-Man makes contact with a ghost, he will lose a life; the game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four ghosts have their own unique, distinct artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personalities"; Blinky gives direct chase to Pac-Man, Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him, and Clyde will switch between chasing Pac-Man and fleeing from him.[3][4][4]
+Placed at the four corners of the maze are large flashing "energizers", or "power pellets". Eating these will cause the ghosts to turn blue with a dizzied expression and reverse direction. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points; when eaten, their eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze, where the ghosts are "regenerated" and resume their normal activity. Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value. After a certain amount of time, blue-colored ghosts will flash white before turning back into their normal, lethal form. Eating a certain number of dots in a level will cause a bonus item, usually in the form of a fruit, to appear underneath the center box, which can be eaten for bonus points.
+The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses; the ghosts become faster and the energizers' effect decreases in duration, to the point where the ghosts will no longer turn blue and edible. To the sides of the maze are two "warp tunnels", which allow Pac-Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen. Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels. Levels are indicated by the fruit icon at the bottom of the screen. In-between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky in humorous, comical situations. The game becomes unplayable at the 256th level due to an integer overflow that affects the game's memory.[5]
+After acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, video game developer Namco had begun producing their own video games in-house, as opposed to simply licensing them from other developers and distributing them in Japan.[6][7] Company president Masaya Nakamura created a small video game development group within the company and ordered them to study several NEC-produced microcomputers to potentially create new games with.[8][9] One of the first people assigned to this division was a young 24-year-old employee named Toru Iwatani.[10] He created Namco's first video game Gee Bee in 1978, which while unsuccessful helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly-growing video game industry.[11][12] He also assisted in the production of two sequels, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q, both released in 1979.[13][14]
+The Japanese video game industry had surged in popularity with games such as Space Invaders and Breakout, which lead to the market being flooded with similar titles from other manufacturers in an attempt to cash in on the success.[15][16] Iwatani felt that arcade games only appealed to men for their crude graphics and violence,[15] and that arcades in general were seen as seedy environments.[17] For his next project, Iwatani chose to create a non-violent, cheerful video game that appealed mostly to women,[18] as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would potentially make them appear to be much-more family friendly in tone.[15] Iwatani began thinking of things that women liked to do in their time; he decided to center his game around eating, basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets.[19] His game was initially called Pakkuman, based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term “paku paku taberu”,[20] referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession.[18]
+The game that later became Pac-Man began development in early 1979 and took a year and five months to complete, the longest ever for a video game up to that point.[21] Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production, including composer Toshio Kai, programmer Shigeo Funaki, and designer Shigeichi Ishimura.[22] Care was taken to make the game appeal to a “non-violent” audience, particularly women, with its usage of simple gameplay and cute, attractive character designs.[21][17] When the game was being developed, Namco was underway with designing Galaxian, which utilized a then-revolutionary RGB color display, allowing sprites to use several colors at once instead of utilizing colored strips of cellophane that was commonplace at the time;[21] this technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors, which he felt would help attract players.[21] The idea for energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from Popeye the Sailor, a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach;[19] it is also believed that Iwatani was also partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about a creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them.[21]
+Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac-Man himself was designed after the shape of a pizza with a missing slice while he was at lunch; in a 1986 interview he said that this was only half-truth,[10] and that the Pac-Man character was also based on him rounding out and simplifying the Japanese character “kuchi” (口), meaning “mouth”.[23][10] The four ghosts were made to be cute, colorful and appealing, utilizing bright, pastel colors and expressive blue eyes.[21] Iwatani had used this idea before in Cutie Q, which features similar ghost-like characters, and decided to incorporate it into Pac-Man.[15] He was also inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga Obake no Q-Taro.[19] Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists due to them being used as villainous characters in animation.[19]
+Originally, Namco president Masaya Nakamura had requested that all of the ghosts be red and thus indistinguishable from one another.[24] Iwatani believed that the ghosts should be different colors, and he received unanimous support from his colleagues for this idea.[24] Each of the ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct personalities, so as to keep the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play.[21][25] Each ghost's name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac-Man: Shadow ("Blinky") always chases Pac-Man, Speedy ("Pinky") tries to get ahead of him, Bashful ("Inky") uses a more complicated strategy to zero in on him, and Pokey ("Clyde") alternates between chasing him and running away.[21] (The ghosts' Japanese names, translated into English, are Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle, and Stupid, respectively.) To break up the tension of constantly being pursued, humorous intermissions between Pac-Man and Blinky were added.[16] The sound effects were among the last things added to the game,[21] created by Toshio Kai.[17] In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound.[17] Upon completion, the game was titled Puck Man, based on the working title and the titular character's distinct hockey puck-like shape.[7]
+Location testing for Puck Man began on May 22, 1980 in Shibuya, Tokyo, to a relatively positive fanfare from players.[19] A private showing for the game was done in June, followed by a nation-wide release in July.[7] Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initialized plans to bring the game to international countries, particularly the United States.[21] Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America made a number of changes, such as altering the names of the ghosts.[21] The biggest of these was the game's title; executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change the “P” in Puck Man to an “F”, forming an obscene name.[7][26] Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to Pac-Man, as he felt it was closer to the game's original Japanese title of Pakkuman.[7] When Namco presented Pac-Man and Rally-X to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOU tradeshow in November,[27] executives believed that Rally-X would be the best-selling game of that year.[7][28] Midway Games agreed to distribute both games in North America, announcing their acquisition of the manufacturing rights on November 22[29] and releasing them in December.[30]
+Pac-Man was ported to a plethora of home video game systems and personal computers; the most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion, designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari.[31] This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, most notably the flickering effect of the ghosts.[32][33][34] Although the game proved to be a success initially, Atari overestimated the game's demand and produced 12 million cartridges, selling seven million and leaving five million unsold.[35][36][37][38] The conversion's poor quality severely damaged the company's reputation and contributed to the company's demise and the North American video game crash of 1983.[35][39] Atari also released versions for the Intellivision, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, IBM PC, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari 8-bit family of computers. A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983, a version that many have seen as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version.[40]
+Namco themselves released a version for the Family Computer in 1984 as one of the console's first third-party titles,[41] as well as a port for the MSX computer.[42] The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games. Tengen also produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell, released during a time where Tengen and Nintendo were in bitter disagreements over the latter's stance on quality control for their consoles; this version was later re-released by Namco as an official title in 1993, featuring a new cartridge label and box. The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores.[41] The same year, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for the Game Boy, which allowed for two-player co-operative play via the Game Link Cable peripheral. A version for the Game Gear was released a year later, which also enabled support for multiplayer. In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary in 1999, Namco re-released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color, bundled with Pac-Attack and titled Pac-Man: Special Color Edition.[43] The same year, Namco and SNK co-published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which came with a circular "Cross Ring" that attached to the d-pad to restrict it to four-directional movement.[44]
+In 2001, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for various Japanese mobile phones, being one of the company's very first mobile game releases.[45] The Famicom version of the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series, released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Famicom; this version was also released in North America and Europe under the Classic NES Series label.[46] Namco Networks released Pac-Man for BREW mobile devices in 2005.[47] The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006, featuring achievements and online leaderboards. In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published; this release was later rebranded as Pac-Man + Tournaments in 2013, featuring new mazes and leaderboards. The NES version was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007. A Roku version was released in 2011,[48] alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console. Pac-Man was one of four titles released under the Arcade Game Series brand, which was published for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.[49]
+Pac-Man was included in many Namco compilations, including Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995),[50] Namco Museum 64 (1996),[51] Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (2005), Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005), Namco Museum DS (2007), Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (2008), Namco Museum Essentials (2009),[52] and Namco Museum Megamix (2010).[53] In 1996, it was re-released for arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, alongside Dig Dug, Rally-X and special "Arrangement" remakes of all three titles. Microsoft included Pac-Man in Microsoft Return of Arcade (1996) as a way to help attract video game companies to their Windows 95 operating system. Namco released the game in the third volume of Namco History in Japan in 1998. The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation Pac-Man Collection compiles Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack and Pac-Man Arrangement onto one cartridge.[54] Pac-Man is also a hidden extra in the arcade game Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (2001).[55][56] A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured Pac-Man as the central game.[57] Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1993) and Pac-Man World 2 (2002) have Pac-Man as an unlockable extra. Alongside the Xbox 360 sequel Pac-Man Championship Edition, it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions.[58] The 2010 Wii game Pac-Man Party and its 2011 3DS remake also include Pac-Man as a bonus game, alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Galaga.[59][60] In 2014, Pac-Man was included again in the compilation title Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, alongside several other Pac-Man games.[61] The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition.[62]
+When it was first released in Japan, Pac-Man was only a modest success; Namco's own Galaxian had quickly outdone the game in popularity, due to the predominately male playerbase being familiar with its shooting gameplay as opposed to Pac-Man's cute characters and maze-chase theme.[21] Iwatani claims that the game was very popular with women, which he had hoped to accomplish during development. By comparison, in North America, Pac-Man became a nation-wide success. Within one year, more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold which grossed more than US$1 billion in quarters.[63][64] Pac-Man overtook Asteroids as the best-selling arcade game in the country,[65] and surpassed Star Wars: A New Hope with more than US$1 billion in revenue.[66][67] By 1982, it was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States.[68] Some arcades purchased entire rows of Pac-Man cabinets.[7]
+The number of arcade units sold had tripled to 400,000 by 1982, receiving an estimated total of seven billion coins.[69] Pac-Man themed merchandise sales had also exceeded US$1 billion.[69] In a 1983 interview, Nakamura said that though he did expect Pac-Man to be successful, "I never thought it would be this big."[6] Pac-Man is the best-selling arcade game of all time with more than US$2.5 billion in revenue, surpassing Space Invaders[64][70] — in 2016, USgamer calculated that the machines' inflation-adjusted takings were equivalent to $7.68 billion.[71]
+Pac-Man was awarded "Best Commercial Arcade Game" at the 1981 Arcade Awards.[citation needed] II Computing listed the Atarisoft port tenth on the magazine's list of top Apple II games as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data.[79] In 2001, Pac-Man was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK.[80] The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Pac-Man as the #53rd top game of all-time & game of the year.[81]
+The game of Pac-Man is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time;[82][83][84] its title character was the first original gaming mascot, the game established the maze chase game genre, it demonstrated the potential of characters in video games, it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences, and it was gaming's first broad licensing success.[82] It was the first video game with power-ups,[85] and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence (AI) that reacts to player actions.[86] It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes (in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other),[87]:2 though actually Space Invaders Part II employed a similar style of between-level intermissions in 1979.[88]
+"Maze chase" games exploded on home computers after the release of Pac-Man. Some of them appeared before official ports and garnered more attention from consumers, and sometimes lawyers, as a result. These include Taxman (1981) and Snack Attack (1982) for the Apple II, Jawbreaker (1981) for the Atari 8-bit family, Scarfman (1981) for the TRS-80, and K.C. Munchkin! (1981) for the Odyssey². Namco themselves produced several other maze chase games, including Rally-X (1980), Dig Dug (1982), Exvania (1992), and Tinkle Pit (1994).
+Pac-Man also inspired 3D variants of the concept, such as Monster Maze (1982),[89] Spectre (1982), and early first-person shooters such as MIDI Maze (1987; which also had similar character designs).[87]:5[90] John Romero credited Pac-Man as the game that had the biggest influence on his career;[91] Wolfenstein 3D includes a Pac-Man level from a first-person perspective.[92][93] Many post-Pac-Man titles include power-ups that briefly turn the tables on the enemy. The game's artificial intelligence inspired programmers who later worked for companies like Bethesda.[86]
+Guinness World Records has awarded the Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, including "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator Toru Iwatani officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed worldwide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, but finally actually awarded in 2010.[94]
+The Pac-Man character and game series became an icon of video game culture during the 1980s. A wide variety of Pac-Man merchandise has been marketed with the character's image, including t-shirts, toys, hand-held video game imitations, pasta, and cereal.
+The game has inspired various real-life recreations, involving real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004.[95][96][97] The business term "Pac-Man defense" in mergers and acquisitions refers to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and instead acquire its attempted acquirer, a reference to Pac-Man's energizers.[98] The game's popularity has led to "Pac-Man" being adopted as a nickname, such as by boxer Manny Pacquiao[99] and the American football player Adam Jones. The "Pac-Man renormalization" is named for a cosmetic resemblance to the character, in the mathematical study of the Mandelbrot set.[100][101]
+On August 21, 2016, in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, during a video which showcases Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics, a small segment shows Pac-Man and the ghosts racing and eating dots on a running track.[102]
+The Pac-Man animated TV series produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983.[103] A computer-generated animated series titled Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures aired on Disney XD in June 2013.[104][105] As of February 2019, the series was also planned to air on Universal Kids, but it was ultimately canceled due to low coverage of NBCUniversal.
+The Buckner & Garcia song "Pac-Man Fever" (1981) went to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts,[106] and received a Gold certification for more than 1 million records sold by 1982,[107] and a total of 2.5 million copies sold as of 2008.[108] More than one million copies of the group's Pac-Man Fever album (1982) were sold.[109]
+In 1982, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Taxman" by the Beatles as "Pac-Man". It was eventually released in 2017 as part of Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic.[110][111] In 1992, Aphex Twin (with the name Power-Pill) released Pac-Man, a techno album which consists mostly of samples from the game.
+On July 20th, 2020, Gorillaz and ScHoolboy Q, released a track entitled "PAC-MAN" as a part of Gorillaz' Song Machine series to commemorate the game's 40th anniversary, with the music video depicting the band's frontman, 2-D, playing a Gorillaz-themed Pac-Man game.[112]
+The Pac-Man character appears in the film Pixels (2015), with Denis Akiyama playing series creator Toru Iwatani.[113][114] Pac-Man is referenced and makes an appearance in the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy 2.[115] The game, the character, and the ghosts all also appear in the film Wreck-It Ralph,[116][117] as well as the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet.
+In Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale where Kirito and his friends beat a virtual reality game called PAC-Man 2024.[118] Iwatani makes a cameo at the beginning of the film as an arcade technician. In the Japanese tokusatsu film Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders, a Pac-Man-like character is the main villain.[119]
+The 2018 film Relaxer uses Pac-Man as a strong plot element in the story of a 1999 couch-bound man who attempts to beat the game (and encounters the famous Level 256 glitch) before the year 2000 problem occurs.[120]
+In 2008, a feature film based on the game was in development.[121][122]
+In 1982, Milton Bradley released a board game based on Pac-Man.[123] Players move up to four Pac-Man characters (traditional yellow plus red, green, and blue) plus two ghosts as per the throws of a pair of dice. The two ghost pieces were randomly packed with one of four colors.[124]
+Sticker manufacturer Fleer included rub-off game cards with its Pac-Man stickers. The card packages contain a Pac-Man style maze with all points along the path hidden with opaque coverings. From the starting position, the player moves around the maze while scratching off the coverings to score points.[125]
+Pac-Man is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. The 3DS version has a stage based on the original arcade game, called Pac-Maze.[126] Nintendo released an Amiibo figurine of Pac-Man. Pac-Man is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
+A Pac-Man-themed downloadable content package for Minecraft was released in 2020 in commemoration of the game's 40th anniversary. This pack introduced a new ghost called 'Creepy', based off the Creeper.[127]
+A perfect score on the original Pac-Man arcade game is 3,333,360 points, achieved when the player obtains the maximum score on the first 255 levels by eating every dot, energizer, fruit and blue ghost without losing a man, then uses all six men to obtain the maximum possible number of points on level 256.[128][129]
+The first person to achieve a publicly witnessed and verified perfect score without manipulating the game's hardware to freeze play was Billy Mitchell, who performed the feat on July 3, 1999.[129][130] Some recordkeeping organizations removed Mitchell's score after a 2018 investigation by Twin Galaxies concluded that two unrelated Donkey Kong score performances submitted by Mitchell had not used an unmodified original circuit board.[131] As of July 2020, seven other gamers had achieved perfect Pac-Man scores on original arcade hardware.[132] The world record for the fastest completion of a perfect score, according to Twin Galaxies, is currently held by David Race with a time of 3 hours, 28 minutes, 49 seconds.[133][134]
+In December 1982, eight-year-old boy Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from United States president Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a world record score of 6,131,940 points, possible only if he had passed level 256.[129] In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies at the time, took the U.S. National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit gamers who claimed the ability to pass that level. None demonstrated such an ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could pass level 256 before January 1, 2000. The offer expired with the prize unclaimed.[129]
+After announcing in 2018 that it would no longer recognize the first perfect score on Pac-Man, Guinness World Records reversed that decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's 1999 performance on June 18, 2020.[135]
+Pac-Man inspired a long series of sequels, remakes, and re-imaginings, and is one of the longest-running video game franchises in history. The first of these was Ms. Pac-Man, developed by the American-based General Computer Corporation and published by Midway in 1982. The character's gender was changed to female in response to Pac-Man's popularity and women, with new mazes, moving bonus items, and faster gameplay being implemented to increase its appeal. Ms. Pac-Man is one of the best-selling arcade games in North America, and it is often seen as being superior to its predecessor. Legal concerns raised over who owned the game caused Ms. Pac-Man to become owned by Namco, who assisted in production of the game. Ms. Pac-Man inspired its own line of remakes, including Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (2000), and Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze, and is also included in many Namco and Pac-Man collections for consoles.
+Namco's own follow-up to the original was Super Pac-Man, released in 1982. This was followed by the Japan-exclusive Pac & Pal in 1983.[136] Midway produced many other Pac-Man sequels during the early 1980s, including Pac-Man Plus (1982), Jr. Pac-Man (1983), Baby Pac-Man (1983), and Professor Pac-Man (1984). Other games include the isometric Pac-Mania (1987), the side-scrollers Pac-Land (1984), Hello! Pac-Man (1994), and Pac-In-Time (1995),[137] the 3D platformer Pac-Man World (1999), and the puzzle games Pac-Attack (1991) and Pac-Pix (2005). Iwatani designed Pac-Land and Pac-Mania, both of which remain his favorite games in the series. Pac-Man Championship Edition, published for the Xbox 360 in 2007, was Iwatani's final game before leaving the company. Its neon visuals and fast-paced gameplay was met with acclaim,[138] leading to the creation of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (2010) and Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (2016).[139]
+Coleco's tabletop Mini-Arcade versions of the game yielded 1.5 million units sold in 1982.[140][141] Nelsonic Industries produced a Pac-Man LCD wristwatch game with a simplified maze also in 1982.[142]
+Namco Networks sold a downloadable Windows PC version of Pac-Man in 2009 which also includes an enhanced mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from Pac-Man Championship Edition. Namco Networks made a downloadable bundle which includes its PC version of Pac-Man and its port of Dig Dug called Namco All-Stars: Pac-Man and Dig Dug. In 2010, Namco Bandai announced the release of the game on Windows Phone 7 as an Xbox Live game.[143]
+For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game[144] in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The Google Doodle version of Pac-Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010,[145] so Google later gave the game its own page.[146]
+In April 2011, Soap Creative published World's Biggest Pac-Man, working together with Microsoft and Namco-Bandai to celebrate Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. It is a multiplayer browser-based game with user-created, interlocking mazes.[147]

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+Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history it has been a prominent food in large parts of the world; it is one of the oldest man-made foods, having been of significant importance since the dawn of agriculture; and plays an essential role in religious rituals and secular culture.
+Bread may be leavened by naturally occurring microbes, chemicals, industrially produced yeast, or high-pressure aeration. In many countries, commercial bread often contains additives to improve flavor, texture, color, shelf life, nutrition, and ease of production.
+The Old English word for bread was hlaf (hlaifs in Gothic: modern English loaf), which appears to be the oldest Teutonic name.[1] Old High German hleib[2] and modern German Laib derive from this Proto-Germanic word, which was borrowed into Slavic (Polish chleb, Russian khleb) and Finnic (Finnish leipä, Estonian leib) languages as well.
+The Middle and Modern English word bread appears in Germanic languages, such as West Frisian brea, Dutch brood, German Brot, Swedish bröd, and Norwegian and Danish brød; it may be related to brew or perhaps to break, originally meaning "broken piece", "morsel".[3]
+Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe and Australia revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants.[4][5] It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flatbread. The world's oldest evidence of bread-making has been found in a 14,500-year-old Natufian site in Jordan's northeastern desert.[6][7] Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of making bread. Yeast spores are ubiquitous, including on the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest leavens naturally.[8]
+There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. Airborne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking. Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer called barm to produce "a lighter kind of bread than other peoples" such as barm cake. Parts of the ancient world that drank wine instead of beer used a paste composed of grape juice and flour that was allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran steeped in wine, as a source for yeast. The most common source of leavening was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to use as a form of sourdough starter, as Pliny also reported.[9][10]
+The Chorleywood bread process was developed in 1961; it uses the intense mechanical working of dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and the time taken to produce a loaf. The process, whose high-energy mixing allows for the use of grain with a lower protein content, is now widely used around the world in large factories. As a result, bread can be produced very quickly and at low costs to the manufacturer and the consumer. However, there has been some criticism of the effect on nutritional value.[11][12][13]
+Bread is the staple food of the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, Europe, and in European-derived cultures such as those in the Americas, Australia, and Southern Africa, in contrast to parts of South and East Asia where rice or noodle is the staple. Bread is usually made from a wheat-flour dough that is cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, and finally baked in an oven. The addition of yeast to the bread explains the air pockets commonly found in bread.[14] Owing to its high levels of gluten (which give the dough sponginess and elasticity), common or bread wheat is the most common grain used for the preparation of bread, which makes the largest single contribution to the world's food supply of any food.[15]
+Bread is also made from the flour of other wheat species (including spelt, emmer, einkorn and kamut).[16] Non-wheat cereals including rye, barley, maize (corn), oats, sorghum, millet and rice have been used to make bread, but, with the exception of rye, usually in combination with wheat flour as they have less gluten.[17]
+Gluten-free breads are made using ground flours from a variety of ingredients such as almonds, rice, sorghum, corn, or legumes such as beans, and tubers such as cassava, but since these flours lack gluten they may not hold their shape as they rise and their crumb may be dense with little aeration. Additives such as xanthan gum, guar gum, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), corn starch, or eggs are used to compensate for the lack of gluten.[18][19][20][21]
+In wheat, phenolic compounds are mainly found in hulls in the form of insoluble bound ferulic acid, where it is relevant to wheat resistance to fungal diseases.[22]
+Rye bread contains phenolic acids and ferulic acid dehydrodimers.[23]
+Three natural phenolic glucosides, secoisolariciresinol diglucoside, p-coumaric acid glucoside and ferulic acid glucoside, can be found in commercial breads containing flaxseed.[24]
+Glutenin and gliadin are functional proteins found in wheat bread that contribute to the structure of bread. Glutenin forms interconnected gluten networks within bread through interchain disulfide bonds.[25] Gliadin binds weakly to the gluten network established by glutenin via intrachain disulfide bonds.[25] Structurally, bread can be defined as an elastic-plastic foam (same as styrofoam). The glutenin protein contributes to its elastic nature, as it is able to regain its initial shape after deformation. The gliadin protein contributes to its plastic nature, because it demonstrates non-reversible structural change after a certain amount of applied force. Because air pockets within this gluten network result from carbon dioxide production during leavening, bread can be defined as a foam, or a gas-in-solid solution.[26]
+Acrylamide, like in other starchy foods that have been heated higher than 120 °C (248 °F), has been found in recent years to occur in bread. Acrylamide is neurotoxic, has adverse effects on male reproduction and developmental toxicity and is carcinogenic. A study has found that more than 99 percent of the acrylamide in bread is found in the crust.[27]
+Bread can be served at many temperatures; once baked, it can subsequently be toasted.  It is most commonly eaten with the hands, either by itself or as a carrier for other foods. Bread can be spread with butter, dipped into liquids such as gravy, olive oil, or soup;[28] it can be topped with various sweet and savory spreads, or used to make sandwiches containing meats, cheeses, vegetables, and  condiments.[29]
+Bread is used as an ingredient in other culinary preparations, such as the use of breadcrumbs to provide crunchy crusts or thicken sauces; toasted cubes of bread, called croutons, are used as a salad topping; seasoned bread is used as stuffing inside roasted turkey; sweet or savoury bread puddings are made with bread and various liquids; egg and milk-soaked bread is fried as French toast; and bread is used as a binding agent in sausages, meatballs and other ground meat products.[30]
+Nutritionally, bread is categorized as a source of grains in the food pyramid and is a good source of carbohydrates and nutrients such as magnesium, iron, selenium, B vitamins, and dietary fiber.[31]
+Bread crust is formed from surface dough during the cooking process. It is hardened and browned through the Maillard reaction using the sugars and amino acids due to the intense heat at the bread surface. The crust of most breads is harder, and more complexly and intensely flavored, than the rest. Old wives' tales suggest that eating the bread crust makes a person's hair curlier.[32] Additionally, the crust is rumored to be healthier than the remainder of the bread. Some studies have shown that this is true as the crust has more dietary fiber and antioxidants such as pronyl-lysine,[33][34] which is being researched for its potential colorectal cancer inhibitory properties.[35][36]
+Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed (e.g., mantou), fried (e.g., puri), or baked on an unoiled frying pan (e.g., tortillas). It may be leavened or unleavened (e.g. matzo). Salt, fat and leavening agents such as yeast and baking soda are common ingredients, though bread may contain other ingredients, such as milk, egg, sugar, spice, fruit (such as raisins), vegetables (such as onion), nuts (such as walnut) or seeds (such as poppy).[37]
+Methods of processing dough into bread include the straight dough process, the sourdough process, the Chorleywood bread process and the sponge and dough process.
+Professional bread recipes are stated using the baker's percentage notation. The amount of flour is denoted to be 100%, and the other ingredients are expressed as a percentage of that amount by weight. Measurement by weight is more accurate and consistent than measurement by volume, particularly for dry ingredients. The proportion of water to flour is the most important measurement in a bread recipe, as it affects texture and crumb the most. Hard wheat flours absorb about 62% water, while softer wheat flours absorb about 56%.[38] Common table breads made from these doughs result in a finely textured, light bread. Most artisan bread formulas contain anywhere from 60 to 75% water. In yeast breads, the higher water percentages result in more CO2 bubbles and a coarser bread crumb. 500 grams (1 pound) of flour yields a standard loaf of bread or two baguettes.
+Calcium propionate is commonly added by commercial bakeries to retard the growth of molds.[39]
+Flour is grain ground to a powdery consistency. Flour provides the primary structure, starch and protein to the final baked bread. The protein content of the flour is the best indicator of the quality of the bread dough and the finished bread. While bread can be made from all-purpose wheat flour, a specialty bread flour, containing more protein (12–14%), is recommended for high-quality bread. If one uses a flour with a lower protein content (9–11%) to produce bread, a shorter mixing time is required to develop gluten strength properly. An extended mixing time leads to oxidization of the dough, which gives the finished product a whiter crumb, instead of the cream color preferred by most artisan bakers.[40]
+Wheat flour, in addition to its starch, contains three water-soluble protein groups (albumin, globulin, and proteoses) and two water-insoluble protein groups (glutenin and gliadin). When flour is mixed with water, the water-soluble proteins dissolve, leaving the glutenin and gliadin to form the structure of the resulting bread. When relatively dry dough is worked by kneading, or wet dough is allowed to rise for a long time (see no-knead bread), the glutenin forms strands of long, thin, chainlike molecules, while the shorter gliadin forms bridges between the strands of glutenin. The resulting networks of strands produced by these two proteins are known as gluten. Gluten development improves if the dough is allowed to autolyse.[41]
+Water, or some other liquid, is used to form the flour into a paste or dough. The weight or ratio of liquid required varies between recipes, but a ratio of three parts liquid to five parts flour is common for yeast breads.[42] Recipes that use steam as the primary leavening method may have a liquid content in excess of one part liquid to one part flour. Instead of water, recipes may use liquids such as milk or other dairy products (including buttermilk or yoghurt), fruit juice, or eggs. These contribute additional sweeteners, fats, or leavening components, as well as water.[43]
+Fats, such as butter, vegetable oils, lard, or that contained in eggs, affect the development of gluten in breads by coating and lubricating the individual strands of protein. They also help to hold the structure together. If too much fat is included in a bread dough, the lubrication effect causes the protein structures to divide. A fat content of approximately 3% by weight is the concentration that produces the greatest leavening action.[44] In addition to their effects on leavening, fats also serve to tenderize breads and preserve freshness.
+Bread improvers and dough conditioners are often used in producing commercial breads to reduce the time needed for rising and to improve texture and volume. The substances used may be oxidising agents to strengthen the dough or reducing agents to develop gluten and reduce mixing time, emulsifiers to strengthen the dough or to provide other properties such as making slicing easier, or enzymes to increase gas production.[45]
+Salt (sodium chloride) is very often added to enhance flavor and restrict yeast activity. It also affects the crumb and the overall texture by stabilizing and strengthening[46] the gluten. Some artisan bakers forego early addition of salt to the dough, whether wholemeal or refined, and wait until after a 20-minute rest to allow the dough to autolyse.[47]
+Mixtures of salts are sometimes employed, such as employing potassium chloride to reduce the sodium level, and monosodium glutamate to give flavor (umami).
+Leavening is the process of adding gas to a dough before or during baking to produce a lighter, more easily chewed bread. Most bread eaten in the West is leavened.[48]
+A simple technique for leavening bread is the use of gas-producing chemicals.  There are two common methods. The first is to use baking powder or a self-raising flour that includes baking powder.  The second is to include an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk and add baking soda; the reaction of the acid with the soda produces gas.[48] Chemically leavened breads are called quick breads and soda breads. This method is commonly used to make muffins, pancakes, American-style biscuits, and quick breads such as banana bread.
+Many breads are leavened by yeast. The yeast most commonly used for leavening bread is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the same species used for brewing alcoholic beverages. This yeast ferments some of the carbohydrates in the flour, including any sugar, producing carbon dioxide. Commercial bakers often leaven their dough with commercially produced baker's yeast. Baker's yeast has the advantage of producing uniform, quick, and reliable results, because it is obtained from a pure culture.[48] Many artisan bakers produce their own yeast with a growth culture. If kept in the right conditions, it provides leavening for many years.[49]
+The baker's yeast and sourdough methods follow the same pattern. Water is mixed with flour, salt and the leavening agent. Other additions (spices, herbs, fats, seeds, fruit, etc.) are not needed to bake bread, but are often used. The mixed dough is then allowed to rise one or more times (a longer rising time results in more flavor, so bakers often "punch down" the dough and let it rise again), loaves are formed, and (after an optional final rising time) the bread is baked in an oven.[48]
+Many breads are made from a "straight dough", which means that all of the ingredients are combined in one step, and the dough is baked after the rising time;[48] others are made from a "pre-ferment" in which the leavening agent is combined with some of the flour and water a day or so ahead of baking and allowed to ferment overnight. On the day of baking, the rest of the ingredients are added, and the process continues as with straight dough. This produces a more flavorful bread with better texture. Many bakers see the starter method as a compromise between the reliable results of baker's yeast and the flavor and complexity of a longer fermentation. It also allows the baker to use only a minimal amount of baker's yeast, which was scarce and expensive when it first became available. Most yeasted pre-ferments fall into one of three categories: "poolish" or "pouliche", a loose-textured mixture composed of roughly equal amounts of flour and water (by weight); "biga", a stiff mixture with a higher proportion of flour; and "pâte fermentée", which is simply a portion of dough reserved from a previous batch.[50][51]
+Sourdough is a type of bread produced by a long fermentation of dough using naturally occurring yeasts and lactobacilli. It usually has a mildly sour taste because of the lactic acid produced during anaerobic fermentation by the lactobacilli.[52][53]
+Sourdough breads are made with a sourdough starter. The starter cultivates yeast and lactobacilli in a mixture of flour and water, making use of the microorganisms already present on flour; it does not need any added yeast. A starter may be maintained indefinitely by regular additions of flour and water. Some bakers have starters many generations old, which are said to have a special taste or texture.[52] At one time, all yeast-leavened breads were sourdoughs. Recently there has been a revival of sourdough bread in artisan bakeries.[54]
+Traditionally, peasant families throughout Europe baked on a fixed schedule, perhaps once a week. The starter was saved from the previous week's dough. The starter was mixed with the new ingredients, the dough was left to rise, and then a piece of it was saved (to be the starter for next week's bread).[48]
+The rapid expansion of steam produced during baking leavens the bread, which is as simple as it is unpredictable.  Steam-leavening is unpredictable since the steam is not produced until the bread is baked. Steam leavening happens regardless of the raising agents (baking soda, yeast, baking powder, sour dough, beaten egg white) included in the mix. The leavening agent either contains air bubbles or generates carbon dioxide. The heat vaporises the water from the inner surface of the bubbles within the dough. The steam expands and makes the bread rise. This is the main factor in the rising of bread once it has been put in the oven.[55] CO2 generation, on its own, is too small to account for the rise. Heat kills bacteria or yeast at an early stage, so the CO2 generation is stopped.
+Salt-rising bread employs a form of bacterial leavening that does not require yeast. Although the leavening action is inconsistent, and requires close attention to the incubating conditions, this bread is making a comeback for its cheese-like flavor and fine texture.[56]
+Aerated bread was leavened by carbon dioxide being forced into dough under pressure. From the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, bread made this way was somewhat popular in the United Kingdom, made by the Aerated Bread Company and sold in its high-street tearooms. The company was founded in 1862, and ceased independent operations in 1955.[57]
+The Pressure-Vacuum mixer was later developed by the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association for the Chorleywood bread process. It manipulates the gas bubble size and optionally the composition of gases in the dough via the gas applied to the headspace.[58]
+Bread has a significance beyond mere nutrition in many cultures because of its history and contemporary importance. Bread is also significant in Christianity as one of the elements (alongside wine) of the Eucharist,[59] and in other religions including Paganism.[60]
+In many cultures, bread is a metaphor for basic necessities and living conditions in general. For example, a "bread-winner" is a household's main economic contributor and has little to do with actual bread-provision. This is also seen in the phrase "putting bread on the table". The Roman poet Juvenal satirized superficial politicians and the public as caring only for "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses).[61] In Russia in 1917, the Bolsheviks promised "peace, land, and bread."[62][63] The term "breadbasket" denotes an agriculturally productive region. In Slavic cultures bread and salt is offered as a welcome to guests.[64] In India, life's basic necessities are often referred to as "roti, kapra aur makan" (bread, cloth, and house).[65]
+Words for bread, including "dough" and "bread" itself, are used in English-speaking countries as synonyms for money.[1] A remarkable or revolutionary innovation may be called the best thing since "sliced bread".[66] The expression "to break bread with someone" means "to share a meal with someone".[67] The English word "lord" comes from the Anglo-Saxon hlāfweard, meaning "bread keeper."[68]
+Bread is sometimes referred to as "the staff of life", although this term can refer to other staple foods in different cultures: the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "bread (or similar staple food)".[69][70] This is sometimes thought to be a biblical reference, but the nearest wording is in Leviticus 26 "when I have broken the staff of your bread".[71] The term has been adopted in the names of bakery firms.[72]

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+Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. Throughout history leaders have used peacemaking and diplomacy to establish a certain type of behavioral restraint that has resulted in the establishment of regional peace or economic growth through various forms of agreements or peace treaties.  Such behavioral restraint has often resulted in the reduction of conflicts, greater economic interactivity, and consequently substantial prosperity.
+"Psychological peace" (such as a peaceful thinking and emotions) is perhaps less well defined yet often a necessary precursor to establishing "behavioral peace."  Peaceful behavior sometimes results from a "peaceful inner disposition."  Some have expressed the belief that peace can be initiated with a certain quality of inner tranquility that does not depend upon the uncertainties of daily life for its existence.[1] The acquisition of such a "peaceful internal disposition" for oneself and others can contribute to resolving of otherwise seemingly irreconcilable competing interests.
