c32c526403a28b1defeab396e3a4bdf4212b243c4c08aa57a7b641c465bef4c7

en/4734.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Pop is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.[4] The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. The terms remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which "pop" became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.
+
+Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles, such as rock, urban, dance, Latin, and country.
+
+David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics".[5]
+According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music".[3]
+Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to exist and develop separately.[6] Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults".[4][8]
+
+Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class."[9] The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".[10] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues, and hillbilly music.[11]
+
+According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience [...] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc."[12] Grove Music Online also states that "[...] in the early 1960s, [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music [in England], while in the US its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'".[2]
+
+From about 1967, the term “pop music” was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[13] While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,[13] pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.[14] According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers, and concert promoters) rather than being made from below ... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged".[4]
+
+According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities.[4] Music scholar Timothy Warner said it typically has an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, rather than live performance; a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments; and aims to encourage dancing or uses dance-oriented rhythms.[14]
+
+The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure.[17] The structure of many popular songs is that of a verse and a chorus, the chorus serving as the portion of the track that is designed to stick in the ear through simple repetition both musically and lyrically. The chorus is often where the music builds towards and is often preceded by "the drop" where the base and drum parts "drop out".[18] Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse.[19] The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment.[20] The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.[4]
+
+Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are often "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded."[21] Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style harmony (i.e. ii – V – I) and blues scale-influenced harmony.[22] There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function.[23]
+
+In the 1940s, improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and ten or twenty years later, inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated", which helped to move pop music to "a record/radio/film star system".[25] Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "pop stars had to have a visual presence".[25] In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers in the developed world could listen to music outside of the home.[25] By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV, which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna who had a strong visual appeal".[25]
+
+Multi-track recording (from the 1960s) and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been utilized as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music.[4] During the mid-1960s, pop music made repeated forays into new sounds, styles, and techniques that inspired public discourse among its listeners. The word "progressive" was frequently used, and it was thought that every song and single was to be a "progression" from the last.[26] Music critic Simon Reynolds writes that beginning with 1967, a divide would exist between "progressive" pop and "mass/chart" pop, a separation which was "also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class."[27]
+
+The latter half of the 20th-century included a large-scale trend in American culture in which the boundaries between art and pop music were increasingly blurred.[28] Between 1950 and 1970, there was a debate of pop versus art.[29] Since then, certain music publications have embraced the music's legitimacy, a trend referred to as "poptimism".[29]
+
+Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and spoken passages from rap.[4][verification needed] In 2016, a Scientific Reports study that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded between 1955 and 2010 found that since the 1960s, pop music had found less variety in pitch progressions, grown average loudness levels,[30] less diverse instrumentation and recording techniques, and less timbral variety.[31] Scientific American's John Matson reported that this "seems to support the popular anecdotal observation that pop music of yore was "better", or at least more varied, than today's top-40 stuff". However, he also noted that the study may not have been entirely representative of pop in each generation.[31]
+
+In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar, drum and bass groups or singers backed by a traditional orchestra.[32] Since early in the decade, it was common for pop producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and Joe Meek's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts like the Tornados.[33] At the same time, pop music on radio and in both American and British film moved away from refined Tin Pan Alley to more eccentric songwriting and incorporated reverb-drenched rock guitar, symphonic strings, and horns played by groups of properly arranged and rehearsed studio musicians.[34]  A 2019 study held by New York University in which 643 participants had to rank how familiar a pop song is to them, songs from the 1960s turned out to be the most memorable, significantly more than songs from recent years 2000 to 2015.[35]
+
+Before the progressive pop of the late 1960s, performers were typically unable to decide on the artistic content of their music.[36] Assisted by the mid-1960s economic boom, record labels began investing in artists, giving them the freedom to experiment, and offering them limited control over their content and marketing.[37] This situation declined after the late 1970s and would not reemerge until the rise of Internet stars.[37] Indie pop, which developed in the late 1970s, marked another departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music, with guitar bands formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music without having to procure a record contract from a major label.[38]
+
+The 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in the use of digital recording, associated with the usage of synthesizers, with synth-pop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity.[39] By 2014, pop music worldwide had been permeated by electronic dance music.[40] In 2018, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, concluded that pop music has become 'sadder' since the 1980s. The elements of happiness and brightness have eventually been replaced with the electronic beats making the pop music more 'sad yet danceable'.[41]
+
+— Bob Stanley[40]
+
+Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.[42] Some of these trends (for example Europop) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre.[43]
+
+According to Grove Music Online, "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures".[44] Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop. Japan has for several years produced a greater quantity of music than everywhere except the US.[clarification needed][44] The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, or a more general process of globalization.[44]
+
+Latin pop rose in popularity in the US during the 1950s with early rock and roll success Ritchie Valens, though it truly rose to prominence during the 1970s and 1980s with the likes of Los Lobos.[45] With later Hispanic and Latino Americans seeing success within pop music charts, 1990s pop successes stayed popular in both their original genres and in broader pop music.[46] Musicians like Shakira, Ricky Martin, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato seen lasting mass-appeal within pop music circles. Latin pop hit singles, such as "Macarena" by Los del Río and "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi, have seen record-breaking success on worldwide pop music charts.[47]
+
+In Korea, pop music's influence has led to the birth of boy bands and girl groups which have gained overseas renown through both their music and aesthetics.[48] Korean co-ed groups (mixed gender groups) have not been as successful.[49]

en/4735.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Pop is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.[4] The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. The terms remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which "pop" became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.
+
+Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles, such as rock, urban, dance, Latin, and country.
+
+David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics".[5]
+According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music".[3]
+Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to exist and develop separately.[6] Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults".[4][8]
+
+Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class."[9] The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".[10] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues, and hillbilly music.[11]
+
+According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience [...] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc."[12] Grove Music Online also states that "[...] in the early 1960s, [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music [in England], while in the US its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'".[2]
+
+From about 1967, the term “pop music” was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[13] While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,[13] pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.[14] According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers, and concert promoters) rather than being made from below ... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged".[4]
+
+According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities.[4] Music scholar Timothy Warner said it typically has an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, rather than live performance; a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments; and aims to encourage dancing or uses dance-oriented rhythms.[14]
+
+The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure.[17] The structure of many popular songs is that of a verse and a chorus, the chorus serving as the portion of the track that is designed to stick in the ear through simple repetition both musically and lyrically. The chorus is often where the music builds towards and is often preceded by "the drop" where the base and drum parts "drop out".[18] Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse.[19] The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment.[20] The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.[4]
+
+Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are often "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded."[21] Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style harmony (i.e. ii – V – I) and blues scale-influenced harmony.[22] There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function.[23]
+
+In the 1940s, improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and ten or twenty years later, inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated", which helped to move pop music to "a record/radio/film star system".[25] Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "pop stars had to have a visual presence".[25] In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers in the developed world could listen to music outside of the home.[25] By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV, which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna who had a strong visual appeal".[25]
+
+Multi-track recording (from the 1960s) and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been utilized as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music.[4] During the mid-1960s, pop music made repeated forays into new sounds, styles, and techniques that inspired public discourse among its listeners. The word "progressive" was frequently used, and it was thought that every song and single was to be a "progression" from the last.[26] Music critic Simon Reynolds writes that beginning with 1967, a divide would exist between "progressive" pop and "mass/chart" pop, a separation which was "also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class."[27]
+
+The latter half of the 20th-century included a large-scale trend in American culture in which the boundaries between art and pop music were increasingly blurred.[28] Between 1950 and 1970, there was a debate of pop versus art.[29] Since then, certain music publications have embraced the music's legitimacy, a trend referred to as "poptimism".[29]
+
+Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and spoken passages from rap.[4][verification needed] In 2016, a Scientific Reports study that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded between 1955 and 2010 found that since the 1960s, pop music had found less variety in pitch progressions, grown average loudness levels,[30] less diverse instrumentation and recording techniques, and less timbral variety.[31] Scientific American's John Matson reported that this "seems to support the popular anecdotal observation that pop music of yore was "better", or at least more varied, than today's top-40 stuff". However, he also noted that the study may not have been entirely representative of pop in each generation.[31]
+
+In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar, drum and bass groups or singers backed by a traditional orchestra.[32] Since early in the decade, it was common for pop producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and Joe Meek's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts like the Tornados.[33] At the same time, pop music on radio and in both American and British film moved away from refined Tin Pan Alley to more eccentric songwriting and incorporated reverb-drenched rock guitar, symphonic strings, and horns played by groups of properly arranged and rehearsed studio musicians.[34]  A 2019 study held by New York University in which 643 participants had to rank how familiar a pop song is to them, songs from the 1960s turned out to be the most memorable, significantly more than songs from recent years 2000 to 2015.[35]
+
+Before the progressive pop of the late 1960s, performers were typically unable to decide on the artistic content of their music.[36] Assisted by the mid-1960s economic boom, record labels began investing in artists, giving them the freedom to experiment, and offering them limited control over their content and marketing.[37] This situation declined after the late 1970s and would not reemerge until the rise of Internet stars.[37] Indie pop, which developed in the late 1970s, marked another departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music, with guitar bands formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music without having to procure a record contract from a major label.[38]
+
+The 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in the use of digital recording, associated with the usage of synthesizers, with synth-pop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity.[39] By 2014, pop music worldwide had been permeated by electronic dance music.[40] In 2018, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, concluded that pop music has become 'sadder' since the 1980s. The elements of happiness and brightness have eventually been replaced with the electronic beats making the pop music more 'sad yet danceable'.[41]
+
+— Bob Stanley[40]
+
+Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.[42] Some of these trends (for example Europop) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre.[43]
+
+According to Grove Music Online, "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures".[44] Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop. Japan has for several years produced a greater quantity of music than everywhere except the US.[clarification needed][44] The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, or a more general process of globalization.[44]
+
+Latin pop rose in popularity in the US during the 1950s with early rock and roll success Ritchie Valens, though it truly rose to prominence during the 1970s and 1980s with the likes of Los Lobos.[45] With later Hispanic and Latino Americans seeing success within pop music charts, 1990s pop successes stayed popular in both their original genres and in broader pop music.[46] Musicians like Shakira, Ricky Martin, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato seen lasting mass-appeal within pop music circles. Latin pop hit singles, such as "Macarena" by Los del Río and "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi, have seen record-breaking success on worldwide pop music charts.[47]
+
+In Korea, pop music's influence has led to the birth of boy bands and girl groups which have gained overseas renown through both their music and aesthetics.[48] Korean co-ed groups (mixed gender groups) have not been as successful.[49]

en/4736.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Pop is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.[4] The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. The terms remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which "pop" became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.
+
+Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles, such as rock, urban, dance, Latin, and country.
+
+David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics".[5]
+According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music".[3]
+Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to exist and develop separately.[6] Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults".[4][8]
+
+Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class."[9] The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".[10] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues, and hillbilly music.[11]
+
+According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience [...] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc."[12] Grove Music Online also states that "[...] in the early 1960s, [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music [in England], while in the US its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'".[2]
+
+From about 1967, the term “pop music” was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[13] While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,[13] pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.[14] According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers, and concert promoters) rather than being made from below ... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged".[4]
+
+According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities.[4] Music scholar Timothy Warner said it typically has an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, rather than live performance; a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments; and aims to encourage dancing or uses dance-oriented rhythms.[14]
+
+The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure.[17] The structure of many popular songs is that of a verse and a chorus, the chorus serving as the portion of the track that is designed to stick in the ear through simple repetition both musically and lyrically. The chorus is often where the music builds towards and is often preceded by "the drop" where the base and drum parts "drop out".[18] Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse.[19] The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment.[20] The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.[4]
+
+Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are often "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded."[21] Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style harmony (i.e. ii – V – I) and blues scale-influenced harmony.[22] There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function.[23]
+
+In the 1940s, improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and ten or twenty years later, inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated", which helped to move pop music to "a record/radio/film star system".[25] Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "pop stars had to have a visual presence".[25] In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers in the developed world could listen to music outside of the home.[25] By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV, which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna who had a strong visual appeal".[25]
+
+Multi-track recording (from the 1960s) and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been utilized as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music.[4] During the mid-1960s, pop music made repeated forays into new sounds, styles, and techniques that inspired public discourse among its listeners. The word "progressive" was frequently used, and it was thought that every song and single was to be a "progression" from the last.[26] Music critic Simon Reynolds writes that beginning with 1967, a divide would exist between "progressive" pop and "mass/chart" pop, a separation which was "also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class."[27]
+
+The latter half of the 20th-century included a large-scale trend in American culture in which the boundaries between art and pop music were increasingly blurred.[28] Between 1950 and 1970, there was a debate of pop versus art.[29] Since then, certain music publications have embraced the music's legitimacy, a trend referred to as "poptimism".[29]
+
+Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and spoken passages from rap.[4][verification needed] In 2016, a Scientific Reports study that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded between 1955 and 2010 found that since the 1960s, pop music had found less variety in pitch progressions, grown average loudness levels,[30] less diverse instrumentation and recording techniques, and less timbral variety.[31] Scientific American's John Matson reported that this "seems to support the popular anecdotal observation that pop music of yore was "better", or at least more varied, than today's top-40 stuff". However, he also noted that the study may not have been entirely representative of pop in each generation.[31]
+
+In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar, drum and bass groups or singers backed by a traditional orchestra.[32] Since early in the decade, it was common for pop producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and Joe Meek's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts like the Tornados.[33] At the same time, pop music on radio and in both American and British film moved away from refined Tin Pan Alley to more eccentric songwriting and incorporated reverb-drenched rock guitar, symphonic strings, and horns played by groups of properly arranged and rehearsed studio musicians.[34]  A 2019 study held by New York University in which 643 participants had to rank how familiar a pop song is to them, songs from the 1960s turned out to be the most memorable, significantly more than songs from recent years 2000 to 2015.[35]
+
+Before the progressive pop of the late 1960s, performers were typically unable to decide on the artistic content of their music.[36] Assisted by the mid-1960s economic boom, record labels began investing in artists, giving them the freedom to experiment, and offering them limited control over their content and marketing.[37] This situation declined after the late 1970s and would not reemerge until the rise of Internet stars.[37] Indie pop, which developed in the late 1970s, marked another departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music, with guitar bands formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music without having to procure a record contract from a major label.[38]
+
+The 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in the use of digital recording, associated with the usage of synthesizers, with synth-pop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity.[39] By 2014, pop music worldwide had been permeated by electronic dance music.[40] In 2018, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, concluded that pop music has become 'sadder' since the 1980s. The elements of happiness and brightness have eventually been replaced with the electronic beats making the pop music more 'sad yet danceable'.[41]
+
+— Bob Stanley[40]
+
+Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.[42] Some of these trends (for example Europop) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre.[43]
+
+According to Grove Music Online, "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures".[44] Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop. Japan has for several years produced a greater quantity of music than everywhere except the US.[clarification needed][44] The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, or a more general process of globalization.[44]
+
+Latin pop rose in popularity in the US during the 1950s with early rock and roll success Ritchie Valens, though it truly rose to prominence during the 1970s and 1980s with the likes of Los Lobos.[45] With later Hispanic and Latino Americans seeing success within pop music charts, 1990s pop successes stayed popular in both their original genres and in broader pop music.[46] Musicians like Shakira, Ricky Martin, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato seen lasting mass-appeal within pop music circles. Latin pop hit singles, such as "Macarena" by Los del Río and "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi, have seen record-breaking success on worldwide pop music charts.[47]
+
+In Korea, pop music's influence has led to the birth of boy bands and girl groups which have gained overseas renown through both their music and aesthetics.[48] Korean co-ed groups (mixed gender groups) have not been as successful.[49]

en/4737.html.txt

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+
+
+In biology, a population is all the organisms of the same group or species who live in a particular geographical area and are capable of interbreeding.[1][2] The area of a sexual population is the area where inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals from other areas.[3]
+
+In sociology, population refers to a collection of humans. Demography is a social science which entails the statistical study of populations. 
+Population, in simpler terms, is the number of people in a city or town, region, country or world; population is usually determined by a process called census (a process of collecting, analyzing, compiling and publishing data).
+
+In population genetics a sexual population is a set of organisms in which any pair of members can breed together. This means that they can regularly exchange gametes to produce normally-fertile offspring, and such a breeding group is also known therefore as a gamodeme. This also implies that all members belong to the same species.[4]
+If the gamodeme is very large (theoretically, approaching infinity), and all gene alleles are uniformly distributed by the gametes within it, the gamodeme is said to be panmictic. Under this state, allele (gamete) frequencies can be converted to genotype (zygote) frequencies by expanding an appropriate quadratic equation, as shown by Sir Ronald Fisher in his establishment of quantitative genetics.[5]
+
+This seldom occurs in nature: localization of gamete exchange – through dispersal limitations, preferential mating, cataclysm, or other cause – may lead to small actual gamodemes which exchange gametes reasonably uniformly within themselves but are virtually separated from their neighboring gamodemes. However, there may be low frequencies of exchange with these neighbors. This may be viewed as the breaking up of a large sexual population (panmictic) into smaller overlapping sexual populations. This failure of panmixia leads to two important changes in overall population structure: (1) the component gamodemes vary (through gamete sampling) in their allele frequencies when compared with each other and with the theoretical panmictic original (this is known as dispersion, and its details can be estimated using expansion of an appropriate binomial equation); and (2) the level of homozygosity rises in the entire collection of gamodemes. The overall rise in homozygosity is quantified by the inbreeding coefficient (f or φ). Note that all homozygotes are increased in frequency – both the deleterious and the desirable. The mean phenotype of the gamodemes collection is lower than that of the panmictic original – which is known as inbreeding depression. It is most important to note, however, that some dispersion lines will be superior to the panmictic original, while some will be about the same, and some will be inferior. The probabilities of each can be estimated from those binomial equations. In plant and animal breeding, procedures have been developed which deliberately utilize the effects of dispersion (such as line breeding, pure-line breeding, backcrossing). It can be shown that dispersion-assisted selection leads to the greatest genetic advance (ΔG=change in the phenotypic mean), and is much more powerful than selection acting without attendant dispersion. This is so for both allogamous (random fertilization)[6] and autogamous (self-fertilization) gamodemes.[7]
+
+In ecology, the population of a certain species in a certain area can be estimated using the Lincoln Index.
+
+According to the United States Census Bureau the world's population was about 7.55 billion in 2019[8] and that the 7 billion number was surpassed on 12 March 2012. According to a separate estimate by the United Nations, Earth's population exceeded seven billion in October 2011, a milestone that offers unprecedented challenges and opportunities to all of humanity, according to UNFPA.[9]
+
+According to papers published by the United States Census Bureau, the world population hit 6.5 billion on 24 February 2006. The United Nations Population Fund designated 12 October 1999 as the approximate day on which world population reached 6 billion. This was about 12 years after the world population reached 5 billion in 1987, and six years after the world population reached 5.5 billion in 1993. The population of countries such as Nigeria is not even known to the nearest million,[10] so there is a considerable margin of error in such estimates.[11]
+
+Researcher Carl Haub calculated that a total of over 100 billion people have probably been born in the last 2000 years.[12]
+
+Population growth increased significantly as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace from 1700 onwards.[13] The last 50 years have seen a yet more rapid increase in the rate of population growth[13] due to medical advances and substantial increases in agricultural productivity, particularly beginning in the 1960s,[14] made by the Green Revolution.[15] In 2017 the United Nations Population Division projected that the world's population will reach about 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.[16]
+
+In the future, the world's population is expected to peak,[17] after which it will decline due to economic reasons, health concerns, land exhaustion and environmental hazards. According to one report, it is very likely that the world's population will stop growing before the end of the 21st century. Further, there is some likelihood that population will actually decline before 2100.[18][19] Population has already declined in the last decade or two in Eastern Europe, the Baltics and in the Commonwealth of Independent States.[20]
+
+The population pattern of less-developed regions of the world in recent years has been marked by gradually declining birth rates. These followed an earlier sharp reduction in death rates.[21] This transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates is often referred to as the demographic transition.[21]
+
+Human population control is the practice of altering the rate of growth of a human population. Historically, human population control has been implemented with the goal of limiting the rate of population growth. In the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, concerns about global population growth and its effects on poverty, environmental degradation, and political stability led to efforts to reduce population growth rates. While population control can involve measures that improve people's lives by giving them greater control of their reproduction, a few programs, most notably the Chinese government's one-child per family policy, have resorted to coercive measures.
+
+In the 1970s, tension grew between population control advocates and women's health activists who advanced women's reproductive rights as part of a human rights-based approach.[22] Growing opposition to the narrow population control focus led to a significant change in population control policies in the early 1980s.[23]

en/4738.html.txt

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+
+
+A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the even-toed ungulate family Suidae. Pigs include domestic pigs and their ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), along with other species. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents, ranging from Europe to the Pacific islands. Suids other than the pig are the babirusa of Indonesia, the pygmy hog of Asia, the warthog of Africa, and another genus of pigs from Africa. The suids are a sister clade to peccaries.
+
+Juvenile pigs are known as piglets.[1] Pigs are highly social and intelligent animals.[2]
+
+With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is among the most populous large mammals in the world.[3][4] Pigs are omnivores and can consume a wide range of food.[5] Pigs are biologically similar to humans and are thus frequently used for human medical research.[6]
+
+The Online Etymology Dictionary provides anecdotal evidence as well as linguistic, saying that the term derives
+
+probably from Old English *picg, found in compounds, ultimate origin unknown. Originally "young pig" (the word for adults was swine). Apparently related to Low German bigge, Dutch big ("but the phonology is difficult" -- OED). ... Another Old English word for "pig" was fearh, related to furh "furrow," from PIE *perk- "dig, furrow" (source also of Latin porc-us "pig," see pork). "This reflects a widespread IE tendency to name animals from typical attributes or activities" [Roger Lass]. Synonyms grunter, oinker are from sailors' and fishermen's euphemistic avoidance of uttering the word pig at sea, a superstition perhaps based on the fate of the Gadarene swine, who drowned.[7]
+
+The Online Etymology Dictionary also traces the evolution of sow, the term for a female pig, through various historical languages:
+
+Old English sugu, su "female of the swine," from Proto-Germanic *su- (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German su, German Sau, Dutch zeug, Old Norse syr), from PIE root *su- (cognates: Sanskrit sukarah "wild boar, swine;" Avestan hu "wild boar;" Greek hys "swine;" Latin sus "swine", suinus "pertaining to swine"; Old Church Slavonic svinija "swine;" Lettish sivens "young pig;" Welsh hucc, Irish suig "swine; Old Irish socc "snout, plowshare"), possibly imitative of pig noise; note that Sanskrit sukharah means "maker of (the sound) su.[7]
+
+An adjectival form is porcine. Another adjectival form (technically for the subfamily rather than genus name) is suine (comparable to bovine, canine, etc.); for the family, it is suid (as with bovid, canid).
+
+A typical pig has a large head with a long snout that is strengthened by a special prenasal bone and by a disk of cartilage at the tip.[8] The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is a very acute sense organ.  There are four hoofed toes on each foot, with the two larger central toes bearing most of the weight, but the outer two also being used in soft ground.[9]
+
+The dental formula of adult pigs is 3.1.4.33.1.4.3, giving a total of 44 teeth. The rear teeth are adapted for crushing.  In the male, the canine teeth form tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by constantly being ground against each other.[8]
+
+Occasionally, captive mother pigs may savage their own piglets, often if they become severely stressed.[10] Some attacks on newborn piglets are non-fatal.  Others may cause the death of the piglets and sometimes, the mother may eat the piglets. It is estimated that 50% of piglet fatalities are due to the mother attacking, or unintentionally crushing, the newborn pre-weaned animals.[11]
+
+With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is one of the most numerous large mammals on the planet.[3][4]
+
+The ancestor of the domestic pig is the wild boar, which is one of the most numerous and widespread large mammals.  Its many subspecies are native to all but the harshest climates of continental Eurasia and its islands and Africa as well, from Ireland and India to Japan and north to Siberia.
+
+Long isolated from other pigs on the many islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, pigs have evolved into many different species, including wild boar, bearded pigs, and warty pigs. Humans have introduced pigs into Australia, North and South America, and numerous islands, either accidentally as escaped domestic pigs which have gone feral, or as wild boar.
+
+The wild boar (Sus scrofa) can take advantage of any forage resources. Therefore, they can live in virtually any productive habitat that can provide enough water to sustain large mammals such as pigs. If there is increased foraging of wild boars in certain areas, they can cause a nutritional shortage which can cause the pig population to decrease. If the nutritional state returns to normal, the pig population will most likely rise due to the pigs' naturally increased reproduction rate.[12]
+
+Pigs are omnivores, which means that they consume both plants and animals. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves, roots, fruits, and flowers, in addition to some insects and fish.  As livestock, pigs are fed mostly corn and soybean meal[13] with a mixture of vitamins and minerals added to the diet. Traditionally, they were raised on dairy farms and called "mortgage lifters", due to their ability to use the excess milk as well as whey from cheese and butter making combined with pasture.[14] Older pigs will consume three to five gallons of water per day.[15] When kept as pets, the optimal healthy diet consists mainly of a balanced diet of raw vegetables, although some may give their pigs conventional mini pig pellet feed.[16]
+
+Domesticated pigs, especially miniature breeds, are commonly kept as pets.[17] Domestic pigs are raised commercially as livestock; materials that are garnered include their meat (known as pork), leather, and their bristly hairs which are used to make brushes. Because of their foraging abilities and excellent sense of smell, they are used to find truffles in many European countries. Both wild and feral pigs are commonly hunted.
+
+The relatively short, stiff, coarse hairs of the pig are called bristles, and were once so commonly used in paintbrushes that in 1946 the Australian Government launched Operation Pig Bristle. In May 1946, in response to a shortage of pig bristles for paintbrushes to paint houses in the post-World War II construction boom, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flew in 28 short tons of pig bristles from China, their only commercially available source at the time.[18]
+
+Human skin is very similar to pig skin, therefore pig skin has been used in many preclinical studies.[19][20] In addition to providing use in biomedical research[19][20] and for drug testing,[21] genetic advances in human healthcare have provided a pathway for domestic pigs to become xenotransplantation candidates
+for humans.[22]
+
+The genus Sus is currently thought to contain eight living species. A number of extinct species (†) are known from fossils.
+
+The pygmy hog, formerly Sus salvanius is now placed in the monotypic genus Porcula.[23]
+
+Pigs have been domesticated since ancient times in the Old World. Archaeological evidence suggests that pigs were being managed in the wild in a way similar to the way they are managed by some modern New Guineans from wild boar as early as 13,000–12,700 BP in the Near East in the Tigris Basin,[24] Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, Nevalı Çori.[25] Remains of pigs have been dated to earlier than 11,400 BP in Cyprus that must have been introduced from the mainland which suggests domestication in the adjacent mainland by then.[26] A separate domestication also occurred in China.[27]
+
+In India, pigs have been domesticated for a long time mostly in Goa and some rural areas for pig toilets. This was also done in China. Though ecologically logical as well as economical, pig toilets are waning in popularity as use of septic tanks and/or sewerage systems is increasing in rural areas.
+
+Pigs were brought to southeastern North America from Europe by Hernando de Soto and other early Spanish explorers. Pigs are particularly valued in China and on certain oceanic islands, where their self-sufficiency allows them to be turned loose, although the practice is not without its drawbacks (see environmental impact).
+
+The domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) is usually given the scientific name Sus scrofa, although some taxonomists call it S. domesticus, reserving S. scrofa for the wild boar. It was domesticated approximately 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. The upper canines form sharp distinctive tusks that curve outward and upward. Compared to other artiodactyles, their head is relatively long, pointed, and free of warts. Their head and body length ranges from 0.9 to 1.8 m (35 to 71 in) and they can weigh between 50 and 350 kg (110 and 770 lb).
+
+In November 2012, scientists managed to sequence the genome of the domestic pig. The similarities between the pig and human genomes mean that the new data may have wide applications in the study and treatment of human genetic diseases.[28][29][30]
+
+In August 2015, a study looked at over 100 pig genome sequences to ascertain their process of domestication. The process of domestication was assumed to have been initiated by humans, involved few individuals and relied on reproductive isolation between wild and domestic forms. The study found that the assumption of reproductive isolation with population bottlenecks was not supported. The study  indicated that pigs were domesticated separately in Western Asia and China, with Western Asian pigs introduced into Europe where they crossed with wild boar. A model that fitted the data included admixture with a now extinct ghost population of wild pigs during the Pleistocene. The study also found that despite back-crossing with wild pigs, the genomes of domestic pigs have strong signatures of selection at DNA loci that affect behavior and morphology. The study concluded that human selection for domestic traits likely counteracted the homogenizing effect of gene flow from wild boars and created domestication islands in the genome. The same process may also apply to other domesticated animals.[31]
+[32]
+
+Pigs have been important in culture across the world since neolithic times. They appear in art, literature, and religion. In Asia the wild boar is one of 12 animal images comprising the Chinese zodiac, while in Europe the boar represents a standard charge in heraldry. In Islam and Judaism pigs and those who handle them are viewed negatively, and the consumption of pork is forbidden.[33][34] Pigs are alluded to in animal epithets and proverbs.[35][36] 
+The pig has been celebrated throughout Europe since ancient times in its carnivals, the name coming from the Italian carne levare, the lifting of meat.[37]
+
+Pigs have been brought into literature for varying reasons, ranging from the pleasures of eating, as in Charles Lamb's A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, to William Golding's Lord of the Flies (with the fat character "Piggy"), where the rotting boar's head on a stick represents Beelzebub, "lord of the flies" being the direct translation of the Hebrew בעל זבוב, and George Orwell's allegorical novel Animal Farm, where the central characters, representing Soviet leaders, are all pigs.[38][39][40][37]
+
+Domestic pigs that have escaped from urban areas or were allowed to forage in the wild, and in some cases wild boars which were introduced as prey for hunting, have given rise to large populations of feral pigs in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and other areas where pigs are not native. Accidental or deliberate releases of pigs into countries or environments where they are an alien species have caused extensive environmental change. Their omnivorous diet, aggressive behaviour, and their feeding method of rooting in the ground all combine to severely alter ecosystems unused to pigs. Pigs will even eat small animals and destroy nests of ground nesting birds.[8] The Invasive Species Specialist Group lists feral pigs on the list of the world's 100 worst invasive species and says:[41]
+
+Feral pigs like other introduced mammals are major drivers of extinction and ecosystem change. They have been introduced into many parts of the world, and will damage crops and home gardens as well as potentially spreading disease. They uproot large areas of land, eliminating native vegetation and spreading weeds. This results in habitat alteration, a change in plant succession and composition and a decrease in native fauna dependent on the original habitat.
+
+Because of the biological similarities between each other, pigs can harbour a range of parasites and diseases that can be transmitted to humans. These include trichinosis, Taenia solium, cysticercosis, and brucellosis. Pigs are also known to host large concentrations of parasitic ascarid worms in their digestive tract.[42]
+
+Some strains of influenza are endemic in pigs. Pigs also can acquire human influenza.[further explanation needed]

en/4739.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+
+
+A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the even-toed ungulate family Suidae. Pigs include domestic pigs and their ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), along with other species. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents, ranging from Europe to the Pacific islands. Suids other than the pig are the babirusa of Indonesia, the pygmy hog of Asia, the warthog of Africa, and another genus of pigs from Africa. The suids are a sister clade to peccaries.
+
+Juvenile pigs are known as piglets.[1] Pigs are highly social and intelligent animals.[2]
+
+With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is among the most populous large mammals in the world.[3][4] Pigs are omnivores and can consume a wide range of food.[5] Pigs are biologically similar to humans and are thus frequently used for human medical research.[6]
+
+The Online Etymology Dictionary provides anecdotal evidence as well as linguistic, saying that the term derives
+
+probably from Old English *picg, found in compounds, ultimate origin unknown. Originally "young pig" (the word for adults was swine). Apparently related to Low German bigge, Dutch big ("but the phonology is difficult" -- OED). ... Another Old English word for "pig" was fearh, related to furh "furrow," from PIE *perk- "dig, furrow" (source also of Latin porc-us "pig," see pork). "This reflects a widespread IE tendency to name animals from typical attributes or activities" [Roger Lass]. Synonyms grunter, oinker are from sailors' and fishermen's euphemistic avoidance of uttering the word pig at sea, a superstition perhaps based on the fate of the Gadarene swine, who drowned.[7]
+
+The Online Etymology Dictionary also traces the evolution of sow, the term for a female pig, through various historical languages:
+
+Old English sugu, su "female of the swine," from Proto-Germanic *su- (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German su, German Sau, Dutch zeug, Old Norse syr), from PIE root *su- (cognates: Sanskrit sukarah "wild boar, swine;" Avestan hu "wild boar;" Greek hys "swine;" Latin sus "swine", suinus "pertaining to swine"; Old Church Slavonic svinija "swine;" Lettish sivens "young pig;" Welsh hucc, Irish suig "swine; Old Irish socc "snout, plowshare"), possibly imitative of pig noise; note that Sanskrit sukharah means "maker of (the sound) su.[7]
+
+An adjectival form is porcine. Another adjectival form (technically for the subfamily rather than genus name) is suine (comparable to bovine, canine, etc.); for the family, it is suid (as with bovid, canid).
+
+A typical pig has a large head with a long snout that is strengthened by a special prenasal bone and by a disk of cartilage at the tip.[8] The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is a very acute sense organ.  There are four hoofed toes on each foot, with the two larger central toes bearing most of the weight, but the outer two also being used in soft ground.[9]
+
+The dental formula of adult pigs is 3.1.4.33.1.4.3, giving a total of 44 teeth. The rear teeth are adapted for crushing.  In the male, the canine teeth form tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by constantly being ground against each other.[8]
+
+Occasionally, captive mother pigs may savage their own piglets, often if they become severely stressed.[10] Some attacks on newborn piglets are non-fatal.  Others may cause the death of the piglets and sometimes, the mother may eat the piglets. It is estimated that 50% of piglet fatalities are due to the mother attacking, or unintentionally crushing, the newborn pre-weaned animals.[11]
+
+With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is one of the most numerous large mammals on the planet.[3][4]
+
+The ancestor of the domestic pig is the wild boar, which is one of the most numerous and widespread large mammals.  Its many subspecies are native to all but the harshest climates of continental Eurasia and its islands and Africa as well, from Ireland and India to Japan and north to Siberia.
+
+Long isolated from other pigs on the many islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, pigs have evolved into many different species, including wild boar, bearded pigs, and warty pigs. Humans have introduced pigs into Australia, North and South America, and numerous islands, either accidentally as escaped domestic pigs which have gone feral, or as wild boar.
+
+The wild boar (Sus scrofa) can take advantage of any forage resources. Therefore, they can live in virtually any productive habitat that can provide enough water to sustain large mammals such as pigs. If there is increased foraging of wild boars in certain areas, they can cause a nutritional shortage which can cause the pig population to decrease. If the nutritional state returns to normal, the pig population will most likely rise due to the pigs' naturally increased reproduction rate.[12]
+
+Pigs are omnivores, which means that they consume both plants and animals. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves, roots, fruits, and flowers, in addition to some insects and fish.  As livestock, pigs are fed mostly corn and soybean meal[13] with a mixture of vitamins and minerals added to the diet. Traditionally, they were raised on dairy farms and called "mortgage lifters", due to their ability to use the excess milk as well as whey from cheese and butter making combined with pasture.[14] Older pigs will consume three to five gallons of water per day.[15] When kept as pets, the optimal healthy diet consists mainly of a balanced diet of raw vegetables, although some may give their pigs conventional mini pig pellet feed.[16]
+
+Domesticated pigs, especially miniature breeds, are commonly kept as pets.[17] Domestic pigs are raised commercially as livestock; materials that are garnered include their meat (known as pork), leather, and their bristly hairs which are used to make brushes. Because of their foraging abilities and excellent sense of smell, they are used to find truffles in many European countries. Both wild and feral pigs are commonly hunted.
+
+The relatively short, stiff, coarse hairs of the pig are called bristles, and were once so commonly used in paintbrushes that in 1946 the Australian Government launched Operation Pig Bristle. In May 1946, in response to a shortage of pig bristles for paintbrushes to paint houses in the post-World War II construction boom, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flew in 28 short tons of pig bristles from China, their only commercially available source at the time.[18]
+
+Human skin is very similar to pig skin, therefore pig skin has been used in many preclinical studies.[19][20] In addition to providing use in biomedical research[19][20] and for drug testing,[21] genetic advances in human healthcare have provided a pathway for domestic pigs to become xenotransplantation candidates
+for humans.[22]
+
+The genus Sus is currently thought to contain eight living species. A number of extinct species (†) are known from fossils.
+
+The pygmy hog, formerly Sus salvanius is now placed in the monotypic genus Porcula.[23]
+
+Pigs have been domesticated since ancient times in the Old World. Archaeological evidence suggests that pigs were being managed in the wild in a way similar to the way they are managed by some modern New Guineans from wild boar as early as 13,000–12,700 BP in the Near East in the Tigris Basin,[24] Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, Nevalı Çori.[25] Remains of pigs have been dated to earlier than 11,400 BP in Cyprus that must have been introduced from the mainland which suggests domestication in the adjacent mainland by then.[26] A separate domestication also occurred in China.[27]
+
+In India, pigs have been domesticated for a long time mostly in Goa and some rural areas for pig toilets. This was also done in China. Though ecologically logical as well as economical, pig toilets are waning in popularity as use of septic tanks and/or sewerage systems is increasing in rural areas.
+
+Pigs were brought to southeastern North America from Europe by Hernando de Soto and other early Spanish explorers. Pigs are particularly valued in China and on certain oceanic islands, where their self-sufficiency allows them to be turned loose, although the practice is not without its drawbacks (see environmental impact).
+
+The domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) is usually given the scientific name Sus scrofa, although some taxonomists call it S. domesticus, reserving S. scrofa for the wild boar. It was domesticated approximately 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. The upper canines form sharp distinctive tusks that curve outward and upward. Compared to other artiodactyles, their head is relatively long, pointed, and free of warts. Their head and body length ranges from 0.9 to 1.8 m (35 to 71 in) and they can weigh between 50 and 350 kg (110 and 770 lb).
+
+In November 2012, scientists managed to sequence the genome of the domestic pig. The similarities between the pig and human genomes mean that the new data may have wide applications in the study and treatment of human genetic diseases.[28][29][30]
+
+In August 2015, a study looked at over 100 pig genome sequences to ascertain their process of domestication. The process of domestication was assumed to have been initiated by humans, involved few individuals and relied on reproductive isolation between wild and domestic forms. The study found that the assumption of reproductive isolation with population bottlenecks was not supported. The study  indicated that pigs were domesticated separately in Western Asia and China, with Western Asian pigs introduced into Europe where they crossed with wild boar. A model that fitted the data included admixture with a now extinct ghost population of wild pigs during the Pleistocene. The study also found that despite back-crossing with wild pigs, the genomes of domestic pigs have strong signatures of selection at DNA loci that affect behavior and morphology. The study concluded that human selection for domestic traits likely counteracted the homogenizing effect of gene flow from wild boars and created domestication islands in the genome. The same process may also apply to other domesticated animals.[31]
+[32]
+
+Pigs have been important in culture across the world since neolithic times. They appear in art, literature, and religion. In Asia the wild boar is one of 12 animal images comprising the Chinese zodiac, while in Europe the boar represents a standard charge in heraldry. In Islam and Judaism pigs and those who handle them are viewed negatively, and the consumption of pork is forbidden.[33][34] Pigs are alluded to in animal epithets and proverbs.[35][36] 
+The pig has been celebrated throughout Europe since ancient times in its carnivals, the name coming from the Italian carne levare, the lifting of meat.[37]
+
+Pigs have been brought into literature for varying reasons, ranging from the pleasures of eating, as in Charles Lamb's A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, to William Golding's Lord of the Flies (with the fat character "Piggy"), where the rotting boar's head on a stick represents Beelzebub, "lord of the flies" being the direct translation of the Hebrew בעל זבוב, and George Orwell's allegorical novel Animal Farm, where the central characters, representing Soviet leaders, are all pigs.[38][39][40][37]
+
+Domestic pigs that have escaped from urban areas or were allowed to forage in the wild, and in some cases wild boars which were introduced as prey for hunting, have given rise to large populations of feral pigs in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and other areas where pigs are not native. Accidental or deliberate releases of pigs into countries or environments where they are an alien species have caused extensive environmental change. Their omnivorous diet, aggressive behaviour, and their feeding method of rooting in the ground all combine to severely alter ecosystems unused to pigs. Pigs will even eat small animals and destroy nests of ground nesting birds.[8] The Invasive Species Specialist Group lists feral pigs on the list of the world's 100 worst invasive species and says:[41]
+
+Feral pigs like other introduced mammals are major drivers of extinction and ecosystem change. They have been introduced into many parts of the world, and will damage crops and home gardens as well as potentially spreading disease. They uproot large areas of land, eliminating native vegetation and spreading weeds. This results in habitat alteration, a change in plant succession and composition and a decrease in native fauna dependent on the original habitat.
+
+Because of the biological similarities between each other, pigs can harbour a range of parasites and diseases that can be transmitted to humans. These include trichinosis, Taenia solium, cysticercosis, and brucellosis. Pigs are also known to host large concentrations of parasitic ascarid worms in their digestive tract.[42]
+
+Some strains of influenza are endemic in pigs. Pigs also can acquire human influenza.[further explanation needed]

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@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+
+
+A car (or automobile) is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transportation.  Most definitions of cars say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four tires, and mainly transport people rather than goods.[2][3]
+
+Cars came into global use during the 20th century, and developed economies depend on them. The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car when German inventor Karl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars became widely available in the early 20th century. One of the first cars accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, but took much longer to be accepted in Western Europe and other parts of the world.[citation needed]
+
+Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex, but also more reliable and easier to operate.[citation needed] These include rear-reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, became commercially available in the 2000s and are predicted to cost less to buy than gasoline cars before 2025.[4][5] The transition from fossil fuels to electric cars features prominently in most climate change mitigation scenarios.[6]
+
+There are costs and benefits to car use. The costs to the individual include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments (if the car is financed), repairs and maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance.[7] The costs to society include maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, healthcare, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[8]
+
+The personal benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience.[9] The societal benefits include economic benefits, such as job and wealth creation from the automotive industry, transportation provision, societal well-being from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the taxes. People's ability to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[10] There are around 1 billion cars in use worldwide. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India and other newly industrialized countries.[11]
+
+The English word car is believed to originate from Latin carrus/carrum "wheeled vehicle" or (via Old North French) Middle English carre "two-wheeled cart," both of which in turn derive from Gaulish karros "chariot."[12][13] It originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn vehicle, such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.[14][15]
+
+"Motor car," attested from 1895, is the usual formal term in British English.[3] "Autocar," a variant likewise attested from 1895 and literally meaning "self-propelled car," is now considered archaic.[16] "Horseless carriage" is attested from 1895.[17]
+
+"Automobile," a classical compound derived from Ancient Greek autós (αὐτός) "self" and Latin mobilis "movable," entered English from French and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897.[18] It fell out of favour in Britain and is now used chiefly in North America,[19] where the abbreviated form "auto" commonly appears as an adjective in compound formations like "auto industry" and "auto mechanic".[20][21] Both forms are still used in everyday Dutch (auto/automobiel) and German (Auto/Automobil).[citation needed]
+
+The first working steam-powered vehicle was designed — and quite possibly built — by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65-cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.[9][22][23] It is not known with certainty if Verbiest's model was successfully built or run.[23]
+
+Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle or car in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.[24]  He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[25] His inventions were, however, handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.[25] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods and was of little practical use.
+
+The development of external combustion engines is detailed as part of the history of the car but often treated separately from the development of true cars.  A variety of steam-powered road vehicles were used during the first part of the 19th century, including steam cars, steam buses, phaetons, and steam rollers.  Sentiment against them led to the Locomotive Acts of 1865.
+
+In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude created what was probably the world's first internal combustion engine (which they called a Pyréolophore), but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[26] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own 'de Rivaz internal combustion engine' and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried spores of the Lycopodium plant), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[26] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by internal combustion engines.[1]
+
+In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated the first working (three-wheeled) car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[27] Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern car.[1]
+
+In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle. His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany. He was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on 29 January 1886 (under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883). Benz began promotion of the vehicle on 3 July 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a cheaper model. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz car to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early cars, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany. In August 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, undertook the first road trip by car, to prove the road-worthiness of her husband's invention.
+
+In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor. During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest car company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint-stock company. The first motor car in central Europe and one of the first factory-made cars in the world, was produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897, the Präsident automobil.
+
+Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first car in 1892 under the brand name Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, which they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG. Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG car was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine, which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.
+
+Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First World War, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later when these conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they advertised or marketed their car models jointly, although keeping their respective brands. On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its cars Mercedes Benz, as a brand honoring the most important model of the DMG cars, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes-35 hp, along with the Benz name. Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929, and at times, his two sons also participated in the management of the company.
+
+In 1890, Émile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the automotive industry in France. In 1891, Auguste Doriot and his Peugeot colleague Louis Rigoulot completed the longest trip by a gasoline-powered vehicle when their self-designed and built Daimler powered Peugeot Type 3 completed 2,100 km (1,300 miles) from Valentigney to Paris and Brest and back again. They were attached to the first Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, but finished 6 days after the winning cyclist, Charles Terront.
+
+The first design for an American car with a gasoline internal combustion engine was made in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New York. Selden applied for a patent for a car in 1879, but the patent application expired because the vehicle was never built. After a delay of sixteen years and a series of attachments to his application, on 5 November 1895, Selden was granted a United States patent (U.S. Patent 549,160) for a two-stroke car engine, which hindered, more than encouraged, development of cars in the United States. His patent was challenged by Henry Ford and others, and overturned in 1911.
+
+In 1893, the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. The first public run of the Duryea Motor Wagon took place on 21 September 1893, on Taylor Street in Metro Center Springfield.[28][29] The Studebaker Automobile Company, subsidiary of a long-established wagon and coach manufacturer, started to build cars in 1897[30]:p.66 and commenced sales of electric vehicles in 1902 and gasoline vehicles in 1904.[31]
+
+In Britain, there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success, with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860.[32] Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first gasoline-powered car in the country in 1894,[33] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both one-offs.[33] The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first car in 1897, and they bore the name Daimler.[33]
+
+In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.[1] Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.
+
+All in all, it is estimated that over 100,000 patents created the modern automobile and motorcycle.[34]
+
+Large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable cars was started by Ransom Olds in 1901 at his Oldsmobile factory in Lansing, Michigan and based upon stationary assembly line techniques pioneered by Marc Isambard Brunel at the Portsmouth Block Mills, England, in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the U.S. by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.[35] This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1913 with the world's first moving assembly line for cars at the Highland Park Ford Plant.
+
+As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold, while using less manpower (from 12.5-man-hours to 1 hour 33 minutes).[36] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1913, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford's apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's black".[36] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[36]
+
+Ford's complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury.[citation needed] The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called "Fordism," and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the economic rise of the United States. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods.
+
+In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the founding of Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark 1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921, Citroen was the first native European manufacturer to adopt the production method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.[36]
+
+Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910–1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.
+
+Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced car design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, called the General Motors Companion Make Program, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved.
+
+Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSalles, sold by Cadillac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate powertrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production, such as Apperson, Cole, Dorris, Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two hundred American car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.[36]
+
+In Europe, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line at Cowley in 1924, and soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford's practice of vertical integration, buying Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41% of total British car production. Most British small-car assemblers, from Abbey to Xtra, had gone under. Citroen did the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other cheap cars in reply such as Renault's 10CV and Peugeot's 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and Mors, Hurtu, and others could not compete.[36] Germany's first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Russelsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Germany, with 37.5% of the market.[36]
+
+In Japan, car production was very limited before World War II. Only a handful of companies were producing vehicles in limited numbers, and these were small, three-wheeled for commercial uses, like Daihatsu, or were the result of partnering with European companies, like Isuzu building the Wolseley A-9 in 1922. Mitsubishi was also partnered with Fiat and built the Mitsubishi Model A based on a Fiat vehicle. Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, and Honda began as companies producing non-automotive products before the war, switching to car production during the 1950s. Kiichiro Toyoda's decision to take Toyoda Loom Works into automobile manufacturing would create what would eventually become Toyota Motor Corporation, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Subaru, meanwhile, was formed from a conglomerate of six companies who banded together as Fuji Heavy Industries, as a result of having been broken up under keiretsu legislation.
+
+According to the European Environment Agency, the transport sector is a major contributor to air pollution, noise pollution and climate change.[37]
+
+Most cars in use in the 2010s run on gasoline burnt in an internal combustion engine (ICE). The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers says that, in countries that mandate low sulfur gasoline, gasoline-fuelled cars built to late 2010s standards (such as Euro-6) emit very little local air pollution.[38][39]  Some cities ban older gasoline-fuelled cars and some countries plan to ban sales in future. However some environmental groups say this phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles must be brought forward to limit climate change. Production of gasoline fueled cars peaked in 2017.[40][41]
+
+Other hydrocarbon fossil fuels also burnt by deflagration (rather than detonation) in ICE cars include diesel, Autogas and CNG. Removal of fossil fuel subsidies,[42][43] concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for cars. This includes hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. 2.1 million light electric vehicles (of all types but mainly cars) were sold in 2018, over half in China: this was an increase of 64% on the previous year, giving a global total on the road of 5.4 million.[44]  Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles[clarification needed] are also gaining popularity in some countries.[citation needed] Cars for racing or speed records have sometimes employed jet or rocket engines, but these are impractical for common use.
+
+Oil consumption has increased rapidly in the 20th and 21st centuries because there are more cars; the 1985–2003 oil glut even fuelled the sales of low-economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries are adding to this consumption.
+
+Cars are equipped with controls used for driving, passenger comfort and safety, normally operated by a combination of the use of feet and hands, and occasionally by voice on 21st century cars. These controls include a steering wheel, pedals for operating the brakes and controlling the car's speed (and, in a manual transmission car, a clutch pedal), a shift lever or stick for changing gears, and a number of buttons and dials for turning on lights, ventilation and other functions. Modern cars' controls are now standardized, such as the location for the accelerator and brake, but this was not always the case. Controls are evolving in response to new technologies, for example the electric car and the integration of mobile communications.
+
+Some of the original controls are no longer required. For example, all cars once had controls for the choke valve, clutch, ignition timing, and a crank instead of an electric starter. However new controls have also been added to vehicles, making them more complex. These include air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Another trend is the replacement of physical knobs and switches by secondary controls with touchscreen controls such as BMW's iDrive and Ford's MyFord Touch. Another change is that while early cars' pedals were physically linked to the brake mechanism and throttle, in the 2010s, cars have increasingly replaced these physical linkages with electronic controls.
+
+Cars are typically fitted with multiple types of lights. These include headlights, which are used to illuminate the way ahead and make the car visible to other users, so that the vehicle can be used at night; in some jurisdictions, daytime running lights; red brake lights to indicate when the brakes are applied; amber turn signal lights to indicate the turn intentions of the driver; white-colored reverse lights to illuminate the area behind the car (and indicate that the driver will be or is reversing); and on some vehicles, additional lights (e.g., side marker lights) to increase the visibility of the car. Interior lights on the ceiling of the car are usually fitted for the driver and passengers. Some vehicles also have a trunk light and, more rarely, an engine compartment light.
+
+During the late 20th and early 21st century cars increased in weight due to batteries,[46] modern steel safety cages, anti-lock brakes, airbags, and "more-powerful—if more-efficient—engines"[47] and, as of 2019[update], typically weigh between 1 and 3 tonnes.[48] Heavier cars are safer for the driver from a crash perspective, but more dangerous for other vehicles and road users.[47] The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. The SmartFortwo, a small city car, weighs 750–795 kg (1,655–1,755 lb). Heavier cars include full-size cars, SUVs and extended-length SUVs like the Suburban.
+
+According to research conducted by Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, global energy use could be greatly reduced by using lighter cars, and an average weight of 500 kg (1,100 lb) has been said to be well achievable.[49][better source needed] In some competitions such as the Shell Eco Marathon, average car weights of 45 kg (99 lb) have also been achieved.[50] These cars are only single-seaters (still falling within the definition of a car, although 4-seater cars are more common), but they nevertheless demonstrate the amount by which car weights could still be reduced, and the subsequent lower fuel use (i.e. up to a fuel use of 2560 km/l).[51]
+
+Most cars are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Cars with five seats typically seat two passengers in the front and three in the rear. Full-size cars and large sport utility vehicles can often carry six, seven, or more occupants depending on the arrangement of the seats. On the other hand, sports cars are most often designed with only two seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage or cargo space has resulted in the availability of a large variety of body styles to meet individual consumer requirements that include, among others, the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate, and minivan.
+
+Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[8] Mary Ward became one of the first documented car fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown, Ireland,[52] and Henry Bliss one of the United States' first pedestrian car casualties in 1899 in New York City.[53]
+There are now standard tests for safety in new cars, such as the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests,[54] and insurance-industry-backed tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).[55]
+
+The costs of car usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance,[7] are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits – perceived and real – of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence and convenience.[9] During the 1920s, cars had another benefit: "[c]ouples finally had a way to head off on unchaperoned dates, plus they had a private space to snuggle up close at the end of the night."[57]
+
+Similarly the costs to society of car use may include; maintaining roads, land use, air pollution, road congestion, public health, health care, and of disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life; and can be balanced against the value of the benefits to society that car use generates. Societal benefits may include: economy benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of car production and maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax opportunities. The ability of humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[10]
+
+Cars are a major cause of urban air pollution,[58] with all types of cars producing dust from brakes, tyres and road wear.[59]  As of 2018[update] the average diesel car has a worse effect on air quality than the average gasoline car[60] But both gasoline and diesel cars pollute more than electric cars.[61] While there are different ways to power cars most rely on gasoline or diesel, and they consume almost a quarter of world oil production as of 2019[update].[40] In 2018 passenger road vehicles emitted 3.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.[62] As of 2019[update], due to greenhouse gases emitted during battery production, electric cars must be driven tens of thousands of kilometers before their lifecycle carbon emissions are less than fossil fuel cars:[63] but this is expected to improve in future due to longer lasting[64] batteries being produced in larger factories,[65] and lower carbon electricity. Many governments are using fiscal policies, such as road tax, to discourage the purchase and use of more polluting cars;[66] and many cities are doing the same with low-emission zones.[67] Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g. hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels. High fuel taxes or cultural change may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not drive.[67]
+
+The lifetime of a car built in the 2020s is expected to be about 16 years, or about 2 million kilometres (1.2 million miles) if driven a lot.[68] According to the International Energy Agency fuel economy improved 0.7% in 2017, but an annual improvement of 3.7% is needed to meet the Global Fuel Economy Initiative 2030 target.[69] The increase in sales of SUVs is bad for fuel economy.[40] Many cities in Europe, have banned older fossil fuel cars and all fossil fuel vehicles will be banned in Amsterdam from 2030.[70] Many Chinese cities limit licensing of fossil fuel cars,[71] and many countries plan to stop selling them between 2025 and 2050.[72]
+
+The manufacture of vehicles is resource intensive, and many manufacturers now report on the environmental performance of their factories, including energy usage, waste and water consumption.[73] Manufacturing each kWh of battery emits a similar amount of carbon as burning through one full tank of gasoline.[74] The growth in popularity of the car allowed cities to sprawl, therefore encouraging more travel by car resulting in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.[75]
+
+Animals and plants are often negatively impacted by cars via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average car the "loss of habitat potential" may be over 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations.[76] Animals are also killed every year on roads by cars, referred to as roadkill. More recent road developments are including significant environmental mitigation in their designs, such as green bridges (designed to allow wildlife crossings) and creating wildlife corridors.
+
+Growth in the popularity of vehicles and commuting has led to traffic congestion. Moscow, Istanbul, Bogota, Mexico City and Sao Paulo were the world's most congested cities in 2018 according to INRIX, a data analytics company.[77]
+
+Although intensive development of  conventional battery electric vehicles is continuing into the 2020s,[78] other car propulsion technologies that are under development include wheel hub motors,[79] wireless charging,[80] hydrogen cars,[81] and hydrogen/electric hybrids.[82] Research into alternative forms of power includes using ammonia instead of hydrogen in fuel cells.[83]
+
+New materials[84] which may replace steel car bodies include duralumin, fiberglass, carbon fiber, biocomposites, and carbon nanotubes. Telematics technology is allowing more and more people to share cars, on a pay-as-you-go basis, through car share and carpool schemes. Communication is also evolving due to connected car systems.[85]
+
+Fully autonomous vehicles, also known as driverless cars, already exist in prototype (such as the Google driverless car), but have a long way to go before they are in general use.
+
+There have been several projects aiming to develop a car on the principles of open design, an approach to designing in which the plans for the machinery and systems are publicly shared, often without monetary compensation. The projects include OScar, Riversimple (through 40fires.org)[86] and c,mm,n.[87] None of the projects have reached significant success in terms of developing a car as a whole both from hardware and software perspective and no mass production ready open-source based design have been introduced as of late 2009. Some car hacking through on-board diagnostics (OBD) has been done so far.[88]
+
+Car-share arrangements and carpooling are also increasingly popular, in the US and Europe.[89] For example, in the US, some car-sharing services have experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth between 2006 and 2007. Services like car sharing offering a residents to "share" a vehicle rather than own a car in already congested neighborhoods.[90]
+
+The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the world's motor vehicles, more than three-quarters of which are cars. In 2018 there were 70 million cars manufactured worldwide,[91] down 2 million from the previous year.[92]
+
+The automotive industry in China produces by far the most (24 million in 2018), followed by Japan (8 million), Germany (5 million) and India (4 million).[91] The largest market is China, followed by the USA.
+
+Around the world there are about a billion cars on the road;[93] they burn over a trillion liters of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly, consuming about 50 EJ (nearly 300 terawatt-hours) of energy.[94] The numbers of cars are increasing rapidly in China and India.[11] In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investment. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.[95][96] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems. The car industry is also facing increasing competition from the public transport sector, as some people re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.
+
+Established alternatives for some aspects of car use include public transport such as buses, trolleybuses, trains, subways, tramways, light rail, cycling, and walking. Bicycle sharing systems have been established in China and many European cities, including Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been developed in large US cities.[98][99] Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to cars if they prove to be socially accepted.[100]
+
+The term motorcar was formerly also used in the context of electrified rail systems to denote a car which functions as a small locomotive but also provides space for passengers and baggage.  These locomotive cars were often used on suburban routes by both interurban and intercity railroad systems.[101]

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+Container ships (sometimes spelled containerships) are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
+
+Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Typical loads are a mix of 20-foot and 40-foot (2-TEU) ISO-standard containers, with the latter predominant.
+
+Today, about 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container ships, and the largest modern container ships can carry over 23,000 TEU (e.g., MSC Gülsün). Container ships now rival crude oil tankers and bulk carriers as the largest commercial seaborne vessels.
+
+There are two main types of dry cargo: bulk cargo and break bulk cargo. Bulk cargoes, like grain or coal, are transported unpackaged in the hull of the ship, generally in large volume.[3] Break-bulk cargoes, on the other hand, are transported in packages, and are generally manufactured goods.[4] Before the advent of containerization in the 1950s, break-bulk items were loaded, lashed, unlashed and unloaded from the ship one piece at a time. However, by grouping cargo into containers, 1,000 to 3,000 cubic feet (28 to 85 m3) of cargo, or up to about 64,000 pounds (29,000 kg), is moved at once and each container is secured to the ship once in a standardized way.[5] Containerization has increased the efficiency of moving traditional break-bulk cargoes significantly, reducing shipping time by 84% and costs by 35%.[6] In 2001, more than 90% of world trade in non-bulk goods was transported in ISO containers.[7] In 2009, almost one quarter of the world's dry cargo was shipped by container, an estimated 125 million TEU or 1.19 billion tonnes worth of cargo.[8]
+
+The first ships designed to carrying standardized load units were used in the late 18th century in England. In 1766 James Brindley designed the box boat "Starvationer" with 10 wooden containers, to transport coal from Worsley Delph to Manchester by Bridgewater Canal.[9] Before the Second World War first container ships were used to carrying baggages of the luxury passenger train from London to Paris, Golden Arrow / Flèche d'Or, in 1926 by Southern Railway.  These containers were loaded in London or Paris and carried to ports, Dover or Calais, on flat cars in the UK and "CIWL Pullman Golden Arrow Fourgon of CIWL" in France.[10]
+
+The earliest container ships after the Second World War were converted oil tankers, built up from surplus T2 tankers after World War II. In 1951, the first purpose-built container vessels began operating in Denmark, and between Seattle and Alaska. The first commercially successful container ship was Ideal X,[11] a T2 tanker, owned by Malcom McLean, which carried 58 metal containers between Newark, New Jersey and Houston, Texas, on its first voyage.[12] In 1955, McLean built his company, McLean Trucking into one of United States' biggest freighter fleets. In 1955, he purchased the small Pan Atlantic Steamship Company from Waterman Steamship and adapted its ships to carry cargo in large uniform metal containers.[13] On April 26, 1956, the first of these rebuilt container vessels, Ideal X, left the Port Newark in New Jersey and a new revolution in modern shipping resulted.[14][15]
+
+MV Kooringa was the world's first fully cellular purpose-built container ship and was built by Australian company, Associated Steamships Pty. Ltd. in partnership with McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co and commissioned in May 1964.
+
+Container vessels eliminate the individual hatches, holds and dividers of the traditional general cargo vessels. The hull of a typical container ship is a huge warehouse divided into cells by vertical guide rails. These cells are designed to hold cargo in pre-packed units – containers. Shipping containers are usually made of steel, but other materials like aluminum, fiberglass or plywood are also used. They are designed to be entirely transferred to and from smaller coastal carriers, trains, trucks or semi-trailers (and so are carried by different modes of transport during one voyage, thus giving the name intermodal transport). There are several types of containers and they are categorized according to their size and functions.
+
+Today, about 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container, and modern container ships can carry over 21,000 TEU. As a class, container ships now rival crude oil tankers and bulk carriers as the largest commercial vessels on the ocean.
+
+Although containerization caused a revolution in the world of shipping, its introduction did not have an easy passage.  Ports, railway (railroad in the US) companies, and shippers were concerned about the huge costs of developing the ports and railway infrastructure needed to handle container ships, and for the movement of containers on land by rail and road. Trade unions were concerned about massive job loss among port and dock workers at ports, as containers were sure to eliminate several manual jobs of cargo handling at ports. It took ten years of legal battles before container ships would be pressed into international service. In 1966, a container liner service from the US to the Dutch city of Rotterdam commenced. Containerization changed not only the face of shipping, but it also revolutionized world trade as well. A container ship can be loaded and unloaded in a few hours compared to days in a traditional cargo vessel. This, besides cutting labor costs, has reduced shipping times between ports to a great extent; for example, it takes a few weeks instead of months for a consignment to be delivered from India to Europe and vice versa. It has also resulted in less breakage due to less handling; also, there is less danger of cargo shifting during a voyage. As containers are sealed and only opened at the destination, pilferage and theft levels have been greatly reduced.
+
+Containerization has lowered shipping expense and decreased shipping time, and this has in turn helped the growth of international trade. Cargo that once arrived in cartons, crates, bales, barrels or bags now comes in factory sealed containers, with no indication to the human eye of their contents, except for a product code that machines can scan and computers trace. This system of tracking has been so exact that a two-week voyage can be timed for arrival with an accuracy of under fifteen minutes. It has resulted in such revolutions as on time guaranteed delivery and just in time manufacturing. Raw materials arrive from factories in sealed containers less than an hour before they are required in manufacture, resulting in reduced inventory expense.
+
+Exporters load merchandise in boxes that are provided by the shipping companies. They are then delivered to the docks by road, rail or a combination of both for loading onto container ships. Prior to containerization, huge gangs of men would spend hours fitting various items of cargo into different holds. Today, cranes, installed either on the pier or on the ship, are used to place containers on board the ship. When the hull has been fully loaded, additional containers are stacked on the deck.
+
+Today's largest container ships measure 400 metres (1,300 ft) in length.[16]  They carry loads equal to the cargo-carrying capacity of sixteen to seventeen pre-World War II freighter ships.
+
+There are several key points in the design of modern container ships.  The hull, similar to bulk carriers and general cargo ships, is built around a strong keel.  Into this frame is set one or more below-deck cargo holds, numerous tanks, and the engine room.  The holds are topped by hatch covers, onto which more containers can be stacked.  Many container ships have cargo cranes installed on them, and some have specialized systems for securing containers on board.
+
+The hull of a modern cargo ship is a complex arrangement of steel plates and strengthening beams.  The hull is built around the keel.[17]  Resembling ribs, and fastened at right-angles to the keel are the ship's frames.[17]  The ship's main deck, the metal platework that covers the top of the hull framework, is supported by beams that are attached to the tops of the frames and run the full breadth of the ship.[17]  The beams not only support the deck, but along with the deck, frames, and transverse bulkheads, strengthen and reinforce the shell.[17]  Another feature of recent hulls is a set of double-bottom tanks, which provide a second watertight shell that runs most of the length of a ship.[18]  The double-bottoms generally hold liquids such as fuel oil, ballast water or fresh water.[18]
+
+A ship's engine room houses its main engines and auxiliary machinery such as the fresh water and sewage systems, electrical generators, fire pumps, and air conditioners.[18]  In most new ships, the engine room is located in the aft portion.[18]
+
+Container ships are distinguished into 7 major size categories: small feeder, feeder, feedermax, Panamax, Post-Panamax, New Panamax and ultra-large.[19] As of December 2012, there were 161 container ships in the VLCS class (Very Large Container Ships, more than 10,000 TEU), and 51 ports in the world can accommodate them.[20]
+
+The size of a Panamax vessel is limited by the original Panama canal's lock chambers, which can accommodate ships with a beam of up to 32.31 m, a length overall of up to 294.13 m, and a draft of up to 12.04 m.[21]  The Post-Panamax category has historically been used to describe ships with a moulded breadth over 32.31 m,[22] however the Panama Canal expansion project has caused some changes in terminology.  The New Panamax category is based on the maximum vessel-size that is able to transit a new third set of locks, which opened in June 2016.[23][24] The third set of locks were built to accommodate a container ship with a length overall of 366 metres (1,201 ft), a maximum width of 49 metres (161 ft), and tropical fresh-water draft of 15.2 metres (50 ft).[24][25] Such a vessel, called New Panamax class, is wide enough to carry 19 rows of containers, can have a total capacity of approximately 12,000 TEU and is comparable in size to a capesize bulk carrier or a Suezmax tanker.[25]
+
+Container ships under 3,000 TEU are generally called feeders.  Feeders are small ships that typically operate between smaller container ports.  Some feeders collect their cargo from small ports, drop it off at large ports for transshipment on larger ships, and distribute containers from the large port to smaller regional ports.[2]  This size of vessel is the most likely to carry cargo cranes on board.[26]
+
+A major characteristic of a container ship is whether it has cranes installed for handling its cargo.  Those that have cargo cranes are called geared and those that don't are called ungeared or gearless.  The earliest purpose-built container ships in the 1970s were all gearless.[26]  Since then, the percentage of geared newbuilds has fluctuated widely, but has been decreasing overall, with only 7.5% of the container ship capacity in 2009 being equipped with cranes.[26]
+
+While geared container ships are more flexible in that they can visit ports that are not equipped with pierside container cranes, they suffer from several drawbacks.[26]  To begin with, geared ships will cost more to purchase than a gearless ship.[26]  Geared ships also incur greater recurring expenses, such as maintenance and fuel costs.[26]  The United Nations Council on Trade and Development characterizes geared ships as a "niche market only appropriate for those ports where low cargo volumes do not justify investment in port cranes or where the public sector does not have the financial resources for such investment".[26]
+
+Instead of the rotary cranes, some geared ships have gantry cranes installed.[30]  These cranes, specialized for container work, are able to roll forward and aft on rails.[30]  In addition to the additional capital expense and maintenance costs, these cranes generally load and discharge containers much more slowly than their shoreside counterparts.[30]
+
+The introduction and improvement of shoreside container cranes have been a key to the success of the container ship.[30]  The first crane that was specifically designed for container work was built in California's Port of Alameda in 1959.[30]  By the 1980s, shoreside gantry cranes were capable of moving containers on a 3-minute-cycle, or up to 400 tons per hour.[30] In March 2010, at Port Klang in Malaysia, a new world record was set when 734 container moves were made in a single hour.[31] The record was achieved using 9 cranes to simultaneously load and unload MV CSCL Pusan, a ship with a capacity of 9,600 TEU.[31]
+
+Vessels in the 1,500–2,499 TEU range are the most likely size class to have cranes, with more than 60% of this category being geared ships.[26]  Slightly less than a third of the very smallest ships (from 100–499 TEU) are geared, and almost no ships with a capacity of over 4,000 TEU are geared.[26]
+
+Efficiency has always been key in the design of container ships.[32]  While containers may be carried on conventional break-bulk ships, cargo holds for dedicated container ships are specially constructed to speed loading and unloading, and to efficiently keep containers secure while at sea.[32]  A key aspect of container ship specialization is the design of the hatches, the openings from the main deck to the cargo holds.[33]  The hatch openings stretch the entire breadth of the cargo holds, and are surrounded by a raised steel structure known as the hatch coaming.[32][33]  On top of the hatch coamings are the hatch covers.  Until the 1950s, hatches were typically secured with wooden boards and tarpaulins held down with battens.[34]  Today, some hatch covers can be solid metal plates that are lifted on and off the ship by cranes, while others are articulated mechanisms that are opened and closed using powerful hydraulic rams.
+
+Another key component of dedicated container-ship design is the use of cell guides.[32]  Cell guides are strong vertical structures constructed of metal installed into a ship's cargo holds.[32]  These structures guide containers into well-defined rows during the loading process and provide some support for containers against the ship's rolling at sea.[32]  So fundamental to container ship design are cell guides that organizations such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development use their presence to distinguish dedicated container ships from general break-bulk cargo ships.[22]
+
+A system of three dimensions is used in cargo plans to describe the position of a container aboard the ship.[35]  The first coordinate is the BAY, which starts at the front of the ship and increases aft.[35]  The second coordinate is the ROW.[35]  Rows on the starboard side are given odd numbers and those on the port side are given even numbers.[35]  The rows nearest the centerline are given low numbers, and the numbers increase for slots further from the centerline.[35] The third coordinate is"TIER", with the first tier at the bottom of the cargo holds, the second tier on top of that, and so forth.[35]
+
+Container ships only take 20 foot, 40 foot, and 45 foot containers. 45 footers only fit above deck. 40 foot containers are the primary container size, making up about 90% of all container shipping and since container shipping moves 90% of the world's freight, over 80% of the world's freight moves via 40 foot containers.
+
+Numerous systems are used to secure containers aboard ships, depending on factors such as the type of ship, the type of container, and the location of the container.[36][37]  Stowage inside the holds of fully cellular (FC) ships is simplest, typically using simple metal forms called container guides, locating cones, and anti-rack spacers to lock the containers together.[38]  Above-decks, without the extra support of the cell guides, more complicated equipment is used.[36]  Three types of systems are currently in wide use: lashing systems, locking systems, and buttress systems.[36]  Lashing systems secure containers to the ship using devices made from wire rope, rigid rods, or chains and devices to tension the lashings, such as turnbuckles.[36]  The effectiveness of lashings is increased by securing containers to each other, either by simple metal forms (such as stacking cones) or more complicated devices such as twist-lock stackers.[36]  A typical twist-lock is inserted into the casting hole of one container and rotated to hold it in place, then another container is lowered on top of it.[39]  The two containers are locked together by twisting the device's handle.[39]  A typical twist-lock is constructed of forged steel and ductile iron and has a shear strength of 48 tonnes.[40]
+
+The buttress system, used on some large container ships, uses a system of large towers attached to the ship at both ends of each cargo hold.[41]  As the ship is loaded, a rigid, removable stacking frame is added, structurally securing each tier of containers together.[41]
+
+Containerships have typically had a single bridge and accommodation unit towards the rear, but to reconcile demand for larger container capacity with SOLAS visibility requirements, several new designs have been developed. As of 2015[update], some large containerships are being developed with the bridge further forward, separate from the exhaust stack. Some smaller containerships working in European ports and rivers have liftable wheelhouses, which can be lowered to pass under low bridges.
+
+As of 2010[update], container ships made up 13.3% of the world's fleet in terms of deadweight tonnage.[46]  The world's total of container ship deadweight tonnage has increased from 11 million DWT in 1980 to 169.0 million DWT in 2010.[47]  The combined deadweight tonnage of container ships and general cargo ships, which also often carry containers, represents 21.8% of the world's fleet.[48]
+
+As of 2009[update], the average age of container ships worldwide was 10.6 years, making them the youngest general vessel type, followed by bulk carriers at 16.6 years, oil tankers at 17 years, general cargo ships at 24.6 years, and others at 25.3 years.[49]
+
+Most of the world's carrying capacity in fully cellular container ships is in the liner service, where ships trade on scheduled routes.[26][50]  As of January 2010, the top 20 liner companies controlled 67.5% of the world's fully cellular container capacity, with 2,673 vessels of an average capacity of 3,774 TEU.[1]  The remaining 6,862 fully cellular ships have an average capacity of 709 TEU each.[1]
+
+The vast majority of the capacity of fully cellular container ships used in the liner trade is owned by German shipowners, with approximately 75% owned by Hamburg brokers.[50]  It is a common practice for the large container lines to supplement their own ships with chartered-in ships, for example in 2009, 48.9% of the tonnage of the top 20 liner companies was chartered-in in this manner.[50]
+
+International law requires that every merchant ship be registered in a country, called its flag state.[51]  A ship's flag state exercises regulatory control over the vessel and is required to inspect it regularly, certify the ship's equipment and crew, and issue safety and pollution prevention documents.  As of 2006[update], the United States Bureau of Transportation Statistics count 2,837 container ships of 10,000 long tons deadweight (DWT) or greater worldwide.[52] Panama was the world's largest flag state for container ships, with 541 of the vessels in its registry.[52]  Seven other flag states had more than 100 registered container ships: Liberia (415), Germany (248), Singapore (177), Cyprus (139), the Marshall Islands (118) and the United Kingdom (104).[52]  The Panamanian, Liberian, and Marshallese flags are open registries and considered by the International Transport Workers' Federation to be flags of convenience.[53]  By way of comparison, traditional maritime nations such as the United States and Japan only had 75 and 11 registered container ships, respectively.[52]
+
+In recent years, oversupply of container ship capacity has caused prices for new and used ships to fall.  From 2008 to 2009, new container ship prices dropped by 19–33%, while prices for 10-year-old container ships dropped by 47–69%.[54]  In March 2010, the average price for a geared 500-TEU container ship was $10 million, while gearless ships of 6,500 and 12,000 TEU averaged prices of $74 million and $105 million respectively.[55]  At the same time, secondhand prices for 10-year-old geared container ships of 500-, 2,500-, and 3,500-TEU capacity averaged prices of $4 million, $15 million, and $18 million respectively.[56]
+
+In 2009, 11,669,000 gross tons of newly built container ships were delivered.[57]  Over 85% of this new capacity was built in the Republic of Korea, China, and Japan, with Korea accounting for over 57% of the world's total alone.[57]  New container ships accounted for 15% of the total new tonnage that year, behind bulk carriers at 28.9% and oil tankers at 22.6%.[57]
+
+Most ships are removed from the fleet through a process known as scrapping.[58]  Scrapping is rare for ships under 18 years old and common for those over 40 years in age.[59]  Ship-owners and buyers negotiate scrap prices based on factors such as the ship's empty weight (called light ton displacement or LTD) and prices in the scrap metal market.[60]  Scrapping rates are volatile, the price per light ton displacement has swung from a high of $650 per LTD in mid-2008 to $200 per LTD in early 2009, before building to $400 per LTD in March 2010.[61]  As of 2009[update], over 96% of the world's scrapping activity takes place in China, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.[62]
+
+The global economic downturn of 2008–2009 resulted in more ships than usual being sold for scrap.[61]  In 2009, 364,300 TEU worth of container ship capacity was scrapped, up from 99,900 TEU in 2008.[61]  Container ships accounted for 22.6% of the total gross tonnage of ships scrapped that year.[63]  Despite the surge, the capacity removed from the fleet only accounted for 3% of the world's containership capacity.[61]  The average age of container ships scrapped in 2009 was 27.0 years.[63]
+
+Economies of scale have dictated an upward trend in sizes of container ships in order to reduce expense. However, there are certain limitations to the size of container ships. Primarily, these are the availability of sufficiently large main engines and the availability of a sufficient number of ports and terminals prepared and equipped to handle ultra-large container ships. Furthermore, the permissible maximum ship dimensions in some of the world's main waterways could present an upper limit in terms of vessel growth. This primarily concerns the Suez Canal and the Singapore Strait.
+
+In 2008 the South Korean shipbuilder STX announced plans to construct a container ship capable of carrying 22,000 TEU,[72] and with a proposed length of 450 m (1,480 ft) and a beam of 60 m (200 ft).[73] If constructed, the container ship would become the largest seagoing vessel in the world.[74]
+
+Since even very large container ships are vessels with relatively low draft compared to large tankers and bulk carriers, there is still considerable room for vessel growth. Compared to today's largest container ships, Maersk Line's 15,200 TEU Emma Mærsk-type series, a 20,000 TEU container ship would only be moderately larger in terms of exterior dimensions. According to a 2011 estimate, an ultra-large container ship of 20,250 TEU would measure 440 m × 59 m (1,444 ft × 194 ft), compared to 397.71 m × 56.40 m (1,304.8 ft × 185.0 ft) for the Emma Mærsk class.[75][76]  It would have an estimated deadweight of circa 220,000 tons. While such a vessel might be near the upper limit for a Suez Canal passage, the so-called Malaccamax concept (for Straits of Malacca) does not apply for container ships, since the Malacca and Singapore Straits' draft limit of about 21 metres (69 ft) is still above that of any conceivable container ship design. In 2011, Maersk announced plans to build a new "Triple E" family of containerships with a capacity of 18,000 TEU, with an emphasis on lower fuel consumption.[77]
+
+In the present market situation, main engines will not be as much of a limiting factor for vessel growth either. The steadily rising expense of fuel oil in the early 2010s had prompted most container lines to adapt a slower, more economical voyage speed of about 21 knots, compared to earlier top speeds of 25 or more knots. Subsequently, newly built container ships can be fitted with a smaller main engine. Engine types fitted to today's ships of 14,000 TEU are thus sufficiently large to propel future vessels of 20,000 TEU or more. Maersk Line, the world's largest container shipping line, nevertheless opted for twin engines (two smaller engines working two separate propellers), when ordering a series of ten 18,000 TEU vessels from Daewoo Shipbuilding in February 2011.[78] The ships were delivered between 2013 and 2014. In 2016, some experts believed that the current largest container ships are at the optimum size, and could not economically be larger, as port facilities would be too expensive, port handling too time consuming, the number of suitable ports too low, and insurance cost too high.[79][80]
+
+In March 2017 the first ship with an official capacity over 20,000 TEUs was christened at Samsung Heavy Industries. MOL Triumph has a capacity of 20,150 TEUs. Samsung Heavy Industries was expected to deliver several ships of over 20,000 TEUs in 2017, and has orders for at least ten vessels in that size range for OOCL and MOL.[69]
+
+The act of hiring a ship to carry cargo is called chartering. Outside special bulk cargo markets, ships are hired by three types of charter agreements: the voyage charter, the time charter, and the bareboat charter.[81]  In a voyage charter, the charterer rents the vessel from the loading port to the discharge port.[82]  In a time charter, the vessel is hired for a set period of time, to perform voyages as the charterer directs.[82]  In a bareboat charter, the charterer acts as the ship's operator and manager, taking on responsibilities such as providing the crew and maintaining the vessel.[83]  The completed chartering contract is known as a charter party.[84]
+
+The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, in its 2010 Review of Maritime Trade tracks two aspects of container shipping prices.[85]  The first is a chartering price, specifically the price to time-charter a 1 TEU slot for 14 tonne cargo on a container ship.[50]  The other is the freight rate, or comprehensive daily cost to deliver one-TEU worth of cargo on a given route.[50][86]  As a result of the late-2000s recession, both indicators showed sharp drops during 2008–2009, and have shown signs of stabilization since 2010.
+
+UNCTAD uses the Hamburg Shipbrokers’ Association (formally the Vereinigung Hamburger Schiffsmakler und Schiffsagenten e. V. or VHSS for short) as its main industry source for container ship freight prices.[50]  The VHSS maintains a few indices of container ship charter prices.  The oldest, which dates back to 1998, is called the Hamburg Index.[50]  This index considers time-charters on fully cellular containerships controlled by Hamburg brokers.[50]  It is limited to charters of 3 months or more, and presented as the average daily cost in U.S. dollars for a one-TEU slot with a weight of 14 tonnes.[50]  The Hamburg Index data is divided into ten categories based primarily on vessel carrying capacity.[50]  Two additional categories exist for small vessels of under 500 TEU that carry their own cargo cranes.[50]  In 2007, VHSS started another index, the New ConTex which tracks similar data obtained from an international group of shipbrokers.[50]
+
+The Hamburg Index shows some clear trends in recent chartering markets.  First, rates were generally increasing from 2000 to 2005.  From 2005 to 2008, rates slowly decreased, and in mid-2008 began a "dramatic decline" of approximately 75%, which lasted until rates stabilized in April 2009.[50]  Rates have ranged from $2.70 to $35.40 in this period, with prices generally lower on larger ships.  The most resilient sized vessel in this time period were those from 200–300 TEU, a fact that the United Nations Council on Trade and Development attributes to lack of competition in this sector.[50]  Overall, in 2010, these rates rebounded somewhat, but remained at approximately half of their 2008 values.[50]  As of 2011, the index shows signs of recovery for container shipping, and combined with increases in global capacity, indicates a positive outlook for the sector in the near future.[50]
+
+UNCTAD also tracks container freight rates.  Freight rates are expressed as the total price in U.S. dollars for a shipper to transport one TEU worth of cargo along a given route.[50]  Data is given for the three main container liner routes: U.S.-Asia, U.S.-Europe, and Europe-Asia.[50]  Prices are typically different between the two legs of a voyage, for example the Asia-U.S. rates have been significantly higher than the return U.S.-Asia rates in recent years.[50]  Generally, from the fourth quarter of 2008 through the third quarter of 2009, both the volume of container cargo and freight rates have dropped sharply.[50] In 2009, the freight rates on the U.S.–Europe route were sturdiest, while the Asia-U.S. route fell the most.[50]
+
+Liner companies responded to their overcapacity in several ways.  For example, in early 2009, some container lines dropped their freight rates to zero on the Asia-Europe route, charging shippers only a surcharge to cover operating costs.[50]  They decreased their overcapacity by lowering the ships' speed (a strategy called "slow steaming") and by laying up ships.[50] Slow steaming increased the length of the Europe-Asia routes to a record high of over 40 days.[50] Another strategy used by some companies was to manipulate the market by publishing notices of rate increases in the press, and when "a notice had been issued by one carrier, other carriers followed suit".[89]
+
+The Trans-Siberian Railroad (TSR) has recently become a more viable alternative to container ships on the Asia-Europe route.[89]  This railroad can typically deliver containers in 1/3 to 1/2 of the time of a sea voyage, and in late 2009 announced a 20% reduction in its container shipping rates.[89]  With its 2009 rate schedule, the TSR will transport a forty-foot container to Poland from Yokohama for $2,820, or from Pusan for $2,154.[89]
+
+In an effort to control costs and maximize capacity utilization on ever larger ships, vessel sharing agreements, co-operative agreements and slot-exchanges and have become a growing feature of the maritime container shipping industry. As of March 2015, 16 of the world's largest container shipping lines had consolidated their routes and services accounting for 95 percent of container cargo volumes moving in the dominant east-west trade routes.[91]
+
+Carriers remain operationally independent, forbidden by antitrust regulators in multiple jurisdictions from colluding on freight rates or capacity. Similarities can be drawn with Airline alliances
+
+Container traffic through a port is often tracked in terms of twenty foot equivalent units or TEU of throughput.[92]  As of 2009[update], the Port of Singapore was the world's busiest container port, with 25,866,000 TEU handled.[92]  That year, six of the busiest ten container ports were in the People's Republic of China, with Shanghai in 2nd place, Port of Hong Kong in 3rd, Shenzhen 4th, Guangzhou 6th, Ningbo 8th, and Qingdao 9th.[92]  Rounding out the top ten ports were Busan in South Korea at number 5, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates at number 7, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands in the 10th position with 9,743,290 TEU served.[92]  In total, the busiest twenty container ports handled 220,905,805 TEU in 2009, almost half of the world's total estimated container traffic that year of 465,597,537 TEU.[92]
+
+It has been estimated that container ships lose between 2,000[93] and 10,000 containers at sea each year,[94] costing $370 million.[95] A more recent survey for the six years 2008 through 2013 estimates average losses of individual containers overboard at 546 per year, and average total losses including catastrophic events such as vessel sinkings or groundings at 1,679 per year[96] Most go overboard on the open sea during storms but there are some examples of whole ships being lost with their cargo.[97] When containers are dropped, they immediately become an environmental threat – termed "marine debris".[98] Once in the ocean, they fill with water and sink if the contents cannot hold air. Rough waters smash the container, sinking it quickly.[93]
+
+The threat of piracy can cost a container shipping company as much as $100 million per year due to longer routes and higher speed, particularly near East Africa.[99]