+The Anglo-French term Pes itself comes from the Latin pax, meaning "peace, compact, agreement, treaty of peace, tranquility, absence of hostility, harmony." The English word came into use in various personal greetings from c.1300 as a translation of the Hebrew word shalom, which, according to Jewish theology, comes from a Hebrew verb meaning 'to be complete, whole'.[2] Although 'peace' is the usual translation, however, it is an incomplete one, because 'shalom,' which is also cognate with the Arabic salaam, has multiple other meanings in addition to peace, including justice, good health, safety, well-being, prosperity, equity, security, good fortune, and friendliness, as well as simply the greetings, "hello" and "goodbye".[citation needed] At a personal level, peaceful behaviors are kind, considerate, respectful, just, and tolerant of others' beliefs and behaviors – tending to manifest goodwill. The term-'peace' originates most recently from the Anglo-French pes, and the Old French pais, meaning "peace, reconciliation, silence, agreement" (11th century).[3]
+This latter understanding of peace can also pertain to an individual's introspective sense or concept of her/himself, as in being "at peace" in one's own mind, as found in European references from c.1200. The early English term is also used in the sense of "quiet", reflecting calm, serene, and meditative approaches to family or group relationships that avoid quarreling and seek tranquility — an absence of disturbance or agitation.
+In many languages, the word for peace is also used as a greeting or a farewell, for example the Hawaiian word aloha, as well as the Arabic word salaam. In English the word peace is occasionally used as a farewell, especially for the dead, as in the phrase rest in peace.
+Wolfgang Dietrich in his research project which led to the book The Palgrave International Handbook of Peace Studies (2011) maps the different meanings of peace in different languages and from different regions across the world. Later, in his Interpretations of Peace in History and Culture (2012), he groups the different meanings of peace into five peace families: Energetic/Harmony, Moral/Justice, Modern/Security, Postmodern/Truth, and Transrational, a synthesis of the positive sides of the four previous families and the society.
+In ancient times and more recently, peaceful alliances between different nations were codified through royal marriages. Two examples, Hermodike I c.800BC[4] and Hermodike II c.600BC[5] were Greek princesses from the house of Agamemnon who married kings from what is now Central Turkey. The union of Phrygia / Lydia with Aeolian Greeks resulted in regional peace, which facilitated the transfer of ground-breaking technological skills into Ancient Greece; respectively, the phonetic written script and the minting of coinage (to use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state).[6] Both inventions were rapidly adopted by surrounding nations through further trade and cooperation and have been of fundamental benefit to the progress of civilization.
+Since classical times, it has been noted that peace has sometimes been achieved by the victor over the vanquished by the imposition of ruthless measures. In his book Agricola the Roman historian Tacitus includes eloquent and vicious polemics against the rapacity and greed of Rome. One, that Tacitus says is by the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus, ends Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. (To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. — Oxford Revised Translation).
+Discussion of peace is therefore at the same time a discussion on the form of such peace. Is it simple absence of mass organized killing (war) or does peace require a particular morality and justice? (just peace).[7]
+A peace must be seen at least in two forms:
+More recently, advocates for radical reform in justice systems have called for a public policy adoption of non-punitive, non-violent Restorative Justice methods, and many of those studying the success of these methods, including a United Nations working group on Restorative Justice, have attempted to re-define justice in terms related to peace. From the late 2000s on, a Theory of Active Peace has been proposed[8] which conceptually integrates justice into a larger peace theory.
+Another internationally important approach to peace is the international, national and local protection of cultural assets in the event of conflicts. United Nations, UNESCO and Blue Shield International deal with the protection of cultural heritage. This also applies to the integration of United Nations peacekeeping. UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova stated: "The protection of culture and heritage is a humanitarian and security policy imperative that also paves the way for resilience, reconciliation and peace." The protection of the cultural heritage should preserve the particularly sensitive cultural memory, the growing cultural diversity and the economic basis of a state, a municipality or a region. In many conflicts there is a deliberate attempt to destroy the opponent's cultural heritage. Whereby there is also a connection between cultural user disruption or cultural heritage and the cause of flight. But protection can only be implemented in a sustainable manner through the fundamental cooperation and training of military units and civilian personnel, together with the locals. The president of Blue Shield International Karl von Habsburg summed it up with the words: “Without the local community and without the local participants, that would be completely impossible”.[9][10][11][12][13][14]
+The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achieving world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue.
+The UN, after approval by the Security Council, sends peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states of the UN. The forces, also called the "Blue Helmets", who enforce UN accords are awarded United Nations Medals, which are considered international decorations instead of military decorations. The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
+The obligation of the state to provide for domestic peace within its borders in usually charged to the police and other general domestic policing activities. The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state to enforce the law, to protect the lives, liberty and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder.[15] Their powers include the power of arrest and the legitimized use of force. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from the military and other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing.[16] Police forces are usually public sector services, funded through taxes.
+It is the obligation of national security to provide for peace and security in a nation against foreign threats and foreign aggression. Potential causes of national insecurity include actions by other states (e.g. military or cyber attack), violent non-state actors (e.g. terrorist attack), organised criminal groups such as narcotic cartels, and also the effects of natural disasters (e.g. flooding, earthquakes).[17]:v, 1–8[18] Systemic drivers of insecurity, which may be transnational, include climate change, economic inequality and marginalisation, political exclusion, and militarisation.[18] In view of the wide range of risks, the preservation of peace and the security of a nation state have several dimensions, including economic security, energy security, physical security, environmental security, food security, border security, and cyber security. These dimensions correlate closely with elements of national power.
+The principal forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations. It was created at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and emerged from the advocacy of Woodrow Wilson and other idealists during World War I. The Covenant of the League of Nations was included in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and the League was based in Geneva until its dissolution as a result of World War II and replacement by the United Nations. The high hopes widely held for the League in the 1920s, for example amongst members of the League of Nations Union, gave way to widespread disillusion in the 1930s as the League struggled to respond to challenges from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Japan.
+One of the most important scholars of the League of Nations was Sir Alfred Zimmern. Like many of the other British enthusiasts for the League, such as Gilbert Murray and Florence Stawell – the so-called "Greece and peace" set – he came to this from the study of the classics.
+The creation of the League of Nations, and the hope for informed public opinion on international issues (expressed for example by the Union for Democratic Control during World War I), also saw the creation after World War I of bodies dedicated to understanding international affairs, such as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London. At the same time, the academic study of international relations started to professionalize, with the creation of the first professorship of international politics, named for Woodrow Wilson, at Aberystwyth, Wales, in 1919.
+The late 19th century idealist advocacy of peace which led to the creation of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Rhodes Scholarships, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and ultimately the League of Nations, also saw the re-emergence of the ancient Olympic ideal. Led by Pierre de Coubertin, this culminated in the holding in 1896 of the first of the modern Olympic Games.
+The highest honour awarded to peace maker is the Nobel Prize in Peace, awarded since 1901 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. It is awarded annually to internationally notable persons following the prize's creation in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who "...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."[19]
+In creating the Rhodes Scholarships for outstanding students from the United States, Germany and much of the British Empire, Cecil Rhodes wrote in 1901 that 'the object is that an understanding between the three great powers will render war impossible and educational relations make the strongest tie'.[20] This peace purpose of the Rhodes Scholarships was very prominent in the first half of the 20th century, and became prominent again in recent years under Warden of the Rhodes House Donald Markwell,[21] a historian of thought about the causes of war and peace.[22] This vision greatly influenced Senator J. William Fulbright in the goal of the Fulbright fellowships to promote international understanding and peace, and has guided many other international fellowship programs,[23] including the Schwarzman Scholars to China created by Stephen A. Schwarzman in 2013.[24]
+The International Gandhi Peace Prize, named after Mahatma Gandhi, is awarded annually by the Government of India. It is launched as a tribute to the ideals espoused by Gandhi in 1995 on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of his birth. This is an annual award given to individuals and institutions for their contributions towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violence and other Gandhian methods. The award carries Rs. 10 million in cash, convertible in any currency in the world, a plaque and a citation. It is open to all persons regardless of nationality, race, creed or sex.
+The Student Peace Prize is awarded biennially to a student or a student organization that has made a significant contribution to promoting peace and human rights.
+The Culture of Peace News Network, otherwise known simply as CPNN, is a UN authorized interactive online news network, committed to supporting the global movement for a culture of peace.
+Every year in the first week of November, the Sydney Peace Foundation presents the Sydney Peace Prize. The Sydney Peace Prize is awarded to an organization or an individual whose life and work has demonstrated significant contributions to:
+The achievement of peace with justice locally, nationally or internationally
+The promotion and attainment of human rights
+The philosophy, language and practice of non-violence
+A peace museum is a museum that documents historical peace initiatives. Many peace museums also provide advocacy programs for nonviolent conflict resolution. This may include conflicts at the personal, regional or international level.
+Smaller institutions:
+Religious beliefs often seek to identify and address the basic problems of human life, including the conflicts between, among, and within persons and societies. In ancient Greek-speaking areas the virtue of peace was personified as the goddess Eirene, and in Latin-speaking areas as the goddess Pax. Her image was typically represented by ancient sculptors as that of a full-grown woman, usually with a horn of plenty and scepter and sometimes with a torch or olive leaves.
+Christians, who believe Jesus of Nazareth to be the Jewish Messiah called Christ (meaning Anointed One),[25] interpret Isaiah 9:6 as a messianic prophecy of Jesus in which he is called the "Prince of Peace."[26] In the Gospel of Luke, Zechariah celebrates his son John: And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death's shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
+Numerous pontifical documents on the Holy Rosary document a continuity of views of the Popes to have confidence in the Holy Rosary as a means to foster peace. Subsequently, to the Encyclical Mense maio,1965, in which he urged the practice of the Holy Rosary, "the prayer so dear to the Virgin and so much recommended by the Supreme Pontiffs," and as reaffirmed in the encyclical Christi Matri, 1966, to implore peace, Pope Paul VI stated in the apostolic Recurrens mensis, October 1969, that the Rosary is a prayer that favors the great gift of peace.
+Islam derived from the root word salam which literally means peace. Muslims are called followers of Islam. Quran clearly stated "Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah, hearts are assured" and stated "O you who have believed, when you are told, "Space yourselves" in assemblies, then make space; Allah will make space for you. And when you are told, "Arise," then arise; Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. And Allah is Acquainted with what you do."[27][28]
+Buddhists believe that peace can be attained once all suffering ends. They regard all suffering as stemming from cravings (in the extreme, greed), aversions (fears), or delusions. To eliminate such suffering and achieve personal peace, followers in the path of the Buddha adhere to a set of teachings called the Four Noble Truths — a central tenet in Buddhist philosophy.
+Hindu texts contain the following passages:
+May there be peace in the heavens, peace in the atmosphere, peace on the earth. Let there be coolness in the water, healing in the herbs and peace radiating from the trees. Let there be harmony in the planets and in the stars, and perfection in eternal knowledge. May everything in the universe be at peace. Let peace pervade everywhere, at all times. May I experience that peace within my own heart.
+Let us not concord with our own people, and concord with people who are strangers to us. Celestial Twins, create between us and the strangers a unity of hearts. May we unite in our minds, unite in our purposes, and not fight against the heavenly spirit within us. Let not the battle-cry rise amidst many slain, nor the arrows of the war-god fall with the break of day
+A superior being does not render evil for evil. This is a maxim one should observe... One should never harm the wicked or the good or even animals meriting death. A noble soul will exercise compassion even towards those who enjoy injuring others or cruel deeds... Who is without fault?
+The chariot that leads to victory is of another kind.
+Pacifism is the categorical opposition to the behaviors of war or violence as a means of settling disputes or of gaining advantage. Pacifism covers a spectrum of views ranging from the belief that international disputes can and should all be resolved via peaceful behaviors; to calls for the abolition of various organizations which tend to institutionalize aggressive behaviors, such as the military, or arms manufacturers; to opposition to any organization of society that might rely in any way upon governmental force.  Such groups which sometimes oppose the governmental use of force include anarchists and libertarians.  Absolute pacifism opposes violent behavior under all circumstance, including defense of self and others.
+Pacifism may be based on moral principles (a deontological view) or pragmatism (a consequentialist view). Principled pacifism holds that all forms of violent behavior are inappropriate responses to conflict, and are morally wrong.  Pragmatic pacifism holds that the costs of war and inter-personal violence are so substantial that better ways of resolving disputes must be found.
+Psychological or inner peace (i.e. peace of mind) refers to a state of being internally or spiritually at peace, with sufficient knowledge and understanding to keep oneself calm in the face of apparent discord or stress. Being internally "at peace" is considered by many to be a healthy mental state, or homeostasis and to be the opposite of feeling stressful, mentally anxious, or emotionally unstable. Within the meditative traditions, the psychological or inward achievement of "peace of mind" is often associated with bliss and happiness.
+Peace of mind, serenity, and calmness are descriptions of a disposition free from the effects of stress. In some meditative traditions, inner peace is believed to be a state of consciousness or enlightenment that may be cultivated by various types of meditation, prayer, t'ai chi ch'uan (太极拳, tàijíquán), yoga, or other various types of mental or physical disciplines. Many such practices refer to this peace as an experience of knowing oneself. An emphasis on finding one's inner peace is often associated with traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and some traditional Christian contemplative practices such as monasticism,[29] as well as with the New Age movement.
+Satyagraha is a philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance developed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He deployed satyagraha techniques in campaigns for Indian independence and also during his earlier struggles in South Africa.
+The word satyagraha itself was coined through a public contest that Gandhi sponsored through the newspaper he published in South Africa, 'Indian Opinion', when he realized that neither the common, contemporary Hindu language nor the English language contained a word which fully expressed his own meanings and intentions when he talked about his nonviolent approaches to conflict. According to Gandhi's autobiography, the contest winner was Maganlal Gandhi (presumably no relation), who submitted the entry 'sadagraha', which Gandhi then modified to 'satyagraha'. Etymologically, this Hindic word means 'truth-firmness', and is commonly translated as 'steadfastness in the truth' or 'truth-force'.
+Satyagraha theory also influenced Martin Luther King Jr. during the campaigns he led during the civil rights movement in the United States. The theory of satyagraha sees means and ends as inseparable. Therefore, it is contradictory to try to use violence to obtain peace. As Gandhi wrote: "They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end..."[30] A contemporary quote sometimes attributed to Gandhi, but also to A. J. Muste, sums it up: 'There is no way to peace; peace is the way.'
+The following are monuments to peace:
+Many different theories of "peace" exist in the world of peace studies, which involves the study of de-escalation, conflict transformation, disarmament, and cessation of violence.[32] The definition of "peace" can vary with religion, culture, or subject of study.
+The classical "realist" position is that the key to promoting order between states, and so of increasing the chances of peace, is the maintenance of a balance of power between states – a situation where no state is so dominant that it can "lay down the law to the rest". Exponents of this view have included Metternich, Bismarck, Hans Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger. A related approach – more in the tradition of Hugo Grotius than Thomas Hobbes – was articulated by the so-called "English school of international relations theory" such as Martin Wight in his book Power Politics (1946, 1978) and Hedley Bull in The Anarchical Society (1977).
+As the maintenance of a balance of power could in some circumstances require a willingness to go to war, some critics saw the idea of a balance of power as promoting war rather than promoting peace. This was a radical critique of those supporters of the Allied and Associated Powers who justified entry into World War I on the grounds that it was necessary to preserve the balance of power in Europe from a German bid for hegemony.
+In the second half of the 20th century, and especially during the cold war, a particular form of balance of power – mutual nuclear deterrence – emerged as a widely held doctrine on the key to peace between the great powers. Critics argued that the development of nuclear stockpiles increased the chances of war rather than peace, and that the "nuclear umbrella" made it "safe" for smaller wars (e.g. the Vietnam war and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring), so making such wars more likely.
+It was a central tenet of classical liberalism, for example among English liberal thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th century, that free trade promoted peace. For example, the Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) said that he was "brought up" on this idea and held it unquestioned until at least the 1920s.[33] During the economic globalization in the decades leading up to World War I, writers such as Norman Angell argued that the growth of economic interdependence between the great powers made war between them futile and therefore unlikely. He made this argument in 1913. A year later Europe's economically interconnected states were embroiled in what would later become known as the First World War.[34]
+These ideas have again come to prominence among liberal internationalists during the globalization of the late 20th and early 21st century.[35] These ideas have seen capitalism as consistent with, even conducive to, peace.
+The Peace & War Game is an approach in game theory to understand the relationship between peace and conflicts.
+The iterated game hypotheses was originally used by academic groups and computer simulations to study possible strategies of cooperation and aggression.[36]
+As peace makers became richer over time, it became clear that making war had greater costs than initially anticipated. One of the well studied strategies that acquired wealth more rapidly was based on Genghis Khan, i.e. a constant aggressor making war continually to gain resources. This led, in contrast, to the development of what's known as the "provokable nice guy strategy", a peace-maker until attacked, improved upon merely to win by occasional forgiveness even when attacked. By adding the results of all pairwise games for each player, one sees that multiple players gain wealth cooperating with each other while bleeding a constantly aggressive player.[37]
+Socialist, communist, and left-wing liberal writers of the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g., Lenin, J.A. Hobson, John Strachey) argued that capitalism caused war (e.g. through promoting imperial or other economic rivalries that lead to international conflict). This led some to argue that international socialism was the key to peace.
+However, in response to such writers in the 1930s who argued that capitalism caused war, the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) argued that managed capitalism could promote peace. This involved international coordination of fiscal/monetary policies, an international monetary system that did not pit the interests of countries against each other, and a high degree of freedom of trade. These ideas underlay Keynes's work during World War II that led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank at Bretton Woods in 1944, and later of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (subsequently the World Trade Organization).[38]
+Borrowing from the teachings of Norwegian theorist Johan Galtung, one of the pioneers of the field of Peace Research, on 'Positive Peace',[39] and on the writings of Maine Quaker Gray Cox, a consortium of theorists, activists, and practitioners in the experimental John Woolman College initiative have arrived at a theory of "active peace". This theory posits in part that peace is part of a triad, which also includes justice and wholeness (or well-being), an interpretation consonant with scriptural scholarly interpretations of the meaning of the early Hebrew word shalom.  Furthermore, the consortium have integrated Galtung's teaching of the meanings of the terms peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding, to also fit into a triadic and interdependent formulation or structure. Vermont Quaker John V. Wilmerding posits five stages of growth applicable to individuals, communities, and societies, whereby one transcends first the 'surface' awareness that most people have of these kinds of issues, emerging successively into acquiescence, pacifism, passive resistance, active resistance, and finally into active peace, dedicating themselves to peacemaking, peacekeeping or peace building.[40]
+One of the most influential theories of peace, especially since Woodrow Wilson led the creation of the League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, is that peace will be advanced if the intentional anarchy of states is replaced through the growth of international law promoted and enforced through international organizations such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, and other functional international organizations. One of the most important early exponents of this view was Sir Alfred Zimmern, for example in his 1936 book The League of Nations and the Rule of Law.[41]
+Many "idealist" thinkers about international relations – e.g. in the traditions of Kant and Karl Marx – have argued that the key to peace is the growth of some form of solidarity between peoples (or classes of people) spanning the lines of cleavage between nations or states that lead to war.[42]
+One version of this is the idea of promoting international understanding between nations through the international mobility of students – an idea most powerfully advanced by Cecil Rhodes in the creation of the Rhodes Scholarships, and his successors such as J. William Fulbright.[43]
+Another theory is that peace can be developed among countries on the basis of active management of water resources.[44]
+Following Wolfgang Dietrich, Wolfgang Sützl[45] and the Innsbruck School of Peace Studies, some peace thinkers have abandoned any single and all-encompassing definition of peace. Rather, they promote the idea of many peaces. They argue that since no singular, correct definition of peace can exist, peace should be perceived as a plurality. This post-modern understanding of peace(s) was based on the philosophy of Jean Francois Lyotard. It served as a fundament for the more recent concept of trans-rational peace(s) and elicitive conflict transformation.
+In 2008 Dietrich enlarged his approach of the many peaces to the so-called five families of peace interpretations: the energetic, moral, modern, post-modern and trans-rational approach.[46] Trans-rationality unites the rational and mechanistic understanding of modern peace in a relational and culture-based manner with spiritual narratives and energetic interpretations.[47] The systemic understanding of trans-rational peaces advocates a client-centred method of conflict transformation, the so-called elicitive approach.[48]
+Peace and conflict studies is an academic field which identifies and analyses violent and nonviolent behaviours, as well as the structural mechanisms attending violent and non-violent social conflicts.  This is to better understand the processes leading to a more desirable human condition.[49] One variation,
+Peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts. This contrasts with war studies (polemology), directed at the efficient attainment of victory in conflicts. Disciplines involved may include political science, geography, economics, psychology, sociology, international relations, history, anthropology, religious studies, and gender studies, as well as a variety of other disciplines.
+Although peace is widely perceived as something intangible, various organizations have been making efforts to quantify and measure it. The Global Peace Index produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace is a known effort to evaluate peacefulness in countries based on 23 indicators of the absence of violence and absence of the fear of violence.[50]
+The last edition of the Index ranks 163 countries on their internal and external levels of peace.[51] According to the 2017 Global Peace Index, Iceland is the most peaceful country in the world while Syria is the least peaceful one.[52] Fragile States Index (formerly known as the Failed States Index) created by the Fund for Peace focuses on risk for instability or violence in 178 nations. This index measures how fragile a state is by 12 indicators and subindicators that evaluate aspects of politics, social economy, and military facets in countries.[53] The 2015 Failed State Index reports that the most fragile nation is South Sudan, and the least fragile one is Finland.[54] University of Maryland publishes the Peace and Conflict Instability Ledger in order to measure peace. It grades 163 countries with 5 indicators, and pays the most attention to risk of political instability or armed conflict over a three-year period. The most recent ledger shows that the most peaceful country is Slovenia on the contrary Afghanistan is the most conflicted nation. Besides indicated above reports from the Institute for Economics and Peace, Fund for Peace, and University of Maryland, other organizations including George Mason University release indexes that rank countries in terms of peacefulness.
+The longest continuing period of peace and neutrality among currently existing states is observed in Sweden since 1814 and in Switzerland, which has had an official policy of neutrality since 1815. This was made possible partly by the periods of relative peace in Europe and the world known as Pax Britannica (1815–1914), Pax Europaea/Pax Americana (since 1950s), and Pax Atomica (also since the 1950s).
+Other examples of long periods of peace are:

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+The Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman Peace") is a roughly 200-year-long period in Roman history which is identified with increased and sustained inner hegemonial peace and stability (though not meaning without wars, expansion and revolts).  It is traditionally dated as commencing from the accession of Caesar Augustus, founder of the Roman principate, in 27 BC and concluding in 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "good emperors".[1] Since it was inaugurated by Augustus with the end of the Final War of the Roman Republic, it is sometimes called the Pax Augusta. During this period of approximately two centuries,[2] the Roman Empire achieved its greatest territorial extent and its population reached a maximum of up to 70 million people.[3] According to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the crisis of the third century, marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".[4]
+The Pax Romana is said to have been a "miracle" because prior to it there had never been peace for so many centuries in a given period of history. However, Walter Goffart wrote: "The volume of the Cambridge Ancient History for the years AD 70–192 is called 'The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages".[5] Arthur M. Eckstein writes that the period must be seen in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the Roman Republic in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Eckstein also notes that the incipient Pax Romana appeared during the Republic, and that its temporal span varied with geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous “Roman Peace” in the Mediterranean, are 31 BC to AD 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date: Sicily after 210 [BC], the Italian Peninsula after 200 [BC]; the Po Valley after 190 [BC]; most of the Iberian Peninsula after 133 [BC]; North Africa after 100 [BC]; and for ever longer stretches of time in the Greek East."[6]
+The first known record of the term Pax Romana appears in a writing by Seneca the Younger in AD 55.[7] The concept was highly influential, and the subject of theories and attempts to copy it in subsequent ages. Arnaldo Momigliano noted that "Pax Romana is a simple formula for propaganda, but a difficult subject for research."[8] In fact, the "Pax Romana" was broken by the First Jewish–Roman War, the Kitos War (also in Judea, 115–117), the Bar Kokhba Revolt (also known as the Third Jewish–Roman War), the Roman–Parthian War of 58–63, Trajan's Roman–Parthian War of 113, the Dacian Wars, various battles with Germanic tribes, including the Teutoburg Forest, and Boudica's war in Britain in AD 60 or 61.[citation needed]
+The Pax Romana began when Octavian (Augustus) defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC and became Roman emperor.[1][9][3] He became princeps, or first citizen. Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of civil war. The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in Hispania and in the Alps. Nevertheless, Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (a ceremony indicating that Rome was at peace) three times,[10] first in 29 BC and again in 25 BC. The third closure is undocumented, but Inez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BC with the commissioning of the Ara Pacis.[11][12][13]  At the time of the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BC the Concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BC was proclaimed when Augustus and Agrippa jointly returned from pacifying the provinces. The order to construct the Ara Pacis was no doubt part of this announcement.[citation needed]
+Augustus faced a problem making peace an acceptable mode of life for the Romans, who had been at war with one power or another continuously for 200 years.[12] Romans regarded peace, not as an absence of war, but the rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist.[8] Augustus' challenge was to persuade Romans that the prosperity they could achieve in the absence of warfare was better for the Empire than the potential wealth and honor acquired when fighting a risky war. Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda. Subsequent emperors followed his lead, sometimes producing lavish ceremonies to close the Gates of Janus, issuing coins with Pax on the reverse, and patronizing literature extolling the benefits of the Pax Romana.[12]
+After Augustus' death in AD 14, most of his successors as Roman emperors continued his politics.  The last five emperors of the Pax Romana were considered the "Five Good Emperors".[3]
+Roman trade in the Mediterranean increased during the Pax Romana.  Romans sailed East to acquire silks, gems, onyx and spices.  Romans benefited from large profits and incomes in the Roman empire were raised due to trade in the Mediterranean.[14][15]
+As the Pax Romana of the western world by Rome was largely contemporaneous to the Pax Sinica of the eastern world by Han China,[16][17] long-distance travel and trade in Eurasian history was significantly stimulated during these eras.[17]
+The prominence of the concept of the Pax Romana led to historians coining variants of the term to describe other systems of relative peace that have been established, attempted, or argued to have existed. Some variants include:[1]
+More generically, the concept has been referred to as pax imperia,[18][19] (sometimes spelled as pax imperium[20]) meaning imperial peace,[21][22]  or—less literally—hegemonic peace.[22][23] Raymond Aron notes that imperial peace—peace achieved through hegemony—sometimes, but not always—can become civil peace. As an example, the German Empire's imperial peace of 1871 (over its internal components like Saxony) slowly evolved into the later German state. As a counter-example, the imperial peace of Alexander the Great's empire dissolved because the Greek city states maintained their political identity and more importantly, embryos of their own armed forces. Aron notes that during the Pax Romana, the Jewish war was a reminder that the overlapping of the imperial institutions over the local ones did not erase them and the overlap was a source of tension and flare-ups. Aron summarizes that, "In other words, imperial peace becomes civil peace insofar as the memory of the previously independent political units are effaced, insofar as individuals within a pacified zone feel themselves less united to the traditional or local community and more to the conquering state."[21]
+The concept of Pax Romana was highly influential, and attempts to  imitate it occurred in the Byzantine Empire, and in the Christian West, where it morphed into the Peace and Truce of God (pax Dei and treuga Dei).[22] A theoretician of the imperial peace during the Middle Ages was Dante Aligheri. Dante's works on the topic were analyzed at the beginning of the 20th century by William Mitchell Ramsay in the book The Imperial Peace; An Ideal in European History (1913).[24][25]

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+The Royal Palace of Madrid (Spanish: Palacio Real de Madrid) is the official residence of the Spanish royal family at the city of Madrid, although now only used for state ceremonies.
+The palace has 135,000 square metres (1,450,000 sq ft) of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms.[1][2] It is the largest functioning royal palace and the largest by floor area in Europe.[3]
+King Felipe VI and the royal family do not reside in the palace, choosing instead the significantly more modest Palace of Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid.
+The palace is owned by the Spanish state and administered by the Patrimonio Nacional, a public agency of the Ministry of the Presidency.[4] The palace is located on Calle de Bailén ("Bailén Street") in the western part of downtown Madrid, east of the Manzanares River, and is accessible from the Ópera metro station. Several rooms in the palace are regularly open to the public except during state functions. An admission fee of €13 is required; however, some days it is free.
+The palace is located on the site of a 9th-century Moorish Alcázar, near the town of Magerit, constructed as an outpost by Muhammad I of Córdoba[5] and inherited after 1036 by the independent Moorish Taifa of Toledo. After Madrid fell to King Alfonso VI of Castile in 1083, the edifice was only rarely used by the kings of Castile. In 1329, King Alfonso XI of Castile convened the cortes of Madrid for the first time. King Felipe II moved his court to Madrid in 1561.
+The Castilian Alcázar was built on the location in the 16th century. After it burned 24 December 1734, King Felipe V ordered a new palace built on the same site. Construction spanned the years 1738 to 1755[6] and followed a Berniniesque design by Filippo Juvarra and Giovanni Battista Sacchetti in cooperation with Ventura Rodríguez, Francesco Sabatini, and Martín Sarmiento. King Carlos III first occupied the new palace in 1764.
+The last monarch who lived continuously in the palace was King Alfonso XIII, although Manuel Azaña, president of the Second Republic, also inhabited it, making him the last head of state to do so. During that period the palace was known as "Palacio Nacional". There is still a room next to the Real Capilla, which is known by the name "Office of Azaña".
+The interior of the palace is notable for its wealth of art and the use of many types of fine materials in the construction and the decoration of its rooms. It includes paintings by artists such as Caravaggio, Juan de Flandes, Francisco de Goya, and Velázquez, and frescoes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Corrado Giaquinto, and Anton Raphael Mengs. Other collections of great historical and artistic importance preserved in the building include the Royal Armoury of Madrid, porcelain, watches, furniture, silverware, and the world's only complete Stradivarius string quintet.
+The palace was initially built by Muhammad I, Umayyad Emir of Cordoba, between 860 and 880. After the Moors were driven out of Toledo in the 11th century, the castle retained its defensive function. Henry III of Castile added several towers. His son John II used it as a royal residence.[5] During the War of the Castilian Succession (1476) the troops of Joanna la Beltraneja were besieged in the Alcázar, during which the building suffered severe damage.
+The only drawing of the castle from the Middle Ages is one from 1534 by Cornelius Vermeyen.[5]
+Emperor Charles V, with the architects Alonso de Covarrubias and Luis de Vega, extended and renovated the castle in 1537. Philip II made Madrid his capital in 1561 and continued the renovations, with new additions. Philip III added a long southern facade between 1610 and 1636.
+Philip V of Bourbon renovated the royal apartments in 1700.[7] The Alcázar of the Habsburgs was austere in comparison to the Palace of Versailles where the new king had spent his childhood; and he began a series of redesigns mainly planned by Teodoro Ardemans and René Carlier, with the main rooms being redecorated by Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy and the Princess of Ursins in the style of French palaces.
+On Christmas Eve 1734, the Alcázar was destroyed by a fire that originated in the rooms of the French painter Jean Ranc. Response to the fire was delayed due to the warning bells being confused with the call to mass. For fear of looting, the doors of the building remained closed, hampering rescue efforts. Many works of art were lost, such as the Expulsion of the Moors, by Diego Velázquez. Others, such as Las Meninas, were rescued by tossing them out the windows. Fortunately, many pieces were saved because shortly before the blaze the king ordered that much of his collection be moved to the Buen Retiro Palace. This fire lasted four days and completely destroyed the old Alcázar, whose remaining walls were finally demolished in 1738.
+Italian architect Filippo Juvarra oversaw work on the new palace and devised a lavish project of enormous proportions inspired by Bernini's plans for Versailles. This plan was not realized, due to Juvarra's untimely death in March 1736.[9] His disciple Giambattista Sacchetti, also known as Juan Bautista Sacchetti or Giovanni Battista Sacchetti,[10] was chosen to continue the work of his mentor. Sacchetti designed the structure to encompass a large square courtyard and resolved sightline problems by creating projecting wings.
+In 1760, Charles III called upon Sicilian Francesco Sabatini,[11] a Neoclassical architect, to enlarge the building. Sabatini's original idea was to frame the Plaza de la Armería with a series of galleries and arcades, to accommodate various dependencies[clarification needed], by constructing two wings along the square. Only the extension of the southeast tower known as la de San Gil was completed. Sabatini also planned to extend the north side with a large wing that echoed the style of the main building and included three square courtyards that would be smaller than the large central courtyard. Work on this expansion started quickly but was soon interrupted, leaving the foundations buried under a platform on which the royal stables were later built. The stables were demolished in the 20th century and replaced by the Sabatini Gardens. Charles III first occupied the palace in 1764.
+In the 19th century, Ferdinand VII, who spent many years imprisoned in the Château de Valençay, began the most thorough renovation of the palace. The aim of this redesign was to turn the old-fashioned Italian-style building into a modern French-style palace. However, his grandson Alfonso XII proposed to turn the palace into a Victorian-style residence. Alfonso's plans were designed by the architect José Segundo de Lema and consisted of remodeling several rooms, replacing marble floors with parquet, and adding period furniture.
+In the twentieth century, restoration work was needed to repair damage suffered during the Spanish Civil War, by repairing or reinstalling decoration and decorative trim and replacing damaged walls with faithful reproductions of the originals.
+The main facade of the Palace, the one facing the Plaza de la Armeria, consists of a two-story rusticated stone base, from which rise Ionic columns on Tuscan pilasters framing the windows of the three main floors. The upper story is hidden behind a cornice which encircles the building and is capped with a large balustrade.  This was adorned with a series of statues of saints and kings, but these were relocated elsewhere under the reign of Charles III to give the building a more classical appearance.[12]
+The restoration of the facade in 1973, which includes Sabitini's balcony of four Doric columns, returned some of Sachetti's sculptures.  These include statues of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II and the Inca emperor Atahualpa, works by Juan Pascual de Mena and Domingo Martínez, respectively.  Representations of the Roman emperors Honorius, Theodosius I, and Arcadius by G.D. Olivieri, and Trajan by Felipe de Castro were placed in the Prince's courtyard.  Flanking Sabatini's clock the Statues of Philip V, Ferdinand VI, Barbara of Braganza and Maria Luisa of Savoy interspersed with The Rising Sun Following the Zodiac. Above the clock is the royal coat of arms flanked by angels, and, above that, bells that date from 1637 and 1761.[13][14]
+The square as it exists now was laid-out in 1892, according to a plan by the architect Enrique María Repullés.  However, the history of this square dates back to 1553, the year in which Philip II ordered a building to house the royal stables.
+The Almudena Cathedral faces the palace across the plaza. Its exterior is neo-classical to match its surroundings while its interior is neo-gothic. Construction was funded by King Alfonso XII to house the remains of his wife Mercedes of Orléans.[15] Construction of the church began in 1878 and concluded in 1992.
+Narciso Pascual Colomer, the same architect who crafted the Plaza de Oriente, designed the layout of the plaza in 1879, but failed to materialize.  The site now occupied by the Plaza de la Armería was used for many decades as anteplaza de armas. Sachetti tried to build a cathedral to finish the cornice of the Manzanares, and Sabatini proposed to unite this building with the royal palace, to form a single block. Both projects were ignored by Charles III.
+Ángel Fernández de los Ríos in 1868 proposed the creation of a large wooded area that would travel all around the Plaza de Oriente, in order to give a better view of the Royal Palace. A decade later Segundo de Lema added a staircase to the original design of Fernández, which led to the idea of Francisco de Cubas to give more importance to the emerging church of Almudena.
+The Plaza de Oriente is a rectangular park that connects the east facade of Palacio Real to the Teatro Real.  The eastern side of plaza is curved and bordered by several cafes in the adjoining buildings.  Although the plaza was part of Sacchetti's plan for the palace, construction did not begin until 1808 when King Joseph Bonaparte, who ordered the demolition of approximately 60 medieval structures, that included a church, monastery and royal library, located on the site.  Joseph was deposed before construction was completed, it was finished by Queen Isabella II who tasked architect Narciso Pascual Colomer with creating the final design in 1844.[16][17]
+Pathways divide the Plaza into three main plots: the Central Gardens, the Cabo Noval Gardens and the Lepanto Gardens.  The Central Gardens are arranged in a grid around the central monument to Philip IV, following the Baroque model garden. They consist of seven flowerbeds, each bordered with box hedges and holding small cypress, yew and magnolias and annual flowers. The north and south boundaries of the Central Gardens are marked by a row of statues, popularly known as the Gothic kings— sculptures representing five Visigoth rulers and fifteen rulers of the early Christian kingdoms in the Reconquista. They are carved from limestone, and are part of a series dedicated to all monarchs of Spain.  These were ordered for the decoration of the Palacio Real and were executed between 1750 and 1753.  Engineers felt the statues were too heavy for the palace balustrade, so they were left on ground level where their lack of fine detail is readily apparent.  The remainder of the statues are in the Sabatini Gardens.[18][19]
+Isabel II laid out the grounds so that Pietro Tacca's equestrian statue of Philip IV was placed in the center, opposite the Prince's Gate.[20]
+These gardens are so named because the Muslim leader Ali ben Yusuf allegedly camped here with his troops in 1109 during an attempted reconquest of Madrid. The first improvements to the area occurred under King Philip IV, who built fountains and planted various types of vegetation, but its overall look remained largely neglected.  During the construction of the palace various landscaping projects were put forth based on the gardens of the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, but lack of funds hampered further improvement until the reign of Isabel II who began work in earnest. Following the taste of the times, the park was designed in the Romanticist style.
+The Triton fountain from the Islet Garden of Aranjuez and the Fountain of the Shells from the Palace of the Infante Luis at Boadilla del Monte were aligned in the center of the right angled pathways by Isabel II, according to plans by Narciso Pascual Colomer.  Under the regency of Maria Christina of Austria, the park was reformed according to Ramon Oliva's romanticism plans.  Between the Fountain of Tritons and the palace is The Large Cavern or Grotto (Camellia House), built by Juan de Villanueva during the reign of Joseph Bonaparte.  Sacchetti's 1757-1758 Little Cavern or Grotto (Potato Room) is in front of the Parade Ground.[21][22]
+The Sabatini Gardens adjoin the north side of the Palacio real and extend to the calle de Bailén and the cuesta de San Vicente. The garden follows the symmetrical French design and work began in 1933, under the Republican government. Although they were designed by Zaragozan architect Fernando García Mercadal, they were named for Francesco Sabatini who designed the royal stables that previously occupied this site. These gardens feature a large rectangular pond which is surrounded by four fountains and statues of Spanish kings which were originally intended to crown the Royal Palace. Geometrically sited between its rides, there are several fountains.[23]
+The Republican government constructed the gardens to return the area from control of the royal family to the people, the public was not allowed in the gardens until 1978 when they were opened by King Juan Carlos I.[24]
+Built by Sabatini in 1789 when Charles IV wanted it moved to the opposite side of where Sabatini placed it in 1760, it is composed of a single piece of San Agustin marble.  Two lions grace the landing, one by Felipe de Castro and another by Robert Michel.  The frescoes on the ceiling is by Corrado Giaquinto and depicts Religion Protected by Spain.[25] On the ground floor is a statue of Charles III in Roman toga, with a similar statue on the first floor depicting Charles IV.  The four cartouches at the corners depict the elements of water, earth, air and fire.[26]
+The Royal Library was moved to the lower floor during the regency of Maria Christina.  The bookshelves date from the period of Charles III, Isabel II and Alfonso XII.[27]
+Highlights of the collection include the Book of hours of Isabella I of Castile, a codex of the time of Alfonso XI of Castile, a Bible of Doña María de Molina and the Fiestas reales, dedicated to Ferdinand VI by Farinelli. Also important are the maps kept in the library, which analyze the extent of the kingdoms under the Spanish Empire.  Also on display a selection of the best medals from the Royal Collection.
+The bookcovers demonstrate evolution of binding styles by era.  Examples in the holdings include Rococo in gold with iron lace, Neoclassical in polychrome and Romantic with Gothic and Renaissance motifs.
+The Archives of the Royal Palace contains approximately twenty thousand articles ranging from the Disastrous decade (1823-1833) to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931. In addition, it holds some scores of musicians of the Royal Chapel, privileges of various kings, the founding order of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the testament of Philip II and correspondence of most of the kings of the House of Bourbon.
+During the reign of Felipe II the Royal Pharmacy became an appendage of the royal household and ordered the supply of medicines, a role that continues today.
+The collection includes jars made by La Granja de San Ildefonso, 19th century, and Talavera de la Reina pottery, 18th century.[28]
+Along with the Imperial Armoury of Vienna, the armory is considered one of the best in the world and consists of pieces as early as the 13th century.  The building, designed by J.S. de Lema and E. Repulles, was opened in 1897[29]
+The collection highlights the tournament pieces made for Charles V and Philip II by the leading armourers of Milan and Augsburg. Among the most remarkable works are full armour and weapons that Emperor Charles V used in the Battle of Mühlberg, and which was portrayed by Titian in his famous equestrian portrait housed at the Museo del Prado. Unfortunately, parts of the collection were lost during the Peninsular War and during the Spanish Civil War.
+Still, the armoury retains some of the most important pieces of this art in Europe and the world, including a shield and burgonet by Francesco and Filippo Negroli, one of the most famous designers in the armourers' guild.[30]
+The Halberdier's Room, or Guard Room, was designed by Sabatini, and includes the fresco by Tiepolo, Venus and Vulcan.  Two paintings by Luca Giordano depict scenes from the life of Solomon.[31][32]
+The Hall of Columns has a ceiling fresco by Giaquinto, representing The Sun before Which All the Forces of Nature Awaken and Rejoice, an allegory of the king as Apollo.  An 1878 bronze statue of Charles V Vanquishing Fury is by Ferdinand Barbedienne.  The bronze chandeliers were made in Paris in 1846, and installed by Isbella II for her balls.[33][34]
+The Throne Room dates from Charles III in 1772, and features Tiepolo's ceiling fresco, The Apotheosis of the Spanish Monarchy.  Bronze sculptures include the Four Cardinal Virtues, four of the Seven Planets, Satyr, Germanicus, and four Medici lions flanking the dual throne.[35][36]
+Charles III's Anteroom (Saleta) contains a 1774 ceiling fresco Apotheosis of Trajan by A.R. Mengs.  The Antechamber of Charles III (The Conversation Room) also contains a ceiling fresco by Mengs, The Apotheosis of Hercules.  This room has four royal family portraits by Goya.[37][38]
+Formerly the queen's apartments under Charles III, the three rooms were converted into a banquet hall by Alfonso XII in 1879, and completed in 1885.  The three ceiling frescoes remained though, Dawn in Her Chariot by Raphael Mengs, Christopher Columbus Offering the New World to the Catholic Monarchs by Alejandro González Velázquez, and Boabdil Giving the Keys to Granada to the Catholic Monarchs by Francisco Bayeu y Subías.[39][40]
+These rooms were formerly occupied by Infante Luis, Count of Chinchón before his exile.  The Stradivarius Room now contains a viola, two viloncello, and two violins by Stradivari.  The ceiling fresco by A. G. Velazquez, depicts Gentleness accompanied by the Four Cardinal Virtues.[41]
+The Chamber of the Infante Luis, Musical Instruments Room, has a ceiling fresco by Francisco Bayeu depicting Providence Presiding over the Virtues and Faculties of Man.[42]
+Designed in 1748 by Sacchetti and Ventura Rodríguez, the chapel features ceiling frescoes by Giaquinto, including The Trinity, Allegory of Religion, Glory and the Holy Trinity Crowning the Virgin.  Above the High Altar is Ramon Bayeu's St. Michael.  The reliquary altar has Ercole Ferrata's 1659 silver relief Pope Leo I Stopping Attila at the Gates of Rome.[43][44]
+Formerly the apartment of Alfonso XIII's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, the room contains Charles III's throne, scepter and crown.  Tapestries from Jacopo Amigoni's Four Seasons adorn the walls.  Also of note are the abdication speech of Juan Carlos I and the proclamation speech of Felipe VI.[45]
+The Gasparini Room, Royal Palace, Madrid, Spain, 1927
+The Porcelain Room, Royal Palace, Madrid, 1927
+Salon of Charles III, Royal Palace, Madrid, 1927
+Spanish Royal Crown and Scepter
+The wedding banquet of Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz took place on 22 May 2004 in the central courtyard of the palace.

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+Coordinates: 51°30′3″N 0°8′31″W / 51.50083°N 0.14194°W / 51.50083; -0.14194
+Buckingham Palace (UK: /ˈbʌkɪŋəm/[1][2]) is the London residence and administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom.[a][3] Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focal point for the British people at times of national rejoicing and mourning.
+Originally known as Buckingham House, the building at the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 on a site that had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was acquired by King George III in 1761[4] as a private residence for Queen Charlotte and became known as The Queen's House. During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, who constructed three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.
+The last major structural additions were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the East Front, which contains the well-known balcony on which the royal family traditionally congregates to greet crowds. A German bomb destroyed the palace chapel during World War II; the Queen's Gallery was built on the site and opened to the public in 1962 to exhibit works of art from the Royal Collection.
+The original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which survive, include widespread use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis, on the advice of Sir Charles Long. King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle Époque cream and gold colour scheme. Many smaller reception rooms are furnished in the Chinese regency style with furniture and fittings brought from the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and from Carlton House. The palace has 775 rooms, and the garden is the largest private garden in London. The state rooms, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public each year for most of August and September and on some days in winter and spring.
+In the Middle Ages, the site of the future palace formed part of the Manor of Ebury (also called Eia). The marshy ground was watered by the river Tyburn, which still flows below the courtyard and south wing of the palace.[5] Where the river was fordable (at Cow Ford), the village of Eye Cross grew. Ownership of the site changed hands many times; owners included Edward the Confessor and his queen consort Edith of Wessex in late Saxon times, and, after the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror. William gave the site to Geoffrey de Mandeville, who bequeathed it to the monks of Westminster Abbey.[b]
+In 1531, Henry VIII acquired the Hospital of St James, which became St James's Palace,[6] from Eton College, and in 1536 he took the Manor of Ebury from Westminster Abbey.[7] These transfers brought the site of Buckingham Palace back into royal hands for the first time since William the Conqueror had given it away almost 500 years earlier.[8]
+Various owners leased it from royal landlords, and the freehold was the subject of frenzied speculation during the 17th century. By then, the old village of Eye Cross had long since fallen into decay, and the area was mostly wasteland.[9] Needing money, James I sold off part of the Crown freehold but retained part of the site on which he established a 4-acre (1.6 ha) mulberry garden for the production of silk. (This is at the north-west corner of today's palace.)[10] Clement Walker in Anarchia Anglicana (1649) refers to "new-erected sodoms and spintries at the Mulberry Garden at S. James's"; this suggests it may have been a place of debauchery. Eventually, in the late 17th century, the freehold was inherited from the property tycoon Sir Hugh Audley by the great heiress Mary Davies.[c]
+Possibly the first house erected within the site was that of a Sir William Blake, around 1624.[11] The next owner was Lord Goring, who from 1633 extended Blake's house and developed much of today's garden, then known as Goring Great Garden.[12][13] He did not, however, obtain the freehold interest in the mulberry garden. Unbeknown to Goring, in 1640 the document "failed to pass the Great Seal before King Charles I fled London, which it needed to do for legal execution".[14] It was this critical omission that helped the British royal family regain the freehold under King George III.[15]
+When the improvident Goring defaulted on his rents[16] Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington was able to purchase the lease of Goring House and he was occupying it when it burned down in 1674,[13] following which he constructed Arlington House on the site—the location of the southern wing of today's palace—the next year.[13] In 1698, John Sheffield, later the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, acquired the lease.[17]
+The house which forms the architectural core of the palace was built for the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1703 to the design of William Winde. The style chosen was of a large, three-floored central block with two smaller flanking service wings.[18] Buckingham House was eventually sold by Buckingham's illegitimate son, Sir Charles Sheffield, in 1761[4] to George III for £21,000.[19][d] Sheffield's leasehold on the mulberry garden site, the freehold of which was still owned by the royal family, was due to expire in 1774.[20]
+Under the new Crown ownership, the building was originally intended as a private retreat for King George III's wife, Queen Charlotte, and was accordingly known as The Queen's House. Remodelling of the structure began in 1762.[21] In 1775, an Act of Parliament settled the property on Queen Charlotte, in exchange for her rights to Somerset House,[22][e] and 14 of her 15 children were born there. Some furnishings were transferred from Carlton House, and others had been bought in France after the French Revolution[23] of 1789. While St James's Palace remained the official and ceremonial royal residence,[22] the name "Buckingham-palace" was used from at least 1791.[24]
+After his accession to the throne in 1820, King George IV continued the renovation with the idea in mind of a small, comfortable home. However, in 1826, while the work was in progress, the King decided to modify the house into a palace with the help of his architect John Nash.[25] The external façade was designed, keeping in mind the French neo-classical influence preferred by George IV. The cost of the renovations grew dramatically, and by 1829 the extravagance of Nash's designs resulted in his removal as the architect. On the death of George IV in 1830, his younger brother King William IV hired Edward Blore to finish the work.[26][27] After the destruction of the Palace of Westminster by fire in 1834, William considered converting the palace into the new Houses of Parliament.[28]
+Buckingham Palace finally became the principal royal residence in 1837, on the accession of Queen Victoria,[29] who was the first monarch to reside there; her predecessor William IV had died before its completion.[30] While the state rooms were a riot of gilt and colour, the necessities of the new palace were somewhat less luxurious. For one thing, it was reported the chimneys smoked so much that the fires had to be allowed to die down, and consequently the palace was often cold.[31] Ventilation was so bad that the interior smelled, and when it was decided to install gas lamps, there was a serious worry about the build-up of gas on the lower floors. It was also said that staff were lax and lazy and the palace was dirty.[31] Following the Queen's marriage in 1840, her husband, Prince Albert, concerned himself with a reorganisation of the household offices and staff, and with addressing the design faults of the palace.[32] By the end of 1840, all the problems had been rectified. However, the builders were to return within the decade.[32]
+By 1847, the couple had found the palace too small for court life and their growing family,[33] and consequently the new wing, designed by Edward Blore, was built by Thomas Cubitt,[34] enclosing the central quadrangle. The large East Front, facing The Mall, is today the "public face" of Buckingham Palace, and contains the balcony from which the royal family acknowledge the crowds on momentous occasions and after the annual Trooping the Colour.[35] The ballroom wing and a further suite of state rooms were also built in this period, designed by Nash's student Sir James Pennethorne.[36]
+Before Prince Albert's death, the palace was frequently the scene of musical entertainments,[37] and the most celebrated contemporary musicians entertained at Buckingham Palace. The composer Felix Mendelssohn is known to have played there on three occasions.[38] Johann Strauss II and his orchestra played there when in England.[39] Under Victoria, Buckingham Palace was frequently the scene of lavish costume balls, in addition to the usual royal ceremonies, investitures and presentations.[40]
+Widowed in 1861, the grief-stricken Queen withdrew from public life and left Buckingham Palace to live at Windsor Castle, Balmoral Castle and Osborne House. For many years the palace was seldom used, even neglected. In 1864, a note was found pinned to the fence of Buckingham Palace, saying: "These commanding premises to be let or sold, in consequence of the late occupant's declining business."[41] Eventually, public opinion persuaded the Queen to return to London, though even then she preferred to live elsewhere whenever possible. Court functions were still held at Windsor Castle, presided over by the sombre Queen habitually dressed in mourning black, while Buckingham Palace remained shuttered for most of the year.[42]
+The front of the palace measures 355 feet (108 m) across, by 390 ft (120 m) deep, by 80 ft (24 m) high and contains over 830,000 sq ft (77,000 m2) of floorspace.[43] There are 775 rooms, including 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, 78 bathrooms, 52 principal bedrooms, and 19 state rooms. It also has a post office, cinema, swimming pool, doctor's surgery,[44] and jeweller's workshop.[45]
+The principal rooms are contained on the piano nobile behind the west-facing garden façade at the rear of the palace. The centre of this ornate suite of state rooms is the Music Room, its large bow the dominant feature of the façade. Flanking the Music Room are the Blue and the White Drawing Rooms. At the centre of the suite, serving as a corridor to link the state rooms, is the Picture Gallery, which is top-lit and 55 yards (50 m) long.[46] The Gallery is hung with numerous works including some by Rembrandt, van Dyck, Rubens and Vermeer;[47] other rooms leading from the Picture Gallery are the Throne Room and the Green Drawing Room. The Green Drawing Room serves as a huge anteroom to the Throne Room, and is part of the ceremonial route to the throne from the Guard Room at the top of the Grand Staircase.[46] The Guard Room contains white marble statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in Roman costume, set in a tribune lined with tapestries. These very formal rooms are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining but are open to the public every summer.[48]
+Directly underneath the State Apartments are the less grand semi-state apartments. Opening from the Marble Hall, these rooms are used for less formal entertaining, such as luncheon parties and private audiences. Some of the rooms are named and decorated for particular visitors, such as the 1844 Room, decorated in that year for the state visit of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, and the 1855 Room, in honour of the visit of Emperor Napoleon III of France.[49] At the centre of this suite is the Bow Room, through which thousands of guests pass annually to the Queen's garden parties.[50] The Queen and Prince Philip use a smaller suite of rooms in the north wing.[51]
+Between 1847 and 1850, when Blore was building the new east wing, the Brighton Pavilion was once again plundered of its fittings. As a result, many of the rooms in the new wing have a distinctly oriental atmosphere. The red and blue Chinese Luncheon Room is made up from parts of the Brighton Banqueting and Music Rooms with a large oriental chimney piece designed by Robert Jones and sculpted by Richard Westmacott.[52] It was formerly in the Music Room at the Brighton Pavilion.[52] The ornate clock, known as the Kylin Clock, was made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, in the second half of the 18th century; it has a later movement by Benjamin Vulliamy circa 1820.[53] The Yellow Drawing Room has wallpaper supplied in 1817 for the Brighton Saloon, and a chimney piece which is a European vision of how the Chinese chimney piece may appear. It has nodding mandarins in niches and fearsome winged dragons, designed by Robert Jones.[54]
+At the centre of this wing is the famous balcony with the Centre Room behind its glass doors. This is a Chinese-style saloon enhanced by Queen Mary, who, working with the designer Sir Charles Allom, created a more "binding"[55] Chinese theme in the late 1920s, although the lacquer doors were brought from Brighton in 1873. Running the length of the piano nobile of the east wing is the Great Gallery, modestly known as the Principal Corridor, which runs the length of the eastern side of the quadrangle.[56] It has mirrored doors and mirrored cross walls reflecting porcelain pagodas and other oriental furniture from Brighton. The Chinese Luncheon Room and Yellow Drawing Room are situated at each end of this gallery, with the Centre Room in between.[57]
+The original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which still survive, included widespread use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis, on the advice of Sir Charles Long. King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle époque cream and gold colour scheme.[58]
+When paying a state visit to Britain, foreign heads of state are usually entertained by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. They are allocated an extensive  suite of rooms known as the Belgian Suite, situated at the foot of the Minister's Staircase, on the ground floor of the north-facing Garden Wing. Narrow corridors link the rooms of the suite, one of them is given extra height and perspective by saucer domes designed by Nash in the style of Soane.[59] A second corridor in the suite has Gothic-influenced cross-over vaulting.[59] The Belgian Rooms themselves were decorated in their present style and named after King Leopold I of Belgium, uncle of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In 1936, the suite briefly became the private apartments of the palace when King Edward VIII occupied them.[44]
+Investitures, which include the conferring of knighthoods by dubbing with a sword, and other awards take place in the palace's Ballroom, built in 1854. At 120 ft (36.6 m) long, 60 ft (18 m) wide and 45 ft (13.5 m) high,[44] it is the largest room in the palace. It has replaced the throne room in importance and use. During investitures, the Queen stands on the throne dais beneath a giant, domed velvet canopy, known as a shamiana or a baldachin, that was used at the Delhi Durbar in 1911.[60] A military band plays in the musicians' gallery as award recipients approach the Queen and receive their honours, watched by their families and friends.[61]
+State banquets also take place in the Ballroom; these formal dinners are held on the first evening of a state visit by a foreign head of state.[61] On these occasions, for up to 170 guests in formal "white tie and decorations", including tiaras, the dining table is laid with the Grand Service, a collection of silver-gilt plate made in 1811 for the Prince of Wales, later George IV.[62] The largest and most formal reception at Buckingham Palace takes place every November when the Queen entertains members of the diplomatic corps.[63] On this grand occasion, all the state rooms are in use, as the royal family proceed through them,[64] beginning at the great north doors of the Picture Gallery. As Nash had envisaged, all the large, double-mirrored doors stand open, reflecting the numerous crystal chandeliers and sconces, creating a deliberate optical illusion of space and light.[65]
+Smaller ceremonies such as the reception of new ambassadors take place in the "1844 Room". Here too, the Queen holds small lunch parties, and often meetings of the Privy Council. Larger lunch parties often take place in the curved and domed Music Room or the State Dining Room.[66] Since the bombing of the palace chapel in World War II, royal christenings have sometimes taken place in the Music Room. The Queen's first three children were all baptised there.[67] On all formal occasions, the ceremonies are attended by the Yeomen of the Guard, in their historic uniforms, and other officers of the court such as the Lord Chamberlain.[66]
+Formerly, men not wearing military uniform wore knee breeches of 18th-century design. Women's evening dress included trains and tiaras or feathers in their hair (often both). The dress code governing formal court uniform and dress has progressively relaxed. After the First World War, when Queen Mary wished to follow fashion by raising her skirts a few inches from the ground, she requested a lady-in-waiting to shorten her own skirt first to gauge the King's reaction. King George V disapproved, so the Queen kept her hemline unfashionably low.[68] Following his accession in 1936, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth allowed the hemline of daytime skirts to rise. Today, there is no official dress code.[44] Most men invited to Buckingham Palace in the daytime choose to wear service uniform or lounge suits;[44] a minority wear morning coats, and in the evening, depending on the formality of the occasion, black tie or white tie.[69]
+Débutantes were aristocratic young ladies making their first entrée into society through a presentation to the monarch at court. These occasions, known as "coming out", took place at the palace from the reign of Edward VII. The débutantes entered—wearing full court dress, with three ostrich feathers in their hair—curtsied, performed a backwards walk and a further curtsey, while manoeuvring a dress train of prescribed length. The ceremony, known as an evening court, corresponded to the "court drawing rooms" of Victoria's reign.[70] After World War II, the ceremony was replaced by less formal afternoon receptions, omitting the requirement court evening dress.[71] In 1958, the Queen abolished the presentation parties for débutantes,[72] replacing them with Garden Parties,[f] for up to 8,000 invitees in the Garden. They are the largest functions of the year.[74]
+The boy Jones was an intruder who gained entry to the palace on three occasions between 1838 and 1841.[75][76] At least 12 people have managed to gain unauthorised entry into the palace or its grounds since 1914,[77] including Michael Fagan, who broke into the palace twice in 1982 and entered the Queen's bedroom on the second occasion. At the time, news media reported that he had a long conversation with the Queen while she waited for security officers to arrive, but in a 2012 interview with The Independent, Fagan said the Queen ran out of the room, and no conversation took place.[78] It was only in 2007 that trespassing on the palace grounds became a specific criminal offence.[79][g]
+At the rear of the palace is the large and park-like garden, which together with its lake is the largest private garden in London.[82] There, the Queen hosts her annual garden parties each summer and also holds large functions to celebrate royal milestones, such as jubilees. It covers 40 acres (16 ha) and includes a helicopter landing area, a lake, and a tennis court.[44]
+Adjacent to the palace is the Royal Mews, also designed by Nash, where the royal carriages, including the Gold State Coach, are housed. This rococo gilt coach, designed by Sir William Chambers in 1760, has painted panels by G. B. Cipriani. It was first used for the State Opening of Parliament by George III in 1762 and has been used by the monarch for every coronation since George IV. It was last used for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II.[83] Also housed in the mews are the coach horses used at royal ceremonial processions.[84]
+The Mall, a ceremonial approach route to the palace, was designed by Sir Aston Webb and completed in 1911 as part of a grand memorial to Queen Victoria. It extends from Admiralty Arch, across St James's Park to the Victoria Memorial. This route is used by the cavalcades and motorcades of visiting heads of state, and by the royal family on state occasions—such as the annual Trooping the Colour.[85]
+In 1901, the accession of Edward VII saw new life breathed into the palace. The King and his wife, Queen Alexandra, had always been at the forefront of London high society, and their friends, known as "the Marlborough House Set", were considered to be the most eminent and fashionable of the age. Buckingham Palace—the Ballroom, Grand Entrance, Marble Hall, Grand Staircase, vestibules and galleries redecorated in the Belle Époque cream and gold colour scheme they retain today—once again became a setting for entertaining on a majestic scale but leaving some to feel King Edward's heavy redecorations were at odds with Nash's original work.[86]
+The last major building work took place during the reign of King George V when, in 1913, Sir Aston Webb redesigned Blore's 1850 East Front to resemble in part Giacomo Leoni's Lyme Park in Cheshire. This new, refaced principal façade (of Portland stone) was designed to be the backdrop to the Victoria Memorial, a large memorial statue of Queen Victoria, placed outside the main gates.[87] George V, who had succeeded Edward VII in 1910, had a more serious personality than his father; greater emphasis was now placed on official entertaining and royal duties than on lavish parties.[88] He arranged a series of command performances featuring jazz musicians such as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1919; the first jazz performance for a head of state), Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong (1932), which earned the palace a nomination in 2009 for a (Kind of) Blue Plaque by the Brecon Jazz Festival as one of the venues making the greatest contribution to jazz music in the United Kingdom.[89][90] King George V's wife, Queen Mary, was a connoisseur of the arts, and took a keen interest in the Royal Collection of furniture and art, both restoring and adding to it. Queen Mary also had many new fixtures and fittings installed, such as the pair of marble Empire style chimneypieces by Benjamin Vulliamy, dating from 1810, which the Queen had installed in the ground floor Bow Room, the huge low room at the centre of the garden façade. Queen Mary was also responsible for the decoration of the Blue Drawing Room.[91] This room, 69 feet (21 metres) long, previously known as the South Drawing Room, has a ceiling designed by Nash, coffered with huge gilt console brackets.[92]
+During World War I, the palace, then the home of King George V and Queen Mary, escaped unscathed. Its more valuable contents were evacuated to Windsor, but the royal family remained in residence. The King imposed rationing at the palace, much to the dismay of his guests and household.[93] To the King's later regret, David Lloyd George persuaded him to go further and ostentatiously lock the wine cellars and refrain from alcohol, to set a good example to the supposedly inebriated working class. The workers continued to imbibe, and the King was left unhappy at his enforced abstinence.[94] In 1938, the north-west pavilion, designed by Nash as a conservatory, was converted into a swimming pool.[95]
+During World War II, the palace was bombed nine times;[96] the most serious and publicised incident destroyed the palace chapel in 1940. This event was shown in cinemas throughout the UK to show the common suffering of rich and poor. One bomb fell in the palace quadrangle while King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were in the palace, and many windows were blown in and the chapel destroyed.[97] War-time coverage of such incidents was severely restricted, however. The King and Queen were filmed inspecting their bombed home, the smiling Queen, as always, immaculately dressed in a hat and matching coat seemingly unbothered by the damage around her. It was at this time the Queen famously declared: "I'm glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face." The royal family were seen as sharing their subjects' hardship, as The Sunday Graphic reported:
+By the Editor: The King and Queen have endured the ordeal which has come to their subjects. For the second time a German bomber has tried to bring death and destruction to the home of Their Majesties ... When this war is over the common danger which King George and Queen Elizabeth have shared with their people will be a cherished memory and an inspiration through the years.[98]
+On 15 September 1940, known as the Battle of Britain Day, an RAF pilot, Ray Holmes of No. 504 Squadron RAF rammed a German Dornier Do 17 bomber he believed was going to bomb the Palace. Holmes had run out of ammunition and made the quick decision to ram it. Holmes bailed out and the aircraft crashed into the forecourt of London Victoria station.[99] The bomber's engine was later exhibited at the Imperial War Museum in London. The British pilot became a King's Messenger after the war and died at the age of 90 in 2005.[100]
+On VE Day—8 May 1945—the palace was the centre of British celebrations. The King, the Queen, Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen), and Princess Margaret appeared on the balcony, with the palace's blacked-out windows behind them, to cheers from a vast crowd in The Mall.[101] The damaged Palace was carefully restored after the war by John Mowlem & Co.[102] It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1970.[103]
+Every year, some 50,000 invited guests are entertained at garden parties, receptions, audiences, and banquets. Three garden parties are held in the summer, usually in July.[104] The forecourt of Buckingham Palace is used for the Changing of the Guard, a major ceremony and tourist attraction (daily from April to July; every other day in other months).[105]
+The palace, like Windsor Castle, is owned by the reigning monarch in right of the Crown. It is not the monarch's personal property, unlike Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle.[106] Many of the contents of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, and St James's Palace are part of the Royal Collection, held in trust by the Sovereign; they can, on occasion, be viewed by the public at the Queen's Gallery, near the Royal Mews. Unlike the palace and the castle, the purpose-built gallery is open continually and displays a changing selection of items from the collection.[107] It occupies the site of the chapel destroyed by an air raid in World War II.[17] The palace's state rooms have been open to the public during August and September and on some dates throughout the year since 1993. The money raised in entry fees was originally put towards the rebuilding of Windsor Castle after the 1992 fire devastated many of its state rooms.[108] In the year to 31 March 2017, 580,000 people visited the palace, and 154,000 visited the gallery.[109]
+Her Majesty's Government is responsible for maintaining the palace in exchange for the profits made by the Crown Estate.[110] In November 2015, the State Dining Room was closed for six months because its ceiling had become potentially dangerous.[111] A 10-year schedule of maintenance work, including new plumbing, wiring, boilers, and radiators, and the installation of solar panels on the roof, has been estimated to cost £369 million and was approved by the prime minister in November 2016. It will be funded by a temporary increase in the Sovereign Grant paid from the income of the Crown Estate and is intended to extend the building's working life by at least 50 years.[112][113] In March 2017, the House of Commons backed funding for the project by 464 votes to 56.[114]
+Buckingham Palace is a symbol and home of the British monarchy, an art gallery, and a tourist attraction. Behind the gilded railings and gates that were completed by the Bromsgrove Guild in 1911[42] and Webb's famous façade, which has been described in a book published by the Royal Collection Trust as looking "like everybody's idea of a palace",[42] is not only a weekday home of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip but also the London residence of the Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex. The palace also houses their offices, as well as those of the Princess Royal and Princess Alexandra, and is the workplace of more than 800 people.[44][115]

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+The Palace of Versailles (/vɛərˈsaɪ, vɜːrˈsaɪ/ vair-SY, vur-SY;[1] French: Château de Versailles [ʃɑto d(ə) vɛʁsɑj] (listen)) was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It is located in the department of Yvelines, in the region of Île-de-France, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the centre of Paris.[2]
+A simple hunting lodging and later a small château with a moat occupied the site until 1661, when the first work expanding the château into a palace was carried out for Louis XIV. In 1682, when the palace had become large enough, the king moved the entire royal court and the French government to Versailles. Some of the palace furniture at this time was constructed of solid silver, but in 1689 much of it was melted down to pay for the cost of war. Subsequent rulers mostly carried out interior remodeling, to meet the demands of changing taste, although Louis XV did install an opera house at the north end of the north wing for the wedding of the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette in 1770. The palace has also been a site of historical importance. The Peace of Paris (1783) was signed at Versailles, the Proclamation of the German Empire occurred in the vaunted Hall of Mirrors, and World War I was ended in the palace with the Treaty of Versailles, among many other events.
+The palace is now a historical monument and UNESCO World Heritage site, notable especially for the ceremonial Hall of Mirrors, the jewel-like Royal Opera, and the royal apartments; for the more intimate royal residences, the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon located within the park; the small rustic Hameau (Hamlet) created for Marie Antoinette; and the vast Gardens of Versailles with fountains, canals, and geometric flower beds and groves, laid out by André le Nôtre. The Palace was stripped of all its furnishings after the French Revolution, but many pieces have been returned and many of the palace rooms have been restored.