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+Florence (/ˈflɔːrəns/ FLORR-ənss; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] (listen))[a] is a city in central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.[4]
+
+Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era.[5] It is considered by many academics[6] to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages".[7] Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions.[8] From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy[9] due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.
+
+The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments.[10] The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics.[11] Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes has ranked it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.[12]
+
+Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion,[11] and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor;[13] furthermore, it is a major national economic centre,[11] as well as a tourist and industrial hub. In 2008 the city had the 17th-highest average income in Italy.[14]
+
+Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries.[10]
+
+The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.[15]
+
+Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome.
+
+Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.
+
+Roman Empire 27 BC–AD 285 
+ Western Roman Empire 285–476 
+ Kingdom of Odoacer 476–493 
+ Ostrogothic Kingdom 493–553 
+ Eastern Roman Empire 553–568 
+ Lombard Kingdom 570–773 
+ Carolingian Empire 774–797 
+ Regnum Italiae 797–1001 
+ March of Tuscany 1002–1115 
+ Republic of Florence 1115–1532 
+ Duchy of Florence 1532–1569 
+ Grand Duchy of Tuscany 1569–1801 
+ Kingdom of Etruria 1801–1807 
+ First French Empire 1807–1815 
+ Grand Duchy of Tuscany 1815–1859 
+ United Provinces of Central Italy 1859–1860 
+ Kingdom of Italy 1861–1946
+
+The Etruscans initially formed in the 9th–8th century BC  the small settlement of Fiesole (Faesulae in Latin),[16] which was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome.[citation needed] The present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC as a settlement for his veteran soldiers and was named originally Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, which was later changed to Florentia ("flowering").[17] It was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre.
+
+In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county.[18]
+
+Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. The exterior of the church was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. In 1100, Florence was a "Commune", meaning a city state. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation (e.g. bills of exchange,[19] double-entry bookkeeping system) to medieval fairs. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293).[20]
+
+At the height of demographic expansion around 1325, the urban population may have been as great as 120,000, and the rural population around the city was probably close to 300,000.[21] The Black Death of 1348 reduced it by over half,[22][23] about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382–1434) of the Albizzi family, who became bitter rivals of the Medici.
+
+In the 15th century, Florence was among the largest cities in Europe with a population of 60,000 and was considered rich and economically successful.[24] Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their ascendancy. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was, soon after, succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was an accomplished poet and musician and brought composers and singers to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" (Lorenzo il Magnifico).
+
+Following Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realised the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel, and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government.
+
+During this period, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He praised the exile of the Medici as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his extreme teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498.
+
+A second individual of unusually acute insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimisation of political expediency and even malpractice. In other words, Machiavelli was a political thinker, perhaps most renowned for his political handbook, titled The Prince, which is about ruling and the exercise of power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city. Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a republic on 16 May 1527. Restored twice with the support of both Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VII (Giulio de Medici), the Medici in 1532 became hereditary dukes of Florence, and in 1569 Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruling for two centuries. In all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence.
+
+The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. It became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, who were deposed for the House of Bourbon-Parma in 1801. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria. The Bourbon-Parma were deposed in December 1807 when Tuscany was annexed by France. Florence was the prefecture of the French département of Arno from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814. The Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty was restored on the throne of Tuscany at the Congress of Vienna but finally deposed in 1859. Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
+
+Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865 and, in an effort to modernise the city, the old market in the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and many medieval houses were pulled down and replaced by a more formal street plan with newer houses. The Piazza (first renamed Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, then Piazza della Repubblica, the present name) was significantly widened and a large triumphal arch was constructed at the west end. This development was unpopular and was prevented from continuing by the efforts of several British and American people living in the city.[citation needed] A museum recording the destruction stands nearby today.
+
+The country's second capital city was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops allowed the capture of Rome.
+
+During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944) being part of the Italian Social Republic. Hitler declared it an open city on July 3, 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in.[25] In early August, the retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. However, at the last moment Charles Steinhauslin, at the time consul of 26 countries in Florence, convinced the German general in Italy that the Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value.[citation needed] Instead, an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines. Since then the bridges have been restored to their original forms using as many of the remaining materials as possible, but the buildings surrounding the Ponte Vecchio have been rebuilt in a style combining the old with modern design. Shortly before leaving Florence, as they knew that they would soon have to retreat, the Germans executed many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including the Piazza Santo Spirito.[citation needed]
+
+Florence was liberated by New Zealand, South African and British troops on 4 August 1944 alongside partisans from the Tuscan Committee of National Liberation (CTLN). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about nine kilometres (5.6 miles) south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometres east of the centre on the right bank of the Arno).
+
+At the end of World War II in May 1945, the US Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilised American service men and women in Florence, Italy. The first American University for service personnel was established in June 1945 at the School of Aeronautics in Florence, Italy. Some 7,500 soldier-students were to pass through the University during its four one-month sessions (see G. I. American Universities).[26]
+
+In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point.
+
+Florence lies in a basin formed by the hills of Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri, Poggio Imperiale and Bellosguardo (Florence). The Arno river, three other minor rivers (Mugnone,[27] Ema and Greve) and some streams flow through it.[28]
+
+Florence has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), tending to Mediterranean (Csa).[29] It has hot summers with moderate or light rainfall and cool, damp winters. As Florence lacks a prevailing wind, summer temperatures are higher than along the coast. Rainfall in summer is convectional, while relief rainfall dominates in the winter. Snow flurries happen almost every year,[30] but often result in no accumulation.[31] The highest officially recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F) on 26 July 1983 and the lowest was −23.2 °C (−9.8 °F) on 12 January 1985.[32]
+
+The traditional boroughs of the whole comune of Florence
+
+The 5 administrative boroughs of the whole comune of Florence
+
+The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed of 36 councillors elected every five years with a proportional system, contextually to the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee (Giunta Comunale), composed by 7 assessors, that is nominated and presieded over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Florence is Dario Nardella.
+
+The municipality of Florence is subdivided into five administrative Boroughs (Quartieri). Each Borough is governed by a Council (Consiglio) and a President, elected contextually to the city Mayor. The urban organisation is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114). The Boroughs have the power to advise the Mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics (environment, construction, public health, local markets) and exercise the functions delegated to them by the City Council; in addition they are supplied with an autonomous founding in order to finance local activities. The Boroughs are:
+
+All of the five boroughs are governed by the Democratic Party.
+
+The former Italian Prime Minister (2014–2016), Matteo Renzi, served as mayor from 2009 to 2014.
+
+Florence is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" (la culla del Rinascimento) for its monuments, churches, and buildings. The best-known site of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo, whose dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. The dome, 600 years after its completion, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world.[37] In 1982, the historic centre of Florence (Italian: centro storico di Firenze) was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.[38] The centre of the city is contained in medieval walls that were built in the 14th century to defend the city. At the heart of the city, in Piazza della Signoria, is Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune (1563–1565), which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct.
+
+The layout and structure of Florence in many ways harkens back to the Roman era, where it was designed as a garrison settlement.[10] Nevertheless, the majority of the city was built during the Renaissance.[10] Despite the strong presence of Renaissance architecture within the city, traces of medieval, Baroque, Neoclassical and modern architecture can be found. The Palazzo Vecchio as well as the Duomo, or the city's Cathedral, are the two buildings which dominate Florence's skyline.[10]
+
+The river Arno, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the people who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno – which alternated between nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood.
+
+One of the bridges in particular stands out — the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), whose most striking feature is the multitude of shops built upon its edges, held up by stilts. The bridge also carries Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). Although the original bridge was constructed by the Etruscans, the current bridge was rebuilt in the 14th century. It is the only bridge in the city to have survived World War II intact. It is the first example in the western world of a bridge built using segmental arches, that is, arches less than a semicircle, to reduce both span-to-rise ratio and the numbers of pillars to allow lesser encumbrance in the riverbed (being in this much more successful than the Roman Alconétar Bridge).
+
+The church of San Lorenzo contains the Medici Chapel, the mausoleum of the Medici family—the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th century. Nearby is the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art museums in the world – founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family.
+
+The Uffizi is located at the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for being the centre of Florence's civil life and government for centuries. The Palazzo della Signoria facing it is still home of the municipal government. Many significant episodes in the history of art and political changes were staged here, such as:
+
+The Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the location of a number of statues by other sculptors such as Donatello, Giambologna, Ammannati and Cellini, although some have been replaced with copies to preserve the originals.
+
+Florence contains several palaces and buildings from various eras. The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence and also an art museum. This large Romanesque crenellated fortress-palace overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti. It is linked to the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti through the Corridoio Vasariano.
+
+Palazzo Medici Riccardi, designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo il Vecchio, of the Medici family, is another major edifice, and was built between 1445 and 1460. It was well known for its stone masonry that includes rustication and ashlar. Today it is the head office of the Metropolitan City of Florence and hosts museums and the Riccardiana Library. The Palazzo Strozzi, an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, was inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions. Today the palace is used for international expositions like the annual antique show (founded as the Biennale dell'Antiquariato in 1959), fashion shows and other cultural and artistic events. Here also is the seat of the Istituto Nazionale del Rinascimento and the noted Gabinetto Vieusseux, with the library and reading room.
+There are several other notable places, including the Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino; the Palazzo Davanzati, which houses the museum of the Old Florentine House; the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali, designed in the Neo-Renaissance style in 1871; the Palazzo Spini Feroni, in Piazza Santa Trinita, a historic 13th-century private palace, owned since the 1920s by shoe-designer Salvatore Ferragamo; as well as various others, including the Palazzo Borghese, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, the Palazzo Antinori, and the Royal building of Santa Maria Novella.
+
+Florence contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. The city is one of the best preserved Renaissance centres of art and architecture in the world and has a high concentration of art, architecture and culture.[39] In the ranking list of the 15 most visited Italian art museums, ⅔ are represented by Florentine museums.[40] The Uffizi is one of these, having a very large collection of international and Florentine art. The gallery is articulated in many halls, catalogued by schools and chronological order. Engendered by the Medici family's artistic collections through the centuries, it houses works of art by various painters and artists. The Vasari Corridor is another gallery, built connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Pitti Palace passing by the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio. The Galleria dell'Accademia houses a Michelangelo collection, including the David. It has a collection of Russian icons and works by various artists and painters. Other museums and galleries include the Bargello, which concentrates on sculpture works by artists including Donatello, Giambologna and Michelangelo; the Palazzo Pitti, containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection, the palace's galleries contain many Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian, large collections of costumes, ceremonial carriages, silver, porcelain and a gallery of modern art dating from the 18th century. Adjoining the palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with numerous sculptures.
+
+There are several different churches and religious buildings in Florence. The cathedral is Santa Maria del Fiore. The San Giovanni Baptistery located in front of the cathedral, is decorated by numerous artists, notably by Lorenzo Ghiberti with the Gates of Paradise. Other churches in Florence include the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, located in Santa Maria Novella square (near the Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station) which contains works by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio; the Basilica of Santa Croce, the principal Franciscan church in the city, which is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres (2,600 feet) south east of the Duomo, and is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Rossini, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie); the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which is one of the largest churches in the city, situated at the centre of Florence's main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III; Santo Spirito, in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name; Orsanmichele, whose building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele, now demolished; Santissima Annunziata, a Roman Catholic basilica and the mother church of the Servite order; Ognissanti, which was founded by the lay order of the Umiliati, and is among the first examples of Baroque architecture built in the city; the Santa Maria del Carmine, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, which is the location of the Brancacci Chapel, housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi; the Medici Chapel with statues by Michelangelo, in the San Lorenzo; as well as several others, including Santa Trinita, San Marco, Santa Felicita, Badia Fiorentina, San Gaetano, San Miniato al Monte, Florence Charterhouse, and Santa Maria del Carmine. The city additionally contains the Orthodox Russian church of Nativity, and the Great Synagogue of Florence, built in the 19th century.
+
+Florence contains various theatres and cinemas. The Odeon Cinema of the Palazzo dello Strozzino is one of the oldest cinemas in the city. Established from 1920 to 1922[41] in a wing of the Palazzo dello Strozzino, it used to be called the Cinema Teatro Savoia (Savoy Cinema-Theatre), yet was later called Odeon. The Teatro della Pergola, located in the centre of the city on the eponymous street, is an opera house built in the 17th century. Another theatre is the Teatro Comunale (or Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele, which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and which seated 6,000 people. There are several other theatres, such as the Saloncino Castinelli, the Teatro Puccini, the Teatro Verdi, the Teatro Goldoni and the Teatro Niccolini.
+
+Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi.
+
+Aside from such monuments, Florence contains numerous major squares (piazze) and streets. The Piazza della Repubblica is a square in the city centre, location of the cultural cafés and bourgeois palaces. Among the square's cafés (like Caffè Gilli, Paszkowski or the Hard Rock Cafè), the Giubbe Rosse café has long been a meeting place for artists and writers, notably those of Futurism. The Piazza Santa Croce is another; dominated by the Basilica of Santa Croce, it is a rectangular square in the centre of the city where the Calcio Fiorentino is played every year. Furthermore, there is the Piazza Santa Trinita, a square near the Arno that mark the end of the Via de' Tornabuoni street.
+
+Other squares include the Piazza San Marco, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the Piazza Beccaria and the Piazza della Libertà. The centre additionally contains several streets. Such include the Via Camillo Cavour, one of the main roads of the northern area of the historic centre; the Via Ghibellina, one of central Florence's longest streets; the Via dei Calzaiuoli, one of the most central streets of the historic centre  which links Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria, winding parallel to via Roma and Piazza della Repubblica; the Via de' Tornabuoni, a luxurious street in the city centre that goes from Antinori square to ponte Santa Trinita, across Piazza Santa Trinita, characterised by the presence of fashion boutiques; the Viali di Circonvallazione, 6-lane boulevards surrounding the northern part of the historic centre; as well as others, such as Via Roma, Via degli Speziali, Via de' Cerretani, and the Viale dei Colli.
+
+Florence also contains various parks and gardens. Such include the Boboli Gardens, the Parco delle Cascine, the Giardino Bardini and the Giardino dei Semplici, amongst others.
+
+In 1200 the city was home to 50,000 people.[42] By 1300 the population of the city proper was 120,000, with an additional 300,000 living in the Contado.[43] Between 1500 and 1650 the population was around 70,000.[44][45]
+
+As of 31 October 2010[update], the population of the city proper is 370,702, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly 4,800 square kilometres (1,853 sq mi), is home to 1.5 million people. Within Florence proper, 46.8% of the population was male in 2007 and 53.2% were female. Minors (children aged 18 and less) totalled 14.10 percent of the population compared to pensioners, who numbered 25.95 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Florence resident is 49 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Florence grew by 3.22 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent.[46] The birth rate of Florence is 7.66 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.
+
+As of 2009[update], 87.46% of the population was Italian. An estimated 6,000 Chinese live in the city.[47] The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly Romanians and Albanians): 3.52%, East Asia (mostly Chinese and Filipino): 2.17%, the Americas: 1.41%, and North Africa (mostly Moroccan): 0.9%.[48]
+
+Much like the rest of Italy most of the people in Florence are Roman Catholic, with more than 90% of the population belonging to the Archdiocese of Florence.[49][50]
+
+Tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city.[10] The value tourism to the city totalled some €2.5 billion in 2015 and the number of visitors had increased by 5.5% from the previous year.[51]
+
+In 2013, Florence was listed as the second best world city by Condé Nast Traveler.[52]
+
+Manufacturing and commerce, however, still remain highly important. Florence is also Italy's 17th richest city in terms of average workers' earnings, with the figure being €23,265 (the overall city's income is €6,531,204,473), coming after Mantua, yet surpassing Bolzano.[53]
+
+Florence is a major production and commercial centre in Italy, where the Florentine industrial complexes in the suburbs produce all sorts of goods, from furniture, rubber goods, chemicals, and food.[10] However, traditional and local products, such as antiques, handicrafts, glassware, leatherwork, art reproductions, jewellery, souvenirs, elaborate metal and iron-work, shoes, accessories and high fashion clothes also dominate a fair sector of Florence's economy.[10] The city's income relies partially on services and commercial and cultural interests, such as annual fairs, theatrical and lyrical productions, art exhibitions, festivals and fashion shows, such as the Calcio Fiorentino. Heavy industry and machinery also take their part in providing an income. In Nuovo Pignone, numerous factories are still present, and small-to medium industrial businesses are dominant. The Florence-Prato-Pistoia industrial districts and areas were known as the 'Third Italy' in the 1990s, due to the exports of high-quality goods and automobile (especially the Vespa) and the prosperity and productivity of the Florentine entrepreneurs. Some of these industries even rivalled the traditional industrial districts in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto due to high profits and productivity.[10]
+
+In the fourth quarter of 2015, manufacturing increased by 2.4% and exports increased by 7.2%. Leading sectors included mechanical engineering, fashion, pharmaceutics, food and wine. During 2015, permanent employment contracts increased by 48.8 percent, boosted by nationwide tax break.[51]
+
+Tourism is the most significant industry in central Florence. From April to October, tourists outnumber local population. Tickets to the Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry. Tickets for The Uffizi and Accademia can be purchased online prior to visiting.[54] In 2010, readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked the city as their third favourite tourist destination.[55] In 2015, Condé Nast Travel readers voted Florence as the best city in Europe.[56]
+
+Studies by Euromonitor International have concluded that cultural and history-oriented tourism is generating significantly increased spending throughout Europe.[57]
+
+Florence is believed to have the greatest concentration of art (in proportion to its size) in the world.[58] Thus, cultural tourism is particularly strong, with world-renowned museums such as the Uffizi selling over 1.93 million tickets in 2014.[59] The city's convention centre facilities were restructured during the 1990s and host exhibitions, conferences, meetings, social forums, concerts and other events all year.
+
+In 2016, Florence had 20,588 hotel rooms in 570 facilities. International visitors use 75% of the rooms; some 18% of those were from the U.S.[60] In 2014, the city had 8.5 million overnight stays.[61] A Euromonitor report indicates that in 2015 the city ranked as the world's 36th most visited in the world, with over 4.95 million arrivals for the year.[62]
+
+Tourism brings revenue to Florence, but it creates certain problems. The Ponte Vecchio, The San Lorenzo Market and Santa Maria Novella are plagued by pickpockets.[63] The province of Florence receives roughly 13 million visitors per year[64] and in peak seasons, that can lead to over crowding at popular locations.[65] Mayor Dario Nardella is particularly concerned about visitors who arrive on buses, stay only a few hours, spend little money but contribute significantly to overcrowding. "No museum visit, just a photo from the square, the bus back and then on to Venice... We don’t want tourists like that," he said.[66]
+
+Some tourists are less than respectful of the city's cultural heritage, according to Nardella. In June 2017, he instituted a programme of spraying church steps with water to prevent tourists from using such areas as picnic spots. While he values the benefits of tourism, there has been "an increase among those who  sit down on church steps, eat their food and leave rubbish strewn on them," he explained.[67] To boost the sale of traditional foods, the mayor had introduced legislation (enacted in 2016) that requires restaurants to use typical Tuscan products and rejected McDonald's application to open a location in the  Piazza del Duomo.[68]
+
+Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. The Chianti region is just south of the city, and its Sangiovese grapes figure prominently not only in its Chianti Classico wines but also in many of the more recently developed Supertuscan blends. Within 32 km (20 mi) to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavourful sangiovese-based reds. The celebrated Chianti Rufina district, geographically and historically separated from the main Chianti region, is also few kilometres east of Florence. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about 150 km (93 mi) southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its "Super Tuscan" reds such as Sassicaia and Ornellaia.[69]
+
+Florence was the birthplace of High Renaissance art, which lasted from 1450–1527. While Medieval art focused on basic story telling of the Bible, Renaissance art focused on naturalism and human emotion.[70] Medieval art was abstract, formulaic, and largely produced by monks whereas Renaissance art was rational, mathematical, individualistic, consisted of linear perspective and shading (Chiaroscuro)[70] and produced by specialists (Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael). Religion was important, but with this new age came the humanization[71][72] of religious figures in art, such as Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Ecce Homo (Bosch, 1470s), and Madonna Della Seggiola; People of this age began to understand themselves as human beings, which reflected in art.[72] The Renaissance marked the rebirth of classical values in art and society as people studied the ancient masters of the Greco-Roman world;[71] Art became focused on realism as opposed to idealism.[72]
+
+Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, forefathers of the Renaissance, Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.[73][74]
+
+Their works, together with those of many other generations of artists, are gathered in the several museums of the town: the Uffizi Gallery, the Palatina gallery with the paintings of the "Golden Ages",[75] the Bargello with the sculptures of the Renaissance, the museum of San Marco with Fra Angelico's works, the Academy, the chapels of the Medicis[76] Buonarroti's house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, the following museums: Bardini, Horne, Stibbert, Romano, Corsini, The Gallery of Modern Art, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum of Silverware and the museum of Precious Stones.[77]
+Several monuments are located in Florence: the Florence Baptistery with its mosaics; the Cathedral with its sculptures, the medieval churches with bands of frescoes; public as well as private palaces: Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Davanzati; monasteries, cloisters, refectories; the "Certosa". In the archaeological museum includes documents of Etruscan civilisation.[78] In fact the city is so rich in art that some first time visitors experience the Stendhal syndrome as they encounter its art for the first time.[79]
+
+Florentine architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1466) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) were among the fathers of both Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture.[80]
+
+The cathedral, topped by Brunelleschi's dome, dominates the Florentine skyline. The Florentines decided to start building it – late in the 13th century, without a design for the dome. The project proposed by Brunelleschi in the 14th century was the largest ever built at the time, and the first major dome built in Europe since the two great domes of Roman times – the Pantheon in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore remains the largest brick construction of its kind in the world.[81][82] In front of it is the medieval Baptistery. The two buildings incorporate in their decoration the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In recent years, most of the important works of art from the two buildings – and from the nearby Giotto's Campanile, have been removed and replaced by copies. The originals are now housed in the Museum dell'Opera del Duomo, just to the east of the Cathedral.
+
+Florence has large numbers of art-filled churches, such as San Miniato al Monte, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Trinita, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the Annunziata, Ognissanti and numerous others.[10]
+
+Artists associated with Florence range from Arnolfo di Cambio and Cimabue to Giotto, Nanni di Banco, and Paolo Uccello; through Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello and Massaccio and the della Robbia family; through Fra Angelico and Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, and on to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Others include Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Sarto, Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo Lippi, Bernardo Buontalenti, Orcagna, Pollaiuolo, Filippino Lippi, Verrocchio, Bronzino, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelozzo, the Rossellis, the Sangallos, and Pontormo. Artists from other regions who worked in Florence include Raphael, Andrea Pisano, Giambologna, Il Sodoma and Peter Paul Rubens.
+
+Picture galleries in Florence include the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. Two superb collections of sculpture are in the Bargello and the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. They are filled with the creations of Donatello, Verrochio, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelangelo and others. The Galleria dell'Accademia has Michelangelo's David – perhaps the best-known work of art anywhere, plus the unfinished statues of the slaves Michelangelo created for the tomb of Pope Julius II.[83][84] Other sights include the medieval city hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as the Palazzo Vecchio), the Archeological Museum, the Museum of the History of Science, the Garden of Archimedes, the Palazzo Davanzatti, the Stibbert Museum, St. Marks, the Medici Chapels, the Museum of the Works of Santa Croce, the Museum of the Cloister of Santa Maria Novella, the Zoological Museum ("La Specola"), the Bardini, and the Museo Horne. There is also a collection of works by the modern sculptor, Marino Marini, in a museum named after him. The Strozzi Palace is the site of special exhibits.[85]
+
+Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and the immediate parent language to modern Italian.
+
+Although its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to standard Italian, differences do exist. The Vocabolario del fiorentino contemporaneo (Dictionary of Modern Florentine) reveals lexical distinctions from all walks of life.[86] Florentines have a highly recognisable accent in phonetic terms due to the so-called gorgia toscana): "hard c" /k/ between two vowels is pronounced as a fricative [h] similar to an English h, so that dico 'I say' is phonetically [ˈdiːho], i cani 'the dogs' is [iˈhaːni]. Similarly, t between vowels is pronounced [θ] as in English thin, and p in the same position is the bilabial fricative [ɸ]. Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times,[citation needed] a frequent usage in everyday speech of the modern subjunctive, and a shortened pronunciation of the definite article, [i] instead of "il", causing doubling of the consonant that follows, so that il cane 'the dog', for example, is pronounced [ikˈkaːne].
+
+Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio pioneered the use of the vernacular[87] instead of the Latin used for most literary works at the time.
+
+Despite Latin being the main language of the courts and the Church in the Middle Ages, writers such as Dante Alighieri[87] and many others used their own language, the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin, in composing their greatest works. The oldest literary pieces written in Florentine go as far back as the 13th century. Florence's literature fully blossomed in the 14th century, when not only Dante with his Divine Comedy (1306–1321) and Petrarch, but also poets such as Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni composed their most important works.[87] Dante's masterpiece is the Divine Comedy, which mainly deals with the poet himself taking an allegoric and moral tour of Hell, Purgatory and finally Heaven, during which he meets numerous mythological or real characters of his age or before. He is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil, whose non-Christian beliefs damned him to Hell. Later on he is joined by Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven.[87]
+
+In the 14th century, Petrarch[88] and Giovanni Boccaccio[88] led the literary scene in Florence after Dante's death in 1321. Petrarch was an all-rounder writer, author and poet, but was particularly known for his Canzoniere, or the Book of Songs, where he conveyed his unremitting love for Laura.[88] His style of writing has since become known as Petrarchism.[88] Boccaccio was better known for his Decameron, a slightly grim story of Florence during the 1350s bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, when some people fled the ravaged city to an isolated country mansion, and spent their time there recounting stories and novellas taken from the medieval and contemporary tradition. All of this is written in a series of 100 distinct novellas.[88]
+
+In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Florence was the home town of political writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whose ideas on how rulers should govern the land, detailed in The Prince, spread across European courts and enjoyed enduring popularity for centuries. These principles became known as Machiavellianism.
+
+Florence became a musical centre during the Middle Ages and music and the performing arts remain an important part of its culture. The growth of Northern Italian Cities in the 1500s likely contributed to its increased prominence. During the Renaissance, there were four kinds of musical patronage in the city with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony and concerto.  After the year 1600, Italian trends prevailed across Europe, by 1750 it was the primary musical language. The genre of the Madrigal, born in Italy, gained popularity in Britain and elsewhere. Several Italian cities were "larger on the musical map than their real-size for power suggested. Florence, was once such city which experienced a fantastic period in the early seventeenth Century of musico-theatrical innovation, including the beginning and flourishing of opera.[89]
+
+Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century when Jacobo Peri's Dafne an opera in the style of monody, was premiered.  Opera spread from Florence throughout Italy and eventually Europe.  Vocal Music in the choir setting was also taking new identity at this time.  At the beginning of the 17th century, two practices for writing music were devised, one the first practice or Stile Antico/Prima Prattica the other the Stile Moderno/Seconda Prattica.  The Stile Antico was more prevalent in Northern Europe and Stile Moderno was practiced more by the Italian Composers of the time.[90]
+
+Composers and musicians who have lived in Florence include Piero Strozzi (1550 – after 1608), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) and Mike Francis (1961–2009). Giulio Caccini's book Le Nuove Musiche was significant in performance practice technique instruction at the time.[89]  The book specified a new term, in use by the 1630s, called monody which indicated the combination of voice and basso continuo and connoted a practice of stating text in a free, lyrical, yet speech-like manner.  This would occur while an instrument, usually a keyboard type such as harpsichord, played and held chords while the singer sang/spoke the monodic line.[91]
+
+Florence has been a setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films, such as Light in the Piazza, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No, Calmi Cuori Appassionati, Hannibal, A Room with a View, Tea with Mussolini, Virgin Territory and Inferno. The city is home to renowned Italian actors and actresses, such as Roberto Benigni, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Vittoria Puccini.
+
+Florence has appeared as a location in video games such as Assassins Creed II.[92] The Republic of Florence also appears as a playable nation in Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV.
+
+16th century Florence is the setting of the Japanese manga and anime series Arte.
+
+Florentine food grows out of a tradition of peasant eating rather than rarefied high cooking. The majority of dishes are based on meat. The whole animal was traditionally eaten; tripe (trippa) and stomach (lampredotto) were once regularly on the menu and still are sold at the food carts stationed throughout the city. Antipasti include crostini toscani, sliced bread rounds topped with a chicken liver-based pâté, and sliced meats (mainly prosciutto and salame, often served with melon when in season). The typically saltless Tuscan bread, obtained with natural levain frequently features in Florentine courses, especially in its soups, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, or in the salad of bread and fresh vegetables called panzanella that is served in summer. The bistecca alla fiorentina is a large (the customary size should weigh around 1.2 to 1.5 kg [40 to 50 oz]) – the "date" steak – T-bone steak of Chianina beef cooked over hot charcoal and served very rare with its more recently derived version, the tagliata, sliced rare beef served on a bed of arugula, often with slices of Parmesan cheese on top. Most of these courses are generally served with local olive oil, also a prime product enjoying a worldwide reputation.[93] Among the desserts, schiacciata alla fiorentina, a white flatbread cake, is one of the most popular; it is a very soft cake, prepared with extremely simple ingredients, typical of Florentine cuisine, and is especially eaten at Carnival.
+
+Research institutes and university departments are located within the Florence area and within two campuses at
+Polo di Novoli and Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino[94] as well as in the Research Area of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.[95]
+
+Florence has been an important scientific centre for centuries, notably during the Renaissance with scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci.
+
+Florentines were one of the driving forces behind the Age of Discovery. Florentine bankers financed Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese explorers who pioneered the route around Africa to India and the Far East. It was a map drawn by the Florentine Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, a student of Brunelleschi, that Christopher Columbus used to sell his "enterprise" to the Spanish monarchs, and which he used on his first voyage. Mercator's "Projection" is a refined version of Toscanelli's – taking into account the Americas, of which the Florentine was, obviously, ignorant.
+
+Galileo and other scientists pioneered the study of optics, ballistics, astronomy, anatomy, and so on. Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo Bruni, Machiavelli, and many others laid the groundwork for our understanding of science.
+
+By the year 1300 Florence had become a centre of textile production in Europe. Many of the rich families in Renaissance Florence were major purchasers of locally produced fine clothing, and the specialists of fashion in the economy and culture of Florence during that period is often underestimated.[96] Florence is regarded by some as the birthplace and earliest centre of the modern (post World War Two) fashion industry in Italy. The Florentine "soirées" of the early 1950s organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini were events where several Italian designers participated in group shows and first garnered international attention.[97] Florence has served as the home of the Italian fashion company Salvatore Ferragamo since 1928. Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, and Emilio Pucci are also headquartered in Florence. Other major players in the fashion industry such as Prada and Chanel have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts. Florence's main upscale shopping street is Via de' Tornabuoni, where major luxury fashion houses and jewellery labels, such as Armani and Bulgari, have their elegant boutiques. Via del Parione and Via Roma are other streets that are also well known for their high-end fashion stores.[98]
+
+The Scoppio del Carro ("Explosion of the Cart") is a celebration of the First Crusade. During the day of Easter, a cart, which the Florentines call the Brindellone and which is led by four white oxen, is taken to the Piazza del Duomo between the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Battistero di San Giovanni) and the Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore). The cart is connected by a rope to the interior of the church. Near the cart there is a model of a dove, which, according to legend, is a symbol of good luck for the city: at the end of the Easter mass, the dove emerges from the nave of the Duomo and ignites the fireworks on the cart.
+
+Calcio Storico Fiorentino ("Historic Florentine Football"), sometimes called Calcio in costume, is a traditional sport, regarded as a forerunner of soccer, though the actual gameplay most closely resembles rugby. The event originates from the Middle Ages, when the most important Florentine nobles amused themselves playing while wearing bright costumes. The most important match was played on 17 February 1530, during the siege of Florence. That day Papal troops besieged the city while the Florentines, with contempt of the enemies, decided to play the game notwithstanding the situation. The game is played in the Piazza di Santa Croce. A temporary arena is constructed, with bleachers and a sand-covered playing field. A series of matches are held between four teams representing each quartiere (quarter) of Florence during late June and early July.[99] There are four teams: Azzurri (light blue), Bianchi (white), Rossi (red) and Verdi (green). The Azzurri are from the quarter of Santa Croce, Bianchi from the quarter of Santo Spirito, Verdi are from San Giovanni and Rossi from Santa Maria Novella.
+
+In association football Florence is represented by ACF Fiorentina, which plays in Serie A, the top league of Italian league system.
+ACF Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1956 and 1969, and 6 Italian cup,[100]  since their formation in 1926. They play their games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which holds 47,282.
+The female squad of ACF Fiorentina have won the women's association football Italian Championship of the 2016–17 season.
+
+The city is home of the Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, in Coverciano, Florence, the main training ground of the Italian national team, and the technical department of the Italian Football Federation.
+
+Florence was selected to host the 2013 UCI World Road Cycling Championships.
+
+Since 2017 Florence is also represented in Eccellenza, the top tier of rugby union league system in Italy, by I Medicei, which is a club established in 2015 by the merging of the senior squads of I Cavalieri (of Prato) and Firenze Rugby 1931.
+I Medicei won the Serie A Championship in 2016–17 and were promoted to Eccellenza for the 2017–18 season.
+
+Rari Nantes Florentia is a successful water polo club based in Florence; both its male and female squads have won several Italian championships and the female squad has also European titles in their palmarès.
+
+The University of Florence was first founded in 1321, and was recognized by Pope Clement VI in 1349. In 2019, over 50,000 students were enrolled at the university.
+
+Several American universities host a campus in Florence. Including New York University, Marist College, Pepperdine, Stanford, Florida State and James Madison. Over 8,000 American students are enrolled for study in Florence.[101]
+
+The private school, Centro Machiavelli which teaches Italian language and culture to foreigners, is located in Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence.
+
+The centre of Florence is closed to through-traffic, although buses, taxis and residents with appropriate permits are allowed in. This area is commonly referred to as the ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato), which is divided into several subsections.[102] Residents of one section, therefore, will only be able to drive in their district and perhaps some surrounding ones. Cars without permits are allowed to enter after 7.30 pm, or before 7.30 am. The rules shift during the tourist-filled summers, putting more restrictions on where one can get in and out.[103]
+
+The principal public transit network in the city is run by the ATAF and Li-nea bus company. Individual tickets, or a pass called Carta Agile with multiple rides, should be purchased in advance and are available at local tobacconists, bars and newspaper stalls and must be validated once on board. These tickets may be used on ATAF and Li-nea buses, Tramvia and second-class local trains only within city railway stations. Train tickets must be validated before boarding. The main bus station is next to Santa Maria Novella railway station. Trenitalia runs trains between the railway stations within the city, and to other destinations around Italy and Europe. The central railway station, Santa Maria Novella, is about 500 m (1,600 ft) northwest of the Piazza del Duomo. There are two other important stations: Campo di Marte and Rifredi. Most bundled routes are Firenze—Pisa, Firenze—Viareggio and Firenze-Arezzo (along the main line to Rome). Other local railways connect Florence with Borgo San Lorenzo in the Mugello area (Faentina railway) and Siena.
+
+Long distance 10 km (6.21 mi) buses are run by the SITA, Copit, CAP companies. The transit companies also accommodate travellers from the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, which is 5 km (3.1 mi) west of the city centre, and which has scheduled services run by major European carriers.
+
+In an effort to reduce air pollution and car traffic in the city, a multi-line tram network called Tramvia is under construction. The first line began operation on 14 February 2010 and connects Florence's primary intercity railway station (Santa Maria Novella) with the southwestern suburb of Scandicci. This line is 7.4 km (4.6 mi) long and has 14 stops. The construction of a second line began on 5 November 2011, construction was stopped due to contractors' difficulties and restarted in 2014 with the new line opening on February 11, 2019. This second line connects Florence's airport with the city centre. A third line (from Santa Maria Novella to the Careggi area, where the most important hospitals of Florence are located) is also under construction.[104][105][106]
+
+The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Firenze, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 59 min. 13% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 22% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 4.1 km, while 3% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.[107]
+
+Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station is the main national and international railway station in Florence and is used by 59 million people every year.[108] The building, designed by Giovanni Michelucci, was built in the Italian Rationalism style and it is one of the major rationalist buildings in Italy. It is located in Piazza della Stazione, near the Fortezza da Basso (a masterpiece of the military Renaissance architecture[109]) and the Viali di Circonvallazione, and in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella's apse from which it takes its name. As well as numerous high speed trains to major Italian cities Florence is served by international overnight sleeper services to Munich and Vienna operated by Austrian railways ÖBB.
+
+A new high-speed rail station is under construction and is contracted to be operational by 2015.[110] It is planned to be connected to Vespucci airport, Santa Maria Novella railway station, and to the city centre by the second line of Tramvia.[111] The architectural firms Foster + Partners and Lancietti Passaleva Giordo and Associates designed this new rail station.[112]
+
+The Florence Airport, Peretola, is one of two main airports in the Tuscany region though it is not widely used by popular airlines. The other airport in the Tuscany region is the Galileo Galilei International Airport in Pisa.
+
+Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike sharing company, has been operating in Florence since July 2017. As of 2019, the company operates 4,000 bikes in Florence. The users scan the QR code on the bike using the Mobike app, and end the ride by parking curbside. The bikes have a fixed rate of €1 every 20 minutes. Since Mobike is a dock-less bike-sharing system, it does not provide stations, therefore the bikes can be left almost anywhere.
+
+Florence is twinned with:[113]
+
+
+
+L'Aquila, AbruzzoAosta, Aosta ValleyBari, ApuliaPotenza, Basilicata
+
+Catanzaro, CalabriaNaples, CampaniaBologna, Emilia-RomagnaTrieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
+
+Rome, LazioGenoa, LiguriaMilan, LombardyAncona, Marche
+
+Campobasso, MoliseTurin, PiedmontCagliari, SardiniaPalermo, Sicily
+
+Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolFlorence, TuscanyPerugia, UmbriaVenice, Veneto
+

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+A port is a maritime facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg,  Manchester and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access to the sea via river or canal. Because of their roles as a port of entry for immigrants many port cities such as London, New York, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Singapore and Vancouver have experienced dramatic multi-ethnic and multicultural changes.[1]
+
+Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as  Singapore and the Chinese ports of  Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. As of 2020, the busiest passenger port in the world is the Port of Helsinki in Finland.[2] However, ports can also be very small and only serve local fishing or tourism.
+
+Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea.[3] Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have also been found.
+
+Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE. In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt.[citation needed] Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice.
+
+Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer exist or function as modern ports. Even in more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline changed and it is now 2 miles (3.2 km) from the sea, while the ports of Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion.
+
+Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, river, canal, road, rail and air routes. Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, and will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are often on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging. Deep water ports such as Milford Haven  are less common, but can handle larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses such as regional distribution centres, warehouses and freight-forwarders, canneries and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks.
+
+Ports usually have specialised functions: some tend to cater mainly for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some specialise in container traffic or general cargo; and some ports play an important military role for their nation's navy. Some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch (respectively).
+
+In modern times, ports survive  or decline, depending on current economic trends.  In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its decline. Thamesport,[4] a small semi-automated container port (with links to the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port) thrived for some years, but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port and logistics hub.
+
+In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned partly by the state and partly by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal.
+
+Even though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters, many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters. For instance, ships approaching the Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the Netherlands.
+
+Ports with international traffic have customs facilities.
+
+The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels.
+
+A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations.[5]
+
+A fishing port is a port or harbor  for landing and distributing fish. It may be a recreational facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the only port that depends on an ocean product, and depletion of fish may cause a fishing port to be uneconomical.
+
+An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river (fluvial port), or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo. An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, and Chicago.[6]  The term "inland port" is also used for dry ports.
+
+A seaport is further categorized as a "cruise port" or a "cargo port". Additionally, "cruise ports" are also known as a "home port" or a "port of call". The "cargo port" is also further categorized into a "bulk" or "break bulk port" or as a "container port".
+
+Cargo ports, on the other hand, are quite different from cruise ports, because each handles very different cargo, which has to be loaded and unloaded by very different mechanical means. The port may handle one particular type of cargo or it may handle numerous cargoes, such as grains, liquid fuels, liquid chemicals, wood, automobiles, etc.  Such ports are known as the "bulk" or "break bulk ports". Those ports that handle containerized cargo are known as container ports. Most cargo ports handle all sorts of cargo, but some ports are very specific as to what cargo they handle. Additionally, the individual cargo ports are divided into different operating terminals which handle the different cargoes, and are operated by different companies, also known as terminal operators or stevedores.
+
+A cruise home port is the port where cruise ship passengers board (or embark) to start their cruise and disembark the cruise ship at the end of their cruise. It is also where the cruise ship's supplies are loaded for the cruise, which includes everything from fresh water and fuel to fruits, vegetables, champagne, and any other supplies needed for the cruise. "Cruise home ports" are very busy places during the day the cruise ship is in port, because off-going passengers debark their baggage and on-coming passengers board the ship in addition to all the supplies being loaded. Cruise home ports tend to have large passenger terminals to handle the large number of passengers passing through the port. The busiest cruise home port in the world is the Port of Miami, Florida, closely followed behind by Port Everglades, Florida and the Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
+
+A smart port uses technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to be more efficient at handling goods.[7] Smart ports usually deploy cloud-based software as part of the process of greater automation to help generate the operating flow that helps the port work smoothly.[8] At present, most of the world's ports have somewhat embedded technology, if not for full leadership. However, thanks to global government initiatives and exponential growth in maritime trade, the amount of intelligent ports has gradually increased. This latest report by business intelligence provider Visiongain assesses that Smart Ports Market spending will reach $1.5 bn in 2019.[9]
+
+A port of call is an intermediate stop for a ship on its sailing itinerary. At these ports, cargo ships may take on supplies or fuel, as well as unloading and loading cargo while cruise liners have passengers get on or off ship.
+
+A warm-water port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime. Because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest. Such settlements as Dalian in China, Vostochny Port,[10] Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia, Odessa in Ukraine, Kushiro in Japan and Valdez at the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline owe their very existence to being ice-free ports. The Baltic Sea and similar areas have ports available year-round beginning in the 20th century thanks to icebreakers, but earlier access problems prompted Russia to expand its territory to the Black Sea.
+
+There are several initiatives to decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. These include SIMPYC, the World Ports Climate Initiative, the African Green Port Initiative and EcoPorts.[11]
+
+Many seaports (e.g. container ports, cruise ports) endeavour to enhance energy efficiency and decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. Many ports started harnessing renewable energy and using innovative technologies, alternative fuels (e.g. LNG, hydrogen, biofuel), smarter power distribution systems, energy consumption measurement systems. Operational strategies (e.g. peak shaving, demand side management), technology usage (e.g. electrification of equipment, cold ironing, energy storage systems), renewable energy, alternative fuels and energy management systems (e.g. smart grid with renewable energy) are gaining popularity.[12]
+
+The port of Shanghai is the largest port in the world in both cargo tonnage and activity. It regained its position as the world's busiest port by cargo tonnage and the world's busiest container port in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It is followed by the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, all of which are in East and Southeast Asia.
+
+Europe's busiest container port and biggest port by cargo tonnage by far is the Port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It is followed by the Belgian Port of Antwerp or the German Port of Hamburg, depending on which metric is used.[13] In turn, the Spanish Port of Valencia is the busiest port in the Mediterranean basin.
+
+The largest ports include the ports of Los Angeles and South Louisiana in the U.S., Manzanillo in Mexico and Vancouver in Canada. Panama also has the Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and is a key conduit for international trade.
+
+The largest port in Australia is the Port of Melbourne.
+
+According to ECLAC's "Maritime and Logistics Profile of Latin America and the Caribbean", the largest ports in South America are the Port of Santos in Brazil, Cartagena in Colombia, Callao in Peru, Guayaquil in Ecuador, and the Port of Buenos Aires in Argentina.[14]

en/4743.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+A port is a maritime facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg,  Manchester and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access to the sea via river or canal. Because of their roles as a port of entry for immigrants many port cities such as London, New York, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Singapore and Vancouver have experienced dramatic multi-ethnic and multicultural changes.[1]
+
+Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as  Singapore and the Chinese ports of  Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. As of 2020, the busiest passenger port in the world is the Port of Helsinki in Finland.[2] However, ports can also be very small and only serve local fishing or tourism.
+
+Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea.[3] Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have also been found.
+
+Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE. In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt.[citation needed] Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice.
+
+Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer exist or function as modern ports. Even in more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline changed and it is now 2 miles (3.2 km) from the sea, while the ports of Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion.
+
+Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, river, canal, road, rail and air routes. Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, and will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are often on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging. Deep water ports such as Milford Haven  are less common, but can handle larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses such as regional distribution centres, warehouses and freight-forwarders, canneries and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks.
+
+Ports usually have specialised functions: some tend to cater mainly for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some specialise in container traffic or general cargo; and some ports play an important military role for their nation's navy. Some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch (respectively).
+
+In modern times, ports survive  or decline, depending on current economic trends.  In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its decline. Thamesport,[4] a small semi-automated container port (with links to the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port) thrived for some years, but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port and logistics hub.
+
+In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned partly by the state and partly by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal.
+
+Even though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters, many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters. For instance, ships approaching the Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the Netherlands.
+
+Ports with international traffic have customs facilities.
+
+The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels.
+
+A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations.[5]
+
+A fishing port is a port or harbor  for landing and distributing fish. It may be a recreational facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the only port that depends on an ocean product, and depletion of fish may cause a fishing port to be uneconomical.
+
+An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river (fluvial port), or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo. An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, and Chicago.[6]  The term "inland port" is also used for dry ports.
+
+A seaport is further categorized as a "cruise port" or a "cargo port". Additionally, "cruise ports" are also known as a "home port" or a "port of call". The "cargo port" is also further categorized into a "bulk" or "break bulk port" or as a "container port".
+
+Cargo ports, on the other hand, are quite different from cruise ports, because each handles very different cargo, which has to be loaded and unloaded by very different mechanical means. The port may handle one particular type of cargo or it may handle numerous cargoes, such as grains, liquid fuels, liquid chemicals, wood, automobiles, etc.  Such ports are known as the "bulk" or "break bulk ports". Those ports that handle containerized cargo are known as container ports. Most cargo ports handle all sorts of cargo, but some ports are very specific as to what cargo they handle. Additionally, the individual cargo ports are divided into different operating terminals which handle the different cargoes, and are operated by different companies, also known as terminal operators or stevedores.
+
+A cruise home port is the port where cruise ship passengers board (or embark) to start their cruise and disembark the cruise ship at the end of their cruise. It is also where the cruise ship's supplies are loaded for the cruise, which includes everything from fresh water and fuel to fruits, vegetables, champagne, and any other supplies needed for the cruise. "Cruise home ports" are very busy places during the day the cruise ship is in port, because off-going passengers debark their baggage and on-coming passengers board the ship in addition to all the supplies being loaded. Cruise home ports tend to have large passenger terminals to handle the large number of passengers passing through the port. The busiest cruise home port in the world is the Port of Miami, Florida, closely followed behind by Port Everglades, Florida and the Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
+
+A smart port uses technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to be more efficient at handling goods.[7] Smart ports usually deploy cloud-based software as part of the process of greater automation to help generate the operating flow that helps the port work smoothly.[8] At present, most of the world's ports have somewhat embedded technology, if not for full leadership. However, thanks to global government initiatives and exponential growth in maritime trade, the amount of intelligent ports has gradually increased. This latest report by business intelligence provider Visiongain assesses that Smart Ports Market spending will reach $1.5 bn in 2019.[9]
+
+A port of call is an intermediate stop for a ship on its sailing itinerary. At these ports, cargo ships may take on supplies or fuel, as well as unloading and loading cargo while cruise liners have passengers get on or off ship.
+
+A warm-water port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime. Because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest. Such settlements as Dalian in China, Vostochny Port,[10] Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia, Odessa in Ukraine, Kushiro in Japan and Valdez at the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline owe their very existence to being ice-free ports. The Baltic Sea and similar areas have ports available year-round beginning in the 20th century thanks to icebreakers, but earlier access problems prompted Russia to expand its territory to the Black Sea.
+
+There are several initiatives to decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. These include SIMPYC, the World Ports Climate Initiative, the African Green Port Initiative and EcoPorts.[11]
+
+Many seaports (e.g. container ports, cruise ports) endeavour to enhance energy efficiency and decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. Many ports started harnessing renewable energy and using innovative technologies, alternative fuels (e.g. LNG, hydrogen, biofuel), smarter power distribution systems, energy consumption measurement systems. Operational strategies (e.g. peak shaving, demand side management), technology usage (e.g. electrification of equipment, cold ironing, energy storage systems), renewable energy, alternative fuels and energy management systems (e.g. smart grid with renewable energy) are gaining popularity.[12]
+
+The port of Shanghai is the largest port in the world in both cargo tonnage and activity. It regained its position as the world's busiest port by cargo tonnage and the world's busiest container port in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It is followed by the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, all of which are in East and Southeast Asia.
+
+Europe's busiest container port and biggest port by cargo tonnage by far is the Port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It is followed by the Belgian Port of Antwerp or the German Port of Hamburg, depending on which metric is used.[13] In turn, the Spanish Port of Valencia is the busiest port in the Mediterranean basin.
+
+The largest ports include the ports of Los Angeles and South Louisiana in the U.S., Manzanillo in Mexico and Vancouver in Canada. Panama also has the Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and is a key conduit for international trade.
+
+The largest port in Australia is the Port of Melbourne.
+
+According to ECLAC's "Maritime and Logistics Profile of Latin America and the Caribbean", the largest ports in South America are the Port of Santos in Brazil, Cartagena in Colombia, Callao in Peru, Guayaquil in Ecuador, and the Port of Buenos Aires in Argentina.[14]

en/4744.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+A port is a maritime facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg,  Manchester and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access to the sea via river or canal. Because of their roles as a port of entry for immigrants many port cities such as London, New York, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Singapore and Vancouver have experienced dramatic multi-ethnic and multicultural changes.[1]
+
+Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as  Singapore and the Chinese ports of  Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. As of 2020, the busiest passenger port in the world is the Port of Helsinki in Finland.[2] However, ports can also be very small and only serve local fishing or tourism.
+
+Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea.[3] Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have also been found.
+
+Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE. In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt.[citation needed] Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice.
+
+Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer exist or function as modern ports. Even in more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline changed and it is now 2 miles (3.2 km) from the sea, while the ports of Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion.
+
+Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, river, canal, road, rail and air routes. Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, and will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are often on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging. Deep water ports such as Milford Haven  are less common, but can handle larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses such as regional distribution centres, warehouses and freight-forwarders, canneries and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks.
+
+Ports usually have specialised functions: some tend to cater mainly for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some specialise in container traffic or general cargo; and some ports play an important military role for their nation's navy. Some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch (respectively).
+
+In modern times, ports survive  or decline, depending on current economic trends.  In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its decline. Thamesport,[4] a small semi-automated container port (with links to the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port) thrived for some years, but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port and logistics hub.
+
+In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned partly by the state and partly by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal.
+
+Even though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters, many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters. For instance, ships approaching the Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the Netherlands.
+
+Ports with international traffic have customs facilities.
+
+The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels.
+
+A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations.[5]
+
+A fishing port is a port or harbor  for landing and distributing fish. It may be a recreational facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the only port that depends on an ocean product, and depletion of fish may cause a fishing port to be uneconomical.
+
+An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river (fluvial port), or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo. An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, and Chicago.[6]  The term "inland port" is also used for dry ports.
+
+A seaport is further categorized as a "cruise port" or a "cargo port". Additionally, "cruise ports" are also known as a "home port" or a "port of call". The "cargo port" is also further categorized into a "bulk" or "break bulk port" or as a "container port".
+
+Cargo ports, on the other hand, are quite different from cruise ports, because each handles very different cargo, which has to be loaded and unloaded by very different mechanical means. The port may handle one particular type of cargo or it may handle numerous cargoes, such as grains, liquid fuels, liquid chemicals, wood, automobiles, etc.  Such ports are known as the "bulk" or "break bulk ports". Those ports that handle containerized cargo are known as container ports. Most cargo ports handle all sorts of cargo, but some ports are very specific as to what cargo they handle. Additionally, the individual cargo ports are divided into different operating terminals which handle the different cargoes, and are operated by different companies, also known as terminal operators or stevedores.
+
+A cruise home port is the port where cruise ship passengers board (or embark) to start their cruise and disembark the cruise ship at the end of their cruise. It is also where the cruise ship's supplies are loaded for the cruise, which includes everything from fresh water and fuel to fruits, vegetables, champagne, and any other supplies needed for the cruise. "Cruise home ports" are very busy places during the day the cruise ship is in port, because off-going passengers debark their baggage and on-coming passengers board the ship in addition to all the supplies being loaded. Cruise home ports tend to have large passenger terminals to handle the large number of passengers passing through the port. The busiest cruise home port in the world is the Port of Miami, Florida, closely followed behind by Port Everglades, Florida and the Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
+
+A smart port uses technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to be more efficient at handling goods.[7] Smart ports usually deploy cloud-based software as part of the process of greater automation to help generate the operating flow that helps the port work smoothly.[8] At present, most of the world's ports have somewhat embedded technology, if not for full leadership. However, thanks to global government initiatives and exponential growth in maritime trade, the amount of intelligent ports has gradually increased. This latest report by business intelligence provider Visiongain assesses that Smart Ports Market spending will reach $1.5 bn in 2019.[9]
+
+A port of call is an intermediate stop for a ship on its sailing itinerary. At these ports, cargo ships may take on supplies or fuel, as well as unloading and loading cargo while cruise liners have passengers get on or off ship.
+
+A warm-water port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime. Because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest. Such settlements as Dalian in China, Vostochny Port,[10] Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia, Odessa in Ukraine, Kushiro in Japan and Valdez at the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline owe their very existence to being ice-free ports. The Baltic Sea and similar areas have ports available year-round beginning in the 20th century thanks to icebreakers, but earlier access problems prompted Russia to expand its territory to the Black Sea.
+
+There are several initiatives to decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. These include SIMPYC, the World Ports Climate Initiative, the African Green Port Initiative and EcoPorts.[11]
+
+Many seaports (e.g. container ports, cruise ports) endeavour to enhance energy efficiency and decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. Many ports started harnessing renewable energy and using innovative technologies, alternative fuels (e.g. LNG, hydrogen, biofuel), smarter power distribution systems, energy consumption measurement systems. Operational strategies (e.g. peak shaving, demand side management), technology usage (e.g. electrification of equipment, cold ironing, energy storage systems), renewable energy, alternative fuels and energy management systems (e.g. smart grid with renewable energy) are gaining popularity.[12]
+
+The port of Shanghai is the largest port in the world in both cargo tonnage and activity. It regained its position as the world's busiest port by cargo tonnage and the world's busiest container port in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It is followed by the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, all of which are in East and Southeast Asia.
+
+Europe's busiest container port and biggest port by cargo tonnage by far is the Port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It is followed by the Belgian Port of Antwerp or the German Port of Hamburg, depending on which metric is used.[13] In turn, the Spanish Port of Valencia is the busiest port in the Mediterranean basin.
+
+The largest ports include the ports of Los Angeles and South Louisiana in the U.S., Manzanillo in Mexico and Vancouver in Canada. Panama also has the Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and is a key conduit for international trade.
+
+The largest port in Australia is the Port of Melbourne.
+
+According to ECLAC's "Maritime and Logistics Profile of Latin America and the Caribbean", the largest ports in South America are the Port of Santos in Brazil, Cartagena in Colombia, Callao in Peru, Guayaquil in Ecuador, and the Port of Buenos Aires in Argentina.[14]

en/4745.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+Porto-Novo (French pronunciation: ​[pɔʁtɔnɔvo]; also known as Hogbonu and Ajashe; Fon: Xɔ̀gbónù) is the capital of Benin. The commune covers an area of 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) and as of 2002 had a population of 223,552 people.[2][3]
+
+As the name suggests, Porto-Novo (Portuguese: "New Port", Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpoɾtu ˈnovu]) was originally developed as a port for the slave trade led by the Portuguese Empire.
+
+Porto-Novo is a port on an inlet of the Gulf of Guinea, in the southeastern portion of the country. It is Benin's second-largest city, and although Porto-Novo is the official capital, where the national legislature sits, the larger city of Cotonou is the seat of government, where most of the government buildings are situated and government departments operate.
+
+The name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, literally meaning "New Port". It remains untranslated in French, the national language of Benin.
+
+Porto-Novo was once a tributary of the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo,[4][5] which had offered it protection from the neighbouring Fon, who were expanding their influence and power in the region. The Yoruba community in Porto-Novo today remains one of the two ethnicities aboriginal to the city. The city was originally called Ajashe by the Yorubas, and Hogbonu by the Gun.[citation needed]
+
+Although historically the original inhabitants of the area were Yoruba speaking, there seems to have been a wave of migration from the region of Allada further west in the 1600s, which brought Te-Agbalin (or Te Agdanlin) and his group to the region of Ajashein 1688.[6] This new group brought with them their own language, and settled among the original Yoruba. It would appear that each ethnic group has since maintained their ethnic idenitites without one group being linguistically assimilated into the other.[citation needed]
+
+In 1730, the Portuguese Eucaristo de Campos named the city "Porto-Novo" because of its resemblance to the city of Porto.[7][8] It was originally developed as a port for the slave trade.[9]
+
+In 1861, the British, who were active in nearby Nigeria, bombarded the city, which persuaded the Kingdom of Porto-Novo to accept French protection in 1863.[10] The neighbouring Kingdom of Dahomey objected to French involvement in the region and war broke out between the two states. In 1883, Porto-Novo was incorporated into the French "colony of Dahomey and its dependencies" and in 1900, it became Dahomey's capital city.[6] As a consequence, a community that had previously exhibited endoglossic bilingualism now began to exhibit exoglossic bilingualism, with the addition of French to the language repertoire of the city's inhabitants.[citation needed] Unlike the city's earlier Gun migrants, however, the French sought to impose their language in all spheres of life and completely stamp out the use and proliferation of indigenous languages.[citation needed]
+
+The kings of Porto-Novo continued to rule in the city, both officially and unofficially, until the death of the last king, Alohinto Gbeffa, in 1976.[6] From 1908, the king held the title of Chef supérieur.[citation needed]
+
+Many Afro-Brazilians settled in Porto-Novo following their return to Africa after emancipation in Brazil.[citation needed] Brazilian architecture and foods are important to the city's cultural life.[citation needed]
+
+Under French colonial rule, flight across the new border to British-ruled Nigeria in order to avoid harsh taxation, military service and forced labour was common.[citation needed] Of note is the fact that the Nigeria-Benin southern border area arbitrarily cuts through contiguous areas of Yoruba and Egun-speaking people. A combination of the aforementioned facts, coupled with the fact that the city itself lies within the sphere of Nigerian socioeconomic influence, have given Porto-Novians a preference for some measure of bi-nationality or dual citizenship, with the necessary linguistic consequences; for example, Nigerian home video films in Yoruba with English subtitles have become popular in Porto-Novo and its suburbs.[citation needed]
+
+Benin's parliament (Assemblée nationale) is in Porto-Novo, the official capital, but Cotonou is the seat of government and houses most of the governmental ministries.
+
+The region around Porto-Novo produces palm oil, cotton and kapok.[citation needed] Petroleum was discovered off the coast of the city in the 1990s, and has since then become an important export.[citation needed] Porto-Novo has a cement factory.[citation needed] The city is home to a branch of the Banque Internationale du Bénin, a major bank in Benin, and the Ouando Market.[citation needed]
+
+Porto-Novo is served by an extension of the Bénirail train system.[citation needed] Privately owned motorcycle taxis known as zemijan are used throughout the city.[11] The city is located about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away from Cotonou Airport, which has flights to major cities in West Africa and Europe.
+
+Porto-Novo had an enumerated population of 264,320 in 2013.[1] The residents are mostly Yoruba and Gun people as well as people from other parts of the country, and from neighbouring Nigeria.
+
+Population trend:[1]
+
+Adjogan music is endemic to Porto-Novo.[14]  The style of music is played on an alounloun, a stick with metallic rings attached which jingle in time with the beating of the stick.[citation needed] The alounloun is said to descend from the staff of office of King Te-Agdanlin and was traditionally played to honour the King and his ministers.[citation needed] The music is also played in the city's Roman Catholic churches, but the royal bird crest symbol has been replaced with a cross.[citation needed]
+
+The Stade Municipale and the Stade Charles de Gaulle are the largest football stadiums in the city.[citation needed]
+
+Among the places of worship, Christian churches are predominant: Roman Catholic Diocese of Porto Novo (Catholic Church), Protestant Methodist Church in Benin (World Methodist Council), Celestial Church of Christ, Baptist Church of Benin (Baptist World Alliance), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Assemblies of God.[15] There are also Muslim mosques, most notably the Grand Mosque.[6] There are also several Voodoo temples in the city.[6]

en/4746.html.txt

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+Porto-Novo (French pronunciation: ​[pɔʁtɔnɔvo]; also known as Hogbonu and Ajashe; Fon: Xɔ̀gbónù) is the capital of Benin. The commune covers an area of 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) and as of 2002 had a population of 223,552 people.[2][3]
+
+As the name suggests, Porto-Novo (Portuguese: "New Port", Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpoɾtu ˈnovu]) was originally developed as a port for the slave trade led by the Portuguese Empire.
+
+Porto-Novo is a port on an inlet of the Gulf of Guinea, in the southeastern portion of the country. It is Benin's second-largest city, and although Porto-Novo is the official capital, where the national legislature sits, the larger city of Cotonou is the seat of government, where most of the government buildings are situated and government departments operate.
+
+The name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, literally meaning "New Port". It remains untranslated in French, the national language of Benin.
+
+Porto-Novo was once a tributary of the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo,[4][5] which had offered it protection from the neighbouring Fon, who were expanding their influence and power in the region. The Yoruba community in Porto-Novo today remains one of the two ethnicities aboriginal to the city. The city was originally called Ajashe by the Yorubas, and Hogbonu by the Gun.[citation needed]
+
+Although historically the original inhabitants of the area were Yoruba speaking, there seems to have been a wave of migration from the region of Allada further west in the 1600s, which brought Te-Agbalin (or Te Agdanlin) and his group to the region of Ajashein 1688.[6] This new group brought with them their own language, and settled among the original Yoruba. It would appear that each ethnic group has since maintained their ethnic idenitites without one group being linguistically assimilated into the other.[citation needed]
+
+In 1730, the Portuguese Eucaristo de Campos named the city "Porto-Novo" because of its resemblance to the city of Porto.[7][8] It was originally developed as a port for the slave trade.[9]
+
+In 1861, the British, who were active in nearby Nigeria, bombarded the city, which persuaded the Kingdom of Porto-Novo to accept French protection in 1863.[10] The neighbouring Kingdom of Dahomey objected to French involvement in the region and war broke out between the two states. In 1883, Porto-Novo was incorporated into the French "colony of Dahomey and its dependencies" and in 1900, it became Dahomey's capital city.[6] As a consequence, a community that had previously exhibited endoglossic bilingualism now began to exhibit exoglossic bilingualism, with the addition of French to the language repertoire of the city's inhabitants.[citation needed] Unlike the city's earlier Gun migrants, however, the French sought to impose their language in all spheres of life and completely stamp out the use and proliferation of indigenous languages.[citation needed]
+
+The kings of Porto-Novo continued to rule in the city, both officially and unofficially, until the death of the last king, Alohinto Gbeffa, in 1976.[6] From 1908, the king held the title of Chef supérieur.[citation needed]
+
+Many Afro-Brazilians settled in Porto-Novo following their return to Africa after emancipation in Brazil.[citation needed] Brazilian architecture and foods are important to the city's cultural life.[citation needed]
+
+Under French colonial rule, flight across the new border to British-ruled Nigeria in order to avoid harsh taxation, military service and forced labour was common.[citation needed] Of note is the fact that the Nigeria-Benin southern border area arbitrarily cuts through contiguous areas of Yoruba and Egun-speaking people. A combination of the aforementioned facts, coupled with the fact that the city itself lies within the sphere of Nigerian socioeconomic influence, have given Porto-Novians a preference for some measure of bi-nationality or dual citizenship, with the necessary linguistic consequences; for example, Nigerian home video films in Yoruba with English subtitles have become popular in Porto-Novo and its suburbs.[citation needed]
+
+Benin's parliament (Assemblée nationale) is in Porto-Novo, the official capital, but Cotonou is the seat of government and houses most of the governmental ministries.
+
+The region around Porto-Novo produces palm oil, cotton and kapok.[citation needed] Petroleum was discovered off the coast of the city in the 1990s, and has since then become an important export.[citation needed] Porto-Novo has a cement factory.[citation needed] The city is home to a branch of the Banque Internationale du Bénin, a major bank in Benin, and the Ouando Market.[citation needed]
+
+Porto-Novo is served by an extension of the Bénirail train system.[citation needed] Privately owned motorcycle taxis known as zemijan are used throughout the city.[11] The city is located about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away from Cotonou Airport, which has flights to major cities in West Africa and Europe.
+
+Porto-Novo had an enumerated population of 264,320 in 2013.[1] The residents are mostly Yoruba and Gun people as well as people from other parts of the country, and from neighbouring Nigeria.
+
+Population trend:[1]
+
+Adjogan music is endemic to Porto-Novo.[14]  The style of music is played on an alounloun, a stick with metallic rings attached which jingle in time with the beating of the stick.[citation needed] The alounloun is said to descend from the staff of office of King Te-Agdanlin and was traditionally played to honour the King and his ministers.[citation needed] The music is also played in the city's Roman Catholic churches, but the royal bird crest symbol has been replaced with a cross.[citation needed]
+
+The Stade Municipale and the Stade Charles de Gaulle are the largest football stadiums in the city.[citation needed]
+
+Among the places of worship, Christian churches are predominant: Roman Catholic Diocese of Porto Novo (Catholic Church), Protestant Methodist Church in Benin (World Methodist Council), Celestial Church of Christ, Baptist Church of Benin (Baptist World Alliance), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Assemblies of God.[15] There are also Muslim mosques, most notably the Grand Mosque.[6] There are also several Voodoo temples in the city.[6]

en/4749.html.txt

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+A port is a maritime facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg,  Manchester and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access to the sea via river or canal. Because of their roles as a port of entry for immigrants many port cities such as London, New York, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Singapore and Vancouver have experienced dramatic multi-ethnic and multicultural changes.[1]
+
+Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as  Singapore and the Chinese ports of  Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. As of 2020, the busiest passenger port in the world is the Port of Helsinki in Finland.[2] However, ports can also be very small and only serve local fishing or tourism.
+
+Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea.[3] Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have also been found.
+
+Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE. In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt.[citation needed] Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice.
+
+Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer exist or function as modern ports. Even in more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline changed and it is now 2 miles (3.2 km) from the sea, while the ports of Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion.
+
+Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, river, canal, road, rail and air routes. Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, and will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are often on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging. Deep water ports such as Milford Haven  are less common, but can handle larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses such as regional distribution centres, warehouses and freight-forwarders, canneries and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks.
+
+Ports usually have specialised functions: some tend to cater mainly for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some specialise in container traffic or general cargo; and some ports play an important military role for their nation's navy. Some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch (respectively).
+
+In modern times, ports survive  or decline, depending on current economic trends.  In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its decline. Thamesport,[4] a small semi-automated container port (with links to the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port) thrived for some years, but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port and logistics hub.
+
+In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned partly by the state and partly by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal.
+
+Even though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters, many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters. For instance, ships approaching the Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the Netherlands.
+
+Ports with international traffic have customs facilities.
+
+The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels.
+
+A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations.[5]
+
+A fishing port is a port or harbor  for landing and distributing fish. It may be a recreational facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the only port that depends on an ocean product, and depletion of fish may cause a fishing port to be uneconomical.
+
+An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river (fluvial port), or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo. An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, and Chicago.[6]  The term "inland port" is also used for dry ports.
+
+A seaport is further categorized as a "cruise port" or a "cargo port". Additionally, "cruise ports" are also known as a "home port" or a "port of call". The "cargo port" is also further categorized into a "bulk" or "break bulk port" or as a "container port".
+
+Cargo ports, on the other hand, are quite different from cruise ports, because each handles very different cargo, which has to be loaded and unloaded by very different mechanical means. The port may handle one particular type of cargo or it may handle numerous cargoes, such as grains, liquid fuels, liquid chemicals, wood, automobiles, etc.  Such ports are known as the "bulk" or "break bulk ports". Those ports that handle containerized cargo are known as container ports. Most cargo ports handle all sorts of cargo, but some ports are very specific as to what cargo they handle. Additionally, the individual cargo ports are divided into different operating terminals which handle the different cargoes, and are operated by different companies, also known as terminal operators or stevedores.
+
+A cruise home port is the port where cruise ship passengers board (or embark) to start their cruise and disembark the cruise ship at the end of their cruise. It is also where the cruise ship's supplies are loaded for the cruise, which includes everything from fresh water and fuel to fruits, vegetables, champagne, and any other supplies needed for the cruise. "Cruise home ports" are very busy places during the day the cruise ship is in port, because off-going passengers debark their baggage and on-coming passengers board the ship in addition to all the supplies being loaded. Cruise home ports tend to have large passenger terminals to handle the large number of passengers passing through the port. The busiest cruise home port in the world is the Port of Miami, Florida, closely followed behind by Port Everglades, Florida and the Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
+
+A smart port uses technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to be more efficient at handling goods.[7] Smart ports usually deploy cloud-based software as part of the process of greater automation to help generate the operating flow that helps the port work smoothly.[8] At present, most of the world's ports have somewhat embedded technology, if not for full leadership. However, thanks to global government initiatives and exponential growth in maritime trade, the amount of intelligent ports has gradually increased. This latest report by business intelligence provider Visiongain assesses that Smart Ports Market spending will reach $1.5 bn in 2019.[9]
+
+A port of call is an intermediate stop for a ship on its sailing itinerary. At these ports, cargo ships may take on supplies or fuel, as well as unloading and loading cargo while cruise liners have passengers get on or off ship.
+
+A warm-water port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime. Because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest. Such settlements as Dalian in China, Vostochny Port,[10] Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia, Odessa in Ukraine, Kushiro in Japan and Valdez at the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline owe their very existence to being ice-free ports. The Baltic Sea and similar areas have ports available year-round beginning in the 20th century thanks to icebreakers, but earlier access problems prompted Russia to expand its territory to the Black Sea.
+
+There are several initiatives to decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. These include SIMPYC, the World Ports Climate Initiative, the African Green Port Initiative and EcoPorts.[11]
+
+Many seaports (e.g. container ports, cruise ports) endeavour to enhance energy efficiency and decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. Many ports started harnessing renewable energy and using innovative technologies, alternative fuels (e.g. LNG, hydrogen, biofuel), smarter power distribution systems, energy consumption measurement systems. Operational strategies (e.g. peak shaving, demand side management), technology usage (e.g. electrification of equipment, cold ironing, energy storage systems), renewable energy, alternative fuels and energy management systems (e.g. smart grid with renewable energy) are gaining popularity.[12]
+
+The port of Shanghai is the largest port in the world in both cargo tonnage and activity. It regained its position as the world's busiest port by cargo tonnage and the world's busiest container port in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It is followed by the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, all of which are in East and Southeast Asia.
+
+Europe's busiest container port and biggest port by cargo tonnage by far is the Port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It is followed by the Belgian Port of Antwerp or the German Port of Hamburg, depending on which metric is used.[13] In turn, the Spanish Port of Valencia is the busiest port in the Mediterranean basin.
+
+The largest ports include the ports of Los Angeles and South Louisiana in the U.S., Manzanillo in Mexico and Vancouver in Canada. Panama also has the Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and is a key conduit for international trade.
+
+The largest port in Australia is the Port of Melbourne.
+
+According to ECLAC's "Maritime and Logistics Profile of Latin America and the Caribbean", the largest ports in South America are the Port of Santos in Brazil, Cartagena in Colombia, Callao in Peru, Guayaquil in Ecuador, and the Port of Buenos Aires in Argentina.[14]