+In 2017 the Palace of Versailles received 7,700,000 visitors, making it the second-most visited monument in the Île-de-France region, just behind the Louvre and ahead of the Eiffel Tower.[3]
+The site of the Palace was first occupied by a small village and church, surrounded by forests filled with abundant game. It was owned by the Gondi family and the priory of Saint Julian. King Henry IV went hunting there in 1589, and returned in 1604 and 1609, staying in the village inn. His son, the future Louis XIII, came on his own hunting trip there in 1607. After he became King in 1610, Louis XIII returned to the village, bought some land, and in 1623-24 built a modest two-story hunting lodge on the site of the current marble courtyard.[4] He was staying there in November 1630 during the event known as the Day of the Dupes, when the enemies of the King's chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, aided by the King's mother, Marie de' Medici, tried to take over the government. The King defeated the plot and sent his mother into exile.[5]
+After this event, Louis XIII decided to make his hunting lodge at Versailles into a château. The King purchased the surrounding territory from the Gondi family and in 1631–1634 had the architect Philibert Le Roy replace the hunting lodge with a château of brick and stone with classical pilasters in the doric style and high slate-covered roofs, surrounding the courtyard of the original hunting lodge. The gardens and park were also enlarged, laid out by Jacques Boyceau and his nephew, Jacques de Menours (1591–1637), and reached essentially the size they have today.[a][4][6][7]
+Louis XIV first visited the château on a hunting trip in 1651 at the age of twelve, but returned only occasionally until his marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660 and the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, after which he suddenly acquired a passion for the site.[8] He decided to rebuild, embellish and enlarge the château and to transform it into a setting for both rest and for elaborate entertainments on a grand scale.[6][9]
+The first phase of the expansion (c. 1661–1678) was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau. Initially he added two wings to the forecourt, one for servants quarters and kitchens, the other for stables.[10] In 1668 he added three new wings built of stone, known as the envelope, to the north, south and west (the garden side) of the original château. These buildings had nearly-flat roofs covered with lead. The king also commissioned the landscape designer André Le Nôtre to create the most magnificent gardens in Europe, embellished with fountains, statues, basins, canals, geometric flower beds and groves of trees. He also added two grottos in the Italian style and an immense orangerie to house fruit trees, as well as a zoo with a central pavilion for exotic animals.[6] After Le Vau's death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant François d'Orbay.[11]
+The entrance in 1668 during the first reconstruction (painting by Pierre Patel)
+The garden façade in 1674. The terrace was later replaced by the Hall of Mirrors
+The main floor (above the ground floor) of the new palace contained two symmetrical sets of apartments, one for the king and the other for the queen, looking over the gardens. The two apartments were separated by a marble terrace, overlooking the garden, with a fountain in the center. Each set of apartments was connected to the ground floor with a ceremonial stairway, and each had seven rooms, aligned in a row; a vestibule, a room for the guards, an antechamber, chamber, a large cabinet or office; a smaller bedroom, and a smaller cabinet. On the ground floor under the King's apartment was another apartment, the same size, designed for his private life, and decorated on the theme of Apollo, the Sun god, his personal emblem. Under the Queen's apartment was the apartment of the Grand Dauphin, the heir to the throne.[12]
+The interior decoration was assigned to Charles Le Brun. Le Brun supervised the work of a large group of sculptors and painters, called the Petite Academie, who crafted and painted the ornate walls and ceilings.[12] In the 1670s and 1680s, 10 million livres worth of solid silver furniture was commissioned to designs by Le Brun, including tubs for Louis XIV's orange trees, an 8 foot high sculpted throne, and a silver balustrade in the Salon of Mercury.[13][14] These items were melted down in 1689 to contribute to the cost of fighting the Nine Years' War.[15][16][17]
+Le Brun also supervised the design and installation of countless statues in the gardens.[18] The grand stairway to the King's apartment was soon redecorated almost as soon as it was completed with plaques of colored marble and trophies of arms, tapestries, and balconies, so the members of the court could observe the processions of the King.[12]
+In 1670, Le Vau added a new pavilion northwest of the chateau, called the Trianon, for the King's relaxation in the hot summers. It was surrounded by flowerbeds and decorated entirely with blue and white porcelain, in imitation of the Chinese style.[19]
+The King increasingly spent his days in Versailles, and the government, court, and courtiers, numbering six to seven thousand persons, crowded into the buildings. The King ordered a further enlargement, which he entrusted to the young architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Hadouin-Mansart added two large new wings on either side of the original Cour Royale (Royal Courtyard). He also replaced Le Vau's large terrace, facing the garden on the west, with what became the most famous room of the palace, the Hall of Mirrors. Mansart also built the Petites Écuries and Grandes Écuries (stables) across the Place d'Armes, on the eastern side of the château. The King wished a quiet place to relax away from the ceremony of the Court. In 1687 Hardouin-Mansart began the Grand Trianon, or Trianon de Marbre (Marble Trianon), replacing Le Vau's 1668 Trianon de Porcelaine in the northern section of the park. In 1682 Louis XIV was able to proclaim Versailles his principal residence and the seat of the government and was able to give rooms in the palace to almost all of his courtiers.[20]
+After the death of Maria Theresa of Spain in 1683, Louis XIV undertook the enlargement and remodeling of the royal apartments in the original part of the palace, within the former hunting lodge built by his father. He instructed Mansart to begin the construction of the Royal Chapel of Versailles, which towered over the rest of the palace. Hardouin-Mansart died in 1708 and so the chapel was completed by his assistant Robert de Cotte in 1710.[21]
+Louis XIV died in 1715, and the young new King, Louis XV, just five years old, and his government were moved temporarily from Versailles to Paris under the regency of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. In 1722, when the King came of age, he moved his residence and the government back to Versailles, where it remained until the French Revolution in 1789.[20] Louis XV remained faithful to the original plan of his great-grandfather, and made few changes to the exteriors of Versailles. His main contributions were the construction of the Salon of Hercules, which connected the main building of the Palace with the north wing and the chapel (1724–36); and the royal opera theater, designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and built between 1769 and 1770. The new theater was completed in time for the celebration of the wedding of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria. He also made numerous additions and changes to the royal apartments, where he, the Queen, his daughters, and his heir lived. In 1738, Louis XV remodeled the king's petit appartement on the north side of the Cour de Marbre, originally the entrance court of the old château. He discreetly provided accommodations in another part of the palace for his famous mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and later Madame du Barry.
+The extension of the King's petit appartement necessitated the demolition of the Ambassador's Staircase, one of the most admired features of Louis XIV's palace, which left the Palace without a grand staircase entrance.[22] The following year Louis XV ordered the demolition of the north wing facing onto the Cour Royale, which had fallen into serious disrepair.[23] He commissioned Gabriel to rebuild it in a more neoclassical style. The new wing was completed in 1780.[24]
+Louis XVI was constrained by the worsening financial situation of the kingdom from making major changes to the palace, so that he primarily focused on improvements to the royal apartments.[25] Louis XVI gave Marie Antoinette the Petit Trianon in 1774. The Queen made extensive changes to the interior, and added a theater, the Théâtre de la Reine. She also totally transformed the arboretum planted during the reign of Louis XV into what became known as the Hameau de la Reine. This was a picturesque collection of buildings modeled after a rural French hamlet, where the Queen and her courtiers could play at being peasants.[26] The Queen was at the Petit Trianon in July 1789 when she first learned of the beginning of the French Revolution.
+In 1783, the Palace was the site of the signing of three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), in which the United Kingdom recognized the independence of the United States.[27]
+The King and Queen learned of the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, while they were at the Palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread.  The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789.  A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles.  They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the Palace, and compelled the King and Royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.[28]
+As soon as the royal family departed, the Palace was closed, awaiting their return—but in fact, the monarchy would never again return to Versailles.  In 1792, the Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the Palace to the Louvre.  In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy, and ordered all of the royal property in the Palace to be sold at auction.  The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794.  The furnishings and art of the Palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots.  All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off.  The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility.  The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.[29]
+When Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence, but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.[30]
+In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.[30]
+The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles, but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", located in the south wing of the Palace, which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor.[25] Louis Philippe had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance.[31] The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.
+Emperor Napoleon III used the Palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on August 25, 1855.[32]
+During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the Palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the chateau, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on January 18, 1871. The Germans remained in the Palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the Palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.[33]
+The uprising of the Paris Commune in March, 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created, and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the Palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the Palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution. [34]
+The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the Palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration was interrupted by two world wars, but has continued until the present day.[35]
+The Palace briefly returned to the world stage in June 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurnish the palace.[36]
+More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.[37]
+In 1978, parts of the Palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.[38]
+The restoration initiatives launched by the Fifth Republic have proven to be perhaps more costly than the expenditures of the palace in the Ancien Régime. Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Concurrently, in the Soviet Union (Russia since 26 December 1991), the restoration of the Pavlovsk Palace located 25 kilometers from the center of Leningrad – today's Saint Petersburg – brought the attention of French Ministry of Culture, including that of the curator of Versailles.[39] After the war when Soviet authorities were restoring the palace, which had been gutted by the retreating Nazi forces, they recreated the silk fabrics by using preserved 18th-century remnants.[39]
+When these results and the high quality achieved were brought to the attention of the French Minister of Culture, he revived 18th-century weaving techniques so as to reproduce the silks used in the decoration of Versailles.[39] The two greatest achievements of this initiative are seen today in wall hangings used in the restoration of the chambre de la reine in the grand appartement de la reine and the chambre du roi in the appartement du roi. While the design used for the chambre du roi was, in fact, from the original design to decorate the chambre de la reine, it nevertheless represents a great achievement in the ongoing restoration at Versailles. Additionally, this project, which took over seven years to achieve,has required several hundred kilograms of silver and gold to complete.[40] One of the more costly endeavours for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.[41]
+In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Hurricane Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006.[42] Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas Royal Opera of Versailles, which was completed  on 9 April 1957.[43]
+The Palace of Versailles is owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture. The current Chairperson of the Public Establishment is Catherine Pégard.[44]
+The Marble Court and facades of the first Chateau, embellished by Louis Le Vau (1661–68) and then Hardouin-Mansart in (1679–1681)
+Plan of the main floor (c. 1837, with north to the right), showing the Hall of Mirrors in red, the Hall of Battles in green, the Royal Chapel in yellow, and the Royal Opera in blue
+Aerial view from the garden
+The facade facing the garden, with the royal apartments and the Gallery of Mirrors between them[citation needed]
+The Palace of Versailles offers a visual history of French architecture from the 17th century to the end of the 18th century. It began with the original château, with the brick and stone and sloping slate mansard roofs of the Louis XIII style used by architect Philibert Le Roy. It then became grander and more monumental, with the addition of the colonnades and flat roofs of the new royal apartments in the French classical or Louis XIV style, as designed by Louis Le Vau and later Jules Hardouin-Mansart. It concluded in the lighter and more graceful neoclassical Louis XVI style of the Petit Trianon, completed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1768.
+The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a facade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length.[45] Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.[46]
+The façade of Louis XIII's original château is preserved on the entrance front. Built of red brick and cut stone embellishments, the U-shaped layout surrounds a black-and-white marble courtyard. In the center, a 3-storey avant-corps fronted with eight red marble columns supporting a gilded wrought-iron balcony is surmounted with a triangle of lead statuary surrounding a large clock, whose hands were stopped upon the death of Louis XIV. The rest of the façade is completed with columns, painted and gilded wrought-iron balconies and dozens of stone tables decorated with consoles holding marble busts of Roman emperors. Atop the mansard slate roof are elaborate dormer windows and gilt lead roof dressings that were added by Hardouin-Mansart in 1679–1681.
+Inspired by the architecture of baroque Italian villas, but executed in the French classical style, the garden front and wings were encased in white cut ashlar stone known as the enveloppe in 1668-1671 by Le Vau and modified by Hardouin-Mansart in 1678–1679.[47] The exterior features an arcaded, rusticated ground floor, supporting a main floor with round-headed windows divided by reliefs and pilasters or columns. The attic storey has square windows and pilasters and crowned by a balustrade bearing sculptured trophies and flame pots dissimulating a flat roof.
+The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments[49]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.[50]
+The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.
+The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France - Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.[b]
+Before entering the King's State Apartments, one had to climb the Ambassadors Staircase - a suitable entrance as its magnificence matched the grandness of the apartments. The Ambassadors Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was built in 1674 but was finished in 1680. Although it was designed by architect Louis Le Vau, the staircase was built by François d’Orbay and was primarily painted by Charles Le Brun. Destroyed in 1752, the staircase was the entrance to the King’s Apartments and was the official grand entrance into the Chateau, specifically intended to astonish and impress foreign dignitaries.[51]  At the time of its creation, Versailles was transitioning to reflect governmental power and authority instead of a private home for the crown.[52] The staircases’ primal function and the details it encompasses reinforces this progression at Versailles.
+The staircase incorporates allegories of the Four Parts of the World on the vault and representation of crowds of foreign visitors on the walls.[53] The staircase was lit from above with a skylight – a fairly advanced quality for seventeenth century architecture and is thought to have played a symbolic role in the connection with the scenes of the kings heroism depicted by Le Brun. Additionally, it is known to include Thalia (the muse of Comedy), Melpomene, Calliope, and Apollo (Louis XIV’s emblem)[54] and the twelve months of the year. References to the greater world, such as the depiction of the twelve months of the year and the four parts of the world, circle back to Louis XIV’s mentality of Versailles symbolizing supreme and divine power which in turn, reflects Louis XIV’s desired depiction of his reign.
+Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee by Veronese in the Salon of Hercules
+The Salon of Abundance
+The Salon of Venus
+The Salon of Mercury
+The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.[55]
+This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.[55][56]
+The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.
+This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672-1681). Trompe l'oeil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.[57]
+The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the Palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the Palace into a Museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depicts the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.[58]
+Salon of Mars
+Ceiling in the Salon of Apollo, depicting the Sun Chariot of Apollo
+Bust of Louis XIV by Bernini in Salon of Diana
+The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.
+The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.
+The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665, is on display here. [59]
+The King's bedchamber
+The Queen's bedchamber
+The gilded cabinet of Marie-Antoinette
+Billiard Room of Marie-Antoinette
+The apartments of the King were the heart of the chateau; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the chateau, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which were attended by a crowd of courtiers.
+The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber past the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.[60]
+The King's bedchamber had originally been the State Drawing Room and had been used by Queen Marie-Theresa, but after her death in 1701 Louis XIV took it over to use as his own bedroom and died there on September 1, 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On October 6, 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.[60]
+The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled  France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony Van Dyck.[60]
+The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.
+The Peace Salon
+The Peace Salon; Louis XV sharing benefits of peace by François Lemoyne
+The Galerie des Glaces or Hall of Mirrors
+Guerdirons or candle holders in the Hall of Mirrors
+Relief of Louis XIV in the Salon of War, by Antoine Coysevox (1715)
+The Grand Gallery is a set of three highly decorated reception rooms, dedicated to the celebration of the political and military successes of Louis XIV, and used for important ceremonies, celebrations and receptions.
+The War Salon commemorates the victorious campaign of Louis XIV against the Dutch, which ended in 1678. The centerpiece is an enormous sculpted medallion of Louis XIV, on horseback, crossing the Rhine in 1672, created by Antoine Coysevox. Below the fireplace is a painting of Clio, the Muse of History, recording the exploits of the King.
+The Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), is perhaps the most famous room in the château of Versailles. It took the place of the rooftop terrace overlooking the gardens which formerly connected the apartments of the King and Queen. The construction of the room began in 1678 and finished in 1689. The gallery is more than 70 metres (230 ft) long, and it is lined with 17 wide arcaded mirrors, designed to match and reflect the windows opposite facing the gardens. Charles Le Brun painted thirty scenes of the early reign of Louis XIV on the ceiling. The centerpiece is a painting of the King titled, "The King Governing Alone". It shows Louis XIV, facing the powers of Europe, turning away from his pleasures to accept a crown of immortality from Glory, with the encouragement of Mars.[61]
+The hall was originally furnished with solid silver furniture designed by Le Brun, but these furnishings were melted down in 1689 to help pay for war expenses. The King kept a silver throne, usually located in the Salon of Apollo, which was brought to the Hall of Mirrors for formal ceremonies, such as the welcome of foreign ambassadors, including a delegation from the King of Siam in 1686. It was also used for large events, such as full-dress and masked balls. Light was provided by candelabra on large gilded guerdirons lining the hall. Those on display today were made in 1770 for the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, based on the moldings of earlier silver versions made by LeBrun that had been melted down. The twenty-four crystal chandeliers were hung only for special occasions. Courtiers gathered in the Hall to watch the King walk from his apartments to the chapel, and sometimes took the occasion to present him with requests.
+[61]
+The Peace Salon is decorated to illustrate the role of France as the arbiter and peacemaker of Europe under Louis XV. The painting on the ceiling by François Lemoyne, Louis XV offering an olive branch to Europe, illustrates this theme. During the reign of Louis XV, the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska, used this salon as a music room, organizing concerts of secular and religious music each Sunday.[62]
+Royal Chapel seen from the ground floor
+The Royal Chapel, seen from the Royal Gallery
+The Royal Chapel, the tallest building of the Palace
+Altar and organ of the Royal Chapel
+Glory holding a portrait of Louis XV, by Antoine Vassé, in the chapel vestibule
+The Chapel was the last building at Versailles to be completed during the reign of Louis XIV. It was consecrated in 1710, and was dedicated to Louis IX of France, the ancestor and patron saint of the King. Construction was begun by Hardouin-Mansart in 1699, and was completed by de Corte. Daily services, wedding ceremonies, and baptisms were held in this chapel until 1789. Like other royal chapels, it had two levels: the King and family worshipped in the Royal Gallery on the upper level, while ordinary courtiers stood on the ground level.[63]
+The paintings on the ceiling display scenes depicting the three figures of the trinity. In the center is The Glory of the Father Announcing the Coming of the Messiah by Antoine Coypel, above the altar is The Resurrection of Christ, and above the royal gallery is The Holy Spirit Descending Upon the Virgin and the Apostles. The corridor and vestibule that connected the Chapel and the State Apartments included later art, commissioned by Louis XV, intended to portray the link between Divinity and the King: a statue of Glory Holding the Medallion of Louis XV, by Antoine Vassé; and Royal Magnanimity by Jacques Bousseau.[64]
+The Royal Chapel has been under renovation for 767 days.
+The end of the construction is scheduled for summer 2020.[65]
+The Royal Box
+Foyer of the Royal Opera
+The Royal Opera during the celebration of the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (1770)
+Stage of the Royal Opera
+Ceiling of the opera, painted by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau
+The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this also was temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on May 16, 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.[66]
+In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.[9]
+Louis Philippe dedicates the Gallery of Battles, by François Joseph Heim (1837)
+The Gallery of Battles in the Museum of the History of France
+The Battle of Taillebourg, by Eugène Delacroix (1837)
+Louis Philippe and his sons pose before the gates of Versailles, by Horace Vernet History Gallery, (1846)
+Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the Palace, which was empty of furnishings and in poor repair, into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. The walls of the apartments of the courtiers and lesser members of the royal family on the first floor (second floor U.S. style) were demolished, and turned into a series of several large galleries: the Coronation Room, which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the Palace.[67]
+The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculpture. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.[68]
+Bassin de Flore (1672-1679)
+The Orangerie garden
+Fountain of Latona, with the Grand Canal in the background
+André Le Nôtre began transforming the park and gardens of Versailles in the early 1660s.[69] They are the finest example of the jardin à la française, or the French formal garden. They were originally designed to be viewed from the terrace on the west side of the palace, and to create a grand perspective that reached to the horizon, illustrating the king's complete dominance over nature.
+The features closest to the Palace are the two water parterres, large pools which reflect the facade of the palace. These are decorated with smaller works of sculpture, representing the rivers of France, which are placed so as not to interfere with the reflections in the water. Down a stairway from the Parterre d'Eau is the Latona Fountain, created in 1670, illustrating the story of Latona taken from the Metamorphoses of Ovid. According to the story, when the peasants of Lycia insulted Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, the god Jupiter transformed the peasants into frogs. The fountain was begun in 1670 by Le Nôtre, then enlarged and modified by Hardouin-Mansart in 1686.[70] The main statuary group of Latona with Diana and Apollo was created between 1668-1670 by the sculptor Gaspard Marsy and originally placed on a modest foundation of rocks in the middle of the basin. Gaspard's brother Balthazard designed six lead half-human, half-frog figures to grace the water spouts surrounding the Latona statue, with 24 cast lead frogs positioned on the grass surrounding the perimeter of the fountain.[71]
+Hardouin-Mansart designed a much grander fountain of four oval tiers forming a pyramid, topped by Gaspard Marsy's statue and enhanced all around with the semi-human figures of Balthazard Marsy and an assortment of gilded frogs and lizards sculpted by Claude Bertin.[71] The four tiers are covered in 230 pieces of marble, composed of the white and grey-veined Cararra, greenish marble from Campan, and red marble from Languedoc.[72]
+The Latona Fountain underwent a major renovation between 2012 and 2015, which required the removal of its statuary, marble fittings, and lead pipe network for off-site restoration.[73] When the project began in 2012, the foundation of the main basin had seriously weakened and was no longer watertight, threatening the fountain above. The marble facing and statues were covered in years of accumulated grime, obscuring the vibrant colors of the marble and the gilt fixtures as they originally appeared.[74] The parterre surrounding the fountain, landscaped with lawns and flower beds according to 19th century taste, was also completely overhauled. Formal beds of turf and boxwood outlined by gravel paths to form arabesque patterns were created, faithful to the original designs of Le Nôtre.[75]
+The Grand Perspective of the palace continues from the Fountain of Latona south along a grassy lane, the Tapis Vert or green carpet, to the Basin of the Chariot of Apollo. Apollo, the sun god, was the emblem of Louis XIV, featured in much of the decoration of the palace. The chariot rising from the water symbolized the rising of the sun. It was designed by Le Brun and made by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Tuby at the Gobelins Manufactory between 1668 and 1670, cast in lead and then gilded.[76] Beyond the fountain, the Grand Canal extends 1800 meters to the south end of the park.[70]
+Another group of formal gardens is located on the north side of the water parterre. It includes two bosquets or groves: the grove of the Three Fountains, The Bosquet of the Arch of Triumph, and north of these, three major fountains, the Pyramid Fountain, Dragon Fountain, and the Neptune Fountain. The fountains in this area all have a maritime or aquatic theme; the Pyramid Fountain is decorated with Tritons, Sirens, dolphins and nymphs. The Dragon Fountain is one of the oldest at Versailles and has the highest jet of water, twenty-seven meters. It is not actually a dragon, but a python, a mythical serpent that was killed by Apollo. The Neptune Fountain was originally decorated only with a circle of large lead basins jetting water; Louis XV added statues of Neptune, Triton and other gods of the sea.[77]
+The South Parterre is located beneath the windows of the queen's apartments and on the roof of the Orangerie. It is decorated with box trees and flowers in arabesque patterns. The Orangerie is located beneath the main terrace of the palace, on which the North and South Parterres rest. Three huge retaining walls divide the South Parterre from the lower parterre (parterre bas) of the Orangerie. Arcaded galleries with walls up to 16 ft. thick are built against the three retaining walls. The longest of these is the main south-facing gallery, at over 500 ft. (150 meters) from end to end and 47 ft. (13 meters) in height from floor to ceiling. Corresponding staircases known as the Escaliers des Cent Marches (so-called because each staircase has 100 steps) descend from above the east and west galleries to reach the level of the Orangerie.[78]
+The thickness of the walls combined with the southern exposure and double glazing of the windows was designed according to the theories of Jean Baptiste de la Quintinie, the head gardener of the Potager du roi, to provide a frost-free environment year round for the tender subtropical plants, primarily Orange trees, beloved by Louis XIV.[79] Over one thousand citrus trees, palms, Oleanders, Pomegranate and Olive trees, along with other tender plants, are housed inside the walls of the Orangerie during the winter; they are taken out onto the parterre bas from mid-May until mid-October.[77]
+Supplying water for the fountains of Versailles was a major problem for the royal government. The site of the Palace itself is 490 ft. above sea level, with the nearest body of water capable of supplying the gardens and court being the Seine River, 6 miles north. This presented the daunting problem to Louis XIV's engineers of how to transport water uphill over such a distance.[80] In 1681, construction commenced on the Machine de Marly at Bougival; the machine consisted of 14 paddle wheels powered by the currents of the Seine. 259 pumps carried water up to the 530 ft. high Louveciennes Aqueduct, which fed the water into huge reservoirs at Marly-le-Roi.[81] At full capacity, over one million gallons of water per day could be pumped into the Marly reservoirs, but ironically by the 1690s the Château de Marly had become the main recipient, since Louis XIV built an enormous water cascade to rival the waterworks at Versailles.[82]
+In 1685, pressure on water supplies led Louis XIV to commission another aqueduct, the Canal de l'Eure, to transport water from the River Eure, 52 miles to the southwest.[83] The aqueduct was intended to carry water by gravity from a high reservoir near the river, through the gardens of the Château de Maintenon, to Versailles. Work on the Eure aqueduct came to a halt in 1688, when France entered the Nine Years' War, and the poor finances of the kingdom in the latter part of Louis XIV's life prevented work from ever resuming.[84] Despite enormous investment in canals and machinery for hoisting water, Versailles never had sufficient water supply for its hundreds of fountains. When the King promenaded in the gardens, fountains were turned on only when the King was approaching them, and turned off after he departed.
+In the time of Louis XIV, even the palace, with its thousands of inhabitants, was continually short of fresh drinking water, necessitating the relocation of the court periodically to the palaces of Fontainebleau or Compiègne.[85] There was no fresh water tap above ground level until the reign of Louis XV, and even then it was limited to the King's private kitchen and his personal bathroom. For everyone else, water was carried by a small army of water carriers to the upper floors, filling copper tanks in the private appartements of the courtiers.[86]
+During the reign of Louis XIV and most of the reign of Louis XV, there was no plumbing to speak of in the palace itself. Only the King, the Queen, and the Dauphin had anything approaching bathrooms.[87] For most courtiers, bathing was infrequent and might only be carried out in portable bathtubs in their chambers, filled with water carried by hand from the nearest ground floor tap.[88]
+In the 1670s, Louis XIV had a magnificent five-room bath complex installed on the ground floor of the apartments belonging to his mistress, Madame de Montespan.[89] The baths were installed with hot and cold running water, at the time an exceptional technological advancement, but their primary use was for sexual trysts between the couple rather than for hygiene.[90] The suite was dismantled and covered over after the relationship ended in 1684. Louis XV commissioned a bathroom to be built when he was thirteen years old - he would later build bathrooms supplied with plumbed-in hot and cold water.[91] To relieve themselves, many courtiers had their own collapsible  commode, known as a chaise percée, which was a padded seat with a chamber pot underneath. It is estimated that there were only three hundred of these at any one time.[92] Although it was forbidden to dump the contents of these chamber pots out of windows, the practice persisted in the inner courts of the palace.[93]
+Most of Versailles' inhabitants used communal latrines located throughout the palace, off the main galleries or at the end of the residential corridors on the upper floors. These were sources of continual stench, polluting nearby rooms and causing issues of blockage and sewage leaks from the iron and lead pipes which drained the privies on the upper floors.[94] Although discouraged, it was common for people to relieve themselves under stairways or in secluded passageways, especially if a latrine was closed. The ground floor gallery of the south wing was prone to this, to the extent that iron bars had to be installed in the corridor outside the rooms of the Dauphin Louis and the Dauphine when they moved to the south wing in 1745.[95]
+As always, the royal family and high-ranking courtiers within the palace had superior hygienic arrangements at their disposal. Louis XV's care for hygiene led him to install an early water closet, imported from England, in 1738. Known as an "English Place" (Lieu à l'Anglaise), the flush toilet was supplied with water from an overhead tank and emptied into a ground level drain, preventing lingering odors. By the mid-eighteenth century, other members of the royal family, the King's mistress Madame du Barry, and certain high-level courtiers had also installed their own water closets.[96]
+The character of the "piss boy" in Mel Brooks' film History of the World: Part 1 is based on a real job at the palace.[97]
+The Three Fountains Bosquet
+The Ballroom Bosquet
+The Colonnade Bosquet
+The largest part of the garden is divided into geometric bosquets, compartment-like groves; eight on the north side of the garden, and six to the south. The bosquets were created for Louis XIV between 1680 and 1690. They were bordered with high trees and carefully trimmed in cubic forms to resemble rooms with walls of greenery. Each bosquet had its own theme and fountains, statuary, grottoes, and other decoration. Some were highly formal, like Hardouin-Mansart's Bosquet de la Colonnade, with a circle of columns alternating with fountains, while others imitated nature. They were often used for concerts or theatrical performances. Some of the early groves were altered beyond recognition by later monarchs, but the most famous bosquets, Le Nôtre's Salle de Bal (literally, "ballroom"), also known as the Bosquet des Rocailles (c. 1685), and Hardouin-Mansart's Bosquet de la Colonnade, have both been restored to the way they were under Louis XIV. Other notable groves include Les Dômes, the Bosquet d'Encelade (after Enceladus, c. 1675), the Théâtre d'Eau (Water Theater), and the Bains d'Apollon (Baths of Apollo). Some are now decorated with contemporary works of art.[98]
+Peristyle of the Grand Trianon
+West facade of the Petit Trianon
+The Temple of Love
+The Queen's Theater at the Petit Trianon
+In 1668 Louis XIV decided to build a smaller palace some distance from the main palace, where he could spend quieter time away from the crowds and formality of his Court. He purchased a village called Trianon which adjoined the park, and constructed a pavilion covered with blue and white porcelain in the fashionable Chinese style; it was finished in 1670, and became known as the Porcelain Trianon. In 1687, he replaced it with the Grand Trianon, a larger and more classical pavilion designed by Mansart, with a terrace and walls faced with different colored slabs of marble. After the Revolution, the Trianon served as a residence for both Napoleon I and later for King Louis-Philippe when they visited Versailles. It is decorated today largely as it was under Napoleon and Louis-Philippe.[98]
+The Petit Trianon was created between 1763 and 1768 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel for Louis XV. The square shaped building, with each facade different, was a prototype of Neoclassicism in France. The most ornate facade, with Corinthian columns, faced the French landscape garden. Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon as a gift to his bride, Marie-Antoinette. She asked the architect Richard Mique and painter Hubert Robert to design a new English-style landscape garden to replace the formal French garden. Not far from the Petit Trianon she had the Rock Pavilion constructed, and added the classical rotunda of the Temple of Love, built in 1777. In 1780, she built a small theater at the Petit Trianon. In her theater she played a part in one of the first performances of the play The Marriage of Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais, which helped ensure its success. She was at the Petit Trianon in July 1789 when she first heard the news from Paris of the storming of the Bastille and the beginning of the French Revolution.[98]
+One of the most celebrated features of the park is the Hameau de la Reine, a small rustic hamlet near the Petit Trianon created for Queen Marie Antoinette between 1783 and 1785 by the royal architect Richard Mique with the help of the painter Hubert Robert. It replaced a botanical garden created by Louis XV, and consisted of twelve structures, ten of which still exist, in the style of villages in Normandy. It was designed for the Queen and her friends to amuse themselves by playing peasants, and included a farmhouse with a dairy, a mill, a boudoir, a pigeon loft, a tower in the form of a lighthouse from which one could fish in the pond, a belvedere, a cascade and grotto, and a luxuriously furnished cottage with a billiard room for the Queen.[99]
+The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles[100] to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution.[102] For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).[100]
+In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic.[103][104][105] Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles.[106] This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles.[107] The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles.[108]
+One of the most baffling aspects to the study of Versailles is the cost – how much Louis XIV and his successors spent on Versailles. Owing to the nature of the construction of Versailles and the evolution of the role of the palace, construction costs were essentially a private matter. Initially, Versailles was planned to be an occasional residence for Louis XIV and was referred to as the "king's house".[109] Accordingly, much of the early funding for construction came from the king's own purse, funded by revenues received from his appanage as well as revenues from the province of New France (Canada), which, while part of France, was a private possession of the king and therefore exempt from the control of the Parliaments.[110]
+Once Louis XIV embarked on his building campaigns, expenses for Versailles became more of a matter for public record, especially after Jean-Baptiste Colbert assumed the post of finance minister. Expenditures on Versailles have been recorded in the compendium known as the Comptes des bâtiments du roi sous le règne de Louis XIV and which were edited and published in five volumes by Jules Guiffrey in the 19th century. These volumes provide valuable archival material pursuant to the financial expenditure on all aspects of Versailles such as the payments disbursed for many trades as varied as artists and mole catchers.[111]
+To counter the costs of Versailles during the early years of Louis XIV's personal reign, Colbert decided that Versailles should be the "showcase" of France.[112] Accordingly, all materials that went into the construction and decoration of Versailles were manufactured in France. Even the mirrors used in the decoration of the Hall of Mirrors were made in France. While Venice in the 17th century had the monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors, Colbert succeeded in enticing a number of artisans from Venice to make the mirrors for Versailles. However, owing to Venetian proprietary claims on the technology of mirror manufacture, the Venetian government ordered the assassination of the artisans to keep the secrets proprietary to the Venetian Republic.[112] To meet the demands for decorating and furnishing Versailles, Colbert nationalised the tapestry factory owned by the Gobelin family, to become the Manufacture royale des Gobelins.[112]
+In 1667, the name of the enterprise was changed to the Manufacture royale des Meubles de la Couronne. The Gobelins were charged with all decoration needs of the palace, which was under the direction of Charles Le Brun.[112]
+One of the most costly elements in the furnishing of the grands appartements during the early years of the personal reign of Louis XIV was the silver furniture, which can be taken as a standard – with other criteria – for determining a plausible cost for Versailles. The Comptes meticulously list the expenditures on the silver furniture – disbursements to artists, final payments, delivery – as well as descriptions and weight of items purchased. Entries for 1681 and 1682 concerning the silver balustrade used in the salon de Mercure serve as an example:
+II. 5 In anticipation: For the silver balustrade for the king's bedroom: 90,000 livres
+II. 7 18 November to Sieur du Metz, 43,475 livres 5 sols for delivery to Sr. Lois and to Sr. de Villers for payment of 142,196 livres for the silver balustrade that they are making for the king's bedroom and 404 livres for tax: 48,861 livres 5 sol.
+II. 15 16 June 1681 – 23 January 1682 to Sr. Lois and Sr. de Villers silversmiths on account for the silver balustrade that they are making for the king's use (four payments): 88,457 livres 5 sols.
+II. 111 25 March – 18 April to Sr. Lois and Sr. de Villers silversmiths who are working on a silver balustrade for the king, for continued work (two payments): 40,000 livres
+II. 129 21 March to Sr. Jehannot de Bartillay 4,970 livres 12 sols for the delivery to Sr. Lois and de Villers silversmiths for, with 136,457 livres 5 sol to one and 25,739 livres 10 sols to another, making the 38 balusters, 17 pilasters, the base and the cornice for the balustrade for the château of Versailles weighing 4,076 marc at the rate of 41 livres the marc[c] including 41 livres 2 sols for tax: 4,970 livres 12 sols.[111]
+Accordingly, the silver balustrade, which contained in excess of one ton of silver, cost in excess of 560,000 livres. It is difficult – if not impossible – to give an accurate rate of exchange between 1682 and today.[d] However, Frances Buckland provides valuable information that provides an idea of the true cost of the expenditures at Versailles during the time of Louis XIV. In 1679, Mme de Maintenon stated that the cost of providing light and food for twelve people for one day amounted to slightly more than 14 livres.[113] In December 1689, to defray the cost of the War of the League of Augsburg, Louis XIV ordered all the silver furniture and articles of silver at Versailles – including chamber pots – sent to the mint to be melted.[114]
+Clearly, the silver furniture alone represented a significant outlay in the finances of Versailles. While the decoration of the palace was costly, certain other costs were minimised. For example, labour for construction was often low, due largely to the fact that the army during times of peace and during the winter, when wars were not waged, was pressed into action at Versailles. Additionally, given the quality and uniqueness of the items produced at the Gobelins for use and display at Versailles, the palace served as a venue to showcase not only the success of Colbert's mercantilism, but also to display the finest that France could produce.[115]
+Estimates of the amount spent to build Versailles are speculative. An estimate in 2000 placed the amount spent during the Ancien Régime as US$2 billion,[116] this figure being, in all probability, an under-evaluation. France's Fifth Republic expenditures alone, directed to restoration and maintenance at Versailles, may have surpassed those of the Sun King.
+Films
+Music
+Television
+Video games
+Panoramic view from the park
+Panoramic view from the city
+This article often employs shortened footnotes. The full citations can be found in the immediately following section.

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+Atlanta (/ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. With an estimated 2019 population of 506,811,[10] it is also the 37th most populous city in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to more than 6 million people and the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the nation.[8] Atlanta is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia. Portions of the city extend eastward into neighboring DeKalb County. The city is situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and has one of the highest elevations among major cities east of the Mississippi River.[13]
+Atlanta was originally founded as the terminus  of a major state-sponsored railroad. With rapid expansion, however, it soon became the convergence point among multiple railroads, spurring its rapid growth. The city's name derives from that of the Western and Atlantic Railroad's local depot, signifying the town's growing reputation as a transportation hub.[14] During the American Civil War, the city was almost entirely burned to the ground in General William T. Sherman's famous March to the Sea. However, the city rose from its ashes and quickly became a national center of commerce and the unofficial capital of the "New South". During the 1950s and 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and many other locals playing major roles in the movement's leadership.[15] During the modern era, Atlanta has attained international prominence as a major air transportation hub, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998.[16][17][18][19]
+It ranks in the top twenty among world cities and 10th in the nation with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $385 billion.[20][21] Atlanta's economy is considered diverse, with dominant sectors that include aerospace, transportation, logistics, professional and business services, media operations, medical services, and information technology.[22] Atlanta has topographic features that include rolling hills and dense tree coverage, earning it the nickname of "the city in a forest".[23] Revitalization of Atlanta's neighborhoods, initially spurred by the 1996 Summer Olympics, has intensified in the 21st century, altering the city's demographics, politics, aesthetics, and culture.[24][25]
+For thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers in north Georgia, the indigenous Creek people and their ancestors inhabited the area.[26] Standing Peachtree, a Creek village where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Native American settlement to what is now Atlanta.[27] Through the early nineteenth century, European Americans systematically encroached on the Creek of northern Georgia, forcing them out of the area from 1802 to 1825.[28] The Creek were forced to leave the area in 1821, under Indian Removal by the federal government,[29] and European American settlers arrived the following year.[30]
+In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest.[31] The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would be linked to Savannah. After engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the "zero milepost" was driven into the ground in what is now Five Points. A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as Terminus, and later Thrasherville, after a local merchant who built homes and a general store in the area.[32] By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents and was renamed Marthasville to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. Later, J. Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed Atlanta.[33] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[34]
+By 1860, Atlanta's population had grown to 9,554.[35][36] During the American Civil War, the nexus of multiple railroads in Atlanta made the city a strategic hub for the distribution of military supplies.
+In 1864, the Union Army moved southward following the capture of Chattanooga and began its invasion of north Georgia. The region surrounding Atlanta was the location of several major army battles, culminating with the Battle of Atlanta and a four-month-long siege of the city by the Union Army under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood made the decision to retreat from Atlanta, and he ordered the destruction of all public buildings and possible assets that could be of use to the Union Army. On the next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to the Union Army, and on September 7, Sherman ordered the city's civilian population to evacuate. On November 11, 1864, Sherman prepared for the Union Army's March to the Sea by ordering the destruction of Atlanta's remaining military assets.[37]
+After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt. The work attracted many new residents. Due to the city's superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868.[38] In the 1880 Census, Atlanta had surpassed Savannah as Georgia's largest city.
+Beginning in the 1880s, Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, promoted Atlanta to potential investors as a city of the "New South" that would be based upon a modern economy and less reliant on agriculture. By 1885, the founding of the Georgia School of Technology (now Georgia Tech) and the Atlanta University Center, a historically black college made up of units for men and women, had established Atlanta as a center for higher education. In 1895, Atlanta hosted the Cotton States and International Exposition, which attracted nearly 800,000 attendees and successfully promoted the New South's development to the world.[39]
+During the first decades of the 20th century, Atlanta enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth. In three decades' time, Atlanta's population tripled as the city limits expanded to include nearby streetcar suburbs. The city's skyline grew taller with the construction of the Equitable, Flatiron, Empire, and Candler buildings. Sweet Auburn emerged as a center of black commerce. The period was also marked by strife and tragedy. Increased racial tensions led to the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when whites attacked blacks, leaving at least 27 people dead and over 70 injured, with extensive damage in black neighborhoods. In 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent, was convicted of the murder of a 13-year-old girl in a highly publicized trial. He was sentenced to death but the governor commuted his sentence to life. An enraged and organized lynch mob took him from jail in 1915 and hanged him in Marietta. The Jewish community in Atlanta and across the country were horrified.[40][41] On May 21, 1917, the Great Atlanta Fire destroyed 1,938 buildings in what is now the Old Fourth Ward, resulting in one fatality and the displacement of 10,000 people.[33]
+On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the epic film based on the best-selling novel by Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell. The gala event at Loew's Grand Theatre was attended by the film's legendary producer, David O. Selznick, and the film's stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland, but Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel, an African-American actress, was barred from the event due to racial segregation laws.[42]
+Atlanta played a vital role in the Allied effort during World War II due to the city's war-related manufacturing companies, railroad network and military bases. The defense industries attracted thousands of new residents and generated revenues, resulting in rapid population and economic growth. In the 1950s, the city's newly constructed highway system, supported by federal subsidies, allowed middle class Atlantans the ability to relocate to the suburbs. As a result, the city began to make up an ever-smaller proportion of the metropolitan area's population.[33]
+African-American veterans returned from World War II seeking full rights in their country and began heightened activism. In exchange for support by that portion of the black community that could vote, in 1948 the mayor ordered the hiring of the first eight African-American police officers in the city. In the 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. While Atlanta in the postwar years had relatively minimal racial strife compared to other cities, blacks were limited by discrimination, segregation, and continued disenfranchisement of most voters.[43] In 1961, the city attempted to thwart blockbusting by realtors by erecting road barriers in Cascade Heights, countering the efforts of civic and business leaders to foster Atlanta as the "city too busy to hate".[43][44]
+Desegregation of the public sphere came in stages, with public transportation desegregated by 1959,[45] the restaurant at Rich's department store by 1961,[46] movie theaters by 1963,[47] and public schools by 1973 (nearly 20 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional).[48] In the private sphere, The Westminster Schools desegregated in 1967.[49]
+In 1960, whites comprised 61.7% of the city's population.[50] During the 1950s–70s, suburbanization and white flight from urban areas led to a significant demographic shift.[43] By 1970, African Americans were the majority of the city's population and exercised their recently enforced voting rights and political influence by electing Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973. Under Mayor Jackson's tenure, Atlanta's airport was modernized, strengthening the city's role as a transportation center. The opening of the Georgia World Congress Center in 1976 heralded Atlanta's rise as a convention city.[51] Construction of the city's subway system began in 1975, with rail service commencing in 1979.[52] Despite these improvements, Atlanta lost more than 100,000 residents between 1970 and 1990, over 20% of its population.[53] At the same time, it developed new office space after attracting numerous corporations, with an increasing portion of workers from northern areas.
+Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Following the announcement, the city government undertook several major construction projects to improve Atlanta's parks, sporting venues, and transportation infrastructure; however, for the first time, none of the $1.7 billion cost of the games was governmentally funded. While the games experienced transportation and accommodation problems and, despite extra security precautions, there was the Centennial Olympic Park bombing,[54] the spectacle was a watershed event in Atlanta's history. For the first time in Olympic history, every one of the record 197 national Olympic committees invited to compete sent athletes, sending more than 10,000 contestants participating in a record 271 events. The related projects such as Atlanta's Olympic Legacy Program and civic effort initiated a fundamental transformation of the city in the following decade.[53]
+During the 2000s, Atlanta underwent a profound physical, cultural, and demographic transformation. As some of the black middle and upper classes also began to move to the suburbs, a booming economy drew numerous new migrants from other areas of the country, who contributed to changes in the city's demographics. African Americans made up a decreasing portion of the population, from a high of 67% in 1990 to 54% in 2010.[55] From 2000 to 2010, Atlanta gained 22,763 white residents, 5,142 Asian residents, and 3,095 Hispanic residents, while the city's black population decreased by 31,678.[56][57] Much of the city's demographic change during the decade was driven by young, college-educated professionals: from 2000 to 2009, the three-mile radius surrounding Downtown Atlanta gained 9,722 residents aged 25 to 34 and holding at least a four-year degree, an increase of 61%.[58] This was similar to the tendency in other cities for young, college educated, single or married couples to live in downtown areas.[59]
+Between the mid-1990s and 2010, stimulated by funding from the HOPE VI program and under leadership of CEO Renee Lewis Glover (1994–2013),[60] the Atlanta Housing Authority demolished nearly all of its public housing, a total of 17,000 units and about 10% of all housing units in the city.[61][62][63] After reserving 2,000 units mostly for elderly, the AHA allowed redevelopment of the sites for mixed-use and mixed-income, higher density developments, with 40% of the units to be reserved for affordable housing. Two-fifths of previous public housing residents attained new housing in such units; the remainder received vouchers to be used at other units, including in suburbs. At the same time, in an effort to change the culture of those receiving subsidized housing, the AHA imposed a requirement for such residents to work (or be enrolled in a genuine, limited-time training program). It is virtually the only housing authority to have created this requirement. To prevent problems, the AHA also gave authority to management of the mixed-income or voucher units to evict tenants who did not comply with the work requirement or who caused behavior problems.[64]
+In 2005, the city approved the $2.8 billion BeltLine project. It was intended to convert a disused 22-mile freight railroad loop that surrounds the central city into an art-filled multi-use trail and light rail transit line, which would increase the city's park space by 40%.[65] The project stimulated retail and residential development along the loop.
+Atlanta's cultural offerings expanded during the 2000s: the High Museum of Art doubled in size; the Alliance Theatre won a Tony Award; and art galleries were established on the once-industrial Westside.[66] The city of Atlanta was the subject of a massive cyberattack which began in March 2018.[67]
+Atlanta encompasses 134.0 square miles (347.1 km2), of which 133.2 square miles (344.9 km2) is land and 0.85 square miles (2.2 km2) is water.[68] The city is situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. At 1,050 feet (320 m) above mean sea level, Atlanta has one of the highest elevations among major cities east of the Mississippi River.[13] Atlanta straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. Rainwater that falls on the south and east side of the divide flows into the Atlantic Ocean, while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide flows into the Gulf of Mexico.[69] Atlanta developed on a ridge south of the Chattahoochee River, which is part of the ACF River Basin. The river borders the far northwestern edge of the city, and much of its natural habitat has been preserved, in part by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.[70]
+Most of Atlanta was burned during the Civil War, depleting the city of a large stock of its historic architecture. Yet architecturally, the city had never been traditionally "southern" because Atlanta originated as a railroad town, rather than a southern seaport dominated by the planter class, such as Savannah or Charleston. Because of its later development, many of the city's landmarks share architectural characteristics with buildings in the Northeast or Midwest, as they were designed at a time of shared national architectural styles.[71]
+During the late twentieth century, Atlanta embraced the global trend of modern architecture, especially for commercial and institutional structures. Examples include the State of Georgia Building built in 1966, and the Georgia-Pacific Tower in 1982. Many of the most notable examples from this period we designed by world renowned Atlanta architect John Portman. Most of the buildings that define the downtown skyline were designed by Portman during this period, including the Westin Peachtree Plaza and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. In the latter half of the 1980s, Atlanta became one of the early homes of postmodern buildings that reintroduced classical elements to their designs. Many of Atlanta's tallest skyscrapers were built in this period and style, displaying tapering spires or otherwise ornamented crowns, such as One Atlantic Center (1987), 191 Peachtree Tower (1991), and the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta (1992). Also completed during the era is the Portman-designed Bank of America Plaza built in 1992. At 1,023 feet (312 m), it is the tallest building in the city and the 14th-tallest in the United States.[72]
+The city's embrace of modern architecture has often translated into an ambivalent approach toward historic preservation, leading to the destruction of many notable architectural landmarks. These include the Equitable Building (1892–1971), Terminal Station (1905–1972), and the Carnegie Library (1902–1977).[73] In the mid-1970s, the Fox Theatre, now a cultural icon of the city, would have met the same fate if not for a grassroots effort to save it.[71] More recently, preservationists may have made some inroads. For example, in 2016 activists convinced the Atlanta City Council not to demolish the Atlanta-Fulton Central Library, the last building designed by noted architect Marcel Breuer.[74]
+Atlanta is divided into 242 officially defined neighborhoods.[75] The city contains three major high-rise districts, which form a north–south axis along Peachtree: Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead.[76] Surrounding these high-density districts are leafy, low-density neighborhoods, most of which are dominated by single-family homes.[77]
+Downtown Atlanta contains the most office space in the metro area, much of it occupied by government entities. Downtown is home to the city's sporting venues and many of its tourist attractions. Midtown Atlanta is the city's second-largest business district, containing the offices of many of the region's law firms. Midtown is known for its art institutions, cultural attractions, institutions of higher education, and dense form.[78] Buckhead, the city's uptown district, is eight miles (13 km) north of Downtown and the city's third-largest business district. The district is marked by an urbanized core along Peachtree Road, surrounded by suburban single-family neighborhoods situated among woods and rolling hills.[79]
+Surrounding Atlanta's three high-rise districts are the city's low- and medium-density neighborhoods,[79] where the craftsman bungalow single-family home is dominant.[80] The eastside is marked by historic streetcar suburbs, built from the 1890s–1930s as havens for the upper middle class. These neighborhoods, many of which contain their own villages encircled by shaded, architecturally distinct residential streets, include the Victorian Inman Park, Bohemian East Atlanta, and eclectic Old Fourth Ward.[71][81] On the westside and along the BeltLine on the eastside, former warehouses and factories have been converted into housing, retail space, and art galleries, transforming the once-industrial areas such as West Midtown into model neighborhoods for smart growth, historic rehabilitation, and infill construction.[82]
+In southwest Atlanta, neighborhoods closer to downtown originated as streetcar suburbs, including the historic West End, while those farther from downtown retain a postwar suburban layout. These include Collier Heights and Cascade Heights, home to much of the city's affluent African-American population.[83][84][85] Northwest Atlanta contains the areas of the city to west of Marietta Boulevard and to the north of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, including those neighborhoods remote to downtown, such as Riverside, Bolton and Whittier Mill. The latter is one of Atlanta's designated Landmark Historical Neighborhoods. Vine City, though technically Northwest, adjoins the city's Downtown area and has recently been the target of community outreach programs and economic development initiatives.[86]
+Gentrification of the city's neighborhoods is one of the more controversial and transformative forces shaping contemporary Atlanta. The gentrification of Atlanta has its origins in the 1970s, after many of Atlanta's neighborhoods had declined and suffered the urban decay that affected other major American cities in the mid-20th century. When neighborhood opposition successfully prevented two freeways from being built through the city's east side in 1975, the area became the starting point for Atlanta's gentrification. After Atlanta was awarded the Olympic games in 1990, gentrification expanded into other parts of the city, stimulated by infrastructure improvements undertaken in preparation for the games. New development post-2000 has been aided by the Atlanta Housing Authority's eradication of the city's public housing. As noted above, it allowed development of these sites for mixed-income housing, requiring developers to reserve a considerable portion for affordable housing units. It has also provided for other former residents to be given vouchers to gain housing in other areas.[64] Construction of the Beltline has stimulated new and related development along its path.[87]
+Under the Köppen classification, Atlanta has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa)[88] with four distinct seasons and generous precipitation year-round, typical for the Upland South; the city is situated in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 8a, with the northern and western suburbs transitioning to 7b.[89] Summers are hot and humid, with temperatures somewhat moderated by the city's elevation. Winters are cool but variable, occasionally susceptible to snowstorms even if in small quantities on several occasions, unlike the central and southern portions of the state.[90][91] Warm air from the Gulf of Mexico can bring spring-like highs while strong Arctic air masses can push lows into the teens °F (−7 to −12 °C).
+July averages 80.2 °F (26.8 °C), with high temperatures reaching 90 °F (32 °C) on an average 44 days per year, though 100 °F (38 °C) readings are not seen most years. January averages 43.5 °F (6.4 °C), with temperatures in the suburbs slightly cooler due largely to the urban heat island effect. Lows at or below freezing can be expected 40 nights annually,[92] but the last occurrence of temperatures below 10 °F (−12 °C) is January 6, 2014.[92] Extremes range from −9 °F (−23 °C) on February 13, 1899 to 106 °F (41 °C) on June 30, 2012.[92] Average dewpoints in the summer range from 63.7 °F (17.6 °C) in June to 67.8 °F (19.9 °C) in July.[93]
+Typical of the southeastern U.S., Atlanta receives abundant rainfall that is evenly distributed throughout the year, though spring and early fall are markedly drier. The average annual rainfall is 49.7 in (1,260 mm), while snowfall is typically light with a normal of 2.9 inches (7.4 cm) per winter.[92] The heaviest single snowfall occurred on January 23, 1940, with around 10 inches (25 cm) of snow.[94] However, ice storms usually cause more problems than snowfall does, the most severe occurring on January 7, 1973. Tornadoes are rare in the city itself, but the March 14, 2008 EF2 tornado damaged prominent structures in downtown Atlanta.
+The 2010 United States Census reported that Atlanta had a population of 420,003. The population density was 3,154 per square mile (1232/km2). The racial makeup and population of Atlanta was 54.0% Black or African American, 38.4% White, 3.1% Asian and 0.2% Native American. Those from some other race made up 2.2% of the city's population, while those from two or more races made up 2.0%. Hispanics of any race made up 5.2% of the city's population.[99] The median income for a household in the city was $45,171. The per capita income for the city was $35,453. 22.6% percent of the population was living below the poverty line.
+Atlanta has one of the highest LGBT populations per capita, according to a survey by the Williams Institute, ranking third among major American cities, behind San Francisco and slightly behind Seattle, with 12.8% of the city's total population identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.[100]
+In the 1920s, the black population began to grow in Southern cities like Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, and Memphis.[101] In the 2010 Census, Atlanta was recorded as the nation's fourth-largest majority-black city. The New Great Migration has brought an insurgence of African Americans from California[102] and the North to the Atlanta area.[103][104] It has long been known as a center of African-American political power, education, economic prosperity, and culture, often called a black mecca.[105][106][107] Some middle and upper class African-American residents of Atlanta followed an influx of whites to newer housing and public schools in the suburbs in the early 21st century. From 2000 to 2010, the city's black population decreased by 31,678 people, shrinking from 61.4% of the city's population in 2000 to 54.0% in 2010, as the overall population expanded and migrants increased from other areas.[56]
+At the same time, the white population of Atlanta has increased. Between 2000 and 2010, the proportion of whites in the city's population grew faster than in any other U.S. city.[citation needed] In that decade, Atlanta's white population grew from 31% to 38% of the city's population, an absolute increase of 22,753 people, more than triple the increase that occurred between 1990 and 2000.[108]
+Of the total population five years and older, 83.3% spoke only English at home, while 8.8% spoke Spanish, 3.9% another Indo-European language, and 2.8% an Asian language.[109] 7.3% of Atlantans were born abroad (86th in the US).[99][110] Atlanta's dialect has traditionally been a variation of Southern American English. The Chattahoochee River long formed a border between the Coastal Southern and Southern Appalachian dialects.[111] Because of the development of corporate headquarters in the region, attracting migrants from other areas of the country, by 2003, Atlanta magazine concluded that Atlanta had become significantly "de-Southernized". A Southern accent was considered a handicap in some circumstances.[112] In general, Southern accents are less prevalent among residents of the city and inner suburbs and among younger people; they are more common in the outer suburbs and among older people.[111] At the same time, some residents of the city speak in Southern variations of African-American English.[113]
+Religion in Atlanta, while historically centered on Protestant Christianity, now encompasses many faiths, as a result of the city and metro area's increasingly international population. Some 63% of residents identify as some type of Protestant,[114][115] but in recent decades the Catholic Church has increased in numbers and influence because of new migrants to the region. Metro Atlanta also has numerous ethnic or national Christian congregations, including Korean and Indian churches. The larger non-Christian faiths are Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. Overall, there are over 1,000 places of worship within Atlanta.[116]
+Early immigrants in Atlanta were Jews and Greeks. Since 1970, the Latino immigrant population, especially Mexicans, has experienced the most rapid growth, mainly in Gwinnett, Cobb, and DeKalb counties.[117] Since 2010, the Atlanta area has seen very notable growth with immigrants from India, China, South Korea, and Jamaica.[118][119]  Other notable countries immigrants come from are Vietnam, Eritrea, Nigeria, the Arabian gulf, Ukraine and Poland.[120] Within a few decades, and in keeping with national trends, immigrants from England, Ireland, and German-speaking central Europe were no longer the majority of Atlanta's foreign-born population. The city's Italians included immigrants from northern Italy, many of whom had been in Atlanta since the 1890s; more recent arrivals from southern Italy; and Sephardic Jews from the Isle of Rhodes, which Italy had seized from Turkey in 1912.[121]
+With a GDP of $385 billion,[21]  the Atlanta metropolitan area's economy is the tenth-largest in the country and among the top 20-largest in the world. Corporate operations play a major role in Atlanta's economy, as the city claims the nation's third-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies. It also hosts the global headquarters of corporations like The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, AT&T Mobility, Chick-fil-A, and UPS. Over 75% of Fortune 1000 companies conduct business operations in the city's metro area, and the region hosts offices of over 1,250 multinational corporations.[122] Many corporations are drawn to the city by its educated workforce; as of 2014[update], 45% of adults aged 25 or older residing in the city have at least 4-year college degrees, compared to the national average of 28%.[123][124][125]
+Atlanta started as a railroad town, and logistics has been a major component of the city's economy to this day. Atlanta serves as an important rail junction and contains major classification yards for Norfolk Southern and CSX. Since its construction in the 1950s, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport has served as a key engine of the city's economic growth.[126] Delta Air Lines, the city's largest employer and the metro area's third-largest, operates the world's largest airline hub at Hartsfield-Jackson, and it has helped make it the world's busiest airport, in terms of both passenger traffic and aircraft operations.[127] Partly due to the airport, Atlanta has been also a hub for diplomatic missions; as of 2017[update], the city contains 26 consulates general, the seventh-highest concentration of diplomatic missions in the US.[128]
+Broadcasting is also an important aspect of Atlanta's economy. In the 1980s, media mogul Ted Turner founded the Cable News Network (CNN) and the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in the city. Around the same time, Cox Enterprises, now the nation's third-largest cable television service and the publisher of over a dozen American newspapers, moved its headquarters to the city.[129] The Weather Channel is also based just outside of the city in suburban Cobb County.
+Information technology (IT) has become an increasingly important part of Atlanta's economic output, earning the city the nickname the "Silicon peach". As of 2013[update], Atlanta contains the fourth-largest concentration of IT jobs in the US, numbering 85,000+. The city is also ranked as the sixth fastest-growing for IT jobs, with an employment growth of 4.8% in 2012 and a three-year growth near 9%, or 16,000 jobs. Companies are drawn to Atlanta's lower costs and educated workforce.[130][131][132][133]
+Recently, Atlanta has been a center for film and television production, largely because of the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which awards qualified productions a transferable income tax credit of 20% of all in-state costs for film and television investments of $500,000 or more.[134] Film and television production facilities based in Atlanta include Turner Studios, Pinewood Studios (Pinewood Atlanta), Tyler Perry Studios, Williams Street Productions, and the EUE/Screen Gems soundstages. Film and television production injected $9.5 billion into Georgia's economy in 2017, with Atlanta garnering most of the projects.[135] As a result, by the following year, Atlanta emerged as one of the all-time most popular destinations for film production globally.[136]
+Compared to other American cities, Atlanta's economy in the past had been disproportionately affected by the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent recession, with the city's economy earning a ranking of 68 among 100 American cities in a September 2014 report due to an elevated unemployment rate, declining real income levels, and a depressed housing market.[137][138][139][140] From 2010 to 2011, Atlanta saw a 0.9% contraction in employment and plateauing income growth at 0.4%. Although unemployment had decreased to 7% by late 2014, this was still higher than the national unemployment rate of 5.8%[141] Atlanta's housing market has also struggled, with home prices dropping by 2.1% in January 2012, reaching levels not seen since 1996. Compared with a year earlier, the average home price in Atlanta plummeted to 17.3% in February 2012, thus becoming the largest annual drop in the history of the index for any American or global city.[142][143] The decline in home prices prompted some economists to deem Atlanta the worst housing market in the nation at the height of the depression.[144] Nevertheless, the city's real estate market has resurged since 2012, so much median home value and rent growth significantly outpaced the national average by 2018, thanks to a rapidly-growing regional economy.[145][146][147]
+Atlanta is noted for its Southern culture. This is due to a large population of migrants from other parts of the U.S., in addition to many recent immigrants to the U.S. who have made the metropolitan area their home, establishing Atlanta as the cultural and economic hub of an increasingly multi-cultural metropolitan area.[148][149] Thus, although traditional Southern culture is part of Atlanta's cultural fabric, it is mostly the backdrop to one of the nation's most cosmopolitan cities. This unique cultural combination reveals itself in the arts district of Midtown, the quirky neighborhoods on the city's eastside, and the multi-ethnic enclaves found along Buford Highway.[150]
+Atlanta is one of few United States cities with permanent, professional, and resident companies in all major performing arts disciplines: opera (Atlanta Opera), ballet (Atlanta Ballet), orchestral music (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), and theater (the Alliance Theatre). Atlanta attracts many touring Broadway acts, concerts, shows, and exhibitions catering to a variety of interests. Atlanta's performing arts district is concentrated in Midtown Atlanta at the Woodruff Arts Center, which is home to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre. The city frequently hosts touring Broadway acts, especially at The Fox Theatre, a historic landmark among the highest-grossing theaters of its size.[151]
+As a national center for the arts,[152] Atlanta is home to significant art museums and institutions. The renowned High Museum of Art is arguably the South's leading art museum and among the most-visited art museums in the world.[153] The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) and the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film are the only such museums in the Southeast.[154][155] Contemporary art museums include the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Institutions of higher education contribute to Atlanta's art scene, with the Savannah College of Art and Design's Atlanta campus providing the city's arts community with a steady stream of curators, and Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum containing the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast.[156] In nearby Athens is the Georgia Museum of Art that is associated with the University of Georgia and is both an academic museum and the official art museum of the state of Georgia.[157]
+Atlanta has become one of the USA's best cities for street art in recent years.[158] It is home to Living Walls, an annual street art conference and the Outerspace Project, an annual event series that merges public art, live music, design, action sports, and culture.  Examples of street art in Atlanta can be found on the Atlanta Street Art Map.[159]
+Atlanta has played a major or contributing role in the development of various genres of American music at different points in the city's history. Beginning as early as the 1920s, Atlanta emerged as a center for country music, which was brought to the city by migrants from Appalachia.[160] During the countercultural 1960s, Atlanta hosted the Atlanta International Pop Festival, with the 1969 festival taking place more than a month before Woodstock and featuring many of the same bands. The city was also a center for Southern rock during its 1970s heyday: the Allman Brothers Band's hit instrumental "Hot 'Lanta" is an ode to the city, while Lynyrd Skynyrd's famous live rendition of "Free Bird" was recorded at the Fox Theatre in 1976, with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant directing the band to "play it pretty for Atlanta".[161] During the 1980s, Atlanta had an active punk rock scene centered on two of the city's music venues, 688 Club and the Metroplex, and Atlanta famously played host to the Sex Pistols' first U.S. show, which was performed at the Great Southeastern Music Hall.[162] The 1990s saw the city produce major mainstream acts across many different musical genres. Country music artist Travis Tritt, and R&B sensations TLC, Usher and Toni Braxton, were just some of the musicians proud to call Atlanta home. The city also gave birth to Atlanta hip hop, a subgenre that gained relevance and success with the introduction of the home-grown ATLiens known as Outkast, along with other Dungeon Family artists such as Organized Noize and Goodie Mob; however, it was not until the 2000s that Atlanta moved "from the margins to becoming hip-hop's center of gravity with another sub-genre called Crunk, part of a larger shift in hip-hop innovation to the South and East".[163] Also in the 2000s, Atlanta was recognized by the Brooklyn-based Vice magazine for its indie rock scene, which revolves around the various live music venues found on the city's alternative eastside.[164][165] To facilitate further local development, the state government provides qualified businesses and productions a 15% transferable income tax credit for in-state costs of music investments.[166] Trap music became popular in Atlanta due to the success of T.I., 21 Savage, Gucci Mane, Future, Migos, Lil Yachty, 2 Chainz and Young Thug.[167][168][169]
+As a national center for cinema and television production,[170] Atlanta plays a significant role in the entertainment industry. Atlanta is considered a hub for filmmakers of color and houses Tyler Perry Studios (first African-American owned major studio) and Areu Bros. Studios (first Latino-American owned major studio).[171] Atlanta doubles for other parts of the world and fictional settlements in blockbuster productions, among them the newer titles from The Fast and the Furious franchise and Marvel features such as Ant-Man (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War (both 2018).[172][173] On the other hand, Gone With the Wind (1939), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Sharkey's Machine (1981), The Slugger's Wife (1985), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), ATL (2006), and Baby Driver (2017) are among several notable examples of films actually set in Atlanta.[174][175] The city also provides the backdrop for shows such as The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, The Vampire Diaries and Atlanta, in addition to a myriad of animated and reality television programming.[176][177]
+Atlanta has more festivals than any city in the southeastern United States.[178]
+Some notable festivals in Atlanta include Shaky Knees Music Festival, Dragon Con, the Peachtree Road Race, Music Midtown, the Atlanta Film Festival, National Black Arts Festival, Festival Peachtree Latino, Atlanta Pride, the neighborhood festivals in Inman Park, Atkins Park, Virginia-Highland (Summerfest), and the Little Five Points Halloween festival.
+As of 2010[update], Atlanta is the seventh-most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year.[179] Although the most popular attraction among visitors to Atlanta is the Georgia Aquarium,[180] the world's largest indoor aquarium,[181] Atlanta's tourism industry is mostly driven by the city's history museums and outdoor attractions. Atlanta contains a notable number of historical museums and sites, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, which includes the preserved childhood home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his final resting place; the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum, which houses a massive painting and diorama in-the-round, with a rotating central audience platform, depicting the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War; the World of Coca-Cola, featuring the history of the world-famous soft drink brand and its well-known advertising; the College Football Hall of Fame, which honors college football and its athletes; the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which explores the civil rights movement and its connection to contemporary human rights movements throughout the world; the Carter Center and Presidential Library, housing U.S. President Jimmy Carter's papers and other material relating to the Carter administration and the Carter family's life; and the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, where Mitchell wrote the best-selling novel Gone with the Wind.
+Atlanta contains several outdoor attractions.[182] The Atlanta Botanical Garden, adjacent to Piedmont Park, is home to the 600-foot-long (180 m) Kendeda Canopy Walk, a skywalk that allows visitors to tour one of the city's last remaining urban forests from 40 feet (12 m) above the ground. The Canopy Walk is considered the only canopy-level pathway of its kind in the United States. Zoo Atlanta, in Grant Park, accommodates over 1,300 animals representing more than 220 species. Home to the nation's largest collections of gorillas and orangutans, the zoo is one of only four zoos in the U.S. to house giant pandas.[183] Festivals showcasing arts and crafts, film, and music, including the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and Music Midtown, respectively, are also popular with tourists.[184]
+Tourists are drawn to the city's culinary scene,[185] which comprises a mix of urban establishments garnering national attention, ethnic restaurants serving cuisine from every corner of the world, and traditional eateries specializing in Southern dining. Since the turn of the 21st century, Atlanta has emerged as a sophisticated restaurant town.[186] Many restaurants opened in the city's gentrifying neighborhoods have received praise at the national level, including Bocado, Bacchanalia, and Miller Union in West Midtown, Empire State South in Midtown, and Two Urban Licks and Rathbun's on the east side.[66][187][188][189] In 2011, The New York Times characterized Empire State South and Miller Union as reflecting "a new kind of sophisticated Southern sensibility centered on the farm but experienced in the city".[190] Visitors seeking to sample international Atlanta are directed to Buford Highway, the city's international corridor, and suburban Gwinnett County. There, the nearly-million immigrants that make Atlanta home have established various authentic ethnic restaurants representing virtually every nationality on the globe.[191][192] For traditional Southern fare, one of the city's most famous establishments is The Varsity, a long-lived fast food chain and the world's largest drive-in restaurant.[193] Mary Mac's Tea Room and Paschal's are more formal destinations for Southern food.
+Sports are an important part of the culture of Atlanta. The city is home to professional franchises for four major team sports: the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer. In addition, many of the city's universities participate in collegiate sports. The city also regularly hosts international, professional, and collegiate sporting events.
+The Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. Originally established as the Boston Red Stockings in 1871, they are the oldest continually operating professional sports franchise in the United States.[194] The Braves won the World Series in 1995, during an unprecedented run of 14 straight divisional championships from 1991 to 2005.[195] The team plays at Truist Park, having moved from Turner Field for the 2017 season. The new stadium is outside the city limits, located 10 miles (16 km) northwest of downtown in the Cumberland/Galleria area of Cobb county.
+The Atlanta Falcons have played in Atlanta since their inception in 1966. The team play their home games at Mercedes Benz Stadium, having moved from the Georgia Dome in 2017. The Falcons have won the division title six times (1980, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2016) and the NFC championship twice in 1998 and 2016. However, they have been unsuccessful in both of their Super Bowl trips, losing to the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999 and to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI in 2017.[196] In 2019, Atlanta also briefly hosted an Alliance of American Football team, the Atlanta Legends, but the league was suspended during its first season and the team folded.
+The Atlanta Hawks were founded in 1946 as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, playing in Moline, Illinois. they moved to Atlanta in 1968 and play their games in State Farm Arena.[197] The city is also home to a Women's National Basketball Association franchise, the Atlanta Dream, who share the stadium with the Hawks.[198]
+Professional soccer has been played in some form in Atlanta since 1967. Atlanta's first professional soccer team was the Atlanta Chiefs of the original North American Soccer League which won the 1968 NASL Championship and defeated English first division club Manchester City F.C. twice in international friendlies. In 1998 the Atlanta Silverbacks were formed, playing the new North American Soccer League. They now play as an amateur club in the National Premier Soccer League. In 2017, Atlanta United FC began play as Atlanta's first premier-division professional soccer club since the Chiefs.[199] They won MLS Cup 2018, defeating the Portland Timbers 2–0. Fan reception has been very positive; the team has broken several single-game and season attendance records for both MLS and the U.S. Open Cup. The club is estimated by Forbes to be the most valuable club in Major League Soccer.[200]
+In ice hockey, Atlanta has had two National Hockey League franchises, both of which relocated after playing in Atlanta for fewer than 15 years. The Atlanta Flames began play in 1972 before moving to Calgary in 1980, and the Atlanta Thrashers began play in 1999 before moving to Winnipeg in 2011. The Atlanta Gladiators of the ECHL Play in Duluth, a suburb northeast of the city.
+Several other, less popular sports also have professional franchises in Atlanta. The Georgia Swarm compete in the National Lacrosse League. On September 21, 2018, Major League Rugby announced that Atlanta was one of the expansion teams joining the league for the 2020 season[201] named Rugby ATL.[202] On August 2, 2018, it was announced that Atlanta would have its own Overwatch League team, Atlanta Reign.
+Atlanta regularly hosts a variety of sporting events. Most famous was the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics. The city has hosted the super bowl three times: Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994, Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, and Super Bowl LIII in 2019.[203] In professional golf, The Tour Championship, the final PGA Tour event of the season, is played annually at East Lake Golf Club. In 2001 and 2011, Atlanta hosted the PGA Championship, one of the four major championships in men's professional golf, at the Atlanta Athletic Club. In 2011, Atlanta hosted professional wrestling's annual WrestleMania. In soccer, Atlanta has hosted numerous international friendlies and CONCACAF Gold Cup matches. The city has hosted the NCAA Final Four Men's Basketball Championship five times, most recently in 2020. In college football, Atlanta hosted the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship, and annually hosts  the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, the SEC Championship Game, the Celebration Bowl, the MEAC/SWAC Challenge, and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.[204]
+Running is a popular local sport, and the city declares itself to be "Running City USA".[205] The city hosts the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10 km race, annually on Independence Day.[206] Atlanta also hosts the nation's largest Thanksgiving day half marathon, which starts and ends at Georgia State Stadium.[207] The Atlanta Marathon, which starts and ends at Centennial Olympic Park, routes through many of the city's historic landmarks,[208] and its 2020 running will coincide with the U.S. Olympic marathon trials for the 2020 Summer Olympics.[209]
+Atlanta's 343 parks, nature preserves, and gardens cover 3,622 acres (14.66 km2),[210] which amounts to only 5.6% of the city's total acreage, compared to the national average of just over 10%.[211][212] However, 64% of Atlantans live within a 10-minute walk of a park, a percentage equal to the national average.[213] In its 2013 ParkScore ranking, The Trust for Public Land reported that among the park systems of the 50 most populous U.S. cities, Atlanta's park system received a ranking of 31.[214] Piedmont Park, in Midtown, is Atlanta's most iconic green space.[citation needed] The park, which underwent a major renovation and expansion in recent years, attracts visitors from across the region and hosts cultural events throughout the year. Other notable city parks include Centennial Olympic Park, a legacy of the 1996 Summer Olympics that forms the centerpiece of the city's tourist district; Woodruff Park, which anchors the campus of Georgia State University; Grant Park, home to Zoo Atlanta; Chastain Park, which houses an amphitheater used for live music concerts; and the under construction Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry, the 280-acre green space and reservoir project slated to become the city's largest park when fully complete in the 2020s.[215] The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, in the northwestern corner of the city, preserves a 48 mi (77 km) stretch of the river for public recreation opportunities.