en/475.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+
+
+A car (or automobile) is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transportation.  Most definitions of cars say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four tires, and mainly transport people rather than goods.[2][3]
+
+Cars came into global use during the 20th century, and developed economies depend on them. The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car when German inventor Karl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars became widely available in the early 20th century. One of the first cars accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, but took much longer to be accepted in Western Europe and other parts of the world.[citation needed]
+
+Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex, but also more reliable and easier to operate.[citation needed] These include rear-reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, became commercially available in the 2000s and are predicted to cost less to buy than gasoline cars before 2025.[4][5] The transition from fossil fuels to electric cars features prominently in most climate change mitigation scenarios.[6]
+
+There are costs and benefits to car use. The costs to the individual include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments (if the car is financed), repairs and maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance.[7] The costs to society include maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, healthcare, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[8]
+
+The personal benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience.[9] The societal benefits include economic benefits, such as job and wealth creation from the automotive industry, transportation provision, societal well-being from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the taxes. People's ability to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[10] There are around 1 billion cars in use worldwide. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India and other newly industrialized countries.[11]
+
+The English word car is believed to originate from Latin carrus/carrum "wheeled vehicle" or (via Old North French) Middle English carre "two-wheeled cart," both of which in turn derive from Gaulish karros "chariot."[12][13] It originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn vehicle, such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.[14][15]
+
+"Motor car," attested from 1895, is the usual formal term in British English.[3] "Autocar," a variant likewise attested from 1895 and literally meaning "self-propelled car," is now considered archaic.[16] "Horseless carriage" is attested from 1895.[17]
+
+"Automobile," a classical compound derived from Ancient Greek autós (αὐτός) "self" and Latin mobilis "movable," entered English from French and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897.[18] It fell out of favour in Britain and is now used chiefly in North America,[19] where the abbreviated form "auto" commonly appears as an adjective in compound formations like "auto industry" and "auto mechanic".[20][21] Both forms are still used in everyday Dutch (auto/automobiel) and German (Auto/Automobil).[citation needed]
+
+The first working steam-powered vehicle was designed — and quite possibly built — by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65-cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.[9][22][23] It is not known with certainty if Verbiest's model was successfully built or run.[23]
+
+Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle or car in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.[24]  He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[25] His inventions were, however, handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.[25] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods and was of little practical use.
+
+The development of external combustion engines is detailed as part of the history of the car but often treated separately from the development of true cars.  A variety of steam-powered road vehicles were used during the first part of the 19th century, including steam cars, steam buses, phaetons, and steam rollers.  Sentiment against them led to the Locomotive Acts of 1865.
+
+In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude created what was probably the world's first internal combustion engine (which they called a Pyréolophore), but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[26] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own 'de Rivaz internal combustion engine' and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried spores of the Lycopodium plant), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[26] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by internal combustion engines.[1]
+
+In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated the first working (three-wheeled) car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[27] Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern car.[1]
+
+In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle. His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany. He was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on 29 January 1886 (under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883). Benz began promotion of the vehicle on 3 July 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a cheaper model. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz car to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early cars, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany. In August 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, undertook the first road trip by car, to prove the road-worthiness of her husband's invention.
+
+In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor. During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest car company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint-stock company. The first motor car in central Europe and one of the first factory-made cars in the world, was produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897, the Präsident automobil.
+
+Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first car in 1892 under the brand name Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, which they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG. Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG car was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine, which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.
+
+Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First World War, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later when these conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they advertised or marketed their car models jointly, although keeping their respective brands. On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its cars Mercedes Benz, as a brand honoring the most important model of the DMG cars, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes-35 hp, along with the Benz name. Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929, and at times, his two sons also participated in the management of the company.
+
+In 1890, Émile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the automotive industry in France. In 1891, Auguste Doriot and his Peugeot colleague Louis Rigoulot completed the longest trip by a gasoline-powered vehicle when their self-designed and built Daimler powered Peugeot Type 3 completed 2,100 km (1,300 miles) from Valentigney to Paris and Brest and back again. They were attached to the first Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, but finished 6 days after the winning cyclist, Charles Terront.
+
+The first design for an American car with a gasoline internal combustion engine was made in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New York. Selden applied for a patent for a car in 1879, but the patent application expired because the vehicle was never built. After a delay of sixteen years and a series of attachments to his application, on 5 November 1895, Selden was granted a United States patent (U.S. Patent 549,160) for a two-stroke car engine, which hindered, more than encouraged, development of cars in the United States. His patent was challenged by Henry Ford and others, and overturned in 1911.
+
+In 1893, the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. The first public run of the Duryea Motor Wagon took place on 21 September 1893, on Taylor Street in Metro Center Springfield.[28][29] The Studebaker Automobile Company, subsidiary of a long-established wagon and coach manufacturer, started to build cars in 1897[30]:p.66 and commenced sales of electric vehicles in 1902 and gasoline vehicles in 1904.[31]
+
+In Britain, there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success, with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860.[32] Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first gasoline-powered car in the country in 1894,[33] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both one-offs.[33] The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first car in 1897, and they bore the name Daimler.[33]
+
+In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.[1] Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.
+
+All in all, it is estimated that over 100,000 patents created the modern automobile and motorcycle.[34]
+
+Large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable cars was started by Ransom Olds in 1901 at his Oldsmobile factory in Lansing, Michigan and based upon stationary assembly line techniques pioneered by Marc Isambard Brunel at the Portsmouth Block Mills, England, in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the U.S. by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.[35] This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1913 with the world's first moving assembly line for cars at the Highland Park Ford Plant.
+
+As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold, while using less manpower (from 12.5-man-hours to 1 hour 33 minutes).[36] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1913, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford's apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's black".[36] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[36]
+
+Ford's complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury.[citation needed] The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called "Fordism," and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the economic rise of the United States. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods.
+
+In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the founding of Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark 1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921, Citroen was the first native European manufacturer to adopt the production method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.[36]
+
+Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910–1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.
+
+Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced car design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, called the General Motors Companion Make Program, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved.
+
+Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSalles, sold by Cadillac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate powertrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production, such as Apperson, Cole, Dorris, Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two hundred American car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.[36]
+
+In Europe, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line at Cowley in 1924, and soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford's practice of vertical integration, buying Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41% of total British car production. Most British small-car assemblers, from Abbey to Xtra, had gone under. Citroen did the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other cheap cars in reply such as Renault's 10CV and Peugeot's 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and Mors, Hurtu, and others could not compete.[36] Germany's first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Russelsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Germany, with 37.5% of the market.[36]
+
+In Japan, car production was very limited before World War II. Only a handful of companies were producing vehicles in limited numbers, and these were small, three-wheeled for commercial uses, like Daihatsu, or were the result of partnering with European companies, like Isuzu building the Wolseley A-9 in 1922. Mitsubishi was also partnered with Fiat and built the Mitsubishi Model A based on a Fiat vehicle. Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, and Honda began as companies producing non-automotive products before the war, switching to car production during the 1950s. Kiichiro Toyoda's decision to take Toyoda Loom Works into automobile manufacturing would create what would eventually become Toyota Motor Corporation, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Subaru, meanwhile, was formed from a conglomerate of six companies who banded together as Fuji Heavy Industries, as a result of having been broken up under keiretsu legislation.
+
+According to the European Environment Agency, the transport sector is a major contributor to air pollution, noise pollution and climate change.[37]
+
+Most cars in use in the 2010s run on gasoline burnt in an internal combustion engine (ICE). The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers says that, in countries that mandate low sulfur gasoline, gasoline-fuelled cars built to late 2010s standards (such as Euro-6) emit very little local air pollution.[38][39]  Some cities ban older gasoline-fuelled cars and some countries plan to ban sales in future. However some environmental groups say this phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles must be brought forward to limit climate change. Production of gasoline fueled cars peaked in 2017.[40][41]
+
+Other hydrocarbon fossil fuels also burnt by deflagration (rather than detonation) in ICE cars include diesel, Autogas and CNG. Removal of fossil fuel subsidies,[42][43] concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for cars. This includes hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. 2.1 million light electric vehicles (of all types but mainly cars) were sold in 2018, over half in China: this was an increase of 64% on the previous year, giving a global total on the road of 5.4 million.[44]  Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles[clarification needed] are also gaining popularity in some countries.[citation needed] Cars for racing or speed records have sometimes employed jet or rocket engines, but these are impractical for common use.
+
+Oil consumption has increased rapidly in the 20th and 21st centuries because there are more cars; the 1985–2003 oil glut even fuelled the sales of low-economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries are adding to this consumption.
+
+Cars are equipped with controls used for driving, passenger comfort and safety, normally operated by a combination of the use of feet and hands, and occasionally by voice on 21st century cars. These controls include a steering wheel, pedals for operating the brakes and controlling the car's speed (and, in a manual transmission car, a clutch pedal), a shift lever or stick for changing gears, and a number of buttons and dials for turning on lights, ventilation and other functions. Modern cars' controls are now standardized, such as the location for the accelerator and brake, but this was not always the case. Controls are evolving in response to new technologies, for example the electric car and the integration of mobile communications.
+
+Some of the original controls are no longer required. For example, all cars once had controls for the choke valve, clutch, ignition timing, and a crank instead of an electric starter. However new controls have also been added to vehicles, making them more complex. These include air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Another trend is the replacement of physical knobs and switches by secondary controls with touchscreen controls such as BMW's iDrive and Ford's MyFord Touch. Another change is that while early cars' pedals were physically linked to the brake mechanism and throttle, in the 2010s, cars have increasingly replaced these physical linkages with electronic controls.
+
+Cars are typically fitted with multiple types of lights. These include headlights, which are used to illuminate the way ahead and make the car visible to other users, so that the vehicle can be used at night; in some jurisdictions, daytime running lights; red brake lights to indicate when the brakes are applied; amber turn signal lights to indicate the turn intentions of the driver; white-colored reverse lights to illuminate the area behind the car (and indicate that the driver will be or is reversing); and on some vehicles, additional lights (e.g., side marker lights) to increase the visibility of the car. Interior lights on the ceiling of the car are usually fitted for the driver and passengers. Some vehicles also have a trunk light and, more rarely, an engine compartment light.
+
+During the late 20th and early 21st century cars increased in weight due to batteries,[46] modern steel safety cages, anti-lock brakes, airbags, and "more-powerful—if more-efficient—engines"[47] and, as of 2019[update], typically weigh between 1 and 3 tonnes.[48] Heavier cars are safer for the driver from a crash perspective, but more dangerous for other vehicles and road users.[47] The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. The SmartFortwo, a small city car, weighs 750–795 kg (1,655–1,755 lb). Heavier cars include full-size cars, SUVs and extended-length SUVs like the Suburban.
+
+According to research conducted by Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, global energy use could be greatly reduced by using lighter cars, and an average weight of 500 kg (1,100 lb) has been said to be well achievable.[49][better source needed] In some competitions such as the Shell Eco Marathon, average car weights of 45 kg (99 lb) have also been achieved.[50] These cars are only single-seaters (still falling within the definition of a car, although 4-seater cars are more common), but they nevertheless demonstrate the amount by which car weights could still be reduced, and the subsequent lower fuel use (i.e. up to a fuel use of 2560 km/l).[51]
+
+Most cars are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Cars with five seats typically seat two passengers in the front and three in the rear. Full-size cars and large sport utility vehicles can often carry six, seven, or more occupants depending on the arrangement of the seats. On the other hand, sports cars are most often designed with only two seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage or cargo space has resulted in the availability of a large variety of body styles to meet individual consumer requirements that include, among others, the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate, and minivan.
+
+Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[8] Mary Ward became one of the first documented car fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown, Ireland,[52] and Henry Bliss one of the United States' first pedestrian car casualties in 1899 in New York City.[53]
+There are now standard tests for safety in new cars, such as the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests,[54] and insurance-industry-backed tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).[55]
+
+The costs of car usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance,[7] are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits – perceived and real – of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence and convenience.[9] During the 1920s, cars had another benefit: "[c]ouples finally had a way to head off on unchaperoned dates, plus they had a private space to snuggle up close at the end of the night."[57]
+
+Similarly the costs to society of car use may include; maintaining roads, land use, air pollution, road congestion, public health, health care, and of disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life; and can be balanced against the value of the benefits to society that car use generates. Societal benefits may include: economy benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of car production and maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax opportunities. The ability of humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[10]
+
+Cars are a major cause of urban air pollution,[58] with all types of cars producing dust from brakes, tyres and road wear.[59]  As of 2018[update] the average diesel car has a worse effect on air quality than the average gasoline car[60] But both gasoline and diesel cars pollute more than electric cars.[61] While there are different ways to power cars most rely on gasoline or diesel, and they consume almost a quarter of world oil production as of 2019[update].[40] In 2018 passenger road vehicles emitted 3.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.[62] As of 2019[update], due to greenhouse gases emitted during battery production, electric cars must be driven tens of thousands of kilometers before their lifecycle carbon emissions are less than fossil fuel cars:[63] but this is expected to improve in future due to longer lasting[64] batteries being produced in larger factories,[65] and lower carbon electricity. Many governments are using fiscal policies, such as road tax, to discourage the purchase and use of more polluting cars;[66] and many cities are doing the same with low-emission zones.[67] Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g. hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels. High fuel taxes or cultural change may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not drive.[67]
+
+The lifetime of a car built in the 2020s is expected to be about 16 years, or about 2 million kilometres (1.2 million miles) if driven a lot.[68] According to the International Energy Agency fuel economy improved 0.7% in 2017, but an annual improvement of 3.7% is needed to meet the Global Fuel Economy Initiative 2030 target.[69] The increase in sales of SUVs is bad for fuel economy.[40] Many cities in Europe, have banned older fossil fuel cars and all fossil fuel vehicles will be banned in Amsterdam from 2030.[70] Many Chinese cities limit licensing of fossil fuel cars,[71] and many countries plan to stop selling them between 2025 and 2050.[72]
+
+The manufacture of vehicles is resource intensive, and many manufacturers now report on the environmental performance of their factories, including energy usage, waste and water consumption.[73] Manufacturing each kWh of battery emits a similar amount of carbon as burning through one full tank of gasoline.[74] The growth in popularity of the car allowed cities to sprawl, therefore encouraging more travel by car resulting in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.[75]
+
+Animals and plants are often negatively impacted by cars via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average car the "loss of habitat potential" may be over 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations.[76] Animals are also killed every year on roads by cars, referred to as roadkill. More recent road developments are including significant environmental mitigation in their designs, such as green bridges (designed to allow wildlife crossings) and creating wildlife corridors.
+
+Growth in the popularity of vehicles and commuting has led to traffic congestion. Moscow, Istanbul, Bogota, Mexico City and Sao Paulo were the world's most congested cities in 2018 according to INRIX, a data analytics company.[77]
+
+Although intensive development of  conventional battery electric vehicles is continuing into the 2020s,[78] other car propulsion technologies that are under development include wheel hub motors,[79] wireless charging,[80] hydrogen cars,[81] and hydrogen/electric hybrids.[82] Research into alternative forms of power includes using ammonia instead of hydrogen in fuel cells.[83]
+
+New materials[84] which may replace steel car bodies include duralumin, fiberglass, carbon fiber, biocomposites, and carbon nanotubes. Telematics technology is allowing more and more people to share cars, on a pay-as-you-go basis, through car share and carpool schemes. Communication is also evolving due to connected car systems.[85]
+
+Fully autonomous vehicles, also known as driverless cars, already exist in prototype (such as the Google driverless car), but have a long way to go before they are in general use.
+
+There have been several projects aiming to develop a car on the principles of open design, an approach to designing in which the plans for the machinery and systems are publicly shared, often without monetary compensation. The projects include OScar, Riversimple (through 40fires.org)[86] and c,mm,n.[87] None of the projects have reached significant success in terms of developing a car as a whole both from hardware and software perspective and no mass production ready open-source based design have been introduced as of late 2009. Some car hacking through on-board diagnostics (OBD) has been done so far.[88]
+
+Car-share arrangements and carpooling are also increasingly popular, in the US and Europe.[89] For example, in the US, some car-sharing services have experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth between 2006 and 2007. Services like car sharing offering a residents to "share" a vehicle rather than own a car in already congested neighborhoods.[90]
+
+The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the world's motor vehicles, more than three-quarters of which are cars. In 2018 there were 70 million cars manufactured worldwide,[91] down 2 million from the previous year.[92]
+
+The automotive industry in China produces by far the most (24 million in 2018), followed by Japan (8 million), Germany (5 million) and India (4 million).[91] The largest market is China, followed by the USA.
+
+Around the world there are about a billion cars on the road;[93] they burn over a trillion liters of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly, consuming about 50 EJ (nearly 300 terawatt-hours) of energy.[94] The numbers of cars are increasing rapidly in China and India.[11] In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investment. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.[95][96] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems. The car industry is also facing increasing competition from the public transport sector, as some people re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.
+
+Established alternatives for some aspects of car use include public transport such as buses, trolleybuses, trains, subways, tramways, light rail, cycling, and walking. Bicycle sharing systems have been established in China and many European cities, including Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been developed in large US cities.[98][99] Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to cars if they prove to be socially accepted.[100]
+
+The term motorcar was formerly also used in the context of electrified rail systems to denote a car which functions as a small locomotive but also provides space for passengers and baggage.  These locomotive cars were often used on suburban routes by both interurban and intercity railroad systems.[101]

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+
+Portuguese (português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe.[7] It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone" (Lusófono). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers are also found around the world (e.g., Cape Verdean Creole, and Papiamento the most widely spoken of these).
+
+Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon.[8][9] With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 270 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the sixth most natively spoken language in the world, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers.[10] Being the most widely spoken language in South America[11][12] and all of the Southern Hemisphere,[13] it's also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa[14] and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, OAS, ECOWAS and the African Union. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations.
+
+When the Romans arrived at the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason, the language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture[15] and Celtic culture,[16] part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages.[17]
+
+Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period. The occupiers, mainly Suebi,[18][19] Visigoths and Buri[20] who originally spoke Germanic languages, quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. After the Moorish invasion beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak a form of Romance commonly known as Mozarabic, which lasted three centuries longer in Spain. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek,[21] mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
+
+Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia and County of Portugal.[22]
+
+It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, which had by then assumed reign over Galicia.
+
+In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania, much as Occitan was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs lh and nh, used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese, presumably by Gerald of Braga,[23] a monk from Moissac, who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms.[24] Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal. In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created the first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the Estudos Gerais, which later moved to Coimbra) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially.
+
+In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. By the mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities.
+
+Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to the formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word cristão, "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal.
+
+The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing – and eventually speech – in Portuguese.[25]
+
+Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela ("the last flower of Latium, naive and beautiful. Portuguese is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem The Lusiads.[26][27][28]
+
+In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in the world.[29] The museum is the first of its kind in the world.[29] In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire,[30] but restored and reopened in 2020.
+
+Portuguese is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal,[32] Brazil[33] and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%).[34] Perhaps 75% of the population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively,[35] while approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside.[36] Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census.[37] Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all.[38] No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole.  Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board was charged with promoting and ensuring respect.[39]
+
+There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra (15.4%),[40] Bermuda,[41] Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census),[42] France (900,000 people),[43] Japan (400,000 people),[44] Jersey,[45] Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in the north of the country),[46] Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people),[47] Macau (0.6% or 12,000 people),[48] Switzerland (196,000 nationals in 2008),[49] Venezuela (554,000).[50] and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey).[51]
+
+In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa[52] and Daman and Diu,[53] the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa.[54]
+
+The Community of Portuguese Language Countries[7]
+(in Portuguese Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, with the Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the eight independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe.[7]
+
+Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language.[55] In 2011, Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French)[56] and, in July 2014, the country was accepted as a member of the CPLP.[57]
+
+Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese) and of several international organizations, including Mercosur,[58] the Organization of Ibero-American States,[59] the Union of South American Nations,[60] the Organization of American States,[61] the African Union,[62] the Economic Community of West African States,[62] the Southern African Development Community[62] and the European Union.[63]
+
+According to The World Factbook country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order):
+
+Notes:
+
+The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 279 million in July 2017. This number does not include the Lusophone diaspora, estimated at approximately 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, and half a million Cape Verdeans, among others), although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally, a large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil.
+
+The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from the only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese.
+
+Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay.[65] Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela,[66] Zambia,[67] the Republic of the Congo,[68] Senegal,[68] Namibia,[46] Eswatini (Swaziland),[68] South Africa,[68] Ivory Coast,[69] and Mauritius.[70] In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe.[71][72] Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020.[73] In the countries listed below, Portuguese is spoken either as anative language by minorities due to the Portuguese colonial past or as a lingua franca in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the border between Brazil and Uruguay, as well as Angola and Namibia. In Sri Lanka, there is still a community of thousands of Portuguese Creole speakers due to Portuguese colonization.[74]
+
+According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to the newspaper The Portugal News publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America.[76] Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide.
+
+Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Portuguese is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries.
+
+Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and Brazilian immigration to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, etc.) in the world.[77][78]
+
+Você, a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, você is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs tu followed by second person verbs, formal language retains the formal você, followed by the third person conjugation.
+
+Conjugation of verbs in tu has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": tu viste?, in the traditional second person, tu viu?, in the third person, and tu visse?, in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person, the kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools.
+
+The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established você as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of tu has been expanding ever since the end of the 20th century,[79] being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects.[80][81]
+
+Modern Standard European Portuguese (português padrão or português continental) is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon, in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with the Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa.
+
+Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below.[82] There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation.
+
+Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary, but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are independent languages.
+
+Portuguese, like Catalan, preserved the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. pedra ; Fr. pierre, Sp. piedra, It. pietra, Ro. piatră, from Lat. petra ("stone"); or Port. fogo, Cat. foc, Sard. fogu; Sp. fuego, It. fuoco, Fr. feu, Ro. foc, from Lat. focus ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese was the loss of intervocalic l and n, sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. salire ("to jump"), tenere ("to hold"), catena ("chain"), Port. sair, ter, cadeia.
+
+When the elided consonant was n, it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. manum ("hand"), ranam ("frog"), bonum ("good"), Old Portuguese mão, rãa, bõo (Portuguese: mão, rã, bom). This process was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings -anem, -anum and -onem became -ão in most cases, cf. Lat. canis ("dog"), germanus ("brother"), ratio ("reason") with Modern Port. cão, irmão, razão, and their plurals -anes, -anos, -ones normally became -ães, -ãos, -ões, cf. cães, irmãos, razões.
+
+The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that has preserved the clitic case mesoclisis: cf. dar-te-ei (I'll give thee), amar-te-ei (I'll love you), contactá-los-ei (I'll contact them). Like Galician, it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: eu estivera (I had been), eu vivera (I had lived), vós vivêreis (you had lived).[103] Romanian also has this tense, but uses the -s- form.
+
+Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group[17] and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world.
+
+A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes. Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish. Altogether these are over 2,000 words, some verbs and toponymic names of towns, rivers, utensils and plants.
+
+In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) was conquered by the Germanic Suebi and Visigoths. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500 
+Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to warfare – such as espora 'spur', estaca 'stake', and guerra 'war', from Gothic *spaúra, *stakka, and *wirro respectively; the natural world i.e. suino 'swine' from *sweina, gavião 'hawk' from *gabilans, vaga 'wave' from *vigan' human emotions such as orgulho or orgulhoso ('pride', 'proud') from Old Germanic *urguol or verbs like gravar 'to craft, record, graft' from *graba or esmagar 'to squeeze, quash, grind' from Suebian *magōn or esfarrapar 'to shred' from *harpō. The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde, Esposende and Resende where sinde and sende are derived from the Germanic sinths (military expedition) and in the case of Resende, the prefix re comes from Germanic reths 'council'. Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques, Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia.
+
+Between the 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article a(l)-, and include common words such as aldeia 'village' from الضيعة alḍai`a alface 'lettuce' from الخس alkhass, armazém 'warehouse' from المخزن almakhzan, and azeite 'olive oil' from الزيت azzait.
+
+Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, catana 'cutlass' from Japanese katana, chá 'tea' from Chinese chá, and canja[104] 'chicken-soup, piece of cake' from Malay.
+
+From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu, for example, came kifumate > cafuné 'head caress' (Brazil), kusula > caçula 'youngest child' (Brazil), marimbondo 'tropical wasp' (Brazil), and kubungula > bungular 'to dance like a wizard' (Angola). From South America came batata 'potato', from Taino; ananás and abacaxi, from Tupi–Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati, respectively (two species of pineapple), and pipoca 'popcorn' from Tupi and tucano 'toucan' from Guarani tucan.
+
+Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English. These are by far the most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: colchete/crochê 'bracket'/'crochet', paletó 'jacket', batom 'lipstick', and filé/filete 'steak'/'slice', rua 'street' respectively, from French crochet, paletot, bâton, filet, rue; and bife 'steak', futebol, revólver, stock/estoque, folclore, from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore".
+
+Examples from other European languages: macarrão 'pasta', piloto 'pilot', carroça 'carriage', and barraca 'barrack', from Italian maccherone, pilota, carrozza, and baracca; melena 'hair lock', fiambre 'wet-cured ham' (in Portugal, in contrast with presunto 'dry-cured ham' from Latin prae-exsuctus 'dehydrated') or 'canned ham' (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured presunto cozido and dry-cured presunto cru), or castelhano 'Castilian', from Spanish melena 'mane', fiambre and castellano.
+
+Portuguese belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages, and it has special ties with the following members of this group:
+
+Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian) are moderately mutually intelligible, and share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible, and Spanish is asymmetrically comprehensible to Portuguese speakers. Given that Portuguese has a larger phonemic inventory than Spanish, Portuguese is still considerably intelligible (if spoken slowly and without jargon) to most Spanish speakers, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian (Ibero-Romance languages), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them.[105][106][107][108]
+
+Portuñol/Portunhol, a form of code-switching, has a more lively use and is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay (dialeto do pampa) and Paraguay (dialeto dos brasiguaios), and of Portugal with Spain (barranquenho), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish.[109]
+
+Portuguese and Spanish are the only Ibero-Romance languages, and perhaps the only Romance languages with such thriving inter-language forms, in which visible and lively bilingual contact dialects and code-switching have formed, in which functional bilingual communication is achieved through attempting an approximation to the target foreign language (known as 'Portuñol') without a learned acquisition process, but nevertheless facilitates communication. There is an emerging literature focused on such phenomena (including informal attempts of standardization of the linguistic continua and their usage).[109]
+
+The closest relative of Portuguese is Galician, which is spoken in the autonomous community (region) and historical nationality of Galicia (northwestern Spain). The two were at one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but they have diverged especially in pronunciation and vocabulary due to the political separation of Portugal from Galicia. There is, however, still a linguistic continuity consisting of the variant of Galician referred to as galego-português baixo-limiao, which is spoken in several Galician villages between the municipalities of Entrimo and Lobios and the transborder region of the natural park of Peneda-Gerês/Xurês. It is "considered a rarity, a living vestige of the medieval language that ranged from Cantabria to Mondego [...]".[110]
+As reported by UNESCO, due to the pressure of the Spanish language on the standard official version of the Galician language, the Galician language was on the verge of disappearing.[110] According to the UNESCO philologist Tapani Salminen, the proximity to Portuguese protects Galician.[111]
+Nevertheless, the core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are still noticeably closer to Portuguese than to those of Spanish. In particular, like Portuguese, it uses the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic pluperfect. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 90% by R. A. Hall, Jr., 1989)[112] is excellent between Galicians and northern Portuguese. Many linguists consider Galician to be a co-dialect of the Portuguese language.
+
+Another member of the Galician-Portuguese group, most commonly thought of as a Galician dialect, is spoken in the Eonavian region in a western strip in Asturias and the westernmost parts of the provinces of León and Zamora, along the frontier with Galicia, between the Eo and Navia rivers (or more exactly Eo and Frexulfe rivers). It is called eonaviego or gallego-asturiano by its speakers.
+
+The Fala language, known by its speakers as xalimés, mañegu, a fala de Xálima and chapurráu and in Portuguese as a fala de Xálima, a fala da Estremadura, o galego da Estremadura, valego or galaico-estremenho, is another descendant of Galician-Portuguese, spoken by a small number of people in the Spanish towns of Valverde del Fresno (Valverdi du Fresnu), Eljas (As Ellas) and San Martín de Trevejo (Sa Martín de Trevellu) in the autonomous community of Extremadura, near the border with Portugal.
+
+There are a number of other places in Spain in which the native language of the common people is a descendant of the Galician-Portuguese group, such as La Alamedilla, Cedillo (Cedilho), Herrera de Alcántara (Ferreira d'Alcântara) and Olivenza (Olivença), but in these municipalities, what is spoken is actually Portuguese, not disputed as such in the mainstream.
+
+It should be noticed that the diversity of dialects of the Portuguese language is known since the time of medieval Portuguese-Galician language when it coexisted with the Lusitanian-Mozarabic dialect, spoken in the south of Portugal. The dialectal diversity becomes more evident in the work of Fernão d'Oliveira, in the Grammatica da Lingoagem Portuguesa, (1536), where he remarks that the people of Portuguese regions of Beira, Alentejo, Estremadura, and Entre Douro e Minho, all speak differently from each other. Also Contador d'Argote (1725) distinguishes three main varieties of dialects: the local dialects, the dialects of time, and of profession (work jargon). Of local dialects he highlights five main dialects: the dialect of Estremadura, of Entre-Douro e Minho, of Beira, of Algarve and of Trás-os-Montes. He also makes reference to the overseas dialects, the rustic dialects, the poetic dialect and that of prose.[113]
+
+In the kingdom of Portugal, Ladinho (or Lingoagem Ladinha) was the name given to the pure Portuguese language romance, without any mixture of Aravia or Gerigonça Judenga.[114] While the term língua vulgar was used to name the language before D. Dinis decided to call it "Portuguese language",[115] the erudite version used and known as Galician-Portuguese (the language of the Portuguese court) and all other Portuguese dialects were spoken at the same time. In a historical perspective the Portuguese language was never just one dialect. Just like today there is a standard Portuguese (actually two) among the several dialects of Portuguese, in the past there was Galician-Portuguese as the "standard", coexisting with other dialects.
+
+Portuguese has provided loanwords to many languages, such as Indonesian, Manado Malay, Malayalam, Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala, Malay, Bengali, English, Hindi, Swahili, Afrikaans, Konkani, Marathi, Punjabi, Tetum, Xitsonga, Japanese, Lanc-Patuá, Esan, Bandari (spoken in Iran) and Sranan Tongo (spoken in Suriname). It left a strong influence on the língua brasílica, a Tupi–Guarani language, which was the most widely spoken in Brazil until the 18th century, and on the language spoken around Sikka in Flores Island, Indonesia. In nearby Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers in Holy Week rituals.
+The Japanese–Portuguese dictionary Nippo Jisho (1603) was the first dictionary of Japanese in a European language, a product of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan. Building on the work of earlier Portuguese missionaries, the Dictionarium Anamiticum, Lusitanum et Latinum (Annamite–Portuguese–Latin dictionary) of Alexandre de Rhodes (1651) introduced the modern orthography of Vietnamese, which is based on the orthography of 17th-century Portuguese. The Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the Portuguese language (among others), particularly regarding Chinese surnames; one example is Mei. During 1583–88 Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci created a Portuguese–Chinese dictionary – the first ever European–Chinese dictionary.[116][117]
+
+For instance, as Portuguese merchants were presumably the first to introduce the sweet orange in Europe, in several modern Indo-European languages the fruit has been named after them. Some examples are Albanian portokall, Bosnian (archaic) portokal, prtokal, Bulgarian портокал (portokal), Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli), Macedonian portokal, Persian پرتقال (porteghal), and Romanian portocală.[118][119] Related names can be found in other languages, such as Arabic البرتقال (burtuqāl), Georgian ფორთოხალი (p'ort'oxali), Turkish portakal and Amharic birtukan.[118] Also, in southern Italian dialects (e.g. Neapolitan), an orange is portogallo or purtuallo, literally "(the) Portuguese (one)", in contrast to standard Italian arancia.
+
+Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African and Asian slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts of Portuguese influence. As each of these pidgins became the mother tongue of succeeding generations, they evolved into fully fledged creole languages, which remained in use in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America until the 18th century. Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles are still spoken today, by over 3 million people worldwide, especially people of partial Portuguese ancestry.
+
+Portuguese phonology is similar to those of languages such as French (especially that of Quebec), the Gallo-Italic languages, Occitan, Catalan and Franco-Provençal, unlike that of Spanish, which is similar to those of Sardinian and the Southern Italian dialects. Some would describe the phonology of Portuguese as a blend of Spanish, Gallo-Romance (e.g. French) and the languages of northern Italy (especially Genoese), but with a deeper Celtic substratum.[120][16]
+
+There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels, 2 semivowels and 21 consonants; though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes. There are also five nasal vowels, which some linguists regard as allophones of the oral vowels.
+
+Like Catalan and German, Portuguese uses vowel quality to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables. Unstressed isolated vowels tend to be raised and sometimes centralized.
+
+Phonetic notes
+
+A notable aspect of the grammar of Portuguese is the verb. Morphologically, more verbal inflections from classical Latin have been preserved by Portuguese than by any other major Romance language. Portuguese and Spanish share very similar grammar. Portuguese also has some grammatical innovations not found in other Romance languages (except Galician and Fala):
+
+Portuguese is written with 26 letters of the Latin script, making use of five diacritics to denote stress, vowel height, contraction, nasalization, and etymological assibilation (acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, tilde, and cedilla). The trema was also formerly used in Brazilian Portuguese, and can still be encountered in words derived from proper names in other languages, such as Anhangüera and mülleriano.,[135][136] though 'Anhangüera' and 'mülleriano' are a classical example of Estrangeirismo (pt), a systematical usage of foreign Loanwords; in this case from Guarani and German origin, respectively. Accented characters and digraphs are not counted as separate letters for collation purposes.

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+
+
+Portuguese (português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe.[7] It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone" (Lusófono). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers are also found around the world (e.g., Cape Verdean Creole, and Papiamento the most widely spoken of these).
+
+Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon.[8][9] With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 270 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the sixth most natively spoken language in the world, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers.[10] Being the most widely spoken language in South America[11][12] and all of the Southern Hemisphere,[13] it's also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa[14] and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, OAS, ECOWAS and the African Union. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations.
+
+When the Romans arrived at the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason, the language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture[15] and Celtic culture,[16] part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages.[17]
+
+Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period. The occupiers, mainly Suebi,[18][19] Visigoths and Buri[20] who originally spoke Germanic languages, quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. After the Moorish invasion beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak a form of Romance commonly known as Mozarabic, which lasted three centuries longer in Spain. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek,[21] mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
+
+Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia and County of Portugal.[22]
+
+It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, which had by then assumed reign over Galicia.
+
+In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania, much as Occitan was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs lh and nh, used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese, presumably by Gerald of Braga,[23] a monk from Moissac, who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms.[24] Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal. In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created the first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the Estudos Gerais, which later moved to Coimbra) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially.
+
+In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. By the mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities.
+
+Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to the formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word cristão, "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal.
+
+The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing – and eventually speech – in Portuguese.[25]
+
+Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela ("the last flower of Latium, naive and beautiful. Portuguese is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem The Lusiads.[26][27][28]
+
+In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in the world.[29] The museum is the first of its kind in the world.[29] In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire,[30] but restored and reopened in 2020.
+
+Portuguese is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal,[32] Brazil[33] and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%).[34] Perhaps 75% of the population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively,[35] while approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside.[36] Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census.[37] Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all.[38] No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole.  Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board was charged with promoting and ensuring respect.[39]
+
+There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra (15.4%),[40] Bermuda,[41] Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census),[42] France (900,000 people),[43] Japan (400,000 people),[44] Jersey,[45] Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in the north of the country),[46] Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people),[47] Macau (0.6% or 12,000 people),[48] Switzerland (196,000 nationals in 2008),[49] Venezuela (554,000).[50] and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey).[51]
+
+In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa[52] and Daman and Diu,[53] the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa.[54]
+
+The Community of Portuguese Language Countries[7]
+(in Portuguese Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, with the Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the eight independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe.[7]
+
+Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language.[55] In 2011, Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French)[56] and, in July 2014, the country was accepted as a member of the CPLP.[57]
+
+Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese) and of several international organizations, including Mercosur,[58] the Organization of Ibero-American States,[59] the Union of South American Nations,[60] the Organization of American States,[61] the African Union,[62] the Economic Community of West African States,[62] the Southern African Development Community[62] and the European Union.[63]
+
+According to The World Factbook country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order):
+
+Notes:
+
+The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 279 million in July 2017. This number does not include the Lusophone diaspora, estimated at approximately 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, and half a million Cape Verdeans, among others), although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally, a large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil.
+
+The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from the only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese.
+
+Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay.[65] Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela,[66] Zambia,[67] the Republic of the Congo,[68] Senegal,[68] Namibia,[46] Eswatini (Swaziland),[68] South Africa,[68] Ivory Coast,[69] and Mauritius.[70] In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe.[71][72] Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020.[73] In the countries listed below, Portuguese is spoken either as anative language by minorities due to the Portuguese colonial past or as a lingua franca in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the border between Brazil and Uruguay, as well as Angola and Namibia. In Sri Lanka, there is still a community of thousands of Portuguese Creole speakers due to Portuguese colonization.[74]
+
+According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to the newspaper The Portugal News publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America.[76] Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide.
+
+Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Portuguese is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries.
+
+Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and Brazilian immigration to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, etc.) in the world.[77][78]
+
+Você, a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, você is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs tu followed by second person verbs, formal language retains the formal você, followed by the third person conjugation.
+
+Conjugation of verbs in tu has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": tu viste?, in the traditional second person, tu viu?, in the third person, and tu visse?, in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person, the kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools.
+
+The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established você as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of tu has been expanding ever since the end of the 20th century,[79] being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects.[80][81]
+
+Modern Standard European Portuguese (português padrão or português continental) is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon, in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with the Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa.
+
+Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below.[82] There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation.
+
+Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary, but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are independent languages.
+
+Portuguese, like Catalan, preserved the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. pedra ; Fr. pierre, Sp. piedra, It. pietra, Ro. piatră, from Lat. petra ("stone"); or Port. fogo, Cat. foc, Sard. fogu; Sp. fuego, It. fuoco, Fr. feu, Ro. foc, from Lat. focus ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese was the loss of intervocalic l and n, sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. salire ("to jump"), tenere ("to hold"), catena ("chain"), Port. sair, ter, cadeia.
+
+When the elided consonant was n, it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. manum ("hand"), ranam ("frog"), bonum ("good"), Old Portuguese mão, rãa, bõo (Portuguese: mão, rã, bom). This process was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings -anem, -anum and -onem became -ão in most cases, cf. Lat. canis ("dog"), germanus ("brother"), ratio ("reason") with Modern Port. cão, irmão, razão, and their plurals -anes, -anos, -ones normally became -ães, -ãos, -ões, cf. cães, irmãos, razões.
+
+The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that has preserved the clitic case mesoclisis: cf. dar-te-ei (I'll give thee), amar-te-ei (I'll love you), contactá-los-ei (I'll contact them). Like Galician, it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: eu estivera (I had been), eu vivera (I had lived), vós vivêreis (you had lived).[103] Romanian also has this tense, but uses the -s- form.
+
+Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group[17] and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world.
+
+A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes. Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish. Altogether these are over 2,000 words, some verbs and toponymic names of towns, rivers, utensils and plants.
+
+In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) was conquered by the Germanic Suebi and Visigoths. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500 
+Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to warfare – such as espora 'spur', estaca 'stake', and guerra 'war', from Gothic *spaúra, *stakka, and *wirro respectively; the natural world i.e. suino 'swine' from *sweina, gavião 'hawk' from *gabilans, vaga 'wave' from *vigan' human emotions such as orgulho or orgulhoso ('pride', 'proud') from Old Germanic *urguol or verbs like gravar 'to craft, record, graft' from *graba or esmagar 'to squeeze, quash, grind' from Suebian *magōn or esfarrapar 'to shred' from *harpō. The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde, Esposende and Resende where sinde and sende are derived from the Germanic sinths (military expedition) and in the case of Resende, the prefix re comes from Germanic reths 'council'. Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques, Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia.
+
+Between the 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article a(l)-, and include common words such as aldeia 'village' from الضيعة alḍai`a alface 'lettuce' from الخس alkhass, armazém 'warehouse' from المخزن almakhzan, and azeite 'olive oil' from الزيت azzait.
+
+Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, catana 'cutlass' from Japanese katana, chá 'tea' from Chinese chá, and canja[104] 'chicken-soup, piece of cake' from Malay.
+
+From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu, for example, came kifumate > cafuné 'head caress' (Brazil), kusula > caçula 'youngest child' (Brazil), marimbondo 'tropical wasp' (Brazil), and kubungula > bungular 'to dance like a wizard' (Angola). From South America came batata 'potato', from Taino; ananás and abacaxi, from Tupi–Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati, respectively (two species of pineapple), and pipoca 'popcorn' from Tupi and tucano 'toucan' from Guarani tucan.
+
+Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English. These are by far the most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: colchete/crochê 'bracket'/'crochet', paletó 'jacket', batom 'lipstick', and filé/filete 'steak'/'slice', rua 'street' respectively, from French crochet, paletot, bâton, filet, rue; and bife 'steak', futebol, revólver, stock/estoque, folclore, from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore".
+
+Examples from other European languages: macarrão 'pasta', piloto 'pilot', carroça 'carriage', and barraca 'barrack', from Italian maccherone, pilota, carrozza, and baracca; melena 'hair lock', fiambre 'wet-cured ham' (in Portugal, in contrast with presunto 'dry-cured ham' from Latin prae-exsuctus 'dehydrated') or 'canned ham' (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured presunto cozido and dry-cured presunto cru), or castelhano 'Castilian', from Spanish melena 'mane', fiambre and castellano.
+
+Portuguese belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages, and it has special ties with the following members of this group:
+
+Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian) are moderately mutually intelligible, and share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible, and Spanish is asymmetrically comprehensible to Portuguese speakers. Given that Portuguese has a larger phonemic inventory than Spanish, Portuguese is still considerably intelligible (if spoken slowly and without jargon) to most Spanish speakers, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian (Ibero-Romance languages), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them.[105][106][107][108]
+
+Portuñol/Portunhol, a form of code-switching, has a more lively use and is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay (dialeto do pampa) and Paraguay (dialeto dos brasiguaios), and of Portugal with Spain (barranquenho), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish.[109]
+
+Portuguese and Spanish are the only Ibero-Romance languages, and perhaps the only Romance languages with such thriving inter-language forms, in which visible and lively bilingual contact dialects and code-switching have formed, in which functional bilingual communication is achieved through attempting an approximation to the target foreign language (known as 'Portuñol') without a learned acquisition process, but nevertheless facilitates communication. There is an emerging literature focused on such phenomena (including informal attempts of standardization of the linguistic continua and their usage).[109]
+
+The closest relative of Portuguese is Galician, which is spoken in the autonomous community (region) and historical nationality of Galicia (northwestern Spain). The two were at one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but they have diverged especially in pronunciation and vocabulary due to the political separation of Portugal from Galicia. There is, however, still a linguistic continuity consisting of the variant of Galician referred to as galego-português baixo-limiao, which is spoken in several Galician villages between the municipalities of Entrimo and Lobios and the transborder region of the natural park of Peneda-Gerês/Xurês. It is "considered a rarity, a living vestige of the medieval language that ranged from Cantabria to Mondego [...]".[110]
+As reported by UNESCO, due to the pressure of the Spanish language on the standard official version of the Galician language, the Galician language was on the verge of disappearing.[110] According to the UNESCO philologist Tapani Salminen, the proximity to Portuguese protects Galician.[111]
+Nevertheless, the core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are still noticeably closer to Portuguese than to those of Spanish. In particular, like Portuguese, it uses the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic pluperfect. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 90% by R. A. Hall, Jr., 1989)[112] is excellent between Galicians and northern Portuguese. Many linguists consider Galician to be a co-dialect of the Portuguese language.
+
+Another member of the Galician-Portuguese group, most commonly thought of as a Galician dialect, is spoken in the Eonavian region in a western strip in Asturias and the westernmost parts of the provinces of León and Zamora, along the frontier with Galicia, between the Eo and Navia rivers (or more exactly Eo and Frexulfe rivers). It is called eonaviego or gallego-asturiano by its speakers.
+
+The Fala language, known by its speakers as xalimés, mañegu, a fala de Xálima and chapurráu and in Portuguese as a fala de Xálima, a fala da Estremadura, o galego da Estremadura, valego or galaico-estremenho, is another descendant of Galician-Portuguese, spoken by a small number of people in the Spanish towns of Valverde del Fresno (Valverdi du Fresnu), Eljas (As Ellas) and San Martín de Trevejo (Sa Martín de Trevellu) in the autonomous community of Extremadura, near the border with Portugal.
+
+There are a number of other places in Spain in which the native language of the common people is a descendant of the Galician-Portuguese group, such as La Alamedilla, Cedillo (Cedilho), Herrera de Alcántara (Ferreira d'Alcântara) and Olivenza (Olivença), but in these municipalities, what is spoken is actually Portuguese, not disputed as such in the mainstream.
+
+It should be noticed that the diversity of dialects of the Portuguese language is known since the time of medieval Portuguese-Galician language when it coexisted with the Lusitanian-Mozarabic dialect, spoken in the south of Portugal. The dialectal diversity becomes more evident in the work of Fernão d'Oliveira, in the Grammatica da Lingoagem Portuguesa, (1536), where he remarks that the people of Portuguese regions of Beira, Alentejo, Estremadura, and Entre Douro e Minho, all speak differently from each other. Also Contador d'Argote (1725) distinguishes three main varieties of dialects: the local dialects, the dialects of time, and of profession (work jargon). Of local dialects he highlights five main dialects: the dialect of Estremadura, of Entre-Douro e Minho, of Beira, of Algarve and of Trás-os-Montes. He also makes reference to the overseas dialects, the rustic dialects, the poetic dialect and that of prose.[113]
+
+In the kingdom of Portugal, Ladinho (or Lingoagem Ladinha) was the name given to the pure Portuguese language romance, without any mixture of Aravia or Gerigonça Judenga.[114] While the term língua vulgar was used to name the language before D. Dinis decided to call it "Portuguese language",[115] the erudite version used and known as Galician-Portuguese (the language of the Portuguese court) and all other Portuguese dialects were spoken at the same time. In a historical perspective the Portuguese language was never just one dialect. Just like today there is a standard Portuguese (actually two) among the several dialects of Portuguese, in the past there was Galician-Portuguese as the "standard", coexisting with other dialects.
+
+Portuguese has provided loanwords to many languages, such as Indonesian, Manado Malay, Malayalam, Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala, Malay, Bengali, English, Hindi, Swahili, Afrikaans, Konkani, Marathi, Punjabi, Tetum, Xitsonga, Japanese, Lanc-Patuá, Esan, Bandari (spoken in Iran) and Sranan Tongo (spoken in Suriname). It left a strong influence on the língua brasílica, a Tupi–Guarani language, which was the most widely spoken in Brazil until the 18th century, and on the language spoken around Sikka in Flores Island, Indonesia. In nearby Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers in Holy Week rituals.
+The Japanese–Portuguese dictionary Nippo Jisho (1603) was the first dictionary of Japanese in a European language, a product of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan. Building on the work of earlier Portuguese missionaries, the Dictionarium Anamiticum, Lusitanum et Latinum (Annamite–Portuguese–Latin dictionary) of Alexandre de Rhodes (1651) introduced the modern orthography of Vietnamese, which is based on the orthography of 17th-century Portuguese. The Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the Portuguese language (among others), particularly regarding Chinese surnames; one example is Mei. During 1583–88 Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci created a Portuguese–Chinese dictionary – the first ever European–Chinese dictionary.[116][117]
+
+For instance, as Portuguese merchants were presumably the first to introduce the sweet orange in Europe, in several modern Indo-European languages the fruit has been named after them. Some examples are Albanian portokall, Bosnian (archaic) portokal, prtokal, Bulgarian портокал (portokal), Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli), Macedonian portokal, Persian پرتقال (porteghal), and Romanian portocală.[118][119] Related names can be found in other languages, such as Arabic البرتقال (burtuqāl), Georgian ფორთოხალი (p'ort'oxali), Turkish portakal and Amharic birtukan.[118] Also, in southern Italian dialects (e.g. Neapolitan), an orange is portogallo or purtuallo, literally "(the) Portuguese (one)", in contrast to standard Italian arancia.
+
+Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African and Asian slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts of Portuguese influence. As each of these pidgins became the mother tongue of succeeding generations, they evolved into fully fledged creole languages, which remained in use in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America until the 18th century. Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles are still spoken today, by over 3 million people worldwide, especially people of partial Portuguese ancestry.
+
+Portuguese phonology is similar to those of languages such as French (especially that of Quebec), the Gallo-Italic languages, Occitan, Catalan and Franco-Provençal, unlike that of Spanish, which is similar to those of Sardinian and the Southern Italian dialects. Some would describe the phonology of Portuguese as a blend of Spanish, Gallo-Romance (e.g. French) and the languages of northern Italy (especially Genoese), but with a deeper Celtic substratum.[120][16]
+
+There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels, 2 semivowels and 21 consonants; though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes. There are also five nasal vowels, which some linguists regard as allophones of the oral vowels.
+
+Like Catalan and German, Portuguese uses vowel quality to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables. Unstressed isolated vowels tend to be raised and sometimes centralized.
+
+Phonetic notes
+
+A notable aspect of the grammar of Portuguese is the verb. Morphologically, more verbal inflections from classical Latin have been preserved by Portuguese than by any other major Romance language. Portuguese and Spanish share very similar grammar. Portuguese also has some grammatical innovations not found in other Romance languages (except Galician and Fala):
+
+Portuguese is written with 26 letters of the Latin script, making use of five diacritics to denote stress, vowel height, contraction, nasalization, and etymological assibilation (acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, tilde, and cedilla). The trema was also formerly used in Brazilian Portuguese, and can still be encountered in words derived from proper names in other languages, such as Anhangüera and mülleriano.,[135][136] though 'Anhangüera' and 'mülleriano' are a classical example of Estrangeirismo (pt), a systematical usage of foreign Loanwords; in this case from Guarani and German origin, respectively. Accented characters and digraphs are not counted as separate letters for collation purposes.

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+
+
+
+
+Poseidon (/pəˈsaɪdən, pɒ-, poʊ-/;[1] Greek: Ποσειδῶν, pronounced [poseːdɔ́ːn]) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.[2] In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes.[2]. He had also the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however it seems that he was originally a god of the waters.[3] He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses,[2] and with a strike of his trident, he created springs which are related with the word horse.[4] His Roman equivalent is Neptune.
+
+Poseidon was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][5]In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain.[6][7][8]
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon, and he remained  on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus. After the fight,  Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. [9]
+
+The earliest attested occurrence of the name, written in Linear B, is 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀃 Po-se-da-o or 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀺𐀚 Po-se-da-wo-ne, which correspond to Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn) and Ποσειδάϝονος (Poseidawonos) in Mycenean Greek; in Homeric Greek it appears as Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn); in Aeolic as Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn); and in Doric as Ποτειδάν (Poteidan), Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn), and Ποτειδᾶς (Poteidas).[10] The form Ποτειδάϝων (Poteidawon) appears in Corinth.[11] A cult title of Poseidon in Linear B is E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".
+
+The origins of the name "Poseidon" are unclear. One theory breaks it down into an element meaning "husband" or "lord" (Greek πόσις (posis), from PIE *pótis) and another element meaning "earth" (δᾶ (da), Doric for γῆ (gē)), producing something like lord or spouse of Da, i.e. of the earth; this would link him with Demeter, "Earth-mother".[12] Walter Burkert finds that "the second element δᾶ- remains hopelessly ambiguous" and finds a "husband of Earth" reading "quite impossible to prove."[2] According to Robert Beekes,Etymological Dictionary of Greek, "there is no indication that δᾶ means 'earth'".[13] allthough the root da appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".[14][15]
+
+Another, more plausible, theory interprets the second element as related to the (presumed) Doric word *δᾶϝον dâwon, "water", Proto-Indo-European *dah₂- "water" or *dʰenh₂- "to run, flow", Sanskrit दन् dā́-nu- "fluid, drop, dew" and names of rivers such as Danube (< *Danuvius) or Don. This would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters.[16] It seems that Poseidon was originally a god of the waters. [17] There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin.[18] Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two traditional etymologies: either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a "foot-bond" (ποσίδεσμον), or he "knew many things" (πολλά εἰδότος or πολλά εἰδῶν).[19]
+
+At least a few sources deem Poseidon as a "prehellenic" (i.e. Pelasgian) word, considering an Indo-European etymology "quite pointless".[20]
+
+The name of the Frisian and Scandinavian god Fosite or Forseti, who was venerated on the island of Heligoland, may have been derived from Poseidon. According to the German philologist, Hans Kuhn, the Germanic form *Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon. Roman altars dedicated to Poseidon have been found in the Middle Rhine area.
+
+If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name po-se-da-wo-ne ("Poseidon") occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja ("Zeus"). A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is also found, indicating a lost consort goddess, in effect the precursor of Amphitrite. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld. The chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos,[21] a powerful attribute (earthquakes had accompanied the collapse of the Minoan palace-culture). In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth.[22] She was related with the annual birth of the divine child.[23] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in Mycenean cult.[24] It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription (PN EN 609), however the interpretation is still under dispute.[25]
+
+In Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter.[26] Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King": wa-na-soi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods.[27]
+
+The illuminating exception is the archaic and localised myth of the stallion Poseidon and mare Demeter at Phigalia in isolated and conservative Arcadia, noted by Pausanias (2nd century AD) as having fallen into desuetude; the stallion Poseidon pursues the mare-Demeter, and from the union she bears the horse Arion, and a daughter (Despoina), who obviously had the shape of a mare too. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys (furious) .[28] In Arcadia, Demeter's mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, as goddess of nature. A Medusa type with a horse's head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water.[29]
+
+It seems that the Arcadian myth is related with the first Greek speaking people who entered the region during the Bronze Age. (Linear B represents an archaic Greek dialect). Their religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the indigenous population. It is possible that the Greeks did not bring with them other gods except Zeus, Eos, and the Dioskouroi. The horse (numina) was related with the liquid element, and with the underworld. Poseidon appears as a beast (horse), which is the river spirit of the underworld, as it usually happens in northern-European folklore, and not unusually in Greece.[30][31] Poseidon "Wanax", is the male companion (paredros) of the goddess of nature. In the relative Minoan myth, Pasiphaë is mating with the white bull, and she bears the hybrid creature Minotaur.[32] The Bull was the old pre-Olympian Poseidon.[33] The goddess of nature and her paredros survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a strong son".[34]
+
+In the heavily sea-dependent Mycenaean culture, there is not sufficient evidence that Poseidon was connected with the sea. We do not know if "Posedeia" was a sea-goddess. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][35] Walter Burkert suggests that the Hellene cult worship of Poseidon as a horse god may be connected to the introduction of the horse and war-chariot from Anatolia to Greece around 1600 BC.[2]
+
+It is almost sure that once Poseidon was worshiped as a horse, and this is evident by his cult in Peloponnesos. However he was originally a god of the waters, and therefore he became the "earth-shaker", because the Greeks believed that the cause of the earthquakes was the erosion of the rocks by the waters, by the rivers who they saw to disappear into the earth and then to burst out again. This is what the natural philosophers Thales, Anaximenes and Aristotle believed, which could not be different from the folklore belief.[36] Later, when the Myceneans travelled along the sea, he was assigned a role as god of the sea.
+
+In any case, the early importance of Poseidon can still be glimpsed in Homer's Odyssey, where Poseidon rather than Zeus is the major mover of events. In Homer, Poseidon is the master of the sea.[37]
+
+Poseidon was a major civic god of several cities: in Athens, he was second only to Athena in importance, while in Corinth and many cities of Magna Graecia he was the chief god of the polis.[2]
+
+In his benign aspect, Poseidon was seen as creating new islands and offering calm seas. When offended or ignored, he supposedly struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings and shipwrecks. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes drowning horses as a sacrifice; in this way, according to a fragmentary papyrus, Alexander the Great paused at the Syrian seashore before the climactic battle of Issus, and resorted to prayers, "invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horse chariot to be cast into the waves."[38]
+
+According to Pausanias, Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the oracle at Delphi before Olympian Apollo took it over. Apollo and Poseidon worked closely in many realms: in colonization, for example, Delphic Apollo provided the authorization to go out and settle, while Poseidon watched over the colonists on their way, and provided the lustral water for the foundation-sacrifice. Xenophon's Anabasis describes a group of Spartan soldiers in 400–399 BC singing to Poseidon a paean—a kind of hymn normally sung for Apollo. Like Dionysus, who inflamed the maenads, Poseidon also caused certain forms of mental disturbance. A Hippocratic text of ca 400 BC, On the Sacred Disease[39] says that he was blamed for certain types of epilepsy.
+
+Poseidon is still worshipped today in modern Hellenic religion, among other Greek gods. The worship of Greek gods is recognized by the Greek government since 2017.[40][41]
+
+Common epithets (or adjectives) applied to Poseidon are Enosichthon (Ἐνοσίχθων) "Earth Shaker" or "earth-shaking" and Ennosigaios (Ἐννοσίγαιος), used by Homer in the Iliad and by Nonnus in Dionysiaca.[a][42][43] 
+Of the two phrases, Enosichthon has an older evidence of use, as it is identified in Linear B, as 𐀁𐀚𐀯𐀅𐀃𐀚, E-ne-si-da-o-ne,[21]
+
+The epithets Ennosigaios (and Ennosidas),  Gaiēochos (Γαιήοχος) ,Seisichthon ,[44]  ,indicate the chthonic nature of Poseidon. In the town of Aegae in Euboea, he was known as Poseidon Aegaeus and had a magnificent temple upon a hill,[45][46][47] Epithets like Pelagikos (Πελάγίκος) "belonging to the sea" ,Thukios (θύκιος) "full of seaweed" etc., indicate that Poseidon was regarded as holding sway over land as well as the sea.[43]
+
+Poseidon also had a close association with horses, known under the epithet  Hippios(ἲππειος), usually in Arcadia. He is more often regarded as the tamer of horses, but in some myths he is their father, either by spilling his seed upon a rock or by mating with a creature who then gave birth to the first horse.[2] He was closely related with the springs, and with the strike of his trident, he created springs. Many springs like Hippocrene and Aganippe in Helikon are related with the word horse (hippos). (also Glukippe, Hyperippe).[48]
+
+Some other epithets of Poseidon are:[49]
+
+Poseidon was the second son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. In most accounts he is swallowed by Cronus at birth and is later saved, along with his other brothers and sisters, by Zeus.
+
+However, in some versions of the story, he, like his brother Zeus, did not share the fate of his other brother and sisters who were eaten by Cronus. He was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which she gave to Cronus to devour.[52]
+
+According to John Tzetzes[53] the kourotrophos, or nurse of Poseidon was Arne, who denied knowing where he was, when Cronus came searching; according to Diodorus Siculus[54] Poseidon was raised by the Telchines on Rhodes, just as Zeus was raised by the Korybantes on Crete.
+
+According to a single reference in the Iliad, when the world was divided by lot in three, Zeus received the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea.[55]
+
+In Homer's Odyssey (Book V, ln. 398), Poseidon has a home in Aegae.
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon. Yet Poseidon remained a numinous presence on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus.[2] At the dissolution festival at the end of the year in the Athenian calendar, the Skira, the priests of Athena and the priest of Poseidon would process under canopies to Eleusis.[56] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and the Athenians would choose whichever gift they preferred. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a spring sprang up; the water was salty and not very useful,[57] whereas Athena offered them an olive tree.
+
+The Athenians or their king, Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and along with it Athena as their patron, for the olive tree brought wood, oil and food. After the fight, infuriated at his loss, Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. The depression made by Poseidon's trident and filled with salt water was surrounded by the northern hall of the Erechtheum, remaining open to the air. "In cult, Poseidon was identified with Erechtheus," Walter Burkert noted; "the myth turns this into a temporal-causal sequence: in his anger at losing, Poseidon led his son Eumolpus against Athens and killed Erectheus."[58]
+
+The contest of Athena and Poseidon was the subject of the reliefs on the western pediment of the Parthenon, the first sight that greeted the arriving visitor.
+
+This myth is construed by Robert Graves and others as reflecting a clash between the inhabitants during Mycenaean times and newer immigrants. Athens at its height was a significant sea power, at one point defeating the Persian fleet at Salamis Island in a sea battle.
+
+Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus by their rebellion in Hera's scheme, were temporarily stripped of their divine authority and sent to serve King Laomedon of Troy. He had them build huge walls around the city and promised to reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy. The monster was later killed by Heracles.
+
+Poseidon was said to have had many lovers of both sexes (see expandable list below). His consort was Amphitrite, a nymph and ancient sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus and Doris. Together they had a son named Triton, a merman.
+
+Poseidon was the father of many heroes. He is thought to have fathered the famed Theseus.
+
+A mortal woman named Tyro was married to Cretheus (with whom she had one son, Aeson), but loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus, and from their union were born the heroes Pelias and Neleus, twin boys. Poseidon also had an affair with Alope, his granddaughter through Cercyon, his son and King of Eleusis, begetting the Attic hero Hippothoon. Cercyon had his daughter buried alive but Poseidon turned her into the spring, Alope, near Eleusis.
+
+Poseidon rescued Amymone from a lecherous satyr and then fathered a child, Nauplius, by her.
+
+After having raped Caeneus, Poseidon fulfilled her request and changed her into a male warrior.
+
+A mortal woman named Cleito once lived on an isolated island; Poseidon fell in love with the human mortal and created a dwelling sanctuary at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her. She gave birth to five sets of twin boys; the firstborn, Atlas, became the first ruler of Atlantis.[6][7][8]
+
+Not all of Poseidon's children were human. In an archaic myth, Poseidon once pursued Demeter. She spurned his advances, turning herself into a mare so that she could hide in a herd of horses; he saw through the deception and became a stallion and captured her. Their child was a horse, Arion, which was capable of human speech. Poseidon also raped Medusa on the floor of a temple to Athena.[59][60] Medusa was then changed into a monster by Athena.[61][60] When she was later beheaded by the hero Perseus, Chrysaor and Pegasus emerged from her neck.
+
+His other children include Polyphemus (the Cyclops) and, finally, Alebion and Bergion and Otos and Ephialtae (the giants).[59]
+
+(another one)
+
+Male lovers
+
+In Greek art, Poseidon rides a chariot that was pulled by a hippocampus or by horses that could ride on the sea. He was associated with dolphins and three-pronged fish spears (tridents). He lived in a palace on the ocean floor, made of coral and gems.
+
+In the Iliad Poseidon favors the Greeks, and on several occasion takes an active part in the battle against the Trojan forces. However, in Book XX he rescues Aeneas after the Trojan prince is laid low by Achilles.
+
+In the Odyssey, Poseidon is notable for his hatred of Odysseus who blinded the god's son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. The enmity of Poseidon prevents Odysseus's return home to Ithaca for many years. Odysseus is even told, notwithstanding his ultimate safe return, that to placate the wrath of Poseidon will require one more voyage on his part.
+
+In the Aeneid, Neptune is still resentful of the wandering Trojans, but is not as vindictive as Juno, and in Book I he rescues the Trojan fleet from the goddess's attempts to wreck it, although his primary motivation for doing this is his annoyance at Juno's having intruded into his domain.
+
+A hymn to Poseidon included among the Homeric Hymns is a brief invocation, a seven-line introduction that addresses the god as both "mover of the earth and barren sea, god of the deep who is also lord of Helicon and wide Aegae,[107] and specifies his twofold nature as an Olympian: "a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships."
+
+Poseidon appears in Percy Jackson and the Olympians as the father of Percy Jackson and Tyson the Cyclops. He also appears in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time as the guest star of the second half of season four played by Ernie Hudson.[108] In this version, Poseidon is portrayed as the father of the Sea Witch Ursula.
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Poseidon holding a trident. Corinthian plaque, 550-525 BC. From Penteskouphia.
+
+Poseidon on an Attic kalyx krater (detail), first half of the 5th century BC.
+
+Triumph of Poseidon and Amphitrite showing the couple in procession, detail of a vast mosaic from Cirta, Roman Africa (ca. 315–325 AD, now at the Louvre)
+
+Poseidon and Athena battle for control of Athens by Benvenuto Tisi(1512)
+
+Poseidon statue in Gothenburg, Sweden.
+
+Poseidon statue in Prešov, Slovakia
+
+Poseidon statue in Bristol, England.
+
+The Neptunbrunnen fountain in Berlin
+
+Poseidon sculpture in Copenhagen, Denmark

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+Poseidon (/pəˈsaɪdən, pɒ-, poʊ-/;[1] Greek: Ποσειδῶν, pronounced [poseːdɔ́ːn]) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.[2] In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes.[2]. He had also the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however it seems that he was originally a god of the waters.[3] He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses,[2] and with a strike of his trident, he created springs which are related with the word horse.[4] His Roman equivalent is Neptune.
+
+Poseidon was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][5]In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain.[6][7][8]
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon, and he remained  on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus. After the fight,  Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. [9]
+
+The earliest attested occurrence of the name, written in Linear B, is 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀃 Po-se-da-o or 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀺𐀚 Po-se-da-wo-ne, which correspond to Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn) and Ποσειδάϝονος (Poseidawonos) in Mycenean Greek; in Homeric Greek it appears as Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn); in Aeolic as Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn); and in Doric as Ποτειδάν (Poteidan), Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn), and Ποτειδᾶς (Poteidas).[10] The form Ποτειδάϝων (Poteidawon) appears in Corinth.[11] A cult title of Poseidon in Linear B is E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".
+
+The origins of the name "Poseidon" are unclear. One theory breaks it down into an element meaning "husband" or "lord" (Greek πόσις (posis), from PIE *pótis) and another element meaning "earth" (δᾶ (da), Doric for γῆ (gē)), producing something like lord or spouse of Da, i.e. of the earth; this would link him with Demeter, "Earth-mother".[12] Walter Burkert finds that "the second element δᾶ- remains hopelessly ambiguous" and finds a "husband of Earth" reading "quite impossible to prove."[2] According to Robert Beekes,Etymological Dictionary of Greek, "there is no indication that δᾶ means 'earth'".[13] allthough the root da appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".[14][15]
+
+Another, more plausible, theory interprets the second element as related to the (presumed) Doric word *δᾶϝον dâwon, "water", Proto-Indo-European *dah₂- "water" or *dʰenh₂- "to run, flow", Sanskrit दन् dā́-nu- "fluid, drop, dew" and names of rivers such as Danube (< *Danuvius) or Don. This would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters.[16] It seems that Poseidon was originally a god of the waters. [17] There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin.[18] Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two traditional etymologies: either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a "foot-bond" (ποσίδεσμον), or he "knew many things" (πολλά εἰδότος or πολλά εἰδῶν).[19]
+
+At least a few sources deem Poseidon as a "prehellenic" (i.e. Pelasgian) word, considering an Indo-European etymology "quite pointless".[20]
+
+The name of the Frisian and Scandinavian god Fosite or Forseti, who was venerated on the island of Heligoland, may have been derived from Poseidon. According to the German philologist, Hans Kuhn, the Germanic form *Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon. Roman altars dedicated to Poseidon have been found in the Middle Rhine area.
+
+If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name po-se-da-wo-ne ("Poseidon") occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja ("Zeus"). A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is also found, indicating a lost consort goddess, in effect the precursor of Amphitrite. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld. The chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos,[21] a powerful attribute (earthquakes had accompanied the collapse of the Minoan palace-culture). In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth.[22] She was related with the annual birth of the divine child.[23] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in Mycenean cult.[24] It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription (PN EN 609), however the interpretation is still under dispute.[25]
+
+In Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter.[26] Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King": wa-na-soi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods.[27]
+
+The illuminating exception is the archaic and localised myth of the stallion Poseidon and mare Demeter at Phigalia in isolated and conservative Arcadia, noted by Pausanias (2nd century AD) as having fallen into desuetude; the stallion Poseidon pursues the mare-Demeter, and from the union she bears the horse Arion, and a daughter (Despoina), who obviously had the shape of a mare too. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys (furious) .[28] In Arcadia, Demeter's mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, as goddess of nature. A Medusa type with a horse's head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water.[29]
+
+It seems that the Arcadian myth is related with the first Greek speaking people who entered the region during the Bronze Age. (Linear B represents an archaic Greek dialect). Their religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the indigenous population. It is possible that the Greeks did not bring with them other gods except Zeus, Eos, and the Dioskouroi. The horse (numina) was related with the liquid element, and with the underworld. Poseidon appears as a beast (horse), which is the river spirit of the underworld, as it usually happens in northern-European folklore, and not unusually in Greece.[30][31] Poseidon "Wanax", is the male companion (paredros) of the goddess of nature. In the relative Minoan myth, Pasiphaë is mating with the white bull, and she bears the hybrid creature Minotaur.[32] The Bull was the old pre-Olympian Poseidon.[33] The goddess of nature and her paredros survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a strong son".[34]
+
+In the heavily sea-dependent Mycenaean culture, there is not sufficient evidence that Poseidon was connected with the sea. We do not know if "Posedeia" was a sea-goddess. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][35] Walter Burkert suggests that the Hellene cult worship of Poseidon as a horse god may be connected to the introduction of the horse and war-chariot from Anatolia to Greece around 1600 BC.[2]
+
+It is almost sure that once Poseidon was worshiped as a horse, and this is evident by his cult in Peloponnesos. However he was originally a god of the waters, and therefore he became the "earth-shaker", because the Greeks believed that the cause of the earthquakes was the erosion of the rocks by the waters, by the rivers who they saw to disappear into the earth and then to burst out again. This is what the natural philosophers Thales, Anaximenes and Aristotle believed, which could not be different from the folklore belief.[36] Later, when the Myceneans travelled along the sea, he was assigned a role as god of the sea.
+
+In any case, the early importance of Poseidon can still be glimpsed in Homer's Odyssey, where Poseidon rather than Zeus is the major mover of events. In Homer, Poseidon is the master of the sea.[37]
+
+Poseidon was a major civic god of several cities: in Athens, he was second only to Athena in importance, while in Corinth and many cities of Magna Graecia he was the chief god of the polis.[2]
+
+In his benign aspect, Poseidon was seen as creating new islands and offering calm seas. When offended or ignored, he supposedly struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings and shipwrecks. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes drowning horses as a sacrifice; in this way, according to a fragmentary papyrus, Alexander the Great paused at the Syrian seashore before the climactic battle of Issus, and resorted to prayers, "invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horse chariot to be cast into the waves."[38]
+
+According to Pausanias, Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the oracle at Delphi before Olympian Apollo took it over. Apollo and Poseidon worked closely in many realms: in colonization, for example, Delphic Apollo provided the authorization to go out and settle, while Poseidon watched over the colonists on their way, and provided the lustral water for the foundation-sacrifice. Xenophon's Anabasis describes a group of Spartan soldiers in 400–399 BC singing to Poseidon a paean—a kind of hymn normally sung for Apollo. Like Dionysus, who inflamed the maenads, Poseidon also caused certain forms of mental disturbance. A Hippocratic text of ca 400 BC, On the Sacred Disease[39] says that he was blamed for certain types of epilepsy.
+
+Poseidon is still worshipped today in modern Hellenic religion, among other Greek gods. The worship of Greek gods is recognized by the Greek government since 2017.[40][41]
+
+Common epithets (or adjectives) applied to Poseidon are Enosichthon (Ἐνοσίχθων) "Earth Shaker" or "earth-shaking" and Ennosigaios (Ἐννοσίγαιος), used by Homer in the Iliad and by Nonnus in Dionysiaca.[a][42][43] 
+Of the two phrases, Enosichthon has an older evidence of use, as it is identified in Linear B, as 𐀁𐀚𐀯𐀅𐀃𐀚, E-ne-si-da-o-ne,[21]
+
+The epithets Ennosigaios (and Ennosidas),  Gaiēochos (Γαιήοχος) ,Seisichthon ,[44]  ,indicate the chthonic nature of Poseidon. In the town of Aegae in Euboea, he was known as Poseidon Aegaeus and had a magnificent temple upon a hill,[45][46][47] Epithets like Pelagikos (Πελάγίκος) "belonging to the sea" ,Thukios (θύκιος) "full of seaweed" etc., indicate that Poseidon was regarded as holding sway over land as well as the sea.[43]
+
+Poseidon also had a close association with horses, known under the epithet  Hippios(ἲππειος), usually in Arcadia. He is more often regarded as the tamer of horses, but in some myths he is their father, either by spilling his seed upon a rock or by mating with a creature who then gave birth to the first horse.[2] He was closely related with the springs, and with the strike of his trident, he created springs. Many springs like Hippocrene and Aganippe in Helikon are related with the word horse (hippos). (also Glukippe, Hyperippe).[48]
+
+Some other epithets of Poseidon are:[49]
+
+Poseidon was the second son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. In most accounts he is swallowed by Cronus at birth and is later saved, along with his other brothers and sisters, by Zeus.
+
+However, in some versions of the story, he, like his brother Zeus, did not share the fate of his other brother and sisters who were eaten by Cronus. He was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which she gave to Cronus to devour.[52]
+
+According to John Tzetzes[53] the kourotrophos, or nurse of Poseidon was Arne, who denied knowing where he was, when Cronus came searching; according to Diodorus Siculus[54] Poseidon was raised by the Telchines on Rhodes, just as Zeus was raised by the Korybantes on Crete.
+
+According to a single reference in the Iliad, when the world was divided by lot in three, Zeus received the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea.[55]
+
+In Homer's Odyssey (Book V, ln. 398), Poseidon has a home in Aegae.
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon. Yet Poseidon remained a numinous presence on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus.[2] At the dissolution festival at the end of the year in the Athenian calendar, the Skira, the priests of Athena and the priest of Poseidon would process under canopies to Eleusis.[56] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and the Athenians would choose whichever gift they preferred. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a spring sprang up; the water was salty and not very useful,[57] whereas Athena offered them an olive tree.
+
+The Athenians or their king, Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and along with it Athena as their patron, for the olive tree brought wood, oil and food. After the fight, infuriated at his loss, Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. The depression made by Poseidon's trident and filled with salt water was surrounded by the northern hall of the Erechtheum, remaining open to the air. "In cult, Poseidon was identified with Erechtheus," Walter Burkert noted; "the myth turns this into a temporal-causal sequence: in his anger at losing, Poseidon led his son Eumolpus against Athens and killed Erectheus."[58]
+
+The contest of Athena and Poseidon was the subject of the reliefs on the western pediment of the Parthenon, the first sight that greeted the arriving visitor.
+
+This myth is construed by Robert Graves and others as reflecting a clash between the inhabitants during Mycenaean times and newer immigrants. Athens at its height was a significant sea power, at one point defeating the Persian fleet at Salamis Island in a sea battle.
+
+Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus by their rebellion in Hera's scheme, were temporarily stripped of their divine authority and sent to serve King Laomedon of Troy. He had them build huge walls around the city and promised to reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy. The monster was later killed by Heracles.
+
+Poseidon was said to have had many lovers of both sexes (see expandable list below). His consort was Amphitrite, a nymph and ancient sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus and Doris. Together they had a son named Triton, a merman.
+
+Poseidon was the father of many heroes. He is thought to have fathered the famed Theseus.
+
+A mortal woman named Tyro was married to Cretheus (with whom she had one son, Aeson), but loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus, and from their union were born the heroes Pelias and Neleus, twin boys. Poseidon also had an affair with Alope, his granddaughter through Cercyon, his son and King of Eleusis, begetting the Attic hero Hippothoon. Cercyon had his daughter buried alive but Poseidon turned her into the spring, Alope, near Eleusis.
+
+Poseidon rescued Amymone from a lecherous satyr and then fathered a child, Nauplius, by her.
+
+After having raped Caeneus, Poseidon fulfilled her request and changed her into a male warrior.
+
+A mortal woman named Cleito once lived on an isolated island; Poseidon fell in love with the human mortal and created a dwelling sanctuary at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her. She gave birth to five sets of twin boys; the firstborn, Atlas, became the first ruler of Atlantis.[6][7][8]
+
+Not all of Poseidon's children were human. In an archaic myth, Poseidon once pursued Demeter. She spurned his advances, turning herself into a mare so that she could hide in a herd of horses; he saw through the deception and became a stallion and captured her. Their child was a horse, Arion, which was capable of human speech. Poseidon also raped Medusa on the floor of a temple to Athena.[59][60] Medusa was then changed into a monster by Athena.[61][60] When she was later beheaded by the hero Perseus, Chrysaor and Pegasus emerged from her neck.
+
+His other children include Polyphemus (the Cyclops) and, finally, Alebion and Bergion and Otos and Ephialtae (the giants).[59]
+
+(another one)
+
+Male lovers
+
+In Greek art, Poseidon rides a chariot that was pulled by a hippocampus or by horses that could ride on the sea. He was associated with dolphins and three-pronged fish spears (tridents). He lived in a palace on the ocean floor, made of coral and gems.
+
+In the Iliad Poseidon favors the Greeks, and on several occasion takes an active part in the battle against the Trojan forces. However, in Book XX he rescues Aeneas after the Trojan prince is laid low by Achilles.
+
+In the Odyssey, Poseidon is notable for his hatred of Odysseus who blinded the god's son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. The enmity of Poseidon prevents Odysseus's return home to Ithaca for many years. Odysseus is even told, notwithstanding his ultimate safe return, that to placate the wrath of Poseidon will require one more voyage on his part.
+
+In the Aeneid, Neptune is still resentful of the wandering Trojans, but is not as vindictive as Juno, and in Book I he rescues the Trojan fleet from the goddess's attempts to wreck it, although his primary motivation for doing this is his annoyance at Juno's having intruded into his domain.
+
+A hymn to Poseidon included among the Homeric Hymns is a brief invocation, a seven-line introduction that addresses the god as both "mover of the earth and barren sea, god of the deep who is also lord of Helicon and wide Aegae,[107] and specifies his twofold nature as an Olympian: "a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships."
+
+Poseidon appears in Percy Jackson and the Olympians as the father of Percy Jackson and Tyson the Cyclops. He also appears in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time as the guest star of the second half of season four played by Ernie Hudson.[108] In this version, Poseidon is portrayed as the father of the Sea Witch Ursula.
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Poseidon holding a trident. Corinthian plaque, 550-525 BC. From Penteskouphia.
+
+Poseidon on an Attic kalyx krater (detail), first half of the 5th century BC.
+
+Triumph of Poseidon and Amphitrite showing the couple in procession, detail of a vast mosaic from Cirta, Roman Africa (ca. 315–325 AD, now at the Louvre)
+
+Poseidon and Athena battle for control of Athens by Benvenuto Tisi(1512)
+
+Poseidon statue in Gothenburg, Sweden.
+
+Poseidon statue in Prešov, Slovakia
+
+Poseidon statue in Bristol, England.
+
+The Neptunbrunnen fountain in Berlin
+
+Poseidon sculpture in Copenhagen, Denmark