+The Atlanta Botanical Garden, adjacent to Piedmont Park, contains formal gardens, including a Japanese garden and a rose garden, woodland areas, and a conservatory that includes indoor exhibits of plants from tropical rainforests and deserts. The BeltLine, a former rail corridor that forms a 22 mi (35 km) loop around Atlanta's core, has been transformed into a series of parks, connected by a multi-use trail, increasing Atlanta's park space by 40%.[216]
+Atlanta offers resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. Golf and tennis are popular in Atlanta, and the city contains six public golf courses and 182 tennis courts. Facilities along the Chattahoochee River cater to watersports enthusiasts, providing the opportunity for kayaking, canoeing, fishing, boating, or tubing. The city's only skate park, a 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) facility that offers bowls, curbs, and smooth-rolling concrete mounds, is at Historic Fourth Ward Park.[217]
+Atlanta is governed by a mayor and the Atlanta City Council. The city council consists of 15 representatives—one from each of the city's 12 districts and three at-large positions. The mayor may veto a bill passed by the council, but the council can override the veto with a two-thirds majority.[218] The mayor of Atlanta is Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat elected on a nonpartisan ballot whose first term in office began on January 2, 2018.[219] Every mayor elected since 1973 has been black.[220] In 2001, Shirley Franklin became the first woman to be elected mayor of Atlanta, and the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major Southern city.[221] Atlanta city politics suffered from a notorious reputation for corruption during the 1990s administration of Mayor Bill Campbell, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2006 on three counts of tax evasion in connection with gambling winnings during trips he took with city contractors.[222]
+As the state capital, Atlanta is the site of most of Georgia's state government. The Georgia State Capitol building, located downtown, houses the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state, as well as the General Assembly. The Governor's Mansion is in a residential section of Buckhead. Atlanta serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).[223][224] The City of Atlanta annexed the CDC into its territory effective January 1, 2018.[225] Atlanta also plays an important role in the federal judiciary system, containing the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
+Historically, Atlanta has been a stronghold for the Democratic Party. Although municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, nearly all of the city's elected officials are registered Democrats. The city is split among 14 state house districts and four state senate districts, all held by Democrats. At the federal level, Atlanta is split between two congressional districts. Most of the city is in the 5th district, formerly represented by Democrat John Lewis and now vacant. A small portion in the north is in the 11th district, represented by Republican Barry Loudermilk.[226]
+The city is served by the Atlanta Police Department, which numbers 2,000 officers[227] and oversaw a 40% decrease in the city's crime rate between 2001 and 2009. Specifically, homicide decreased by 57%, rape by 72%, and violent crime overall by 55%. Crime is down across the country, but Atlanta's improvement has occurred at more than twice the national rate.[228] Nevertheless, Forbes ranked Atlanta as the sixth most dangerous city in the United States in 2012.[229] Aggravated assaults, burglaries and robberies were down from 2014.[230] Mexican drug cartels thrive in Atlanta.[231] 145 gangs operate in Atlanta.[232]
+The Atlanta Fire Rescue Department provides fire protection and first responder emergency medical services to the city from its 35 fire stations. In 2017, AFRD responded to over 100,000 calls for service over a coverage area of 135.7 square miles (351.5 square kilometres). The department also protects Hartsfield–Jackson with 5 fire stations on the property; serving over 1 million passengers from over 100 different countries. The department protects over 3000 highrise buildings, 23 miles (37 kilometres) of the rapid rail system, and 60 miles (97 kilometres) of interstate highway.[233]
+Emergency ambulance services are provided to city residents by hospital based Grady EMS (Fulton County),[234] and American Medical Response (DeKalb County).[235]
+Atlanta in January 2017 declared the city was a "welcoming city" and "will remain open and welcoming to all". Nonetheless, Atlanta does not consider itself to be a "sanctuary city".[236] Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said: "Our city does not support ICE. We don't have a relationship with the U.S. Marshal[s] Service. We closed our detention center to ICE detainees, and we would not pick up people on an immigration violation."[237]
+Due to more than 15 colleges and universities in Atlanta, it is considered one of the nation's largest hubs for higher education.[238][239]
+The Georgia Institute of Technology is a prominent public research university in Midtown. It offers highly ranked degree programs in engineering, design, industrial management, the sciences, and architecture.
+The University of Georgia, chartered in 1785, is one of the top public research universities in the nation with "Highest Research Activity" and based about an hour away in Athens; however, the Atlanta Center of its Terry College of Business is in the Buckhead area of Atlanta and the university has a metropolitan Atlanta Gwinnett Campus that occupies 60,000 square feet of the Intellicenter.
+Georgia State University is a major public research university in Downtown Atlanta; it is the largest of the 29 public colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia and is a significant contributor to the revitalization of the city's central business district.
+Atlanta is home to nationally renowned private colleges and universities, most notably Emory University, a leading liberal arts and research institution that operates Emory Healthcare, the largest health care system in Georgia.[240] The City of Atlanta annexed Emory into its territory effective January 1, 2018.[225]
+The Atlanta University Center is also in the city; it is the largest contiguous consortium of historically black colleges in the nation, comprising Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Morehouse School of Medicine. Atlanta contains a campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, a private art and design university that has proven to be a major factor in the recent growth of Atlanta's visual art community. Atlanta and nearby Athens also boast American Bar Association accredited law schools: Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, Emory University School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law and University of Georgia School of Law.
+The Atlanta Regional Council of Higher Education (ARCHE) is dedicated to strengthening synergy among 19 public and private colleges and universities in the Atlanta region. Participating Atlanta region colleges and universities partner on joint-degree programs, cross-registration, library services, and cultural events.[241]
+Fifty-five thousand students are enrolled in 106 schools in Atlanta Public Schools (APS), some of which are operated as charter schools.[242] Atlanta is served by many private schools including, without limitation, Atlanta Jewish Academy, Atlanta International School, The Westminster Schools, Pace Academy, The Lovett School, The Paideia School, Holy Innocents' Episcopal School and Roman Catholic parochial schools operated by the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
+In 2018 the City of Atlanta annexed a portion of DeKalb County containing the Centers for Disease Control and Emory University; this portion will be zoned to the DeKalb County School District until 2024, when it will transition into APS.[243]
+The primary network-affiliated television stations in Atlanta are WXIA-TV 11 (NBC), WGCL-TV 46 (CBS), WSB-TV 2 (ABC), and WAGA-TV 5 (Fox). Other major commercial stations include WPXA-TV 14 (Ion), WPCH-TV 17 (Ind.), WUVG-TV 34 (Univision), WUPA 69 (CW), and WATL 36 (MyNetworkTV). WPXA-TV, WUVG-TV, WAGA-TV and WUPA are network O&O's. The Atlanta metropolitan area is served by two public television stations (both PBS member stations), and two public radio stations. WGTV 8 is the flagship station of the statewide Georgia Public Television network, while WPBA is owned by Atlanta Public Schools. Georgia Public Radio is listener-funded and comprises one NPR member station, WABE, a classical music station operated by Atlanta Public Schools. The second public radio, listerner-funded NPR member station is WCLK, a jazz music station owned and operated by Clark Atlanta University.
+Atlanta is served by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of a 1950 merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, with staff consolidation occurring in 1982 and separate publication of the morning Constitution and afternoon Journal ceasing in 2001.[244] Alternative weekly newspapers include Creative Loafing, which has a weekly print circulation of 80,000. Atlanta magazine is an award-winning, monthly general-interest magazine based in and covering Atlanta.
+Atlanta's transportation infrastructure comprises a complex network that includes a heavy rail rapid transit system, a light rail streetcar loop, a multi-county bus system, Amtrak service via the Crescent, multiple freight train lines, an Interstate Highway System, several airports, including the world's busiest, and over 45 miles (72 km) of bike paths.
+Atlanta has a network of freeways that radiate out from the city, and automobiles are the dominant means of transportation in the region.[245] Three major interstate highways converge in Atlanta: I-20 (east-west), I-75 (northwest-southeast), and I-85 (northeast-southwest). The latter two combine in the middle of the city to form the Downtown Connector (I-75/85), which carries more than 340,000 vehicles per day and is one of the most congested segments of interstate highway in the United States.[246] Atlanta is mostly encircled by Interstate 285, a beltway locally known as "the Perimeter" that has come to mark the boundary between "Inside the Perimeter" (ITP), the city and close-in suburbs, and "Outside the Perimeter" (OTP), the outer suburbs and exurbs. The heavy reliance on automobiles for transportation in Atlanta has resulted in traffic, commute, and air pollution rates that rank among the worst in the country.[247][248][249] The City of Atlanta has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 15.2 percent of Atlanta households lacked a car, and increased slightly to 16.4 percent in 2016. The national average is 8.7 percent in 2016. Atlanta averaged 1.31 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.[250]
+The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) provides public transportation in the form of buses, heavy rail, and a downtown light rail loop. Notwithstanding heavy automotive usage in Atlanta, the city's subway system is the eighth busiest in the country.[251] MARTA rail lines connect key destinations, such as the airport, Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, and Perimeter Center. However, significant destinations, such as Emory University and Cumberland, remain unserved. As a result, a 2011 Brookings Institution study placed Atlanta 91st of 100 metro areas for transit accessibility.[252] Emory University operates its Cliff shuttle buses with 200,000 boardings per month, while private minibuses supply Buford Highway. Amtrak, the national rail passenger system, provides service to Atlanta via the Crescent train (New York–New Orleans), which stops at Peachtree Station. In 2014, the Atlanta Streetcar opened to the public. The streetcar's line, which is also known as the Downtown Loop, runs 2.7 miles (4.3 km) around the downtown tourist areas of Peachtree Center, Centennial Olympic Park, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, and Sweet Auburn.[253] The Atlanta Streetcar line is also being expanded on in the coming years to include a wider range of Atlanta's neighborhoods and important places of interest, with a total of over 50 miles (80 km) of track in the plan.[254]
+Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport as measured by passenger traffic and aircraft traffic.[255] The facility offers air service to over 150 U.S. destinations and more than 75 international destinations in 50 countries, with over 2,500 arrivals and departures daily.[256] Delta Air Lines maintains its largest hub at the airport.[257] Situated 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown, the airport covers most of the land inside a wedge formed by Interstate 75, Interstate 85, and Interstate 285.
+Cycling is a growing mode of transportation in Atlanta, more than doubling since 2009, when it comprised 1.1% of all commutes (up from 0.3% in 2000).[258][259] Although Atlanta's lack of bike lanes and hilly topography may deter many residents from cycling,[258][260] the city's transportation plan calls for the construction of 226 miles (364 km) of bike lanes by 2020, with the BeltLine helping to achieve this goal.[261] In 2012, Atlanta's first "bike track" was constructed on 10th Street in Midtown. The two lane bike track runs from Monroe Drive west to Charles Allen Drive, with connections to the Beltline and Piedmont Park.[262] Starting in June 2016, Atlanta received a bike sharing program, known as Relay Bike Share, with 100 bikes in Downtown and Midtown, which expanded to 500 bikes at 65 stations as of April 2017.[263][264]
+According to the 2016 American Community Survey (five-year average), 68.6% of working city of Atlanta residents commuted by driving alone, 7% carpooled, 10% used public transportation, and 4.6% walked. About 2.1% used all other forms of transportation, including taxi, bicycle, and motorcycle. About 7.6% worked at home.[265]
+The city has also become one of a handful of "scooter capitals", where companies like Lime[266] and Bird[267][268] have gained a major foothold by placing electric scooters on street corners and byways.
+—National Geographic magazine, in naming Atlanta a "Place of a Lifetime"[269]
+Atlanta has a reputation as a "city in a forest" due to an abundance of trees that is rare among major cities.[270][271][272] The city's main street is named after a tree, and beyond the Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead business districts, the skyline gives way to a dense canopy of woods that spreads into the suburbs. The city is home to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, an annual arts and crafts festival held one weekend during early April, when the native dogwoods are in bloom. The nickname is factually accurate, as vegetation covers 47.9% of the city as of 2017,[273] the highest among all major American cities, and well above the national average of 27%.[274] Atlanta's tree coverage does not go unnoticed—it was the main reason cited by National Geographic in naming Atlanta a "Place of a Lifetime".[269][275]
+The city's lush tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings, has increasingly been under assault from man and nature due to heavy rains, drought, aged forests, new pests, and urban construction. A 2001 study found Atlanta's heavy tree cover declined from 48% in 1974 to 38% in 1996.[276] Community organizations and the city government are addressing the problem. Trees Atlanta, a non-profit organization founded in 1985, has planted and distributed over 113,000 shade trees in the city,[277] and Atlanta's government has awarded $130,000 in grants to neighborhood groups to plant trees.[271] Fees are additionally imposed on developers that remove trees on their property per a citywide ordinance, active since 1993.[278]
+Atlanta has 17 sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):[279][280][281]
+Nation:
+States:
+Territories:

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+The Louvre (English: /ˈluːv(rə)/ LOOV(-rə)[3]), or the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] (listen)), is the world's  largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward). Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet).[4] In 2019, the Louvre received 9.6 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the world.[2][5]
+The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.[6] The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.[7] In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years.[8] During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.
+The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.
+The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, was begun as a fortress by Philip II in the 12th century to protect the city from English soldiers which were in Normandy. Remnants of this castle are still visible in the crypt.[9] Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known; it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower.[10] According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).[10][11] In the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery,[12] this territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, however.
+The Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis I renovated the site in French Renaissance style.[13] Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvre's holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.[14] After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed; however, the move permitted the Louvre to be used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage.[13][15][16] Four generations of Boulle were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre in the following order: Pierre Boulle, Jean Boulle, Andre-Charles Boulle and his four sons (Jean-Philippe,[17] Pierre-Benoît (c. 1683–1741), Charles-André (1685–1749) and Charles-Joseph (1688–1754)), after him. André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732[18]) is the most famous French cabinetmaker and the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry,[19][20] also known as "Inlay".[21]  Boulle was "the most remarkable of all French cabinetmakers".[22] He was commended to Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King", by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683) as being "the most skilled craftsman in his profession".  Before the fire of 1720 destroyed them, André-Charles Boulle held priceless works of art in the Louvre, including forty-eight drawings by Raphael'.[23]
+By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery, with the art critic La Font de Saint-Yenne publishing, in 1747, a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the Tableaux du Roy on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and contained Andrea del Sarto's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck, until its closing in 1780 as a result of the gift of the palace to the Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778.[24] Under Louis XVI, the royal museum idea became policy.[25] The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the "French Museum". Many proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum; however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution.[24]
+During the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts".[24] On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation as urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display.[26]
+The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the monarchy's demise. The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated".[28] The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property (biens nationaux).[29][30] To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 livres per year.[24] In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as Laocoön and His Sons and the Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty".[29][31]
+The early days were hectic; privileged artists continued to live in residence, and the unlabelled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling".[29] The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns.[29]
+Under Napoleon I, a northern wing paralleling the Grande Galerie was begun, and the collection grew through successful military campaigns.[32] Following the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, Napoléon appointed the museum's first director, Dominique Vivant Denon. In tribute, the museum was renamed the "Musée Napoléon" in 1803, and acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as spoils or through treaties such as the Treaty of Tolentino.[33] At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of the Austrian Monarchy. This treaty not only marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy, but also the end of the first phases of the French Revolutionary Wars. Under this treaty, Italian cities were required to contribute pieces of art and patrimony to take part in Napoleon's "parades of booty" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum.[34] One of the most famous pieces taken under this program was the Horses of Saint Mark. The four antique bronze horses, which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris to reside atop Napoleon's Arc du Carrousel in Paris in 1797.[34]
+Several churches and palaces, including Saint Mark's Basilica, were looted by the French, which outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities.[35] In 1797, the Treaty of Tolentino was signed by Napoleon, and two statues, the Nile and Tiber, were taken to Paris. These statues had previously been in the Vatican, and both were housed in the Louvre until 1815. After the defeat of Napoleon, the Nile was returned to Italy.[36] However, the Tiber remained in the Louvre Museum and can be seen in the collections today.
+The Italian Peninsula was not the only region from which Napoleon took art. Under the Directory government of the 1790s, Napoleon (then a General) led an expedition to Egypt. The campaign was an expansionist effort on the part of the government, but the Directory had another goal to make Paris the center of art, science, and culture.[37] The Directory wanted France to assume responsibility for liberating the works of art they deemed in danger in order to protect and nationalize the heritage and culture of their subjects.[38] As a result, there were teams of artists and scientists who accompanied the armies into battle equipped with lists of paintings, sculptures, and other pieces of patrimony that would be collected, crated, and shipped back to France.[39]
+Dominique Vivant Denon was Napoleon's art advisor, and accompanied him on the expedition to Egypt. Through his initiative, the Valley of the Kings in Egypt was discovered and studied extensively.[40] As a result, he was later installed by Napoleon as the director of Musée Napoléon, formerly the Louvre, cementing the status of the museum as a center for global patrimony and storehouse for cultural heritage.[41]
+One of the most important discoveries made during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt was the Rosetta Stone. It was discovered in 1799, and eventually led to the ability to decipher ancient hieroglyphs. Although the Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French, it actually never made it to the Louvre Museum. It was seized by British Forces following the defeat of Napoleon in Egypt and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801.[42] It is now on display at the British Museum.[43]
+After the French defeat at Waterloo, the works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrators were loath to comply and hid many works in their private collections. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, even some that had been restored by the Louvre.[33][44] In 1815 Louis XVIII finally concluded agreements with the Austrian government[45][46] for the keeping of pieces such as Veronese's Wedding at Cana which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection.
+During the Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X between them added 135 pieces at a cost of 720,000 francs and created the department of Egyptian antiquities curated by Champollion, increased by more than 7,000 works with the acquisition of antiquities in the Edme-Antoine Durand, the Egyptian collection of Henry Salt or the second collection former by Bernardino Drovetti. This was less than the amount given for rehabilitation of Versailles, and the Louvre suffered relative to the rest of Paris. After the creation of the French Second Republic in 1848, the new government allocated two million francs for repair work and ordered the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon, the Salon Carré, and the Grande Galérie.[47] In 1861, Napoleon III bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection. Between  1852 and 1870, under Napoleon III, the museum added 20,000 new pieces to its collections, and the Pavillon de Flore and the Grande Galérie were remodelled under architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel.[47]
+The Louvre was damaged during the suppression of the Paris Commune.  On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Palace. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the palace and spreading to the museum next to it.  The library of the museum and some of the adjoining halls were destroyed, but the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees.[48]
+During the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new pieces mainly via donations and gifts. The Société des Amis du Louvre (established in 1897) donated the Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, and in 1863 an expedition uncovered the sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. This piece, though heavily damaged, has been prominently displayed since 1884.[50] The 583-item Collection La Caze donated in 1869, included works by Chardin; Fragonard; Rembrandt – such as Bathsheba at Her Bath – and Gilles by Watteau.[50]
+Museum expansion slowed after World War I, and the collection did not acquire many significant new works; exceptions were Georges de La Tour's Saint Thomas and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's (1845–1934) 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books.[30]
+At the beginning of World War II the museum removed most of the art and hid valuable pieces. When Germany occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord. When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to the Château de Valençay.[51] On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement".[52] In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre.[53]
+By 1874, the Louvre Palace had achieved its present form of an almost rectangular structure with the Sully Wing to the east containing the Cour Carrée (Square Court) and the oldest parts of the Louvre; and two wings which wrap the Cour Napoléon, the Richelieu Wing to the north and the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south.[54] In 1983, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, the Grand Louvre plan to renovate the building and relocate the Finance Ministry, allowing displays throughout the building. Architect I. M. Pei was awarded the project and proposed a glass pyramid to stand over a new entrance in the main court, the Cour Napoléon.[55] The pyramid and its underground lobby were inaugurated on 15 October 1988 and the Louvre Pyramid was completed in 1989. The second phase of the Grand Louvre plan, the Pyramide Inversée (Inverted Pyramid), was completed in 1993. As of 2002, attendance had doubled since completion.[56]
+The Napoleon Courtyard and Ieoh Ming Pei's pyramid in its center, at dusk.
+The Louvre Palace and the pyramid (by day)
+The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 square metres (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection.[1] The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds.[30] It is the world's most visited museum, averaging 15,000 visitors per day, 65 percent of whom are foreign tourists.[56][57]
+After architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti had won an international competition to create its new galleries for Islamic art, the new 3,000 sq m[58] pavilion eventually opened in 2012, consisting of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof (fashioned from almost 9,000 steel tubes that form an interior web) that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing.[59] The galleries, which the museum had initially hoped to open by 2009, represent the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since the addition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989.[60]
+On 5 February 2015, about one hundred archaeologists, protesting against commercial private involvement to protect France's heritage, blocked Louvre's ticket desks to facilitate free access to the museum.[61] At least one announcement reading "Free entrance offered by the archeologists" has been attached to the ticket desk and a number of people visited the museum free of charge.[61]
+The Louvre is owned by the French government; however, since the 1990s it has become more independent.[57][62][63][64] Since 2003, the museum has been required to generate funds for projects.[63] By 2006, government funds had dipped from 75 percent of the total budget to 62 percent. Every year, the Louvre now raises as much as it gets from the state, about €122 million. The government pays for operating costs (salaries, safety and maintenance), while the rest – new wings, refurbishments, acquisitions – is up to the museum to finance.[65] A further €3 million to €5 million a year is raised by the Louvre from exhibitions that it curates for other museums, while the host museum keeps the ticket money.[65] As the Louvre became a point of interest in the book The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 film based on the book, the museum earned $2.5 million by allowing filming in its galleries.[66][67] In 2008, the French government provided $180 million of the Louvre's yearly $350 million budget; the remainder came from private contributions and ticket sales.[62]
+The Louvre employs a staff of 2,000 led by Director Jean-Luc Martinez,[68] who reports to the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. Martinez replaced Henri Loyrette in April 2013. Under Loyrette, who replaced Pierre Rosenberg in 2001, the Louvre has undergone policy changes that allow it to lend and borrow more works than before.[57][63] In 2006, it loaned 1,300 works, which enabled it to borrow more foreign works. From 2006 to 2009, the Louvre lent artwork to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and received a $6.9 million payment to be used for renovations.[63]
+In 2012, the Louvre and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced a five-year collaboration on exhibitions, publications, art conservation and educational programming.[69] The €98.5 million expansion of the Islamic Art galleries in 2012 received state funding of €31 million, as well as €17 million from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. The republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated in total €26 million. In addition, the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is supposed to provide €400 million over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum's brand.[58] Loyrette has tried to improve weak parts of the collection through income generated from loans of art and by guaranteeing that "20% of admissions receipts will be taken annually for acquisitions".[63] He has more administrative independence for the museum and achieved 90 percent of galleries to be open daily, as opposed to 80 percent previously. He oversaw the creation of extended hours and free admission on Friday nights and an increase in the acquisition budget to $36 million from $4.5 million.[62][63]
+On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci's death, the Louvre held the largest ever single exhibit of his work, from 24 October  2019 to 24 February  2020. The event included over a hundred items: paintings, drawings and notebooks. A full 11 of the fewer than 20 paintings that Da Vinci completed in his lifetime were displayed. Five of them are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is in such great demand among visitors to the Louvre museum; the work remained on display in its gallery. Salvator Mundi was also not included since the Saudi owner did not agree to move the work from its hiding place. Vitruvian Man, however, was on display, after a successful legal battle with its owner, the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice.[70][71]
+In 2004, French officials decided to build a satellite museum on the site of an abandoned coal pit in the former mining town of Lens to relieve the crowded Paris Louvre, increase total museum visits, and improve the industrial north's economy.[72] Six cities were considered for the project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. In 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens to be the site of the new building, the Louvre-Lens. Japanese architects SANAA were selected to design the Lens project in 2005. Museum officials predicted that the new building, capable of receiving about 600 works of art, would attract up to 500,000 visitors a year when it opened in 2012.[72]
+On 8 November 2017, a direct extension of the Louvre, Louvre Abu Dhabi, opened its doors to the public in the city of Abu Dhabi. A 30-year agreement, signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, established the museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi in exchange for €832,000,000 (US$1.3 billion). The Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel and the engineering firm of Buro Happold, occupy 24,000 square metres (260,000 sq ft) and is covered by an iconic metallic roof designed to cast rays of light mimicking sunlight passing through date palm fronds in an oasis. France agreed to rotate between 200 and 300 artworks during a 10-year period; to provide management expertise; and to provide four temporary exhibitions a year for 15 years. The art will come from multiple museums, including the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Centre, the Musée d'Orsay, Versailles, the Musée Guimet, the Musée Rodin, and the Musée du quai Branly.[73]
+In March 2018 an exhibition of dozens of artworks and relics belonging to France's Louvre Museum was opened to visitors in Tehran, as a result of an agreement between Iranian and French presidents in 2016. In the Louvre, two departments were allocated to the antiquities of the Iranian civilization, and the managers of the two departments visited Tehran. Relics belonging to Ancient Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia as well as French royal items were showcased at the Tehran exhibition.
+Iran's National Museum building was designed and constructed by French architect André Godard.[74] Following its time in Tehran, the exhibition is set to be held in the Khorasan Grand Museum in Mashhad, northeastern Iran in June 2018.[75]
+In 2009, Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand approved a plan that would have created a storage facility 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Paris to hold objects from the Louvre and two other national museums in Paris's flood zone, the Musée du Quai Branly and the Musée d'Orsay; the plan was later scrapped. In 2013, his successor Aurélie Filippetti announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of art[76] held in a 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft) basement storage area in Liévin; the cost of the project, estimated at €60 million, will be split between the region (49%) and the Louvre (51%).[77] The Louvre will be the sole owner and manager of the store.[76] In July 2015, a team led by British firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was selected to design the complex, which will have light-filled work spaces under one vast, green roof.[76]
+The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property seized under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II by the Nazis. During Nazi occupation, thousands of artworks were stolen. But after the war, 61,233 articles of more than 150,000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Louvre's Office des Biens Privés. In 1949, it entrusted 2,130 unclaimed pieces (including 1,001 paintings) to the Direction des Musées de France in order to keep them under appropriate conditions of conservation until their restitution and meanwhile classified them as MNRs (Musées Nationaux Recuperation or, in English, the National Museums of Recovered Artwork). Some 10% to 35% of the pieces are believed to come from Jewish spoliations[78] and until the identification of their rightful owners, which declined at the end of the 1960s, they are registered indefinitely on separate inventories from the museum's collections.
+They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (1950–1954) in order to allow rightful claimants to identify their properties, then stored or displayed, according to their interest, in several French museums including the Louvre. From 1951 to 1965, about 37 pieces were restituted. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 1947–1949 has been accessible online and completed. In 1997, Prime Minister Alain Juppé initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by Jean Mattéoli, to investigate the matter and according to the government, the Louvre is in charge of 678 pieces of artwork still unclaimed by their rightful owners.[79] During the late 1990s, the comparison of the American war archives, which had not been done before, with the French and German ones as well as two court cases which finally settled some of the heirs' rights (Gentili di Giuseppe and Rosenberg families) allowed more accurate investigations. Since 1996, the restitutions, according sometimes to less formal criteria, concerned 47 more pieces (26 paintings, with 6 from the Louvre including a then displayed Tiepolo), until the last claims of French owners and their heirs ended again in 2006.
+According to Serge Klarsfeld, since the now complete and constant publicity which the artworks got in 1996, the majority of the French Jewish community is nevertheless in favour of the return to the normal French civil rule of prescription acquisitive of any unclaimed good after another long period of time and consequently to their ultimate integration into the common French heritage instead of their transfer to foreign institutions like during World War II.
+Napoleon's campaigns acquired Italian pieces by treaties, as war reparations, and Northern European pieces as spoils as well as some antiquities excavated in Egypt, though the vast majority of the latter were seized as war reparations by the British army and are now part of collections of the British Museum. On the other hand, the Dendera zodiac is, like the Rosetta Stone, claimed by Egypt even though it was acquired in 1821, before the Egyptian Anti-export legislation of 1835. The Louvre administration has thus argued in favor of retaining this item despite requests by Egypt for its return. The museum participates too in arbitration sessions held via UNESCO's Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin.[80] The museum consequently returned in 2009 five Egyptian fragments of frescoes (30 cm x 15 cm each) whose existence of the tomb of origin had only been brought to the authorities attention in 2008, eight to five years after their good-faith acquisition by the museum from two private collections and after the necessary respect of the procedure of déclassement from French public collections before the Commission scientifique nationale des collections des musées de France.[81]
+The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments.[1]
+The department, comprising over 50,000 pieces,[82] includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century AD.[83] The collection, among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.[83]
+The department's origins lie in the royal collection, but it was augmented by Napoleon's 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Vivant, the future director of the Louvre.[82] After Jean-François Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt and Bernardino Drovet; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including The Seated Scribe.[82][85]
+Guarded by the Large Sphinx (c. 2000 BC), the collection is housed in more than 20 rooms. Holdings include art, papyrus scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons.[82][83] Pieces from the ancient period include the Gebel el-Arak Knife from 3400 BC, The Seated Scribe, and the Head of King Djedefre. Middle Kingdom art, "known for its gold work and statues", moved from realism to idealization; this is exemplified by the schist statue of Amenemhatankh and the wooden Offering Bearer. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess Nephthys and the limestone depiction of the goddess Hathor demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth.[83][85]
+Near Eastern antiquities, the second newest department, dates from 1881 and presents an overview of early Near Eastern civilization and "first settlements", before the arrival of Islam. The department is divided into three geographic areas: the Levant, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-Émile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of Sargon II's palace.[83][86] These finds formed the basis of the Assyrian museum, the precursor to today's department.[83]
+The museum contains exhibits from Sumer and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's Stele of the Vultures from 2450 BC and the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains. The 2.25-metre (7.38 ft) Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901, displays Babylonian Laws prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the Investiture of Zimrilim and the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il found in the ancient city-state of Mari are also on display at the museum.
+The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I.[83][87] This section also contains rare objects from Persepolis which were also lent to the British Museum for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005.[88]
+The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the Neolithic to the 6th century.[89] The collection spans from the Cycladic period to the decline of the Roman Empire. This department is one of the museum's oldest; it began with appropriated royal art, some of which was acquired under Francis I.[83][90] Initially, the collection focused on marble sculptures, such as the Venus de Milo. Works such as the Apollo Belvedere arrived during the Napoleonic Wars, but these pieces were returned after Napoleon I's fall in 1815. In the 19th century, the Louvre acquired works including vases from the Durand collection, bronzes such as the Borghese Vase from the Bibliothèque nationale.[84][89]
+The archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre, from 640 BC; and the cylindrical Hera of Samos, c. 570–560 BC.[83][91] After the 4th century BC, focus on the human form increased, exemplified by the Borghese Gladiator. The Louvre holds masterpieces from the Hellenistic era, including The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC) and the Venus de Milo, symbolic of classical art.[90] The long Galerie Campana displays an outstanding collection of more than one thousand Greek potteries. In the galleries paralleling the Seine, much of the museum's Roman sculpture is displayed.[89] The Roman portraiture is representative of that genre; examples include the portraits of Agrippa and Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino.
+The Islamic art collection, the museum's newest, spans "thirteen centuries and three continents".[92] These exhibits, comprising ceramics, glass, metalware, wood, ivory, carpet, textiles, and miniatures, include more than 5,000 works and 1,000 shards.[93] Originally part of the decorative arts department, the holdings became separate in 2003. Among the works are the Pyxide d'al-Mughira, a 10th century ivory box from Andalusia; the Baptistery of Saint-Louis, an engraved brass basin from the 13th or 14th century Mamluk period; and the 10th century Shroud of Saint-Josse from Iran.[86][92] The collection contains three pages of the Shahnameh, an epic book of poems by Ferdowsi in Persian, and a Syrian metalwork named the Barberini Vase.[93] In September 2019, a new and improved Islamic art department was opened by Princess Lamia bint Majed Al-Saud. The new department exhibits 3,000 pieces were collected from Spain to India via the Arabian peninsula dating from the 7th to the 19th centuries.[94]
+The sculpture department comprises work created before 1850 that does not belong in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department.[95] The Louvre has been a repository of sculpted material since its time as a palace; however, only ancient architecture was displayed until 1824, except for Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave.[96] Initially the collection included only 100 pieces, the rest of the royal sculpture collection being at Versailles. It remained small until 1847, when Léon Laborde was given control of the department. Laborde developed the medieval section and purchased the first such statues and sculptures in the collection, King Childebert and stanga door, respectively.[96] The collection was part of the Department of Antiquities but was given autonomy in 1871 under Louis Courajod, a director who organized a wider representation of French works.[95][96] In 1986, all post-1850 works were relocated to the new Musée d'Orsay. The Grand Louvre project separated the department into two exhibition spaces; the French collection is displayed in the Richelieu wing, and foreign works in the Denon wing.[95]
+The collection's overview of French sculpture contains Romanesque works such as the 11th-century Daniel in the Lions' Den and the 12th-century Virgin of Auvergne. In the 16th century, Renaissance influence caused French sculpture to become more restrained, as seen in Jean Goujon's bas-reliefs, and Germain Pilon's Descent from the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1640–1 Bust of Cardinal Richelieu, Étienne Maurice Falconet's Woman Bathing and Amour menaçant, and François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassical works includes Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1787).[96] The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptor Alfred Barye.
+The Objets d'art collection spans the time from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. The department began as a subset of the sculpture department, based on royal property and the transfer of work from the Basilique Saint-Denis, the burial ground of French monarchs that held the Coronation Sword of the Kings of France.[97][98] Among the budding collection's most prized works were pietre dure vases and bronzes. The Durand collection's 1825 acquisition added "ceramics, enamels, and stained glass", and 800 pieces were given by Pierre Révoil. The onset of Romanticism rekindled interest in Renaissance and Medieval artwork, and the Sauvageot donation expanded the department with 1,500 middle-age and faïence works. In 1862, the Campana collection added gold jewelry and maiolicas, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries.[98][99]
+The works are displayed on the Richelieu Wing's first floor and in the Apollo Gallery, named by the painter Charles Le Brun, who was commissioned by Louis XIV (the Sun King) to decorate the space in a solar theme. The medieval collection contains the coronation crown of Louis XIV, Charles V's sceptre, and the 12th century porphyry vase.[100] The Renaissance art holdings include Giambologna's bronze Nessus and Deianira and the tapestry Maximillian's Hunt.[97] From later periods, highlights include Madame de Pompadour's Sèvres vase collection and Napoleon III's apartments.[97]
+In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the Gilbert Chagoury and Rose-Marie Chagoury Gallery to display tapestries donated by the Chagourys, including a 16th-century six-part tapestry suite, sewn with gold and silver threads representing sea divinities, which was commissioned in Paris for Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy.
+The painting collection has more than 7,500 works[101] from the 13th century to 1848 and is managed by 12 curators who oversee the collection's display. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200 are Northern European. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of Francis I and Louis XIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era, and some were bought.[102][103] The collection began with Francis, who acquired works from Italian masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo[104] and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court.[14][105] After the French Revolution, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the d'Orsay train station was converted into the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the 1848 Revolution were moved to the new museum. French and Northern European works are in the Richelieu wing and Cour Carrée; Spanish and Italian paintings are on the first floor of the Denon wing.[103]
+Exemplifying the French School are the early Avignon Pietà of Enguerrand Quarton; the anonymous painting of King Jean le Bon (c. 1360), possibly the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era;[106] Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa; and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Brun, La Tour, Watteau, Fragonard, Ingres, Corot, and Delacroix are well represented.[107]
+Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's The Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox.
+The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. The works include Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini's Calvarys, which reflect realism and detail "meant to depict the significant events of a greater spiritual world".[108] The High Renaissance collection includes Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John the Baptist, and Madonna of the Rocks. Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and Death of the Virgin. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays Titian's Le Concert Champetre, The Entombment and The Crowning with Thorns.[109][110]
+The La Caze Collection, a bequest to the Musée du Louvre in 1869 by Louis La Caze, was the largest contribution of a person in the history of the Louvre. La Caze gave 584 paintings of his personal collection to the museum. The bequest included Antoine Watteau's Commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot ("Gilles"). In 2007, this bequest was the topic of the exhibition "1869: Watteau, Chardin... entrent au Louvre. La collection La Caze".[111]
+Some of the best known paintings of the museum have been digitized by the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France.[112]
+The prints and drawings department encompasses works on paper.[113] The origins of the collection were the 8,600 works in the Royal Collection (Cabinet du Roi), which were increased via state appropriation, purchases such as the 1,200 works from Fillipo Baldinucci's collection in 1806, and donations.[84][114] The department opened on 5 August 1797, with 415 pieces displayed in the Galerie d'Apollon. The collection is organized into three sections: the core Cabinet du Roi, 14,000 royal copper printing-plates, and the donations of Edmond de Rothschild, which include 40,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 5,000 illustrated books. The holdings are displayed in the Pavillon de Flore; due to the fragility of the paper medium, only a portion are displayed at one time.[113]
+The museum lies in the center of Paris on the Right Bank, in the 1st arrondissement. It was home to the former Tuileries Palace, which closed off the western end of the Louvre entrance courtyard, but was heavily damaged by fire during the Paris Commune of 1871 and later demolished. The adjacent Tuileries Gardens, created in 1564 by Catherine de' Medici, was designed in 1664 by André Le Nôtre. The gardens house the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, a contemporary art exhibition space which was used to store confiscated Jewish cultural property during the 1940 to 1944 German occupation of France.[115] Parallel to the Jeu de Paume is the Orangerie, home to the famous Water Lilies paintings by Claude Monet.
+The Louvre is slightly askew of the Historic Axis (Axe historique), a roughly eight-kilometre (five-mile) architectural line bisecting the city. It begins on the east in the Louvre courtyard and runs west along the Champs-Élysées. In 1871, the burning of the Tuileries Palace by the Paris Commune revealed that the Louvre was slightly askew of the Axe despite past appearances to the contrary.[116] The Louvre can be reached by the Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Métro or the Louvre-Rivoli stations.[117]
+The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre underground shopping mall, and an entrance at the Porte des Lions (near the western end of the Denon wing).
+Under the main entrance to the museum is the Carrousel du Louvre, a shopping mall operated by Unibail-Rodamco. Among other stores, it has the first Apple Store in France, and a McDonald's restaurant, the presence of which has created controversy.[118]
+The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.
+Statue, plaster and reed, Ain Ghazal, Jordan, 6050–7050 BC
+Cycladic, a votive head, 2700–2300 BC
+Egyptian, stele, Priest burning incense before Ra-Horakhty-Atum, c. 900 BC
+The Osorkon Bust, inscribed with both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Phoenician script, 900 BC
+Ancient Persia, the Ibex Rhyton, 600–300 BC
+Ancient Greek, Athens, The Rampin Rider,
+Etruscan amphora, Diomedes and Polyxena, c. 540–530 BC
+Hellenic Near East, The Eros Medallion, c. 250–200 BC
+Fayum Egyptian, Fayum mummy portrait
+Roman, portrait of Marcus Agrippa, 25 BC
+Frankish, ivory, Christ between two apostles, 5th century
+Islamic art from Iraq, terracotta cup, 9th century
+Romanesque art from Maastricht, Reliquary, 11th century
+Romanesque architecture from France, St Michael and the Devil, 12th century
+Italian Renaissance painting, St Francis receiving the stigmata, Giotto, c.  1300
+Early Netherlandish painting, The Annunciation, Rogier van der Weyden, 1435
+Gothic art from France, The Pieta of Villeneuve les Avignon, Enguerrand Quarton, 1460
+Italian Renaissance painting, Portrait of an old man and his grandson, Ghirlandaio, 1488
+Flemish painting, The Money Changer and His Wife, Quentin Massys, 1514
+Italian Renaissance painting, Baltasar de Castiglione, Raphael, c. 1515
+Italian Renaissance sculpture, Dying Slave, Michelangelo, 1513–1516
+Venetian Mannerist painting, The Crucifixion, Paolo Veronese, c. 1550
+Italian Baroque painting, The Fortune Teller, Caravaggio, c. 1600
+English painting, Charles I at the Hunt, van Dyck, 1635
+Dutch Baroque, The Lacemaker, Vermeer, 1664
+Spanish painting, Infanta María Margarita, Velázquez, 1655
+French Classicism, The Shepherds of Arcadia, Poussin, c. 1640
+French Rococo, Diana bathing, Boucher, 1742
+French Classical painting, The Bather, Ingres, 1808
+French Romantic art, Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix, 1830
+André-Charles Boulle Cabinet sur piètement, 1690–1710
+André-Charles Boulle Cabinet sur piètement
+André-Charles Boulle
+André-Charles Boulle, 1700–1720
+André-Charles Boulle
+André-Charles Boulle 1714–1719

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+The Royal Palace of Madrid (Spanish: Palacio Real de Madrid) is the official residence of the Spanish royal family at the city of Madrid, although now only used for state ceremonies.
+The palace has 135,000 square metres (1,450,000 sq ft) of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms.[1][2] It is the largest functioning royal palace and the largest by floor area in Europe.[3]
+King Felipe VI and the royal family do not reside in the palace, choosing instead the significantly more modest Palace of Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid.
+The palace is owned by the Spanish state and administered by the Patrimonio Nacional, a public agency of the Ministry of the Presidency.[4] The palace is located on Calle de Bailén ("Bailén Street") in the western part of downtown Madrid, east of the Manzanares River, and is accessible from the Ópera metro station. Several rooms in the palace are regularly open to the public except during state functions. An admission fee of €13 is required; however, some days it is free.
+The palace is located on the site of a 9th-century Moorish Alcázar, near the town of Magerit, constructed as an outpost by Muhammad I of Córdoba[5] and inherited after 1036 by the independent Moorish Taifa of Toledo. After Madrid fell to King Alfonso VI of Castile in 1083, the edifice was only rarely used by the kings of Castile. In 1329, King Alfonso XI of Castile convened the cortes of Madrid for the first time. King Felipe II moved his court to Madrid in 1561.
+The Castilian Alcázar was built on the location in the 16th century. After it burned 24 December 1734, King Felipe V ordered a new palace built on the same site. Construction spanned the years 1738 to 1755[6] and followed a Berniniesque design by Filippo Juvarra and Giovanni Battista Sacchetti in cooperation with Ventura Rodríguez, Francesco Sabatini, and Martín Sarmiento. King Carlos III first occupied the new palace in 1764.
+The last monarch who lived continuously in the palace was King Alfonso XIII, although Manuel Azaña, president of the Second Republic, also inhabited it, making him the last head of state to do so. During that period the palace was known as "Palacio Nacional". There is still a room next to the Real Capilla, which is known by the name "Office of Azaña".
+The interior of the palace is notable for its wealth of art and the use of many types of fine materials in the construction and the decoration of its rooms. It includes paintings by artists such as Caravaggio, Juan de Flandes, Francisco de Goya, and Velázquez, and frescoes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Corrado Giaquinto, and Anton Raphael Mengs. Other collections of great historical and artistic importance preserved in the building include the Royal Armoury of Madrid, porcelain, watches, furniture, silverware, and the world's only complete Stradivarius string quintet.
+The palace was initially built by Muhammad I, Umayyad Emir of Cordoba, between 860 and 880. After the Moors were driven out of Toledo in the 11th century, the castle retained its defensive function. Henry III of Castile added several towers. His son John II used it as a royal residence.[5] During the War of the Castilian Succession (1476) the troops of Joanna la Beltraneja were besieged in the Alcázar, during which the building suffered severe damage.
+The only drawing of the castle from the Middle Ages is one from 1534 by Cornelius Vermeyen.[5]
+Emperor Charles V, with the architects Alonso de Covarrubias and Luis de Vega, extended and renovated the castle in 1537. Philip II made Madrid his capital in 1561 and continued the renovations, with new additions. Philip III added a long southern facade between 1610 and 1636.
+Philip V of Bourbon renovated the royal apartments in 1700.[7] The Alcázar of the Habsburgs was austere in comparison to the Palace of Versailles where the new king had spent his childhood; and he began a series of redesigns mainly planned by Teodoro Ardemans and René Carlier, with the main rooms being redecorated by Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy and the Princess of Ursins in the style of French palaces.
+On Christmas Eve 1734, the Alcázar was destroyed by a fire that originated in the rooms of the French painter Jean Ranc. Response to the fire was delayed due to the warning bells being confused with the call to mass. For fear of looting, the doors of the building remained closed, hampering rescue efforts. Many works of art were lost, such as the Expulsion of the Moors, by Diego Velázquez. Others, such as Las Meninas, were rescued by tossing them out the windows. Fortunately, many pieces were saved because shortly before the blaze the king ordered that much of his collection be moved to the Buen Retiro Palace. This fire lasted four days and completely destroyed the old Alcázar, whose remaining walls were finally demolished in 1738.
+Italian architect Filippo Juvarra oversaw work on the new palace and devised a lavish project of enormous proportions inspired by Bernini's plans for Versailles. This plan was not realized, due to Juvarra's untimely death in March 1736.[9] His disciple Giambattista Sacchetti, also known as Juan Bautista Sacchetti or Giovanni Battista Sacchetti,[10] was chosen to continue the work of his mentor. Sacchetti designed the structure to encompass a large square courtyard and resolved sightline problems by creating projecting wings.
+In 1760, Charles III called upon Sicilian Francesco Sabatini,[11] a Neoclassical architect, to enlarge the building. Sabatini's original idea was to frame the Plaza de la Armería with a series of galleries and arcades, to accommodate various dependencies[clarification needed], by constructing two wings along the square. Only the extension of the southeast tower known as la de San Gil was completed. Sabatini also planned to extend the north side with a large wing that echoed the style of the main building and included three square courtyards that would be smaller than the large central courtyard. Work on this expansion started quickly but was soon interrupted, leaving the foundations buried under a platform on which the royal stables were later built. The stables were demolished in the 20th century and replaced by the Sabatini Gardens. Charles III first occupied the palace in 1764.
+In the 19th century, Ferdinand VII, who spent many years imprisoned in the Château de Valençay, began the most thorough renovation of the palace. The aim of this redesign was to turn the old-fashioned Italian-style building into a modern French-style palace. However, his grandson Alfonso XII proposed to turn the palace into a Victorian-style residence. Alfonso's plans were designed by the architect José Segundo de Lema and consisted of remodeling several rooms, replacing marble floors with parquet, and adding period furniture.
+In the twentieth century, restoration work was needed to repair damage suffered during the Spanish Civil War, by repairing or reinstalling decoration and decorative trim and replacing damaged walls with faithful reproductions of the originals.
+The main facade of the Palace, the one facing the Plaza de la Armeria, consists of a two-story rusticated stone base, from which rise Ionic columns on Tuscan pilasters framing the windows of the three main floors. The upper story is hidden behind a cornice which encircles the building and is capped with a large balustrade.  This was adorned with a series of statues of saints and kings, but these were relocated elsewhere under the reign of Charles III to give the building a more classical appearance.[12]
+The restoration of the facade in 1973, which includes Sabitini's balcony of four Doric columns, returned some of Sachetti's sculptures.  These include statues of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II and the Inca emperor Atahualpa, works by Juan Pascual de Mena and Domingo Martínez, respectively.  Representations of the Roman emperors Honorius, Theodosius I, and Arcadius by G.D. Olivieri, and Trajan by Felipe de Castro were placed in the Prince's courtyard.  Flanking Sabatini's clock the Statues of Philip V, Ferdinand VI, Barbara of Braganza and Maria Luisa of Savoy interspersed with The Rising Sun Following the Zodiac. Above the clock is the royal coat of arms flanked by angels, and, above that, bells that date from 1637 and 1761.[13][14]
+The square as it exists now was laid-out in 1892, according to a plan by the architect Enrique María Repullés.  However, the history of this square dates back to 1553, the year in which Philip II ordered a building to house the royal stables.
+The Almudena Cathedral faces the palace across the plaza. Its exterior is neo-classical to match its surroundings while its interior is neo-gothic. Construction was funded by King Alfonso XII to house the remains of his wife Mercedes of Orléans.[15] Construction of the church began in 1878 and concluded in 1992.
+Narciso Pascual Colomer, the same architect who crafted the Plaza de Oriente, designed the layout of the plaza in 1879, but failed to materialize.  The site now occupied by the Plaza de la Armería was used for many decades as anteplaza de armas. Sachetti tried to build a cathedral to finish the cornice of the Manzanares, and Sabatini proposed to unite this building with the royal palace, to form a single block. Both projects were ignored by Charles III.
+Ángel Fernández de los Ríos in 1868 proposed the creation of a large wooded area that would travel all around the Plaza de Oriente, in order to give a better view of the Royal Palace. A decade later Segundo de Lema added a staircase to the original design of Fernández, which led to the idea of Francisco de Cubas to give more importance to the emerging church of Almudena.
+The Plaza de Oriente is a rectangular park that connects the east facade of Palacio Real to the Teatro Real.  The eastern side of plaza is curved and bordered by several cafes in the adjoining buildings.  Although the plaza was part of Sacchetti's plan for the palace, construction did not begin until 1808 when King Joseph Bonaparte, who ordered the demolition of approximately 60 medieval structures, that included a church, monastery and royal library, located on the site.  Joseph was deposed before construction was completed, it was finished by Queen Isabella II who tasked architect Narciso Pascual Colomer with creating the final design in 1844.[16][17]
+Pathways divide the Plaza into three main plots: the Central Gardens, the Cabo Noval Gardens and the Lepanto Gardens.  The Central Gardens are arranged in a grid around the central monument to Philip IV, following the Baroque model garden. They consist of seven flowerbeds, each bordered with box hedges and holding small cypress, yew and magnolias and annual flowers. The north and south boundaries of the Central Gardens are marked by a row of statues, popularly known as the Gothic kings— sculptures representing five Visigoth rulers and fifteen rulers of the early Christian kingdoms in the Reconquista. They are carved from limestone, and are part of a series dedicated to all monarchs of Spain.  These were ordered for the decoration of the Palacio Real and were executed between 1750 and 1753.  Engineers felt the statues were too heavy for the palace balustrade, so they were left on ground level where their lack of fine detail is readily apparent.  The remainder of the statues are in the Sabatini Gardens.[18][19]
+Isabel II laid out the grounds so that Pietro Tacca's equestrian statue of Philip IV was placed in the center, opposite the Prince's Gate.[20]
+These gardens are so named because the Muslim leader Ali ben Yusuf allegedly camped here with his troops in 1109 during an attempted reconquest of Madrid. The first improvements to the area occurred under King Philip IV, who built fountains and planted various types of vegetation, but its overall look remained largely neglected.  During the construction of the palace various landscaping projects were put forth based on the gardens of the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, but lack of funds hampered further improvement until the reign of Isabel II who began work in earnest. Following the taste of the times, the park was designed in the Romanticist style.
+The Triton fountain from the Islet Garden of Aranjuez and the Fountain of the Shells from the Palace of the Infante Luis at Boadilla del Monte were aligned in the center of the right angled pathways by Isabel II, according to plans by Narciso Pascual Colomer.  Under the regency of Maria Christina of Austria, the park was reformed according to Ramon Oliva's romanticism plans.  Between the Fountain of Tritons and the palace is The Large Cavern or Grotto (Camellia House), built by Juan de Villanueva during the reign of Joseph Bonaparte.  Sacchetti's 1757-1758 Little Cavern or Grotto (Potato Room) is in front of the Parade Ground.[21][22]
+The Sabatini Gardens adjoin the north side of the Palacio real and extend to the calle de Bailén and the cuesta de San Vicente. The garden follows the symmetrical French design and work began in 1933, under the Republican government. Although they were designed by Zaragozan architect Fernando García Mercadal, they were named for Francesco Sabatini who designed the royal stables that previously occupied this site. These gardens feature a large rectangular pond which is surrounded by four fountains and statues of Spanish kings which were originally intended to crown the Royal Palace. Geometrically sited between its rides, there are several fountains.[23]
+The Republican government constructed the gardens to return the area from control of the royal family to the people, the public was not allowed in the gardens until 1978 when they were opened by King Juan Carlos I.[24]
+Built by Sabatini in 1789 when Charles IV wanted it moved to the opposite side of where Sabatini placed it in 1760, it is composed of a single piece of San Agustin marble.  Two lions grace the landing, one by Felipe de Castro and another by Robert Michel.  The frescoes on the ceiling is by Corrado Giaquinto and depicts Religion Protected by Spain.[25] On the ground floor is a statue of Charles III in Roman toga, with a similar statue on the first floor depicting Charles IV.  The four cartouches at the corners depict the elements of water, earth, air and fire.[26]
+The Royal Library was moved to the lower floor during the regency of Maria Christina.  The bookshelves date from the period of Charles III, Isabel II and Alfonso XII.[27]
+Highlights of the collection include the Book of hours of Isabella I of Castile, a codex of the time of Alfonso XI of Castile, a Bible of Doña María de Molina and the Fiestas reales, dedicated to Ferdinand VI by Farinelli. Also important are the maps kept in the library, which analyze the extent of the kingdoms under the Spanish Empire.  Also on display a selection of the best medals from the Royal Collection.
+The bookcovers demonstrate evolution of binding styles by era.  Examples in the holdings include Rococo in gold with iron lace, Neoclassical in polychrome and Romantic with Gothic and Renaissance motifs.
+The Archives of the Royal Palace contains approximately twenty thousand articles ranging from the Disastrous decade (1823-1833) to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931. In addition, it holds some scores of musicians of the Royal Chapel, privileges of various kings, the founding order of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the testament of Philip II and correspondence of most of the kings of the House of Bourbon.
+During the reign of Felipe II the Royal Pharmacy became an appendage of the royal household and ordered the supply of medicines, a role that continues today.
+The collection includes jars made by La Granja de San Ildefonso, 19th century, and Talavera de la Reina pottery, 18th century.[28]
+Along with the Imperial Armoury of Vienna, the armory is considered one of the best in the world and consists of pieces as early as the 13th century.  The building, designed by J.S. de Lema and E. Repulles, was opened in 1897[29]
+The collection highlights the tournament pieces made for Charles V and Philip II by the leading armourers of Milan and Augsburg. Among the most remarkable works are full armour and weapons that Emperor Charles V used in the Battle of Mühlberg, and which was portrayed by Titian in his famous equestrian portrait housed at the Museo del Prado. Unfortunately, parts of the collection were lost during the Peninsular War and during the Spanish Civil War.
+Still, the armoury retains some of the most important pieces of this art in Europe and the world, including a shield and burgonet by Francesco and Filippo Negroli, one of the most famous designers in the armourers' guild.[30]
+The Halberdier's Room, or Guard Room, was designed by Sabatini, and includes the fresco by Tiepolo, Venus and Vulcan.  Two paintings by Luca Giordano depict scenes from the life of Solomon.[31][32]
+The Hall of Columns has a ceiling fresco by Giaquinto, representing The Sun before Which All the Forces of Nature Awaken and Rejoice, an allegory of the king as Apollo.  An 1878 bronze statue of Charles V Vanquishing Fury is by Ferdinand Barbedienne.  The bronze chandeliers were made in Paris in 1846, and installed by Isbella II for her balls.[33][34]
+The Throne Room dates from Charles III in 1772, and features Tiepolo's ceiling fresco, The Apotheosis of the Spanish Monarchy.  Bronze sculptures include the Four Cardinal Virtues, four of the Seven Planets, Satyr, Germanicus, and four Medici lions flanking the dual throne.[35][36]
+Charles III's Anteroom (Saleta) contains a 1774 ceiling fresco Apotheosis of Trajan by A.R. Mengs.  The Antechamber of Charles III (The Conversation Room) also contains a ceiling fresco by Mengs, The Apotheosis of Hercules.  This room has four royal family portraits by Goya.[37][38]
+Formerly the queen's apartments under Charles III, the three rooms were converted into a banquet hall by Alfonso XII in 1879, and completed in 1885.  The three ceiling frescoes remained though, Dawn in Her Chariot by Raphael Mengs, Christopher Columbus Offering the New World to the Catholic Monarchs by Alejandro González Velázquez, and Boabdil Giving the Keys to Granada to the Catholic Monarchs by Francisco Bayeu y Subías.[39][40]
+These rooms were formerly occupied by Infante Luis, Count of Chinchón before his exile.  The Stradivarius Room now contains a viola, two viloncello, and two violins by Stradivari.  The ceiling fresco by A. G. Velazquez, depicts Gentleness accompanied by the Four Cardinal Virtues.[41]
+The Chamber of the Infante Luis, Musical Instruments Room, has a ceiling fresco by Francisco Bayeu depicting Providence Presiding over the Virtues and Faculties of Man.[42]
+Designed in 1748 by Sacchetti and Ventura Rodríguez, the chapel features ceiling frescoes by Giaquinto, including The Trinity, Allegory of Religion, Glory and the Holy Trinity Crowning the Virgin.  Above the High Altar is Ramon Bayeu's St. Michael.  The reliquary altar has Ercole Ferrata's 1659 silver relief Pope Leo I Stopping Attila at the Gates of Rome.[43][44]
+Formerly the apartment of Alfonso XIII's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, the room contains Charles III's throne, scepter and crown.  Tapestries from Jacopo Amigoni's Four Seasons adorn the walls.  Also of note are the abdication speech of Juan Carlos I and the proclamation speech of Felipe VI.[45]
+The Gasparini Room, Royal Palace, Madrid, Spain, 1927
+The Porcelain Room, Royal Palace, Madrid, 1927
+Salon of Charles III, Royal Palace, Madrid, 1927
+Spanish Royal Crown and Scepter
+The wedding banquet of Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz took place on 22 May 2004 in the central courtyard of the palace.

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+Hominina
+Australopithecina or Hominina is a subtribe in the tribe Hominini. The members of the subtribe are generally Australopithecus (cladistically including the genera Homo, Paranthropus,[2] and Kenyanthropus), and it typically includes the earlier Ardipithecus, Orrorin, Sahelanthropus, and Graecopithecus. All these related species are now sometimes collectively termed australopithecines or homininians.[3][4] They are the extinct, close relatives of humans and, with the extant genus Homo, comprise the human clade. Members of the human clade, i.e. the Hominini after the split from the chimpanzees, are now called Hominina[5] (see Hominidae; terms "hominids" and hominins).
+While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, the australopithecines do not appear to be literally extinct (in the sense of having no living descendants) as the genera Kenyanthropus, Paranthropus and Homo probably emerged as sister of a late Australopithecus species such as A. africanus and/or A. sediba.
+The terms australopithecine, et al., come from a former classification as members of a distinct subfamily, the Australopithecinae.[6] Members of Australopithecus are sometimes referred to as the "gracile australopithecines", while Paranthropus are called the "robust australopithecines".[7][8]
+The australopithecines occurred in the Plio-Pleistocene era and were bipedal, and they were dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than that of modern apes, with lesser encephalization than in the genus Homo.[9] Humans (genus Homo) may have descended from australopithecine ancestors and the genera Ardipithecus, Orrorin, Sahelanthropus, and Graecopithecus are the possible ancestors of the australopithecines.[8]
+Phylogeny of subtribe Australopithecina according to Briggs & Crowther 2008, p. 124.
+The post-cranial remains of australopithecines show they were adapted to bipedal locomotion, but did not walk identically to humans. They have a high brachial index (forearm/upper arm ratio) when compared to other hominins, and they exhibit greater sexual dimorphism than members of Homo or Pan but less so than Gorilla or Pongo. It is thought that they averaged heights of 1.2–1.5 metres (3.9–4.9 ft) and weighed between 30 and 55 kilograms (66 and 121 lb). The brain size may have been 350 cc to 600 cc. The postcanines (the teeth behind the canines) were relatively large, and had more enamel compared to contemporary apes and humans, whereas the incisors and canines were relatively small, and there was little difference between the males' and females' canines compared to modern apes.[8]
+Most scientists maintain that one of the australopithecine species evolved into the genus Homo in Africa around two million years ago. However, there is no consensus on which species:
+"Determining which species of australopithecine (if any) is ancestral to the genus Homo is a question that is a top priority for many paleoanthropologists, but one that will likely elude any conclusive answers for years to come. Nearly every possible species has been suggested as a likely candidate, but none are overwhelmingly convincing. Presently, it appears that A. garhi has the potential to occupy this coveted place in paleoanthropology, but the lack of fossil evidence is a serious problem. Another problem presents itself in the fact that it has been very difficult to assess which hominid [now "hominin"] represents the first member of the genus Homo. Without knowing this, it is not possible to determine which species of australopithecine may have been ancestral to Homo."[8]
+Marc Verhaegen has argued that an australopithecine species could have also been ancestral to the genus Pan (i.e. chimpanzees).[10]
+A minority held viewpoint among palaeoanthropologists is that australopithecines moved outside Africa. A notable proponent of this theory is Jens Lorenz Franzen, formerly Head of Paleoanthropology at the Research Institute Senckenberg. Franzen argues that robust australopithecines had reached not only Indonesia, as Meganthropus, but also China:
+"In this way we arrive at the conclusion that the recognition of australopithecines in Asia would not confuse but could help to clarify the early evolution of hominids ["hominins"] on that continent. This concept would explain the scanty remains from Java and China as relic of an Asian offshoot of an early radiation of Australopithecus, which was followed much later by an [African] immigration of Homo erectus, and finally became extinct after a period of coexistence."[11]
+In 1957, an Early Pleistocene Chinese fossil tooth of unknown province was described as resembling P. robustus. Three fossilized molars from Jianshi, China (Longgudong Cave) were later identified as belonging to an Australopithecus species (Gao, 1975). However further examination questioned this interpretation; Zhang (1984) argued the Jianshi teeth and unidentified tooth belong to H. erectus. Liu et al. (2010) also dispute the Jianshi-australopithecine link and argue the Jianshi molars fall within the range of Homo erectus:
+"No marked difference in dental crown shape is shown between the Jianshi hominin and other Chinese Homo erectus, and there is also no evidence in support of the Jianshi hominin's closeness to Australopithecus."
+But, Wolpoff (1999) notes that in China "persistent claims of australopithecine or australopithecine-like remains continue".

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+Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.[1] It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.[2]
+Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Their creeds generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind; as referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news", in the Bible. Describing Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the Jewish Old Testament as the gospel's respected background.
+Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70 which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism. Emperor Constantine the Great decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the State church of the Roman Empire (380). The early history of Christianity's united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the "Great Church". The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology,[3] while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the bishop of Rome. Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Latin Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and papal primacy. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.[4][5][6][7][8] Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.[9][10][11]
+The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion/50.1%), Protestantism (920 million/36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (62 million/Orthodoxy combined at 11.9%),[12][13] amid various efforts toward unity (ecumenism).[14] Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.[15] Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents.[16] Christians remain persecuted in some regions the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.[17][18]
+Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as 'The Way' (της οδου), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord."[19][note 1] According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" (Greek: Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch.[25] The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[26]
+While Christians worldwide share basic convictions, there are also differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based.[27]
+Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
+The Apostles' Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.[28] Its points include:
+The Nicene Creed was formulated, largely in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively,[29][30] and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.[31]
+The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[32] though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox,[33] taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably": one divine and one human, and that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are nevertheless also perfectly united into one person.[34]
+The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."[35]
+Most Christians (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds mentioned above.[36]
+Many Evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another."[37]:111 Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ.[38][39]:14–15[40]:123
+The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah (Christ). Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity and hold that Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[41]
+While there have been many theological disputes over the nature of Jesus over the earliest centuries of Christian history, generally, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin. As fully God, he rose to life again. According to the New Testament, he rose from the dead,[42] ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,[43] and will ultimately return[Acts 1:9–11] to fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy, including the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.
+According to the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical gospels, although infancy gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the gospels contained within the New Testament, because that part of his life is believed to be most important. The biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
+Christians consider the resurrection of Jesus to be the cornerstone of their faith (see 1 Corinthians 15) and the most important event in history.[44] Among Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology is based.[45] According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, died a physical death, was buried within a tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.[Jn. 19:30–31] [Mk. 16:1] [16:6]
+The New Testament mentions several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once",[1Cor 15:6] before Jesus' ascension to heaven. Jesus' death and resurrection are commemorated by Christians in all worship services, with special emphasis during Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
+The death and resurrection of Jesus are usually considered the most important events in Christian theology, partly because they demonstrate that Jesus has power over life and death and therefore has the authority and power to give people eternal life.[46]
+Christian churches accept and teach the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus with very few exceptions.[47] Some modern scholars use the belief of Jesus' followers in the resurrection as a point of departure for establishing the continuity of the historical Jesus and the proclamation of the early church.[48] Some liberal Christians do not accept a literal bodily resurrection,[49][50] seeing the story as richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Arguments over death and resurrection claims occur at many religious debates and interfaith dialogues.[51] Paul the Apostle, an early Christian convert and missionary, wrote, "If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless."[1Cor 15:14][52]
+Paul the Apostle, like Jews and Roman pagans of his time, believed that sacrifice can bring about new kinship ties, purity, and eternal life.[53] For Paul, the necessary sacrifice was the death of Jesus: Gentiles who are "Christ's" are, like Israel, descendants of Abraham and "heirs according to the promise".[Gal. 3:29][54] The God who raised Jesus from the dead would also give new life to the "mortal bodies" of Gentile Christians, who had become with Israel, the "children of God", and were therefore no longer "in the flesh".[Rom. 8:9,11,16][53]
+Modern Christian churches tend to be much more concerned with how humanity can be saved from a universal condition of sin and death than the question of how both Jews and Gentiles can be in God's family. According to Eastern Orthodox theology, based upon their understanding of the atonement as put forward by Irenaeus' recapitulation theory, Jesus' death is a ransom. This restores the relation with God, who is loving and reaches out to humanity, and offers the possibility of theosis c.q. divinization, becoming the kind of humans God wants humanity to be. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus' death satisfies the wrath of God, aroused by the offense to God's honor caused by human's sinfulness. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation does not occur without faithfulness on the part of Christians; converts must live in accordance with principles of love and ordinarily must be baptized.[55] In Protestant theology, Jesus' death is regarded as a substitutionary penalty carried by Jesus, for the debt that has to be paid by humankind when it broke God's moral law. Martin Luther taught that baptism was necessary for salvation, but modern Lutherans and other Protestants tend to teach that salvation is a gift that comes to an individual by God's grace, sometimes defined as "unmerited favor", even apart from baptism.[citation needed]
+Christians differ in their views on the extent to which individuals' salvation is pre-ordained by God. Reformed theology places distinctive emphasis on grace by teaching that individuals are completely incapable of self-redemption, but that sanctifying grace is irresistible.[56] In contrast Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Arminian Protestants believe that the exercise of free will is necessary to have faith in Jesus.[57]
+Trinity refers to the teaching that the one God[59] comprises three distinct, eternally co-existing persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Together, these three persons are sometimes called the Godhead,[60][61][62] although there is no single term in use in Scripture to denote the unified Godhead.[63] In the words of the Athanasian Creed, an early statement of Christian belief, "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God".[64] They are distinct from another: the Father has no source, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Though distinct, the three persons cannot be divided from one another in being or in operation. While some Christians also believe that God appeared as the Father in the Old Testament, it is agreed that he appeared as the Son in the New Testament, and will still continue to manifest as the Holy Spirit in the present. But still, God still existed as three persons in each of these times.[65] However, traditionally there is a belief that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament because, for example, when the Trinity is depicted in art, the Son typically has the distinctive appearance, a cruciform halo identifying Christ, and in depictions of the Garden of Eden, this looks forward to an Incarnation yet to occur. In some Early Christian sarcophagi the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even pre-existent."[66]
+The Trinity is an essential doctrine of mainstream Christianity. From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed (325) Christianity advocated[67] the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.[68][69]
+According to this doctrine, God is not divided in the sense that each person has a third of the whole; rather, each person is considered to be fully God (see Perichoresis). The distinction lies in their relations, the Father being unbegotten; the Son being begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and (in Western Christian theology) from the Son. Regardless of this apparent difference, the three "persons" are each eternal and omnipotent. Other Christian religions including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, do not share those views on the Trinity.
+The Greek word trias[70][note 2] is first seen in this sense in the works of Theophilus of Antioch; his text reads: "of the Trinity, of God, and of His Word, and of His Wisdom".[74] The term may have been in use before this time; its Latin equivalent,[note 2] trinitas,[72] appears afterwards with an explicit reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in Tertullian.[75][76] In the following century, the word was in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen.[77]
+Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism). Rather, the Trinity is defined as one God in three persons.[78]
+Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to theology that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Various nontrinitarian views, such as adoptionism or modalism, existed in early Christianity, leading to the disputes about Christology.[79] Nontrinitarianism reappeared in the Gnosticism of the Cathars between the 11th and 13th centuries, among groups with Unitarian theology in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[80] in the 18th-century Enlightenment, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19th century.
+The end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world, broadly speaking, is Christian eschatology; the study of the destiny of humans as it is revealed in the Bible. The major issues in Christian eschatology are the Tribulation, death and the afterlife, (mainly for Evangelical groups) the Millennium and the following Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of the Dead, Heaven, (for liturgical branches) Purgatory, and Hell, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and the New Heavens and New Earth.
+Christians believe that the second coming of Christ will occur at the end of time, after a period of severe persecution (the Great Tribulation). All who have died will be resurrected bodily from the dead for the Last Judgment. Jesus will fully establish the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies.[82][83]
+Most Christians believe that human beings experience divine judgment and are rewarded either with eternal life or eternal damnation. This includes the general judgement at the resurrection of the dead as well as the belief (held by Catholics,[84][85] Orthodox[86][87] and most Protestants) in a judgment particular to the individual soul upon physical death.