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+Poseidon (/pəˈsaɪdən, pɒ-, poʊ-/;[1] Greek: Ποσειδῶν, pronounced [poseːdɔ́ːn]) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.[2] In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes.[2]. He had also the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however it seems that he was originally a god of the waters.[3] He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses,[2] and with a strike of his trident, he created springs which are related with the word horse.[4] His Roman equivalent is Neptune.
+
+Poseidon was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][5]In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain.[6][7][8]
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon, and he remained  on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus. After the fight,  Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. [9]
+
+The earliest attested occurrence of the name, written in Linear B, is 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀃 Po-se-da-o or 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀺𐀚 Po-se-da-wo-ne, which correspond to Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn) and Ποσειδάϝονος (Poseidawonos) in Mycenean Greek; in Homeric Greek it appears as Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn); in Aeolic as Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn); and in Doric as Ποτειδάν (Poteidan), Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn), and Ποτειδᾶς (Poteidas).[10] The form Ποτειδάϝων (Poteidawon) appears in Corinth.[11] A cult title of Poseidon in Linear B is E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".
+
+The origins of the name "Poseidon" are unclear. One theory breaks it down into an element meaning "husband" or "lord" (Greek πόσις (posis), from PIE *pótis) and another element meaning "earth" (δᾶ (da), Doric for γῆ (gē)), producing something like lord or spouse of Da, i.e. of the earth; this would link him with Demeter, "Earth-mother".[12] Walter Burkert finds that "the second element δᾶ- remains hopelessly ambiguous" and finds a "husband of Earth" reading "quite impossible to prove."[2] According to Robert Beekes,Etymological Dictionary of Greek, "there is no indication that δᾶ means 'earth'".[13] allthough the root da appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".[14][15]
+
+Another, more plausible, theory interprets the second element as related to the (presumed) Doric word *δᾶϝον dâwon, "water", Proto-Indo-European *dah₂- "water" or *dʰenh₂- "to run, flow", Sanskrit दन् dā́-nu- "fluid, drop, dew" and names of rivers such as Danube (< *Danuvius) or Don. This would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters.[16] It seems that Poseidon was originally a god of the waters. [17] There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin.[18] Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two traditional etymologies: either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a "foot-bond" (ποσίδεσμον), or he "knew many things" (πολλά εἰδότος or πολλά εἰδῶν).[19]
+
+At least a few sources deem Poseidon as a "prehellenic" (i.e. Pelasgian) word, considering an Indo-European etymology "quite pointless".[20]
+
+The name of the Frisian and Scandinavian god Fosite or Forseti, who was venerated on the island of Heligoland, may have been derived from Poseidon. According to the German philologist, Hans Kuhn, the Germanic form *Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon. Roman altars dedicated to Poseidon have been found in the Middle Rhine area.
+
+If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name po-se-da-wo-ne ("Poseidon") occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja ("Zeus"). A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is also found, indicating a lost consort goddess, in effect the precursor of Amphitrite. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld. The chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos,[21] a powerful attribute (earthquakes had accompanied the collapse of the Minoan palace-culture). In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth.[22] She was related with the annual birth of the divine child.[23] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in Mycenean cult.[24] It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription (PN EN 609), however the interpretation is still under dispute.[25]
+
+In Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter.[26] Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King": wa-na-soi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods.[27]
+
+The illuminating exception is the archaic and localised myth of the stallion Poseidon and mare Demeter at Phigalia in isolated and conservative Arcadia, noted by Pausanias (2nd century AD) as having fallen into desuetude; the stallion Poseidon pursues the mare-Demeter, and from the union she bears the horse Arion, and a daughter (Despoina), who obviously had the shape of a mare too. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys (furious) .[28] In Arcadia, Demeter's mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, as goddess of nature. A Medusa type with a horse's head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water.[29]
+
+It seems that the Arcadian myth is related with the first Greek speaking people who entered the region during the Bronze Age. (Linear B represents an archaic Greek dialect). Their religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the indigenous population. It is possible that the Greeks did not bring with them other gods except Zeus, Eos, and the Dioskouroi. The horse (numina) was related with the liquid element, and with the underworld. Poseidon appears as a beast (horse), which is the river spirit of the underworld, as it usually happens in northern-European folklore, and not unusually in Greece.[30][31] Poseidon "Wanax", is the male companion (paredros) of the goddess of nature. In the relative Minoan myth, Pasiphaë is mating with the white bull, and she bears the hybrid creature Minotaur.[32] The Bull was the old pre-Olympian Poseidon.[33] The goddess of nature and her paredros survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a strong son".[34]
+
+In the heavily sea-dependent Mycenaean culture, there is not sufficient evidence that Poseidon was connected with the sea. We do not know if "Posedeia" was a sea-goddess. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][35] Walter Burkert suggests that the Hellene cult worship of Poseidon as a horse god may be connected to the introduction of the horse and war-chariot from Anatolia to Greece around 1600 BC.[2]
+
+It is almost sure that once Poseidon was worshiped as a horse, and this is evident by his cult in Peloponnesos. However he was originally a god of the waters, and therefore he became the "earth-shaker", because the Greeks believed that the cause of the earthquakes was the erosion of the rocks by the waters, by the rivers who they saw to disappear into the earth and then to burst out again. This is what the natural philosophers Thales, Anaximenes and Aristotle believed, which could not be different from the folklore belief.[36] Later, when the Myceneans travelled along the sea, he was assigned a role as god of the sea.
+
+In any case, the early importance of Poseidon can still be glimpsed in Homer's Odyssey, where Poseidon rather than Zeus is the major mover of events. In Homer, Poseidon is the master of the sea.[37]
+
+Poseidon was a major civic god of several cities: in Athens, he was second only to Athena in importance, while in Corinth and many cities of Magna Graecia he was the chief god of the polis.[2]
+
+In his benign aspect, Poseidon was seen as creating new islands and offering calm seas. When offended or ignored, he supposedly struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings and shipwrecks. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes drowning horses as a sacrifice; in this way, according to a fragmentary papyrus, Alexander the Great paused at the Syrian seashore before the climactic battle of Issus, and resorted to prayers, "invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horse chariot to be cast into the waves."[38]
+
+According to Pausanias, Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the oracle at Delphi before Olympian Apollo took it over. Apollo and Poseidon worked closely in many realms: in colonization, for example, Delphic Apollo provided the authorization to go out and settle, while Poseidon watched over the colonists on their way, and provided the lustral water for the foundation-sacrifice. Xenophon's Anabasis describes a group of Spartan soldiers in 400–399 BC singing to Poseidon a paean—a kind of hymn normally sung for Apollo. Like Dionysus, who inflamed the maenads, Poseidon also caused certain forms of mental disturbance. A Hippocratic text of ca 400 BC, On the Sacred Disease[39] says that he was blamed for certain types of epilepsy.
+
+Poseidon is still worshipped today in modern Hellenic religion, among other Greek gods. The worship of Greek gods is recognized by the Greek government since 2017.[40][41]
+
+Common epithets (or adjectives) applied to Poseidon are Enosichthon (Ἐνοσίχθων) "Earth Shaker" or "earth-shaking" and Ennosigaios (Ἐννοσίγαιος), used by Homer in the Iliad and by Nonnus in Dionysiaca.[a][42][43] 
+Of the two phrases, Enosichthon has an older evidence of use, as it is identified in Linear B, as 𐀁𐀚𐀯𐀅𐀃𐀚, E-ne-si-da-o-ne,[21]
+
+The epithets Ennosigaios (and Ennosidas),  Gaiēochos (Γαιήοχος) ,Seisichthon ,[44]  ,indicate the chthonic nature of Poseidon. In the town of Aegae in Euboea, he was known as Poseidon Aegaeus and had a magnificent temple upon a hill,[45][46][47] Epithets like Pelagikos (Πελάγίκος) "belonging to the sea" ,Thukios (θύκιος) "full of seaweed" etc., indicate that Poseidon was regarded as holding sway over land as well as the sea.[43]
+
+Poseidon also had a close association with horses, known under the epithet  Hippios(ἲππειος), usually in Arcadia. He is more often regarded as the tamer of horses, but in some myths he is their father, either by spilling his seed upon a rock or by mating with a creature who then gave birth to the first horse.[2] He was closely related with the springs, and with the strike of his trident, he created springs. Many springs like Hippocrene and Aganippe in Helikon are related with the word horse (hippos). (also Glukippe, Hyperippe).[48]
+
+Some other epithets of Poseidon are:[49]
+
+Poseidon was the second son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. In most accounts he is swallowed by Cronus at birth and is later saved, along with his other brothers and sisters, by Zeus.
+
+However, in some versions of the story, he, like his brother Zeus, did not share the fate of his other brother and sisters who were eaten by Cronus. He was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which she gave to Cronus to devour.[52]
+
+According to John Tzetzes[53] the kourotrophos, or nurse of Poseidon was Arne, who denied knowing where he was, when Cronus came searching; according to Diodorus Siculus[54] Poseidon was raised by the Telchines on Rhodes, just as Zeus was raised by the Korybantes on Crete.
+
+According to a single reference in the Iliad, when the world was divided by lot in three, Zeus received the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea.[55]
+
+In Homer's Odyssey (Book V, ln. 398), Poseidon has a home in Aegae.
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon. Yet Poseidon remained a numinous presence on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus.[2] At the dissolution festival at the end of the year in the Athenian calendar, the Skira, the priests of Athena and the priest of Poseidon would process under canopies to Eleusis.[56] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and the Athenians would choose whichever gift they preferred. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a spring sprang up; the water was salty and not very useful,[57] whereas Athena offered them an olive tree.
+
+The Athenians or their king, Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and along with it Athena as their patron, for the olive tree brought wood, oil and food. After the fight, infuriated at his loss, Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. The depression made by Poseidon's trident and filled with salt water was surrounded by the northern hall of the Erechtheum, remaining open to the air. "In cult, Poseidon was identified with Erechtheus," Walter Burkert noted; "the myth turns this into a temporal-causal sequence: in his anger at losing, Poseidon led his son Eumolpus against Athens and killed Erectheus."[58]
+
+The contest of Athena and Poseidon was the subject of the reliefs on the western pediment of the Parthenon, the first sight that greeted the arriving visitor.
+
+This myth is construed by Robert Graves and others as reflecting a clash between the inhabitants during Mycenaean times and newer immigrants. Athens at its height was a significant sea power, at one point defeating the Persian fleet at Salamis Island in a sea battle.
+
+Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus by their rebellion in Hera's scheme, were temporarily stripped of their divine authority and sent to serve King Laomedon of Troy. He had them build huge walls around the city and promised to reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy. The monster was later killed by Heracles.
+
+Poseidon was said to have had many lovers of both sexes (see expandable list below). His consort was Amphitrite, a nymph and ancient sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus and Doris. Together they had a son named Triton, a merman.
+
+Poseidon was the father of many heroes. He is thought to have fathered the famed Theseus.
+
+A mortal woman named Tyro was married to Cretheus (with whom she had one son, Aeson), but loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus, and from their union were born the heroes Pelias and Neleus, twin boys. Poseidon also had an affair with Alope, his granddaughter through Cercyon, his son and King of Eleusis, begetting the Attic hero Hippothoon. Cercyon had his daughter buried alive but Poseidon turned her into the spring, Alope, near Eleusis.
+
+Poseidon rescued Amymone from a lecherous satyr and then fathered a child, Nauplius, by her.
+
+After having raped Caeneus, Poseidon fulfilled her request and changed her into a male warrior.
+
+A mortal woman named Cleito once lived on an isolated island; Poseidon fell in love with the human mortal and created a dwelling sanctuary at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her. She gave birth to five sets of twin boys; the firstborn, Atlas, became the first ruler of Atlantis.[6][7][8]
+
+Not all of Poseidon's children were human. In an archaic myth, Poseidon once pursued Demeter. She spurned his advances, turning herself into a mare so that she could hide in a herd of horses; he saw through the deception and became a stallion and captured her. Their child was a horse, Arion, which was capable of human speech. Poseidon also raped Medusa on the floor of a temple to Athena.[59][60] Medusa was then changed into a monster by Athena.[61][60] When she was later beheaded by the hero Perseus, Chrysaor and Pegasus emerged from her neck.
+
+His other children include Polyphemus (the Cyclops) and, finally, Alebion and Bergion and Otos and Ephialtae (the giants).[59]
+
+(another one)
+
+Male lovers
+
+In Greek art, Poseidon rides a chariot that was pulled by a hippocampus or by horses that could ride on the sea. He was associated with dolphins and three-pronged fish spears (tridents). He lived in a palace on the ocean floor, made of coral and gems.
+
+In the Iliad Poseidon favors the Greeks, and on several occasion takes an active part in the battle against the Trojan forces. However, in Book XX he rescues Aeneas after the Trojan prince is laid low by Achilles.
+
+In the Odyssey, Poseidon is notable for his hatred of Odysseus who blinded the god's son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. The enmity of Poseidon prevents Odysseus's return home to Ithaca for many years. Odysseus is even told, notwithstanding his ultimate safe return, that to placate the wrath of Poseidon will require one more voyage on his part.
+
+In the Aeneid, Neptune is still resentful of the wandering Trojans, but is not as vindictive as Juno, and in Book I he rescues the Trojan fleet from the goddess's attempts to wreck it, although his primary motivation for doing this is his annoyance at Juno's having intruded into his domain.
+
+A hymn to Poseidon included among the Homeric Hymns is a brief invocation, a seven-line introduction that addresses the god as both "mover of the earth and barren sea, god of the deep who is also lord of Helicon and wide Aegae,[107] and specifies his twofold nature as an Olympian: "a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships."
+
+Poseidon appears in Percy Jackson and the Olympians as the father of Percy Jackson and Tyson the Cyclops. He also appears in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time as the guest star of the second half of season four played by Ernie Hudson.[108] In this version, Poseidon is portrayed as the father of the Sea Witch Ursula.
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Poseidon holding a trident. Corinthian plaque, 550-525 BC. From Penteskouphia.
+
+Poseidon on an Attic kalyx krater (detail), first half of the 5th century BC.
+
+Triumph of Poseidon and Amphitrite showing the couple in procession, detail of a vast mosaic from Cirta, Roman Africa (ca. 315–325 AD, now at the Louvre)
+
+Poseidon and Athena battle for control of Athens by Benvenuto Tisi(1512)
+
+Poseidon statue in Gothenburg, Sweden.
+
+Poseidon statue in Prešov, Slovakia
+
+Poseidon statue in Bristol, England.
+
+The Neptunbrunnen fountain in Berlin
+
+Poseidon sculpture in Copenhagen, Denmark

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+Poseidon (/pəˈsaɪdən, pɒ-, poʊ-/;[1] Greek: Ποσειδῶν, pronounced [poseːdɔ́ːn]) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.[2] In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes.[2]. He had also the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however it seems that he was originally a god of the waters.[3] He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses,[2] and with a strike of his trident, he created springs which are related with the word horse.[4] His Roman equivalent is Neptune.
+
+Poseidon was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][5]In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain.[6][7][8]
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon, and he remained  on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus. After the fight,  Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. [9]
+
+The earliest attested occurrence of the name, written in Linear B, is 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀃 Po-se-da-o or 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀺𐀚 Po-se-da-wo-ne, which correspond to Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn) and Ποσειδάϝονος (Poseidawonos) in Mycenean Greek; in Homeric Greek it appears as Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn); in Aeolic as Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn); and in Doric as Ποτειδάν (Poteidan), Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn), and Ποτειδᾶς (Poteidas).[10] The form Ποτειδάϝων (Poteidawon) appears in Corinth.[11] A cult title of Poseidon in Linear B is E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".
+
+The origins of the name "Poseidon" are unclear. One theory breaks it down into an element meaning "husband" or "lord" (Greek πόσις (posis), from PIE *pótis) and another element meaning "earth" (δᾶ (da), Doric for γῆ (gē)), producing something like lord or spouse of Da, i.e. of the earth; this would link him with Demeter, "Earth-mother".[12] Walter Burkert finds that "the second element δᾶ- remains hopelessly ambiguous" and finds a "husband of Earth" reading "quite impossible to prove."[2] According to Robert Beekes,Etymological Dictionary of Greek, "there is no indication that δᾶ means 'earth'".[13] allthough the root da appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".[14][15]
+
+Another, more plausible, theory interprets the second element as related to the (presumed) Doric word *δᾶϝον dâwon, "water", Proto-Indo-European *dah₂- "water" or *dʰenh₂- "to run, flow", Sanskrit दन् dā́-nu- "fluid, drop, dew" and names of rivers such as Danube (< *Danuvius) or Don. This would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters.[16] It seems that Poseidon was originally a god of the waters. [17] There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin.[18] Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two traditional etymologies: either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a "foot-bond" (ποσίδεσμον), or he "knew many things" (πολλά εἰδότος or πολλά εἰδῶν).[19]
+
+At least a few sources deem Poseidon as a "prehellenic" (i.e. Pelasgian) word, considering an Indo-European etymology "quite pointless".[20]
+
+The name of the Frisian and Scandinavian god Fosite or Forseti, who was venerated on the island of Heligoland, may have been derived from Poseidon. According to the German philologist, Hans Kuhn, the Germanic form *Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon. Roman altars dedicated to Poseidon have been found in the Middle Rhine area.
+
+If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name po-se-da-wo-ne ("Poseidon") occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja ("Zeus"). A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is also found, indicating a lost consort goddess, in effect the precursor of Amphitrite. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld. The chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos,[21] a powerful attribute (earthquakes had accompanied the collapse of the Minoan palace-culture). In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth.[22] She was related with the annual birth of the divine child.[23] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in Mycenean cult.[24] It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription (PN EN 609), however the interpretation is still under dispute.[25]
+
+In Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter.[26] Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King": wa-na-soi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods.[27]
+
+The illuminating exception is the archaic and localised myth of the stallion Poseidon and mare Demeter at Phigalia in isolated and conservative Arcadia, noted by Pausanias (2nd century AD) as having fallen into desuetude; the stallion Poseidon pursues the mare-Demeter, and from the union she bears the horse Arion, and a daughter (Despoina), who obviously had the shape of a mare too. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys (furious) .[28] In Arcadia, Demeter's mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, as goddess of nature. A Medusa type with a horse's head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water.[29]
+
+It seems that the Arcadian myth is related with the first Greek speaking people who entered the region during the Bronze Age. (Linear B represents an archaic Greek dialect). Their religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the indigenous population. It is possible that the Greeks did not bring with them other gods except Zeus, Eos, and the Dioskouroi. The horse (numina) was related with the liquid element, and with the underworld. Poseidon appears as a beast (horse), which is the river spirit of the underworld, as it usually happens in northern-European folklore, and not unusually in Greece.[30][31] Poseidon "Wanax", is the male companion (paredros) of the goddess of nature. In the relative Minoan myth, Pasiphaë is mating with the white bull, and she bears the hybrid creature Minotaur.[32] The Bull was the old pre-Olympian Poseidon.[33] The goddess of nature and her paredros survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a strong son".[34]
+
+In the heavily sea-dependent Mycenaean culture, there is not sufficient evidence that Poseidon was connected with the sea. We do not know if "Posedeia" was a sea-goddess. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][35] Walter Burkert suggests that the Hellene cult worship of Poseidon as a horse god may be connected to the introduction of the horse and war-chariot from Anatolia to Greece around 1600 BC.[2]
+
+It is almost sure that once Poseidon was worshiped as a horse, and this is evident by his cult in Peloponnesos. However he was originally a god of the waters, and therefore he became the "earth-shaker", because the Greeks believed that the cause of the earthquakes was the erosion of the rocks by the waters, by the rivers who they saw to disappear into the earth and then to burst out again. This is what the natural philosophers Thales, Anaximenes and Aristotle believed, which could not be different from the folklore belief.[36] Later, when the Myceneans travelled along the sea, he was assigned a role as god of the sea.
+
+In any case, the early importance of Poseidon can still be glimpsed in Homer's Odyssey, where Poseidon rather than Zeus is the major mover of events. In Homer, Poseidon is the master of the sea.[37]
+
+Poseidon was a major civic god of several cities: in Athens, he was second only to Athena in importance, while in Corinth and many cities of Magna Graecia he was the chief god of the polis.[2]
+
+In his benign aspect, Poseidon was seen as creating new islands and offering calm seas. When offended or ignored, he supposedly struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings and shipwrecks. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes drowning horses as a sacrifice; in this way, according to a fragmentary papyrus, Alexander the Great paused at the Syrian seashore before the climactic battle of Issus, and resorted to prayers, "invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horse chariot to be cast into the waves."[38]
+
+According to Pausanias, Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the oracle at Delphi before Olympian Apollo took it over. Apollo and Poseidon worked closely in many realms: in colonization, for example, Delphic Apollo provided the authorization to go out and settle, while Poseidon watched over the colonists on their way, and provided the lustral water for the foundation-sacrifice. Xenophon's Anabasis describes a group of Spartan soldiers in 400–399 BC singing to Poseidon a paean—a kind of hymn normally sung for Apollo. Like Dionysus, who inflamed the maenads, Poseidon also caused certain forms of mental disturbance. A Hippocratic text of ca 400 BC, On the Sacred Disease[39] says that he was blamed for certain types of epilepsy.
+
+Poseidon is still worshipped today in modern Hellenic religion, among other Greek gods. The worship of Greek gods is recognized by the Greek government since 2017.[40][41]
+
+Common epithets (or adjectives) applied to Poseidon are Enosichthon (Ἐνοσίχθων) "Earth Shaker" or "earth-shaking" and Ennosigaios (Ἐννοσίγαιος), used by Homer in the Iliad and by Nonnus in Dionysiaca.[a][42][43] 
+Of the two phrases, Enosichthon has an older evidence of use, as it is identified in Linear B, as 𐀁𐀚𐀯𐀅𐀃𐀚, E-ne-si-da-o-ne,[21]
+
+The epithets Ennosigaios (and Ennosidas),  Gaiēochos (Γαιήοχος) ,Seisichthon ,[44]  ,indicate the chthonic nature of Poseidon. In the town of Aegae in Euboea, he was known as Poseidon Aegaeus and had a magnificent temple upon a hill,[45][46][47] Epithets like Pelagikos (Πελάγίκος) "belonging to the sea" ,Thukios (θύκιος) "full of seaweed" etc., indicate that Poseidon was regarded as holding sway over land as well as the sea.[43]
+
+Poseidon also had a close association with horses, known under the epithet  Hippios(ἲππειος), usually in Arcadia. He is more often regarded as the tamer of horses, but in some myths he is their father, either by spilling his seed upon a rock or by mating with a creature who then gave birth to the first horse.[2] He was closely related with the springs, and with the strike of his trident, he created springs. Many springs like Hippocrene and Aganippe in Helikon are related with the word horse (hippos). (also Glukippe, Hyperippe).[48]
+
+Some other epithets of Poseidon are:[49]
+
+Poseidon was the second son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. In most accounts he is swallowed by Cronus at birth and is later saved, along with his other brothers and sisters, by Zeus.
+
+However, in some versions of the story, he, like his brother Zeus, did not share the fate of his other brother and sisters who were eaten by Cronus. He was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which she gave to Cronus to devour.[52]
+
+According to John Tzetzes[53] the kourotrophos, or nurse of Poseidon was Arne, who denied knowing where he was, when Cronus came searching; according to Diodorus Siculus[54] Poseidon was raised by the Telchines on Rhodes, just as Zeus was raised by the Korybantes on Crete.
+
+According to a single reference in the Iliad, when the world was divided by lot in three, Zeus received the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea.[55]
+
+In Homer's Odyssey (Book V, ln. 398), Poseidon has a home in Aegae.
+
+Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon. Yet Poseidon remained a numinous presence on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus.[2] At the dissolution festival at the end of the year in the Athenian calendar, the Skira, the priests of Athena and the priest of Poseidon would process under canopies to Eleusis.[56] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and the Athenians would choose whichever gift they preferred. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a spring sprang up; the water was salty and not very useful,[57] whereas Athena offered them an olive tree.
+
+The Athenians or their king, Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and along with it Athena as their patron, for the olive tree brought wood, oil and food. After the fight, infuriated at his loss, Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. The depression made by Poseidon's trident and filled with salt water was surrounded by the northern hall of the Erechtheum, remaining open to the air. "In cult, Poseidon was identified with Erechtheus," Walter Burkert noted; "the myth turns this into a temporal-causal sequence: in his anger at losing, Poseidon led his son Eumolpus against Athens and killed Erectheus."[58]
+
+The contest of Athena and Poseidon was the subject of the reliefs on the western pediment of the Parthenon, the first sight that greeted the arriving visitor.
+
+This myth is construed by Robert Graves and others as reflecting a clash between the inhabitants during Mycenaean times and newer immigrants. Athens at its height was a significant sea power, at one point defeating the Persian fleet at Salamis Island in a sea battle.
+
+Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus by their rebellion in Hera's scheme, were temporarily stripped of their divine authority and sent to serve King Laomedon of Troy. He had them build huge walls around the city and promised to reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy. The monster was later killed by Heracles.
+
+Poseidon was said to have had many lovers of both sexes (see expandable list below). His consort was Amphitrite, a nymph and ancient sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus and Doris. Together they had a son named Triton, a merman.
+
+Poseidon was the father of many heroes. He is thought to have fathered the famed Theseus.
+
+A mortal woman named Tyro was married to Cretheus (with whom she had one son, Aeson), but loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus, and from their union were born the heroes Pelias and Neleus, twin boys. Poseidon also had an affair with Alope, his granddaughter through Cercyon, his son and King of Eleusis, begetting the Attic hero Hippothoon. Cercyon had his daughter buried alive but Poseidon turned her into the spring, Alope, near Eleusis.
+
+Poseidon rescued Amymone from a lecherous satyr and then fathered a child, Nauplius, by her.
+
+After having raped Caeneus, Poseidon fulfilled her request and changed her into a male warrior.
+
+A mortal woman named Cleito once lived on an isolated island; Poseidon fell in love with the human mortal and created a dwelling sanctuary at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her. She gave birth to five sets of twin boys; the firstborn, Atlas, became the first ruler of Atlantis.[6][7][8]
+
+Not all of Poseidon's children were human. In an archaic myth, Poseidon once pursued Demeter. She spurned his advances, turning herself into a mare so that she could hide in a herd of horses; he saw through the deception and became a stallion and captured her. Their child was a horse, Arion, which was capable of human speech. Poseidon also raped Medusa on the floor of a temple to Athena.[59][60] Medusa was then changed into a monster by Athena.[61][60] When she was later beheaded by the hero Perseus, Chrysaor and Pegasus emerged from her neck.
+
+His other children include Polyphemus (the Cyclops) and, finally, Alebion and Bergion and Otos and Ephialtae (the giants).[59]
+
+(another one)
+
+Male lovers
+
+In Greek art, Poseidon rides a chariot that was pulled by a hippocampus or by horses that could ride on the sea. He was associated with dolphins and three-pronged fish spears (tridents). He lived in a palace on the ocean floor, made of coral and gems.
+
+In the Iliad Poseidon favors the Greeks, and on several occasion takes an active part in the battle against the Trojan forces. However, in Book XX he rescues Aeneas after the Trojan prince is laid low by Achilles.
+
+In the Odyssey, Poseidon is notable for his hatred of Odysseus who blinded the god's son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. The enmity of Poseidon prevents Odysseus's return home to Ithaca for many years. Odysseus is even told, notwithstanding his ultimate safe return, that to placate the wrath of Poseidon will require one more voyage on his part.
+
+In the Aeneid, Neptune is still resentful of the wandering Trojans, but is not as vindictive as Juno, and in Book I he rescues the Trojan fleet from the goddess's attempts to wreck it, although his primary motivation for doing this is his annoyance at Juno's having intruded into his domain.
+
+A hymn to Poseidon included among the Homeric Hymns is a brief invocation, a seven-line introduction that addresses the god as both "mover of the earth and barren sea, god of the deep who is also lord of Helicon and wide Aegae,[107] and specifies his twofold nature as an Olympian: "a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships."
+
+Poseidon appears in Percy Jackson and the Olympians as the father of Percy Jackson and Tyson the Cyclops. He also appears in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time as the guest star of the second half of season four played by Ernie Hudson.[108] In this version, Poseidon is portrayed as the father of the Sea Witch Ursula.
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Bibliography of reconstruction:
+
+Poseidon holding a trident. Corinthian plaque, 550-525 BC. From Penteskouphia.
+
+Poseidon on an Attic kalyx krater (detail), first half of the 5th century BC.
+
+Triumph of Poseidon and Amphitrite showing the couple in procession, detail of a vast mosaic from Cirta, Roman Africa (ca. 315–325 AD, now at the Louvre)
+
+Poseidon and Athena battle for control of Athens by Benvenuto Tisi(1512)
+
+Poseidon statue in Gothenburg, Sweden.
+
+Poseidon statue in Prešov, Slovakia
+
+Poseidon statue in Bristol, England.
+
+The Neptunbrunnen fountain in Berlin
+
+Poseidon sculpture in Copenhagen, Denmark

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+A postscript (P.S.) is an afterthought, thought that's occurring after the letter has been written and signed.[1] The term comes from the Latin post scriptum, an expression meaning "written after"[2][3] (which may be interpreted in the sense of "that which comes after the writing").[4]
+
+A postscript may be a sentence, a paragraph, or occasionally many paragraphs added, often hastily and incidentally, after the signature of a letter or (sometimes) the main body of an essay or book. In a book or essay, a more carefully composed addition (e.g., for a second edition) is called an afterword. The word "postscript" has, poetically, been used to refer to any sort of addendum to some main work, even if it is not attached to a main work, as in Søren Kierkegaard's book titled Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
+
+Sometimes, when additional points are made after the first postscript, abbreviations such as PSS (post-super-scriptum), PPS (postquam-post-scriptum or post-post-scriptum) and PPPS (post-post-post-scriptum), and so on, ad infinitum are used, though only PPS has somewhat common usage.

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+
+
+
+
+Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth. Soups are similar to stews, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two; however, soups generally have more liquid (broth) than stews.[1]
+
+In traditional French cuisine, soups are classified into two main groups: clear soups and thick soups. The established French classifications of clear soups are bouillon and consommé. Thick soups are classified depending upon the type of thickening agent used: purées are vegetable soups thickened with starch; bisques are made from puréed shellfish or vegetables thickened with cream; cream soups may be thickened with béchamel sauce; and veloutés are thickened with eggs, butter, and cream. Other ingredients commonly used to thicken soups and broths include egg,[2] rice, lentils, flour, and grains; many popular soups also include pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, pig's trotters and bird's nests.
+
+Other types of soup include fruit soups, dessert soups, pulse soups like split pea, cold soups and other styles.
+
+Evidence of the existence of soup can be found as far back as about 20,000 BC.[3] Boiling was not a common cooking technique until the invention of waterproof containers (which probably came in the form of clay vessels). Animal hides and watertight baskets of bark or reeds were used before this. To boil the water hot rocks were used. This method was also used to cook acorns and other plants.
+
+The word soup comes from French soupe ("soup", "broth"), which comes through Vulgar Latin suppa ("bread soaked in broth") from a Germanic source, from which also comes the word "sop", a piece of bread used to soak up soup or a thick stew.
+
+The word restaurant (meaning "[something] restoring") was first used in France in the 16th century, to refer to a highly concentrated, inexpensive soup, sold by street vendors, that was advertised as an antidote to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur opened a shop specializing in such soups. This prompted the use of the modern word restaurant for the eating establishments.
+
+In the US, the first colonial cookbook was published by William Parks in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1742, based on Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife; or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion, and it included several recipes for soups and bisques. A 1772 cookbook, The Frugal Housewife, contained an entire chapter on the topic. English cooking dominated early colonial cooking; but as new immigrants arrived from other countries, other national soups gained popularity. In particular, German immigrants living in Pennsylvania were famous for their potato soups. In 1794, Jean Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien, a refugee from the French Revolution, opened an eating establishment in Boston called "The Restorator", and became known as the "Prince of Soups". The first American cooking pamphlet dedicated to soup recipes was written in 1882 by Emma Ewing: Soups and Soup Making.
+
+Portable soup was devised in the 18th century by boiling seasoned meat until a thick, resinous syrup was left that could be dried and stored for months at a time.
+
+Commercial soup became popular with the invention of canning in the 19th century, and today a great variety of canned and dried soups are on the market.
+
+Canned soup can be condensed, in which case it is prepared by adding water (or sometimes milk) or it can be "ready-to-eat", meaning that no additional liquid is needed before eating. Condensed soup (invented in 1897 by John T. Dorrance, a chemist with the Campbell Soup Company[4][5]) allows soup to be packaged into a smaller can and sold at a lower price than other canned soups. The soup is usually doubled in volume by adding a "can full" of water or milk, about 10 US fluid ounces (300 ml). The "ready-to-eat" variant can be prepared by simply heating the contents of the can on a kitchen stove or in a microwave oven, rather than actually cooking anything. Such soups can be used as a base for homemade soups, with the consumer adding anything from a few vegetables to eggs, meat, cream or pasta.
+
+Since the 1990s, the canned soup market has burgeoned, with non-condensed soups marketed as "ready-to-eat", so they require no additional liquid to prepare.[citation needed] Microwaveable bowls have expanded the "ready-to-eat" canned soup market even more, offering convenience (especially in workplaces), and making for popular lunch items. In response to concerns over the negative health effects of excessive salt intake, some soup manufacturers have introduced reduced-salt versions of popular soups.[6]
+
+Today, Campbell's Tomato (introduced in 1897), Cream of Mushroom, and Chicken Noodle (introduced in 1934) are three of the most popular soups in America. Americans consume approximately 2.5 billion bowls of these three soups alone each year.[4] Other popular brands of soup include Progresso.
+
+Dry soup mixes are sold by many manufacturers, and are reconstituted with hot water; other fresh ingredients may then be added.
+
+The first dried soup was bouillon cubes; the earlier meat extract did not require refrigeration, but was a viscous liquid.
+
+East Asian-style instant noodle soups include ramen and seasonings, and are marketed as a convenient and inexpensive instant meal, requiring only hot water for preparation.[7]
+
+Western-style dried soups include vegetable, chicken base, potato, pasta and cheese flavors.
+
+In French cuisine, soup is often served before other dishes in a meal. In 1970, Richard Olney gave the place of the entrée in a French full menu: "A dinner that begins with a soup and runs through a fish course, an entrée, a sorbet, a roast, salad, cheese and dessert, and that may be accompanied by from three to six wines, presents a special problem of orchestration".[8]
+
+Fruit soups are prepared using fruit as a primary ingredient, and may be served warm or cold depending on the recipe. Many varieties of fruit soups exist, and they may be prepared based upon the availability of seasonal fruit.
+
+Cold soups are a particular variation on the traditional soup, wherein the temperature when served is kept at or below room temperature. They may be sweet or savory. In summer, sweet cold soups can form part of a dessert tray. An example of a savory chilled soup is gazpacho, a chilled vegetable-based soup originating from Spain.[9] Vichyssoise is a cold purée of potatoes, leeks, and cream.
+
+A feature of East Asian soups not normally found in Western cuisine is the use of tofu in soups. Many traditional East Asian soups are typically broths, "clear soups", or starch thickened soups.
+
+In the English language, the word soup has developed several uses in phrase.
+
+Tom yum
+
+Seafood chowder
+
+Borscht
+
+Vegetable beef barley soup
+
+Chicken pasta soup
+
+Chunky tomato soup
+
+A thick pea soup garnished with a tortilla accent
+
+Cream of asparagus soup
+
+Cheese soup

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+
+
+
+
+Potassium is a chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin kalium) and atomic number 19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force.[5] Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to form flaky white potassium peroxide in only seconds of exposure. It was first isolated from potash, the ashes of plants, from which its name derives. In the periodic table, potassium is one of the alkali metals, all of which have a single valence electron in the outer electron shell, that is easily removed to create an ion with a positive charge – a cation, that combines with anions to form salts. Potassium in nature occurs only in ionic salts. Elemental potassium reacts vigorously with water, generating sufficient heat to ignite hydrogen emitted in the reaction, and burning with a lilac-colored flame. It is found dissolved in sea water (which is 0.04% potassium by weight[6][7]), and occurs in many minerals such as orthoclase, a common constituent of granites and other igneous rocks.
+
+Potassium is chemically very similar to sodium, the previous element in group 1 of the periodic table. They have a similar first ionization energy, which allows for each atom to give up its sole outer electron. It was suspected in 1702 that they were distinct elements that combine with the same anions to make similar salts,[8] and was proven in 1807 using electrolysis. Naturally occurring potassium is composed of three isotopes, of which 40K is radioactive. Traces of 40K are found in all potassium, and it is the most common radioisotope in the human body.
+
+Potassium ions are vital for the functioning of all living cells. The transfer of potassium ions across nerve cell membranes is necessary for normal nerve transmission; potassium deficiency and excess can each result in numerous signs and symptoms, including an abnormal heart rhythm and various electrocardiographic abnormalities. Fresh fruits and vegetables are good dietary sources of potassium. The body responds to the influx of dietary potassium, which raises serum potassium levels, with a shift of potassium from outside to inside cells and an increase in potassium excretion by the kidneys.
+
+Most industrial applications of potassium exploit the high solubility in water of potassium compounds, such as potassium soaps. Heavy crop production rapidly depletes the soil of potassium, and this can be remedied with agricultural fertilizers containing potassium, accounting for 95% of global potassium chemical production.[9]
+
+The English name for the element potassium comes from the word "potash",[10] which refers to an early method of extracting various potassium salts: placing in a pot the ash of burnt wood or tree leaves, adding water, heating, and evaporating the solution. When Humphry Davy first isolated the pure element using electrolysis in 1807, he named it potassium, which he derived from the word potash.
+
+The symbol "K" stems from kali, itself from the root word alkali, which in turn comes from Arabic: القَلْيَه‎ al-qalyah "plant ashes". In 1797, the German chemist Martin Klaproth discovered "potash" in the minerals leucite and lepidolite, and realized that "potash" was not a product of plant growth but actually contained a new element, which he proposed to call kali.[11] In 1807, Humphry Davy produced the element via electrolysis: in 1809, Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert proposed the name Kalium for Davy's "potassium".[12] In 1814, the Swedish chemist Berzelius advocated the name kalium for potassium, with the chemical symbol "K".[13]
+
+The English and French speaking countries adopted Davy and Gay-Lussac/Thénard's name Potassium, while the Germanic countries adopted Gilbert/Klaproth's name Kalium.[14] The "Gold Book" of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has designated the official chemical symbol as K.[15]
+
+Potassium is the second least dense metal after lithium. It is a soft solid with a low melting point, and can be easily cut with a knife. Freshly cut potassium is silvery in appearance, but it begins to tarnish toward gray immediately on exposure to air.[16] In a flame test, potassium and its compounds emit a lilac color with a peak emission wavelength of 766.5 nanometers.[17]
+
+Neutral potassium atoms have 19 electrons, one more than the configuration of the noble gas argon. Because of its low first ionization energy of 418.8 kJ/mol, the potassium atom is much more likely to lose the last electron and acquire a positive charge, although negatively charged alkalide K− ions are not impossible).[18] In contrast, the second ionization energy is very high (3052 kJ/mol).
+
+Potassium reacts with oxygen, water, and carbon dioxide components in air. With oxygen it forms potassium peroxide. With water potassium forms potassium hydroxide. The reaction of potassium with water can be violently exothermic, especially since the coproduced hydrogen gas can ignite. Because of this, potassium and the liquid sodium-potassium (NaK) alloy are potent desiccants, although they are no longer used as such.[19]
+
+Three oxides of potassium are well studied: potassium oxide (K2O), potassium peroxide (K2O2), and potassium superoxide (KO2).[20] The binary potassium-oxygen binary compounds react with water forming potassium hydroxide.
+
+Potassium hydroxide (KOH) is a strong base.  Illustrating its hydrophilic character, as much as 1.21 kg of KOH can dissolve in a single liter of water.[21][22] Anhydrous KOH is rarely encountered. KOH reacts readily with carbon dioxide to produce potassium carbonate and in principle could be used to remove traces of the gas from air.  Like the closely related sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide reacts with fats to produce soaps.
+
+In general, potassium compounds are ionic and, owing to the high hydration energy of the K+ ion, have excellent water solubility. The main species in water solution are the aquated complexes [K(H2O)n]+ where n = 6 and 7.[23] Potassium heptafluorotantalate is an intermediate in the purification of tantalum from the otherwise persistent contaminant of niobium.[24]
+
+Organopotassium compounds illustrate nonionic compounds of potassium.  They feature highly polar covalent K---C bonds.  Examples include benzyl potassium.  Potassium intercalates into graphite to give a variety of compounds, including KC8.
+
+There are 25 known isotopes of potassium, three of which occur naturally: 39K (93.3%), 40K (0.0117%), and 41K (6.7%). Naturally occurring 40K has a half-life of 1.250×109 years. It decays to stable 40Ar by electron capture or positron emission (11.2%) or to stable 40Ca by beta decay (88.8%).[25] The decay of 40K to 40Ar is the basis of a common method for dating rocks. The conventional K-Ar dating method depends on the assumption that the rocks contained no argon at the time of formation and that all the subsequent radiogenic argon (40Ar) was quantitatively retained. Minerals are dated by measurement of the concentration of potassium and the amount of radiogenic 40Ar that has accumulated. The minerals best suited for dating include biotite, muscovite, metamorphic hornblende, and volcanic feldspar; whole rock samples from volcanic flows and shallow instrusives can also be dated if they are unaltered.[25][26] Apart from dating, potassium isotopes have been used as tracers in studies of weathering and for nutrient cycling studies because potassium is a macronutrient required for life.[27]
+
+40K occurs in natural potassium (and thus in some commercial salt substitutes) in sufficient quantity that large bags of those substitutes can be used as a radioactive source for classroom demonstrations. 40K is the radioisotope with the largest abundance in the body. In healthy animals and people, 40K represents the largest source of radioactivity, greater even than 14C. In a human body of 70 kg mass, about 4,400 nuclei of 40K decay per second.[28] The activity of natural potassium is 31 Bq/g.[29]
+
+Potassium is formed in supernovae by nucleosynthesis from lighter atoms. Potassium is principally created in Type II supernovae via an explosive oxygen-burning process.[30] 40K is also formed in s-process nucleosynthesis and the neon burning process.[31]
+
+Potassium is the 20th most abundant element in the solar system and the 17th most abundant element by weight in the Earth. It makes up about 2.6% of the weight of the earth's crust and is the seventh most abundant element in the crust.[32] The potassium concentration in seawater is 0.39 g/L[6] (0.039 wt/v%), about one twenty-seventh the concentration of sodium.[33][34]
+
+Potash is primarily a mixture of potassium salts because plants have little or no sodium content, and the rest of a plant's major mineral content consists of calcium salts of relatively low solubility in water. While potash has been used since ancient times, its composition was not understood. Georg Ernst Stahl obtained experimental evidence that led him to suggest the fundamental difference of sodium and potassium salts in 1702,[8] and Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau was able to prove this difference in 1736.[35] The exact chemical composition of potassium and sodium compounds, and the status as chemical element of potassium and sodium, was not known then, and thus Antoine Lavoisier did not include the alkali in his list of chemical elements in 1789.[36][37] For a long time the only significant applications for potash were the production of glass, bleach, soap and gunpowder as potassium nitrate.[38] Potassium soaps from animal fats and vegetable oils were especially prized because they tend to be more water-soluble and of softer texture, and are therefore known as soft soaps.[9] The discovery by Justus Liebig in 1840 that potassium is a necessary element for plants and that most types of soil lack potassium[39] caused a steep rise in demand for potassium salts. Wood-ash from fir trees was initially used as a potassium salt source for fertilizer, but, with the discovery in 1868 of mineral deposits containing potassium chloride near Staßfurt, Germany, the production of potassium-containing fertilizers began at an industrial scale.[40][41][42] Other potash deposits were discovered, and by the 1960s Canada became the dominant producer.[43][44]
+
+Potassium metal was first isolated in 1807 by Humphry Davy, who derived it by electrolysis of molten KOH with the newly discovered voltaic pile. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis.[45] Later in the same year, Davy reported extraction of the metal sodium from a mineral derivative (caustic soda, NaOH, or lye) rather than a plant salt, by a similar technique, demonstrating that the elements, and thus the salts, are different.[36][37][46][47] Although the production of potassium and sodium metal should have shown that both are elements, it took some time before this view was universally accepted.[37]
+
+Because of the sensitivity of potassium to water and air, air-free techniques are normally employed for handling the element. It is unreactive toward nitrogen and saturated hydrocarbons such as mineral oil or kerosene.[48] It readily dissolves in liquid ammonia, up to 480 g per 1000 g of ammonia at 0 °C. Depending on the concentration, the ammonia solutions are blue to yellow, and their electrical conductivity is similar to that of liquid metals. Potassium slowly reacts with ammonia to form KNH2, but this reaction is accelerated by minute amounts of transition metal salts.[49] Because it can reduce the salts to the metal, potassium is often used as the reductant in the preparation of finely divided metals from their salts by the Rieke method.[50] Illustrative is the preparation of magnesium:
+
+Elemental potassium does not occur in nature because of its high reactivity. It reacts violently with water (see section Precautions below)[48] and also reacts with oxygen. Orthoclase (potassium feldspar) is a common rock-forming mineral. Granite for example contains 5% potassium, which is well above the average in the Earth's crust. Sylvite (KCl), carnallite (KCl·MgCl2·6(H2O)), kainite (MgSO4·KCl·3H2O) and langbeinite (MgSO4·K2SO4) are the minerals found in large evaporite deposits worldwide. The deposits often show layers starting with the least soluble at the bottom and the most soluble on top.[34] Deposits of niter (potassium nitrate) are formed by decomposition of organic material in contact with atmosphere, mostly in caves; because of the good water solubility of niter the formation of larger deposits requires special environmental conditions.[51]
+
+Potassium is the eighth or ninth most common element by mass (0.2%) in the human body, so that a 60 kg adult contains a total of about 120 g of potassium.[52] The body has about as much potassium as sulfur and chlorine, and only calcium and phosphorus are more abundant (with the exception of the ubiquitous CHON elements).[53] Potassium ions are present in a wide variety of proteins and enzymes.[54]
+
+Potassium levels influence multiple physiological processes, including[55][56][57]
+
+Potassium homeostasis denotes the maintenance of the total body potassium content, plasma potassium level, and the ratio of the intracellular to extracellular potassium concentrations within narrow limits, in the face of pulsatile intake (meals), obligatory renal excretion, and shifts between intracellular and extracellular compartments.
+
+Plasma potassium is normally kept at 3.5 to 5.0 millimoles (mmol) [or milliequivalents (mEq)] per liter by multiple mechanisms. Levels outside this range are associated with an increasing rate of death from multiple causes,[59] and some cardiac, kidney,[60] and lung diseases progress more rapidly if serum potassium levels are not maintained within the normal range.
+
+An average meal of 40–50 mmol presents the body with more potassium than is present in all plasma (20–25 mmol). However, this surge causes the plasma potassium to rise only 10% at most as a result of prompt and efficient clearance by both renal and extra-renal mechanisms.[61]
+
+Hypokalemia, a deficiency of potassium in the plasma, can be fatal if severe. Common causes are increased gastrointestinal  loss (vomiting, diarrhea), and increased renal loss (diuresis).[62] Deficiency symptoms include muscle weakness, paralytic ileus, ECG abnormalities, decreased reflex response; and in severe cases, respiratory paralysis, alkalosis, and cardiac arrhythmia.[63]
+
+Potassium content in the plasma is tightly controlled by four basic mechanisms, which have various names and classifications. The four are 1) a reactive negative-feedback system, 2) a reactive feed-forward system, 3) a predictive or circadian system, and 4) an internal or cell membrane transport system. Collectively, the first three are sometimes termed the "external potassium homeostasis system";[64] and the first two, the "reactive potassium homeostasis system".
+
+Renal handling of potassium is closely connected to sodium handling. Potassium is the major cation (positive ion) inside animal cells [150 mmol/L, (4.8 g)], while sodium is the major cation of extracellular fluid [150 mmol/L, (3.345 g)]. In the kidneys, about 180 liters of plasma is filtered through the glomeruli and into the renal tubules per day.[67] This filtering involves about 600 g of sodium and 33 g of potassium. Since only 1–10 g of sodium and 1–4 g of potassium are likely to be replaced by diet, renal filtering must efficiently reabsorb the remainder from the plasma.
+
+Sodium is reabsorbed to maintain extracellular volume, osmotic pressure, and serum sodium concentration within narrow limits. Potassium is reabsorbed to maintain serum potassium concentration within narrow limits.[68] Sodium pumps in the renal tubules operate to reabsorb sodium. Potassium must be conserved, but because the amount of potassium in the blood plasma is very small and the pool of potassium in the cells is about 30 times as large, the situation is not so critical for potassium. Since potassium is moved passively[69][70] in counter flow to sodium in response to an apparent (but not actual) Donnan equilibrium,[71] the urine can never sink below the concentration of potassium in serum except sometimes by actively excreting water at the end of the processing. Potassium is excreted twice and reabsorbed three times before the urine reaches the collecting tubules.[72] At that point, urine usually has about the same potassium concentration as plasma. At the end of the processing, potassium is secreted one more time if the serum levels are too high.[citation needed]
+
+With no potassium intake, it is excreted at about 200 mg per day until, in about a week, potassium in the serum declines to a mildly deficient level of 3.0–3.5 mmol/L.[73] If potassium is still withheld, the concentration continues to fall until a severe deficiency causes eventual death.[74]
+
+The potassium moves passively through pores in the cell membrane. When ions move through Ion transporters (pumps) there is a gate in the pumps on both sides of the cell membrane and only one gate can be open at once. As a result, approximately 100 ions are forced through per second. Ion channel have only one gate, and there only one kind of ion can stream through, at 10 million to 100 million ions per second.[75] Calcium is required to open the pores,[76] although calcium may work in reverse by blocking at least one of the pores.[77] Carbonyl groups inside the pore on the amino acids mimic the water hydration that takes place in water solution[78] by the nature of the electrostatic charges on four carbonyl groups inside the pore.[79]
+
+The U.S. National Academy of Medicine (NAM), on behalf of both the U.S. and Canada, sets Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) and Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs), or Adequate Intakes (AIs) for when there is not sufficient information to set EARs and RDAs. Collectively the EARs, RDAs, AIs and ULs are referred to as Dietary Reference Intakes.
+
+For both males and females under 9 years of age, the AIs for potassium are: 400 mg of potassium for 0-6-month-old infants, 860 mg of potassium for 7-12-month-old infants, 2,000 mg of potassium for 1-3-year-old children, and 2,300 mg of potassium for 4-8-year-old children.
+
+For males 9 years of age and older, the AIs for potassium are: 2,500 mg of potassium for 9-13-year-old males, 3,000 mg of potassium for 14-18-year-old males, and 3,400 mg for males that are 19 years of age and older.
+
+For females 9 years of age and older, the AIs for potassium are: 2,300 mg of potassium for 9-18-year-old females, and 2,600 mg of potassium for females that are 19 years of age and older.
+
+For pregnant and lactating females, the AIs for potassium are: 2,600 mg of potassium for 14-18-year-old pregnant females, 2,900 mg for pregnant females that are 19 years of age and older; furthermore, 2,500 mg of potassium for 14-18-year-old lactating females, and 2,800 mg for lactating females that are 19 years of age and older. As for safety, the NAM also sets tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) for vitamins and minerals, but for potassium the evidence was insufficient, so no UL was established.[80][81]
+
+As of 2004, most Americans adults consume less than 3,000 mg.[82]
+
+Likewise, in the European Union, in particular in Germany and Italy, insufficient potassium intake is somewhat common.[83] The British National Health Service recommends a similar intake, saying that adults need 3,500 mg per day and that excess amounts may cause health problems such as stomach pain and diarrhoea.[84]
+
+Previously the Adequate Intake for adults was set at 4,700 mg per day. In 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine revised the AI for potassium to 2,600 mg/day for females 19 years and older and 3,400 mg/day for males 19 years and older.[85]
+
+Potassium is present in all fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. Foods with high potassium concentrations include yam, parsley, dried apricots, milk, chocolate, all nuts (especially almonds and pistachios), potatoes, bamboo shoots, bananas, avocados, coconut water, soybeans, and bran.[86]
+
+The USDA lists tomato paste, orange juice, beet greens, white beans, potatoes, plantains, bananas, apricots, and many other dietary sources of potassium, ranked in descending order according to potassium content. A day's worth of potassium is in 5 plantains or 11 bananas.[87]
+
+Diets low in potassium can lead to hypertension[88] and hypokalemia.
+
+Supplements of potassium are most widely used in conjunction with diuretics that block reabsorption of sodium and water upstream from the distal tubule (thiazides and loop diuretics), because this promotes increased distal tubular potassium secretion, with resultant increased potassium excretion. A variety of prescription and over-the counter supplements are available. Potassium chloride may be dissolved in water, but the salty/bitter taste make liquid supplements unpalatable.[89] Typical doses range from 10 mmol (400 mg), to 20 mmol (800 mg). Potassium is also available in tablets or capsules, which are formulated to allow potassium to leach slowly out of a matrix, since very high concentrations of potassium ion that occur adjacent to a solid tablet can injure the gastric or intestinal mucosa. For this reason, non-prescription potassium pills are limited by law in the US to a maximum of 99 mg of potassium.[citation needed]
+
+Since the kidneys are the site of potassium excretion, individuals with impaired kidney function are at risk for hyperkalemia if dietary potassium and supplements are not restricted. The more severe the impairment, the more severe is the restriction necessary to avoid hyperkalemia.[citation needed]
+
+A meta-analysis concluded that a 1640 mg increase in the daily intake of potassium was associated with a 21% lower risk of stroke.[90] Potassium chloride and potassium bicarbonate may be useful to control mild hypertension.[91] In 2017, potassium was the 37th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 19 million prescriptions.[92][93]
+
+Potassium can be detected by taste because it triggers three of the five types of taste sensations, according to concentration. Dilute solutions of potassium ions taste sweet, allowing moderate concentrations in milk and juices, while higher concentrations become increasingly bitter/alkaline, and finally also salty to the taste. The combined bitterness and saltiness of high-potassium solutions makes high-dose potassium supplementation by liquid drinks a palatability challenge.[89][94]
+
+Potassium salts such as carnallite, langbeinite, polyhalite, and sylvite form extensive evaporite deposits in ancient lake bottoms and seabeds,[33] making extraction of potassium salts in these environments commercially viable. The principal source of potassium – potash – is mined in Canada, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Germany, Israel, United States, Jordan, and other places around the world.[95][96][97] The first mined deposits were located near Staßfurt, Germany, but the deposits span from Great Britain over Germany into Poland. They are located in the Zechstein and were deposited in the Middle to Late Permian. The largest deposits ever found lie 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the surface of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The deposits are located in the Elk Point Group produced in the Middle Devonian. Saskatchewan, where several large mines have operated since the 1960s pioneered the technique of freezing of wet sands (the Blairmore formation) to drive mine shafts through them. The main potash mining company in Saskatchewan until its merge was the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, now Nutrien.[98] The water of the Dead Sea is used by Israel and Jordan as a source of potash, while the concentration in normal oceans is too low for commercial production at current prices.[96][97]
+
+Several methods are used to separate potassium salts from sodium and magnesium compounds. The most-used method is fractional precipitation using the solubility differences of the salts. Electrostatic separation of the ground salt mixture is also used in some mines. The resulting sodium and magnesium waste is either stored underground or piled up in slag heaps. Most of the mined potassium mineral ends up as potassium chloride after processing. The mineral industry refers to potassium chloride either as potash, muriate of potash, or simply MOP.[34]
+
+Pure potassium metal can be isolated by electrolysis of its hydroxide in a process that has changed little since it was first used by Humphry Davy in 1807. Although the electrolysis process was developed and used in industrial scale in the 1920s, the thermal method by reacting sodium with potassium chloride in a chemical equilibrium reaction became the dominant method in the 1950s.
+
+The production of sodium potassium alloys is accomplished by changing the reaction time and the amount of sodium used in the reaction. The Griesheimer process employing the reaction of potassium fluoride with calcium carbide was also used to produce potassium.[34][99]
+
+Reagent-grade potassium metal costs about $10.00/pound ($22/kg) in 2010 when purchased by the tonne. Lower purity metal is considerably cheaper. The market is volatile because long-term storage of the metal is difficult. It must be stored in a dry inert gas atmosphere or anhydrous mineral oil to prevent the formation of a surface layer of potassium superoxide, a pressure-sensitive explosive that detonates when scratched. The resulting explosion often starts a fire difficult to extinguish.[100][101]
+
+Potassium is now quantified by ionization techniques, but at one time it was quantitated by gravimetric analysis.
+
+Reagents used to precipitate potassium salts include sodium tetraphenylborate, hexachloroplatinic acid, and sodium cobaltinitrite into respectively potassium tetraphenylborate, potassium hexachloroplatinate, and potassium cobaltinitrite.[48]  
+The reaction with sodium cobaltinitrite is illustrative:
+
+The potassium cobaltinitrite is obtained as a yellow solid.
+
+Potassium ions are an essential component of plant nutrition and are found in most soil types.[9] They are used as a fertilizer in agriculture, horticulture, and hydroponic culture in the form of chloride (KCl), sulfate (K2SO4), or nitrate (KNO3), representing the 'K' in 'NPK'. Agricultural fertilizers consume 95% of global potassium chemical production, and about 90% of this potassium is supplied as KCl.[9] The potassium content of most plants ranges from 0.5% to 2% of the harvested weight of crops, conventionally expressed as amount of K2O. Modern high-yield agriculture depends upon fertilizers to replace the potassium lost at harvest. Most agricultural fertilizers contain potassium chloride, while potassium sulfate is used for chloride-sensitive crops or crops needing higher sulfur content. The sulfate is produced mostly by decomposition of the complex minerals kainite (MgSO4·KCl·3H2O) and langbeinite (MgSO4·K2SO4). Only a very few fertilizers contain potassium nitrate.[102] In 2005, about 93% of world potassium production was consumed by the fertilizer industry.[97] Furthermore, potassium can play a key role in nutrient cycling by controlling litter composition.[103]
+
+Potassium, in the form of potassium chloride is used as a medication to treat and prevent low blood potassium.[104] Low blood potassium may occur due to vomiting, diarrhea, or certain medications.[105] It is given by slow injection into a vein or by mouth.[106]
+
+Potassium sodium tartrate (KNaC4H4O6, Rochelle salt) is the main constituent of baking powder; it is also used in the silvering of mirrors. Potassium bromate (KBrO3) is a strong oxidizer (E924), used to improve dough strength and rise height. Potassium bisulfite (KHSO3) is used as a food preservative, for example in wine and beer-making (but not in meats). It is also used to bleach textiles and straw, and in the tanning of leathers.[107][108]
+
+Major potassium chemicals are potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, and potassium chloride. Megatons of these compounds are produced annually.[109]
+
+Potassium hydroxide KOH is a strong base, which is used in industry to neutralize strong and weak acids, to control pH and to manufacture potassium salts. It is also used to saponify fats and oils, in industrial cleaners, and in hydrolysis reactions, for example of esters.[110][111]
+
+Potassium nitrate (KNO3) or saltpeter is obtained from natural sources such as guano and evaporites or manufactured via the Haber process; it is the oxidant in gunpowder (black powder) and an important agricultural fertilizer. Potassium cyanide (KCN) is used industrially to dissolve copper and precious metals, in particular silver and gold, by forming complexes. Its applications include gold mining, electroplating, and electroforming of these metals; it is also used in organic synthesis to make nitriles. Potassium carbonate (K2CO3 or potash) is used in the manufacture of glass, soap, color TV tubes, fluorescent lamps, textile dyes and pigments.[112] Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) is an oxidizing, bleaching and purification substance and is used for production of saccharin. Potassium chlorate (KClO3) is added to matches and explosives. Potassium bromide (KBr) was formerly used as a sedative and in photography.[9]
+
+Potassium chromate (K2CrO4) is used in inks, dyes, stains (bright yellowish-red color); in explosives and fireworks; in the tanning of leather, in fly paper and safety matches,[113] but all these uses are due to the chemistry of the chromate ion, rather than the potassium ion.[114]
+
+There are thousands of uses of various potassium compounds. One example is potassium superoxide, KO2, an orange solid that acts as a portable source of oxygen and a carbon dioxide absorber. It is widely used in respiration systems in mines, submarines and spacecraft as it takes less volume than the gaseous oxygen.[115][116]
+
+Another example is potassium cobaltinitrite, K3[Co(NO2)6], which is used as artist's pigment under the name of Aureolin or Cobalt Yellow.[117]
+
+The stable isotopes of potassium can be laser cooled and used to probe fundamental and technological problems in quantum physics. The two bosonic isotopes possess convenient Feshbach resonances to enable studies requiring tunable interactions, while 40K is one of only two stable fermions amongst the alkali metals.[118]
+
+An alloy of sodium and potassium, NaK is a liquid used as a heat-transfer medium and a desiccant for producing dry and air-free solvents. It can also be used in reactive distillation.[119] The ternary alloy of 12% Na, 47% K and 41% Cs has the lowest melting point of −78 °C of any metallic compound.[16]
+
+Metallic potassium is used in several types of magnetometers.[120]
+
+Potassium metal can react violently with water producing potassium hydroxide (KOH) and hydrogen gas.
+
+This reaction is exothermic and releases sufficient heat to ignite the resulting hydrogen in the presence of oxygen.  Finely powdered potassium ignites in air at room temperature. The bulk metal ignites in air if heated. Because its density is 0.89 g/cm3, burning potassium floats in water that exposes it to atmospheric oxygen. Many common fire extinguishing agents, including water, either are ineffective or make a potassium fire worse. Nitrogen, argon, sodium chloride (table salt), sodium carbonate (soda ash), and silicon dioxide (sand) are effective if they are dry. Some Class D dry powder extinguishers designed for metal fires are also effective. These agents deprive the fire of oxygen and cool the potassium metal.[122]
+
+During storage, potassium forms peroxides and superoxides. These peroxides may react violently with organic compounds such as oils. Both peroxides and superoxides may react explosively with metallic potassium.[123]
+
+Because potassium reacts with water vapor in the air, it is usually stored under anhydrous mineral oil or kerosene. Unlike lithium and sodium, however, potassium should not be stored under oil for longer than six months, unless in an inert (oxygen free) atmosphere, or under vacuum. After prolonged storage in air dangerous shock-sensitive peroxides can form on the metal and under the lid of the container, and can detonate upon opening.[124]
+
+Ingestion of large amounts of potassium compounds can lead to hyperkalemia, strongly influencing the cardiovascular system.[125][126] Potassium chloride is used in the United States for lethal injection executions.[125]
+

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+
+
+A car (or automobile) is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transportation.  Most definitions of cars say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four tires, and mainly transport people rather than goods.[2][3]
+
+Cars came into global use during the 20th century, and developed economies depend on them. The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car when German inventor Karl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars became widely available in the early 20th century. One of the first cars accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, but took much longer to be accepted in Western Europe and other parts of the world.[citation needed]
+
+Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex, but also more reliable and easier to operate.[citation needed] These include rear-reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, became commercially available in the 2000s and are predicted to cost less to buy than gasoline cars before 2025.[4][5] The transition from fossil fuels to electric cars features prominently in most climate change mitigation scenarios.[6]
+
+There are costs and benefits to car use. The costs to the individual include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments (if the car is financed), repairs and maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance.[7] The costs to society include maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, healthcare, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[8]
+
+The personal benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience.[9] The societal benefits include economic benefits, such as job and wealth creation from the automotive industry, transportation provision, societal well-being from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the taxes. People's ability to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[10] There are around 1 billion cars in use worldwide. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India and other newly industrialized countries.[11]
+
+The English word car is believed to originate from Latin carrus/carrum "wheeled vehicle" or (via Old North French) Middle English carre "two-wheeled cart," both of which in turn derive from Gaulish karros "chariot."[12][13] It originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn vehicle, such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.[14][15]
+
+"Motor car," attested from 1895, is the usual formal term in British English.[3] "Autocar," a variant likewise attested from 1895 and literally meaning "self-propelled car," is now considered archaic.[16] "Horseless carriage" is attested from 1895.[17]
+
+"Automobile," a classical compound derived from Ancient Greek autós (αὐτός) "self" and Latin mobilis "movable," entered English from French and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897.[18] It fell out of favour in Britain and is now used chiefly in North America,[19] where the abbreviated form "auto" commonly appears as an adjective in compound formations like "auto industry" and "auto mechanic".[20][21] Both forms are still used in everyday Dutch (auto/automobiel) and German (Auto/Automobil).[citation needed]
+
+The first working steam-powered vehicle was designed — and quite possibly built — by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65-cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.[9][22][23] It is not known with certainty if Verbiest's model was successfully built or run.[23]
+
+Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle or car in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.[24]  He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[25] His inventions were, however, handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.[25] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods and was of little practical use.
+
+The development of external combustion engines is detailed as part of the history of the car but often treated separately from the development of true cars.  A variety of steam-powered road vehicles were used during the first part of the 19th century, including steam cars, steam buses, phaetons, and steam rollers.  Sentiment against them led to the Locomotive Acts of 1865.
+
+In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude created what was probably the world's first internal combustion engine (which they called a Pyréolophore), but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[26] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own 'de Rivaz internal combustion engine' and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried spores of the Lycopodium plant), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[26] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by internal combustion engines.[1]
+
+In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated the first working (three-wheeled) car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[27] Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern car.[1]
+
+In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle. His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany. He was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on 29 January 1886 (under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883). Benz began promotion of the vehicle on 3 July 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a cheaper model. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz car to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early cars, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany. In August 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, undertook the first road trip by car, to prove the road-worthiness of her husband's invention.
+
+In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor. During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest car company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint-stock company. The first motor car in central Europe and one of the first factory-made cars in the world, was produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897, the Präsident automobil.
+
+Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first car in 1892 under the brand name Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, which they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG. Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG car was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine, which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.
+
+Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First World War, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later when these conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they advertised or marketed their car models jointly, although keeping their respective brands. On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its cars Mercedes Benz, as a brand honoring the most important model of the DMG cars, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes-35 hp, along with the Benz name. Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929, and at times, his two sons also participated in the management of the company.
+
+In 1890, Émile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the automotive industry in France. In 1891, Auguste Doriot and his Peugeot colleague Louis Rigoulot completed the longest trip by a gasoline-powered vehicle when their self-designed and built Daimler powered Peugeot Type 3 completed 2,100 km (1,300 miles) from Valentigney to Paris and Brest and back again. They were attached to the first Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, but finished 6 days after the winning cyclist, Charles Terront.
+
+The first design for an American car with a gasoline internal combustion engine was made in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New York. Selden applied for a patent for a car in 1879, but the patent application expired because the vehicle was never built. After a delay of sixteen years and a series of attachments to his application, on 5 November 1895, Selden was granted a United States patent (U.S. Patent 549,160) for a two-stroke car engine, which hindered, more than encouraged, development of cars in the United States. His patent was challenged by Henry Ford and others, and overturned in 1911.
+
+In 1893, the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. The first public run of the Duryea Motor Wagon took place on 21 September 1893, on Taylor Street in Metro Center Springfield.[28][29] The Studebaker Automobile Company, subsidiary of a long-established wagon and coach manufacturer, started to build cars in 1897[30]:p.66 and commenced sales of electric vehicles in 1902 and gasoline vehicles in 1904.[31]
+
+In Britain, there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success, with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860.[32] Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first gasoline-powered car in the country in 1894,[33] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both one-offs.[33] The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first car in 1897, and they bore the name Daimler.[33]
+
+In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.[1] Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.
+
+All in all, it is estimated that over 100,000 patents created the modern automobile and motorcycle.[34]
+
+Large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable cars was started by Ransom Olds in 1901 at his Oldsmobile factory in Lansing, Michigan and based upon stationary assembly line techniques pioneered by Marc Isambard Brunel at the Portsmouth Block Mills, England, in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the U.S. by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.[35] This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1913 with the world's first moving assembly line for cars at the Highland Park Ford Plant.
+
+As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold, while using less manpower (from 12.5-man-hours to 1 hour 33 minutes).[36] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1913, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford's apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's black".[36] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[36]
+
+Ford's complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury.[citation needed] The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called "Fordism," and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the economic rise of the United States. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods.
+
+In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the founding of Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark 1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921, Citroen was the first native European manufacturer to adopt the production method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.[36]
+
+Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910–1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.
+
+Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced car design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, called the General Motors Companion Make Program, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved.
+
+Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSalles, sold by Cadillac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate powertrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production, such as Apperson, Cole, Dorris, Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two hundred American car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.[36]
+
+In Europe, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line at Cowley in 1924, and soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford's practice of vertical integration, buying Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41% of total British car production. Most British small-car assemblers, from Abbey to Xtra, had gone under. Citroen did the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other cheap cars in reply such as Renault's 10CV and Peugeot's 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and Mors, Hurtu, and others could not compete.[36] Germany's first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Russelsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Germany, with 37.5% of the market.[36]
+
+In Japan, car production was very limited before World War II. Only a handful of companies were producing vehicles in limited numbers, and these were small, three-wheeled for commercial uses, like Daihatsu, or were the result of partnering with European companies, like Isuzu building the Wolseley A-9 in 1922. Mitsubishi was also partnered with Fiat and built the Mitsubishi Model A based on a Fiat vehicle. Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, and Honda began as companies producing non-automotive products before the war, switching to car production during the 1950s. Kiichiro Toyoda's decision to take Toyoda Loom Works into automobile manufacturing would create what would eventually become Toyota Motor Corporation, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Subaru, meanwhile, was formed from a conglomerate of six companies who banded together as Fuji Heavy Industries, as a result of having been broken up under keiretsu legislation.
+
+According to the European Environment Agency, the transport sector is a major contributor to air pollution, noise pollution and climate change.[37]
+
+Most cars in use in the 2010s run on gasoline burnt in an internal combustion engine (ICE). The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers says that, in countries that mandate low sulfur gasoline, gasoline-fuelled cars built to late 2010s standards (such as Euro-6) emit very little local air pollution.[38][39]  Some cities ban older gasoline-fuelled cars and some countries plan to ban sales in future. However some environmental groups say this phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles must be brought forward to limit climate change. Production of gasoline fueled cars peaked in 2017.[40][41]
+
+Other hydrocarbon fossil fuels also burnt by deflagration (rather than detonation) in ICE cars include diesel, Autogas and CNG. Removal of fossil fuel subsidies,[42][43] concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for cars. This includes hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. 2.1 million light electric vehicles (of all types but mainly cars) were sold in 2018, over half in China: this was an increase of 64% on the previous year, giving a global total on the road of 5.4 million.[44]  Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles[clarification needed] are also gaining popularity in some countries.[citation needed] Cars for racing or speed records have sometimes employed jet or rocket engines, but these are impractical for common use.
+
+Oil consumption has increased rapidly in the 20th and 21st centuries because there are more cars; the 1985–2003 oil glut even fuelled the sales of low-economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries are adding to this consumption.
+
+Cars are equipped with controls used for driving, passenger comfort and safety, normally operated by a combination of the use of feet and hands, and occasionally by voice on 21st century cars. These controls include a steering wheel, pedals for operating the brakes and controlling the car's speed (and, in a manual transmission car, a clutch pedal), a shift lever or stick for changing gears, and a number of buttons and dials for turning on lights, ventilation and other functions. Modern cars' controls are now standardized, such as the location for the accelerator and brake, but this was not always the case. Controls are evolving in response to new technologies, for example the electric car and the integration of mobile communications.
+
+Some of the original controls are no longer required. For example, all cars once had controls for the choke valve, clutch, ignition timing, and a crank instead of an electric starter. However new controls have also been added to vehicles, making them more complex. These include air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Another trend is the replacement of physical knobs and switches by secondary controls with touchscreen controls such as BMW's iDrive and Ford's MyFord Touch. Another change is that while early cars' pedals were physically linked to the brake mechanism and throttle, in the 2010s, cars have increasingly replaced these physical linkages with electronic controls.
+
+Cars are typically fitted with multiple types of lights. These include headlights, which are used to illuminate the way ahead and make the car visible to other users, so that the vehicle can be used at night; in some jurisdictions, daytime running lights; red brake lights to indicate when the brakes are applied; amber turn signal lights to indicate the turn intentions of the driver; white-colored reverse lights to illuminate the area behind the car (and indicate that the driver will be or is reversing); and on some vehicles, additional lights (e.g., side marker lights) to increase the visibility of the car. Interior lights on the ceiling of the car are usually fitted for the driver and passengers. Some vehicles also have a trunk light and, more rarely, an engine compartment light.
+
+During the late 20th and early 21st century cars increased in weight due to batteries,[46] modern steel safety cages, anti-lock brakes, airbags, and "more-powerful—if more-efficient—engines"[47] and, as of 2019[update], typically weigh between 1 and 3 tonnes.[48] Heavier cars are safer for the driver from a crash perspective, but more dangerous for other vehicles and road users.[47] The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. The SmartFortwo, a small city car, weighs 750–795 kg (1,655–1,755 lb). Heavier cars include full-size cars, SUVs and extended-length SUVs like the Suburban.
+
+According to research conducted by Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, global energy use could be greatly reduced by using lighter cars, and an average weight of 500 kg (1,100 lb) has been said to be well achievable.[49][better source needed] In some competitions such as the Shell Eco Marathon, average car weights of 45 kg (99 lb) have also been achieved.[50] These cars are only single-seaters (still falling within the definition of a car, although 4-seater cars are more common), but they nevertheless demonstrate the amount by which car weights could still be reduced, and the subsequent lower fuel use (i.e. up to a fuel use of 2560 km/l).[51]
+
+Most cars are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Cars with five seats typically seat two passengers in the front and three in the rear. Full-size cars and large sport utility vehicles can often carry six, seven, or more occupants depending on the arrangement of the seats. On the other hand, sports cars are most often designed with only two seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage or cargo space has resulted in the availability of a large variety of body styles to meet individual consumer requirements that include, among others, the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate, and minivan.
+
+Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[8] Mary Ward became one of the first documented car fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown, Ireland,[52] and Henry Bliss one of the United States' first pedestrian car casualties in 1899 in New York City.[53]
+There are now standard tests for safety in new cars, such as the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests,[54] and insurance-industry-backed tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).[55]
+
+The costs of car usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance,[7] are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits – perceived and real – of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence and convenience.[9] During the 1920s, cars had another benefit: "[c]ouples finally had a way to head off on unchaperoned dates, plus they had a private space to snuggle up close at the end of the night."[57]
+
+Similarly the costs to society of car use may include; maintaining roads, land use, air pollution, road congestion, public health, health care, and of disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life; and can be balanced against the value of the benefits to society that car use generates. Societal benefits may include: economy benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of car production and maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax opportunities. The ability of humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[10]
+
+Cars are a major cause of urban air pollution,[58] with all types of cars producing dust from brakes, tyres and road wear.[59]  As of 2018[update] the average diesel car has a worse effect on air quality than the average gasoline car[60] But both gasoline and diesel cars pollute more than electric cars.[61] While there are different ways to power cars most rely on gasoline or diesel, and they consume almost a quarter of world oil production as of 2019[update].[40] In 2018 passenger road vehicles emitted 3.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.[62] As of 2019[update], due to greenhouse gases emitted during battery production, electric cars must be driven tens of thousands of kilometers before their lifecycle carbon emissions are less than fossil fuel cars:[63] but this is expected to improve in future due to longer lasting[64] batteries being produced in larger factories,[65] and lower carbon electricity. Many governments are using fiscal policies, such as road tax, to discourage the purchase and use of more polluting cars;[66] and many cities are doing the same with low-emission zones.[67] Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g. hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels. High fuel taxes or cultural change may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not drive.[67]
+
+The lifetime of a car built in the 2020s is expected to be about 16 years, or about 2 million kilometres (1.2 million miles) if driven a lot.[68] According to the International Energy Agency fuel economy improved 0.7% in 2017, but an annual improvement of 3.7% is needed to meet the Global Fuel Economy Initiative 2030 target.[69] The increase in sales of SUVs is bad for fuel economy.[40] Many cities in Europe, have banned older fossil fuel cars and all fossil fuel vehicles will be banned in Amsterdam from 2030.[70] Many Chinese cities limit licensing of fossil fuel cars,[71] and many countries plan to stop selling them between 2025 and 2050.[72]
+
+The manufacture of vehicles is resource intensive, and many manufacturers now report on the environmental performance of their factories, including energy usage, waste and water consumption.[73] Manufacturing each kWh of battery emits a similar amount of carbon as burning through one full tank of gasoline.[74] The growth in popularity of the car allowed cities to sprawl, therefore encouraging more travel by car resulting in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.[75]
+
+Animals and plants are often negatively impacted by cars via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average car the "loss of habitat potential" may be over 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations.[76] Animals are also killed every year on roads by cars, referred to as roadkill. More recent road developments are including significant environmental mitigation in their designs, such as green bridges (designed to allow wildlife crossings) and creating wildlife corridors.
+
+Growth in the popularity of vehicles and commuting has led to traffic congestion. Moscow, Istanbul, Bogota, Mexico City and Sao Paulo were the world's most congested cities in 2018 according to INRIX, a data analytics company.[77]
+
+Although intensive development of  conventional battery electric vehicles is continuing into the 2020s,[78] other car propulsion technologies that are under development include wheel hub motors,[79] wireless charging,[80] hydrogen cars,[81] and hydrogen/electric hybrids.[82] Research into alternative forms of power includes using ammonia instead of hydrogen in fuel cells.[83]
+
+New materials[84] which may replace steel car bodies include duralumin, fiberglass, carbon fiber, biocomposites, and carbon nanotubes. Telematics technology is allowing more and more people to share cars, on a pay-as-you-go basis, through car share and carpool schemes. Communication is also evolving due to connected car systems.[85]
+
+Fully autonomous vehicles, also known as driverless cars, already exist in prototype (such as the Google driverless car), but have a long way to go before they are in general use.
+
+There have been several projects aiming to develop a car on the principles of open design, an approach to designing in which the plans for the machinery and systems are publicly shared, often without monetary compensation. The projects include OScar, Riversimple (through 40fires.org)[86] and c,mm,n.[87] None of the projects have reached significant success in terms of developing a car as a whole both from hardware and software perspective and no mass production ready open-source based design have been introduced as of late 2009. Some car hacking through on-board diagnostics (OBD) has been done so far.[88]
+
+Car-share arrangements and carpooling are also increasingly popular, in the US and Europe.[89] For example, in the US, some car-sharing services have experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth between 2006 and 2007. Services like car sharing offering a residents to "share" a vehicle rather than own a car in already congested neighborhoods.[90]
+
+The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the world's motor vehicles, more than three-quarters of which are cars. In 2018 there were 70 million cars manufactured worldwide,[91] down 2 million from the previous year.[92]
+
+The automotive industry in China produces by far the most (24 million in 2018), followed by Japan (8 million), Germany (5 million) and India (4 million).[91] The largest market is China, followed by the USA.
+
+Around the world there are about a billion cars on the road;[93] they burn over a trillion liters of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly, consuming about 50 EJ (nearly 300 terawatt-hours) of energy.[94] The numbers of cars are increasing rapidly in China and India.[11] In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investment. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.[95][96] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems. The car industry is also facing increasing competition from the public transport sector, as some people re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.
+
+Established alternatives for some aspects of car use include public transport such as buses, trolleybuses, trains, subways, tramways, light rail, cycling, and walking. Bicycle sharing systems have been established in China and many European cities, including Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been developed in large US cities.[98][99] Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to cars if they prove to be socially accepted.[100]
+
+The term motorcar was formerly also used in the context of electrified rail systems to denote a car which functions as a small locomotive but also provides space for passengers and baggage.  These locomotive cars were often used on suburban routes by both interurban and intercity railroad systems.[101]

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+In chemistry, pH (/piːˈeɪtʃ/, denoting 'potential of hydrogen' or 'power of hydrogen'[1]) is a scale used to specify the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Lower pH values correspond to solutions which are more acidic in nature, while higher values correspond to solutions which are more basic or alkaline. At room temperature (25°C or 77°F), pure water is neutral (neither acidic nor basic) and therefore has a pH of 7.
+
+The pH scale is logarithmic and inversely indicates the concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution (a lower pH indicates a higher concentration of hydrogen ions). This is because the formula used to calculate pH approximates the negative of the base 10 logarithm of the molar concentration[a] of hydrogen ions in the solution. More precisely, pH is the negative of the base 10 logarithm of the activity of the hydrogen ion.[2]
+
+At 25 °C, solutions with a pH less than 7 are acidic, and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic. The neutral value of the pH depends on the temperature, being lower than 7 if the temperature increases. The pH value can be less than 0 for very strong acids, or greater than 14 for very strong bases.[3]
+
+The pH scale is traceable to a set of standard solutions whose pH is established by international agreement.[4] Primary pH standard values are determined using a concentration cell with transference, by measuring the potential difference between a hydrogen electrode and a standard electrode such as the silver chloride electrode. The pH of aqueous solutions can be measured with a glass electrode and a pH meter, or a color-changing indicator. Measurements of pH are important in chemistry, agronomy, medicine, water treatment, and many other applications.
+
+The concept of  pH was first introduced by the Danish chemist Søren Peder Lauritz Sørensen at the Carlsberg Laboratory in 1909[5] and revised to the modern pH in 1924 to accommodate definitions and measurements in terms of electrochemical cells. In the first papers, the notation had the H as a subscript to the lowercase p, as so: pH.
+
+The exact meaning of the p in pH is disputed, as Sørensen did not explain why he used it.[6] He describes a way of measuring it using potential differences, and it represents the negative power of 10 in the concentration of hydrogen ions. All the words for these start with p in French, German and Danish, all languages Sørensen published in: Carlsberg Laboratory was French-speaking, German was the dominant language of scientific publishing, and Sørensen was Danish. He also used "q" in much the same way elsewhere in the paper. So the "p" could stand for the French puissance, German Potenz, or Danish potens, meaning "power", or it could mean "potential". He might also just have labelled the test solution "p" and the reference solution "q" arbitrarily; these letters are often paired.[7] There is little to support the suggestion that "pH" stands for the Latin terms pondus hydrogenii (quantity of hydrogen) or potentia hydrogenii (power of hydrogen).
+
+Currently in chemistry, the p stands for "decimal cologarithm of", and is also used in the term pKa, used for acid dissociation constants[8] and pOH, the equivalent for hydroxide ions.
+
+Bacteriologist Alice C. Evans, famed for her work's influence on dairying and food safety, credited William Mansfield Clark and colleagues (of whom she was one) with developing pH measuring methods in the 1910s, which had a wide influence on laboratory and industrial use thereafter. In her memoir, she does not mention how much, or how little, Clark and colleagues knew about Sørensen's work a few years prior.[9]:10 She said:
+
+In these studies [of bacterial metabolism] Dr. Clark's attention was directed to the effect of acid on the growth of bacteria. He found that it is the intensity of the acid in terms of hydrogen-ion concentration that affects their growth. But existing methods of measuring acidity determined the quantity, not the intensity, of the acid. Next, with his collaborators, Dr. Clark developed accurate methods for measuring hydrogen-ion concentration. These methods replaced the inaccurate titration method of determining the acid content in use in biologic laboratories throughout the world. Also they were found to be applicable in many industrial and other processes in which they came into wide usage.[9]:10
+
+The first electronic method for measuring pH was invented by Arnold Orville Beckman, a professor at California Institute of Technology in 1934.[10] It was in response to local citrus grower Sunkist that wanted a better method for quickly testing the pH of lemons they were picking from their nearby orchards.[11]
+
+pH is defined as the decimal logarithm of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion activity, aH+, in a solution.[4]
+
+For example, for a solution with a hydrogen ion activity of 5×10−6 (at that level, this is essentially the number of moles of hydrogen ions per litre of solution) there is 1/(5×10−6) = 2×105, thus such a solution has a pH of log10(2×105) = 5.3. For a commonplace example based on the facts that the masses of a mole of water, a mole of hydrogen ions, and a mole of hydroxide ions are respectively 18 g, 1 g, and 17 g, a quantity of 107 moles of pure (pH 7) water, or 180 tonnes (18×107 g), contains close to 1 g of dissociated hydrogen ions (or rather 19 g of H3O+ hydronium ions) and 17 g of hydroxide ions.
+
+Note that pH depends on temperature. For instance at 0 °C the pH of pure water is about 7.47. At 25 °C it is 7.00, and at 100 °C it is 6.14.
+
+This definition was adopted because ion-selective electrodes, which are used to measure pH, respond to activity. Ideally, electrode potential, E, follows the Nernst equation, which, for the hydrogen ion can be written as
+
+where E is a measured potential, E0 is the standard electrode potential, R is the gas constant, T is the temperature in kelvins, F is the Faraday constant. For H+ number of electrons transferred is one. It follows that electrode potential is proportional to pH when pH is defined in terms of activity.  Precise measurement of pH is presented in International Standard ISO 31-8 as follows:[12] A galvanic cell is set up to measure the electromotive force (e.m.f.) between a reference electrode and an electrode sensitive to the hydrogen ion activity when they are both immersed in the same aqueous solution. The reference electrode may be a silver chloride electrode or a calomel electrode. The hydrogen-ion selective electrode is a standard hydrogen electrode.
+
+Firstly, the cell is filled with a solution of known hydrogen ion activity and the emf, ES, is measured. Then the emf, EX, of the same cell containing the solution of unknown pH is measured.
+
+The difference between the two measured emf values is proportional to pH. This method of calibration avoids the need to know the standard electrode potential. The proportionality constant, 1/z is ideally equal to 
+
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+2.303
+R
+T
+
+/
+
+F
+
+
+
+ 
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\frac {1}{2.303RT/F}}\ }
+
+ the "Nernstian slope".
+
+To apply this process in practice, a glass electrode is used rather than the cumbersome hydrogen electrode. A combined glass electrode has an in-built reference electrode. It is calibrated against buffer solutions of known hydrogen ion activity. IUPAC has proposed the use of a set of buffer solutions of known H+ activity.[4] Two or more buffer solutions are used in order to accommodate the fact that the "slope" may differ slightly from ideal. To implement this approach to calibration, the electrode is first immersed in a standard solution and the reading on a pH meter is adjusted to be equal to the standard buffer's value. The reading from a second standard buffer solution is then adjusted, using the "slope" control, to be equal to the pH for that solution. Further details, are given in the IUPAC recommendations.[4] When more than two buffer solutions are used the electrode is calibrated by fitting observed pH values to a straight line with respect to standard buffer values. Commercial standard buffer solutions usually come with information on the value at 25 °C and a correction factor to be applied for other temperatures.
+
+The pH scale is logarithmic and therefore pH is a dimensionless quantity.
+
+This was the original definition of Sørensen in 1909,[13] which was superseded in favor of pH in 1924. [H] is the concentration of hydrogen ions, denoted [H+] in modern chemistry, which appears to have units of concentration. More correctly, the thermodynamic activity of H+ in dilute solution should be replaced by [H+]/c0, where the standard state concentration c0 = 1 mol/L. This ratio is a pure number whose logarithm can be defined.
+
+However, it is possible to measure the concentration of hydrogen ions directly, if the electrode is calibrated in terms of hydrogen ion concentrations. One way to do this, which has been used extensively, is to titrate a solution of known concentration of a strong acid with a solution of known concentration of strong alkaline in the presence of a relatively high concentration of background electrolyte. Since the concentrations of acid and alkaline are known, it is easy to calculate the concentration of hydrogen ions so that the measured potential can be correlated with concentrations. The calibration is usually carried out using a Gran plot.[14] Thus, the effect of using this procedure is to make activity equal to the numerical value of concentration.
+
+The glass electrode (and other ion selective electrodes) should be calibrated in a medium similar to the one being investigated. For instance, if one wishes to measure the pH of a seawater sample, the electrode should be calibrated in a solution resembling seawater in its chemical composition, as detailed below.
+
+The difference between p[H] and pH is quite small. It has been stated[15] that pH = p[H] + 0.04. It is common practice to use the term "pH" for both types of measurement.
+
+Indicators may be used to measure pH, by making use of the fact that their color changes with pH. Visual comparison of the color of a test solution with a standard color chart provides a means to measure pH accurate to the nearest whole number. More precise measurements are possible if the color is measured spectrophotometrically, using a colorimeter or spectrophotometer.
+Universal indicator consists of a mixture of indicators such that there is a continuous color change from about pH 2 to pH 10. Universal indicator paper is made from absorbent paper that has been impregnated with universal indicator. Another method of measuring pH is using an electronic pH meter.
+
+pOH is sometimes used as a measure of the concentration of hydroxide ions. OH−. pOH values are derived from pH measurements. The concentration of hydroxide ions in water is related to the concentration of hydrogen ions by
+
+where KW is the self-ionisation constant of water. Taking logarithms
+
+So, at room temperature, pOH ≈ 14 − pH. However this relationship is not strictly valid in other circumstances, such as in measurements of soil alkalinity.
+
+Measurement of pH below about 2.5 (ca. 0.003 mol dm−3 acid) and above about 10.5 (ca. 0.0003 mol dm−3 alkaline) requires special procedures because, when using the glass electrode, the Nernst law breaks down under those conditions. Various factors contribute to this. It cannot be assumed that liquid junction potentials are independent of pH.[16] Also, extreme pH implies that the solution is concentrated, so electrode potentials are affected by ionic strength variation. At high pH the glass electrode may be affected by "alkaline error", because the electrode becomes sensitive to the concentration of cations such as Na+ and K+ in the solution.[17] Specially constructed electrodes are available which partly overcome these problems.
+
+Runoff from mines or mine tailings can produce some very low pH values.[18]
+
+Hydrogen ion concentrations (activities) can be measured in non-aqueous solvents. pH values based on these measurements belong to a different scale from aqueous pH values, because activities relate to different standard states. Hydrogen ion activity, aH+, can be defined[19][20] as:
+
+where μH+ is the chemical potential of the hydrogen ion, 
+
+
+
+
+μ
+
+
+
+H
+
++
+
+
+
+
+
+⊖
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \mu _{{\ce {H+}}}^{\ominus }}
+
+ is its chemical potential in the chosen standard state, R is the gas constant and T is the thermodynamic temperature. Therefore, pH values on the different scales cannot be compared directly due to different solvated proton ions such as lyonium ions, requiring an intersolvent scale which involves the transfer activity coefficient of hydronium/lyonium ion.
+
+pH is an example of an acidity function. Other acidity functions can be defined. For example, the Hammett acidity function, H0, has been developed in connection with superacids.
+
+The concept of "unified pH scale" has been developed on the basis of the absolute chemical potential of the proton. This model uses the Lewis acid–base definition. This scale applies to liquids, gases and even solids.[21]
+In 2010, a new "unified absolute pH scale" has been proposed that would allow various pH ranges across different solutions to use a common proton reference standard.[22]
+
+Pure water is neutral. When an acid is dissolved in water, the pH will be less than 7 (25 °C). When a base, or alkali, is dissolved in water, the pH will be greater than 7. A solution of a strong acid, such as hydrochloric acid, at concentration 1 mol dm−3 has a pH of 0. A solution of a strong alkali, such as sodium hydroxide, at concentration 1 mol dm−3, has a pH of 14. Thus, measured pH values will lie mostly in the range 0 to 14, though negative pH values and values above 14 are entirely possible. Since pH is a logarithmic scale, a difference of one pH unit is equivalent to a tenfold difference in hydrogen ion concentration.
+
+The pH of neutrality is not exactly 7 (25 °C), although this is a good approximation in most cases. Neutrality is defined as the condition where [H+] = [OH−] (or the activities are equal). Since self-ionization of water holds the product of these concentration [H+]×[OH−] = Kw, it can be seen that at neutrality [H+] = [OH−] = √Kw, or pH = pKw/2. pKw is approximately 14 but depends on ionic strength and temperature, and so the pH of neutrality does also. Pure water and a solution of NaCl in pure water are both neutral, since dissociation of water produces equal numbers of both ions. However the pH of the neutral NaCl solution will be slightly different from that of neutral pure water because the hydrogen and hydroxide ions' activity is dependent on ionic strength, so Kw varies with ionic strength.
+
+If pure water is exposed to air it becomes mildly acidic. This is because water absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, which is then slowly converted into bicarbonate and hydrogen ions (essentially creating carbonic acid).
+
+The United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly Soil Conservation Service classifies soil pH ranges as follows:
+[23]
+
+In Europe, topsoil pH is influenced by soil parent material, erosional effects, climate and vegetation. A recent map [24] of topsoil pH in Europe shows the alkaline soils in  Mediterranean, Hungary, East Romania, North France. Scandinavian countries, Portugal, Poland and North Germany have more acid soils.
+
+pH-dependent plant pigments that can be used as pH indicators occur in many plants, including hibiscus, red cabbage (anthocyanin), and grapes (red wine). The juice of citrus fruits is acidic mainly because it contains citric acid. Other carboxylic acids occur in many living systems. For example, lactic acid is produced by muscle activity. The state of protonation of phosphate derivatives, such as ATP, is pH-dependent. The functioning of the oxygen-transport enzyme hemoglobin is affected by pH in a process known as the Root effect.
+
+The pH of seawater is typically limited to a range between 7.5 and 8.4.[25] It plays an important role in the ocean's carbon cycle, and there is evidence of ongoing ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions.[26] However, pH measurement is complicated by the chemical properties of seawater, and several distinct pH scales exist in chemical oceanography.[27]
+
+As part of its operational definition of the pH scale, the IUPAC defines a series of buffer solutions across a range of pH values (often denoted with NBS or NIST designation). These solutions have a relatively low ionic strength (≈0.1) compared to that of seawater (≈0.7), and, as a consequence, are not recommended for use in characterizing the pH of seawater, since the ionic strength differences cause changes in electrode potential. To resolve this problem, an alternative series of buffers based on artificial seawater was developed.[28] This new series resolves the problem of ionic strength differences between samples and the buffers, and the new pH scale is referred to as the 'total scale', often denoted as pHT. The total scale was defined using a medium containing sulfate ions. These ions experience protonation, H+ + SO2−4 ⇌ HSO−4, such that the total scale includes the effect of both protons (free hydrogen ions) and hydrogen sulfate ions:
+
+An alternative scale, the 'free scale', often denoted 'pHF', omits this consideration and focuses solely on [H+]F, in principle making it a simpler representation of hydrogen ion concentration. Only [H+]T can be determined,[29] therefore [H+]F must be estimated using the [SO2−4] and the stability constant of HSO−4, K*S:
+
+However, it is difficult to estimate K*S in seawater, limiting the utility of the otherwise more straightforward free scale.
+
+Another scale, known as the 'seawater scale', often denoted 'pHSWS', takes account of a further protonation relationship between hydrogen ions and fluoride ions, H+ + F− ⇌ HF. Resulting in the following expression for [H+]SWS:
+
+However, the advantage of considering this additional complexity is dependent upon the abundance of fluoride in the medium. In seawater, for instance, sulfate ions occur at much greater concentrations (>400 times) than those of fluoride. As a consequence, for most practical purposes, the difference between the total and seawater scales is very small.
+
+The following three equations summarise the three scales of pH:
+
+In practical terms, the three seawater pH scales differ in their values by up to 0.12 pH units, differences that are much larger than the accuracy of pH measurements typically required, in particular, in relation to the ocean's carbonate system.[27] Since it omits consideration of sulfate and fluoride ions, the free scale is significantly different from both the total and seawater scales. Because of the relative unimportance of the fluoride ion, the total and seawater scales differ only very slightly.
+
+The pH of different cellular compartments, body fluids, and organs is usually tightly regulated in a process called acid-base homeostasis. The most common disorder in acid-base homeostasis is acidosis, which means an acid overload in the body, generally defined by pH falling below 7.35. Alkalosis is the opposite condition, with blood pH being excessively high.
+
+The pH of blood is usually slightly basic with a value of pH 7.365. This value is often referred to as physiological pH in biology and medicine. Plaque can create a local acidic environment that can result in tooth decay by demineralization. Enzymes and other proteins have an optimum pH range and can become inactivated or denatured outside this range.
+
+The calculation of the pH of a solution containing acids and/or bases is an example of a chemical speciation calculation, that is, a mathematical procedure for calculating the concentrations of all chemical species that are present in the solution. The complexity of the procedure depends on the nature of the solution. For strong acids and bases no calculations are necessary except in extreme situations. The pH of a solution containing a weak acid requires the solution of a quadratic equation. The pH of a solution containing a weak base may require the solution of a cubic equation. The general case requires the solution of a set of non-linear simultaneous equations.
+
+A complicating factor is that water itself is a weak acid and a weak base (see amphoterism). It dissociates according to the equilibrium
+
+with a dissociation constant, Kw defined as
+
+where [H+] stands for the concentration of the aqueous hydronium ion and [OH−] represents the concentration of the hydroxide ion. This equilibrium needs to be taken into account at high pH and when the solute concentration is extremely low.
+
+Strong acids and bases are compounds that, for practical purposes, are completely dissociated in water. Under normal circumstances this means that the concentration of hydrogen ions in acidic solution can be taken to be equal to the concentration of the acid. The pH is then equal to minus the logarithm of the concentration value. Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is an example of a strong acid. The pH of a 0.01M solution of HCl is equal to −log10(0.01), that is, pH = 2. Sodium hydroxide, NaOH, is an example of a strong base. The p[OH] value of a 0.01M solution of NaOH is equal to −log10(0.01), that is, p[OH] = 2. From the definition of p[OH] above, this means that the pH is equal to about 12. For solutions of sodium hydroxide at higher concentrations the self-ionization equilibrium must be taken into account.
+
+Self-ionization must also be considered when concentrations are extremely low. Consider, for example, a solution of hydrochloric acid at a concentration of 5×10−8M.  The simple procedure given above would suggest that it has a pH of 7.3. This is clearly wrong as an acid solution should have a pH of less than 7. Treating the system as a mixture of hydrochloric acid and the amphoteric substance water, a pH of 6.89 results.[33]
+
+A weak acid  or the conjugate acid of a weak base can be treated using the same formalism.
+
+First, an acid dissociation constant is defined as follows. Electrical charges are omitted from subsequent equations for the sake of generality
+
+and its value is assumed to have been determined by experiment. This being so, there are three unknown concentrations, [HA], [H+] and [A−] to determine by calculation. Two additional equations are needed. One way to provide them is to apply the law of  mass conservation in terms of the two "reagents" H and A.
+
+C stands for analytical concentration. In some texts, one mass balance equation is replaced by an equation of charge balance. This is satisfactory for simple cases like this one, but is more difficult to apply to more complicated cases as those below. Together with the equation defining Ka, there are now three equations in three unknowns. When an acid is dissolved in water CA = CH = Ca, the concentration of the acid, so [A] = [H]. After some further algebraic manipulation an equation in the hydrogen ion concentration may be obtained.
+
+Solution of this quadratic equation gives the hydrogen ion concentration and hence p[H] or, more loosely, pH. This procedure is illustrated in an ICE table which can also be used to calculate the pH when some additional  (strong) acid or alkaline has been added to the system, that is, when CA ≠ CH.
+
+For example, what is the pH of a 0.01M solution of benzoic acid, pKa = 4.19?
+
+For alkaline solutions an additional term is added to the mass-balance equation for hydrogen. Since addition of hydroxide reduces the hydrogen ion concentration, and the hydroxide ion concentration is constrained by the self-ionization equilibrium to be equal to 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+K
+
+w
+
+
+
+
+[
+
+H
+
++
+
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\frac {K_{w}}{{\ce {[H+]}}}}}
+
+In this case the resulting equation in [H] is a cubic equation.
+
+Some systems, such as with polyprotic acids, are amenable to spreadsheet calculations.[34] With three or more reagents or when many complexes are formed with general formulae such as ApBqHr,the following general method can be used to calculate the pH of a solution. For example, with three reagents, each equilibrium is characterized by an equilibrium constant, β.
+
+Next, write down the mass-balance equations for each reagent:
+
+Note that there are no approximations involved in these equations, except that each stability constant is defined as a quotient of concentrations, not activities. Much more complicated expressions are required if activities are to be used.
+
+There are 3 non-linear simultaneous equations in the three unknowns, [A], [B] and [H]. Because the equations are non-linear, and because concentrations may range over many powers of 10, the solution of these equations is not straightforward. However, many computer programs are available which can be used to perform these calculations. There may be more than three reagents. The calculation of hydrogen ion concentrations, using this formalism, is a key element in the determination of equilibrium constants by potentiometric titration.
+

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+
+
+Gunpowder, also known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur (S), charcoal (C), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter, KNO3). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer.[1][2] Because of its incendiary properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, and road building.
+
+Gunpowder was invented in 9th-century China as one of the Four Great Inventions, and spread throughout most parts of Eurasia by the end of the 13th century.[3] Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes, gunpowder was first used for warfare around 904 AD.[4]
+
+Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn) at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate producing a supersonic shockwave.
+
+Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. However, by transferring enough energy (from the burning gunpowder to the mass of the cannonball, and then from the cannonball to the opposing fortifications by way of the impacting ammunition) eventually a bombardier may wear down an opponent's fortified defenses.
+
+Gunpowder was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use. Gunpowder is no longer used in modern weapons, nor is it used for industrial purposes, due to its relatively inefficient cost compared to newer alternatives such as dynamite and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.[5][6] Today gunpowder firearms are limited primarily to hunting, target shooting, and bulletless historical reenactments.
+
+The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred in the 9th century AD during the Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue (太上聖祖金丹秘訣) in 808, and then about 50 years later in a Taoist text known as the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (真元妙道要略).[7] The Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue mentions a gunpowder formula composed of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb.[7] According to the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."[8] Based on these Taoist texts, the invention of gunpowder by Chinese alchemists was likely an accidental byproduct from experiments seeking to create the elixir of life.[9] This experimental medicine origin of gunpowder is reflected in its Chinese name huoyao (Chinese: 火药/火藥; pinyin: huŏ yào /xuo yɑʊ/), which means "fire medicine".[10] Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and was primarily produced in the provinces of Sichuan, Shanxi, and Shandong.[11] There is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various medicinal combinations.[12] A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200.[13]
+
+The earliest chemical formula for gunpowder appeared in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao (Complete Essentials from the Military Classics), written by Zeng Gongliang between 1040 and 1044.[14] The Wujing Zongyao provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures that included petrochemicals—as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets is mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book do not contain enough saltpeter to create an explosive however; being limited to at most 50% saltpeter, they produce an incendiary.[14] The Essentials was written by a Song dynasty court bureaucrat and there is little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of gunpowder use in the chronicles of the wars against the Tanguts in the 11th century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. However gunpowder had already been used for fire arrows since at least the 10th century. The first recorded military application of gunpowder dates its use to the year 904 in the form of incendiary projectiles.[4] In the following centuries various gunpowder weapons such as bombs, fire lances, and the gun appeared in China.[3][15] Explosive weapons such as bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan.[16]
+
+By 1083 the Song court was producing hundreds of thousands of fire arrows for their garrisons.[17] Bombs and the first proto-guns, known as "fire lances", became prominent during the 12th century and were used by the Song during the Jin-Song Wars. Fire lances were first recorded to have been used at the Siege of De'an in 1132 by Song forces against the Jin.[18] In the early 13th century the Jin utilized iron-casing bombs.[19] Projectiles were added to fire lances, and re-usable fire lance barrels were developed, first out of hardened paper, and then metal. By 1257 some fire lances were firing wads of bullets.[20][21] In the late 13th century metal fire lances became 'eruptors', proto-cannons firing co-viative projectiles (mixed with the propellant, rather than seated over it with a wad), and by 1287 at the latest, had become true guns, the hand cannon.[22]
+
+An arrow strapped with gunpowder ready to be shot from a bow. From the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The oldest known depiction of rocket arrows, from the Huolongjing. The right arrow reads "fire arrow", the middle is an "arrow frame in the shape of a dragon", and the left is a "complete fire arrow".
+
+An illustration of a thunderclap bomb as depicted in the 1044 text Wujing Zongyao. Considered to be a pseudo-explosive. The top item is a through awl and the bottom one is a hook awl.
+
+A fire lance as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor" cannon from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An organ gun known as the "mother of a hundred bullets gun" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An illustration of a bronze "thousand ball thunder cannon" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+A 'magic fire meteor going against the wind' bomb as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "self-tripped trespass land mine" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, by which point the Syrian Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. It is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" (Arabic: ثلج الصين‎ thalj al-ṣīn), fireworks as "Chinese flowers" and rockets as "Chinese arrows" that knowledge of gunpowder arrived from China.[23] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth".[24] In Persia saltpeter was known as "Chinese salt" (Persian: نمک چینی‎) namak-i chīnī)[25][26] or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" (نمک شوره چینی namak-i shūra-yi chīnī).[27][28]
+
+Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% charcoal), it is nearly identical to the modern reported ideal gunpowder recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.[24]
+
+Al-Hassan claims that in the Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the Mamluks used against the Mongols in "the first cannon in history" gunpowder formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder.[24] Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, that they used for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.[29][30]
+
+Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world[31] and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.[32] Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.[32]
+
+The musket appeared in the Ottoman Empire by 1465.[33] In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets.[34] The Chinese military book Wu Pei Chih (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in European or Chinese firearms at the time.[35]
+
+The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early supply chains to obtain nitre, sulfur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion between the 15th and 18th century. It was not until later in the 19th century when the syndicalist production of Turkish gunpowder was greatly reduced, which coincided with the decline of its military might.[36]
+
+The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century.[37]
+Several sources mention Chinese firearms and gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in 1241.[38][39][40] Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry.[41] However, there is no clear route of transmission,[42] and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China."[43] However, Timothy May also points out "However... the Mongols used the gunpowder weapon in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan."[43]
+
+In Europe, one of the first mentions of gunpowder use appears in a passage found in Roger Bacon's Opus Maius of 1267 and Opus Tertium in what has been interpreted as being firecrackers. The most telling passage reads: "We have an example of these things (that act on the senses) in [the sound and fire of] that children's toy which is made in many [diverse] parts of the world; i.e., a device no bigger than one's thumb. From the violence of that salt called saltpeter [together with sulfur and willow charcoal, combined into a powder] so horrible a sound is made by the bursting of a thing so small, no more than a bit of parchment [containing it], that we find [the ear assaulted by a noise] exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a flash brighter than the most brilliant lightning."[44] In the early 20th century, British artillery officer Henry William Lovett Hime proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder. This claim has been disputed by historians of science including Lynn Thorndike, John Maxson Stillman and George Sarton and by Bacon's editor Robert Steele, both in terms of authenticity of the work, and with respect to the decryption method.[44] In any case, the formula claimed to have been decrypted (7:5:5 saltpeter:charcoal:sulfur) is not useful for firearms use or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.[45][46] However, if Bacon's recipe is taken as measurements by volume rather than weight, a far more potent and serviceable explosive powder is created suitable for firing hand-cannons, albeit less consistent due to the inherent inaccuracies of measurements by volume. One example of this composition resulted in 100 parts saltpeter, 27 parts charcoal, and 45 parts sulfur, by weight.[47]
+
+The Liber Ignium, or Book of Fires, attributed to Marcus Graecus, is a collection of incendiary recipes, including some gunpowder recipes. Partington dates the gunpowder recipes to approximately 1300.[48] One recipe for "flying fire" (ignis volatilis) involves saltpeter, sulfur, and colophonium, which, when inserted into a reed or hollow wood, "flies away suddenly and burns up everything." Another recipe, for artificial "thunder", specifies a mixture of one pound native sulfur, two pounds linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter. Another specifies a 1:3:9 ratio.[49]
+
+Some of the gunpowder recipes of De Mirabilibus Mundi of Albertus Magnus are identical to the recipes of the Liber Ignium, and according to Partington, "may have been taken from that work, rather than conversely."[50] Partington suggests that some of the book may have been compiled by Albert's students, "but since it is found in thirteenth century manuscripts, it may well be by Albert."[50] Albertus Magnus died in 1280.
+
+A major advance in manufacturing began in Europe in the late 14th century when the safety and thoroughness of incorporation was improved by wet grinding; liquid, such as distilled spirits[51] was added during the grinding-together of the ingredients and the moist paste dried afterwards. The principle of wet mixing to prevent the separation of dry ingredients, invented for gunpowder, is used today in the pharmaceutical industry.[52]
+
+It was also discovered that if the paste was rolled into balls before drying the resulting gunpowder absorbed less water from the air during storage and traveled better. The balls were then crushed in a mortar by the gunner immediately before use, with the old problem of uneven particle size and packing causing unpredictable results. If the right size particles were chosen, however, the result was a great improvement in power.  Forming the damp paste into corn-sized clumps by hand or with the use of a sieve instead of larger balls produced a product after drying that loaded much better, as each tiny piece provided its own surrounding air space that allowed much more rapid combustion than a fine powder.  This "corned" gunpowder was from 30% to 300% more powerful. An example is cited where 34 pounds of serpentine was needed to shoot a 47-pound ball, but only 18 pounds of corned powder.[51] The optimum size of the grain depended on its use; larger for large cannon, finer for small arms.  Larger cast cannons were easily muzzle-loaded with corned powder using a long-handled ladle. Corned powder also retained the advantage of low moisture absorption, as even tiny grains still had much less surface area to attract water than a floury powder.
+
+During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing potassium carbonate to precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood, alum, and slices of turnip to clarify the solution.[51]
+
+During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. The German printer and publisher Christiaan Egenolff adapted an earlier work on pyrotechnics from manuscript to print form, publishing his Büchsenmeysterei in 1529 and reprinting it in 1531. Now extremely rare, the book discusses the manufacturing of gunpowder, the operation of artillery and the rules of conduct for the gunsmith.[53]
+
+In Italy, Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild Fraternita di Santa Barbara but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled De la pirotechnia, written in vernacular.  It was published posthumously in 1540, with 9 editions over 138 years, and also reprinted by MIT Press in 1966.[51]
+
+By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.[54] With the publication of Deutliche Anweisung zur Feuerwerkerey (1748), methods for creating fireworks were sufficiently well-known and well-described that "Firework making has become an exact science."[55] In 1774 Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at age 20.  After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.[56]
+
+Without access to cheap saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetremen with royal warrants, the droit de fouille or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolish walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners.[57] This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected.  Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the droit de fouille, researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works.  Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the American Revolution.  By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive.[57][58]
+
+In the Spanish Empire, the crown held a monopoly on gunpowder and the terms were set out during eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms.[59]
+
+Gunpowder production in Britain appears to have started in the mid 14th century with the aim of supplying the English Crown.[60] Records show that, in England, gunpowder was being made in 1346 at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there.[60] Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as Portchester. By the early 14th century, according to N.J.G. Pounds's study The Medieval Castle in England and Wales, many English castles had been deserted and others were crumbling. Their military significance faded except on the borders. Gunpowder had made smaller castles useless.[61]
+
+Henry VIII of England was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of Antwerp in what is now Belgium.[60]
+
+The English Civil War (1642–1645) led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.[60]
+
+One of the most notable uses of gunpowder in Great Britain was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605: a failed assassination attempt on King James I and VI. The plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was found under the House of Lords with hidden barrels of gunpowder. All assailants who had a role in the plot escaped but were eventually caught. King James later decreed that 5 November become a day of celebration, which is a tradition that carries on today known as Bonfire Night.
+
+Two British physicists, Andrew Noble and Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of black powder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for internal ballistics.[62]
+
+The introduction of smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of World War I, the majority of the United Kingdom gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and a number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of Permitted Explosives; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales, closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.[63]
+
+The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened.[60] This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley, the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory, which closed in 1954.[60][64]
+
+This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland; it too closed in October 1976.[60] Since then gunpowder has been imported into the United Kingdom. In the late 1970s/early 1980s gunpowder was bought from eastern Europe, particularly from what was then the German Democratic Republic and former Yugoslavia.
+
+The Greek historian Philostratos cites a letter written by Alexander saying that the reason why Greek army refrained from advancing Hydaspis to Ganges was because of the frightful dangers it encountered when people of Oxydraces threw flaming thunderbolts from the top of their forts. Scholars such as H. Wilkinson considers this as the earliest evidence of the gunpowder in the world.[65] There is a mention of an explosive called 'manosila' in Ramayana which was also used as a beauty product.[66]
+
+The Arthashastra lists recipes for what it called explosives or 'inflammable powder' (agnisamyogas or agniyoga) which according to J.R. Partington (A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder) are very similar to the ingredients mentioned in Chinese, European and Arabic texts.[67] The Arthashastra also mentions a device called ulka which is described as a shower of firebrands which were accompanied by noise of thunder (or noise of drumming) from the sky which were used to impress enemy subjects. Partington believes these recipes are for incendiaries rather than gunpowder or explosives since they do not include salt and sulphur, which he consider basic ingredients for gunpowder.[67] Scholars such as A. Kalyanamaran dispute that citing other scholars such as Carman (History of Firearms) stating that the nitrates were obtained using the fermented dung of animals mentioned in Arthashastra while sulfur was not an essential ingredient for gunpowder and could be eliminated to reduce smoke. The author cites the use of sulphurless gunpowder by the French army until the 18th century and sulphurless gunpowders in other periods when slow burning powder was desired.[68] Sulphur is not directly mentioned in the making of explosives but was known as gandha and the explosive manosila (antimony sulfide) was known since the Puranas.[69] Arthashastra mentions nitre called yavakshatra (Barley salt, indicates production from Barley ash) and "salt extracted from fertile soil".[70] Nitre has been listed as minerals obtained from Sindh. Other Indian texts which provide recipes of gunpowder are Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika, while antiquity of Arthashastra is established scholars dont agree to the dating of Sukraniti and based on its gunpowder recipes, they date the text to 16th century and even as late as 19th century AD, other scholars place the text's antiquity in the vedic period upto 11th century AD.[citation needed]
+
+Islamic era texts which also make references to the presence of Gunpowder in pre Mongol invasion era are the accounts of an indo-persian historian Firishta (Tarikh-i Firishta 1606–1607) who states that cannons (top) and muskets (tufang) were used by Mahmud of Ghazni's (reigned 998-1010 AD) army against Annandapala of Kabul Shahi, same author has been cited by modern scholars, who refer his accounts of Dehl sultanate kings display of fireworks to mongol's Helagu Khan envoy at Dehli as evidence of mongol introduction of gunpowder to India.[71] In a Kashmiri text called Mujmalut Tawarikh dated to 1126 AD which was translated from Arabic (which was written a century earlier in early 11th century) which itself was based on an orignal Sanskrit work, some type of grenade shaped like a terracotta elephant with a fuse is mentioned which was placed in the army van and when the invading army drew near, it exploded and the flames destroyed great portion of that army.[72]
+
+The present general scholarly concensus is.that Gunpower arrived in India after mongol invasion or as late as 15th century. Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons according to some scholarship was transmitted to India through the Mongol invasions of India.[73][74] The Mongols were defeated by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate, and some of the Mongol soldiers remained in northern India after their conversion to Islam.[74] It was written in the Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that Nasiruddin Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258. Nasiruddin Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any Mongol attempt similar to the Siege of Baghdad (1258).[75] Firearms known as top-o-tufak also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366.[75] From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of Belgaum" in 1473 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.[76]
+
+The shipwrecked Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of matchlock weapons, which the Ottomans used against the Portuguese during the Siege of Diu (1531). After that, a diverse variety of firearms, large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur, and Murshidabad.[77] Guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the Zamorins[78]
+
+The Mughal emperor Akbar mass-produced matchlocks for the Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading Rajput commander during the Siege of Chittorgarh.[79] The Mughals began to use bamboo rockets (mainly for signalling) and employ sappers: special units that undermined heavy stone fortifications to plant gunpowder charges.
+
+The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced matchlocks, their designs were a combination of Ottoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the British and other Europeans in his province of Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.[80] Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.[80] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chhapra as a center of saltpeter refining.[80]
+
+Ever since the founding of the Sultanate of Mysore by Hyder Ali, French military officers were employed to train the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan were the first to introduce modern cannons and muskets, their army was also the first in India to have official uniforms. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan unleashed the Mysorean rockets at their British opponents effectively defeating them on various occasions. The Mysorean rockets inspired the development of the Congreve rocket, which the British widely utilized during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.[81]
+
+The Javanese Majapahit Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern-day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze-smithing and use of a central arsenal fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Documentary and archeological evidence indicate that Arab traders introduced gunpowder, gonnes, muskets, blunderbusses, and cannons to the Javanese, Acehnese, and Batak via long established commercial trade routes around the early to mid 14th century.[82] The resurgent Singhasari Empire overtook Sriwijaya and later emerged as the Majapahit whose warfare featured the use of fire-arms and cannonade. Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese sought to invade Java in 1293. History of Yuan mentioned that the Mongol used cannons (Chinese: Pao) against Daha forces.[83] Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-guns, known as cetbang, or erroneously as lantaka, was used widely by the Majapahit navy as well as by pirates and rival lords.[84] Following the decline of the Majapahit, particularly after the paregreg civil war (1404-1406),[85]:174–175 the consequent decline in demand for gunpowder weapons caused many weapon makers and bronze-smiths to move to Brunei, Sumatra, Malaysia and the Philippines lead to widespread use, especially in the Makassar Strait. It led to near universal use of the swivel-gun and cannons in the Nusantara archipelago.[86][84]
+
+Even though the knowledge of making gunpowder-based weapon has been known after the failed Mongol invasion of Java, and the predecessor of firearms, the pole gun (bedil tombak), was recorded as being used by Java in 1413,[87][88]:245 the knowledge of making "true" firearms came much later, after the middle of 15th century. It was brought by the Islamic nations of West Asia, most probably the Arabs. The precise year of introduction is unknown, but it may be safely concluded to be no earlier than 1460.[89]:23 Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia, the natives already possessed primitive firearms, the Java arquebus.[90] Portuguese influence to local weaponry, particularly after the capture of Malacca (1511), resulted in a new type of hybrid tradition matchlock firearm, the istinggar.[91]
+
+Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion.[92] Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cetbang cannons were further improved and used in the Demak Sultanate period during the Demak invasion of Portuguese Malacca. During this period, the iron for manufacturing Javanese cannons was imported from Khorasan in northern Persia. The material was known by Javanese as wesi kurasani (Khorasan iron).[93] When the Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to it as Berço, which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the Spaniards call it Verso.[94] By early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180-260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, length of them between 3–6 m.[95]
+
+Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.[86] Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers.[82] According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles', The History of Java (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.[96]
+
+On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China."[97] Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China because there is a large body of evidence that documents the evolution of the gun from the Chinese fire lance to a metal gun and the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an incendiary and an explosive, whereas similar records do not exist in Europe.[98]  As Andrade explains, the large amount of variation in gunpowder recipes in China relative to Europe is "evidence of experimentation in China, where gunpowder was at first used as an incendiary and only later became an explosive and a propellant... in contrast, formulas in Europe diverged only very slightly from the ideal proportions for use as an explosive and a propellant, suggesting that gunpowder was introduced as a mature technology."[42]
+
+However, the history of gunpowder is not without controversy. A major problem confronting the study of early gunpowder history is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler.[99] Translation difficulties have led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence. Ambiguous language can make it difficult to distinguish gunpowder weapons from similar technologies that do not rely on gunpowder. A commonly cited example is a report of the Battle of Mohi in Eastern Europe that mentions a "long lance" sending forth "evil-smelling vapors and smoke", which has been variously interpreted by different historians as the "first-gas attack upon European soil" using gunpowder, "the first use of cannon in Europe", or merely a "toxic gas" with no evidence of gunpowder.[100]   It is difficult to accurately translate original Chinese alchemical texts, which tend to explain phenomena through metaphor, into modern scientific language with rigidly defined terminology in English. [23] Early texts potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where semantic change occurred.[101] For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word pào changed in meaning from catapult to referring to a cannon.[102] This has led to arguments on the exact origins of gunpowder based on etymological foundations. Science and technology historian Bert S. Hall makes the observation that, "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets."[101]
+
+Another major area of contention in modern studies of the history of gunpowder is regarding the transmission of gunpowder. While the literary and archaeological evidence supports a Chinese origin for gunpowder and guns, the manner in which gunpowder technology was transferred from China to the West is still under debate.[97] It is unknown why the rapid spread of gunpowder technology across Eurasia took place over several decades whereas other technologies such as paper, the compass, and printing did not reach Europe until centuries after they were invented in China.[42]
+
+For the most powerful black powder, meal powder, a wood charcoal, is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow,[103] but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used. In Great Britain between the 15th and 19th centuries charcoal from alder buckthorn was greatly prized for gunpowder manufacture; cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States.[104] The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally, this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze or lead. Historically, a marble or limestone edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed, was used in Great Britain; however, by the mid 19th century this had changed to either an iron-shod stone wheel or a cast iron wheel running on an iron bed.[105] The mix was dampened with alcohol or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. This also helps the extremely soluble saltpeter to mix into the microscopic pores of the very high surface-area charcoal.
+
+Around the late 14th century, European powdermakers first began adding liquid during grinding to improve mixing, reduce dust, and with it the risk of explosion.[106] The powder-makers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powder-makers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.
+
+The improvement was based on reducing the surface area of a higher density composition. At the beginning of the 19th century, makers increased density further by static pressing. They shoveled damp mill cake into a two-foot square box, placed this beneath a screw press and reduced it to ​1⁄2 its volume. "Press cake" had the hardness of slate. They broke the dried slabs with hammers or rollers, and sorted the granules with sieves into different grades.  In the United States, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, who had learned the trade from Lavoisier, tumbled the dried grains in rotating barrels to round the edges and increase durability during shipping and handling. (Sharp grains rounded off in transport, producing fine "meal dust" that changed the burning properties.)
+
+Another advance was the manufacture of kiln charcoal by distilling wood in heated iron retorts instead of burning it in earthen pits. Controlling the temperature influenced the power and consistency of the finished gunpowder.  In 1863, in response to high prices for Indian saltpeter, DuPont chemists developed a process using potash or mined potassium chloride to convert plentiful Chilean sodium nitrate to potassium nitrate.[107]
+
+The following year (1864) the Gatebeck Low Gunpowder Works in Cumbria (Great Britain) started a plant to manufacture potassium nitrate by essentially the same chemical process.[108] This is nowadays called the 'Wakefield Process', after the owners of the company. It would have used potassium chloride from the Staßfurt mines, near Magdeburg, Germany, which had recently become available in industrial quantities.[109]
+
+During the 18th century, gunpowder factories became increasingly dependent on mechanical energy.[110] Despite mechanization, production difficulties related to humidity control, especially during the pressing, were still present in the late 19th century. A paper from 1885 laments that "Gunpowder is such a nervous and sensitive spirit, that in almost every process of manufacture it changes under our hands as the weather changes." Pressing times to the desired density could vary by a factor of three depending on the atmospheric humidity.[111]
+
+The term black powder was coined in the late 19th century, primarily in the United States, to distinguish prior gunpowder formulations from the new smokeless powders and semi-smokeless powders. Semi-smokeless powders featured bulk volume properties that approximated black powder, but had significantly reduced amounts of smoke and combustion products. Smokeless powder has different burning properties (pressure vs. time) and can generate higher pressures and work per gram. This can rupture older weapons designed for black powder. Smokeless powders ranged in color from brownish tan to yellow to white. Most of the bulk semi-smokeless powders ceased to be manufactured in the 1920s.[112][113][114]
+
+Black powder is a granular mixture of
+
+Potassium nitrate is the most important ingredient in terms of both bulk and function because the combustion process releases oxygen from the potassium nitrate, promoting the rapid burning of the other ingredients.[115] To reduce the likelihood of accidental ignition by static electricity, the granules of modern black powder are typically coated with graphite, which prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge.
+
+Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon; rather, it consists of partially pyrolyzed cellulose, in which the wood is not completely decomposed. Carbon differs from ordinary charcoal. Whereas charcoal's autoignition temperature is relatively low, carbon's is much greater. Thus, a black powder composition containing pure carbon would burn similarly to a match head, at best.[116]
+
+The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur.[105] These ratios have varied over the centuries and by country, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder. For instance, power grades of black powder, unsuitable for use in firearms but adequate for blasting rock in quarrying operations, are called blasting powder rather than gunpowder with standard proportions of 70% nitrate, 14% charcoal, and 16% sulfur; blasting powder may be made with the cheaper sodium nitrate substituted for potassium nitrate and proportions may be as low as 40% nitrate, 30% charcoal, and 30% sulfur.[117] In 1857, Lammot du Pont solved the main problem of using cheaper sodium nitrate formulations when he patented DuPont "B" blasting powder. After manufacturing grains from press-cake in the usual way, his process tumbled the powder with graphite dust for 12 hours. This formed a graphite coating on each grain that reduced its ability to absorb moisture.[118]
+
+Neither the use of graphite nor sodium nitrate was new. Glossing gunpowder corns with graphite was already an accepted technique in 1839,[119] and sodium nitrate-based blasting powder had been made in Peru for many years using the sodium nitrate mined at Tarapacá (now in Chile).[120] Also, in 1846, two plants were built in south-west England to make blasting powder using this sodium nitrate.[121] The idea may well have been brought from Peru by Cornish miners returning home after completing their contracts. Another suggestion is that it was William Lobb, the planthunter, who recognised the possibilities of sodium nitrate during his travels in South America. Lammot du Pont would have known about the use of graphite and probably also knew about the plants in south-west England. In his patent he was careful to state that his claim was for the combination of graphite with sodium nitrate-based powder, rather than for either of the two individual technologies.
+
+French war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 12.5% charcoal, 12.5% sulfur. English war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur.[122] The British Congreve rockets used 62.4% saltpeter, 23.2% charcoal and 14.4% sulfur, but the British Mark VII gunpowder was changed to 65% saltpeter, 20% charcoal and 15% sulfur.[citation needed] The explanation for the wide variety in formulation relates to usage. Powder used for rocketry can use a slower burn rate since it accelerates the projectile for a much longer time—whereas powders for weapons such as flintlocks, cap-locks, or matchlocks need a higher burn rate to accelerate the projectile in a much shorter distance. Cannons usually used lower burn-rate powders, because most would burst with higher burn-rate powders.
+
+In the First Opium war, the mixture for Qing China gunpowder contained a high ratio of charcoal which gave it a high stability and longer shelf life but generated less kinetic energy when ignited, decreasing the range and accuracy. In comparison, the mixture for British gunpowder contained a higher ratio of sulfur, allowing the powder to burn faster and thus generate more kinetic energy.
+
+The original dry-compounded powder used in 15th-century Europe was known as "Serpentine", either a reference to Satan[26] or to a common artillery piece that used it.[123] The ingredients were ground
+together with a mortar and pestle, perhaps for 24 hours,[123] resulting in a fine flour.  Vibration during transportation could cause the components to separate again, requiring remixing in the field. Also if the quality of the saltpeter was low (for instance if it was contaminated with highly hygroscopic calcium nitrate), or if the powder was simply old (due to the mildly hygroscopic nature of potassium nitrate), in humid weather it would need to be re-dried. The dust from "repairing" powder in the field was a major hazard.
+
+Loading cannons or bombards before the powder-making advances of the Renaissance was a skilled art. Fine powder loaded haphazardly or too tightly would burn incompletely or too slowly. Typically, the breech-loading powder chamber in the rear of the piece was filled only about half full, the serpentine powder neither too compressed nor too loose, a wooden bung pounded in to seal the chamber from the barrel when assembled, and the projectile placed on.  A carefully determined empty space was necessary for the charge to burn effectively. When the cannon was fired through the touchhole, turbulence from the initial surface combustion caused the rest of the powder to be rapidly exposed to the flame.[123]
+
+The advent of much more powerful and easy to use corned powder changed this procedure, but serpentine was used with older guns into the 17th century.[124]
+
+For propellants to oxidize and burn rapidly and effectively, the combustible ingredients must be reduced to the smallest possible particle sizes, and be as thoroughly mixed as possible. Once mixed, however, for better results in a gun, makers discovered that the final product should be in the form of individual dense grains that spread the fire quickly from grain to grain, much as straw or twigs catch fire more quickly than a pile of sawdust.
+
+Because the dry powdered ingredients must be mixed and bonded together for extrusion and cut into grains to maintain the blend, size reduction and mixing is done while the ingredients are damp, usually with water. After 1800, instead of forming grains by hand or with sieves, the damp mill-cake was pressed in molds to increase its density and extract the liquid, forming press-cake. The pressing took varying amounts of time, depending on conditions such as atmospheric humidity.  The hard, dense product was broken again into tiny pieces, which were separated with sieves to produce a uniform product for each purpose: coarse powders for cannons, finer grained powders for muskets, and the finest for small hand guns and priming.[124] Inappropriately fine-grained powder often caused cannons to burst before the projectile could move down the barrel, due to the high initial spike in pressure.[125] Mammoth powder with large grains, made for Rodman's 15-inch cannon, reduced the pressure to only 20 percent as high as ordinary cannon powder would have produced.[126]
+
+In the mid-19th century, measurements were made determining that the burning rate within a grain of black powder (or a tightly packed mass) is about 6 cm/s (0.20 feet/s), while the rate of ignition propagation from grain to grain is around 9 m/s (30 feet/s), over two orders of magnitude faster.[124]
+
+Modern corning first compresses the fine black powder meal into blocks with a fixed density (1.7 g/cm³).[127] In the United States, gunpowder grains were designated F (for fine) or C (for coarse). Grain diameter decreased with a larger number of Fs and increased with a larger number of Cs, ranging from about 2 mm (0.08 in) for 7F to 15 mm (0.6 in) for 7C. Even larger grains were produced for artillery bore diameters greater than about 17 cm (6.7 in).  The standard DuPont Mammoth powder developed by Thomas Rodman and Lammot du Pont for use during the American Civil War had grains averaging 0.6 inches (15 mm) in diameter with edges rounded in a glazing barrel.[126] Other versions had grains the size of golf and tennis balls for use in 20-inch (51 cm) Rodman guns.[128] In 1875 DuPont introduced Hexagonal powder for large artillery, which was pressed using shaped plates with a small center core—about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) diameter, like a wagon wheel nut, the center hole widened as the grain burned.[129] By 1882 German makers also produced hexagonal grained powders of a similar size for artillery.[129]
+
+By the late 19th century manufacturing focused on standard grades of black powder from Fg used in large bore rifles and shotguns, through FFg (medium and small-bore arms such as muskets and fusils), FFFg (small-bore rifles and pistols), and FFFFg (extreme small bore, short pistols and most commonly for priming flintlocks).[130] A coarser grade for use in military artillery blanks was designated A-1. These grades were sorted on a system of screens with oversize retained on a mesh of 6 wires per inch, A-1 retained on 10 wires per inch, Fg retained on 14, FFg on 24, FFFg on 46, and FFFFg on 60. Fines designated FFFFFg were usually reprocessed to minimize explosive dust hazards.[131] In the United Kingdom, the main service gunpowders were classified RFG (rifle grained fine) with diameter of one or two millimeters and RLG (rifle grained large) for grain diameters between two and six millimeters.[128] Gunpowder grains can alternatively be categorized by mesh size: the BSS sieve mesh size, being the smallest mesh size, which retains no grains. Recognized grain sizes are Gunpowder G 7, G 20, G 40, and G 90.
+
+Owing to the large market of antique and replica black-powder firearms in the US, modern gunpowder substitutes like Pyrodex, Triple Seven and Black Mag3[113] pellets have been developed since the 1970s. These products, which should not be confused with smokeless powders, aim to produce less fouling (solid residue), while maintaining the traditional volumetric measurement system for charges. Claims of less corrosiveness of these products have been controversial however. New cleaning products for black-powder guns have also been developed for this market.[130]
+
+Besides black powder, there are other historically important types of gunpowder.  "Brown gunpowder" is cited as composed of 79% nitre, 3% sulfur, and 18% charcoal per 100 of dry powder, with about 2% moisture. Prismatic Brown Powder is a large-grained product the Rottweil Company introduced in 1884 in Germany, which was adopted by the British Royal Navy shortly thereafter. The French navy adopted a fine, 3.1 millimeter, not prismatic grained product called Slow Burning Cocoa (SBC) or "cocoa powder". These brown powders reduced burning rate even further by using as little as 2 percent sulfur and using charcoal made from rye straw that had not been completely charred, hence the brown color.[129]
+
+Lesmok powder was a product developed by DuPont in 1911,[132] one of several semi-smokeless products in the industry containing a mixture of black and nitrocellulose powder. It was sold to Winchester and others primarily for .22 and .32 small calibers. Its advantage was that it was believed at the time to be less corrosive than smokeless powders then in use.  It was not understood in the U.S. until the 1920s that the actual source of corrosion was the potassium chloride residue from potassium chlorate sensitized primers.  The bulkier black powder fouling better disperses primer residue.  Failure to mitigate primer corrosion by dispersion caused the false impression that nitrocellulose-based powder caused corrosion.[133] Lesmok had some of the bulk of black powder for dispersing primer residue, but somewhat less total bulk than straight black powder, thus requiring less frequent bore cleaning.[113] It was last sold by Winchester in 1947.
+
+The development of smokeless powders, such as cordite, in the late 19th century created the need for a spark-sensitive priming charge, such as gunpowder. However, the sulfur content of traditional gunpowders caused corrosion problems with Cordite Mk I and this led to the introduction of a range of sulfur-free gunpowders, of varying grain sizes.[60] They typically contain 70.5 parts of saltpeter and 29.5 parts of charcoal.[60] Like black powder, they were produced in different grain sizes. In the United Kingdom, the finest grain was known as sulfur-free mealed powder (SMP). Coarser grains were numbered as sulfur-free gunpowder (SFG n): 'SFG 12', 'SFG 20', 'SFG 40' and 'SFG 90', for example; where the number represents the smallest BSS sieve mesh size, which retained no grains.
+
+Sulfur's main role in gunpowder is to decrease the ignition temperature. A sample reaction for sulfur-free gunpowder would be
+
+Gunpowder does not burn as a single reaction, so the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study[134] showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities) 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate and 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water.
+
+However, simplified equations have been cited.
+
+A simple, commonly cited, chemical equation for the combustion of black powder is
+
+A balanced, but still simplified, equation is[135]
+
+Black powder made with less-expensive and more plentiful sodium nitrate (in appropriate proportions) works just as well, and previous equations apply, with sodium instead of potassium. However, it is more hygroscopic than powders made from potassium nitrate—popularly known as saltpeter. Because corned black powder grains made with saltpeter are less affected by moisture in the air, they can be stored unsealed without degradation by humidity. Muzzleloaders have been known to fire after hanging on a wall for decades in a loaded state, provided they remained dry. By contrast, black powder made with sodium nitrate must be kept sealed to remain stable.
+
+The matchlock musket or pistol (an early gun ignition system), as well as the flintlock would often be unusable in wet weather, due to powder in the pan being exposed and dampened.
+
+Gunpowder releases 3 megajoules per kilogram and contains its own oxidant. This is lower than
+TNT (4.7 megajoules per kilogram), or gasoline (47.2 megajoules per kilogram, but gasoline requires an oxidant, so an optimized gasoline and O2 mixture contains 10.4 megajoules per kilogram).
+Black powder also has a low energy density compared to modern "smokeless" powders, and thus to achieve high energy loadings, large amounts of black powder are needed with heavy projectiles.[citation needed]
+
+Gunpowder is a low explosive, that is, it does not detonate but rather deflagrates (burns quickly). This is an advantage in a propellant device, where one does not desire a shock that would shatter the gun and potentially harm the operator, however it is a drawback when some explosion is wanted. In that case, gunpowder (and most importantly, gases produced by its burning) must be confined. Since it contains its own oxidizer and additionally burns faster under pressure, its combustion is capable of bursting containers such as shell, grenade, or improvised "pipe bomb" or "pressure cooker" casings to form shrapnel.
+
+In quarrying, high explosives are generally preferred for shattering rock. However, because of its low brisance, black powder causes fewer fractures and results in more usable stone compared to other explosives, making black powder useful for blasting slate, which is fragile,[136] or monumental stone such as granite and marble. Black powder is well suited for blank rounds, signal flares, burst charges, and rescue-line launches. Black powder is also used in fireworks for lifting shells, in rockets as fuel, and in certain special effects.
+
+As seen above, combustion converts less than half the mass of black powder to gas, most of it turns into particulate matter. Some of it is ejected, wasting propelling power, fouling the air, and generally being a nuisance (giving away a soldier's position, generating fog that hinders vision, etc.). Some of it ends up as a thick layer of soot inside the barrel, where it also is a nuisance for subsequent shots, and a cause of jamming an automatic weapon. Moreover, this residue is hygroscopic, and with the addition of moisture absorbed from the air forms a corrosive substance. The soot contains potassium oxide or sodium oxide that turns into potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide, which corrodes wrought iron or steel gun barrels.[citation needed] Black powder arms must therefore be well cleaned after use, both inside and out, to remove the residue.
+
+The United Nations Model Regulations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods and national transportation authorities, such as United States Department of Transportation, have classified gunpowder (black powder) as a Group A: Primary explosive substance for shipment because it ignites so easily. Complete manufactured devices containing black powder are usually classified as Group D: Secondary detonating substance, or black powder, or article containing secondary detonating substance, such as firework, class D model rocket engine, etc., for shipment because they are harder to ignite than loose powder. As explosives, they all fall into the category of Class 1.
+
+Besides its use as a propellant in firearms and artillery, black powder's other main use has been as a blasting powder in quarrying, mining, and road construction (including railroad construction). During the 19th century, outside of war emergencies such as the Crimean War or the American Civil War, more black powder was used in these industrial uses than in firearms and artillery. But dynamite gradually replaced it for those uses. Today industrial explosives for such uses are still a huge market, but most of the market is in newer explosives rather than black powder.
+
+Beginning in the 1930s, gunpowder or smokeless powder was used in rivet guns, stun guns for animals, cable splicers and other industrial construction tools.[137] The "stud gun" drove nails or screws into solid concrete, a function not possible with hydraulic tools. Today powder-actuated tools are still an important part of various industries, but the cartridges usually use smokeless powders. Industrial shotguns have been used to eliminate persistent material rings in operating rotary kilns (such as those for cement, lime, phosphate, etc.) and clinker in operating furnaces, and commercial tools make the method more reliable.[138]
+
+Gunpowder has occasionally been employed for other purposes besides weapons, mining, and construction:

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@@ -0,0 +1,203 @@
+
+
+Gunpowder, also known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur (S), charcoal (C), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter, KNO3). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer.[1][2] Because of its incendiary properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, and road building.
+
+Gunpowder was invented in 9th-century China as one of the Four Great Inventions, and spread throughout most parts of Eurasia by the end of the 13th century.[3] Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes, gunpowder was first used for warfare around 904 AD.[4]
+
+Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn) at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate producing a supersonic shockwave.
+
+Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. However, by transferring enough energy (from the burning gunpowder to the mass of the cannonball, and then from the cannonball to the opposing fortifications by way of the impacting ammunition) eventually a bombardier may wear down an opponent's fortified defenses.
+
+Gunpowder was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use. Gunpowder is no longer used in modern weapons, nor is it used for industrial purposes, due to its relatively inefficient cost compared to newer alternatives such as dynamite and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.[5][6] Today gunpowder firearms are limited primarily to hunting, target shooting, and bulletless historical reenactments.
+
+The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred in the 9th century AD during the Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue (太上聖祖金丹秘訣) in 808, and then about 50 years later in a Taoist text known as the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (真元妙道要略).[7] The Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue mentions a gunpowder formula composed of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb.[7] According to the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."[8] Based on these Taoist texts, the invention of gunpowder by Chinese alchemists was likely an accidental byproduct from experiments seeking to create the elixir of life.[9] This experimental medicine origin of gunpowder is reflected in its Chinese name huoyao (Chinese: 火药/火藥; pinyin: huŏ yào /xuo yɑʊ/), which means "fire medicine".[10] Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and was primarily produced in the provinces of Sichuan, Shanxi, and Shandong.[11] There is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various medicinal combinations.[12] A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200.[13]
+
+The earliest chemical formula for gunpowder appeared in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao (Complete Essentials from the Military Classics), written by Zeng Gongliang between 1040 and 1044.[14] The Wujing Zongyao provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures that included petrochemicals—as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets is mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book do not contain enough saltpeter to create an explosive however; being limited to at most 50% saltpeter, they produce an incendiary.[14] The Essentials was written by a Song dynasty court bureaucrat and there is little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of gunpowder use in the chronicles of the wars against the Tanguts in the 11th century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. However gunpowder had already been used for fire arrows since at least the 10th century. The first recorded military application of gunpowder dates its use to the year 904 in the form of incendiary projectiles.[4] In the following centuries various gunpowder weapons such as bombs, fire lances, and the gun appeared in China.[3][15] Explosive weapons such as bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan.[16]
+
+By 1083 the Song court was producing hundreds of thousands of fire arrows for their garrisons.[17] Bombs and the first proto-guns, known as "fire lances", became prominent during the 12th century and were used by the Song during the Jin-Song Wars. Fire lances were first recorded to have been used at the Siege of De'an in 1132 by Song forces against the Jin.[18] In the early 13th century the Jin utilized iron-casing bombs.[19] Projectiles were added to fire lances, and re-usable fire lance barrels were developed, first out of hardened paper, and then metal. By 1257 some fire lances were firing wads of bullets.[20][21] In the late 13th century metal fire lances became 'eruptors', proto-cannons firing co-viative projectiles (mixed with the propellant, rather than seated over it with a wad), and by 1287 at the latest, had become true guns, the hand cannon.[22]
+
+An arrow strapped with gunpowder ready to be shot from a bow. From the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The oldest known depiction of rocket arrows, from the Huolongjing. The right arrow reads "fire arrow", the middle is an "arrow frame in the shape of a dragon", and the left is a "complete fire arrow".
+
+An illustration of a thunderclap bomb as depicted in the 1044 text Wujing Zongyao. Considered to be a pseudo-explosive. The top item is a through awl and the bottom one is a hook awl.
+
+A fire lance as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor" cannon from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An organ gun known as the "mother of a hundred bullets gun" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An illustration of a bronze "thousand ball thunder cannon" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+A 'magic fire meteor going against the wind' bomb as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "self-tripped trespass land mine" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, by which point the Syrian Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. It is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" (Arabic: ثلج الصين‎ thalj al-ṣīn), fireworks as "Chinese flowers" and rockets as "Chinese arrows" that knowledge of gunpowder arrived from China.[23] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth".[24] In Persia saltpeter was known as "Chinese salt" (Persian: نمک چینی‎) namak-i chīnī)[25][26] or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" (نمک شوره چینی namak-i shūra-yi chīnī).[27][28]
+
+Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% charcoal), it is nearly identical to the modern reported ideal gunpowder recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.[24]
+
+Al-Hassan claims that in the Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the Mamluks used against the Mongols in "the first cannon in history" gunpowder formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder.[24] Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, that they used for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.[29][30]
+
+Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world[31] and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.[32] Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.[32]
+
+The musket appeared in the Ottoman Empire by 1465.[33] In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets.[34] The Chinese military book Wu Pei Chih (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in European or Chinese firearms at the time.[35]
+
+The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early supply chains to obtain nitre, sulfur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion between the 15th and 18th century. It was not until later in the 19th century when the syndicalist production of Turkish gunpowder was greatly reduced, which coincided with the decline of its military might.[36]
+
+The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century.[37]
+Several sources mention Chinese firearms and gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in 1241.[38][39][40] Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry.[41] However, there is no clear route of transmission,[42] and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China."[43] However, Timothy May also points out "However... the Mongols used the gunpowder weapon in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan."[43]
+
+In Europe, one of the first mentions of gunpowder use appears in a passage found in Roger Bacon's Opus Maius of 1267 and Opus Tertium in what has been interpreted as being firecrackers. The most telling passage reads: "We have an example of these things (that act on the senses) in [the sound and fire of] that children's toy which is made in many [diverse] parts of the world; i.e., a device no bigger than one's thumb. From the violence of that salt called saltpeter [together with sulfur and willow charcoal, combined into a powder] so horrible a sound is made by the bursting of a thing so small, no more than a bit of parchment [containing it], that we find [the ear assaulted by a noise] exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a flash brighter than the most brilliant lightning."[44] In the early 20th century, British artillery officer Henry William Lovett Hime proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder. This claim has been disputed by historians of science including Lynn Thorndike, John Maxson Stillman and George Sarton and by Bacon's editor Robert Steele, both in terms of authenticity of the work, and with respect to the decryption method.[44] In any case, the formula claimed to have been decrypted (7:5:5 saltpeter:charcoal:sulfur) is not useful for firearms use or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.[45][46] However, if Bacon's recipe is taken as measurements by volume rather than weight, a far more potent and serviceable explosive powder is created suitable for firing hand-cannons, albeit less consistent due to the inherent inaccuracies of measurements by volume. One example of this composition resulted in 100 parts saltpeter, 27 parts charcoal, and 45 parts sulfur, by weight.[47]
+
+The Liber Ignium, or Book of Fires, attributed to Marcus Graecus, is a collection of incendiary recipes, including some gunpowder recipes. Partington dates the gunpowder recipes to approximately 1300.[48] One recipe for "flying fire" (ignis volatilis) involves saltpeter, sulfur, and colophonium, which, when inserted into a reed or hollow wood, "flies away suddenly and burns up everything." Another recipe, for artificial "thunder", specifies a mixture of one pound native sulfur, two pounds linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter. Another specifies a 1:3:9 ratio.[49]
+
+Some of the gunpowder recipes of De Mirabilibus Mundi of Albertus Magnus are identical to the recipes of the Liber Ignium, and according to Partington, "may have been taken from that work, rather than conversely."[50] Partington suggests that some of the book may have been compiled by Albert's students, "but since it is found in thirteenth century manuscripts, it may well be by Albert."[50] Albertus Magnus died in 1280.
+
+A major advance in manufacturing began in Europe in the late 14th century when the safety and thoroughness of incorporation was improved by wet grinding; liquid, such as distilled spirits[51] was added during the grinding-together of the ingredients and the moist paste dried afterwards. The principle of wet mixing to prevent the separation of dry ingredients, invented for gunpowder, is used today in the pharmaceutical industry.[52]
+
+It was also discovered that if the paste was rolled into balls before drying the resulting gunpowder absorbed less water from the air during storage and traveled better. The balls were then crushed in a mortar by the gunner immediately before use, with the old problem of uneven particle size and packing causing unpredictable results. If the right size particles were chosen, however, the result was a great improvement in power.  Forming the damp paste into corn-sized clumps by hand or with the use of a sieve instead of larger balls produced a product after drying that loaded much better, as each tiny piece provided its own surrounding air space that allowed much more rapid combustion than a fine powder.  This "corned" gunpowder was from 30% to 300% more powerful. An example is cited where 34 pounds of serpentine was needed to shoot a 47-pound ball, but only 18 pounds of corned powder.[51] The optimum size of the grain depended on its use; larger for large cannon, finer for small arms.  Larger cast cannons were easily muzzle-loaded with corned powder using a long-handled ladle. Corned powder also retained the advantage of low moisture absorption, as even tiny grains still had much less surface area to attract water than a floury powder.
+
+During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing potassium carbonate to precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood, alum, and slices of turnip to clarify the solution.[51]
+
+During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. The German printer and publisher Christiaan Egenolff adapted an earlier work on pyrotechnics from manuscript to print form, publishing his Büchsenmeysterei in 1529 and reprinting it in 1531. Now extremely rare, the book discusses the manufacturing of gunpowder, the operation of artillery and the rules of conduct for the gunsmith.[53]
+
+In Italy, Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild Fraternita di Santa Barbara but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled De la pirotechnia, written in vernacular.  It was published posthumously in 1540, with 9 editions over 138 years, and also reprinted by MIT Press in 1966.[51]
+
+By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.[54] With the publication of Deutliche Anweisung zur Feuerwerkerey (1748), methods for creating fireworks were sufficiently well-known and well-described that "Firework making has become an exact science."[55] In 1774 Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at age 20.  After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.[56]
+
+Without access to cheap saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetremen with royal warrants, the droit de fouille or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolish walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners.[57] This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected.  Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the droit de fouille, researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works.  Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the American Revolution.  By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive.[57][58]
+
+In the Spanish Empire, the crown held a monopoly on gunpowder and the terms were set out during eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms.[59]
+
+Gunpowder production in Britain appears to have started in the mid 14th century with the aim of supplying the English Crown.[60] Records show that, in England, gunpowder was being made in 1346 at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there.[60] Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as Portchester. By the early 14th century, according to N.J.G. Pounds's study The Medieval Castle in England and Wales, many English castles had been deserted and others were crumbling. Their military significance faded except on the borders. Gunpowder had made smaller castles useless.[61]
+
+Henry VIII of England was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of Antwerp in what is now Belgium.[60]
+
+The English Civil War (1642–1645) led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.[60]
+
+One of the most notable uses of gunpowder in Great Britain was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605: a failed assassination attempt on King James I and VI. The plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was found under the House of Lords with hidden barrels of gunpowder. All assailants who had a role in the plot escaped but were eventually caught. King James later decreed that 5 November become a day of celebration, which is a tradition that carries on today known as Bonfire Night.
+
+Two British physicists, Andrew Noble and Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of black powder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for internal ballistics.[62]
+
+The introduction of smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of World War I, the majority of the United Kingdom gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and a number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of Permitted Explosives; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales, closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.[63]
+
+The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened.[60] This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley, the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory, which closed in 1954.[60][64]
+
+This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland; it too closed in October 1976.[60] Since then gunpowder has been imported into the United Kingdom. In the late 1970s/early 1980s gunpowder was bought from eastern Europe, particularly from what was then the German Democratic Republic and former Yugoslavia.
+
+The Greek historian Philostratos cites a letter written by Alexander saying that the reason why Greek army refrained from advancing Hydaspis to Ganges was because of the frightful dangers it encountered when people of Oxydraces threw flaming thunderbolts from the top of their forts. Scholars such as H. Wilkinson considers this as the earliest evidence of the gunpowder in the world.[65] There is a mention of an explosive called 'manosila' in Ramayana which was also used as a beauty product.[66]
+
+The Arthashastra lists recipes for what it called explosives or 'inflammable powder' (agnisamyogas or agniyoga) which according to J.R. Partington (A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder) are very similar to the ingredients mentioned in Chinese, European and Arabic texts.[67] The Arthashastra also mentions a device called ulka which is described as a shower of firebrands which were accompanied by noise of thunder (or noise of drumming) from the sky which were used to impress enemy subjects. Partington believes these recipes are for incendiaries rather than gunpowder or explosives since they do not include salt and sulphur, which he consider basic ingredients for gunpowder.[67] Scholars such as A. Kalyanamaran dispute that citing other scholars such as Carman (History of Firearms) stating that the nitrates were obtained using the fermented dung of animals mentioned in Arthashastra while sulfur was not an essential ingredient for gunpowder and could be eliminated to reduce smoke. The author cites the use of sulphurless gunpowder by the French army until the 18th century and sulphurless gunpowders in other periods when slow burning powder was desired.[68] Sulphur is not directly mentioned in the making of explosives but was known as gandha and the explosive manosila (antimony sulfide) was known since the Puranas.[69] Arthashastra mentions nitre called yavakshatra (Barley salt, indicates production from Barley ash) and "salt extracted from fertile soil".[70] Nitre has been listed as minerals obtained from Sindh. Other Indian texts which provide recipes of gunpowder are Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika, while antiquity of Arthashastra is established scholars dont agree to the dating of Sukraniti and based on its gunpowder recipes, they date the text to 16th century and even as late as 19th century AD, other scholars place the text's antiquity in the vedic period upto 11th century AD.[citation needed]
+
+Islamic era texts which also make references to the presence of Gunpowder in pre Mongol invasion era are the accounts of an indo-persian historian Firishta (Tarikh-i Firishta 1606–1607) who states that cannons (top) and muskets (tufang) were used by Mahmud of Ghazni's (reigned 998-1010 AD) army against Annandapala of Kabul Shahi, same author has been cited by modern scholars, who refer his accounts of Dehl sultanate kings display of fireworks to mongol's Helagu Khan envoy at Dehli as evidence of mongol introduction of gunpowder to India.[71] In a Kashmiri text called Mujmalut Tawarikh dated to 1126 AD which was translated from Arabic (which was written a century earlier in early 11th century) which itself was based on an orignal Sanskrit work, some type of grenade shaped like a terracotta elephant with a fuse is mentioned which was placed in the army van and when the invading army drew near, it exploded and the flames destroyed great portion of that army.[72]
+
+The present general scholarly concensus is.that Gunpower arrived in India after mongol invasion or as late as 15th century. Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons according to some scholarship was transmitted to India through the Mongol invasions of India.[73][74] The Mongols were defeated by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate, and some of the Mongol soldiers remained in northern India after their conversion to Islam.[74] It was written in the Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that Nasiruddin Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258. Nasiruddin Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any Mongol attempt similar to the Siege of Baghdad (1258).[75] Firearms known as top-o-tufak also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366.[75] From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of Belgaum" in 1473 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.[76]
+
+The shipwrecked Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of matchlock weapons, which the Ottomans used against the Portuguese during the Siege of Diu (1531). After that, a diverse variety of firearms, large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur, and Murshidabad.[77] Guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the Zamorins[78]
+
+The Mughal emperor Akbar mass-produced matchlocks for the Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading Rajput commander during the Siege of Chittorgarh.[79] The Mughals began to use bamboo rockets (mainly for signalling) and employ sappers: special units that undermined heavy stone fortifications to plant gunpowder charges.
+
+The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced matchlocks, their designs were a combination of Ottoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the British and other Europeans in his province of Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.[80] Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.[80] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chhapra as a center of saltpeter refining.[80]
+
+Ever since the founding of the Sultanate of Mysore by Hyder Ali, French military officers were employed to train the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan were the first to introduce modern cannons and muskets, their army was also the first in India to have official uniforms. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan unleashed the Mysorean rockets at their British opponents effectively defeating them on various occasions. The Mysorean rockets inspired the development of the Congreve rocket, which the British widely utilized during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.[81]
+
+The Javanese Majapahit Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern-day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze-smithing and use of a central arsenal fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Documentary and archeological evidence indicate that Arab traders introduced gunpowder, gonnes, muskets, blunderbusses, and cannons to the Javanese, Acehnese, and Batak via long established commercial trade routes around the early to mid 14th century.[82] The resurgent Singhasari Empire overtook Sriwijaya and later emerged as the Majapahit whose warfare featured the use of fire-arms and cannonade. Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese sought to invade Java in 1293. History of Yuan mentioned that the Mongol used cannons (Chinese: Pao) against Daha forces.[83] Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-guns, known as cetbang, or erroneously as lantaka, was used widely by the Majapahit navy as well as by pirates and rival lords.[84] Following the decline of the Majapahit, particularly after the paregreg civil war (1404-1406),[85]:174–175 the consequent decline in demand for gunpowder weapons caused many weapon makers and bronze-smiths to move to Brunei, Sumatra, Malaysia and the Philippines lead to widespread use, especially in the Makassar Strait. It led to near universal use of the swivel-gun and cannons in the Nusantara archipelago.[86][84]
+
+Even though the knowledge of making gunpowder-based weapon has been known after the failed Mongol invasion of Java, and the predecessor of firearms, the pole gun (bedil tombak), was recorded as being used by Java in 1413,[87][88]:245 the knowledge of making "true" firearms came much later, after the middle of 15th century. It was brought by the Islamic nations of West Asia, most probably the Arabs. The precise year of introduction is unknown, but it may be safely concluded to be no earlier than 1460.[89]:23 Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia, the natives already possessed primitive firearms, the Java arquebus.[90] Portuguese influence to local weaponry, particularly after the capture of Malacca (1511), resulted in a new type of hybrid tradition matchlock firearm, the istinggar.[91]
+
+Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion.[92] Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cetbang cannons were further improved and used in the Demak Sultanate period during the Demak invasion of Portuguese Malacca. During this period, the iron for manufacturing Javanese cannons was imported from Khorasan in northern Persia. The material was known by Javanese as wesi kurasani (Khorasan iron).[93] When the Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to it as Berço, which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the Spaniards call it Verso.[94] By early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180-260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, length of them between 3–6 m.[95]
+
+Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.[86] Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers.[82] According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles', The History of Java (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.[96]
+
+On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China."[97] Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China because there is a large body of evidence that documents the evolution of the gun from the Chinese fire lance to a metal gun and the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an incendiary and an explosive, whereas similar records do not exist in Europe.[98]  As Andrade explains, the large amount of variation in gunpowder recipes in China relative to Europe is "evidence of experimentation in China, where gunpowder was at first used as an incendiary and only later became an explosive and a propellant... in contrast, formulas in Europe diverged only very slightly from the ideal proportions for use as an explosive and a propellant, suggesting that gunpowder was introduced as a mature technology."[42]
+
+However, the history of gunpowder is not without controversy. A major problem confronting the study of early gunpowder history is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler.[99] Translation difficulties have led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence. Ambiguous language can make it difficult to distinguish gunpowder weapons from similar technologies that do not rely on gunpowder. A commonly cited example is a report of the Battle of Mohi in Eastern Europe that mentions a "long lance" sending forth "evil-smelling vapors and smoke", which has been variously interpreted by different historians as the "first-gas attack upon European soil" using gunpowder, "the first use of cannon in Europe", or merely a "toxic gas" with no evidence of gunpowder.[100]   It is difficult to accurately translate original Chinese alchemical texts, which tend to explain phenomena through metaphor, into modern scientific language with rigidly defined terminology in English. [23] Early texts potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where semantic change occurred.[101] For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word pào changed in meaning from catapult to referring to a cannon.[102] This has led to arguments on the exact origins of gunpowder based on etymological foundations. Science and technology historian Bert S. Hall makes the observation that, "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets."[101]
+
+Another major area of contention in modern studies of the history of gunpowder is regarding the transmission of gunpowder. While the literary and archaeological evidence supports a Chinese origin for gunpowder and guns, the manner in which gunpowder technology was transferred from China to the West is still under debate.[97] It is unknown why the rapid spread of gunpowder technology across Eurasia took place over several decades whereas other technologies such as paper, the compass, and printing did not reach Europe until centuries after they were invented in China.[42]
+
+For the most powerful black powder, meal powder, a wood charcoal, is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow,[103] but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used. In Great Britain between the 15th and 19th centuries charcoal from alder buckthorn was greatly prized for gunpowder manufacture; cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States.[104] The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally, this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze or lead. Historically, a marble or limestone edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed, was used in Great Britain; however, by the mid 19th century this had changed to either an iron-shod stone wheel or a cast iron wheel running on an iron bed.[105] The mix was dampened with alcohol or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. This also helps the extremely soluble saltpeter to mix into the microscopic pores of the very high surface-area charcoal.
+
+Around the late 14th century, European powdermakers first began adding liquid during grinding to improve mixing, reduce dust, and with it the risk of explosion.[106] The powder-makers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powder-makers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.
+
+The improvement was based on reducing the surface area of a higher density composition. At the beginning of the 19th century, makers increased density further by static pressing. They shoveled damp mill cake into a two-foot square box, placed this beneath a screw press and reduced it to ​1⁄2 its volume. "Press cake" had the hardness of slate. They broke the dried slabs with hammers or rollers, and sorted the granules with sieves into different grades.  In the United States, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, who had learned the trade from Lavoisier, tumbled the dried grains in rotating barrels to round the edges and increase durability during shipping and handling. (Sharp grains rounded off in transport, producing fine "meal dust" that changed the burning properties.)
+
+Another advance was the manufacture of kiln charcoal by distilling wood in heated iron retorts instead of burning it in earthen pits. Controlling the temperature influenced the power and consistency of the finished gunpowder.  In 1863, in response to high prices for Indian saltpeter, DuPont chemists developed a process using potash or mined potassium chloride to convert plentiful Chilean sodium nitrate to potassium nitrate.[107]
+
+The following year (1864) the Gatebeck Low Gunpowder Works in Cumbria (Great Britain) started a plant to manufacture potassium nitrate by essentially the same chemical process.[108] This is nowadays called the 'Wakefield Process', after the owners of the company. It would have used potassium chloride from the Staßfurt mines, near Magdeburg, Germany, which had recently become available in industrial quantities.[109]
+
+During the 18th century, gunpowder factories became increasingly dependent on mechanical energy.[110] Despite mechanization, production difficulties related to humidity control, especially during the pressing, were still present in the late 19th century. A paper from 1885 laments that "Gunpowder is such a nervous and sensitive spirit, that in almost every process of manufacture it changes under our hands as the weather changes." Pressing times to the desired density could vary by a factor of three depending on the atmospheric humidity.[111]
+
+The term black powder was coined in the late 19th century, primarily in the United States, to distinguish prior gunpowder formulations from the new smokeless powders and semi-smokeless powders. Semi-smokeless powders featured bulk volume properties that approximated black powder, but had significantly reduced amounts of smoke and combustion products. Smokeless powder has different burning properties (pressure vs. time) and can generate higher pressures and work per gram. This can rupture older weapons designed for black powder. Smokeless powders ranged in color from brownish tan to yellow to white. Most of the bulk semi-smokeless powders ceased to be manufactured in the 1920s.[112][113][114]
+
+Black powder is a granular mixture of
+
+Potassium nitrate is the most important ingredient in terms of both bulk and function because the combustion process releases oxygen from the potassium nitrate, promoting the rapid burning of the other ingredients.[115] To reduce the likelihood of accidental ignition by static electricity, the granules of modern black powder are typically coated with graphite, which prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge.
+
+Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon; rather, it consists of partially pyrolyzed cellulose, in which the wood is not completely decomposed. Carbon differs from ordinary charcoal. Whereas charcoal's autoignition temperature is relatively low, carbon's is much greater. Thus, a black powder composition containing pure carbon would burn similarly to a match head, at best.[116]
+
+The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur.[105] These ratios have varied over the centuries and by country, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder. For instance, power grades of black powder, unsuitable for use in firearms but adequate for blasting rock in quarrying operations, are called blasting powder rather than gunpowder with standard proportions of 70% nitrate, 14% charcoal, and 16% sulfur; blasting powder may be made with the cheaper sodium nitrate substituted for potassium nitrate and proportions may be as low as 40% nitrate, 30% charcoal, and 30% sulfur.[117] In 1857, Lammot du Pont solved the main problem of using cheaper sodium nitrate formulations when he patented DuPont "B" blasting powder. After manufacturing grains from press-cake in the usual way, his process tumbled the powder with graphite dust for 12 hours. This formed a graphite coating on each grain that reduced its ability to absorb moisture.[118]
+
+Neither the use of graphite nor sodium nitrate was new. Glossing gunpowder corns with graphite was already an accepted technique in 1839,[119] and sodium nitrate-based blasting powder had been made in Peru for many years using the sodium nitrate mined at Tarapacá (now in Chile).[120] Also, in 1846, two plants were built in south-west England to make blasting powder using this sodium nitrate.[121] The idea may well have been brought from Peru by Cornish miners returning home after completing their contracts. Another suggestion is that it was William Lobb, the planthunter, who recognised the possibilities of sodium nitrate during his travels in South America. Lammot du Pont would have known about the use of graphite and probably also knew about the plants in south-west England. In his patent he was careful to state that his claim was for the combination of graphite with sodium nitrate-based powder, rather than for either of the two individual technologies.
+
+French war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 12.5% charcoal, 12.5% sulfur. English war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur.[122] The British Congreve rockets used 62.4% saltpeter, 23.2% charcoal and 14.4% sulfur, but the British Mark VII gunpowder was changed to 65% saltpeter, 20% charcoal and 15% sulfur.[citation needed] The explanation for the wide variety in formulation relates to usage. Powder used for rocketry can use a slower burn rate since it accelerates the projectile for a much longer time—whereas powders for weapons such as flintlocks, cap-locks, or matchlocks need a higher burn rate to accelerate the projectile in a much shorter distance. Cannons usually used lower burn-rate powders, because most would burst with higher burn-rate powders.
+
+In the First Opium war, the mixture for Qing China gunpowder contained a high ratio of charcoal which gave it a high stability and longer shelf life but generated less kinetic energy when ignited, decreasing the range and accuracy. In comparison, the mixture for British gunpowder contained a higher ratio of sulfur, allowing the powder to burn faster and thus generate more kinetic energy.
+
+The original dry-compounded powder used in 15th-century Europe was known as "Serpentine", either a reference to Satan[26] or to a common artillery piece that used it.[123] The ingredients were ground
+together with a mortar and pestle, perhaps for 24 hours,[123] resulting in a fine flour.  Vibration during transportation could cause the components to separate again, requiring remixing in the field. Also if the quality of the saltpeter was low (for instance if it was contaminated with highly hygroscopic calcium nitrate), or if the powder was simply old (due to the mildly hygroscopic nature of potassium nitrate), in humid weather it would need to be re-dried. The dust from "repairing" powder in the field was a major hazard.
+
+Loading cannons or bombards before the powder-making advances of the Renaissance was a skilled art. Fine powder loaded haphazardly or too tightly would burn incompletely or too slowly. Typically, the breech-loading powder chamber in the rear of the piece was filled only about half full, the serpentine powder neither too compressed nor too loose, a wooden bung pounded in to seal the chamber from the barrel when assembled, and the projectile placed on.  A carefully determined empty space was necessary for the charge to burn effectively. When the cannon was fired through the touchhole, turbulence from the initial surface combustion caused the rest of the powder to be rapidly exposed to the flame.[123]
+
+The advent of much more powerful and easy to use corned powder changed this procedure, but serpentine was used with older guns into the 17th century.[124]
+
+For propellants to oxidize and burn rapidly and effectively, the combustible ingredients must be reduced to the smallest possible particle sizes, and be as thoroughly mixed as possible. Once mixed, however, for better results in a gun, makers discovered that the final product should be in the form of individual dense grains that spread the fire quickly from grain to grain, much as straw or twigs catch fire more quickly than a pile of sawdust.
+
+Because the dry powdered ingredients must be mixed and bonded together for extrusion and cut into grains to maintain the blend, size reduction and mixing is done while the ingredients are damp, usually with water. After 1800, instead of forming grains by hand or with sieves, the damp mill-cake was pressed in molds to increase its density and extract the liquid, forming press-cake. The pressing took varying amounts of time, depending on conditions such as atmospheric humidity.  The hard, dense product was broken again into tiny pieces, which were separated with sieves to produce a uniform product for each purpose: coarse powders for cannons, finer grained powders for muskets, and the finest for small hand guns and priming.[124] Inappropriately fine-grained powder often caused cannons to burst before the projectile could move down the barrel, due to the high initial spike in pressure.[125] Mammoth powder with large grains, made for Rodman's 15-inch cannon, reduced the pressure to only 20 percent as high as ordinary cannon powder would have produced.[126]
+
+In the mid-19th century, measurements were made determining that the burning rate within a grain of black powder (or a tightly packed mass) is about 6 cm/s (0.20 feet/s), while the rate of ignition propagation from grain to grain is around 9 m/s (30 feet/s), over two orders of magnitude faster.[124]
+
+Modern corning first compresses the fine black powder meal into blocks with a fixed density (1.7 g/cm³).[127] In the United States, gunpowder grains were designated F (for fine) or C (for coarse). Grain diameter decreased with a larger number of Fs and increased with a larger number of Cs, ranging from about 2 mm (0.08 in) for 7F to 15 mm (0.6 in) for 7C. Even larger grains were produced for artillery bore diameters greater than about 17 cm (6.7 in).  The standard DuPont Mammoth powder developed by Thomas Rodman and Lammot du Pont for use during the American Civil War had grains averaging 0.6 inches (15 mm) in diameter with edges rounded in a glazing barrel.[126] Other versions had grains the size of golf and tennis balls for use in 20-inch (51 cm) Rodman guns.[128] In 1875 DuPont introduced Hexagonal powder for large artillery, which was pressed using shaped plates with a small center core—about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) diameter, like a wagon wheel nut, the center hole widened as the grain burned.[129] By 1882 German makers also produced hexagonal grained powders of a similar size for artillery.[129]
+
+By the late 19th century manufacturing focused on standard grades of black powder from Fg used in large bore rifles and shotguns, through FFg (medium and small-bore arms such as muskets and fusils), FFFg (small-bore rifles and pistols), and FFFFg (extreme small bore, short pistols and most commonly for priming flintlocks).[130] A coarser grade for use in military artillery blanks was designated A-1. These grades were sorted on a system of screens with oversize retained on a mesh of 6 wires per inch, A-1 retained on 10 wires per inch, Fg retained on 14, FFg on 24, FFFg on 46, and FFFFg on 60. Fines designated FFFFFg were usually reprocessed to minimize explosive dust hazards.[131] In the United Kingdom, the main service gunpowders were classified RFG (rifle grained fine) with diameter of one or two millimeters and RLG (rifle grained large) for grain diameters between two and six millimeters.[128] Gunpowder grains can alternatively be categorized by mesh size: the BSS sieve mesh size, being the smallest mesh size, which retains no grains. Recognized grain sizes are Gunpowder G 7, G 20, G 40, and G 90.
+
+Owing to the large market of antique and replica black-powder firearms in the US, modern gunpowder substitutes like Pyrodex, Triple Seven and Black Mag3[113] pellets have been developed since the 1970s. These products, which should not be confused with smokeless powders, aim to produce less fouling (solid residue), while maintaining the traditional volumetric measurement system for charges. Claims of less corrosiveness of these products have been controversial however. New cleaning products for black-powder guns have also been developed for this market.[130]
+
+Besides black powder, there are other historically important types of gunpowder.  "Brown gunpowder" is cited as composed of 79% nitre, 3% sulfur, and 18% charcoal per 100 of dry powder, with about 2% moisture. Prismatic Brown Powder is a large-grained product the Rottweil Company introduced in 1884 in Germany, which was adopted by the British Royal Navy shortly thereafter. The French navy adopted a fine, 3.1 millimeter, not prismatic grained product called Slow Burning Cocoa (SBC) or "cocoa powder". These brown powders reduced burning rate even further by using as little as 2 percent sulfur and using charcoal made from rye straw that had not been completely charred, hence the brown color.[129]
+
+Lesmok powder was a product developed by DuPont in 1911,[132] one of several semi-smokeless products in the industry containing a mixture of black and nitrocellulose powder. It was sold to Winchester and others primarily for .22 and .32 small calibers. Its advantage was that it was believed at the time to be less corrosive than smokeless powders then in use.  It was not understood in the U.S. until the 1920s that the actual source of corrosion was the potassium chloride residue from potassium chlorate sensitized primers.  The bulkier black powder fouling better disperses primer residue.  Failure to mitigate primer corrosion by dispersion caused the false impression that nitrocellulose-based powder caused corrosion.[133] Lesmok had some of the bulk of black powder for dispersing primer residue, but somewhat less total bulk than straight black powder, thus requiring less frequent bore cleaning.[113] It was last sold by Winchester in 1947.
+
+The development of smokeless powders, such as cordite, in the late 19th century created the need for a spark-sensitive priming charge, such as gunpowder. However, the sulfur content of traditional gunpowders caused corrosion problems with Cordite Mk I and this led to the introduction of a range of sulfur-free gunpowders, of varying grain sizes.[60] They typically contain 70.5 parts of saltpeter and 29.5 parts of charcoal.[60] Like black powder, they were produced in different grain sizes. In the United Kingdom, the finest grain was known as sulfur-free mealed powder (SMP). Coarser grains were numbered as sulfur-free gunpowder (SFG n): 'SFG 12', 'SFG 20', 'SFG 40' and 'SFG 90', for example; where the number represents the smallest BSS sieve mesh size, which retained no grains.
+
+Sulfur's main role in gunpowder is to decrease the ignition temperature. A sample reaction for sulfur-free gunpowder would be
+
+Gunpowder does not burn as a single reaction, so the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study[134] showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities) 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate and 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water.
+
+However, simplified equations have been cited.
+
+A simple, commonly cited, chemical equation for the combustion of black powder is
+
+A balanced, but still simplified, equation is[135]
+
+Black powder made with less-expensive and more plentiful sodium nitrate (in appropriate proportions) works just as well, and previous equations apply, with sodium instead of potassium. However, it is more hygroscopic than powders made from potassium nitrate—popularly known as saltpeter. Because corned black powder grains made with saltpeter are less affected by moisture in the air, they can be stored unsealed without degradation by humidity. Muzzleloaders have been known to fire after hanging on a wall for decades in a loaded state, provided they remained dry. By contrast, black powder made with sodium nitrate must be kept sealed to remain stable.
+
+The matchlock musket or pistol (an early gun ignition system), as well as the flintlock would often be unusable in wet weather, due to powder in the pan being exposed and dampened.
+
+Gunpowder releases 3 megajoules per kilogram and contains its own oxidant. This is lower than
+TNT (4.7 megajoules per kilogram), or gasoline (47.2 megajoules per kilogram, but gasoline requires an oxidant, so an optimized gasoline and O2 mixture contains 10.4 megajoules per kilogram).
+Black powder also has a low energy density compared to modern "smokeless" powders, and thus to achieve high energy loadings, large amounts of black powder are needed with heavy projectiles.[citation needed]
+
+Gunpowder is a low explosive, that is, it does not detonate but rather deflagrates (burns quickly). This is an advantage in a propellant device, where one does not desire a shock that would shatter the gun and potentially harm the operator, however it is a drawback when some explosion is wanted. In that case, gunpowder (and most importantly, gases produced by its burning) must be confined. Since it contains its own oxidizer and additionally burns faster under pressure, its combustion is capable of bursting containers such as shell, grenade, or improvised "pipe bomb" or "pressure cooker" casings to form shrapnel.
+
+In quarrying, high explosives are generally preferred for shattering rock. However, because of its low brisance, black powder causes fewer fractures and results in more usable stone compared to other explosives, making black powder useful for blasting slate, which is fragile,[136] or monumental stone such as granite and marble. Black powder is well suited for blank rounds, signal flares, burst charges, and rescue-line launches. Black powder is also used in fireworks for lifting shells, in rockets as fuel, and in certain special effects.
+
+As seen above, combustion converts less than half the mass of black powder to gas, most of it turns into particulate matter. Some of it is ejected, wasting propelling power, fouling the air, and generally being a nuisance (giving away a soldier's position, generating fog that hinders vision, etc.). Some of it ends up as a thick layer of soot inside the barrel, where it also is a nuisance for subsequent shots, and a cause of jamming an automatic weapon. Moreover, this residue is hygroscopic, and with the addition of moisture absorbed from the air forms a corrosive substance. The soot contains potassium oxide or sodium oxide that turns into potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide, which corrodes wrought iron or steel gun barrels.[citation needed] Black powder arms must therefore be well cleaned after use, both inside and out, to remove the residue.
+
+The United Nations Model Regulations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods and national transportation authorities, such as United States Department of Transportation, have classified gunpowder (black powder) as a Group A: Primary explosive substance for shipment because it ignites so easily. Complete manufactured devices containing black powder are usually classified as Group D: Secondary detonating substance, or black powder, or article containing secondary detonating substance, such as firework, class D model rocket engine, etc., for shipment because they are harder to ignite than loose powder. As explosives, they all fall into the category of Class 1.
+
+Besides its use as a propellant in firearms and artillery, black powder's other main use has been as a blasting powder in quarrying, mining, and road construction (including railroad construction). During the 19th century, outside of war emergencies such as the Crimean War or the American Civil War, more black powder was used in these industrial uses than in firearms and artillery. But dynamite gradually replaced it for those uses. Today industrial explosives for such uses are still a huge market, but most of the market is in newer explosives rather than black powder.
+
+Beginning in the 1930s, gunpowder or smokeless powder was used in rivet guns, stun guns for animals, cable splicers and other industrial construction tools.[137] The "stud gun" drove nails or screws into solid concrete, a function not possible with hydraulic tools. Today powder-actuated tools are still an important part of various industries, but the cartridges usually use smokeless powders. Industrial shotguns have been used to eliminate persistent material rings in operating rotary kilns (such as those for cement, lime, phosphate, etc.) and clinker in operating furnaces, and commercial tools make the method more reliable.[138]
+
+Gunpowder has occasionally been employed for other purposes besides weapons, mining, and construction:

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+Gunpowder, also known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur (S), charcoal (C), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter, KNO3). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer.[1][2] Because of its incendiary properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, and road building.
+
+Gunpowder was invented in 9th-century China as one of the Four Great Inventions, and spread throughout most parts of Eurasia by the end of the 13th century.[3] Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes, gunpowder was first used for warfare around 904 AD.[4]
+
+Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn) at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate producing a supersonic shockwave.
+
+Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. However, by transferring enough energy (from the burning gunpowder to the mass of the cannonball, and then from the cannonball to the opposing fortifications by way of the impacting ammunition) eventually a bombardier may wear down an opponent's fortified defenses.
+
+Gunpowder was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use. Gunpowder is no longer used in modern weapons, nor is it used for industrial purposes, due to its relatively inefficient cost compared to newer alternatives such as dynamite and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.[5][6] Today gunpowder firearms are limited primarily to hunting, target shooting, and bulletless historical reenactments.
+
+The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred in the 9th century AD during the Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue (太上聖祖金丹秘訣) in 808, and then about 50 years later in a Taoist text known as the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (真元妙道要略).[7] The Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue mentions a gunpowder formula composed of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb.[7] According to the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."[8] Based on these Taoist texts, the invention of gunpowder by Chinese alchemists was likely an accidental byproduct from experiments seeking to create the elixir of life.[9] This experimental medicine origin of gunpowder is reflected in its Chinese name huoyao (Chinese: 火药/火藥; pinyin: huŏ yào /xuo yɑʊ/), which means "fire medicine".[10] Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and was primarily produced in the provinces of Sichuan, Shanxi, and Shandong.[11] There is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various medicinal combinations.[12] A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200.[13]
+
+The earliest chemical formula for gunpowder appeared in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao (Complete Essentials from the Military Classics), written by Zeng Gongliang between 1040 and 1044.[14] The Wujing Zongyao provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures that included petrochemicals—as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets is mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book do not contain enough saltpeter to create an explosive however; being limited to at most 50% saltpeter, they produce an incendiary.[14] The Essentials was written by a Song dynasty court bureaucrat and there is little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of gunpowder use in the chronicles of the wars against the Tanguts in the 11th century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. However gunpowder had already been used for fire arrows since at least the 10th century. The first recorded military application of gunpowder dates its use to the year 904 in the form of incendiary projectiles.[4] In the following centuries various gunpowder weapons such as bombs, fire lances, and the gun appeared in China.[3][15] Explosive weapons such as bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan.[16]
+
+By 1083 the Song court was producing hundreds of thousands of fire arrows for their garrisons.[17] Bombs and the first proto-guns, known as "fire lances", became prominent during the 12th century and were used by the Song during the Jin-Song Wars. Fire lances were first recorded to have been used at the Siege of De'an in 1132 by Song forces against the Jin.[18] In the early 13th century the Jin utilized iron-casing bombs.[19] Projectiles were added to fire lances, and re-usable fire lance barrels were developed, first out of hardened paper, and then metal. By 1257 some fire lances were firing wads of bullets.[20][21] In the late 13th century metal fire lances became 'eruptors', proto-cannons firing co-viative projectiles (mixed with the propellant, rather than seated over it with a wad), and by 1287 at the latest, had become true guns, the hand cannon.[22]
+
+An arrow strapped with gunpowder ready to be shot from a bow. From the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The oldest known depiction of rocket arrows, from the Huolongjing. The right arrow reads "fire arrow", the middle is an "arrow frame in the shape of a dragon", and the left is a "complete fire arrow".
+
+An illustration of a thunderclap bomb as depicted in the 1044 text Wujing Zongyao. Considered to be a pseudo-explosive. The top item is a through awl and the bottom one is a hook awl.
+
+A fire lance as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor" cannon from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An organ gun known as the "mother of a hundred bullets gun" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An illustration of a bronze "thousand ball thunder cannon" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+A 'magic fire meteor going against the wind' bomb as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "self-tripped trespass land mine" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, by which point the Syrian Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. It is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" (Arabic: ثلج الصين‎ thalj al-ṣīn), fireworks as "Chinese flowers" and rockets as "Chinese arrows" that knowledge of gunpowder arrived from China.[23] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth".[24] In Persia saltpeter was known as "Chinese salt" (Persian: نمک چینی‎) namak-i chīnī)[25][26] or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" (نمک شوره چینی namak-i shūra-yi chīnī).[27][28]
+
+Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% charcoal), it is nearly identical to the modern reported ideal gunpowder recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.[24]
+
+Al-Hassan claims that in the Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the Mamluks used against the Mongols in "the first cannon in history" gunpowder formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder.[24] Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, that they used for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.[29][30]
+
+Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world[31] and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.[32] Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.[32]
+
+The musket appeared in the Ottoman Empire by 1465.[33] In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets.[34] The Chinese military book Wu Pei Chih (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in European or Chinese firearms at the time.[35]
+
+The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early supply chains to obtain nitre, sulfur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion between the 15th and 18th century. It was not until later in the 19th century when the syndicalist production of Turkish gunpowder was greatly reduced, which coincided with the decline of its military might.[36]
+
+The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century.[37]
+Several sources mention Chinese firearms and gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in 1241.[38][39][40] Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry.[41] However, there is no clear route of transmission,[42] and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China."[43] However, Timothy May also points out "However... the Mongols used the gunpowder weapon in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan."[43]
+
+In Europe, one of the first mentions of gunpowder use appears in a passage found in Roger Bacon's Opus Maius of 1267 and Opus Tertium in what has been interpreted as being firecrackers. The most telling passage reads: "We have an example of these things (that act on the senses) in [the sound and fire of] that children's toy which is made in many [diverse] parts of the world; i.e., a device no bigger than one's thumb. From the violence of that salt called saltpeter [together with sulfur and willow charcoal, combined into a powder] so horrible a sound is made by the bursting of a thing so small, no more than a bit of parchment [containing it], that we find [the ear assaulted by a noise] exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a flash brighter than the most brilliant lightning."[44] In the early 20th century, British artillery officer Henry William Lovett Hime proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder. This claim has been disputed by historians of science including Lynn Thorndike, John Maxson Stillman and George Sarton and by Bacon's editor Robert Steele, both in terms of authenticity of the work, and with respect to the decryption method.[44] In any case, the formula claimed to have been decrypted (7:5:5 saltpeter:charcoal:sulfur) is not useful for firearms use or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.[45][46] However, if Bacon's recipe is taken as measurements by volume rather than weight, a far more potent and serviceable explosive powder is created suitable for firing hand-cannons, albeit less consistent due to the inherent inaccuracies of measurements by volume. One example of this composition resulted in 100 parts saltpeter, 27 parts charcoal, and 45 parts sulfur, by weight.[47]
+
+The Liber Ignium, or Book of Fires, attributed to Marcus Graecus, is a collection of incendiary recipes, including some gunpowder recipes. Partington dates the gunpowder recipes to approximately 1300.[48] One recipe for "flying fire" (ignis volatilis) involves saltpeter, sulfur, and colophonium, which, when inserted into a reed or hollow wood, "flies away suddenly and burns up everything." Another recipe, for artificial "thunder", specifies a mixture of one pound native sulfur, two pounds linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter. Another specifies a 1:3:9 ratio.[49]
+
+Some of the gunpowder recipes of De Mirabilibus Mundi of Albertus Magnus are identical to the recipes of the Liber Ignium, and according to Partington, "may have been taken from that work, rather than conversely."[50] Partington suggests that some of the book may have been compiled by Albert's students, "but since it is found in thirteenth century manuscripts, it may well be by Albert."[50] Albertus Magnus died in 1280.
+
+A major advance in manufacturing began in Europe in the late 14th century when the safety and thoroughness of incorporation was improved by wet grinding; liquid, such as distilled spirits[51] was added during the grinding-together of the ingredients and the moist paste dried afterwards. The principle of wet mixing to prevent the separation of dry ingredients, invented for gunpowder, is used today in the pharmaceutical industry.[52]
+
+It was also discovered that if the paste was rolled into balls before drying the resulting gunpowder absorbed less water from the air during storage and traveled better. The balls were then crushed in a mortar by the gunner immediately before use, with the old problem of uneven particle size and packing causing unpredictable results. If the right size particles were chosen, however, the result was a great improvement in power.  Forming the damp paste into corn-sized clumps by hand or with the use of a sieve instead of larger balls produced a product after drying that loaded much better, as each tiny piece provided its own surrounding air space that allowed much more rapid combustion than a fine powder.  This "corned" gunpowder was from 30% to 300% more powerful. An example is cited where 34 pounds of serpentine was needed to shoot a 47-pound ball, but only 18 pounds of corned powder.[51] The optimum size of the grain depended on its use; larger for large cannon, finer for small arms.  Larger cast cannons were easily muzzle-loaded with corned powder using a long-handled ladle. Corned powder also retained the advantage of low moisture absorption, as even tiny grains still had much less surface area to attract water than a floury powder.
+
+During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing potassium carbonate to precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood, alum, and slices of turnip to clarify the solution.[51]
+
+During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. The German printer and publisher Christiaan Egenolff adapted an earlier work on pyrotechnics from manuscript to print form, publishing his Büchsenmeysterei in 1529 and reprinting it in 1531. Now extremely rare, the book discusses the manufacturing of gunpowder, the operation of artillery and the rules of conduct for the gunsmith.[53]
+
+In Italy, Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild Fraternita di Santa Barbara but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled De la pirotechnia, written in vernacular.  It was published posthumously in 1540, with 9 editions over 138 years, and also reprinted by MIT Press in 1966.[51]
+
+By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.[54] With the publication of Deutliche Anweisung zur Feuerwerkerey (1748), methods for creating fireworks were sufficiently well-known and well-described that "Firework making has become an exact science."[55] In 1774 Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at age 20.  After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.[56]
+
+Without access to cheap saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetremen with royal warrants, the droit de fouille or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolish walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners.[57] This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected.  Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the droit de fouille, researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works.  Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the American Revolution.  By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive.[57][58]
+
+In the Spanish Empire, the crown held a monopoly on gunpowder and the terms were set out during eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms.[59]
+
+Gunpowder production in Britain appears to have started in the mid 14th century with the aim of supplying the English Crown.[60] Records show that, in England, gunpowder was being made in 1346 at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there.[60] Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as Portchester. By the early 14th century, according to N.J.G. Pounds's study The Medieval Castle in England and Wales, many English castles had been deserted and others were crumbling. Their military significance faded except on the borders. Gunpowder had made smaller castles useless.[61]
+
+Henry VIII of England was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of Antwerp in what is now Belgium.[60]
+
+The English Civil War (1642–1645) led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.[60]
+
+One of the most notable uses of gunpowder in Great Britain was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605: a failed assassination attempt on King James I and VI. The plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was found under the House of Lords with hidden barrels of gunpowder. All assailants who had a role in the plot escaped but were eventually caught. King James later decreed that 5 November become a day of celebration, which is a tradition that carries on today known as Bonfire Night.
+
+Two British physicists, Andrew Noble and Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of black powder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for internal ballistics.[62]
+
+The introduction of smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of World War I, the majority of the United Kingdom gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and a number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of Permitted Explosives; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales, closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.[63]
+
+The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened.[60] This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley, the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory, which closed in 1954.[60][64]
+
+This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland; it too closed in October 1976.[60] Since then gunpowder has been imported into the United Kingdom. In the late 1970s/early 1980s gunpowder was bought from eastern Europe, particularly from what was then the German Democratic Republic and former Yugoslavia.
+
+The Greek historian Philostratos cites a letter written by Alexander saying that the reason why Greek army refrained from advancing Hydaspis to Ganges was because of the frightful dangers it encountered when people of Oxydraces threw flaming thunderbolts from the top of their forts. Scholars such as H. Wilkinson considers this as the earliest evidence of the gunpowder in the world.[65] There is a mention of an explosive called 'manosila' in Ramayana which was also used as a beauty product.[66]
+
+The Arthashastra lists recipes for what it called explosives or 'inflammable powder' (agnisamyogas or agniyoga) which according to J.R. Partington (A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder) are very similar to the ingredients mentioned in Chinese, European and Arabic texts.[67] The Arthashastra also mentions a device called ulka which is described as a shower of firebrands which were accompanied by noise of thunder (or noise of drumming) from the sky which were used to impress enemy subjects. Partington believes these recipes are for incendiaries rather than gunpowder or explosives since they do not include salt and sulphur, which he consider basic ingredients for gunpowder.[67] Scholars such as A. Kalyanamaran dispute that citing other scholars such as Carman (History of Firearms) stating that the nitrates were obtained using the fermented dung of animals mentioned in Arthashastra while sulfur was not an essential ingredient for gunpowder and could be eliminated to reduce smoke. The author cites the use of sulphurless gunpowder by the French army until the 18th century and sulphurless gunpowders in other periods when slow burning powder was desired.[68] Sulphur is not directly mentioned in the making of explosives but was known as gandha and the explosive manosila (antimony sulfide) was known since the Puranas.[69] Arthashastra mentions nitre called yavakshatra (Barley salt, indicates production from Barley ash) and "salt extracted from fertile soil".[70] Nitre has been listed as minerals obtained from Sindh. Other Indian texts which provide recipes of gunpowder are Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika, while antiquity of Arthashastra is established scholars dont agree to the dating of Sukraniti and based on its gunpowder recipes, they date the text to 16th century and even as late as 19th century AD, other scholars place the text's antiquity in the vedic period upto 11th century AD.[citation needed]
+
+Islamic era texts which also make references to the presence of Gunpowder in pre Mongol invasion era are the accounts of an indo-persian historian Firishta (Tarikh-i Firishta 1606–1607) who states that cannons (top) and muskets (tufang) were used by Mahmud of Ghazni's (reigned 998-1010 AD) army against Annandapala of Kabul Shahi, same author has been cited by modern scholars, who refer his accounts of Dehl sultanate kings display of fireworks to mongol's Helagu Khan envoy at Dehli as evidence of mongol introduction of gunpowder to India.[71] In a Kashmiri text called Mujmalut Tawarikh dated to 1126 AD which was translated from Arabic (which was written a century earlier in early 11th century) which itself was based on an orignal Sanskrit work, some type of grenade shaped like a terracotta elephant with a fuse is mentioned which was placed in the army van and when the invading army drew near, it exploded and the flames destroyed great portion of that army.[72]
+
+The present general scholarly concensus is.that Gunpower arrived in India after mongol invasion or as late as 15th century. Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons according to some scholarship was transmitted to India through the Mongol invasions of India.[73][74] The Mongols were defeated by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate, and some of the Mongol soldiers remained in northern India after their conversion to Islam.[74] It was written in the Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that Nasiruddin Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258. Nasiruddin Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any Mongol attempt similar to the Siege of Baghdad (1258).[75] Firearms known as top-o-tufak also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366.[75] From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of Belgaum" in 1473 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.[76]
+
+The shipwrecked Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of matchlock weapons, which the Ottomans used against the Portuguese during the Siege of Diu (1531). After that, a diverse variety of firearms, large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur, and Murshidabad.[77] Guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the Zamorins[78]
+
+The Mughal emperor Akbar mass-produced matchlocks for the Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading Rajput commander during the Siege of Chittorgarh.[79] The Mughals began to use bamboo rockets (mainly for signalling) and employ sappers: special units that undermined heavy stone fortifications to plant gunpowder charges.
+
+The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced matchlocks, their designs were a combination of Ottoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the British and other Europeans in his province of Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.[80] Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.[80] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chhapra as a center of saltpeter refining.[80]
+
+Ever since the founding of the Sultanate of Mysore by Hyder Ali, French military officers were employed to train the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan were the first to introduce modern cannons and muskets, their army was also the first in India to have official uniforms. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan unleashed the Mysorean rockets at their British opponents effectively defeating them on various occasions. The Mysorean rockets inspired the development of the Congreve rocket, which the British widely utilized during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.[81]
+
+The Javanese Majapahit Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern-day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze-smithing and use of a central arsenal fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Documentary and archeological evidence indicate that Arab traders introduced gunpowder, gonnes, muskets, blunderbusses, and cannons to the Javanese, Acehnese, and Batak via long established commercial trade routes around the early to mid 14th century.[82] The resurgent Singhasari Empire overtook Sriwijaya and later emerged as the Majapahit whose warfare featured the use of fire-arms and cannonade. Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese sought to invade Java in 1293. History of Yuan mentioned that the Mongol used cannons (Chinese: Pao) against Daha forces.[83] Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-guns, known as cetbang, or erroneously as lantaka, was used widely by the Majapahit navy as well as by pirates and rival lords.[84] Following the decline of the Majapahit, particularly after the paregreg civil war (1404-1406),[85]:174–175 the consequent decline in demand for gunpowder weapons caused many weapon makers and bronze-smiths to move to Brunei, Sumatra, Malaysia and the Philippines lead to widespread use, especially in the Makassar Strait. It led to near universal use of the swivel-gun and cannons in the Nusantara archipelago.[86][84]
+
+Even though the knowledge of making gunpowder-based weapon has been known after the failed Mongol invasion of Java, and the predecessor of firearms, the pole gun (bedil tombak), was recorded as being used by Java in 1413,[87][88]:245 the knowledge of making "true" firearms came much later, after the middle of 15th century. It was brought by the Islamic nations of West Asia, most probably the Arabs. The precise year of introduction is unknown, but it may be safely concluded to be no earlier than 1460.[89]:23 Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia, the natives already possessed primitive firearms, the Java arquebus.[90] Portuguese influence to local weaponry, particularly after the capture of Malacca (1511), resulted in a new type of hybrid tradition matchlock firearm, the istinggar.[91]
+
+Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion.[92] Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cetbang cannons were further improved and used in the Demak Sultanate period during the Demak invasion of Portuguese Malacca. During this period, the iron for manufacturing Javanese cannons was imported from Khorasan in northern Persia. The material was known by Javanese as wesi kurasani (Khorasan iron).[93] When the Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to it as Berço, which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the Spaniards call it Verso.[94] By early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180-260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, length of them between 3–6 m.[95]
+
+Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.[86] Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers.[82] According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles', The History of Java (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.[96]
+
+On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China."[97] Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China because there is a large body of evidence that documents the evolution of the gun from the Chinese fire lance to a metal gun and the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an incendiary and an explosive, whereas similar records do not exist in Europe.[98]  As Andrade explains, the large amount of variation in gunpowder recipes in China relative to Europe is "evidence of experimentation in China, where gunpowder was at first used as an incendiary and only later became an explosive and a propellant... in contrast, formulas in Europe diverged only very slightly from the ideal proportions for use as an explosive and a propellant, suggesting that gunpowder was introduced as a mature technology."[42]
+
+However, the history of gunpowder is not without controversy. A major problem confronting the study of early gunpowder history is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler.[99] Translation difficulties have led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence. Ambiguous language can make it difficult to distinguish gunpowder weapons from similar technologies that do not rely on gunpowder. A commonly cited example is a report of the Battle of Mohi in Eastern Europe that mentions a "long lance" sending forth "evil-smelling vapors and smoke", which has been variously interpreted by different historians as the "first-gas attack upon European soil" using gunpowder, "the first use of cannon in Europe", or merely a "toxic gas" with no evidence of gunpowder.[100]   It is difficult to accurately translate original Chinese alchemical texts, which tend to explain phenomena through metaphor, into modern scientific language with rigidly defined terminology in English. [23] Early texts potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where semantic change occurred.[101] For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word pào changed in meaning from catapult to referring to a cannon.[102] This has led to arguments on the exact origins of gunpowder based on etymological foundations. Science and technology historian Bert S. Hall makes the observation that, "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets."[101]
+
+Another major area of contention in modern studies of the history of gunpowder is regarding the transmission of gunpowder. While the literary and archaeological evidence supports a Chinese origin for gunpowder and guns, the manner in which gunpowder technology was transferred from China to the West is still under debate.[97] It is unknown why the rapid spread of gunpowder technology across Eurasia took place over several decades whereas other technologies such as paper, the compass, and printing did not reach Europe until centuries after they were invented in China.[42]
+
+For the most powerful black powder, meal powder, a wood charcoal, is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow,[103] but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used. In Great Britain between the 15th and 19th centuries charcoal from alder buckthorn was greatly prized for gunpowder manufacture; cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States.[104] The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally, this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze or lead. Historically, a marble or limestone edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed, was used in Great Britain; however, by the mid 19th century this had changed to either an iron-shod stone wheel or a cast iron wheel running on an iron bed.[105] The mix was dampened with alcohol or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. This also helps the extremely soluble saltpeter to mix into the microscopic pores of the very high surface-area charcoal.
+
+Around the late 14th century, European powdermakers first began adding liquid during grinding to improve mixing, reduce dust, and with it the risk of explosion.[106] The powder-makers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powder-makers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.
+
+The improvement was based on reducing the surface area of a higher density composition. At the beginning of the 19th century, makers increased density further by static pressing. They shoveled damp mill cake into a two-foot square box, placed this beneath a screw press and reduced it to ​1⁄2 its volume. "Press cake" had the hardness of slate. They broke the dried slabs with hammers or rollers, and sorted the granules with sieves into different grades.  In the United States, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, who had learned the trade from Lavoisier, tumbled the dried grains in rotating barrels to round the edges and increase durability during shipping and handling. (Sharp grains rounded off in transport, producing fine "meal dust" that changed the burning properties.)
+
+Another advance was the manufacture of kiln charcoal by distilling wood in heated iron retorts instead of burning it in earthen pits. Controlling the temperature influenced the power and consistency of the finished gunpowder.  In 1863, in response to high prices for Indian saltpeter, DuPont chemists developed a process using potash or mined potassium chloride to convert plentiful Chilean sodium nitrate to potassium nitrate.[107]
+
+The following year (1864) the Gatebeck Low Gunpowder Works in Cumbria (Great Britain) started a plant to manufacture potassium nitrate by essentially the same chemical process.[108] This is nowadays called the 'Wakefield Process', after the owners of the company. It would have used potassium chloride from the Staßfurt mines, near Magdeburg, Germany, which had recently become available in industrial quantities.[109]
+
+During the 18th century, gunpowder factories became increasingly dependent on mechanical energy.[110] Despite mechanization, production difficulties related to humidity control, especially during the pressing, were still present in the late 19th century. A paper from 1885 laments that "Gunpowder is such a nervous and sensitive spirit, that in almost every process of manufacture it changes under our hands as the weather changes." Pressing times to the desired density could vary by a factor of three depending on the atmospheric humidity.[111]
+
+The term black powder was coined in the late 19th century, primarily in the United States, to distinguish prior gunpowder formulations from the new smokeless powders and semi-smokeless powders. Semi-smokeless powders featured bulk volume properties that approximated black powder, but had significantly reduced amounts of smoke and combustion products. Smokeless powder has different burning properties (pressure vs. time) and can generate higher pressures and work per gram. This can rupture older weapons designed for black powder. Smokeless powders ranged in color from brownish tan to yellow to white. Most of the bulk semi-smokeless powders ceased to be manufactured in the 1920s.[112][113][114]
+
+Black powder is a granular mixture of
+
+Potassium nitrate is the most important ingredient in terms of both bulk and function because the combustion process releases oxygen from the potassium nitrate, promoting the rapid burning of the other ingredients.[115] To reduce the likelihood of accidental ignition by static electricity, the granules of modern black powder are typically coated with graphite, which prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge.
+
+Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon; rather, it consists of partially pyrolyzed cellulose, in which the wood is not completely decomposed. Carbon differs from ordinary charcoal. Whereas charcoal's autoignition temperature is relatively low, carbon's is much greater. Thus, a black powder composition containing pure carbon would burn similarly to a match head, at best.[116]
+
+The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur.[105] These ratios have varied over the centuries and by country, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder. For instance, power grades of black powder, unsuitable for use in firearms but adequate for blasting rock in quarrying operations, are called blasting powder rather than gunpowder with standard proportions of 70% nitrate, 14% charcoal, and 16% sulfur; blasting powder may be made with the cheaper sodium nitrate substituted for potassium nitrate and proportions may be as low as 40% nitrate, 30% charcoal, and 30% sulfur.[117] In 1857, Lammot du Pont solved the main problem of using cheaper sodium nitrate formulations when he patented DuPont "B" blasting powder. After manufacturing grains from press-cake in the usual way, his process tumbled the powder with graphite dust for 12 hours. This formed a graphite coating on each grain that reduced its ability to absorb moisture.[118]
+
+Neither the use of graphite nor sodium nitrate was new. Glossing gunpowder corns with graphite was already an accepted technique in 1839,[119] and sodium nitrate-based blasting powder had been made in Peru for many years using the sodium nitrate mined at Tarapacá (now in Chile).[120] Also, in 1846, two plants were built in south-west England to make blasting powder using this sodium nitrate.[121] The idea may well have been brought from Peru by Cornish miners returning home after completing their contracts. Another suggestion is that it was William Lobb, the planthunter, who recognised the possibilities of sodium nitrate during his travels in South America. Lammot du Pont would have known about the use of graphite and probably also knew about the plants in south-west England. In his patent he was careful to state that his claim was for the combination of graphite with sodium nitrate-based powder, rather than for either of the two individual technologies.
+
+French war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 12.5% charcoal, 12.5% sulfur. English war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur.[122] The British Congreve rockets used 62.4% saltpeter, 23.2% charcoal and 14.4% sulfur, but the British Mark VII gunpowder was changed to 65% saltpeter, 20% charcoal and 15% sulfur.[citation needed] The explanation for the wide variety in formulation relates to usage. Powder used for rocketry can use a slower burn rate since it accelerates the projectile for a much longer time—whereas powders for weapons such as flintlocks, cap-locks, or matchlocks need a higher burn rate to accelerate the projectile in a much shorter distance. Cannons usually used lower burn-rate powders, because most would burst with higher burn-rate powders.
+
+In the First Opium war, the mixture for Qing China gunpowder contained a high ratio of charcoal which gave it a high stability and longer shelf life but generated less kinetic energy when ignited, decreasing the range and accuracy. In comparison, the mixture for British gunpowder contained a higher ratio of sulfur, allowing the powder to burn faster and thus generate more kinetic energy.
+
+The original dry-compounded powder used in 15th-century Europe was known as "Serpentine", either a reference to Satan[26] or to a common artillery piece that used it.[123] The ingredients were ground
+together with a mortar and pestle, perhaps for 24 hours,[123] resulting in a fine flour.  Vibration during transportation could cause the components to separate again, requiring remixing in the field. Also if the quality of the saltpeter was low (for instance if it was contaminated with highly hygroscopic calcium nitrate), or if the powder was simply old (due to the mildly hygroscopic nature of potassium nitrate), in humid weather it would need to be re-dried. The dust from "repairing" powder in the field was a major hazard.
+
+Loading cannons or bombards before the powder-making advances of the Renaissance was a skilled art. Fine powder loaded haphazardly or too tightly would burn incompletely or too slowly. Typically, the breech-loading powder chamber in the rear of the piece was filled only about half full, the serpentine powder neither too compressed nor too loose, a wooden bung pounded in to seal the chamber from the barrel when assembled, and the projectile placed on.  A carefully determined empty space was necessary for the charge to burn effectively. When the cannon was fired through the touchhole, turbulence from the initial surface combustion caused the rest of the powder to be rapidly exposed to the flame.[123]
+
+The advent of much more powerful and easy to use corned powder changed this procedure, but serpentine was used with older guns into the 17th century.[124]
+
+For propellants to oxidize and burn rapidly and effectively, the combustible ingredients must be reduced to the smallest possible particle sizes, and be as thoroughly mixed as possible. Once mixed, however, for better results in a gun, makers discovered that the final product should be in the form of individual dense grains that spread the fire quickly from grain to grain, much as straw or twigs catch fire more quickly than a pile of sawdust.
+
+Because the dry powdered ingredients must be mixed and bonded together for extrusion and cut into grains to maintain the blend, size reduction and mixing is done while the ingredients are damp, usually with water. After 1800, instead of forming grains by hand or with sieves, the damp mill-cake was pressed in molds to increase its density and extract the liquid, forming press-cake. The pressing took varying amounts of time, depending on conditions such as atmospheric humidity.  The hard, dense product was broken again into tiny pieces, which were separated with sieves to produce a uniform product for each purpose: coarse powders for cannons, finer grained powders for muskets, and the finest for small hand guns and priming.[124] Inappropriately fine-grained powder often caused cannons to burst before the projectile could move down the barrel, due to the high initial spike in pressure.[125] Mammoth powder with large grains, made for Rodman's 15-inch cannon, reduced the pressure to only 20 percent as high as ordinary cannon powder would have produced.[126]
+
+In the mid-19th century, measurements were made determining that the burning rate within a grain of black powder (or a tightly packed mass) is about 6 cm/s (0.20 feet/s), while the rate of ignition propagation from grain to grain is around 9 m/s (30 feet/s), over two orders of magnitude faster.[124]
+
+Modern corning first compresses the fine black powder meal into blocks with a fixed density (1.7 g/cm³).[127] In the United States, gunpowder grains were designated F (for fine) or C (for coarse). Grain diameter decreased with a larger number of Fs and increased with a larger number of Cs, ranging from about 2 mm (0.08 in) for 7F to 15 mm (0.6 in) for 7C. Even larger grains were produced for artillery bore diameters greater than about 17 cm (6.7 in).  The standard DuPont Mammoth powder developed by Thomas Rodman and Lammot du Pont for use during the American Civil War had grains averaging 0.6 inches (15 mm) in diameter with edges rounded in a glazing barrel.[126] Other versions had grains the size of golf and tennis balls for use in 20-inch (51 cm) Rodman guns.[128] In 1875 DuPont introduced Hexagonal powder for large artillery, which was pressed using shaped plates with a small center core—about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) diameter, like a wagon wheel nut, the center hole widened as the grain burned.[129] By 1882 German makers also produced hexagonal grained powders of a similar size for artillery.[129]
+
+By the late 19th century manufacturing focused on standard grades of black powder from Fg used in large bore rifles and shotguns, through FFg (medium and small-bore arms such as muskets and fusils), FFFg (small-bore rifles and pistols), and FFFFg (extreme small bore, short pistols and most commonly for priming flintlocks).[130] A coarser grade for use in military artillery blanks was designated A-1. These grades were sorted on a system of screens with oversize retained on a mesh of 6 wires per inch, A-1 retained on 10 wires per inch, Fg retained on 14, FFg on 24, FFFg on 46, and FFFFg on 60. Fines designated FFFFFg were usually reprocessed to minimize explosive dust hazards.[131] In the United Kingdom, the main service gunpowders were classified RFG (rifle grained fine) with diameter of one or two millimeters and RLG (rifle grained large) for grain diameters between two and six millimeters.[128] Gunpowder grains can alternatively be categorized by mesh size: the BSS sieve mesh size, being the smallest mesh size, which retains no grains. Recognized grain sizes are Gunpowder G 7, G 20, G 40, and G 90.
+
+Owing to the large market of antique and replica black-powder firearms in the US, modern gunpowder substitutes like Pyrodex, Triple Seven and Black Mag3[113] pellets have been developed since the 1970s. These products, which should not be confused with smokeless powders, aim to produce less fouling (solid residue), while maintaining the traditional volumetric measurement system for charges. Claims of less corrosiveness of these products have been controversial however. New cleaning products for black-powder guns have also been developed for this market.[130]
+
+Besides black powder, there are other historically important types of gunpowder.  "Brown gunpowder" is cited as composed of 79% nitre, 3% sulfur, and 18% charcoal per 100 of dry powder, with about 2% moisture. Prismatic Brown Powder is a large-grained product the Rottweil Company introduced in 1884 in Germany, which was adopted by the British Royal Navy shortly thereafter. The French navy adopted a fine, 3.1 millimeter, not prismatic grained product called Slow Burning Cocoa (SBC) or "cocoa powder". These brown powders reduced burning rate even further by using as little as 2 percent sulfur and using charcoal made from rye straw that had not been completely charred, hence the brown color.[129]
+
+Lesmok powder was a product developed by DuPont in 1911,[132] one of several semi-smokeless products in the industry containing a mixture of black and nitrocellulose powder. It was sold to Winchester and others primarily for .22 and .32 small calibers. Its advantage was that it was believed at the time to be less corrosive than smokeless powders then in use.  It was not understood in the U.S. until the 1920s that the actual source of corrosion was the potassium chloride residue from potassium chlorate sensitized primers.  The bulkier black powder fouling better disperses primer residue.  Failure to mitigate primer corrosion by dispersion caused the false impression that nitrocellulose-based powder caused corrosion.[133] Lesmok had some of the bulk of black powder for dispersing primer residue, but somewhat less total bulk than straight black powder, thus requiring less frequent bore cleaning.[113] It was last sold by Winchester in 1947.
+
+The development of smokeless powders, such as cordite, in the late 19th century created the need for a spark-sensitive priming charge, such as gunpowder. However, the sulfur content of traditional gunpowders caused corrosion problems with Cordite Mk I and this led to the introduction of a range of sulfur-free gunpowders, of varying grain sizes.[60] They typically contain 70.5 parts of saltpeter and 29.5 parts of charcoal.[60] Like black powder, they were produced in different grain sizes. In the United Kingdom, the finest grain was known as sulfur-free mealed powder (SMP). Coarser grains were numbered as sulfur-free gunpowder (SFG n): 'SFG 12', 'SFG 20', 'SFG 40' and 'SFG 90', for example; where the number represents the smallest BSS sieve mesh size, which retained no grains.
+
+Sulfur's main role in gunpowder is to decrease the ignition temperature. A sample reaction for sulfur-free gunpowder would be
+
+Gunpowder does not burn as a single reaction, so the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study[134] showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities) 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate and 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water.
+
+However, simplified equations have been cited.
+
+A simple, commonly cited, chemical equation for the combustion of black powder is
+
+A balanced, but still simplified, equation is[135]
+
+Black powder made with less-expensive and more plentiful sodium nitrate (in appropriate proportions) works just as well, and previous equations apply, with sodium instead of potassium. However, it is more hygroscopic than powders made from potassium nitrate—popularly known as saltpeter. Because corned black powder grains made with saltpeter are less affected by moisture in the air, they can be stored unsealed without degradation by humidity. Muzzleloaders have been known to fire after hanging on a wall for decades in a loaded state, provided they remained dry. By contrast, black powder made with sodium nitrate must be kept sealed to remain stable.
+
+The matchlock musket or pistol (an early gun ignition system), as well as the flintlock would often be unusable in wet weather, due to powder in the pan being exposed and dampened.
+
+Gunpowder releases 3 megajoules per kilogram and contains its own oxidant. This is lower than
+TNT (4.7 megajoules per kilogram), or gasoline (47.2 megajoules per kilogram, but gasoline requires an oxidant, so an optimized gasoline and O2 mixture contains 10.4 megajoules per kilogram).
+Black powder also has a low energy density compared to modern "smokeless" powders, and thus to achieve high energy loadings, large amounts of black powder are needed with heavy projectiles.[citation needed]
+
+Gunpowder is a low explosive, that is, it does not detonate but rather deflagrates (burns quickly). This is an advantage in a propellant device, where one does not desire a shock that would shatter the gun and potentially harm the operator, however it is a drawback when some explosion is wanted. In that case, gunpowder (and most importantly, gases produced by its burning) must be confined. Since it contains its own oxidizer and additionally burns faster under pressure, its combustion is capable of bursting containers such as shell, grenade, or improvised "pipe bomb" or "pressure cooker" casings to form shrapnel.
+
+In quarrying, high explosives are generally preferred for shattering rock. However, because of its low brisance, black powder causes fewer fractures and results in more usable stone compared to other explosives, making black powder useful for blasting slate, which is fragile,[136] or monumental stone such as granite and marble. Black powder is well suited for blank rounds, signal flares, burst charges, and rescue-line launches. Black powder is also used in fireworks for lifting shells, in rockets as fuel, and in certain special effects.
+
+As seen above, combustion converts less than half the mass of black powder to gas, most of it turns into particulate matter. Some of it is ejected, wasting propelling power, fouling the air, and generally being a nuisance (giving away a soldier's position, generating fog that hinders vision, etc.). Some of it ends up as a thick layer of soot inside the barrel, where it also is a nuisance for subsequent shots, and a cause of jamming an automatic weapon. Moreover, this residue is hygroscopic, and with the addition of moisture absorbed from the air forms a corrosive substance. The soot contains potassium oxide or sodium oxide that turns into potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide, which corrodes wrought iron or steel gun barrels.[citation needed] Black powder arms must therefore be well cleaned after use, both inside and out, to remove the residue.
+
+The United Nations Model Regulations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods and national transportation authorities, such as United States Department of Transportation, have classified gunpowder (black powder) as a Group A: Primary explosive substance for shipment because it ignites so easily. Complete manufactured devices containing black powder are usually classified as Group D: Secondary detonating substance, or black powder, or article containing secondary detonating substance, such as firework, class D model rocket engine, etc., for shipment because they are harder to ignite than loose powder. As explosives, they all fall into the category of Class 1.
+
+Besides its use as a propellant in firearms and artillery, black powder's other main use has been as a blasting powder in quarrying, mining, and road construction (including railroad construction). During the 19th century, outside of war emergencies such as the Crimean War or the American Civil War, more black powder was used in these industrial uses than in firearms and artillery. But dynamite gradually replaced it for those uses. Today industrial explosives for such uses are still a huge market, but most of the market is in newer explosives rather than black powder.
+
+Beginning in the 1930s, gunpowder or smokeless powder was used in rivet guns, stun guns for animals, cable splicers and other industrial construction tools.[137] The "stud gun" drove nails or screws into solid concrete, a function not possible with hydraulic tools. Today powder-actuated tools are still an important part of various industries, but the cartridges usually use smokeless powders. Industrial shotguns have been used to eliminate persistent material rings in operating rotary kilns (such as those for cement, lime, phosphate, etc.) and clinker in operating furnaces, and commercial tools make the method more reliable.[138]
+
+Gunpowder has occasionally been employed for other purposes besides weapons, mining, and construction:

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+
+
+Gunpowder, also known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur (S), charcoal (C), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter, KNO3). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer.[1][2] Because of its incendiary properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, and road building.
+
+Gunpowder was invented in 9th-century China as one of the Four Great Inventions, and spread throughout most parts of Eurasia by the end of the 13th century.[3] Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes, gunpowder was first used for warfare around 904 AD.[4]
+
+Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn) at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate producing a supersonic shockwave.
+
+Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. However, by transferring enough energy (from the burning gunpowder to the mass of the cannonball, and then from the cannonball to the opposing fortifications by way of the impacting ammunition) eventually a bombardier may wear down an opponent's fortified defenses.
+
+Gunpowder was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use. Gunpowder is no longer used in modern weapons, nor is it used for industrial purposes, due to its relatively inefficient cost compared to newer alternatives such as dynamite and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.[5][6] Today gunpowder firearms are limited primarily to hunting, target shooting, and bulletless historical reenactments.
+
+The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred in the 9th century AD during the Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue (太上聖祖金丹秘訣) in 808, and then about 50 years later in a Taoist text known as the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (真元妙道要略).[7] The Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue mentions a gunpowder formula composed of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb.[7] According to the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."[8] Based on these Taoist texts, the invention of gunpowder by Chinese alchemists was likely an accidental byproduct from experiments seeking to create the elixir of life.[9] This experimental medicine origin of gunpowder is reflected in its Chinese name huoyao (Chinese: 火药/火藥; pinyin: huŏ yào /xuo yɑʊ/), which means "fire medicine".[10] Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and was primarily produced in the provinces of Sichuan, Shanxi, and Shandong.[11] There is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various medicinal combinations.[12] A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200.[13]
+
+The earliest chemical formula for gunpowder appeared in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao (Complete Essentials from the Military Classics), written by Zeng Gongliang between 1040 and 1044.[14] The Wujing Zongyao provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures that included petrochemicals—as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets is mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book do not contain enough saltpeter to create an explosive however; being limited to at most 50% saltpeter, they produce an incendiary.[14] The Essentials was written by a Song dynasty court bureaucrat and there is little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of gunpowder use in the chronicles of the wars against the Tanguts in the 11th century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. However gunpowder had already been used for fire arrows since at least the 10th century. The first recorded military application of gunpowder dates its use to the year 904 in the form of incendiary projectiles.[4] In the following centuries various gunpowder weapons such as bombs, fire lances, and the gun appeared in China.[3][15] Explosive weapons such as bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan.[16]
+
+By 1083 the Song court was producing hundreds of thousands of fire arrows for their garrisons.[17] Bombs and the first proto-guns, known as "fire lances", became prominent during the 12th century and were used by the Song during the Jin-Song Wars. Fire lances were first recorded to have been used at the Siege of De'an in 1132 by Song forces against the Jin.[18] In the early 13th century the Jin utilized iron-casing bombs.[19] Projectiles were added to fire lances, and re-usable fire lance barrels were developed, first out of hardened paper, and then metal. By 1257 some fire lances were firing wads of bullets.[20][21] In the late 13th century metal fire lances became 'eruptors', proto-cannons firing co-viative projectiles (mixed with the propellant, rather than seated over it with a wad), and by 1287 at the latest, had become true guns, the hand cannon.[22]
+
+An arrow strapped with gunpowder ready to be shot from a bow. From the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The oldest known depiction of rocket arrows, from the Huolongjing. The right arrow reads "fire arrow", the middle is an "arrow frame in the shape of a dragon", and the left is a "complete fire arrow".
+
+An illustration of a thunderclap bomb as depicted in the 1044 text Wujing Zongyao. Considered to be a pseudo-explosive. The top item is a through awl and the bottom one is a hook awl.
+
+A fire lance as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor" cannon from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An organ gun known as the "mother of a hundred bullets gun" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+An illustration of a bronze "thousand ball thunder cannon" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+A 'magic fire meteor going against the wind' bomb as depicted in the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The "self-tripped trespass land mine" from the Huolongjing c. 1350.
+
+The Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, by which point the Syrian Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. It is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" (Arabic: ثلج الصين‎ thalj al-ṣīn), fireworks as "Chinese flowers" and rockets as "Chinese arrows" that knowledge of gunpowder arrived from China.[23] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth".[24] In Persia saltpeter was known as "Chinese salt" (Persian: نمک چینی‎) namak-i chīnī)[25][26] or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" (نمک شوره چینی namak-i shūra-yi chīnī).[27][28]
+
+Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% charcoal), it is nearly identical to the modern reported ideal gunpowder recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.[24]
+
+Al-Hassan claims that in the Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the Mamluks used against the Mongols in "the first cannon in history" gunpowder formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder.[24] Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, that they used for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.[29][30]
+
+Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world[31] and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.[32] Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.[32]
+
+The musket appeared in the Ottoman Empire by 1465.[33] In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets.[34] The Chinese military book Wu Pei Chih (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in European or Chinese firearms at the time.[35]
+
+The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early supply chains to obtain nitre, sulfur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion between the 15th and 18th century. It was not until later in the 19th century when the syndicalist production of Turkish gunpowder was greatly reduced, which coincided with the decline of its military might.[36]
+
+The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century.[37]
+Several sources mention Chinese firearms and gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in 1241.[38][39][40] Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry.[41] However, there is no clear route of transmission,[42] and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China."[43] However, Timothy May also points out "However... the Mongols used the gunpowder weapon in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan."[43]
+
+In Europe, one of the first mentions of gunpowder use appears in a passage found in Roger Bacon's Opus Maius of 1267 and Opus Tertium in what has been interpreted as being firecrackers. The most telling passage reads: "We have an example of these things (that act on the senses) in [the sound and fire of] that children's toy which is made in many [diverse] parts of the world; i.e., a device no bigger than one's thumb. From the violence of that salt called saltpeter [together with sulfur and willow charcoal, combined into a powder] so horrible a sound is made by the bursting of a thing so small, no more than a bit of parchment [containing it], that we find [the ear assaulted by a noise] exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a flash brighter than the most brilliant lightning."[44] In the early 20th century, British artillery officer Henry William Lovett Hime proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder. This claim has been disputed by historians of science including Lynn Thorndike, John Maxson Stillman and George Sarton and by Bacon's editor Robert Steele, both in terms of authenticity of the work, and with respect to the decryption method.[44] In any case, the formula claimed to have been decrypted (7:5:5 saltpeter:charcoal:sulfur) is not useful for firearms use or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.[45][46] However, if Bacon's recipe is taken as measurements by volume rather than weight, a far more potent and serviceable explosive powder is created suitable for firing hand-cannons, albeit less consistent due to the inherent inaccuracies of measurements by volume. One example of this composition resulted in 100 parts saltpeter, 27 parts charcoal, and 45 parts sulfur, by weight.[47]
+
+The Liber Ignium, or Book of Fires, attributed to Marcus Graecus, is a collection of incendiary recipes, including some gunpowder recipes. Partington dates the gunpowder recipes to approximately 1300.[48] One recipe for "flying fire" (ignis volatilis) involves saltpeter, sulfur, and colophonium, which, when inserted into a reed or hollow wood, "flies away suddenly and burns up everything." Another recipe, for artificial "thunder", specifies a mixture of one pound native sulfur, two pounds linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter. Another specifies a 1:3:9 ratio.[49]
+
+Some of the gunpowder recipes of De Mirabilibus Mundi of Albertus Magnus are identical to the recipes of the Liber Ignium, and according to Partington, "may have been taken from that work, rather than conversely."[50] Partington suggests that some of the book may have been compiled by Albert's students, "but since it is found in thirteenth century manuscripts, it may well be by Albert."[50] Albertus Magnus died in 1280.
+
+A major advance in manufacturing began in Europe in the late 14th century when the safety and thoroughness of incorporation was improved by wet grinding; liquid, such as distilled spirits[51] was added during the grinding-together of the ingredients and the moist paste dried afterwards. The principle of wet mixing to prevent the separation of dry ingredients, invented for gunpowder, is used today in the pharmaceutical industry.[52]
+
+It was also discovered that if the paste was rolled into balls before drying the resulting gunpowder absorbed less water from the air during storage and traveled better. The balls were then crushed in a mortar by the gunner immediately before use, with the old problem of uneven particle size and packing causing unpredictable results. If the right size particles were chosen, however, the result was a great improvement in power.  Forming the damp paste into corn-sized clumps by hand or with the use of a sieve instead of larger balls produced a product after drying that loaded much better, as each tiny piece provided its own surrounding air space that allowed much more rapid combustion than a fine powder.  This "corned" gunpowder was from 30% to 300% more powerful. An example is cited where 34 pounds of serpentine was needed to shoot a 47-pound ball, but only 18 pounds of corned powder.[51] The optimum size of the grain depended on its use; larger for large cannon, finer for small arms.  Larger cast cannons were easily muzzle-loaded with corned powder using a long-handled ladle. Corned powder also retained the advantage of low moisture absorption, as even tiny grains still had much less surface area to attract water than a floury powder.
+
+During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing potassium carbonate to precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood, alum, and slices of turnip to clarify the solution.[51]
+
+During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. The German printer and publisher Christiaan Egenolff adapted an earlier work on pyrotechnics from manuscript to print form, publishing his Büchsenmeysterei in 1529 and reprinting it in 1531. Now extremely rare, the book discusses the manufacturing of gunpowder, the operation of artillery and the rules of conduct for the gunsmith.[53]
+
+In Italy, Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild Fraternita di Santa Barbara but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled De la pirotechnia, written in vernacular.  It was published posthumously in 1540, with 9 editions over 138 years, and also reprinted by MIT Press in 1966.[51]
+
+By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.[54] With the publication of Deutliche Anweisung zur Feuerwerkerey (1748), methods for creating fireworks were sufficiently well-known and well-described that "Firework making has become an exact science."[55] In 1774 Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at age 20.  After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.[56]
+
+Without access to cheap saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetremen with royal warrants, the droit de fouille or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolish walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners.[57] This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected.  Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the droit de fouille, researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works.  Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the American Revolution.  By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive.[57][58]
+
+In the Spanish Empire, the crown held a monopoly on gunpowder and the terms were set out during eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms.[59]
+
+Gunpowder production in Britain appears to have started in the mid 14th century with the aim of supplying the English Crown.[60] Records show that, in England, gunpowder was being made in 1346 at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there.[60] Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as Portchester. By the early 14th century, according to N.J.G. Pounds's study The Medieval Castle in England and Wales, many English castles had been deserted and others were crumbling. Their military significance faded except on the borders. Gunpowder had made smaller castles useless.[61]
+
+Henry VIII of England was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of Antwerp in what is now Belgium.[60]
+
+The English Civil War (1642–1645) led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.[60]
+
+One of the most notable uses of gunpowder in Great Britain was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605: a failed assassination attempt on King James I and VI. The plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was found under the House of Lords with hidden barrels of gunpowder. All assailants who had a role in the plot escaped but were eventually caught. King James later decreed that 5 November become a day of celebration, which is a tradition that carries on today known as Bonfire Night.
+
+Two British physicists, Andrew Noble and Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of black powder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for internal ballistics.[62]
+
+The introduction of smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of World War I, the majority of the United Kingdom gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and a number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of Permitted Explosives; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales, closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.[63]
+
+The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened.[60] This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley, the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory, which closed in 1954.[60][64]
+
+This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland; it too closed in October 1976.[60] Since then gunpowder has been imported into the United Kingdom. In the late 1970s/early 1980s gunpowder was bought from eastern Europe, particularly from what was then the German Democratic Republic and former Yugoslavia.
+
+The Greek historian Philostratos cites a letter written by Alexander saying that the reason why Greek army refrained from advancing Hydaspis to Ganges was because of the frightful dangers it encountered when people of Oxydraces threw flaming thunderbolts from the top of their forts. Scholars such as H. Wilkinson considers this as the earliest evidence of the gunpowder in the world.[65] There is a mention of an explosive called 'manosila' in Ramayana which was also used as a beauty product.[66]
+
+The Arthashastra lists recipes for what it called explosives or 'inflammable powder' (agnisamyogas or agniyoga) which according to J.R. Partington (A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder) are very similar to the ingredients mentioned in Chinese, European and Arabic texts.[67] The Arthashastra also mentions a device called ulka which is described as a shower of firebrands which were accompanied by noise of thunder (or noise of drumming) from the sky which were used to impress enemy subjects. Partington believes these recipes are for incendiaries rather than gunpowder or explosives since they do not include salt and sulphur, which he consider basic ingredients for gunpowder.[67] Scholars such as A. Kalyanamaran dispute that citing other scholars such as Carman (History of Firearms) stating that the nitrates were obtained using the fermented dung of animals mentioned in Arthashastra while sulfur was not an essential ingredient for gunpowder and could be eliminated to reduce smoke. The author cites the use of sulphurless gunpowder by the French army until the 18th century and sulphurless gunpowders in other periods when slow burning powder was desired.[68] Sulphur is not directly mentioned in the making of explosives but was known as gandha and the explosive manosila (antimony sulfide) was known since the Puranas.[69] Arthashastra mentions nitre called yavakshatra (Barley salt, indicates production from Barley ash) and "salt extracted from fertile soil".[70] Nitre has been listed as minerals obtained from Sindh. Other Indian texts which provide recipes of gunpowder are Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika, while antiquity of Arthashastra is established scholars dont agree to the dating of Sukraniti and based on its gunpowder recipes, they date the text to 16th century and even as late as 19th century AD, other scholars place the text's antiquity in the vedic period upto 11th century AD.[citation needed]
+
+Islamic era texts which also make references to the presence of Gunpowder in pre Mongol invasion era are the accounts of an indo-persian historian Firishta (Tarikh-i Firishta 1606–1607) who states that cannons (top) and muskets (tufang) were used by Mahmud of Ghazni's (reigned 998-1010 AD) army against Annandapala of Kabul Shahi, same author has been cited by modern scholars, who refer his accounts of Dehl sultanate kings display of fireworks to mongol's Helagu Khan envoy at Dehli as evidence of mongol introduction of gunpowder to India.[71] In a Kashmiri text called Mujmalut Tawarikh dated to 1126 AD which was translated from Arabic (which was written a century earlier in early 11th century) which itself was based on an orignal Sanskrit work, some type of grenade shaped like a terracotta elephant with a fuse is mentioned which was placed in the army van and when the invading army drew near, it exploded and the flames destroyed great portion of that army.[72]
+
+The present general scholarly concensus is.that Gunpower arrived in India after mongol invasion or as late as 15th century. Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons according to some scholarship was transmitted to India through the Mongol invasions of India.[73][74] The Mongols were defeated by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate, and some of the Mongol soldiers remained in northern India after their conversion to Islam.[74] It was written in the Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that Nasiruddin Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258. Nasiruddin Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any Mongol attempt similar to the Siege of Baghdad (1258).[75] Firearms known as top-o-tufak also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366.[75] From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of Belgaum" in 1473 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.[76]
+
+The shipwrecked Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of matchlock weapons, which the Ottomans used against the Portuguese during the Siege of Diu (1531). After that, a diverse variety of firearms, large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur, and Murshidabad.[77] Guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the Zamorins[78]
+
+The Mughal emperor Akbar mass-produced matchlocks for the Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading Rajput commander during the Siege of Chittorgarh.[79] The Mughals began to use bamboo rockets (mainly for signalling) and employ sappers: special units that undermined heavy stone fortifications to plant gunpowder charges.
+
+The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced matchlocks, their designs were a combination of Ottoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the British and other Europeans in his province of Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.[80] Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.[80] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chhapra as a center of saltpeter refining.[80]
+
+Ever since the founding of the Sultanate of Mysore by Hyder Ali, French military officers were employed to train the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan were the first to introduce modern cannons and muskets, their army was also the first in India to have official uniforms. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan unleashed the Mysorean rockets at their British opponents effectively defeating them on various occasions. The Mysorean rockets inspired the development of the Congreve rocket, which the British widely utilized during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.[81]
+
+The Javanese Majapahit Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern-day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze-smithing and use of a central arsenal fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Documentary and archeological evidence indicate that Arab traders introduced gunpowder, gonnes, muskets, blunderbusses, and cannons to the Javanese, Acehnese, and Batak via long established commercial trade routes around the early to mid 14th century.[82] The resurgent Singhasari Empire overtook Sriwijaya and later emerged as the Majapahit whose warfare featured the use of fire-arms and cannonade. Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese sought to invade Java in 1293. History of Yuan mentioned that the Mongol used cannons (Chinese: Pao) against Daha forces.[83] Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-guns, known as cetbang, or erroneously as lantaka, was used widely by the Majapahit navy as well as by pirates and rival lords.[84] Following the decline of the Majapahit, particularly after the paregreg civil war (1404-1406),[85]:174–175 the consequent decline in demand for gunpowder weapons caused many weapon makers and bronze-smiths to move to Brunei, Sumatra, Malaysia and the Philippines lead to widespread use, especially in the Makassar Strait. It led to near universal use of the swivel-gun and cannons in the Nusantara archipelago.[86][84]
+
+Even though the knowledge of making gunpowder-based weapon has been known after the failed Mongol invasion of Java, and the predecessor of firearms, the pole gun (bedil tombak), was recorded as being used by Java in 1413,[87][88]:245 the knowledge of making "true" firearms came much later, after the middle of 15th century. It was brought by the Islamic nations of West Asia, most probably the Arabs. The precise year of introduction is unknown, but it may be safely concluded to be no earlier than 1460.[89]:23 Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia, the natives already possessed primitive firearms, the Java arquebus.[90] Portuguese influence to local weaponry, particularly after the capture of Malacca (1511), resulted in a new type of hybrid tradition matchlock firearm, the istinggar.[91]
+
+Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion.[92] Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cetbang cannons were further improved and used in the Demak Sultanate period during the Demak invasion of Portuguese Malacca. During this period, the iron for manufacturing Javanese cannons was imported from Khorasan in northern Persia. The material was known by Javanese as wesi kurasani (Khorasan iron).[93] When the Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to it as Berço, which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the Spaniards call it Verso.[94] By early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180-260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, length of them between 3–6 m.[95]
+
+Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.[86] Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers.[82] According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles', The History of Java (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.[96]
+
+On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China."[97] Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China because there is a large body of evidence that documents the evolution of the gun from the Chinese fire lance to a metal gun and the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an incendiary and an explosive, whereas similar records do not exist in Europe.[98]  As Andrade explains, the large amount of variation in gunpowder recipes in China relative to Europe is "evidence of experimentation in China, where gunpowder was at first used as an incendiary and only later became an explosive and a propellant... in contrast, formulas in Europe diverged only very slightly from the ideal proportions for use as an explosive and a propellant, suggesting that gunpowder was introduced as a mature technology."[42]
+
+However, the history of gunpowder is not without controversy. A major problem confronting the study of early gunpowder history is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler.[99] Translation difficulties have led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence. Ambiguous language can make it difficult to distinguish gunpowder weapons from similar technologies that do not rely on gunpowder. A commonly cited example is a report of the Battle of Mohi in Eastern Europe that mentions a "long lance" sending forth "evil-smelling vapors and smoke", which has been variously interpreted by different historians as the "first-gas attack upon European soil" using gunpowder, "the first use of cannon in Europe", or merely a "toxic gas" with no evidence of gunpowder.[100]   It is difficult to accurately translate original Chinese alchemical texts, which tend to explain phenomena through metaphor, into modern scientific language with rigidly defined terminology in English. [23] Early texts potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where semantic change occurred.[101] For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word pào changed in meaning from catapult to referring to a cannon.[102] This has led to arguments on the exact origins of gunpowder based on etymological foundations. Science and technology historian Bert S. Hall makes the observation that, "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets."[101]
+
+Another major area of contention in modern studies of the history of gunpowder is regarding the transmission of gunpowder. While the literary and archaeological evidence supports a Chinese origin for gunpowder and guns, the manner in which gunpowder technology was transferred from China to the West is still under debate.[97] It is unknown why the rapid spread of gunpowder technology across Eurasia took place over several decades whereas other technologies such as paper, the compass, and printing did not reach Europe until centuries after they were invented in China.[42]
+
+For the most powerful black powder, meal powder, a wood charcoal, is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow,[103] but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used. In Great Britain between the 15th and 19th centuries charcoal from alder buckthorn was greatly prized for gunpowder manufacture; cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States.[104] The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally, this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze or lead. Historically, a marble or limestone edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed, was used in Great Britain; however, by the mid 19th century this had changed to either an iron-shod stone wheel or a cast iron wheel running on an iron bed.[105] The mix was dampened with alcohol or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. This also helps the extremely soluble saltpeter to mix into the microscopic pores of the very high surface-area charcoal.
+
+Around the late 14th century, European powdermakers first began adding liquid during grinding to improve mixing, reduce dust, and with it the risk of explosion.[106] The powder-makers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powder-makers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.
+
+The improvement was based on reducing the surface area of a higher density composition. At the beginning of the 19th century, makers increased density further by static pressing. They shoveled damp mill cake into a two-foot square box, placed this beneath a screw press and reduced it to ​1⁄2 its volume. "Press cake" had the hardness of slate. They broke the dried slabs with hammers or rollers, and sorted the granules with sieves into different grades.  In the United States, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, who had learned the trade from Lavoisier, tumbled the dried grains in rotating barrels to round the edges and increase durability during shipping and handling. (Sharp grains rounded off in transport, producing fine "meal dust" that changed the burning properties.)
+
+Another advance was the manufacture of kiln charcoal by distilling wood in heated iron retorts instead of burning it in earthen pits. Controlling the temperature influenced the power and consistency of the finished gunpowder.  In 1863, in response to high prices for Indian saltpeter, DuPont chemists developed a process using potash or mined potassium chloride to convert plentiful Chilean sodium nitrate to potassium nitrate.[107]
+
+The following year (1864) the Gatebeck Low Gunpowder Works in Cumbria (Great Britain) started a plant to manufacture potassium nitrate by essentially the same chemical process.[108] This is nowadays called the 'Wakefield Process', after the owners of the company. It would have used potassium chloride from the Staßfurt mines, near Magdeburg, Germany, which had recently become available in industrial quantities.[109]
+
+During the 18th century, gunpowder factories became increasingly dependent on mechanical energy.[110] Despite mechanization, production difficulties related to humidity control, especially during the pressing, were still present in the late 19th century. A paper from 1885 laments that "Gunpowder is such a nervous and sensitive spirit, that in almost every process of manufacture it changes under our hands as the weather changes." Pressing times to the desired density could vary by a factor of three depending on the atmospheric humidity.[111]
+
+The term black powder was coined in the late 19th century, primarily in the United States, to distinguish prior gunpowder formulations from the new smokeless powders and semi-smokeless powders. Semi-smokeless powders featured bulk volume properties that approximated black powder, but had significantly reduced amounts of smoke and combustion products. Smokeless powder has different burning properties (pressure vs. time) and can generate higher pressures and work per gram. This can rupture older weapons designed for black powder. Smokeless powders ranged in color from brownish tan to yellow to white. Most of the bulk semi-smokeless powders ceased to be manufactured in the 1920s.[112][113][114]
+
+Black powder is a granular mixture of
+
+Potassium nitrate is the most important ingredient in terms of both bulk and function because the combustion process releases oxygen from the potassium nitrate, promoting the rapid burning of the other ingredients.[115] To reduce the likelihood of accidental ignition by static electricity, the granules of modern black powder are typically coated with graphite, which prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge.
+
+Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon; rather, it consists of partially pyrolyzed cellulose, in which the wood is not completely decomposed. Carbon differs from ordinary charcoal. Whereas charcoal's autoignition temperature is relatively low, carbon's is much greater. Thus, a black powder composition containing pure carbon would burn similarly to a match head, at best.[116]
+
+The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur.[105] These ratios have varied over the centuries and by country, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder. For instance, power grades of black powder, unsuitable for use in firearms but adequate for blasting rock in quarrying operations, are called blasting powder rather than gunpowder with standard proportions of 70% nitrate, 14% charcoal, and 16% sulfur; blasting powder may be made with the cheaper sodium nitrate substituted for potassium nitrate and proportions may be as low as 40% nitrate, 30% charcoal, and 30% sulfur.[117] In 1857, Lammot du Pont solved the main problem of using cheaper sodium nitrate formulations when he patented DuPont "B" blasting powder. After manufacturing grains from press-cake in the usual way, his process tumbled the powder with graphite dust for 12 hours. This formed a graphite coating on each grain that reduced its ability to absorb moisture.[118]
+
+Neither the use of graphite nor sodium nitrate was new. Glossing gunpowder corns with graphite was already an accepted technique in 1839,[119] and sodium nitrate-based blasting powder had been made in Peru for many years using the sodium nitrate mined at Tarapacá (now in Chile).[120] Also, in 1846, two plants were built in south-west England to make blasting powder using this sodium nitrate.[121] The idea may well have been brought from Peru by Cornish miners returning home after completing their contracts. Another suggestion is that it was William Lobb, the planthunter, who recognised the possibilities of sodium nitrate during his travels in South America. Lammot du Pont would have known about the use of graphite and probably also knew about the plants in south-west England. In his patent he was careful to state that his claim was for the combination of graphite with sodium nitrate-based powder, rather than for either of the two individual technologies.
+
+French war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 12.5% charcoal, 12.5% sulfur. English war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur.[122] The British Congreve rockets used 62.4% saltpeter, 23.2% charcoal and 14.4% sulfur, but the British Mark VII gunpowder was changed to 65% saltpeter, 20% charcoal and 15% sulfur.[citation needed] The explanation for the wide variety in formulation relates to usage. Powder used for rocketry can use a slower burn rate since it accelerates the projectile for a much longer time—whereas powders for weapons such as flintlocks, cap-locks, or matchlocks need a higher burn rate to accelerate the projectile in a much shorter distance. Cannons usually used lower burn-rate powders, because most would burst with higher burn-rate powders.
+
+In the First Opium war, the mixture for Qing China gunpowder contained a high ratio of charcoal which gave it a high stability and longer shelf life but generated less kinetic energy when ignited, decreasing the range and accuracy. In comparison, the mixture for British gunpowder contained a higher ratio of sulfur, allowing the powder to burn faster and thus generate more kinetic energy.
+
+The original dry-compounded powder used in 15th-century Europe was known as "Serpentine", either a reference to Satan[26] or to a common artillery piece that used it.[123] The ingredients were ground
+together with a mortar and pestle, perhaps for 24 hours,[123] resulting in a fine flour.  Vibration during transportation could cause the components to separate again, requiring remixing in the field. Also if the quality of the saltpeter was low (for instance if it was contaminated with highly hygroscopic calcium nitrate), or if the powder was simply old (due to the mildly hygroscopic nature of potassium nitrate), in humid weather it would need to be re-dried. The dust from "repairing" powder in the field was a major hazard.
+
+Loading cannons or bombards before the powder-making advances of the Renaissance was a skilled art. Fine powder loaded haphazardly or too tightly would burn incompletely or too slowly. Typically, the breech-loading powder chamber in the rear of the piece was filled only about half full, the serpentine powder neither too compressed nor too loose, a wooden bung pounded in to seal the chamber from the barrel when assembled, and the projectile placed on.  A carefully determined empty space was necessary for the charge to burn effectively. When the cannon was fired through the touchhole, turbulence from the initial surface combustion caused the rest of the powder to be rapidly exposed to the flame.[123]
+
+The advent of much more powerful and easy to use corned powder changed this procedure, but serpentine was used with older guns into the 17th century.[124]
+
+For propellants to oxidize and burn rapidly and effectively, the combustible ingredients must be reduced to the smallest possible particle sizes, and be as thoroughly mixed as possible. Once mixed, however, for better results in a gun, makers discovered that the final product should be in the form of individual dense grains that spread the fire quickly from grain to grain, much as straw or twigs catch fire more quickly than a pile of sawdust.
+
+Because the dry powdered ingredients must be mixed and bonded together for extrusion and cut into grains to maintain the blend, size reduction and mixing is done while the ingredients are damp, usually with water. After 1800, instead of forming grains by hand or with sieves, the damp mill-cake was pressed in molds to increase its density and extract the liquid, forming press-cake. The pressing took varying amounts of time, depending on conditions such as atmospheric humidity.  The hard, dense product was broken again into tiny pieces, which were separated with sieves to produce a uniform product for each purpose: coarse powders for cannons, finer grained powders for muskets, and the finest for small hand guns and priming.[124] Inappropriately fine-grained powder often caused cannons to burst before the projectile could move down the barrel, due to the high initial spike in pressure.[125] Mammoth powder with large grains, made for Rodman's 15-inch cannon, reduced the pressure to only 20 percent as high as ordinary cannon powder would have produced.[126]
+
+In the mid-19th century, measurements were made determining that the burning rate within a grain of black powder (or a tightly packed mass) is about 6 cm/s (0.20 feet/s), while the rate of ignition propagation from grain to grain is around 9 m/s (30 feet/s), over two orders of magnitude faster.[124]
+
+Modern corning first compresses the fine black powder meal into blocks with a fixed density (1.7 g/cm³).[127] In the United States, gunpowder grains were designated F (for fine) or C (for coarse). Grain diameter decreased with a larger number of Fs and increased with a larger number of Cs, ranging from about 2 mm (0.08 in) for 7F to 15 mm (0.6 in) for 7C. Even larger grains were produced for artillery bore diameters greater than about 17 cm (6.7 in).  The standard DuPont Mammoth powder developed by Thomas Rodman and Lammot du Pont for use during the American Civil War had grains averaging 0.6 inches (15 mm) in diameter with edges rounded in a glazing barrel.[126] Other versions had grains the size of golf and tennis balls for use in 20-inch (51 cm) Rodman guns.[128] In 1875 DuPont introduced Hexagonal powder for large artillery, which was pressed using shaped plates with a small center core—about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) diameter, like a wagon wheel nut, the center hole widened as the grain burned.[129] By 1882 German makers also produced hexagonal grained powders of a similar size for artillery.[129]
+
+By the late 19th century manufacturing focused on standard grades of black powder from Fg used in large bore rifles and shotguns, through FFg (medium and small-bore arms such as muskets and fusils), FFFg (small-bore rifles and pistols), and FFFFg (extreme small bore, short pistols and most commonly for priming flintlocks).[130] A coarser grade for use in military artillery blanks was designated A-1. These grades were sorted on a system of screens with oversize retained on a mesh of 6 wires per inch, A-1 retained on 10 wires per inch, Fg retained on 14, FFg on 24, FFFg on 46, and FFFFg on 60. Fines designated FFFFFg were usually reprocessed to minimize explosive dust hazards.[131] In the United Kingdom, the main service gunpowders were classified RFG (rifle grained fine) with diameter of one or two millimeters and RLG (rifle grained large) for grain diameters between two and six millimeters.[128] Gunpowder grains can alternatively be categorized by mesh size: the BSS sieve mesh size, being the smallest mesh size, which retains no grains. Recognized grain sizes are Gunpowder G 7, G 20, G 40, and G 90.
+
+Owing to the large market of antique and replica black-powder firearms in the US, modern gunpowder substitutes like Pyrodex, Triple Seven and Black Mag3[113] pellets have been developed since the 1970s. These products, which should not be confused with smokeless powders, aim to produce less fouling (solid residue), while maintaining the traditional volumetric measurement system for charges. Claims of less corrosiveness of these products have been controversial however. New cleaning products for black-powder guns have also been developed for this market.[130]
+
+Besides black powder, there are other historically important types of gunpowder.  "Brown gunpowder" is cited as composed of 79% nitre, 3% sulfur, and 18% charcoal per 100 of dry powder, with about 2% moisture. Prismatic Brown Powder is a large-grained product the Rottweil Company introduced in 1884 in Germany, which was adopted by the British Royal Navy shortly thereafter. The French navy adopted a fine, 3.1 millimeter, not prismatic grained product called Slow Burning Cocoa (SBC) or "cocoa powder". These brown powders reduced burning rate even further by using as little as 2 percent sulfur and using charcoal made from rye straw that had not been completely charred, hence the brown color.[129]
+
+Lesmok powder was a product developed by DuPont in 1911,[132] one of several semi-smokeless products in the industry containing a mixture of black and nitrocellulose powder. It was sold to Winchester and others primarily for .22 and .32 small calibers. Its advantage was that it was believed at the time to be less corrosive than smokeless powders then in use.  It was not understood in the U.S. until the 1920s that the actual source of corrosion was the potassium chloride residue from potassium chlorate sensitized primers.  The bulkier black powder fouling better disperses primer residue.  Failure to mitigate primer corrosion by dispersion caused the false impression that nitrocellulose-based powder caused corrosion.[133] Lesmok had some of the bulk of black powder for dispersing primer residue, but somewhat less total bulk than straight black powder, thus requiring less frequent bore cleaning.[113] It was last sold by Winchester in 1947.
+
+The development of smokeless powders, such as cordite, in the late 19th century created the need for a spark-sensitive priming charge, such as gunpowder. However, the sulfur content of traditional gunpowders caused corrosion problems with Cordite Mk I and this led to the introduction of a range of sulfur-free gunpowders, of varying grain sizes.[60] They typically contain 70.5 parts of saltpeter and 29.5 parts of charcoal.[60] Like black powder, they were produced in different grain sizes. In the United Kingdom, the finest grain was known as sulfur-free mealed powder (SMP). Coarser grains were numbered as sulfur-free gunpowder (SFG n): 'SFG 12', 'SFG 20', 'SFG 40' and 'SFG 90', for example; where the number represents the smallest BSS sieve mesh size, which retained no grains.
+
+Sulfur's main role in gunpowder is to decrease the ignition temperature. A sample reaction for sulfur-free gunpowder would be
+
+Gunpowder does not burn as a single reaction, so the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study[134] showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities) 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate and 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water.
+
+However, simplified equations have been cited.
+
+A simple, commonly cited, chemical equation for the combustion of black powder is
+
+A balanced, but still simplified, equation is[135]
+
+Black powder made with less-expensive and more plentiful sodium nitrate (in appropriate proportions) works just as well, and previous equations apply, with sodium instead of potassium. However, it is more hygroscopic than powders made from potassium nitrate—popularly known as saltpeter. Because corned black powder grains made with saltpeter are less affected by moisture in the air, they can be stored unsealed without degradation by humidity. Muzzleloaders have been known to fire after hanging on a wall for decades in a loaded state, provided they remained dry. By contrast, black powder made with sodium nitrate must be kept sealed to remain stable.
+
+The matchlock musket or pistol (an early gun ignition system), as well as the flintlock would often be unusable in wet weather, due to powder in the pan being exposed and dampened.
+
+Gunpowder releases 3 megajoules per kilogram and contains its own oxidant. This is lower than
+TNT (4.7 megajoules per kilogram), or gasoline (47.2 megajoules per kilogram, but gasoline requires an oxidant, so an optimized gasoline and O2 mixture contains 10.4 megajoules per kilogram).
+Black powder also has a low energy density compared to modern "smokeless" powders, and thus to achieve high energy loadings, large amounts of black powder are needed with heavy projectiles.[citation needed]
+
+Gunpowder is a low explosive, that is, it does not detonate but rather deflagrates (burns quickly). This is an advantage in a propellant device, where one does not desire a shock that would shatter the gun and potentially harm the operator, however it is a drawback when some explosion is wanted. In that case, gunpowder (and most importantly, gases produced by its burning) must be confined. Since it contains its own oxidizer and additionally burns faster under pressure, its combustion is capable of bursting containers such as shell, grenade, or improvised "pipe bomb" or "pressure cooker" casings to form shrapnel.
+
+In quarrying, high explosives are generally preferred for shattering rock. However, because of its low brisance, black powder causes fewer fractures and results in more usable stone compared to other explosives, making black powder useful for blasting slate, which is fragile,[136] or monumental stone such as granite and marble. Black powder is well suited for blank rounds, signal flares, burst charges, and rescue-line launches. Black powder is also used in fireworks for lifting shells, in rockets as fuel, and in certain special effects.
+
+As seen above, combustion converts less than half the mass of black powder to gas, most of it turns into particulate matter. Some of it is ejected, wasting propelling power, fouling the air, and generally being a nuisance (giving away a soldier's position, generating fog that hinders vision, etc.). Some of it ends up as a thick layer of soot inside the barrel, where it also is a nuisance for subsequent shots, and a cause of jamming an automatic weapon. Moreover, this residue is hygroscopic, and with the addition of moisture absorbed from the air forms a corrosive substance. The soot contains potassium oxide or sodium oxide that turns into potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide, which corrodes wrought iron or steel gun barrels.[citation needed] Black powder arms must therefore be well cleaned after use, both inside and out, to remove the residue.
+
+The United Nations Model Regulations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods and national transportation authorities, such as United States Department of Transportation, have classified gunpowder (black powder) as a Group A: Primary explosive substance for shipment because it ignites so easily. Complete manufactured devices containing black powder are usually classified as Group D: Secondary detonating substance, or black powder, or article containing secondary detonating substance, such as firework, class D model rocket engine, etc., for shipment because they are harder to ignite than loose powder. As explosives, they all fall into the category of Class 1.
+
+Besides its use as a propellant in firearms and artillery, black powder's other main use has been as a blasting powder in quarrying, mining, and road construction (including railroad construction). During the 19th century, outside of war emergencies such as the Crimean War or the American Civil War, more black powder was used in these industrial uses than in firearms and artillery. But dynamite gradually replaced it for those uses. Today industrial explosives for such uses are still a huge market, but most of the market is in newer explosives rather than black powder.
+
+Beginning in the 1930s, gunpowder or smokeless powder was used in rivet guns, stun guns for animals, cable splicers and other industrial construction tools.[137] The "stud gun" drove nails or screws into solid concrete, a function not possible with hydraulic tools. Today powder-actuated tools are still an important part of various industries, but the cartridges usually use smokeless powders. Industrial shotguns have been used to eliminate persistent material rings in operating rotary kilns (such as those for cement, lime, phosphate, etc.) and clinker in operating furnaces, and commercial tools make the method more reliable.[138]
+
+Gunpowder has occasionally been employed for other purposes besides weapons, mining, and construction:

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+
+
+
+
+at least 48 published
+
+The horse (Equus ferus caballus)[2][3] is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.
+
+Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, possessing an excellent sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep significantly more than adults.[4] Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under a saddle or in a harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.
+
+Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as draft horses and some ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europe. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses.
+
+Horses and humans interact in a wide variety of sport competitions and non-competitive recreational pursuits, as well as in working activities such as police work, agriculture, entertainment, and therapy. Horses were historically used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. Many products are derived from horses, including meat, milk, hide, hair, bone, and pharmaceuticals extracted from the urine of pregnant mares. Humans provide domesticated horses with food, water, and shelter, as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians and farriers.
+
+Specific terms and specialized language are used to describe equine anatomy, different life stages, and colors and breeds.
+
+Depending on breed, management and environment, the modern domestic horse has a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years.[7] Uncommonly, a few animals live into their 40s and, occasionally, beyond.[8] The oldest verifiable record was "Old Billy", a 19th-century horse that lived to the age of 62.[7] In modern times, Sugar Puff, who had been listed in Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living pony, died in 2007 at age 56.[9]
+
+Regardless of a horse or pony's actual birth date, for most competition purposes a year is added to its age each January 1 of each year in the Northern Hemisphere[7][10] and each August 1 in the Southern Hemisphere.[11] The exception is in endurance riding, where the minimum age to compete is based on the animal's actual calendar age.[12]
+
+The following terminology is used to describe horses of various ages:
+
+In horse racing, these definitions may differ: For example, in the British Isles, Thoroughbred horse racing defines colts and fillies as less than five years old.[21] However, Australian Thoroughbred racing defines colts and fillies as less than four years old.[22]
+
+The height of horses is measured at the highest point of the withers, where the neck meets the back.[23] This point is used because it is a stable point of the anatomy, unlike the head or neck, which move up and down in relation to the body of the horse.
+
+In English-speaking countries, the height of horses is often stated in units of hands and inches: one hand is equal to 4 inches (101.6 mm). The height is expressed as the number of full hands, followed by a point, then the number of additional inches, and ending with the abbreviation "h" or "hh" (for "hands high"). Thus, a horse described as "15.2 h" is 15 hands plus 2 inches, for a total of 62 inches (157.5 cm) in height.[24]
+
+The size of horses varies by breed, but also is influenced by nutrition. Light riding horses usually range in height from 14 to 16 hands (56 to 64 inches, 142 to 163 cm) and can weigh from 380 to 550 kilograms (840 to 1,210 lb).[25] Larger riding horses usually start at about 15.2 hands (62 inches, 157 cm) and often are as tall as 17 hands (68 inches, 173 cm), weighing from 500 to 600 kilograms (1,100 to 1,320 lb).[26] Heavy or draft horses are usually at least 16 hands (64 inches, 163 cm) high and can be as tall as 18 hands (72 inches, 183 cm) high. They can weigh from about 700 to 1,000 kilograms (1,540 to 2,200 lb).[27]
+
+The largest horse in recorded history was probably a Shire horse named Mammoth, who was born in 1848. He stood 21.2 1⁄4 hands (86.25 inches, 219 cm) high and his peak weight was estimated at 1,524 kilograms (3,360 lb).[28] The current record holder for the world's smallest horse is Thumbelina, a fully mature miniature horse affected by dwarfism. She is 17 in (43 cm) tall and weighs 57 lb (26 kg).[29]
+
+Ponies are taxonomically the same animals as horses. The distinction between a horse and pony is commonly drawn on the basis of height, especially for competition purposes. However, height alone is not dispositive; the difference between horses and ponies may also include aspects of phenotype, including conformation and temperament.
+
+The traditional standard for height of a horse or a pony at maturity is 14.2 hands (58 inches, 147 cm). An animal 14.2 h or over is usually considered to be a horse and one less than 14.2 h a pony,[30] but there are many exceptions to the traditional standard. In Australia, ponies are considered to be those under 14 hands (56 inches, 142 cm).[31] For competition in the Western division of the United States Equestrian Federation, the cutoff is 14.1 hands (57 inches, 145 cm).[32] The International Federation for Equestrian Sports, the world governing body for horse sport, uses metric measurements and defines a pony as being any horse measuring less than 148 centimetres (58.27 in) at the withers without shoes, which is just over 14.2 h, and 149 centimetres (58.66 in), or just over 14.2​1⁄2 h, with shoes.[33]
+
+Height is not the sole criterion for distinguishing horses from ponies. Breed registries for horses that typically produce individuals both under and over 14.2 h consider all animals of that breed to be horses regardless of their height.[34] Conversely, some pony breeds may have features in common with horses, and individual animals may occasionally mature at over 14.2 h, but are still considered to be ponies.[35]
+
+Ponies often exhibit thicker manes, tails, and overall coat. They also have proportionally shorter legs, wider barrels, heavier bone, shorter and thicker necks, and short heads with broad foreheads. They may have calmer temperaments than horses and also a high level of intelligence that may or may not be used to cooperate with human handlers.[30] Small size, by itself, is not an exclusive determinant. For example, the Shetland pony which averages 10 hands (40 inches, 102 cm), is considered a pony.[30] Conversely, breeds such as the Falabella and other miniature horses, which can be no taller than 30 inches (76 cm), are classified by their registries as very small horses, not ponies.[36]
+
+Horses have 64 chromosomes.[37] The horse genome was sequenced in 2007. It contains 2.7 billion DNA base pairs,[38] which is larger than the dog genome, but smaller than the human genome or the bovine genome.[39] The map is available to researchers.[40]
+
+Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings, described by a specialized vocabulary. Often, a horse is classified first by its coat color, before breed or sex.[41] Horses of the same color may be distinguished from one another by white markings,[42] which, along with various spotting patterns, are inherited separately from coat color.[43]
+
+Many genes that create horse coat colors and patterns have been identified. Current genetic tests can identify at least 13 different alleles influencing coat color,[44] and research continues to discover new genes linked to specific traits. The basic coat colors of chestnut and black are determined by the gene controlled by the Melanocortin 1 receptor,[45] also known as the "extension gene" or "red factor,"[44] as its recessive form is "red" (chestnut) and its dominant form is black.[46] Additional genes control suppression of black color to point coloration that results in a bay, spotting patterns such as pinto or leopard, dilution genes such as palomino or dun, as well as graying, and all the other factors that create the many possible coat colors found in horses.[44]
+
+Horses that have a white coat color are often mislabeled; a horse that looks "white" is usually a middle-aged or older gray. Grays are born a darker shade, get lighter as they age, but usually keep black skin underneath their white hair coat (with the exception of pink skin under white markings). The only horses properly called white are born with a predominantly white hair coat and pink skin, a fairly rare occurrence.[46] Different and unrelated genetic factors can produce white coat colors in horses, including several different alleles of dominant white and the sabino-1 gene.[47] However, there are no "albino" horses, defined as having both pink skin and red eyes.[48]
+
+Gestation lasts approximately 340 days, with an average range 320–370 days,[49] and usually results in one foal; twins are rare.[50] Horses are a precocial species, and foals are capable of standing and running within a short time following birth.[51] Foals are usually born in the spring. The estrous cycle of a mare occurs roughly every 19–22 days and occurs from early spring into autumn. Most mares enter an anestrus period during the winter and thus do not cycle in this period.[52] Foals are generally weaned from their mothers between four and six months of age.[53]
+
+Horses, particularly colts, sometimes are physically capable of reproduction at about 18 months, but domesticated horses are rarely allowed to breed before the age of three, especially females.[54] Horses four years old are considered mature, although the skeleton normally continues to develop until the age of six; maturation also depends on the horse's size, breed, sex, and quality of care. Larger horses have larger bones; therefore, not only do the bones take longer to form bone tissue, but the epiphyseal plates are larger and take longer to convert from cartilage to bone. These plates convert after the other parts of the bones, and are crucial to development.[55]
+
+Depending on maturity, breed, and work expected, horses are usually put under saddle and trained to be ridden between the ages of two and four.[56] Although Thoroughbred race horses are put on the track as young as the age of two in some countries,[57] horses specifically bred for sports such as dressage are generally not put under saddle until they are three or four years old, because their bones and muscles are not solidly developed.[58] For endurance riding competition, horses are not deemed mature enough to compete until they are a full 60 calendar months (five years) old.[12]
+
+The horse skeleton averages 205 bones.[59] A significant difference between the horse skeleton and that of a human is the lack of a collarbone—the horse's forelimbs are attached to the spinal column by a powerful set of muscles, tendons, and ligaments that attach the shoulder blade to the torso. The horse's four legs and hooves are also unique structures. Their leg bones are proportioned differently from those of a human. For example, the body part that is called a horse's "knee" is actually made up of the carpal bones that correspond to the human wrist. Similarly, the hock contains bones equivalent to those in the human ankle and heel. The lower leg bones of a horse correspond to the bones of the human hand or foot, and the fetlock (incorrectly called the "ankle") is actually the proximal sesamoid bones between the cannon bones (a single equivalent to the human metacarpal or metatarsal bones) and the proximal phalanges, located where one finds the "knuckles" of a human. A horse also has no muscles in its legs below the knees and hocks, only skin, hair, bone, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and the assorted specialized tissues that make up the hoof.[60]
+
+The critical importance of the feet and legs is summed up by the traditional adage, "no foot, no horse".[61] The horse hoof begins with the distal phalanges, the equivalent of the human fingertip or tip of the toe, surrounded by cartilage and other specialized, blood-rich soft tissues such as the laminae. The exterior hoof wall and horn of the sole is made of keratin, the same material as a human fingernail.[62] The end result is that a horse, weighing on average 500 kilograms (1,100 lb),[63] travels on the same bones as would a human on tiptoe.[64] For the protection of the hoof under certain conditions, some horses have horseshoes placed on their feet by a professional farrier. The hoof continually grows, and in most domesticated horses needs to be trimmed (and horseshoes reset, if used) every five to eight weeks,[65] though the hooves of horses in the wild wear down and regrow at a rate suitable for their terrain.
+
+Horses are adapted to grazing. In an adult horse, there are 12 incisors at the front of the mouth, adapted to biting off the grass or other vegetation. There are 24 teeth adapted for chewing, the premolars and molars, at the back of the mouth. Stallions and geldings have four additional teeth just behind the incisors, a type of canine teeth called "tushes". Some horses, both male and female, will also develop one to four very small vestigial teeth in front of the molars, known as "wolf" teeth, which are generally removed because they can interfere with the bit. There is an empty interdental space between the incisors and the molars where the bit rests directly on the gums, or "bars" of the horse's mouth when the horse is bridled.[66]
+
+An estimate of a horse's age can be made from looking at its teeth. The teeth continue to erupt throughout life and are worn down by grazing. Therefore, the incisors show changes as the horse ages; they develop a distinct wear pattern, changes in tooth shape, and changes in the angle at which the chewing surfaces meet. This allows a very rough estimate of a horse's age, although diet and veterinary care can also affect the rate of tooth wear.[7]
+
+Horses are herbivores with a digestive system adapted to a forage diet of grasses and other plant material, consumed steadily throughout the day. Therefore, compared to humans, they have a relatively small stomach but very long intestines to facilitate a steady flow of nutrients. A 450-kilogram (990 lb) horse will eat 7 to 11 kilograms (15 to 24 lb) of food per day and, under normal use, drink 38 to 45 litres (8.4 to 9.9 imp gal; 10 to 12 US gal) of water. Horses are not ruminants, they have only one stomach, like humans, but unlike humans, they can utilize cellulose, a major component of grass. Horses are hindgut fermenters. Cellulose fermentation by symbiotic bacteria occurs in the cecum, or "water gut", which food goes through before reaching the large intestine. Horses cannot vomit, so digestion problems can quickly cause colic, a leading cause of death.[67]
+
+The horses' senses are based on their status as prey animals, where they must be aware of their surroundings at all times.[68] They have the largest eyes of any land mammal,[69] and are lateral-eyed, meaning that their eyes are positioned on the sides of their heads.[70] This means that horses have a range of vision of more than 350°, with approximately 65° of this being binocular vision and the remaining 285° monocular vision.[69] Horses have excellent day and night vision, but they have two-color, or dichromatic vision; their color vision is somewhat like red-green color blindness in humans, where certain colors, especially red and related colors, appear as a shade of green.[71]
+
+Their sense of smell, while much better than that of humans, is not quite as good as that of a dog. It is believed to play a key role in the social interactions of horses as well as detecting other key scents in the environment. Horses have two olfactory centers. The first system is in the nostrils and nasal cavity, which analyze a wide range of odors. The second, located under the nasal cavity, are the Vomeronasal organs, also called Jacobson's organs. These have a separate nerve pathway to the brain and appear to primarily analyze pheromones.[72]
+
+A horse's hearing is good,[68] and the pinna of each ear can rotate up to 180°, giving the potential for 360° hearing without having to move the head.[73] Noise impacts the behavior of horses and certain kinds of noise may contribute to stress: A 2013 study in the UK indicated that stabled horses were calmest in a quiet setting, or if listening to country or classical music, but displayed signs of nervousness when listening to jazz or rock music. This study also recommended keeping music under a volume of 21 decibels.[74] An Australian study found that stabled racehorses listening to talk radio had a higher rate of gastric ulcers than horses listening to music, and racehorses stabled where a radio was played had a higher overall rate of ulceration than horses stabled where there was no radio playing.[75]
+
+Horses have a great sense of balance, due partly to their ability to feel their footing and partly to highly developed proprioception—the unconscious sense of where the body and limbs are at all times.[76] A horse's sense of touch is well-developed. The most sensitive areas are around the eyes, ears, and nose.[77] Horses are able to sense contact as subtle as an insect landing anywhere on the body.[78]
+
+Horses have an advanced sense of taste, which allows them to sort through fodder and choose what they would most like to eat,[79] and their prehensile lips can easily sort even small grains. Horses generally will not eat poisonous plants, however, there are exceptions; horses will occasionally eat toxic amounts of poisonous plants even when there is adequate healthy food.[80]
+
+Walk 5–8 km/h (3.1–5.0 mph)
+
+Trot 8–13 km/h (5.0–8.1 mph)
+
+Pace  8–13 km/h (5.0–8.1 mph)
+
+Canter 16–27 km/h (9.9–16.8 mph)
+
+Gallop 40–48 km/h (25–30 mph), record: 70.76 km/h (43.97 mph)
+
+All horses move naturally with four basic gaits: the four-beat walk, which averages 6.4 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph); the two-beat trot or jog at 13 to 19 kilometres per hour (8.1 to 11.8 mph) (faster for harness racing horses); the canter or lope, a three-beat gait that is 19 to 24 kilometres per hour (12 to 15 mph); and the gallop.[81] The gallop averages 40 to 48 kilometres per hour (25 to 30 mph),[82] but the world record for a horse galloping over a short, sprint distance is 70.76 kilometres per hour (43.97 mph).[83] Besides these basic gaits, some horses perform a two-beat pace, instead of the trot.[84] There also are several four-beat "ambling" gaits that are approximately the speed of a trot or pace, though smoother to ride. These include the lateral rack, running walk, and tölt as well as the diagonal fox trot.[85] Ambling gaits are often genetic in some breeds, known collectively as gaited horses.[86] Often, gaited horses replace the trot with one of the ambling gaits.[87]
+
+Horses are prey animals with a strong fight-or-flight response. Their first reaction to a threat is to startle and usually flee, although they will stand their ground and defend themselves when flight is impossible or if their young are threatened.[88] They also tend to be curious; when startled, they will often hesitate an instant to ascertain the cause of their fright, and may not always flee from something that they perceive as non-threatening. Most light horse riding breeds were developed for speed, agility, alertness and endurance; natural qualities that extend from their wild ancestors. However, through selective breeding, some breeds of horses are quite docile, particularly certain draft horses.[89]
+
+Horses are herd animals, with a clear hierarchy of rank, led by a dominant individual, usually a mare. They are also social creatures that are able to form companionship attachments to their own species and to other animals, including humans. They communicate in various ways, including vocalizations such as nickering or whinnying, mutual grooming, and body language. Many horses will become difficult to manage if they are isolated, but with training, horses can learn to accept a human as a companion, and thus be comfortable away from other horses.[90] However, when confined with insufficient companionship, exercise, or stimulation, individuals may develop stable vices, an assortment of bad habits, mostly stereotypies of psychological origin, that include wood chewing, wall kicking, "weaving" (rocking back and forth), and other problems.[91]
+
+Studies have indicated that horses perform a number of cognitive tasks on a daily basis, meeting mental challenges that include food procurement and identification of individuals within a social system. They also have good spatial discrimination abilities.[92] They are naturally curious and apt to investigate things they have not seen before.[93] Studies have assessed equine intelligence in areas such as problem solving, speed of learning, and memory. Horses excel at simple learning, but also are able to use more advanced cognitive abilities that involve categorization and concept learning. They can learn using habituation, desensitization, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning, and positive and negative reinforcement.[92] One study has indicated that horses can differentiate between "more or less" if the quantity involved is less than four.[94]
+
+Domesticated horses may face greater mental challenges than wild horses, because they live in artificial environments that prevent instinctive behavior whilst also learning tasks that are not natural.[92] Horses are animals of habit that respond well to regimentation, and respond best when the same routines and techniques are used consistently. One trainer believes that "intelligent" horses are reflections of intelligent trainers who effectively use response conditioning techniques and positive reinforcement to train in the style that best fits with an individual animal's natural inclinations.[95]
+
+Horses are mammals, and as such are warm-blooded, or endothermic creatures, as opposed to cold-blooded, or poikilothermic animals. However, these words have developed a separate meaning in the context of equine terminology, used to describe temperament, not body temperature. For example, the "hot-bloods", such as many race horses, exhibit more sensitivity and energy,[96] while the "cold-bloods", such as most draft breeds, are quieter and calmer.[97] Sometimes "hot-bloods" are classified as "light horses" or "riding horses",[98] with the "cold-bloods" classified as "draft horses" or "work horses".[99]
+
+"Hot blooded" breeds include "oriental horses" such as the Akhal-Teke, Arabian horse, Barb and now-extinct Turkoman horse, as well as the Thoroughbred, a breed developed in England from the older oriental breeds.[96] Hot bloods tend to be spirited, bold, and learn quickly. They are bred for agility and speed.[100] They tend to be physically refined—thin-skinned, slim, and long-legged.[101] The original oriental breeds were brought to Europe from the Middle East and North Africa when European breeders wished to infuse these traits into racing and light cavalry horses.[102][103]
+
+Muscular, heavy draft horses are known as "cold bloods", as they are bred not only for strength, but also to have the calm, patient temperament needed to pull a plow or a heavy carriage full of people.[97] They are sometimes nicknamed "gentle giants".[104] Well-known draft breeds include the Belgian and the Clydesdale.[104] Some, like the Percheron, are lighter and livelier, developed to pull carriages or to plow large fields in drier climates.[105] Others, such as the Shire, are slower and more powerful, bred to plow fields with heavy, clay-based soils.[106] The cold-blooded group also includes some pony breeds.[107]
+
+"Warmblood" breeds, such as the Trakehner or Hanoverian, developed when European carriage and war horses were crossed with Arabians or Thoroughbreds, producing a riding horse with more refinement than a draft horse, but greater size and milder temperament than a lighter breed.[108] Certain pony breeds with warmblood characteristics have been developed for smaller riders.[109] Warmbloods are considered a "light horse" or "riding horse".[98]
+
+Today, the term "Warmblood" refers to a specific subset of sport horse breeds that are used for competition in dressage and show jumping.[110] Strictly speaking, the term "warm blood" refers to any cross between cold-blooded and hot-blooded breeds.[111] Examples include breeds such as the Irish Draught or the Cleveland Bay. The term was once used to refer to breeds of light riding horse other than Thoroughbreds or Arabians, such as the Morgan horse.[100]
+
+Horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. In an adaptation from life in the wild, horses are able to enter light sleep by using a "stay apparatus" in their legs, allowing them to doze without collapsing.[112] Horses sleep better when in groups because some animals will sleep while others stand guard to watch for predators. A horse kept alone will not sleep well because its instincts are to keep a constant eye out for danger.[113]
+
+Unlike humans, horses do not sleep in a solid, unbroken period of time, but take many short periods of rest. Horses spend four to fifteen hours a day in standing rest, and from a few minutes to several hours lying down. Total sleep time in a 24-hour period may range from several minutes to a couple of hours,[113] mostly in short intervals of about 15 minutes each.[114] The average sleep time of a domestic horse is said to be 2.9 hours per day.[115]
+
+Horses must lie down to reach REM sleep. They only have to lie down for an hour or two every few days to meet their minimum REM sleep requirements.[113] However, if a horse is never allowed to lie down, after several days it will become sleep-deprived, and in rare cases may suddenly collapse as it involuntarily slips into REM sleep while still standing.[116] This condition differs from narcolepsy, although horses may also suffer from that disorder.[117]
+
+The horse adapted to survive in areas of wide-open terrain with sparse vegetation, surviving in an ecosystem where other large grazing animals, especially ruminants, could not.[118] Horses and other equids are odd-toed ungulates of the order Perissodactyla, a group of mammals that was dominant during the Tertiary period. In the past, this order contained 14 families, but only three—Equidae (the horse and related species), Tapiridae (the tapir), and Rhinocerotidae (the rhinoceroses)—have survived to the present day.[119]
+
+The earliest known member of the family Equidae was the Hyracotherium, which lived between 45 and 55 million years ago, during the Eocene period. It had 4 toes on each front foot, and 3 toes on each back foot.[120] The extra toe on the front feet soon disappeared with the Mesohippus, which lived 32 to 37 million years ago.[121] Over time, the extra side toes shrank in size until they vanished. All that remains of them in modern horses is a set of small vestigial bones on the leg below the knee,[122] known informally as splint bones.[123] Their legs also lengthened as their toes disappeared until they were a hooved animal capable of running at great speed.[122] By about 5 million years ago, the modern Equus had evolved.[124] Equid teeth also evolved from browsing on soft, tropical plants to adapt to browsing of drier plant material, then to grazing of tougher plains grasses. Thus proto-horses changed from leaf-eating forest-dwellers to grass-eating inhabitants of semi-arid regions worldwide, including the steppes of Eurasia and the Great Plains of North America.
+
+By about 15,000 years ago, Equus ferus was a widespread holarctic species. Horse bones from this time period, the late Pleistocene, are found in Europe, Eurasia, Beringia, and North America.[125] Yet between 10,000 and 7,600 years ago, the horse became extinct in North America and rare elsewhere.[126][127][128] The reasons for this extinction are not fully known, but one theory notes that extinction in North America paralleled human arrival.[129] Another theory points to climate change, noting that approximately 12,500 years ago, the grasses characteristic of a steppe ecosystem gave way to shrub tundra, which was covered with unpalatable plants.[130]
+
+A truly wild horse is a species or subspecies with no ancestors that were ever domesticated. Therefore, most "wild" horses today are actually feral horses, animals that escaped or were turned loose from domestic herds and the descendants of those animals.[131] Only two never-domesticated subspecies, the tarpan and the Przewalski's horse, survived into recorded history and only the latter survives today.
+
+The Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewalskii), named after the Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky, is a rare Asian animal. It is also known as the Mongolian wild horse; Mongolian people know it as the taki, and the Kyrgyz people call it a kirtag. The subspecies was presumed extinct in the wild between 1969 and 1992, while a small breeding population survived in zoos around the world. In 1992, it was reestablished in the wild due to the conservation efforts of numerous zoos.[132] Today, a small wild breeding population exists in Mongolia.[133][134] There are additional animals still maintained at zoos throughout the world.
+
+The tarpan or European wild horse (Equus ferus ferus) was found in Europe and much of Asia. It survived into the historical era, but became extinct in 1909, when the last captive died in a Russian zoo.[135] Thus, the genetic line was lost. Attempts have been made to recreate the tarpan,[135][136][137] which resulted in horses with outward physical similarities, but nonetheless descended from domesticated ancestors and not true wild horses.
+
+Periodically, populations of horses in isolated areas are speculated to be relict populations of wild horses, but generally have been proven to be feral or domestic. For example, the Riwoche horse of Tibet was proposed as such,[134] but testing did not reveal genetic differences from domesticated horses.[138] Similarly, the Sorraia of Portugal was proposed as a direct descendant of the Tarpan based on shared characteristics,[139][140] but genetic studies have shown that the Sorraia is more closely related to other horse breeds and that the outward similarity is an unreliable measure of relatedness.[139][141]
+
+Besides the horse, there are six other species of genus Equus in the Equidae family. These are the ass or donkey, Equus asinus; the mountain zebra, Equus zebra; plains zebra, Equus quagga; Grévy's zebra, Equus grevyi; the kiang, Equus kiang; and the onager, Equus hemionus.[142]
+
+Horses can crossbreed with other members of their genus. The most common hybrid is the mule, a cross between a "jack" (male donkey) and a mare. A related hybrid, a hinny, is a cross between a stallion and a jenny (female donkey).[143] Other hybrids include the zorse, a cross between a zebra and a horse.[144] With rare exceptions, most hybrids are sterile and cannot reproduce.[145]
+
+Domestication of the horse most likely took place in central Asia prior to 3500 BC. Two major sources of information are used to determine where and when the horse was first domesticated and how the domesticated horse spread around the world. The first source is based on palaeological and archaeological discoveries; the second source is a comparison of DNA obtained from modern horses to that from bones and teeth of ancient horse remains.
+
+The earliest archaeological evidence for the domestication of the horse comes from sites in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, dating to approximately 3500–4000 BC.[146][147][148] By 3000 BC, the horse was completely domesticated and by 2000 BC there was a sharp increase in the number of horse bones found in human settlements in northwestern Europe, indicating the spread of domesticated horses throughout the continent.[149] The most recent, but most irrefutable evidence of domestication comes from sites where horse remains were interred with chariots in graves of the Sintashta and Petrovka cultures c. 2100 BC.[150]
+
+Domestication is also studied by using the genetic material of present-day horses and comparing it with the genetic material present in the bones and teeth of horse remains found in archaeological and palaeological excavations. The variation in the genetic material shows that very few wild stallions contributed to the domestic horse,[151][152] while many mares were part of early domesticated herds.[141][153][154] This is reflected in the difference in genetic variation between the DNA that is passed on along the paternal, or sire line (Y-chromosome) versus that passed on along the maternal, or dam line (mitochondrial DNA). There are very low levels of Y-chromosome variability,[151][152] but a great deal of genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA.[141][153][154] There is also regional variation in mitochondrial DNA due to the inclusion of wild mares in domestic herds.[141][153][154][155] Another characteristic of domestication is an increase in coat color variation.[156] In horses, this increased dramatically between 5000 and 3000 BC.[157]
+
+Before the availability of DNA techniques to resolve the questions related to the domestication of the horse, various hypotheses were proposed. One classification was based on body types and conformation, suggesting the presence of four basic prototypes that had adapted to their environment prior to domestication.[107] Another hypothesis held that the four prototypes originated from a single wild species and that all different body types were entirely a result of selective breeding after domestication.[158] However, the lack of a detectable substructure  in the horse has resulted in a rejection of both hypotheses.
+
+Feral horses are born and live in the wild, but are descended from domesticated animals.[131] Many populations of feral horses exist throughout the world.[159][160] Studies of feral herds have provided useful insights into the behavior of prehistoric horses,[161] as well as greater understanding of the instincts and behaviors that drive horses that live in domesticated conditions.[162]
+
+There are also semi-feral horses in many parts of the world, such as Dartmoor and the New Forest in the UK, where the animals are all privately owned but live for significant amounts of time in "wild" conditions on undeveloped, often public, lands. Owners of such animals often pay a fee for grazing rights.[163][164]
+
+The concept of purebred bloodstock and a controlled, written breed registry has come to be particularly significant and important in modern times. Sometimes purebred horses are incorrectly or inaccurately called "thoroughbreds". Thoroughbred is a specific breed of horse, while a "purebred" is a horse (or any other animal) with a defined pedigree recognized by a breed registry.[165] Horse breeds are groups of horses with distinctive characteristics that are transmitted consistently to their offspring, such as conformation, color, performance ability, or disposition. These inherited traits result from a combination of natural crosses and artificial selection methods. Horses have been selectively bred since their domestication. An early example of people who practiced selective horse breeding were the Bedouin, who had a reputation for careful practices, keeping extensive pedigrees of their Arabian horses and placing great value upon pure bloodlines.[166] These pedigrees were originally transmitted via an oral tradition.[167] In the 14th century, Carthusian monks of southern Spain kept meticulous pedigrees of bloodstock lineages still found today in the Andalusian horse.[168]
+
+Breeds developed due to a need for "form to function", the necessity to develop certain characteristics in order to perform a particular type of work.[169] Thus, a powerful but refined breed such as the Andalusian developed as riding horses with an aptitude for dressage.[169] Heavy draft horses were developed out of a need to perform demanding farm work and pull heavy wagons.[170] Other horse breeds had been developed specifically for light agricultural work, carriage and road work, various sport disciplines, or simply as pets.[171] Some breeds developed through centuries of crossing other breeds, while others descended from a single foundation sire, or other limited or restricted foundation bloodstock. One of the earliest formal registries was General Stud Book for Thoroughbreds, which began in 1791 and traced back to the foundation bloodstock for the breed.[172] There are more than 300 horse breeds in the world today.[173]
+
+Worldwide, horses play a role within human cultures and have done so for millennia. Horses are used for leisure activities, sports, and working purposes. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in 2008, there were almost 59,000,000 horses in the world, with around 33,500,000 in the Americas, 13,800,000 in Asia and 6,300,000 in Europe and smaller portions in Africa and Oceania. There are estimated to be 9,500,000 horses in the United States alone.[174] The American Horse Council estimates that horse-related activities have a direct impact on the economy of the United States of over $39 billion, and when indirect spending is considered, the impact is over $102 billion.[175] In a 2004 "poll" conducted by Animal Planet, more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries voted for the horse as the world's 4th favorite animal.[176]
+
+Communication between human and horse is paramount in any equestrian activity;[177] to aid this process horses are usually ridden with a saddle on their backs to assist the rider with balance and positioning, and a bridle or related headgear to assist the rider in maintaining control.[178] Sometimes horses are ridden without a saddle,[179] and occasionally, horses are trained to perform without a bridle or other headgear.[180] Many horses are also driven, which requires a harness, bridle, and some type of vehicle.[181]
+
+Historically, equestrians honed their skills through games and races. Equestrian sports provided entertainment for crowds and honed the excellent horsemanship that was needed in battle. Many sports, such as dressage, eventing and show jumping, have origins in military training, which were focused on control and balance of both horse and rider. Other sports, such as rodeo, developed from practical skills such as those needed on working ranches and stations. Sport hunting from horseback evolved from earlier practical hunting techniques.[177] Horse racing of all types evolved from impromptu competitions between riders or drivers. All forms of competition, requiring demanding and specialized skills from both horse and rider, resulted in the systematic development of specialized breeds and equipment for each sport. The popularity of equestrian sports through the centuries has resulted in the preservation of skills that would otherwise have disappeared after horses stopped being used in combat.[177]
+
+Horses are trained to be ridden or driven in a variety of sporting competitions. Examples include show jumping, dressage, three-day eventing, competitive driving, endurance riding, gymkhana, rodeos, and fox hunting.[182] Horse shows, which have their origins in medieval European fairs, are held around the world. They host a huge range of classes, covering all of the mounted and harness disciplines, as well as "In-hand" classes where the horses are led, rather than ridden, to be evaluated on their conformation. The method of judging varies with the discipline, but winning usually depends on style and ability of both horse and rider.[183]
+Sports such as polo do not judge the horse itself, but rather use the horse as a partner for human competitors as a necessary part of the game. Although the horse requires specialized training to participate, the details of its performance are not judged, only the result of the rider's actions—be it getting a ball through a goal or some other task.[184] Examples of these sports of partnership between human and horse include jousting, in which the main goal is for one rider to unseat the other,[185] and buzkashi, a team game played throughout Central Asia, the aim being to capture a goat carcass while on horseback.[184]
+
+Horse racing is an equestrian sport and major international industry, watched in almost every nation of the world. There are three types: "flat" racing; steeplechasing, i.e. racing over jumps; and harness racing, where horses trot or pace while pulling a driver in a small, light cart known as a sulky.[186] A major part of horse racing's economic importance lies in the gambling associated with it.[187]
+
+There are certain jobs that horses do very well, and no technology has yet developed to fully replace them. For example, mounted police horses are still effective for certain types of patrol duties and crowd control.[188] Cattle ranches still require riders on horseback to round up cattle that are scattered across remote, rugged terrain.[189] Search and rescue organizations in some countries depend upon mounted teams to locate people, particularly hikers and children, and to provide disaster relief assistance.[190] Horses can also be used in areas where it is necessary to avoid vehicular disruption to delicate soil, such as nature reserves. They may also be the only form of transport allowed in wilderness areas. Horses are quieter than motorized vehicles. Law enforcement officers such as park rangers or game wardens may use horses for patrols, and horses or mules may also be used for clearing trails or other work in areas of rough terrain where vehicles are less effective.[191]
+Although machinery has replaced horses in many parts of the world, an estimated 100 million horses, donkeys and mules are still used for agriculture and transportation in less developed areas. This number includes around 27 million working animals in Africa alone.[192] Some land management practices such as cultivating and logging can be efficiently performed with horses. In agriculture, less fossil fuel is used and increased environmental conservation occurs over time with the use of draft animals such as horses.[193][194] Logging with horses can result in reduced damage to soil structure and less damage to trees due to more selective logging.[195]
+
+Horses have been used in warfare for most of recorded history. The first archaeological evidence of horses used in warfare dates to between 4000 and 3000 BC,[196] and the use of horses in warfare was widespread by the end of the Bronze Age.[197][198] Although mechanization has largely replaced the horse as a weapon of war, horses are still seen today in limited military uses, mostly for ceremonial purposes, or for reconnaissance and transport activities in areas of rough terrain where motorized vehicles are ineffective. Horses have been used in the 21st century by the Janjaweed militias in the War in Darfur.[199]
+
+Modern horses are often used to reenact many of their historical work purposes. Horses are used, complete with equipment that is authentic or a meticulously recreated replica, in various live action historical reenactments of specific periods of history, especially recreations of famous battles.[200] Horses are also used to preserve cultural traditions and for ceremonial purposes. Countries such as the United Kingdom still use horse-drawn carriages to convey royalty and other VIPs to and from certain culturally significant events.[201] Public exhibitions are another example, such as the Budweiser Clydesdales, seen in parades and other public settings, a team of draft horses that pull a beer wagon similar to that used before the invention of the modern motorized truck.[202]
+
+Horses are frequently used in television, films and literature. They are sometimes featured as a major character in films about particular animals, but also used as visual elements that assure the accuracy of historical stories.[203] Both live horses and iconic images of horses are used in advertising to promote a variety of products.[204] The horse frequently appears in coats of arms in heraldry, in a variety of poses and equipment.[205] The mythologies of many cultures, including Greco-Roman, Hindu, Islamic, and Norse, include references to both normal horses and those with wings or additional limbs, and multiple myths also call upon the horse to draw the chariots of the Moon and Sun.[206] The horse also appears in the 12-year cycle of animals in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.[207]
+
+People of all ages with physical and mental disabilities obtain beneficial results from an association with horses. Therapeutic riding is used to mentally and physically stimulate disabled persons and help them improve their lives through improved balance and coordination, increased self-confidence, and a greater feeling of freedom and independence.[208] The benefits of equestrian activity for people with disabilities has also been recognized with the addition of equestrian events to the Paralympic Games and recognition of para-equestrian events by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI).[209] Hippotherapy and therapeutic horseback riding are names for different physical, occupational, and speech therapy treatment strategies that utilize equine movement. In hippotherapy, a therapist uses the horse's movement to improve their patient's cognitive, coordination, balance, and fine motor skills, whereas therapeutic horseback riding uses specific riding skills.[210]
+
+Horses also provide psychological benefits to people whether they actually ride or not. "Equine-assisted" or "equine-facilitated" therapy is a form of experiential psychotherapy that uses horses as companion animals to assist people with mental illness, including anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, behavioral difficulties, and those who are going through major life changes.[211] There are also experimental programs using horses in prison settings. Exposure to horses appears to improve the behavior of inmates and help reduce recidivism when they leave.[212]
+
+Horses are raw material for many products made by humans throughout history, including byproducts from the slaughter of horses as well as materials collected from living horses.
+
+Products collected from living horses include mare's milk, used by people with large horse herds, such as the Mongols, who let it ferment to produce kumis.[213] Horse blood was once used as food by the Mongols and other nomadic tribes, who found it a convenient source of nutrition when traveling. Drinking their own horses' blood allowed the Mongols to ride for extended periods of time without stopping to eat.[213] The drug Premarin is a mixture of estrogens extracted from the urine of pregnant mares (pregnant mares' urine), and was previously a widely used drug for hormone replacement therapy.[214] The tail hair of horses can be used for making bows for string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass.[215]
+
+Horse meat has been used as food for humans and carnivorous animals throughout the ages. Approximately 5 million horses are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide.[216] It is eaten in many parts of the world, though consumption is taboo in some cultures,[217] and a subject of political controversy in others.[218] Horsehide leather has been used for boots, gloves, jackets,[219] baseballs,[220] and baseball gloves. Horse hooves can also be used to produce animal glue.[221] Horse bones can be used to make implements.[222] Specifically, in Italian cuisine, the horse tibia is sharpened into a probe called a spinto, which is used to test the readiness of a (pig) ham as it cures.[223] In Asia, the saba is a horsehide vessel used in the production of kumis.[224]
+
+Horses are grazing animals, and their major source of nutrients is good-quality forage from hay or pasture.[225] They can consume approximately 2% to 2.5% of their body weight in dry feed each day. Therefore, a 450-kilogram (990 lb) adult horse could eat up to 11 kilograms (24 lb) of food.[226] Sometimes, concentrated feed such as grain is fed in addition to pasture or hay, especially when the animal is very active.[227] When grain is fed, equine nutritionists recommend that 50% or more of the animal's diet by weight should still be forage.[228]
+
+Horses require a plentiful supply of clean water, a minimum of 10 US gallons (38 L) to 12 US gallons (45 L) per day.[229] Although horses are adapted to live outside, they require shelter from the wind and precipitation, which can range from a simple shed or shelter to an elaborate stable.[230]
+
+Horses require routine hoof care from a farrier, as well as vaccinations to protect against various diseases, and dental examinations from a veterinarian or a specialized equine dentist.[231] If horses are kept inside in a barn, they require regular daily exercise for their physical health and mental well-being.[232] When turned outside, they require well-maintained, sturdy fences to be safely contained.[233] Regular grooming is also helpful to help the horse maintain good health of the hair coat and underlying skin.[234]
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+The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018.[1] up from more than 19 billion in 2011.[2] There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl.[2] Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food (consuming both their meat and eggs) and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BC).[3][4]
+
+Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia,[5] but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC.[6] Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III.[7][8][9]
+
+In the UK and Ireland, adult male chickens over the age of one year are primarily known as cocks, whereas in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, they are more commonly called roosters. Males less than a year old are cockerels.[10]  Castrated or neutered roosters are called capons (surgical and chemical castration are now illegal in some parts of the world). Females over a year old are known as hens, and younger females as pullets,[11] although in the egg-laying industry, a pullet becomes a hen when she begins to lay eggs, at 16 to 20 weeks of age. In Australia and New Zealand (also sometimes in Britain), there is a generic term chook /tʃʊk/ to describe all ages and both sexes.[12] The young are often called chicks.
+
+Chicken originally referred to young domestic fowl.[13] The species as a whole was then called domestic fowl, or just fowl.  This use of chicken survives in the phrase Hen and Chickens, sometimes used as a British public house or theatre name, and to name groups of one large and many small rocks or islands in the sea (see for example Hen and Chicken Islands).
+
+In the Deep South of the United States, chickens are referred to by the slang term yardbird.[14]
+
+Chickens are omnivores.[15]  In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even animals as large as lizards, small snakes,[16] or young mice.[17]
+
+The average chicken may live for five to ten years, depending on the breed.[18]  The world's oldest known chicken was a hen which died of heart failure at the age of 16 years according to the Guinness World Records.[19]
+
+Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage of long flowing tails and shiny, pointed feathers on their necks (hackles) and backs (saddle), which are typically of brighter, bolder colours than those of females of the same breed. However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright chicken, the rooster has only slightly pointed neck feathers, the same colour as the hen's. The identification can be made by looking at the comb, or eventually from the development of spurs on the male's legs (in a few breeds and in certain hybrids, the male and female chicks may be differentiated by colour). Adult chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb, or cockscomb, and hanging flaps of skin either side under their beaks called wattles. Collectively, these and other fleshy protuberances on the head and throat are called caruncles.  Both the adult male and female have wattles and combs, but in most breeds these are more prominent in males.
+A muff or beard is a mutation found in several chicken breeds which causes extra feathering under the chicken's face, giving the appearance of a beard.
+Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although lighter chickens are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens may occasionally fly briefly to explore their surroundings, but generally do so only to flee perceived danger.
+
+Chickens are gregarious birds and live together in flocks. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a "pecking order", with dominant individuals having priority for food access and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established. Adding hens, especially younger birds, to an existing flock can lead to fighting and injury.[20]
+When a rooster finds food, he may call other chickens to eat first. He does this by clucking in a high pitch as well as picking up and dropping the food. This behaviour may also be observed in mother hens to call their chicks and encourage them to eat.
+
+A rooster's crowing is a loud and sometimes shrill call and sends a territorial signal to other roosters.[21] However, roosters may also crow in response to sudden disturbances within their surroundings. Hens cluck loudly after laying an egg, and also to call their chicks. Chickens also give different warning calls when they sense a predator approaching from the air or on the ground.[22]
+
+To initiate courting, some roosters may dance in a circle around or near a hen ("a circle dance"), often lowering the wing which is closest to the hen.[23]  The dance triggers a response in the hen[23] and when she responds to his "call", the rooster may mount the hen and proceed with the mating.
+
+More specifically, mating typically involves the following sequence:  1. Male approaching the hen.  2. Male pre-copulatory waltzing.  3. Male waltzing.  4. Female crouching (receptive posture) or stepping aside or running away (if unwilling to copulate). 5. Male mounting. 6. Male treading with both feet  on hen's back. 7. Male tail bending (following successful copulation).[24]
+
+Hens will often try to lay in nests that already contain eggs and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own.  The result of this behaviour is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird.  Hens will often express a preference to lay in the same location. It is not unknown for two (or more) hens to try to share the same nest at the same time. If the nest is small, or one of the hens is particularly determined, this may result in chickens trying to lay on top of each other.  There is evidence that individual hens prefer to be either solitary or gregarious nesters.[25]
+
+Under natural conditions, most birds lay only until a clutch is complete, and they will then incubate all the eggs. Hens are then said to "go broody".  The broody hen will stop laying and instead will focus on the incubation of the eggs (a full clutch is usually about 12 eggs). She will "sit" or "set" on the nest, protesting or pecking in defense if disturbed or removed, and she will rarely leave the nest to eat, drink, or dust-bathe. While brooding, the hen maintains the nest at a constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the eggs regularly during the first part of the incubation. To stimulate broodiness, owners may place several artificial eggs in the nest. To discourage it, they may place the hen in an elevated cage with an open wire floor.[citation needed]
+
+Breeds artificially developed for egg production rarely go broody, and those that do often stop part-way through the incubation. However, other breeds, such as the Cochin, Cornish and Silkie, do regularly go broody, and they make excellent mothers, not only for chicken eggs but also for those of other species — even those with much smaller or larger eggs and different incubation periods, such as quail, pheasants, turkeys, or geese.
+
+Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days.[23] Development of the chick starts only when incubation begins, so all chicks hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so.  Before hatching, the hen can hear the chicks peeping inside the eggs, and will gently cluck to stimulate them to break out of their shells. The chick begins by "pipping"; pecking a breathing hole with its egg tooth towards the blunt end of the egg, usually on the upper side.  The chick then rests for some hours, absorbing the remaining egg yolk and withdrawing the blood supply from the membrane beneath the shell (used earlier for breathing through the shell).  The chick then enlarges the hole, gradually turning round as it goes, and eventually severing the blunt end of the shell completely to make a lid.  The chick crawls out of the remaining shell, and the wet down dries out in the warmth of the nest.
+
+Hens usually remain on the nest for about two days after the first chick hatches, and during this time the newly hatched chicks feed by absorbing the internal yolk sac. Some breeds sometimes start eating cracked eggs, which can become habitual.[26] Hens fiercely guard their chicks, and brood them when necessary to keep them warm, at first often returning to the nest at night. She leads them to food and water and will call them toward edible items, but seldom feeds them directly. She continues to care for them until they are several weeks old. Although there are some hens, the Black Hen Atriana, in the territory of Atri, that are aggressive and often kill their own chicks. They are characterized as a small-sized hen that lays mant eggs daily.[27]
+
+Chickens may occasionally gang up on a weak or inexperienced predator. At least one credible report exists of a young fox killed by hens.[28][29][30] A group of hens have been recorded in attacking a hawk that had entered their coop.[31]
+
+.
+
+In 2006, scientists researching the ancestry of birds "turned on" a chicken recessive gene, talpid2, and found that the embryo jaws initiated formation of teeth, like those found in ancient bird fossils. John Fallon, the overseer of the project, stated that chickens have "...retained the ability to make teeth, under certain conditions... ."[32]
+
+Galliformes, the class of bird that chickens belong to, is directly linked to the survival of birds when all other dinosaurs went extinct. Water or ground-dwelling fowl, similar to modern partridges, survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed all tree-dwelling birds and dinosaurs.[33] Some of these evolved into the modern galliformes, of which domesticated chickens are a main model. They are descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and are scientifically classified as the same species.[34] As such, they can and do freely interbreed with populations of red junglefowl.[34] Subsequent hybridization of domestic chicken with grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl occurred[35] with at least, a gene for yellow skin was incorporated into domestic birds through hybridization with the grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii).[36]  In a study published in 2020, it was found that chickens shared between 71% - 79% of their genome with red junglefowl with domestication period dated to 8,000 years ago.[35]
+
+The traditional view is that chickens were first domesticated for cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe.[3] In the last decade, there have been a number of genetic studies to clarify the origins. According to one early study, a single domestication event which took place in what now is the country of Thailand gave rise to the modern chicken with minor transitions separating the modern breeds.[37] However, that study was later found to be based on incomplete data, and recent studies point to multiple maternal origins, with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, originating from the Indian subcontinent, where a large number of unique haplotypes occur.[38][39] The red junglefowl, known as the bamboo fowl in many Southeast Asian languages, is a special bird well-adapted to take advantage of the large amounts of fruits that are produced during the end of the 50-year bamboo seeding cycle, to boost its own reproduction.[40] In domesticating the chicken, humans took advantage of this predisposition for prolific reproduction of the red junglefowl when exposed to large amounts of food.[41]
+
+Several controversies still surround the time chicken was domesticated. A recent molecular evidence obtained from whole-genome study published in 2020 reveal that chicken was domesticated 8,000 years ago.[35] Though, it was previously thought to have been domesticated in Southern China in 6000 BC based on paleoclimatic assumptions[42] which has now raised doubts from another study that question whether those birds were the ancestors of chickens today.[43] Majority of the world chicken today may have migrated from the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley. Eventually, the chicken moved to the Tarim basin of central Asia. The chicken reached Europe (Romania, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine) about 3000 BC.[44]
+Introduction into Western Europe came far later, about the 1st millennium BC. Phoenicians spread chickens along the Mediterranean coasts as far as Iberia. Breeding increased under the Roman Empire, and was reduced in the Middle Ages.[44] Genetic sequencing of chicken bones from archaeological sites in Europe revealed that in the High Middle Ages chickens became less aggressive and began to lay eggs earlier in the breeding season.[45]
+
+Middle East traces of chicken go back to a little earlier than 2000 BC, in Syria; chickens went southward only in the 1st millennium BC. They reached Egypt for purposes of cockfighting about 1400 BC, and became widely bred only in Ptolemaic Egypt (about 300 BC).[44] Little is known about the chicken's introduction into Africa. It was during the Hellenistic period (4th-2nd centuries BC), in the Southern Levant, that chickens began widely to be domesticated for food.[4] This change occurred at least 100 years before domestication of chickens spread to Europe.
+
+Three possible routes of introduction in about the early first millennium AD could have been through the Egyptian Nile Valley, the East Africa Roman-Greek or Indian trade, or from Carthage and the Berbers, across the Sahara. The earliest known remains are from Mali, Nubia, East Coast, and South Africa and date back to the middle of the first millennium AD.[44]
+
+Domestic chicken in the Americas before Western contact is still an ongoing discussion, but blue-egged chickens, found only in the Americas and Asia, suggest an Asian origin for early American chickens.[44]
+
+A lack of data from Thailand, Russia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa makes it difficult to lay out a clear map of the spread of chickens in these areas; better description and genetic analysis of local breeds threatened by extinction may also help with research into this area.[44]
+
+An unusual variety of chicken that has its origins in South America is the araucana, bred in southern Chile by the Mapuche people. Araucanas, some of which are tailless and some of which have tufts of feathers around their ears, lay blue-green eggs. It has long been suggested that they pre-date the arrival of European chickens brought by the Spanish and are evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contacts between Asian or Pacific Oceanic peoples, particularly the Polynesians, and South America. In 2007, an international team of researchers reported the results of analysis of chicken bones found on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile. Radiocarbon dating suggested that the chickens were Pre-Columbian, and DNA analysis showed that they were related to prehistoric populations of chickens in Polynesia.[46] These results appeared to confirm that the chickens came from Polynesia and that there were transpacific contacts between Polynesia and South America before Columbus's arrival in the Americas.[47]
+
+However, a later report looking at the same specimens concluded:
+
+A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.[48]
+
+The debate for and against a Polynesian origin for South American chickens continued with this 2014 paper and subsequent responses in PNAS.[49]
+
+More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of  meat and eggs.[51] In the United States alone, more than 8 billion chickens are slaughtered each year for meat,[52] and more than 300 million chickens are reared for egg production.[53]
+
+The vast majority of poultry are raised in factory farms. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry meat and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.[54] An alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming.
+
+Friction between these two main methods has led to long-term issues of ethical consumerism. Opponents of intensive farming argue that it harms the environment, creates human health risks and is inhumane.[55] Advocates of intensive farming say that their highly efficient systems save land and food resources owing to increased productivity, and that the animals are looked after in state-of-the-art environmentally controlled facilities.[56]
+
+Chickens farmed for meat are called broilers. Chickens will naturally live for six or more years, but broiler breeds typically take less than six weeks to reach slaughter size.[57] A free range or organic broiler will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks of age.
+
+Chickens farmed primarily for eggs are called layer hens. In total, the UK alone consumes more than 34 million eggs per day.[58] Some hen breeds can produce over 300 eggs per year, with "the highest authenticated rate of egg laying being 371 eggs in 364 days".[59]  After 12 months of laying, the commercial hen's egg-laying ability starts to decline to the point where the flock is commercially unviable.  Hens, particularly from battery cage systems, are sometimes infirm or have lost a significant amount of their feathers, and their life expectancy has been reduced from around seven years to less than two years.[60]  In the UK and Europe, laying hens are then slaughtered and used in processed foods or sold as "soup hens".[60]  In some other countries, flocks are sometimes force moulted, rather than being slaughtered, to re-invigorate egg-laying.  This involves complete withdrawal of food (and sometimes water) for 7–14 days[61] or sufficiently long to cause a body weight loss of 25 to 35%,[62] or up to 28 days under experimental conditions.[63] This stimulates the hen to lose her feathers, but also re-invigorates egg-production.  Some flocks may be force-moulted several times.  In 2003, more than 75% of all flocks were moulted in the US.[64]
+
+Keeping chickens as pets became increasingly popular in the 2000s[65] among urban and suburban residents.[66] Many people obtain chickens for their egg production but often name them and treat them as any other pet. Chickens are just like any other pet in that they provide companionship and have individual personalities. While many do not cuddle much, they will eat from one's hand, respond to and follow their handlers, as well as show affection.[67]
+
+Chickens are social, inquisitive, intelligent[failed verification] birds, and many find their behaviour entertaining.[68] Certain breeds, such as Silkies and many bantam varieties, are generally docile and are often recommended as good pets around children with disabilities.[69] Many people feed chickens in part with kitchen food scraps.
+
+Chickens can carry and transmit salmonella in their dander and feces. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise against bringing them indoors or letting small children handle them.[70][71]
+
+Incubation can successfully occur artificially in machines that provide the correct, controlled environment for the developing chick.[72][73] The average incubation period for chickens is 21 days but may depend on the temperature and humidity in the incubator. Temperature regulation is the most critical factor for a successful hatch. Variations of more than 1 °C (1.8 °F) from the optimum temperature of 37.5 °C (99.5 °F) will reduce hatch rates. Humidity is also important because the rate at which eggs lose water by evaporation depends on the ambient relative humidity. Evaporation can be assessed by candling, to view the size of the air sac, or by measuring weight loss. Relative humidity should be increased to around 70% in the last three days of incubation to keep the membrane around the hatching chick from drying out after the chick cracks the shell. Lower humidity is usual in the first 18 days to ensure adequate evaporation. The position of the eggs in the incubator can also influence hatch rates. For best results, eggs should be placed with the pointed ends down and turned regularly (at least three times per day) until one to three days before hatching. If the eggs aren't turned, the embryo inside may stick to the shell and may hatch with physical defects. Adequate ventilation is necessary to provide the embryo with oxygen. Older eggs require increased ventilation.
+
+Many commercial incubators are industrial-sized with shelves holding tens of thousands of eggs at a time, with rotation of the eggs a fully automated process. Home incubators are boxes holding from 6 to 75 eggs; they are usually electrically powered, but in the past some were heated with an oil or paraffin lamp.
+
+Chickens are susceptible to several parasites, including lice, mites, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms, as well as other diseases.  Despite the name, they are not affected by chickenpox, which is generally restricted to humans.[74]
+
+Some of the diseases that can affect chickens are shown below:
+
+Since antiquity chickens have been, and still are, a sacred animal in some cultures[77] and deeply embedded within belief systems and religious worship. The term "Persian bird" for the rooster appears to have been given by the Greeks after Persian contact "because of his great importance and his religious use among the Persians".[78]
+
+In Indonesia the chicken has great significance during the Hindu cremation ceremony. A chicken is considered a channel for evil spirits which may be present during the ceremony. A chicken is tethered by the leg and kept present at the ceremony for its duration to ensure that any evil spirits present go into the chicken and not the family members. The chicken is then taken home and returns to its normal life.
+
+In ancient Greece, chickens were not normally used for sacrifices, perhaps because they were still considered an exotic animal. Because of its valor, the cock is found as an attribute of Ares, Heracles, and Athena. The alleged last words of Socrates as he died from hemlock poisoning, as recounted by Plato, were "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?", signifying that death was a cure for the illness of life.
+
+The Greeks believed that even lions were afraid of roosters. Several of Aesop's Fables reference this belief.
+
+In the New Testament, Jesus prophesied the betrayal by Peter: "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.'"[79] It happened,[80] and Peter cried bitterly. This made the rooster a symbol for both vigilance and betrayal.
+
+Earlier, Jesus compares himself to a mother hen when talking about Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."[81]
+
+In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I declared the rooster the emblem of Christianity[82] and another Papal enactment of the ninth century by Pope Nicholas I[77] ordered the figure of the rooster to be placed on every church steeple.[83]
+
+In many Central European folk tales, the devil is believed to flee at the first crowing of a rooster.
+
+In traditional Jewish practice, a kosher animal is swung around the head and then slaughtered on the afternoon before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in a ritual called kapparos; it is now common practice to cradle the bird and move him or her around the head. A chicken or fish is typically used because it is commonly available (and small enough to hold). The sacrifice of the animal is to receive atonement, for the animal symbolically takes on all the person's sins in kapparos. The meat is then donated to the poor. A woman brings a hen for the ceremony, while a man brings a rooster. Although not a sacrifice in the biblical sense, the death of the animal reminds the penitent sinner that his or her life is in God's hands.
+
+The Talmud speaks of learning "courtesy toward one's mate" from the rooster.[84] This might refer to the fact that when a rooster finds something good to eat, he calls his hens to eat first.  A rooster might also come to the aid of a hen if she is attacked. The Talmud likewise provides us with the statement "Had the Torah not been given to us, we would have learned modesty from cats, honest toil from ants, chastity from doves and gallantry from cocks",[85][86] which may be further understood as to that of the gallantry of cocks being taken in the context of a religious instilling vessel of "a girt one of the loins" (Young's Literal Translation) that which is "stately in his stride" and "move with stately bearing" in the Book of Proverbs 30:29-31 as referenced by Michael V. Fox in his Proverbs 10-31 where Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon (Saadia Gaon) identifies the definitive trait of "A cock girded about the loins" in Proverbs 30:31 (Douay–Rheims Bible) as "the honesty of their behavior and their success",[87] identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious instilling schema of purpose and use.
+
+The chicken is one of the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac. In Chinese folk religion, a cooked chicken as a religious offering is usually limited to ancestor veneration and worship of village deities. Vegetarian deities such as the Buddha are not recipients of such offerings. Under some observations, an offering of chicken is presented with "serious" prayer (while roasted pork is offered during a joyous celebration). In Confucian Chinese weddings, a chicken can be used as a substitute for one who is seriously ill or not available (e.g., sudden death) to attend the ceremony. A red silk scarf is placed on the chicken's head and a close relative of the absent bride/groom holds the chicken so the ceremony may proceed. However, this practice is rare today.
+
+A cockatrice was supposed to have been born from an egg laid by a rooster, as well as killed by a rooster's call.
+
+An early domestication of chickens in Southeast Asia is probable, since the word for domestic chicken (*manuk) is part of the reconstructed Proto-Austronesian language (see Austronesian languages). Chickens, together with dogs and pigs, were the domestic animals of the Lapita culture,[88] the first Neolithic culture of Oceania.[89]
+
+The first pictures of chickens in Europe are found on Corinthian pottery of the 7th century BC.[90][91] The poet Cratinus (mid-5th century BC, according to the later Greek author Athenaeus) calls the chicken "the Persian alarm". In Aristophanes's comedy The Birds (414 BC) a chicken is called "the Median bird", which points to an introduction from the East. Pictures of chickens are found on Greek red figure and black-figure pottery.
+
+In ancient Greece, chickens were still rare and were a rather prestigious food for symposia.[92] Delos seems to have been a center of chicken breeding (Columella, De Re Rustica 8.3.4). "About 3200 BC chickens were common in Sindh. After the attacks of Aria people these fowls spred from Sindh to Balakh and Iran. During attacks and wars between Iranian and  Greeks the chickens of Hellanic breed came in Iran and about 1000 BC Hellanic chickens came into Sindh through Medan".[93]
+
+The Romans used chickens for oracles, both when flying ("ex avibus", Augury) and when feeding ("auspicium ex tripudiis", Alectryomancy). The hen ("gallina") gave a favourable omen ("auspicium ratum"), when appearing from the left (Cic., de Div. ii.26), like the crow and the owl.
+
+For the oracle "ex tripudiis" according to Cicero (Cic. de Div. ii.34), any bird could be used in auspice, and shows at one point that any bird could perform the tripudium[94] but normally only chickens ("pulli") were consulted. The chickens were cared for by the pullarius, who opened their cage and fed them pulses or a special kind of soft cake when an augury was needed. If the chickens stayed in their cage, made noises ("occinerent"), beat their wings or flew away, the omen was bad; if they ate greedily, the omen was good.[95]
+
+In 249 BC, the Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher had his "sacred chickens" "[96] thrown overboard when they refused to feed before the battle of Drepana, saying "If they won't eat, perhaps they will drink." He promptly lost the battle against the Carthaginians and 93 Roman ships were sunk. Back in Rome, he was tried for impiety and heavily fined.[97]
+
+In 162 BC, the Lex Faunia forbade fattening hens on grain which was a measure enacted to reduce the demand for grain.[98]  To get around this, the Romans castrated roosters (capon), which resulted in a doubling of size[99] despite the law that was passed in Rome that forbade the consumption of fattened chickens. It was renewed a number of times, but does not seem to have been successful. Fattening chickens with bread soaked in milk was thought to give especially delicious results. The Roman gourmet Apicius offers 17 recipes for chicken, mainly boiled chicken with a sauce. All parts of the animal are used: the recipes include the stomach, liver, testicles and even the pygostyle (the fatty "tail" of the chicken where the tail feathers attach).
+
+The Roman author Columella gives advice on chicken breeding in the eighth book of his treatise, De Re Rustica (On Agriculture). He identified Tanagrian, Rhodic, Chalkidic and Median (commonly misidentified as Melian) breeds, which have an impressive appearance, a quarrelsome nature and were used for cockfighting by the Greeks (De Re Rustica 8.3.4). For farming, native (Roman) chickens are to be preferred, or a cross between native hens and Greek cocks (De Re Rustica 8.2.13). Dwarf chickens are nice to watch because of their size but have no other advantages.
+
+According to Columella (De Re Rustica 8.2.7), the ideal flock consists of 200 birds, which can be supervised by one person if someone is watching for stray animals. White chickens should be avoided as they are not very fertile and are easily caught by eagles or goshawks. One cock should be kept for five hens. In the case of Rhodian and Median cocks that are very heavy and therefore not much inclined to sex, only three hens are kept per cock. The hens of heavy fowls are not much inclined to brood; therefore their eggs are best hatched by normal hens. A hen can hatch no more than 15-23 eggs, depending on the time of year, and supervise no more than 30 hatchlings. Eggs that are long and pointed give more male hatchlings, rounded eggs mainly female hatchlings (De Re Rustica 8.5.11).
+
+Columella also states that chicken coops should face southeast and lie adjacent to the kitchen, as smoke is beneficial for the animals and "poultry never thrive so well as in warmth and smoke" (De Re Rustica 8.3.1).[100] Coops should consist of three rooms and possess a hearth. Dry dust or ash should be provided for dust-baths.
+
+According to Columella (De Re Rustica 8.4.1), chickens should be fed on barley groats, small chick-peas, millet and wheat bran, if they are cheap. Wheat itself should be avoided as it is harmful to the birds. Boiled ryegrass (Lolium sp.) and the leaves and seeds of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) can be used as well. Grape marc can be used, but only when the hens stop laying eggs, that is, about the middle of November; otherwise eggs are small and few. When feeding grape marc, it should be supplemented with some bran. Hens start to lay eggs after the winter solstice, in warm places around the first of January, in colder areas in the middle of February. Parboiled barley increases their fertility; this should be mixed with alfalfa leaves and seeds, or vetches or millet if alfalfa is not at hand. Free-ranging chickens should receive two cups of barley daily.
+
+Columella[101] advises farmers to slaughter hens that are older than three years, those that aren't productive or are poor care-takers of their eggs, and particularly those that eat their own and other hens' eggs.
+
+According to Aldrovandi, capons were produced by burning "the hind part of the bowels, or loins or spurs"[102] with a hot iron. The wound was treated with potter's chalk.
+
+For the use of poultry and eggs in the kitchens of ancient Rome see Roman eating and drinking.
+
+Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers and reached Easter Island in the 12th century AD, where they were the only domestic animal, with the possible exception of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans). They were housed in extremely solid chicken coops built from stone, which was first reported as such to Linton Palmer in 1868, who also "expressed his doubts about this".[103].