+In the liturgical branches (e.g. Catholicism or Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy), those who die in a state of grace, i.e., without any mortal sin separating them from God, but are still imperfectly purified from the effects of sin, undergo purification through the intermediate state of purgatory to achieve the holiness necessary for entrance into God's presence.[88] Those who have attained this goal are called saints (Latin sanctus, "holy").[89]
+Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, hold to mortalism, the belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal, and is unconscious during the intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. These Christians also hold to Annihilationism, the belief that subsequent to the final judgement, the wicked will cease to exist rather than suffer everlasting torment. Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a similar view.[90]
+Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, the Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper), prayer (including the Lord's Prayer), confession, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations have ordained clergy who lead regular communal worship services.[91]
+Services of worship typically follow a pattern or form known as liturgy.[note 3] Justin Martyr described 2nd-century Christian liturgy in his First Apology (c. 150) to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his description remains relevant to the basic structure of Christian liturgical worship:
+And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.[93]
+Thus, as Justin described, Christians assemble for communal worship typically on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, though other liturgical practices often occur outside this setting. Scripture readings are drawn from the Old and New Testaments, but especially the gospels.[note 4][94] Instruction is given based on these readings, called a sermon or homily. There are a variety of congregational prayers, including thanksgiving, confession, and intercession, which occur throughout the service and take a variety of forms including recited, responsive, silent, or sung.[91] Psalms, hymns, or worship songs may be sung.[95][96] Services can be varied for special events like significant feast days.[97]
+Nearly all forms of worship incorporate the Eucharist, which consists of a meal. It is reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper that his followers do in remembrance of him as when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and gave them wine saying, "This is my blood".[98] In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the service.[99] Some denominations continue to practice 'closed communion'. They offer communion to those who are already united in that denomination or sometimes individual church. Catholics restrict participation to their members who are not in a state of mortal sin.[100] Many other churches practice 'open communion' since they view communion as a means to unity, rather than an end, and invite all believing Christians to participate.[101][102]
+Justin Martyr[93]
+In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that confers grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both which rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament, vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[103]
+The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The two most widely accepted sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist, however, the majority of Christians also recognize five additional sacraments: Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox tradition), Holy Orders (or ordination), Penance (or Confession), Anointing of the Sick, and Matrimony (see Christian views on marriage).[103]
+Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.[103] Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.[citation needed]
+In addition to this, the Church of the East has two additional sacraments in place of the traditional sacraments of Matrimony and the Anointing of the Sick. These include Holy Leaven (Melka) and the sign of the cross.[104]
+Baptism, specifically infant baptism, in the Lutheran tradition
+A penitent confessing his sins in a Ukrainian Catholic church
+A Methodist minister celebrating the Eucharist
+Confirmation being administered in an Anglican church
+Ordination of a priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition
+Crowning during Holy Matrimony in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
+Service of the Sacrament of Holy Unction served on Great and Holy Wednesday
+Catholics, Eastern Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans and other traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year.[105] The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colors of paraments and vestments for clergy,[106] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
+Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[106] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, and periods of fasting, such as Lent and other pious events such as memoria, or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[107]
+Christianity has not generally practiced aniconism, the avoidance or prohibition of devotional images, even if early Jewish Christians and some modern denominations, invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry, avoided figures in their symbols.
+The cross, today one of the most widely recognized symbols, was used by Christians from the earliest times.[108][109] Tertullian, in his book De Corona, tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.[110] Although the cross was known to the early Christians, the crucifix did not appear in use until the 5th century.[111]
+Among the earliest Christian symbols, that of the fish or Ichthys seems to have ranked first in importance, as seen on monumental sources such as tombs from the first decades of the 2nd century.[112] Its popularity seemingly arose from the Greek word ichthys (fish) forming an acronym for the Greek phrase Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ),[note 5] (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior), a concise summary of Christian faith.[112]
+Other major Christian symbols include the chi-rho monogram, the dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit), the sacrificial lamb (representing Christ's sacrifice), the vine (symbolizing the connection of the Christian with Christ) and many others. These all derive from passages of the New Testament.[111]
+Baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which a person is admitted to membership of the Church. Beliefs on baptism vary among denominations. Differences occur firstly on whether the act has any spiritual significance. Some, such as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Lutherans and Anglicans, hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which affirms that baptism creates or strengthens a person's faith, and is intimately linked to salvation. Others view baptism as a purely symbolic act, an external public declaration of the inward change which has taken place in the person, but not as spiritually efficacious. Secondly, there are differences of opinion on the methodology of the act. These methods are: by immersion; if immersion is total, by submersion; by affusion (pouring); and by aspersion (sprinkling). Those who hold the first view may also adhere to the tradition of infant baptism;[113] the Orthodox Churches all practice infant baptism and always baptize by total immersion repeated three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[114][115] The Catholic Church also practices infant baptism,[116] usually by affusion, and utilizing the Trinitarian formula.[117]
+— The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, EHV[118]
+Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount displays a distinct lack of interest in the external aspects of prayer. A concern with the techniques of prayer is condemned as "pagan", and instead a simple trust in God's fatherly goodness is encouraged.[Mat. 6:5–15] Elsewhere in the New Testament, this same freedom of access to God is also emphasized.[Phil. 4:6][Jam. 5:13–19] This confident position should be understood in light of Christian belief in the unique relationship between the believer and Christ through the indweling of the Holy Spirit.[119]
+In subsequent Christian traditions, certain physical gestures are emphasized, including medieval gestures such as genuflection or making the sign of the cross. Kneeling, bowing, and prostrations (see also poklon) are often practiced in more traditional branches of Christianity. Frequently in Western Christianity, the hands are placed palms together and forward as in the feudal commendation ceremony. At other times the older orans posture may be used, with palms up and elbows in.
+Intercessory prayer is prayer offered for the benefit of other people. There are many intercessory prayers recorded in the Bible, including prayers of the Apostle Peter on behalf of sick persons[Acts 9:40] and by prophets of the Old Testament in favor of other people.[1Ki 17:19–22] In the Epistle of James, no distinction is made between the intercessory prayer offered by ordinary believers and the prominent Old Testament prophet Elijah.[Jam 5:16–18] The effectiveness of prayer in Christianity derives from the power of God rather than the status of the one praying.[119]
+The ancient church, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation, however, rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[120] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[121]
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[122] The Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican tradition is a guide which provides a set order for services, containing set prayers, scripture readings, and hymns or sung Psalms.[123]
+Christianity, like other religions, has adherents whose beliefs and biblical interpretations vary. Christianity regards the biblical canon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, as the inspired word of God. The traditional view of inspiration is that God worked through human authors so that what they produced was what God wished to communicate. The Greek word referring to inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means "God-breathed".[124]
+Some believe that divine inspiration makes our present Bibles inerrant. Others claim inerrancy for the Bible in its original manuscripts, although none of those are extant. Still others maintain that only a particular translation is inerrant, such as the King James Version.[125][126][127] Another closely related view is biblical infallibility or limited inerrancy, which affirms that the Bible is free of error as a guide to salvation, but may include errors on matters such as history, geography, or science.
+The books of the Bible accepted by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches vary somewhat, with Jews accepting only the Hebrew Bible as canonical; however, there is substantial overlap. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions, and of the councils that have convened on the subject. Every version of the Old Testament always includes the books of the Tanakh, the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox canons, in addition to the Tanakh, also include the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament. These books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. However, they are considered to be important historical documents which help to inform the understanding of words, grammar, and syntax used in the historical period of their conception. Some versions of the Bible include a separate Apocrypha section between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[128] The New Testament, originally written in Koine Greek, contains 27 books which are agreed upon by all churches.
+Modern scholarship has raised many issues with the Bible. While the King James Version is held to by many because of its striking English prose, in fact it was translated from the Erasmus Greek Bible, which in turn "was based on a single 12th Century manuscript that is one of the worst manuscripts we have available to us".[129] Much scholarship in the past several hundred years has gone into comparing different manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text. Another issue is that several books are considered to be forgeries. The injunction that women "be silent and submissive" in 1 Timothy 2[130] is thought by many to be a forgery by a follower of Paul, a similar phrase in 1 Corinthians 14,[131] which is thought to be by Paul, appears in different places in different manuscripts and is thought to originally be a margin note by a copyist.[129] Other verses in 1 Corinthians, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 where women are instructed to wear a covering over their hair "when they pray or prophesies",[132] contradict this verse.
+A final issue with the Bible is the way in which books were selected for inclusion in the New Testament. Other gospels have now been recovered, such as those found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, and while some of these texts are quite different from what Christians have been used to, it should be understood that some of this newly recovered Gospel material is quite possibly contemporaneous with, or even earlier than, the New Testament Gospels. The core of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, may date from as early as AD 50 (although some major scholars contest this early dating),[133] and if so would provide an insight into the earliest gospel texts that underlie the canonical Gospels, texts that are mentioned in Luke 1:1–2. The Gospel of Thomas contains much that is familiar from the canonical Gospels—verse 113, for example ("The Father's Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it"),[134] is reminiscent of Luke 17:20–21[135][136]—and the Gospel of John, with a terminology and approach that is suggestive of what was later termed Gnosticism, has recently been seen as a possible response to the Gospel of Thomas, a text that is commonly labeled proto-Gnostic. Scholarship, then, is currently exploring the relationship in the early church between mystical speculation and experience on the one hand and the search for church order on the other, by analyzing new-found texts, by subjecting canonical texts to further scrutiny, and by an examination of the passage of New Testament texts to canonical status.
+In antiquity, two schools of exegesis developed in Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian interpretation, exemplified by Origen, tended to read Scripture allegorically, while the Antiochene interpretation adhered to the literal sense, holding that other meanings (called theoria) could only be accepted if based on the literal meaning.[137]
+Catholic theology distinguishes two senses of scripture: the literal and the spiritual.[138]
+The literal sense of understanding scripture is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture. The spiritual sense is further subdivided into:
+Regarding exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation, Catholic theology holds:
+Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is a self-sufficient revelation, the final authority on all Christian doctrine, and revealed all truth necessary for salvation. This concept is known as sola scriptura.[144] Protestants characteristically believe that ordinary believers may reach an adequate understanding of Scripture because Scripture itself is clear in its meaning (or "perspicuous"). Martin Luther believed that without God's help, Scripture would be "enveloped in darkness".[145] He advocated for "one definite and simple understanding of Scripture".[145] John Calvin wrote, "all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light".[146] Related to this is "efficacy", that Scripture is able to lead people to faith; and "sufficiency", that the Scriptures contain everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life.[147]
+Protestants stress the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture, the historical-grammatical method.[148] The historical-grammatical method or grammatico-historical method is an effort in Biblical hermeneutics to find the intended original meaning in the text.[149] This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre, as well as theological (canonical) considerations.[150] The historical-grammatical method distinguishes between the one original meaning and the significance of the text. The significance of the text includes the ensuing use of the text or application. The original passage is seen as having only a single meaning or sense. As Milton S. Terry said: "A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is that the words and sentences can have but one significance in one and the same connection. The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture."[151] Technically speaking, the grammatical-historical method of interpretation is distinct from the determination of the passage's significance in light of that interpretation. Taken together, both define the term (Biblical) hermeneutics.[149]
+Some Protestant interpreters make use of typology.[152]
+Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism.[154][155] An early Jewish Christian community was founded in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Pillars of the Church, namely James the Just, the brother of the Lord, Peter, and John.[156]
+Jewish Christianity soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, posing a problem for its Jewish religious outlook, which insisted on close observance of the Jewish commands. Paul the Apostle solved this by insisting that salvation by faith in Christ, and participation in his death and resurrection, sufficed.[157] At first he persecuted the early Christians, but after a conversion experience he preached to the gentiles, and is regarded as having had a formative effect on the emerging Christian identity as separate from Judaism. Eventually, his departure from Jewish customs would result in the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion.[158]
+This formative period was followed by the early bishops, whom Christians consider the successors of Christ's apostles. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and apologetic works aimed at defending the faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
+According to the New Testament, Christians were from the beginning, subject to persecution by some Jewish and Roman religious authorities. This involved punishments, including death, for Christians such as Stephen[Acts 7:59] and James, son of Zebedee.[Acts 12:2] Further widespread persecution of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors, most intensely under Decius and Diocletian.
+Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires.[159] The presence of Christianity in Africa began in the middle of the 1st century in Egypt and by the end of the 2nd century in the region around Carthage. Mark the Evangelist is claimed to have started the Church of Alexandria in about 43 CE; various later churches claim this as their own legacy, including the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[160][161][162] Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo.
+King Tiridates III made Christianity the state religion in Armenia between 301 and 314[81][163][164], thus Armenia became the first officially Christian state. It was not an entirely new religion in Armenia, having penetrated into the country from at least the third century, but it may have been present even earlier.[165]
+Constantine I was exposed to Christianity in his youth, and throughout his life his support for the religion grew, culminating in baptism on his deathbed.[166] During his reign, state-sanctioned persecution of Christians was ended with the Edict of Toleration in 311 and the Edict of Milan in 313. At that point, Christianity was still a minority belief, comprising perhaps only five percent of the Roman population.[167] Influenced by his adviser Mardonius, Constantine's nephew Julian unsuccessfully tried to suppress Christianity.[168] On 27 February 380, Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II established Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.[169] As soon as it became connected to the state, Christianity grew wealthy; the Church solicited donations from the rich and could now own land.[170]
+Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still used by in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and many other Protestant churches.[171][36] Nicaea was the first of a series of ecumenical councils, which formally defined critical elements of the theology of the Church, notably concerning Christology.[172] The Church of the East did not accept the third and following ecumenical councils and is still separate today by its successors (Assyrian Church of the East).
+In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization,[173] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[174] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[175] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[176] The later rise of Islam in North Africa reduced the size and numbers of Christian congregations, leaving in large numbers only the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Horn of Africa and the Nubian Church in the Sudan (Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia).
+With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the papacy became a political player, first visible in Pope Leo's diplomatic dealings with Huns and Vandals.[177] The church also entered into a long period of missionary activity and expansion among the various tribes. While Arianists instituted the death penalty for practicing pagans (see the Massacre of Verden, for example), what would later become Catholicism also spread among the Hungarians, the Germanic,[177] the Celtic, the Baltic and some Slavic peoples.
+Around 500, St. Benedict set out his Monastic Rule, establishing a system of regulations for the foundation and running of monasteries.[177] Monasticism became a powerful force throughout Europe,[177] and gave rise to many early centers of learning, most famously in Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul, contributing to the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
+In the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria (including Jerusalem), North Africa, and Spain, converting some of the Christian population to Islam, and placing the rest under a separate legal status. Part of the Muslims' success was due to the exhaustion of the Byzantine Empire in its decades long conflict with Persia.[178] Beginning in the 8th century, with the rise of Carolingian leaders, the Papacy sought greater political support in the Frankish Kingdom.[179]
+The Middle Ages brought about major changes within the church. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structure and administration.[180] In the early 8th century, iconoclasm became a divisive issue, when it was sponsored by the Byzantine emperors. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) finally pronounced in favor of icons.[181] In the early 10th century, Western Christian monasticism was further rejuvenated through the leadership of the great Benedictine monastery of Cluny.[182]
+In the West, from the 11th century onward, some older cathedral schools became universities (see, for example, University of Oxford, University of Paris and University of Bologna). Previously, higher education had been the domain of Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), led by monks and nuns. Evidence of such schools dates back to the 6th century CE.[183] These new universities expanded the curriculum to include academic programs for clerics, lawyers, civil servants, and physicians.[184] The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185]
+Accompanying the rise of the "new towns" throughout Europe, mendicant orders were founded, bringing the consecrated religious life out of the monastery and into the new urban setting. The two principal mendicant movements were the Franciscans[186] and the Dominicans,[187] founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic, respectively. Both orders made significant contributions to the development of the great universities of Europe. Another new order was the Cistercians, whose large isolated monasteries spearheaded the settlement of former wilderness areas. In this period, church building and ecclesiastical architecture reached new heights, culminating in the orders of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the building of the great European cathedrals.[188]
+Christian nationalism emerged during this era in which Christians felt the impulse to recover lands in which Christianity had historically flourished.[189] From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched.[190] These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.[191]
+The Christian Church experienced internal conflict between the 7th and 13th centuries that resulted in a schism between the so-called Latin or Western Christian branch (the Catholic Church),[192] and an Eastern, largely Greek, branch (the Eastern Orthodox Church). The two sides disagreed on a number of administrative, liturgical and doctrinal issues, most notably papal primacy of jurisdiction.[193][194] The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) attempted to reunite the churches, but in both cases, the Eastern Orthodox refused to implement the decisions, and the two principal churches remain in schism to the present day. However, the Catholic Church has achieved union with various smaller eastern churches.
+In the thirteenth century, a new emphasis on Jesus' suffering, exemplified by the Franciscans' preaching, had the consequence of turning worshippers' attention towards Jews, on whom Christians had placed the blame for Jesus' death. Christianity's limited tolerance of Jews was not new—Augustine of Hippo said that Jews should not be allowed to enjoy the citizenship that Christians took for granted—but the growing antipathy towards Jews was a factor that led to the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the first of many such expulsions in Europe.[195][196]
+Beginning around 1184, following the crusade against Cathar heresy,[197] various institutions, broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established with the aim of suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion and prosecution.[198]
+The 15th-century Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. During the Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses 1517 against the sale of indulgences.[199] Printed copies soon spread throughout Europe. In 1521 the Edict of Worms condemned and excommunicated Luther and his followers, resulting in the schism of the Western Christendom into several branches.[200]
+Other reformers like Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Calvin, Knox, and Arminius further criticized Catholic teaching and worship. These challenges developed into the movement called Protestantism, which repudiated the primacy of the pope, the role of tradition, the seven sacraments, and other doctrines and practices.[199] The Reformation in England began in 1534, when King Henry VIII had himself declared head of the Church of England. Beginning in 1536, the monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved.[201]
+Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt and other theologians perceived both the Catholic Church and the confessions of the Magisterial Reformation as corrupted. Their activity brought about the Radical Reformation, which gave birth to various Anabaptist denominations.
+Partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reform.[205] The Council of Trent clarified and reasserted Catholic doctrine. During the following centuries, competition between Catholicism and Protestantism became deeply entangled with political struggles among European states.[206]
+Meanwhile, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought about a new wave of missionary activity. Partly from missionary zeal, but under the impetus of colonial expansion by the European powers, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
+Throughout Europe, the division caused by the Reformation led to outbreaks of religious violence and the establishment of separate state churches in Europe. Lutheranism spread into the northern, central, and eastern parts of present-day Germany, Livonia, and Scandinavia. Anglicanism was established in England in 1534. Calvinism and its varieties, such as Presbyterianism, were introduced in Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, and France. Arminianism gained followers in the Netherlands and Frisia. Ultimately, these differences led to the outbreak of conflicts in which religion played a key factor. The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion are prominent examples. These events intensified the Christian debate on persecution and toleration.[207]
+In the era known as the Great Divergence, when in the West, the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific revolution brought about great societal changes, Christianity was confronted with various forms of skepticism and with certain modern political ideologies, such as versions of socialism and liberalism.[208] Events ranged from mere anti-clericalism to violent outbursts against Christianity, such as the dechristianization of France during the French Revolution,[209] the Spanish Civil War, and certain Marxist movements, especially the Russian Revolution and the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union under state atheism.[210][211][212][213]
+Especially pressing in Europe was the formation of nation states after the Napoleonic era. In all European countries, different Christian denominations found themselves in competition to greater or lesser extents with each other and with the state. Variables were the relative sizes of the denominations and the religious, political, and ideological orientation of the states. Urs Altermatt of the University of Fribourg, looking specifically at Catholicism in Europe, identifies four models for the European nations. In traditionally Catholic-majority countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Austria, to some extent, religious and national communities are more or less identical. Cultural symbiosis and separation are found in Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all countries with competing denominations. Competition is found in Germany, the Netherlands, and again Switzerland, all countries with minority Catholic populations, which to a greater or lesser extent identified with the nation. Finally, separation between religion (again, specifically Catholicism) and the state is found to a great degree in France and Italy, countries where the state actively opposed itself to the authority of the Catholic Church.[214]
+The combined factors of the formation of nation states and ultramontanism, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in England to a much lesser extent,[215] often forced Catholic churches, organizations, and believers to choose between the national demands of the state and the authority of the Church, specifically the papacy. This conflict came to a head in the First Vatican Council, and in Germany would lead directly to the Kulturkampf, where liberals and Protestants under the leadership of Bismarck managed to severely restrict Catholic expression and organization.
+Christian commitment in Europe dropped as modernity and secularism came into their own,[216] particularly in Czechia and Estonia,[217] while religious commitments in America have been generally high in comparison to Europe. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general,[218][219] with the West no longer the chief standard bearer of Christianity. Approximately 7 to 10% of Arabs are Christians,[220] most prevalent in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
+With around 2.4 billion adherents,[221][222] split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.[223] The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on Earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America.[224] According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.[225]:60
+As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world.[226][227][228] The so-called popular Protestantism[note 6] is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world.[229][230] Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.[231] Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics.[232] And if in 2018, the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow, as will other religious groups.[233]
+Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, the Americas, and Southern Africa.[15] In Asia, it is the dominant religion in Georgia, Armenia, East Timor, and the Philippines.[234] However, it is declining in many areas including the Northern and Western United States,[235] Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), northern Europe (including Great Britain,[236] Scandinavia and other places), France, Germany, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, and parts of Asia (especially the Middle East, due to the Christian emigration,[237][238][239] South Korea,[240] Taiwan,[241] and Macau[242]).
+The Christian population is not decreasing in Brazil, the Southern United States,[243] and the province of Alberta, Canada,[244] but the percentage is decreasing. In countries such as Australia[245] and New Zealand,[246] the Christian population are declining in both numbers and percentage.
+Despite the declining numbers, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians.[15] A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that 76% of Europeans, 73% in Oceania and about 86% in the Americas (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America) identified themselves as Christians.[15][247][248][249] By 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.[223]
+However, there are many charismatic movements that have become well established over large parts of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[250][251][252][253][254] Since 1900, primarily due to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.[255] From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelical Protestants grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam.[256] A study conducted by St. Mary's University estimated about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity in 2015.[257] The results also state that significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity in Afghanistan,[258] Albania,[257] Azerbaijan,[259][260] Algeria,[261][262] Belgium,[263] France,[262] Germany,[264] Iran,[265] India,[262] Indonesia,[266] Malaysia,[267] Morocco,[262][268] Russia,[262] the Netherlands,[269] Saudi Arabia,[270] Tunisia,[257] Turkey,[262][271][272][273] Kazakhstan,[274] Kyrgyzstan,[257] Kosovo,[275] the United States,[276] and Central Asia.[277][278] It is also reported that Christianity is popular among people of different backgrounds in India (mostly Hindus),[279][280] and Malaysia,[281] Mongolia,[282] Nigeria,[283] Vietnam,[284] Singapore,[285] Indonesia,[286][287] China,[288] Japan,[289] and South Korea.[290]
+In most countries in the developed world, church attendance among people who continue to identify themselves as Christians has been falling over the last few decades.[291] Some sources view this simply as part of a drift away from traditional membership institutions,[292] while others link it to signs of a decline in belief in the importance of religion in general.[293] Europe's Christian population, though in decline, still constitutes the largest geographical component of the religion.[294] According to data from the 2012 European Social Survey, around a third of European Christians say they attend services once a month or more,[295] Conversely about more than two-thirds of Latin American Christians; according to the World Values Survey, about 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwand], South Africa and Zimbabwe) said they attended church regularly.[295]
+Christianity, in one form or another, is the sole state religion of the following nations: Argentina (Catholic),[296] Tuvalu (Reformed), Tonga (Methodist), Norway (Lutheran),[297][298][299] Costa Rica (Catholic),[300] the Kingdom of Denmark (Lutheran),[301] England (Anglican),[302] Georgia (Georgian Orthodox),[303] Greece (Greek Orthodox),[304] Iceland (Lutheran),[305] Liechtenstein (Catholic),[306] Malta (Catholic),[307] Monaco (Catholic),[308] and Vatican City (Catholic).[309]
+There are numerous other countries, such as Cyprus, which although do not have an established church, still give official recognition and support to a specific Christian denomination.[310]
+Countries with 50% or more Christians are colored purple; countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored pink
+Nations with Christianity as their state religion are in blue
+Distribution of Catholics
+Distribution of Protestants
+Distribution of Eastern Orthodox
+Distribution of Oriental Orthodox
+Distribution of other Christians
+The four primary divisions of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.[40]:14[314] A broader distinction that is sometimes drawn is between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, which has its origins in the East–West Schism (Great Schism) of the 11th century. Recently, neither Western or Eastern World Christianity has also stood out, for example, African-initiated churches. However, there are other present[315] and historical[316] Christian groups that do not fit neatly into one of these primary categories.
+There is a diversity of doctrines and liturgical practices among groups calling themselves Christian. These groups may vary ecclesiologically in their views on a classification of Christian denominations.[317] The Nicene Creed (325), however, is typically accepted as authoritative by most Christians, including the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and major Protestant (including Anglican) denominations.[318]
+The Catholic Church consists of those particular churches, headed by bishops, in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, as its highest authority in matters of faith, morality, and Church governance.[319][320] Like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, through apostolic succession, traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.[321][322] Catholics maintain that the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities[323][324] and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.[323] The Catholic faith is detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[325][326]
+As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution,[327] it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.[328] The 2,834 sees[329] are grouped into 24 particular autonomous Churches (the largest of which being the Latin Church), each with its own distinct traditions regarding the liturgy and the administering of sacraments.[330] With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1%[15] all Christians as well as one sixth of the world's population.[331][332][333]
+The Eastern Orthodox Church consists of those churches in communion with the patriarchal sees of the East, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[334] Like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also traces its heritage to the foundation of Christianity through apostolic succession and has an episcopal structure, though the autonomy of its component parts is emphasized, and most of them are national churches.
+A number of conflicts with Western Christianity over questions of doctrine and authority culminated in the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest single denomination in Christianity, with an estimated 230 million adherents, although Protestants collectively outnumber them, substantially.[15][13][335] As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[336]
+The Oriental Orthodox Churches (also called "Old Oriental" churches) are those eastern churches that recognize the first three ecumenical councils—Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus—but reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon and instead espouse a Miaphysite christology.
+The Oriental Orthodox communion consists of six groups: Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India), and Armenian Apostolic churches.[337] These six churches, while being in communion with each other, are completely independent hierarchically.[338] These churches are generally not in communion with Eastern Orthodox Church, with whom they are in dialogue for erecting a communion.[339] And together have about 62 million members worldwide.[340][341][342]
+The Assyrian Church of the East, with an unbroken patriarchate established in the 17th century, is an independent Eastern Christian denomination which claims continuity from the Church of the East—in parallel to the Catholic patriarchate established in the 16th century that evolved into the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope. It is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East. Largely aniconic and not in communion with any other church, it belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and uses the East Syriac Rite in its liturgy.[343]
+Its main spoken language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians. It is officially headquartered in the city of Erbil in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, and its original area also spreads into south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran, corresponding to ancient Assyria. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout the Middle East, India, North America, Oceania, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[344]
+The Ancient Church of the East distinguished itself from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964. It is one of the Assyrian churches that claim continuity with the historical Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon—the Church of the East, one of the oldest Christian churches in Mesopotamia.[345]
+In 1521, the Edict of Worms condemned Martin Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[346] This split within the Roman Catholic church is now called the Reformation. Prominent Reformers included Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The 1529 Protestation at Speyer against being excommunicated gave this party the name Protestantism. Luther's primary theological heirs are known as Lutherans. Zwingli and Calvin's heirs are far broader denominationally, and are referred to as the Reformed tradition.[347] Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, and many other fields.[348]
+The Anglican churches descended from the Church of England and organized in the Anglican Communion. Some, but not all Anglicans consider themselves both Protestant and Catholic.[349][350]
+Since the Anglican, Lutheran, and the Reformed branches of Protestantism originated for the most part in cooperation with the government, these movements are termed the  "Magisterial Reformation". On the other hand, groups such as the Anabaptists, who often do not consider themselves to be Protestant, originated in the Radical Reformation, which though sometimes protected under Acts of Toleration, do not trace their history back to any state church. They are further distinguished by their rejection of infant baptism; they believe in baptism only of adult believers—credobaptism (Anabaptists include the Amish, Apostolic, Mennonites, Hutterites and Schwarzenau Brethren/German Baptist groups.)[351][352][353]
+The term Protestant also refers to any churches which formed later, with either the Magisterial or Radical traditions. In the 18th century, for example, Methodism grew out of Anglican minister John Wesley's evangelical and revival movement.[354] Several Pentecostal and non-denominational churches, which emphasize the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, in turn grew out of Methodism.[355] Because Methodists, Pentecostals and other evangelicals stress "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior",[356] which comes from Wesley's emphasis of the New Birth,[357] they often refer to themselves as being born-again.[358][359]
+Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism by number of followers, although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination.[332] Estimates vary, mainly over the question of which denominations to classify as Protestant. Yet, the total number of Protestant Christians is  generally estimated between 800 million and 1 billion, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians.[13][226][360][361] The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists),[362] Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.[226] Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent, and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.[363]
+Some groups of individuals who hold basic Protestant tenets identify themselves simply as "Christians" or "born-again Christians". They typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and creedalism of other Christian communities[364] by calling themselves "non-denominational" or "evangelical". Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations.[365]
+The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the United States during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches. They generally saw themselves as restoring the original church of Jesus Christ rather than reforming one of the existing churches.[366] A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.[367] In Asia, Iglesia ni Cristo is a known restorationist religion that was established during the early 1900s.
+Some of the churches originating during this period are historically connected to early 19th-century camp meetings in the Midwest and upstate New York. One of the largest churches produced from the movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[368] American Millennialism and Adventism, which arose from Evangelical Protestantism, influenced the Jehovah's Witnesses movement and, as a reaction specifically to William Miller, the Seventh-day Adventists. Others, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[369][370] Churches of Christ, and the Christian churches and churches of Christ, have their roots in the contemporaneous Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, which was centered in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other groups originating in this time period include the Christadelphians and the previously mentioned Latter Day Saints movement. While the churches originating in the Second Great Awakening have some superficial similarities, their doctrine and practices vary significantly.[citation needed]
+Various smaller Independent Catholic communities, such as the Old Catholic Church, include the word Catholic in their title, and arguably have more or less liturgical practices in common with the Catholic Church, but are no longer in full communion with the Holy See.
+Spiritual Christians, such as the Doukhobor and Molokan, broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and maintain close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are furthermore collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.[371][372]
+Messianic Judaism (or the Messianic Movement) is the name of a Christian movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish. The movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s, and it blends elements of religious Jewish practice with evangelical Christianity. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs.[373]
+Esoteric Christians regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[374][375] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices,[376][377] hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.[378][379] Some of the esoteric Christian institutions include the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the Anthroposophical Society, and Martinism.
+Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and a large portion of the population of the Western Hemisphere can be described as practicing or nominal Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom". Many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[380]
+Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[381] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[382] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science.[381][383] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc.
+Christianity has had a significant impact on education, as the church created the bases of the Western system of education,[384] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world, as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185] Historically, Christianity has often been a patron of science and medicine; many Catholic clergy,[385] Jesuits in particular,[386][387] have been active in the sciences throughout history and have made significant contributions to the development of science.[388] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[389] The civilizing influence of Christianity includes social welfare,[390] founding hospitals,[391] economics (as the Protestant work ethic),[392][393][394] architecture,[395] politics,[396] literature,[397] personal hygiene (ablution),[398][399][400] and family life.[401][402]
+Eastern Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic civilization during the reign of the Ummayad and the Abbasid, by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards, to Arabic.[403][404][405] They also excelled in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine.[406][407][408]
+Christians have made a myriad of contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields,[409] including philosophy,[410][411] science and technology,[412][413][414][415][416][417] fine arts and architecture,[418] politics, literatures, music,[419] and business.[420] According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of the Nobel Prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.[421]
+Postchristianity[422] is the term for the decline of Christianity, particularly in Europe, Canada, Australia, and to a minor degree the Southern Cone, in the 20th and 21st centuries, considered in terms of postmodernism. It refers to the loss of Christianity's monopoly on values and world view in historically Christian societies.
+Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, art, music, and so on related to the religion.[423]
+Christian groups and denominations have long expressed ideals of being reconciled, and in the 20th century, Christian ecumenism advanced in two ways.[424] One way was greater cooperation between groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance founded in 1846 in London or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of Protestants in 1910, the Justice, Peace and Creation Commission of the World Council of Churches founded in 1948 by Protestant and Orthodox churches, and similar national councils like the National Council of Churches in Australia, which includes Catholics.[424]
+The other way was an institutional union with united churches, a practice that can be traced back to unions between Lutherans and Calvinists in early 19th-century Germany. Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches united in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada,[425] and in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Church of South India was formed in 1947 by the union of Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches.[426]
+The ecumenical, monastic Taizé Community is notable for being composed of more than one hundred brothers from Protestant and Catholic traditions.[427] The community emphasizes the reconciliation of all denominations and its main church, located in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, France, is named the "Church of Reconciliation".[427] The community is internationally known, attracting over 100,000 young pilgrims annually.[428]
+Steps towards reconciliation on a global level were taken in 1965 by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, mutually revoking the excommunications that marked their Great Schism in 1054;[429] the Anglican Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) working towards full communion between those churches since 1970;[430] and some Lutheran and Catholic churches signing the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 to address conflicts at the root of the Protestant Reformation. In 2006, the World Methodist Council, representing all Methodist denominations, adopted the declaration.[431]
+Criticism of Christianity and Christians goes back to the Apostolic Age, with the New Testament recording friction between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1–23).[432] In the 2nd century, Christianity was criticized by the Jews on various grounds, e.g. that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible could not have been fulfilled by Jesus, given that he did not have a successful life.[433] Additionally, a sacrifice to remove sins in advance, for everyone or as a human being, did not fit to the Jewish sacrifice ritual; furthermore, God is said to judge people on their deeds instead of their beliefs.[434][435] One of the first comprehensive attacks on Christianity came from the Greek philosopher Celsus, who wrote The True Word, a polemic criticizing Christians as being unprofitable members of society.[436][437][438] In response, the church father Origen published his treatise Contra Celsum, or Against Celsus, a seminal work of Christian apologetics, which systematically addressed Celsus's criticisms and helped bring Christianity a level of academic respectability.[439][438]
+By the 3rd century, criticism of Christianity had mounted. Wild rumors about Christians were widely circulated, claiming that they were atheists and that, as part of their rituals, they devoured human infants and engaged in incestuous orgies.[440][441] The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote the fifteen-volume Adversus Christianos as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the teachings of Plotinus.[442][443]
+By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah (i.e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus, who had a physical body.[444] In the 19th century, Nietzsche began to write a series of polemics on the "unnatural" teachings of Christianity (e.g. sexual abstinence), and continued his criticism of Christianity to the end of his life.[445] In the 20th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of Christianity in Why I Am Not a Christian, formulating his rejection of Christianity in the setting of logical arguments.[446]
+Criticism of Christianity continues to date, e.g. Jewish and Muslim theologians criticize the doctrine of the Trinity held by most Christians, stating that this doctrine in effect assumes that there are three gods, running against the basic tenet of monotheism.[447] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has outlined the possibility that some Bible stories are based partly on myth in The Christ Myth Theory and its problems.[448]
+Christians are one of the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa and South and East Asia.[449] In 2017, Open Doors estimated approximately 260 million Christians are subjected annually to "high, very high, or extreme persecution"[450] with North Korea considered the most hazardous nation for Christians.[451][452] In 2019, a report[453][454] commissioned by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to investigate global persecution of Christians found persecution has increased, and is highest in the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, North Korea, and Latin America,[clarification needed]  among others,[455] and that it is global and not limited to Islamic states.[454] This investigation found that approximately 80% of persecuted believers worldwide are Christians.[18]
+Christian apologetics aims to present a rational basis for Christianity. The word "apologetic" (Greek: ἀπολογητικός apologētikos) comes from the Greek verb ἀπολογέομαι apologeomai, meaning "(I) speak in defense of".[456] Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologica, while his Summa contra Gentiles was a major apologetic work.[457][458] Another famous apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in the early twentieth century about the benefits of religion and, specifically, Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[459][460] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[461] The physicist and priest John Polkinghorne, in his Questions of Truth, discusses the subject of religion and science, a topic that other Christian apologists such as Ravi Zacharias, John Lennox, and William Lane Craig have engaged, with the latter two men opining that the inflationary Big Bang model is evidence for the existence of God.[462]
+Hence all the power of magic became dissolved; and every bond of wickedness was destroyed, men's ignorance was taken away, and the old kingdom abolished God Himself appearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal life.
+We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts
+The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...
+For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water