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+The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018.[1] up from more than 19 billion in 2011.[2] There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl.[2] Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food (consuming both their meat and eggs) and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BC).[3][4]
+
+Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia,[5] but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC.[6] Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III.[7][8][9]
+
+In the UK and Ireland, adult male chickens over the age of one year are primarily known as cocks, whereas in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, they are more commonly called roosters. Males less than a year old are cockerels.[10]  Castrated or neutered roosters are called capons (surgical and chemical castration are now illegal in some parts of the world). Females over a year old are known as hens, and younger females as pullets,[11] although in the egg-laying industry, a pullet becomes a hen when she begins to lay eggs, at 16 to 20 weeks of age. In Australia and New Zealand (also sometimes in Britain), there is a generic term chook /tʃʊk/ to describe all ages and both sexes.[12] The young are often called chicks.
+
+Chicken originally referred to young domestic fowl.[13] The species as a whole was then called domestic fowl, or just fowl.  This use of chicken survives in the phrase Hen and Chickens, sometimes used as a British public house or theatre name, and to name groups of one large and many small rocks or islands in the sea (see for example Hen and Chicken Islands).
+
+In the Deep South of the United States, chickens are referred to by the slang term yardbird.[14]
+
+Chickens are omnivores.[15]  In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even animals as large as lizards, small snakes,[16] or young mice.[17]
+
+The average chicken may live for five to ten years, depending on the breed.[18]  The world's oldest known chicken was a hen which died of heart failure at the age of 16 years according to the Guinness World Records.[19]
+
+Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage of long flowing tails and shiny, pointed feathers on their necks (hackles) and backs (saddle), which are typically of brighter, bolder colours than those of females of the same breed. However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright chicken, the rooster has only slightly pointed neck feathers, the same colour as the hen's. The identification can be made by looking at the comb, or eventually from the development of spurs on the male's legs (in a few breeds and in certain hybrids, the male and female chicks may be differentiated by colour). Adult chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb, or cockscomb, and hanging flaps of skin either side under their beaks called wattles. Collectively, these and other fleshy protuberances on the head and throat are called caruncles.  Both the adult male and female have wattles and combs, but in most breeds these are more prominent in males.
+A muff or beard is a mutation found in several chicken breeds which causes extra feathering under the chicken's face, giving the appearance of a beard.
+Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although lighter chickens are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens may occasionally fly briefly to explore their surroundings, but generally do so only to flee perceived danger.
+
+Chickens are gregarious birds and live together in flocks. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a "pecking order", with dominant individuals having priority for food access and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established. Adding hens, especially younger birds, to an existing flock can lead to fighting and injury.[20]
+When a rooster finds food, he may call other chickens to eat first. He does this by clucking in a high pitch as well as picking up and dropping the food. This behaviour may also be observed in mother hens to call their chicks and encourage them to eat.
+
+A rooster's crowing is a loud and sometimes shrill call and sends a territorial signal to other roosters.[21] However, roosters may also crow in response to sudden disturbances within their surroundings. Hens cluck loudly after laying an egg, and also to call their chicks. Chickens also give different warning calls when they sense a predator approaching from the air or on the ground.[22]
+
+To initiate courting, some roosters may dance in a circle around or near a hen ("a circle dance"), often lowering the wing which is closest to the hen.[23]  The dance triggers a response in the hen[23] and when she responds to his "call", the rooster may mount the hen and proceed with the mating.
+
+More specifically, mating typically involves the following sequence:  1. Male approaching the hen.  2. Male pre-copulatory waltzing.  3. Male waltzing.  4. Female crouching (receptive posture) or stepping aside or running away (if unwilling to copulate). 5. Male mounting. 6. Male treading with both feet  on hen's back. 7. Male tail bending (following successful copulation).[24]
+
+Hens will often try to lay in nests that already contain eggs and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own.  The result of this behaviour is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird.  Hens will often express a preference to lay in the same location. It is not unknown for two (or more) hens to try to share the same nest at the same time. If the nest is small, or one of the hens is particularly determined, this may result in chickens trying to lay on top of each other.  There is evidence that individual hens prefer to be either solitary or gregarious nesters.[25]
+
+Under natural conditions, most birds lay only until a clutch is complete, and they will then incubate all the eggs. Hens are then said to "go broody".  The broody hen will stop laying and instead will focus on the incubation of the eggs (a full clutch is usually about 12 eggs). She will "sit" or "set" on the nest, protesting or pecking in defense if disturbed or removed, and she will rarely leave the nest to eat, drink, or dust-bathe. While brooding, the hen maintains the nest at a constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the eggs regularly during the first part of the incubation. To stimulate broodiness, owners may place several artificial eggs in the nest. To discourage it, they may place the hen in an elevated cage with an open wire floor.[citation needed]
+
+Breeds artificially developed for egg production rarely go broody, and those that do often stop part-way through the incubation. However, other breeds, such as the Cochin, Cornish and Silkie, do regularly go broody, and they make excellent mothers, not only for chicken eggs but also for those of other species — even those with much smaller or larger eggs and different incubation periods, such as quail, pheasants, turkeys, or geese.
+
+Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days.[23] Development of the chick starts only when incubation begins, so all chicks hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so.  Before hatching, the hen can hear the chicks peeping inside the eggs, and will gently cluck to stimulate them to break out of their shells. The chick begins by "pipping"; pecking a breathing hole with its egg tooth towards the blunt end of the egg, usually on the upper side.  The chick then rests for some hours, absorbing the remaining egg yolk and withdrawing the blood supply from the membrane beneath the shell (used earlier for breathing through the shell).  The chick then enlarges the hole, gradually turning round as it goes, and eventually severing the blunt end of the shell completely to make a lid.  The chick crawls out of the remaining shell, and the wet down dries out in the warmth of the nest.
+
+Hens usually remain on the nest for about two days after the first chick hatches, and during this time the newly hatched chicks feed by absorbing the internal yolk sac. Some breeds sometimes start eating cracked eggs, which can become habitual.[26] Hens fiercely guard their chicks, and brood them when necessary to keep them warm, at first often returning to the nest at night. She leads them to food and water and will call them toward edible items, but seldom feeds them directly. She continues to care for them until they are several weeks old. Although there are some hens, the Black Hen Atriana, in the territory of Atri, that are aggressive and often kill their own chicks. They are characterized as a small-sized hen that lays mant eggs daily.[27]
+
+Chickens may occasionally gang up on a weak or inexperienced predator. At least one credible report exists of a young fox killed by hens.[28][29][30] A group of hens have been recorded in attacking a hawk that had entered their coop.[31]
+
+.
+
+In 2006, scientists researching the ancestry of birds "turned on" a chicken recessive gene, talpid2, and found that the embryo jaws initiated formation of teeth, like those found in ancient bird fossils. John Fallon, the overseer of the project, stated that chickens have "...retained the ability to make teeth, under certain conditions... ."[32]
+
+Galliformes, the class of bird that chickens belong to, is directly linked to the survival of birds when all other dinosaurs went extinct. Water or ground-dwelling fowl, similar to modern partridges, survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed all tree-dwelling birds and dinosaurs.[33] Some of these evolved into the modern galliformes, of which domesticated chickens are a main model. They are descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and are scientifically classified as the same species.[34] As such, they can and do freely interbreed with populations of red junglefowl.[34] Subsequent hybridization of domestic chicken with grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl occurred[35] with at least, a gene for yellow skin was incorporated into domestic birds through hybridization with the grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii).[36]  In a study published in 2020, it was found that chickens shared between 71% - 79% of their genome with red junglefowl with domestication period dated to 8,000 years ago.[35]
+
+The traditional view is that chickens were first domesticated for cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe.[3] In the last decade, there have been a number of genetic studies to clarify the origins. According to one early study, a single domestication event which took place in what now is the country of Thailand gave rise to the modern chicken with minor transitions separating the modern breeds.[37] However, that study was later found to be based on incomplete data, and recent studies point to multiple maternal origins, with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, originating from the Indian subcontinent, where a large number of unique haplotypes occur.[38][39] The red junglefowl, known as the bamboo fowl in many Southeast Asian languages, is a special bird well-adapted to take advantage of the large amounts of fruits that are produced during the end of the 50-year bamboo seeding cycle, to boost its own reproduction.[40] In domesticating the chicken, humans took advantage of this predisposition for prolific reproduction of the red junglefowl when exposed to large amounts of food.[41]
+
+Several controversies still surround the time chicken was domesticated. A recent molecular evidence obtained from whole-genome study published in 2020 reveal that chicken was domesticated 8,000 years ago.[35] Though, it was previously thought to have been domesticated in Southern China in 6000 BC based on paleoclimatic assumptions[42] which has now raised doubts from another study that question whether those birds were the ancestors of chickens today.[43] Majority of the world chicken today may have migrated from the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley. Eventually, the chicken moved to the Tarim basin of central Asia. The chicken reached Europe (Romania, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine) about 3000 BC.[44]
+Introduction into Western Europe came far later, about the 1st millennium BC. Phoenicians spread chickens along the Mediterranean coasts as far as Iberia. Breeding increased under the Roman Empire, and was reduced in the Middle Ages.[44] Genetic sequencing of chicken bones from archaeological sites in Europe revealed that in the High Middle Ages chickens became less aggressive and began to lay eggs earlier in the breeding season.[45]
+
+Middle East traces of chicken go back to a little earlier than 2000 BC, in Syria; chickens went southward only in the 1st millennium BC. They reached Egypt for purposes of cockfighting about 1400 BC, and became widely bred only in Ptolemaic Egypt (about 300 BC).[44] Little is known about the chicken's introduction into Africa. It was during the Hellenistic period (4th-2nd centuries BC), in the Southern Levant, that chickens began widely to be domesticated for food.[4] This change occurred at least 100 years before domestication of chickens spread to Europe.
+
+Three possible routes of introduction in about the early first millennium AD could have been through the Egyptian Nile Valley, the East Africa Roman-Greek or Indian trade, or from Carthage and the Berbers, across the Sahara. The earliest known remains are from Mali, Nubia, East Coast, and South Africa and date back to the middle of the first millennium AD.[44]
+
+Domestic chicken in the Americas before Western contact is still an ongoing discussion, but blue-egged chickens, found only in the Americas and Asia, suggest an Asian origin for early American chickens.[44]
+
+A lack of data from Thailand, Russia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa makes it difficult to lay out a clear map of the spread of chickens in these areas; better description and genetic analysis of local breeds threatened by extinction may also help with research into this area.[44]
+
+An unusual variety of chicken that has its origins in South America is the araucana, bred in southern Chile by the Mapuche people. Araucanas, some of which are tailless and some of which have tufts of feathers around their ears, lay blue-green eggs. It has long been suggested that they pre-date the arrival of European chickens brought by the Spanish and are evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contacts between Asian or Pacific Oceanic peoples, particularly the Polynesians, and South America. In 2007, an international team of researchers reported the results of analysis of chicken bones found on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile. Radiocarbon dating suggested that the chickens were Pre-Columbian, and DNA analysis showed that they were related to prehistoric populations of chickens in Polynesia.[46] These results appeared to confirm that the chickens came from Polynesia and that there were transpacific contacts between Polynesia and South America before Columbus's arrival in the Americas.[47]
+
+However, a later report looking at the same specimens concluded:
+
+A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.[48]
+
+The debate for and against a Polynesian origin for South American chickens continued with this 2014 paper and subsequent responses in PNAS.[49]
+
+More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of  meat and eggs.[51] In the United States alone, more than 8 billion chickens are slaughtered each year for meat,[52] and more than 300 million chickens are reared for egg production.[53]
+
+The vast majority of poultry are raised in factory farms. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry meat and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.[54] An alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming.
+
+Friction between these two main methods has led to long-term issues of ethical consumerism. Opponents of intensive farming argue that it harms the environment, creates human health risks and is inhumane.[55] Advocates of intensive farming say that their highly efficient systems save land and food resources owing to increased productivity, and that the animals are looked after in state-of-the-art environmentally controlled facilities.[56]
+
+Chickens farmed for meat are called broilers. Chickens will naturally live for six or more years, but broiler breeds typically take less than six weeks to reach slaughter size.[57] A free range or organic broiler will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks of age.
+
+Chickens farmed primarily for eggs are called layer hens. In total, the UK alone consumes more than 34 million eggs per day.[58] Some hen breeds can produce over 300 eggs per year, with "the highest authenticated rate of egg laying being 371 eggs in 364 days".[59]  After 12 months of laying, the commercial hen's egg-laying ability starts to decline to the point where the flock is commercially unviable.  Hens, particularly from battery cage systems, are sometimes infirm or have lost a significant amount of their feathers, and their life expectancy has been reduced from around seven years to less than two years.[60]  In the UK and Europe, laying hens are then slaughtered and used in processed foods or sold as "soup hens".[60]  In some other countries, flocks are sometimes force moulted, rather than being slaughtered, to re-invigorate egg-laying.  This involves complete withdrawal of food (and sometimes water) for 7–14 days[61] or sufficiently long to cause a body weight loss of 25 to 35%,[62] or up to 28 days under experimental conditions.[63] This stimulates the hen to lose her feathers, but also re-invigorates egg-production.  Some flocks may be force-moulted several times.  In 2003, more than 75% of all flocks were moulted in the US.[64]
+
+Keeping chickens as pets became increasingly popular in the 2000s[65] among urban and suburban residents.[66] Many people obtain chickens for their egg production but often name them and treat them as any other pet. Chickens are just like any other pet in that they provide companionship and have individual personalities. While many do not cuddle much, they will eat from one's hand, respond to and follow their handlers, as well as show affection.[67]
+
+Chickens are social, inquisitive, intelligent[failed verification] birds, and many find their behaviour entertaining.[68] Certain breeds, such as Silkies and many bantam varieties, are generally docile and are often recommended as good pets around children with disabilities.[69] Many people feed chickens in part with kitchen food scraps.
+
+Chickens can carry and transmit salmonella in their dander and feces. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise against bringing them indoors or letting small children handle them.[70][71]
+
+Incubation can successfully occur artificially in machines that provide the correct, controlled environment for the developing chick.[72][73] The average incubation period for chickens is 21 days but may depend on the temperature and humidity in the incubator. Temperature regulation is the most critical factor for a successful hatch. Variations of more than 1 °C (1.8 °F) from the optimum temperature of 37.5 °C (99.5 °F) will reduce hatch rates. Humidity is also important because the rate at which eggs lose water by evaporation depends on the ambient relative humidity. Evaporation can be assessed by candling, to view the size of the air sac, or by measuring weight loss. Relative humidity should be increased to around 70% in the last three days of incubation to keep the membrane around the hatching chick from drying out after the chick cracks the shell. Lower humidity is usual in the first 18 days to ensure adequate evaporation. The position of the eggs in the incubator can also influence hatch rates. For best results, eggs should be placed with the pointed ends down and turned regularly (at least three times per day) until one to three days before hatching. If the eggs aren't turned, the embryo inside may stick to the shell and may hatch with physical defects. Adequate ventilation is necessary to provide the embryo with oxygen. Older eggs require increased ventilation.
+
+Many commercial incubators are industrial-sized with shelves holding tens of thousands of eggs at a time, with rotation of the eggs a fully automated process. Home incubators are boxes holding from 6 to 75 eggs; they are usually electrically powered, but in the past some were heated with an oil or paraffin lamp.
+
+Chickens are susceptible to several parasites, including lice, mites, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms, as well as other diseases.  Despite the name, they are not affected by chickenpox, which is generally restricted to humans.[74]
+
+Some of the diseases that can affect chickens are shown below:
+
+Since antiquity chickens have been, and still are, a sacred animal in some cultures[77] and deeply embedded within belief systems and religious worship. The term "Persian bird" for the rooster appears to have been given by the Greeks after Persian contact "because of his great importance and his religious use among the Persians".[78]
+
+In Indonesia the chicken has great significance during the Hindu cremation ceremony. A chicken is considered a channel for evil spirits which may be present during the ceremony. A chicken is tethered by the leg and kept present at the ceremony for its duration to ensure that any evil spirits present go into the chicken and not the family members. The chicken is then taken home and returns to its normal life.
+
+In ancient Greece, chickens were not normally used for sacrifices, perhaps because they were still considered an exotic animal. Because of its valor, the cock is found as an attribute of Ares, Heracles, and Athena. The alleged last words of Socrates as he died from hemlock poisoning, as recounted by Plato, were "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?", signifying that death was a cure for the illness of life.
+
+The Greeks believed that even lions were afraid of roosters. Several of Aesop's Fables reference this belief.
+
+In the New Testament, Jesus prophesied the betrayal by Peter: "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.'"[79] It happened,[80] and Peter cried bitterly. This made the rooster a symbol for both vigilance and betrayal.
+
+Earlier, Jesus compares himself to a mother hen when talking about Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."[81]
+
+In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I declared the rooster the emblem of Christianity[82] and another Papal enactment of the ninth century by Pope Nicholas I[77] ordered the figure of the rooster to be placed on every church steeple.[83]
+
+In many Central European folk tales, the devil is believed to flee at the first crowing of a rooster.
+
+In traditional Jewish practice, a kosher animal is swung around the head and then slaughtered on the afternoon before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in a ritual called kapparos; it is now common practice to cradle the bird and move him or her around the head. A chicken or fish is typically used because it is commonly available (and small enough to hold). The sacrifice of the animal is to receive atonement, for the animal symbolically takes on all the person's sins in kapparos. The meat is then donated to the poor. A woman brings a hen for the ceremony, while a man brings a rooster. Although not a sacrifice in the biblical sense, the death of the animal reminds the penitent sinner that his or her life is in God's hands.
+
+The Talmud speaks of learning "courtesy toward one's mate" from the rooster.[84] This might refer to the fact that when a rooster finds something good to eat, he calls his hens to eat first.  A rooster might also come to the aid of a hen if she is attacked. The Talmud likewise provides us with the statement "Had the Torah not been given to us, we would have learned modesty from cats, honest toil from ants, chastity from doves and gallantry from cocks",[85][86] which may be further understood as to that of the gallantry of cocks being taken in the context of a religious instilling vessel of "a girt one of the loins" (Young's Literal Translation) that which is "stately in his stride" and "move with stately bearing" in the Book of Proverbs 30:29-31 as referenced by Michael V. Fox in his Proverbs 10-31 where Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon (Saadia Gaon) identifies the definitive trait of "A cock girded about the loins" in Proverbs 30:31 (Douay–Rheims Bible) as "the honesty of their behavior and their success",[87] identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious instilling schema of purpose and use.
+
+The chicken is one of the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac. In Chinese folk religion, a cooked chicken as a religious offering is usually limited to ancestor veneration and worship of village deities. Vegetarian deities such as the Buddha are not recipients of such offerings. Under some observations, an offering of chicken is presented with "serious" prayer (while roasted pork is offered during a joyous celebration). In Confucian Chinese weddings, a chicken can be used as a substitute for one who is seriously ill or not available (e.g., sudden death) to attend the ceremony. A red silk scarf is placed on the chicken's head and a close relative of the absent bride/groom holds the chicken so the ceremony may proceed. However, this practice is rare today.
+
+A cockatrice was supposed to have been born from an egg laid by a rooster, as well as killed by a rooster's call.
+
+An early domestication of chickens in Southeast Asia is probable, since the word for domestic chicken (*manuk) is part of the reconstructed Proto-Austronesian language (see Austronesian languages). Chickens, together with dogs and pigs, were the domestic animals of the Lapita culture,[88] the first Neolithic culture of Oceania.[89]
+
+The first pictures of chickens in Europe are found on Corinthian pottery of the 7th century BC.[90][91] The poet Cratinus (mid-5th century BC, according to the later Greek author Athenaeus) calls the chicken "the Persian alarm". In Aristophanes's comedy The Birds (414 BC) a chicken is called "the Median bird", which points to an introduction from the East. Pictures of chickens are found on Greek red figure and black-figure pottery.
+
+In ancient Greece, chickens were still rare and were a rather prestigious food for symposia.[92] Delos seems to have been a center of chicken breeding (Columella, De Re Rustica 8.3.4). "About 3200 BC chickens were common in Sindh. After the attacks of Aria people these fowls spred from Sindh to Balakh and Iran. During attacks and wars between Iranian and  Greeks the chickens of Hellanic breed came in Iran and about 1000 BC Hellanic chickens came into Sindh through Medan".[93]
+
+The Romans used chickens for oracles, both when flying ("ex avibus", Augury) and when feeding ("auspicium ex tripudiis", Alectryomancy). The hen ("gallina") gave a favourable omen ("auspicium ratum"), when appearing from the left (Cic., de Div. ii.26), like the crow and the owl.
+
+For the oracle "ex tripudiis" according to Cicero (Cic. de Div. ii.34), any bird could be used in auspice, and shows at one point that any bird could perform the tripudium[94] but normally only chickens ("pulli") were consulted. The chickens were cared for by the pullarius, who opened their cage and fed them pulses or a special kind of soft cake when an augury was needed. If the chickens stayed in their cage, made noises ("occinerent"), beat their wings or flew away, the omen was bad; if they ate greedily, the omen was good.[95]
+
+In 249 BC, the Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher had his "sacred chickens" "[96] thrown overboard when they refused to feed before the battle of Drepana, saying "If they won't eat, perhaps they will drink." He promptly lost the battle against the Carthaginians and 93 Roman ships were sunk. Back in Rome, he was tried for impiety and heavily fined.[97]
+
+In 162 BC, the Lex Faunia forbade fattening hens on grain which was a measure enacted to reduce the demand for grain.[98]  To get around this, the Romans castrated roosters (capon), which resulted in a doubling of size[99] despite the law that was passed in Rome that forbade the consumption of fattened chickens. It was renewed a number of times, but does not seem to have been successful. Fattening chickens with bread soaked in milk was thought to give especially delicious results. The Roman gourmet Apicius offers 17 recipes for chicken, mainly boiled chicken with a sauce. All parts of the animal are used: the recipes include the stomach, liver, testicles and even the pygostyle (the fatty "tail" of the chicken where the tail feathers attach).
+
+The Roman author Columella gives advice on chicken breeding in the eighth book of his treatise, De Re Rustica (On Agriculture). He identified Tanagrian, Rhodic, Chalkidic and Median (commonly misidentified as Melian) breeds, which have an impressive appearance, a quarrelsome nature and were used for cockfighting by the Greeks (De Re Rustica 8.3.4). For farming, native (Roman) chickens are to be preferred, or a cross between native hens and Greek cocks (De Re Rustica 8.2.13). Dwarf chickens are nice to watch because of their size but have no other advantages.
+
+According to Columella (De Re Rustica 8.2.7), the ideal flock consists of 200 birds, which can be supervised by one person if someone is watching for stray animals. White chickens should be avoided as they are not very fertile and are easily caught by eagles or goshawks. One cock should be kept for five hens. In the case of Rhodian and Median cocks that are very heavy and therefore not much inclined to sex, only three hens are kept per cock. The hens of heavy fowls are not much inclined to brood; therefore their eggs are best hatched by normal hens. A hen can hatch no more than 15-23 eggs, depending on the time of year, and supervise no more than 30 hatchlings. Eggs that are long and pointed give more male hatchlings, rounded eggs mainly female hatchlings (De Re Rustica 8.5.11).
+
+Columella also states that chicken coops should face southeast and lie adjacent to the kitchen, as smoke is beneficial for the animals and "poultry never thrive so well as in warmth and smoke" (De Re Rustica 8.3.1).[100] Coops should consist of three rooms and possess a hearth. Dry dust or ash should be provided for dust-baths.
+
+According to Columella (De Re Rustica 8.4.1), chickens should be fed on barley groats, small chick-peas, millet and wheat bran, if they are cheap. Wheat itself should be avoided as it is harmful to the birds. Boiled ryegrass (Lolium sp.) and the leaves and seeds of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) can be used as well. Grape marc can be used, but only when the hens stop laying eggs, that is, about the middle of November; otherwise eggs are small and few. When feeding grape marc, it should be supplemented with some bran. Hens start to lay eggs after the winter solstice, in warm places around the first of January, in colder areas in the middle of February. Parboiled barley increases their fertility; this should be mixed with alfalfa leaves and seeds, or vetches or millet if alfalfa is not at hand. Free-ranging chickens should receive two cups of barley daily.
+
+Columella[101] advises farmers to slaughter hens that are older than three years, those that aren't productive or are poor care-takers of their eggs, and particularly those that eat their own and other hens' eggs.
+
+According to Aldrovandi, capons were produced by burning "the hind part of the bowels, or loins or spurs"[102] with a hot iron. The wound was treated with potter's chalk.
+
+For the use of poultry and eggs in the kitchens of ancient Rome see Roman eating and drinking.
+
+Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers and reached Easter Island in the 12th century AD, where they were the only domestic animal, with the possible exception of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans). They were housed in extremely solid chicken coops built from stone, which was first reported as such to Linton Palmer in 1868, who also "expressed his doubts about this".[103].

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+The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018.[1] up from more than 19 billion in 2011.[2] There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl.[2] Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food (consuming both their meat and eggs) and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BC).[3][4]
+
+Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia,[5] but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC.[6] Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III.[7][8][9]
+
+In the UK and Ireland, adult male chickens over the age of one year are primarily known as cocks, whereas in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, they are more commonly called roosters. Males less than a year old are cockerels.[10]  Castrated or neutered roosters are called capons (surgical and chemical castration are now illegal in some parts of the world). Females over a year old are known as hens, and younger females as pullets,[11] although in the egg-laying industry, a pullet becomes a hen when she begins to lay eggs, at 16 to 20 weeks of age. In Australia and New Zealand (also sometimes in Britain), there is a generic term chook /tʃʊk/ to describe all ages and both sexes.[12] The young are often called chicks.
+
+Chicken originally referred to young domestic fowl.[13] The species as a whole was then called domestic fowl, or just fowl.  This use of chicken survives in the phrase Hen and Chickens, sometimes used as a British public house or theatre name, and to name groups of one large and many small rocks or islands in the sea (see for example Hen and Chicken Islands).
+
+In the Deep South of the United States, chickens are referred to by the slang term yardbird.[14]
+
+Chickens are omnivores.[15]  In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even animals as large as lizards, small snakes,[16] or young mice.[17]
+
+The average chicken may live for five to ten years, depending on the breed.[18]  The world's oldest known chicken was a hen which died of heart failure at the age of 16 years according to the Guinness World Records.[19]
+
+Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage of long flowing tails and shiny, pointed feathers on their necks (hackles) and backs (saddle), which are typically of brighter, bolder colours than those of females of the same breed. However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright chicken, the rooster has only slightly pointed neck feathers, the same colour as the hen's. The identification can be made by looking at the comb, or eventually from the development of spurs on the male's legs (in a few breeds and in certain hybrids, the male and female chicks may be differentiated by colour). Adult chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb, or cockscomb, and hanging flaps of skin either side under their beaks called wattles. Collectively, these and other fleshy protuberances on the head and throat are called caruncles.  Both the adult male and female have wattles and combs, but in most breeds these are more prominent in males.
+A muff or beard is a mutation found in several chicken breeds which causes extra feathering under the chicken's face, giving the appearance of a beard.
+Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although lighter chickens are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens may occasionally fly briefly to explore their surroundings, but generally do so only to flee perceived danger.
+
+Chickens are gregarious birds and live together in flocks. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a "pecking order", with dominant individuals having priority for food access and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established. Adding hens, especially younger birds, to an existing flock can lead to fighting and injury.[20]
+When a rooster finds food, he may call other chickens to eat first. He does this by clucking in a high pitch as well as picking up and dropping the food. This behaviour may also be observed in mother hens to call their chicks and encourage them to eat.
+
+A rooster's crowing is a loud and sometimes shrill call and sends a territorial signal to other roosters.[21] However, roosters may also crow in response to sudden disturbances within their surroundings. Hens cluck loudly after laying an egg, and also to call their chicks. Chickens also give different warning calls when they sense a predator approaching from the air or on the ground.[22]
+
+To initiate courting, some roosters may dance in a circle around or near a hen ("a circle dance"), often lowering the wing which is closest to the hen.[23]  The dance triggers a response in the hen[23] and when she responds to his "call", the rooster may mount the hen and proceed with the mating.
+
+More specifically, mating typically involves the following sequence:  1. Male approaching the hen.  2. Male pre-copulatory waltzing.  3. Male waltzing.  4. Female crouching (receptive posture) or stepping aside or running away (if unwilling to copulate). 5. Male mounting. 6. Male treading with both feet  on hen's back. 7. Male tail bending (following successful copulation).[24]
+
+Hens will often try to lay in nests that already contain eggs and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own.  The result of this behaviour is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird.  Hens will often express a preference to lay in the same location. It is not unknown for two (or more) hens to try to share the same nest at the same time. If the nest is small, or one of the hens is particularly determined, this may result in chickens trying to lay on top of each other.  There is evidence that individual hens prefer to be either solitary or gregarious nesters.[25]
+
+Under natural conditions, most birds lay only until a clutch is complete, and they will then incubate all the eggs. Hens are then said to "go broody".  The broody hen will stop laying and instead will focus on the incubation of the eggs (a full clutch is usually about 12 eggs). She will "sit" or "set" on the nest, protesting or pecking in defense if disturbed or removed, and she will rarely leave the nest to eat, drink, or dust-bathe. While brooding, the hen maintains the nest at a constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the eggs regularly during the first part of the incubation. To stimulate broodiness, owners may place several artificial eggs in the nest. To discourage it, they may place the hen in an elevated cage with an open wire floor.[citation needed]
+
+Breeds artificially developed for egg production rarely go broody, and those that do often stop part-way through the incubation. However, other breeds, such as the Cochin, Cornish and Silkie, do regularly go broody, and they make excellent mothers, not only for chicken eggs but also for those of other species — even those with much smaller or larger eggs and different incubation periods, such as quail, pheasants, turkeys, or geese.
+
+Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days.[23] Development of the chick starts only when incubation begins, so all chicks hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so.  Before hatching, the hen can hear the chicks peeping inside the eggs, and will gently cluck to stimulate them to break out of their shells. The chick begins by "pipping"; pecking a breathing hole with its egg tooth towards the blunt end of the egg, usually on the upper side.  The chick then rests for some hours, absorbing the remaining egg yolk and withdrawing the blood supply from the membrane beneath the shell (used earlier for breathing through the shell).  The chick then enlarges the hole, gradually turning round as it goes, and eventually severing the blunt end of the shell completely to make a lid.  The chick crawls out of the remaining shell, and the wet down dries out in the warmth of the nest.
+
+Hens usually remain on the nest for about two days after the first chick hatches, and during this time the newly hatched chicks feed by absorbing the internal yolk sac. Some breeds sometimes start eating cracked eggs, which can become habitual.[26] Hens fiercely guard their chicks, and brood them when necessary to keep them warm, at first often returning to the nest at night. She leads them to food and water and will call them toward edible items, but seldom feeds them directly. She continues to care for them until they are several weeks old. Although there are some hens, the Black Hen Atriana, in the territory of Atri, that are aggressive and often kill their own chicks. They are characterized as a small-sized hen that lays mant eggs daily.[27]
+
+Chickens may occasionally gang up on a weak or inexperienced predator. At least one credible report exists of a young fox killed by hens.[28][29][30] A group of hens have been recorded in attacking a hawk that had entered their coop.[31]
+
+.
+
+In 2006, scientists researching the ancestry of birds "turned on" a chicken recessive gene, talpid2, and found that the embryo jaws initiated formation of teeth, like those found in ancient bird fossils. John Fallon, the overseer of the project, stated that chickens have "...retained the ability to make teeth, under certain conditions... ."[32]
+
+Galliformes, the class of bird that chickens belong to, is directly linked to the survival of birds when all other dinosaurs went extinct. Water or ground-dwelling fowl, similar to modern partridges, survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed all tree-dwelling birds and dinosaurs.[33] Some of these evolved into the modern galliformes, of which domesticated chickens are a main model. They are descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and are scientifically classified as the same species.[34] As such, they can and do freely interbreed with populations of red junglefowl.[34] Subsequent hybridization of domestic chicken with grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl occurred[35] with at least, a gene for yellow skin was incorporated into domestic birds through hybridization with the grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii).[36]  In a study published in 2020, it was found that chickens shared between 71% - 79% of their genome with red junglefowl with domestication period dated to 8,000 years ago.[35]
+
+The traditional view is that chickens were first domesticated for cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe.[3] In the last decade, there have been a number of genetic studies to clarify the origins. According to one early study, a single domestication event which took place in what now is the country of Thailand gave rise to the modern chicken with minor transitions separating the modern breeds.[37] However, that study was later found to be based on incomplete data, and recent studies point to multiple maternal origins, with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, originating from the Indian subcontinent, where a large number of unique haplotypes occur.[38][39] The red junglefowl, known as the bamboo fowl in many Southeast Asian languages, is a special bird well-adapted to take advantage of the large amounts of fruits that are produced during the end of the 50-year bamboo seeding cycle, to boost its own reproduction.[40] In domesticating the chicken, humans took advantage of this predisposition for prolific reproduction of the red junglefowl when exposed to large amounts of food.[41]
+
+Several controversies still surround the time chicken was domesticated. A recent molecular evidence obtained from whole-genome study published in 2020 reveal that chicken was domesticated 8,000 years ago.[35] Though, it was previously thought to have been domesticated in Southern China in 6000 BC based on paleoclimatic assumptions[42] which has now raised doubts from another study that question whether those birds were the ancestors of chickens today.[43] Majority of the world chicken today may have migrated from the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley. Eventually, the chicken moved to the Tarim basin of central Asia. The chicken reached Europe (Romania, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine) about 3000 BC.[44]
+Introduction into Western Europe came far later, about the 1st millennium BC. Phoenicians spread chickens along the Mediterranean coasts as far as Iberia. Breeding increased under the Roman Empire, and was reduced in the Middle Ages.[44] Genetic sequencing of chicken bones from archaeological sites in Europe revealed that in the High Middle Ages chickens became less aggressive and began to lay eggs earlier in the breeding season.[45]
+
+Middle East traces of chicken go back to a little earlier than 2000 BC, in Syria; chickens went southward only in the 1st millennium BC. They reached Egypt for purposes of cockfighting about 1400 BC, and became widely bred only in Ptolemaic Egypt (about 300 BC).[44] Little is known about the chicken's introduction into Africa. It was during the Hellenistic period (4th-2nd centuries BC), in the Southern Levant, that chickens began widely to be domesticated for food.[4] This change occurred at least 100 years before domestication of chickens spread to Europe.
+
+Three possible routes of introduction in about the early first millennium AD could have been through the Egyptian Nile Valley, the East Africa Roman-Greek or Indian trade, or from Carthage and the Berbers, across the Sahara. The earliest known remains are from Mali, Nubia, East Coast, and South Africa and date back to the middle of the first millennium AD.[44]
+
+Domestic chicken in the Americas before Western contact is still an ongoing discussion, but blue-egged chickens, found only in the Americas and Asia, suggest an Asian origin for early American chickens.[44]
+
+A lack of data from Thailand, Russia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa makes it difficult to lay out a clear map of the spread of chickens in these areas; better description and genetic analysis of local breeds threatened by extinction may also help with research into this area.[44]
+
+An unusual variety of chicken that has its origins in South America is the araucana, bred in southern Chile by the Mapuche people. Araucanas, some of which are tailless and some of which have tufts of feathers around their ears, lay blue-green eggs. It has long been suggested that they pre-date the arrival of European chickens brought by the Spanish and are evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contacts between Asian or Pacific Oceanic peoples, particularly the Polynesians, and South America. In 2007, an international team of researchers reported the results of analysis of chicken bones found on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile. Radiocarbon dating suggested that the chickens were Pre-Columbian, and DNA analysis showed that they were related to prehistoric populations of chickens in Polynesia.[46] These results appeared to confirm that the chickens came from Polynesia and that there were transpacific contacts between Polynesia and South America before Columbus's arrival in the Americas.[47]
+
+However, a later report looking at the same specimens concluded:
+
+A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.[48]
+
+The debate for and against a Polynesian origin for South American chickens continued with this 2014 paper and subsequent responses in PNAS.[49]
+
+More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of  meat and eggs.[51] In the United States alone, more than 8 billion chickens are slaughtered each year for meat,[52] and more than 300 million chickens are reared for egg production.[53]
+
+The vast majority of poultry are raised in factory farms. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry meat and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.[54] An alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming.
+
+Friction between these two main methods has led to long-term issues of ethical consumerism. Opponents of intensive farming argue that it harms the environment, creates human health risks and is inhumane.[55] Advocates of intensive farming say that their highly efficient systems save land and food resources owing to increased productivity, and that the animals are looked after in state-of-the-art environmentally controlled facilities.[56]
+
+Chickens farmed for meat are called broilers. Chickens will naturally live for six or more years, but broiler breeds typically take less than six weeks to reach slaughter size.[57] A free range or organic broiler will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks of age.
+
+Chickens farmed primarily for eggs are called layer hens. In total, the UK alone consumes more than 34 million eggs per day.[58] Some hen breeds can produce over 300 eggs per year, with "the highest authenticated rate of egg laying being 371 eggs in 364 days".[59]  After 12 months of laying, the commercial hen's egg-laying ability starts to decline to the point where the flock is commercially unviable.  Hens, particularly from battery cage systems, are sometimes infirm or have lost a significant amount of their feathers, and their life expectancy has been reduced from around seven years to less than two years.[60]  In the UK and Europe, laying hens are then slaughtered and used in processed foods or sold as "soup hens".[60]  In some other countries, flocks are sometimes force moulted, rather than being slaughtered, to re-invigorate egg-laying.  This involves complete withdrawal of food (and sometimes water) for 7–14 days[61] or sufficiently long to cause a body weight loss of 25 to 35%,[62] or up to 28 days under experimental conditions.[63] This stimulates the hen to lose her feathers, but also re-invigorates egg-production.  Some flocks may be force-moulted several times.  In 2003, more than 75% of all flocks were moulted in the US.[64]
+
+Keeping chickens as pets became increasingly popular in the 2000s[65] among urban and suburban residents.[66] Many people obtain chickens for their egg production but often name them and treat them as any other pet. Chickens are just like any other pet in that they provide companionship and have individual personalities. While many do not cuddle much, they will eat from one's hand, respond to and follow their handlers, as well as show affection.[67]
+
+Chickens are social, inquisitive, intelligent[failed verification] birds, and many find their behaviour entertaining.[68] Certain breeds, such as Silkies and many bantam varieties, are generally docile and are often recommended as good pets around children with disabilities.[69] Many people feed chickens in part with kitchen food scraps.
+
+Chickens can carry and transmit salmonella in their dander and feces. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise against bringing them indoors or letting small children handle them.[70][71]
+
+Incubation can successfully occur artificially in machines that provide the correct, controlled environment for the developing chick.[72][73] The average incubation period for chickens is 21 days but may depend on the temperature and humidity in the incubator. Temperature regulation is the most critical factor for a successful hatch. Variations of more than 1 °C (1.8 °F) from the optimum temperature of 37.5 °C (99.5 °F) will reduce hatch rates. Humidity is also important because the rate at which eggs lose water by evaporation depends on the ambient relative humidity. Evaporation can be assessed by candling, to view the size of the air sac, or by measuring weight loss. Relative humidity should be increased to around 70% in the last three days of incubation to keep the membrane around the hatching chick from drying out after the chick cracks the shell. Lower humidity is usual in the first 18 days to ensure adequate evaporation. The position of the eggs in the incubator can also influence hatch rates. For best results, eggs should be placed with the pointed ends down and turned regularly (at least three times per day) until one to three days before hatching. If the eggs aren't turned, the embryo inside may stick to the shell and may hatch with physical defects. Adequate ventilation is necessary to provide the embryo with oxygen. Older eggs require increased ventilation.
+
+Many commercial incubators are industrial-sized with shelves holding tens of thousands of eggs at a time, with rotation of the eggs a fully automated process. Home incubators are boxes holding from 6 to 75 eggs; they are usually electrically powered, but in the past some were heated with an oil or paraffin lamp.
+
+Chickens are susceptible to several parasites, including lice, mites, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms, as well as other diseases.  Despite the name, they are not affected by chickenpox, which is generally restricted to humans.[74]
+
+Some of the diseases that can affect chickens are shown below:
+
+Since antiquity chickens have been, and still are, a sacred animal in some cultures[77] and deeply embedded within belief systems and religious worship. The term "Persian bird" for the rooster appears to have been given by the Greeks after Persian contact "because of his great importance and his religious use among the Persians".[78]
+
+In Indonesia the chicken has great significance during the Hindu cremation ceremony. A chicken is considered a channel for evil spirits which may be present during the ceremony. A chicken is tethered by the leg and kept present at the ceremony for its duration to ensure that any evil spirits present go into the chicken and not the family members. The chicken is then taken home and returns to its normal life.
+
+In ancient Greece, chickens were not normally used for sacrifices, perhaps because they were still considered an exotic animal. Because of its valor, the cock is found as an attribute of Ares, Heracles, and Athena. The alleged last words of Socrates as he died from hemlock poisoning, as recounted by Plato, were "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?", signifying that death was a cure for the illness of life.
+
+The Greeks believed that even lions were afraid of roosters. Several of Aesop's Fables reference this belief.
+
+In the New Testament, Jesus prophesied the betrayal by Peter: "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.'"[79] It happened,[80] and Peter cried bitterly. This made the rooster a symbol for both vigilance and betrayal.
+
+Earlier, Jesus compares himself to a mother hen when talking about Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."[81]
+
+In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I declared the rooster the emblem of Christianity[82] and another Papal enactment of the ninth century by Pope Nicholas I[77] ordered the figure of the rooster to be placed on every church steeple.[83]
+
+In many Central European folk tales, the devil is believed to flee at the first crowing of a rooster.
+
+In traditional Jewish practice, a kosher animal is swung around the head and then slaughtered on the afternoon before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in a ritual called kapparos; it is now common practice to cradle the bird and move him or her around the head. A chicken or fish is typically used because it is commonly available (and small enough to hold). The sacrifice of the animal is to receive atonement, for the animal symbolically takes on all the person's sins in kapparos. The meat is then donated to the poor. A woman brings a hen for the ceremony, while a man brings a rooster. Although not a sacrifice in the biblical sense, the death of the animal reminds the penitent sinner that his or her life is in God's hands.
+
+The Talmud speaks of learning "courtesy toward one's mate" from the rooster.[84] This might refer to the fact that when a rooster finds something good to eat, he calls his hens to eat first.  A rooster might also come to the aid of a hen if she is attacked. The Talmud likewise provides us with the statement "Had the Torah not been given to us, we would have learned modesty from cats, honest toil from ants, chastity from doves and gallantry from cocks",[85][86] which may be further understood as to that of the gallantry of cocks being taken in the context of a religious instilling vessel of "a girt one of the loins" (Young's Literal Translation) that which is "stately in his stride" and "move with stately bearing" in the Book of Proverbs 30:29-31 as referenced by Michael V. Fox in his Proverbs 10-31 where Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon (Saadia Gaon) identifies the definitive trait of "A cock girded about the loins" in Proverbs 30:31 (Douay–Rheims Bible) as "the honesty of their behavior and their success",[87] identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious instilling schema of purpose and use.
+
+The chicken is one of the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac. In Chinese folk religion, a cooked chicken as a religious offering is usually limited to ancestor veneration and worship of village deities. Vegetarian deities such as the Buddha are not recipients of such offerings. Under some observations, an offering of chicken is presented with "serious" prayer (while roasted pork is offered during a joyous celebration). In Confucian Chinese weddings, a chicken can be used as a substitute for one who is seriously ill or not available (e.g., sudden death) to attend the ceremony. A red silk scarf is placed on the chicken's head and a close relative of the absent bride/groom holds the chicken so the ceremony may proceed. However, this practice is rare today.
+
+A cockatrice was supposed to have been born from an egg laid by a rooster, as well as killed by a rooster's call.
+
+An early domestication of chickens in Southeast Asia is probable, since the word for domestic chicken (*manuk) is part of the reconstructed Proto-Austronesian language (see Austronesian languages). Chickens, together with dogs and pigs, were the domestic animals of the Lapita culture,[88] the first Neolithic culture of Oceania.[89]
+
+The first pictures of chickens in Europe are found on Corinthian pottery of the 7th century BC.[90][91] The poet Cratinus (mid-5th century BC, according to the later Greek author Athenaeus) calls the chicken "the Persian alarm". In Aristophanes's comedy The Birds (414 BC) a chicken is called "the Median bird", which points to an introduction from the East. Pictures of chickens are found on Greek red figure and black-figure pottery.
+
+In ancient Greece, chickens were still rare and were a rather prestigious food for symposia.[92] Delos seems to have been a center of chicken breeding (Columella, De Re Rustica 8.3.4). "About 3200 BC chickens were common in Sindh. After the attacks of Aria people these fowls spred from Sindh to Balakh and Iran. During attacks and wars between Iranian and  Greeks the chickens of Hellanic breed came in Iran and about 1000 BC Hellanic chickens came into Sindh through Medan".[93]
+
+The Romans used chickens for oracles, both when flying ("ex avibus", Augury) and when feeding ("auspicium ex tripudiis", Alectryomancy). The hen ("gallina") gave a favourable omen ("auspicium ratum"), when appearing from the left (Cic., de Div. ii.26), like the crow and the owl.
+
+For the oracle "ex tripudiis" according to Cicero (Cic. de Div. ii.34), any bird could be used in auspice, and shows at one point that any bird could perform the tripudium[94] but normally only chickens ("pulli") were consulted. The chickens were cared for by the pullarius, who opened their cage and fed them pulses or a special kind of soft cake when an augury was needed. If the chickens stayed in their cage, made noises ("occinerent"), beat their wings or flew away, the omen was bad; if they ate greedily, the omen was good.[95]
+
+In 249 BC, the Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher had his "sacred chickens" "[96] thrown overboard when they refused to feed before the battle of Drepana, saying "If they won't eat, perhaps they will drink." He promptly lost the battle against the Carthaginians and 93 Roman ships were sunk. Back in Rome, he was tried for impiety and heavily fined.[97]
+
+In 162 BC, the Lex Faunia forbade fattening hens on grain which was a measure enacted to reduce the demand for grain.[98]  To get around this, the Romans castrated roosters (capon), which resulted in a doubling of size[99] despite the law that was passed in Rome that forbade the consumption of fattened chickens. It was renewed a number of times, but does not seem to have been successful. Fattening chickens with bread soaked in milk was thought to give especially delicious results. The Roman gourmet Apicius offers 17 recipes for chicken, mainly boiled chicken with a sauce. All parts of the animal are used: the recipes include the stomach, liver, testicles and even the pygostyle (the fatty "tail" of the chicken where the tail feathers attach).
+
+The Roman author Columella gives advice on chicken breeding in the eighth book of his treatise, De Re Rustica (On Agriculture). He identified Tanagrian, Rhodic, Chalkidic and Median (commonly misidentified as Melian) breeds, which have an impressive appearance, a quarrelsome nature and were used for cockfighting by the Greeks (De Re Rustica 8.3.4). For farming, native (Roman) chickens are to be preferred, or a cross between native hens and Greek cocks (De Re Rustica 8.2.13). Dwarf chickens are nice to watch because of their size but have no other advantages.
+
+According to Columella (De Re Rustica 8.2.7), the ideal flock consists of 200 birds, which can be supervised by one person if someone is watching for stray animals. White chickens should be avoided as they are not very fertile and are easily caught by eagles or goshawks. One cock should be kept for five hens. In the case of Rhodian and Median cocks that are very heavy and therefore not much inclined to sex, only three hens are kept per cock. The hens of heavy fowls are not much inclined to brood; therefore their eggs are best hatched by normal hens. A hen can hatch no more than 15-23 eggs, depending on the time of year, and supervise no more than 30 hatchlings. Eggs that are long and pointed give more male hatchlings, rounded eggs mainly female hatchlings (De Re Rustica 8.5.11).
+
+Columella also states that chicken coops should face southeast and lie adjacent to the kitchen, as smoke is beneficial for the animals and "poultry never thrive so well as in warmth and smoke" (De Re Rustica 8.3.1).[100] Coops should consist of three rooms and possess a hearth. Dry dust or ash should be provided for dust-baths.
+
+According to Columella (De Re Rustica 8.4.1), chickens should be fed on barley groats, small chick-peas, millet and wheat bran, if they are cheap. Wheat itself should be avoided as it is harmful to the birds. Boiled ryegrass (Lolium sp.) and the leaves and seeds of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) can be used as well. Grape marc can be used, but only when the hens stop laying eggs, that is, about the middle of November; otherwise eggs are small and few. When feeding grape marc, it should be supplemented with some bran. Hens start to lay eggs after the winter solstice, in warm places around the first of January, in colder areas in the middle of February. Parboiled barley increases their fertility; this should be mixed with alfalfa leaves and seeds, or vetches or millet if alfalfa is not at hand. Free-ranging chickens should receive two cups of barley daily.
+
+Columella[101] advises farmers to slaughter hens that are older than three years, those that aren't productive or are poor care-takers of their eggs, and particularly those that eat their own and other hens' eggs.
+
+According to Aldrovandi, capons were produced by burning "the hind part of the bowels, or loins or spurs"[102] with a hot iron. The wound was treated with potter's chalk.
+
+For the use of poultry and eggs in the kitchens of ancient Rome see Roman eating and drinking.
+
+Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers and reached Easter Island in the 12th century AD, where they were the only domestic animal, with the possible exception of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans). They were housed in extremely solid chicken coops built from stone, which was first reported as such to Linton Palmer in 1868, who also "expressed his doubts about this".[103].

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+
+
+The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and many other animals including a few fish and some snails. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart. Their function in the respiratory system is to extract oxygen from the atmosphere and transfer it into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere, in a process of gas exchange. Respiration is driven by different muscular systems in different species. Mammals, reptiles and birds use their different muscles to support and foster breathing. In early tetrapods, air was driven into the lungs by the pharyngeal muscles via buccal pumping, a mechanism still seen in amphibians. In humans, the main muscle of respiration that drives breathing is the diaphragm. The lungs also provide airflow that makes vocal sounds including human speech possible.
+
+Humans have two lungs, a right lung, and a left lung.  They are situated within the thoracic cavity of the chest. The right lung is bigger than the left, which shares space in the chest with the heart. The lungs together weigh approximately 1.3 kilograms (2.9 lb), and the right is heavier. The lungs are part of the lower respiratory tract that begins at the trachea and branches into the bronchi and bronchioles, and which receive air breathed in via the conducting zone. The conducting zone ends at the terminal bronchioles. These divide into the respiratory bronchioles of the respiratory zone which divide into alveolar ducts that give rise to the alveolar sacs that contain the alveoli, where gas exchange takes place. Alveoli are also sparsely present on the walls of the respiratory bronchioles and alveolar ducts. Together, the lungs contain approximately 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) of airways and 300 to 500 million alveoli. Each lung is enclosed within a pleural sac that contains pleural fluid, which allows the inner and outer walls to slide over each other whilst breathing takes place, without much friction. This sac also divides each lung into sections called lobes. The right lung has three lobes and the left has two. The lobes are further divided into  bronchopulmonary segments and  pulmonary lobules. The lungs have a unique blood supply, receiving deoxygenated blood from the heart in the pulmonary circulation for the purposes of receiving oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide, and a separate supply of oxygenated blood to the tissue of the lungs, in the bronchial circulation.
+
+The tissue of the lungs can be affected by a number of respiratory diseases, including pneumonia and lung cancer. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and can be related to smoking or exposure to harmful substances.  A number of occupational lung diseases can be caused by substances such as coal dust, asbestos fibres, and crystalline silica dust. Diseases such as bronchitis can also affect the respiratory tract. Medical terms related to the lung often begin with pulmo-, from the Latin pulmonarius (of the lungs) as in pulmonology, or with pneumo- (from Greek πνεύμων "lung") as in pneumonia.
+
+In embryonic development, the lungs begin to develop as an outpouching of the foregut, a tube which goes on to form the upper part of the digestive system. When the lungs are formed the fetus is held in the fluid-filled amniotic sac and so they do not function to breathe. Blood is also diverted from the lungs through the ductus arteriosus. At birth however, air begins to pass through the lungs, and the diversionary duct closes, so that the lungs can begin to respire. The lungs only fully develop in early childhood.
+
+The lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart in the rib cage. They are conical in shape with a narrow rounded apex at the top, and a broad concave base that rests on the convex surface of the diaphragm.[1] The apex of the lung extends into the root of the neck, reaching shortly above the level of the sternal end of the first rib. The lungs stretch from close to the backbone in the rib cage to the front of the chest and downwards from the lower part of the trachea to the diaphragm.[1] The left lung shares space with the heart, and has an indentation in its border called the cardiac notch of the left lung to accommodate this.[2][3] The front and outer sides of the lungs face the ribs, which make light indentations on their surfaces. The medial surfaces of the lungs face towards the centre of the chest, and lie against the heart, great vessels, and the carina where the trachea divides into the two main bronchi.[3]  The cardiac impression is an indentation formed on the surfaces of the lungs where they rest against the heart.
+
+Both lungs have a central recession called the  hilum at the root of the lung, where the blood vessels and airways pass into the lungs.[1] There are also bronchopulmonary lymph nodes on the hilum.[3]
+
+The lungs are surrounded by the pulmonary pleurae. The pleurae are two serous membranes; the outer parietal pleura lines the inner wall of the rib cage and the inner visceral pleura directly lines the surface of the lungs. Between the pleurae is a potential space called the pleural cavity containing a thin layer of lubricating pleural fluid.
+
+Lower
+
+Lingula
+
+Each lung is divided into lobes by the infoldings of the pleura as fissures.  The fissures are double folds of pleura that section the lungs and help in their expansion.[5]
+
+The main or primary bronchi enter the lungs at the hilum and initially branch into secondary bronchi also known as lobar bronchi that supply air to each lobe of the lung. The lobar bronchi branch into tertiary bronchi also known as segmental bronchi and these supply air to the further divisions of the lobes known as bronchopulmonary segments. Each bronchopulmonary segment has its own (segmental) bronchus and arterial supply.[6] Segments for the left and right lung are shown in the table.[4] The segmental anatomy is useful clinically for localising disease processes in the lungs.[4] A segment is a discrete unit that can be surgically removed without seriously affecting surrounding tissue.[7]
+
+The right lung has both more lobes and segments than the left. It is divided into three lobes, an upper, middle, and a lower lobe by two fissures, one oblique and one horizontal.[8] The upper, horizontal fissure, separates the upper from the middle lobe. It begins in the lower oblique fissure near the posterior border of the lung, and, running horizontally forward, cuts the anterior border on a level with the sternal end of the fourth costal cartilage; on the mediastinal surface it may be traced back to the hilum.[1]
+
+The lower, oblique fissure, separates the lower from the middle and upper lobes and is closely aligned with the oblique fissure in the left lung.[1][5]
+
+The mediastinal surface of the right lung is indented by a number of nearby structures. The heart sits in an impression called the cardiac impression. Above the hilum of the lung is an arched groove for the azygos vein, and above this is a wide groove for the superior vena cava and right brachiocephalic vein; behind this, and close to the top of the lung is a groove for the brachiocephalic artery. There is a groove for the esophagus behind the hilum and the pulmonary ligament, and near the lower part of the esophageal groove is a deeper groove for the inferior vena cava before it enters the heart.[3]
+
+The weight of the right lung varies between individuals, with a standard reference range in men of 155–720 g (0.342–1.587 lb)[9] and in women of 100–590 g (0.22–1.30 lb).[10]
+
+The left lung is divided into two lobes, an upper and a lower lobe, by the oblique fissure, which extends from the costal to the mediastinal surface of the lung both above and below the hilum.[1] The left lung, unlike the right, does not have a middle lobe, though it does have a homologous feature, a projection of the upper lobe termed the lingula.  Its name means "little tongue". The lingula on the left lung serves as an anatomic parallel to the middle lobe on the right lung, with both areas being predisposed to similar infections and anatomic complications.[11][12] There are two bronchopulmonary segments of the lingula: superior and inferior.[1]
+
+The mediastinal surface of the left lung has a large cardiac impression where the heart sits. This is deeper and larger than that on the right lung, at which level the heart projects to the left.[3]
+
+On the same surface, immediately above the hilum, is a well-marked curved groove for  the aortic arch, and a groove below it for the descending aorta. The left subclavian artery, a branch off the aortic arch, sits in a groove from the arch to near the apex of the lung. A shallower groove in front of the artery and near the edge of the lung, lodges the left brachiocephalic vein. The esophagus may sit in a wider shallow impression at the base of the lung.[3]
+
+The weight of the left lung, by standard reference range, in men is 110–675 g (0.243–1.488 lb)[9] in women 105–515 g (0.231–1.135 lb).[10]
+
+The lungs are part of the lower respiratory tract, and accommodate the bronchial airways when they branch from the trachea. The bronchial airways terminate in alveoli, the lung parenchyma (the tissue in between), and veins, arteries, nerves, and lymphatic vessels.[3][13] The trachea and bronchi have plexuses of lymph capillaries in their mucosa and submucosa. The smaller bronchi have a single layer of lymph capillaries, and they are absent in the alveoli.[14] Each lung is surrounded by a serous membrane of visceral pleura, which has an underlying layer of loose connective tissue attached to the substance of the lung.[15]
+
+The connective tissue of the lungs is made up of elastic and collagen fibres that are interspersed between the capillaries and the alveolar walls. Elastin is the key protein of the extracellular matrix and is the main component of the elastic fibres.[16] Elastin gives the necessary elasticity and resilience required for the persistent stretching involved in breathing, known as lung compliance. It is also responsible for the elastic recoil needed. Elastin is more concentrated in areas of high stress such as the openings of the alveoli, and alveolar junctions.[16] The connective tissue links all the alveoli to form the lung parenchyma which has a sponge-like appearance. The alveoli have interconnecting air passages in their walls known as the pores of Kohn.[17]
+
+All of the lower respiratory tract including the trachea, bronchi, and bronchioles is lined with respiratory epithelium. This is a ciliated epithelium interspersed with goblet cells which produce mucin the main component of mucus, ciliated cells, basal cells, and in the terminal bronchioles–club cells with actions similar to basal cells, and macrophages. The epithelial cells, and the submucosal glands throughout the respiratory tract secrete airway surface liquid (ASL), the composition of which is tightly regulated and determines how well mucociliary clearance works.[18]
+
+Pulmonary neuroendocrine cells are found throughout the respiratory epithelium including the alveolar epithelium,[19] though they only account for around 0.5 per cent of the total epithelial population.[20] PNECs are innervated airway epithelial cells that are particularly focused at airway junction points.[20] These cells can produce serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, as well as polypeptide products. Cytoplasmic processes from the pulmonary neuroendocrine cells extend into the airway lumen where they may sense the composition of inspired gas.[21]
+
+In the bronchi there are incomplete tracheal rings of cartilage and smaller plates of cartilage that keep them open.[22]:472 Bronchioles are too narrow to support cartilage and their walls are of smooth muscle, and this is largely absent in the narrower respiratory bronchioles which are mainly just of epithelium.[22]:472 The absence of cartilage in the terminal bronchioles gives them an alternative name of membranous bronchioles.[23]
+
+The conducting zone of the respiratory tract ends at the terminal bronchioles when they branch into the respiratory bronchioles. This marks the beginning of an acinus which includes the respiratory bronchioles, the alveolar ducts, alveolar sacs, and alveoli.[24] This is also called the terminal respiratory unit.[25] An acinus measures up to 10 mm in diameter.[24] A primary pulmonary lobule is that part of the acinus that includes the alveolar ducts, sacs, and alveoli but does not include the respiratory bronchioles.[26] The unit described as the secondary pulmonary lobule is the lobule most referred to as the pulmonary lobule or respiratory lobule.[22]:489[27] This lobule is a discrete unit that is the smallest component of the lung that can be seen without aid. The secondary pulmonary lobule is likely to be made up of between 30 and 50 primary lobules.[26] The lobule is supplied by a terminal bronchiole that branches into respiratory bronchioles. The respiratory bronchioles supply the alveoli in each acinus and is accompanied by a pulmonary artery branch. Each lobule is enclosed by an interlobular septa. Each acinus is incompletely separated by an interlobular septa.[24]
+
+The respiratory bronchiole gives rise to the alveolar ducts that lead to the alveolar sacs, which contain two or more alveoli.[17] The walls of the alveoli are extremely thin allowing a fast rate of diffusion.  The alveoli have interconnecting small air passages in their walls known as the pores of Kohn.[17]
+
+Alveoli consist of two types of alveolar cell and an alveolar macrophage. The two types of cell are known as type I and type II cells[28] (also known as pneumocytes).[3] Types I and II make up the walls and alveolar septa. Type I cells provide 95% of the surface area of each alveoli and are flat ("squamous"), and Type II cells generally cluster in the corners of the alveoli and have a cuboidal shape.[29] Despite this, cells occur in a roughly equal ratio of 1:1 or 6:4.[28][29]
+
+Type I are squamous epithelial cells that make up the alveolar wall structure. They have extremely thin walls that enable an easy gas exchange.[28] These type I cells also make up the alveolar septa which separate each alveolus. The septa consist of an epithelial lining and associated basement membranes.[29] Type I cells are not able to divide, and consequently rely on differentiation from Type II cells.[29]
+
+Type II are larger and they line the alveoli and produce and secrete epithelial lining fluid, and lung surfactant.[30][28] Type II cells are able to divide and differentiate to Type I cells.[29]
+
+The alveolar macrophages have an important immunological role. They remove substances which deposit in the alveoli including loose red blood cells that have been forced out from blood vessels.[29]
+
+There is a large presence of microorganisms in the lungs known as the lung microbiome or microbiota. The lung microbiome interacts with the airway epithelial cells. The microbiome is complex in healthy people, and altered in diseases such as asthma and COPD. The lung microbiome is dynamic and significant changes can take place in COPD following infection with rhinovirus. The interaction between the microbiome and the epithelial cells is of probable importance in the maintenance of stable homeostasis.[31] Fungal genera that are commonly found in the lung microbiota, known as the lung mycobiome include Candida, Malassezia, Saccharomyces, and Aspergillus.[32][33]
+
+The lower respiratory tract is part of the respiratory system, and consists of the trachea and the structures below this including the lungs.[28] The trachea receives air from the pharynx and travels down to a place where it splits (the carina) into a right and left bronchus. These supply air to the right and left lungs, splitting progressively into the secondary and tertiary bronchi for the lobes of the lungs, and into smaller and smaller bronchioles until they become the respiratory bronchioles. These in turn supply air through alveolar ducts into the alveoli, where the exchange of gases take place.[28] Oxygen breathed in, diffuses through the walls of the alveoli into the enveloping capillaries and into the circulation,[17] and carbon dioxide diffuses from the blood into the lungs to be breathed out.
+
+Estimates of the total surface area of lungs vary from 50 to 75 square metres (540 to 810 sq ft);[28][29] although this is often quoted in textbooks and the media being "the size of a tennis court",[29][34][35] it is actually less than half the size of a singles court.[36]
+
+The bronchi in the conducting zone are reinforced with hyaline cartilage in order to hold open the airways. The bronchioles have no cartilage and are surrounded instead by smooth muscle.[29]  Air is warmed to 37 °C (99 °F), humidified and cleansed by the conducting zone. Particles from the air being removed by the cilia on the respiratory epithelium lining the passageways,[37] in a process called mucociliary clearance.
+
+Pulmonary stretch receptors in the smooth muscle of the airways initiate a reflex known as the Hering–Breuer reflex that prevents the lungs from over-inflation, during forceful inspiration.
+
+The lungs have a dual blood supply provided by a bronchial and a pulmonary circulation.[38] The bronchial circulation supplies oxygenated blood to the airways of the lungs, through the bronchial arteries that leave the aorta.  There are usually three arteries, two to the left lung and one to the right, and they branch alongside the bronchi and bronchioles.[28] The pulmonary circulation carries deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs and returns the oxygenated blood to the heart to supply the rest of the body.[28]
+
+The blood volume of the lungs is about 450 millilitres on average, about 9% of the total blood volume of the entire circulatory system. This quantity can easily fluctuate from between one-half and twice the normal volume.  Also, in the event of blood loss through hemorrhage, blood from the lungs can partially compensate by automatically transferring to the systemic circulation.[39]
+
+The lungs are supplied by nerves of the autonomic nervous system. Input from the parasympathetic nervous system occurs via the vagus nerve.[38] When stimulated by acetylcholine, this causes constriction of the smooth muscle lining the bronchus and bronchioles, and increases the secretions from glands.[40][page needed] The lungs also have a sympathetic tone from norepinephrine acting on the beta 2 adrenoceptors in the respiratory tract, which causes bronchodilation.[41]
+
+The action of breathing takes place because of nerve signals sent by the respiratory center in the brainstem, along the phrenic nerve from the cervical plexus to the diaphragm.[42]
+
+The lobes of the lung are subject to anatomical variations.[43] A horizontal interlobar fissure was found to be incomplete in 25% of right lungs, or even absent in 11% of all cases. An accessory fissure was also found in 14% and 22% of left and right lungs, respectively.[44] An oblique fissure was found to be incomplete in 21% to 47% of left lungs.[45] In some cases a fissure is absent, or extra, resulting in a right lung with only two lobes, or a left lung with three lobes.[43]
+
+A variation in the airway branching structure has been found specifically in the central airway
+branching. This variation is associated with the development of COPD in adulthood.[46]
+
+The development of the human lungs arise from the laryngotracheal groove and develop to maturity over several weeks in the foetus and for several years following birth.[47]
+
+The larynx, trachea, bronchi and lungs that make up the respiratory tract, begin to form during the fourth week of embryogenesis[48] from the lung bud which appears ventrally to the caudal portion of the foregut.[49]
+
+The respiratory tract has a branching structure, and is also known as the respiratory tree.[50] In the embryo this structure is developed in the process of branching morphogenesis, and is generated by the repeated splitting of the tip of the branch. In the development of the lungs (as in some other organs) the epithelium forms branching tubes.The lung has a left-right symmetry and each bud known as a bronchial bud grows out as a tubular epithelium that becomes a bronchus. Each bronchus branches into bronchioles.[51] The branching is a result of the tip of each tube bifurcating.[50] The branching process forms the bronchi, bronchioles, and ultimately the alveoli.[50] The four genes mostly associated with branching morphogenesis in the lung are the intercellular signalling protein – sonic hedgehog (SHH), fibroblast growth factors FGF10 and FGFR2b, and bone morphogenetic protein BMP4. FGF10 is seen to have the most prominent role. FGF10 is a paracrine signalling molecule needed for epithelial branching, and SHH inhibits FGF10.[50][51] The development of the alveoli is influenced by a different mechanism whereby continued bifurcation is stopped and the distal tips become dilated to form the alveoli.
+
+At the end of the fourth week the lung bud divides into two, the right and left primary bronchial buds on each side of the trachea.[52][53] During the fifth week the right bud branches into three secondary bronchial buds and the left branches into two secondary bronchial buds. These give rise to the lobes of the lungs, three on the right and two on the left. Over the following week, the secondary buds branch into tertiary buds, about ten on each side.[53] From the sixth week to the sixteenth week, the major elements of the lungs appear except the alveoli.[54] From week 16 to week 26, the bronchi enlarge and lung tissue becomes highly vascularised. Bronchioles and alveolar ducts also develop. By week 26 the terminal bronchioles have formed which branch into two respiratory bronchioles.[55] During the period covering the 26th week until birth the important blood–air barrier is established. Specialised type I alveolar cells where gas exchange will take place, together with the type II alveolar cells that secrete pulmonary surfactant, appear. The surfactant reduces the surface tension at the air-alveolar surface which allows expansion of the alveolar sacs. The alveolar sacs contain the primitive alveoli that form at the end of the alveolar ducts,[56]
+and their appearance around the seventh month marks the point at which limited respiration would be possible, and the premature baby could survive.[47]
+
+The developing lung is particularly vulnerable to changes in the levels of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency has been linked to changes in the epithelial lining of the lung and in the lung parenchyma. This can disrupt the normal physiology of the lung and predispose to respiratory diseases. Severe nutritional deficiency in vitamin A results in a reduction in the formation of the alveolar walls (septa) and to notable changes in the respiratory epithelium; alterations are noted in the extracellular matrix and in the protein content of the basement membrane. The extracellular matrix maintains lung elasticity; the basement membrane is associated with alveolar epithelium and is important in the blood-air barrier. The deficiency is associated with functional defects and disease states. Vitamin A is crucial in the development of the alveoli which continues for several years after birth.[57]
+
+At birth, the baby's lungs are filled with fluid secreted by the lungs and are not inflated. After birth the infant's central nervous system reacts to the sudden change in temperature and environment. This triggers the first breath, within about 10 seconds after delivery.[58] Before birth, the lungs are filled with fetal lung fluid.[59]      After the first breath, the fluid is quickly absorbed into the body or exhaled. The resistance in the lung's blood vessels decreases giving an increased surface area for gas exchange, and the lungs begin to breathe spontaneously. This accompanies other changes which result in an increased amount of blood entering the lung tissues.[58]
+
+At birth the lungs are very undeveloped with only around one sixth of the alveoli of the adult lung present.[47] The alveoli continue to form into early adulthood, and their ability to form when necessary is seen in the regeneration of the lung.[60][61] Alveolar septa have a double capillary network instead of the single network of the developed lung. Only after the maturation of the capillary network can the lung enter a normal phase of growth. Following the early growth in numbers of alveoli there is another stage of the alveoli being enlarged.[62]
+
+The major function of the lungs is gas exchange between the lungs and the blood.[63] The alveolar and pulmonary capillary gases equilibrate across the thin blood–air barrier.[30][64][65] This thin membrane (about 0.5 –2 μm thick) is folded into about 300 million alveoli, providing an extremely large surface area (estimates varying between 70 and 145 m2) for gas exchange to occur.[64][66]
+
+The lungs are not capable of expanding to breathe on their own, and will only do so when there is an increase in the volume of the thoracic cavity.[67] This is achieved by the muscles of respiration, through the contraction of the diaphragm, and the intercostal muscles which pull the rib cage upwards as shown in the diagram.[68] During breathing out the muscles relax, returning the lungs to their resting position.[69] At this point the lungs contain the functional residual capacity (FRC) of air, which, in the adult human, has a volume of about 2.5–3.0 litres.[69]
+
+During heavy breathing as in exertion, a large number of accessory muscles in the neck and abdomen are recruited, that during exhalation pull the ribcage down, decreasing the volume of the thoracic cavity.[69] The FRC is now decreased, but since the lungs cannot be emptied completely there is still about a litre of residual air left.[69] Lung function testing is carried out to evaluate lung volumes and capacities.
+
+The lungs possess several characteristics which protect against infection. The respiratory tract is lined by respiratory epithelium or respiratory mucosa, with hair-like projections called cilia that beat rhythmically and carry mucus. This mucociliary clearance is an important defence system against air-borne infection.[30] The dust particles and bacteria in the inhaled air are caught in the mucosal surface of the airways, and are moved up towards the pharynx by the rhythmic upward beating action of the cilia.[29][70]:661–730 The lining of the lung also secretes immunoglobulin A which protects against respiratory infections;[70] goblet cells secrete mucus[29] which also contains several antimicrobial compounds such as defensins, antiproteases, and antioxidants.[70] A rare type of specialised cell called a pulmonary ionocyte that is suggested may regulate mucus viscosity has been described.[71][72][73] In addition, the lining of the lung also contains macrophages, immune cells which engulf and destroy debris and microbes that enter the lung in a process known as phagocytosis; and dendritic cells which present antigens to activate components of the adaptive immune system such as T-cells and B-cells.[70]
+
+The size of the respiratory tract and the flow of air also protect the lungs from larger particles. Smaller particles deposit in the mouth and behind the mouth in the oropharynx, and larger particles are trapped in nasal hair after inhalation.[70]
+
+In addition to their function in respiration, the lungs have a number of other functions. They are involved in maintaining homeostasis, helping in the regulation of blood pressure as part of the renin–angiotensin system. The inner lining of the blood vessels secretes angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) an enzyme that catalyses the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II.[74] The lungs are involved in the blood's acid-base homeostasis by expelling carbon dioxide when breathing.[67][75]
+
+The lungs also serve a protective role. Several blood-borne substances, such as a few types of prostaglandins, leukotrienes, serotonin and bradykinin, are excreted through the lungs.[74] Drugs and other substances can be absorbed, modified or excreted in the lungs.[67][76] The lungs filter out small blood clots from veins and prevent them from entering arteries and causing strokes.[75]
+
+The lungs also play a pivotal role in speech by providing air and airflow for the creation of vocal sounds,[67][77] and other paralanguage communications such as sighs and gasps.
+
+New research suggests a role of the lungs in the production of blood platelets.[78]
+
+About 20,000 protein coding genes are expressed in human cells and almost 75% of these genes are expressed in the normal lung.[79][80] A little less than 200 of these genes are more specifically expressed in the lung with less than 20 genes being highly lung specific. The highest expression of lung specific proteins are different surfactant proteins,[30] such as SFTPA1, SFTPB and SFTPC, and napsin, expressed in type II pneumocytes. Other proteins with elevated expression in the lung are the dynein protein DNAH5 in ciliated cells, and the secreted SCGB1A1 protein in mucus-secreting  goblet cells of the airway mucosa.[81]
+
+Lungs can be affected by a variety of diseases. Pulmonology is the medical speciality that deals with diseases involving the respiratory tract,[82] and cardiothoracic surgery is the surgical field that deals with surgery of the lungs.[83]
+
+Inflammatory conditions of the lung tissue are pneumonia, of the respiratory tract are bronchitis and bronchiolitis, and of the pleurae surrounding the lungs pleurisy. Inflammation is usually caused by infections due to bacteria or viruses. When the lung tissue is inflamed due to other causes it is called pneumonitis. One major cause of bacterial pneumonia is tuberculosis.[70] Chronic infections often occur in those with immunodeficiency and can include a fungal infection by Aspergillus fumigatus that can lead to an aspergilloma forming in the lung.[70][84]
+
+A pulmonary embolism is a blood clot that becomes lodged in the pulmonary arteries. The majority of emboli arise because of deep vein thrombosis in the legs. Pulmonary emboli may be investigated using a ventilation/perfusion scan, a CT scan of the arteries of the lung, or blood tests such as the D-dimer.[70] Pulmonary hypertension describes an increased pressure at the beginning of the pulmonary artery that has a large number of differing causes.[70] Other rarer conditions may also affect the blood supply of the lung, such as granulomatosis with polyangiitis, which causes inflammation of the small blood vessels of the lungs and kidneys.[70]
+
+A lung contusion is a bruise caused by chest trauma. It results in hemorrhage of the alveoli causing a build-up of fluid which can impair breathing, and this can be either mild or severe.
+The function of the lungs can also be affected by compression from fluid in the pleural cavity pleural effusion, or other substances such as air (pneumothorax), blood (hemothorax), or rarer causes. These may be investigated using a chest X-ray or CT scan, and may require the insertion of a surgical drain until the underlying cause is identified and treated.[70]
+
+Asthma, chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are all obstructive lung diseases characterised by airway obstruction. This limits the amount of air that is able to enter alveoli because of constriction of the bronchial tree, due to inflammation. Obstructive lung diseases are often identified because of symptoms and diagnosed with pulmonary function tests such as spirometry. Many obstructive lung diseases are managed by avoiding triggers (such as dust mites or smoking), with symptom control such as bronchodilators, and with suppression of inflammation (such as through corticosteroids) in severe cases. A common cause of chronic bronchitis, and emphysema, is smoking; and common causes of bronchiectasis include severe infections and cystic fibrosis. The definitive cause of asthma is not yet known.[70]
+
+The breakdown of alveolar tissue, often as a result of tobacco-smoking leads to emphysema, which can become severe enough to develop into COPD. Elastase breaks down the elastin in the lung's connective tissue that can also result in emphysema. Elastase is inhibited by the acute-phase protein, alpha-1 antitrypsin, and when there is a deficiency in this, emphysema can develop. With persistent stress from smoking, the airway basal cells become disarranged and lose their regenerative ability needed to repair the epithelial barrier. The disorganised basal cells are seen to be responsible for the major airway changes that are characteristic of COPD, and with continued stress can undergo a malignant transformation. Studies have shown that the initial development of emphysema is centred on the early changes in the airway epithelium of the small airways.[85] Basal cells become further deranged in a smoker's transition to clinically defined COPD.[85]
+
+Some types of chronic lung diseases are classified as restrictive lung disease, because of a restriction in the amount of lung tissue involved in respiration. These include pulmonary fibrosis which can occur when the lung is inflamed for a long period of time. Fibrosis in the lung replaces functioning lung tissue with fibrous connective tissue. This can be due to a large variety of occupational lung diseases such as Coalworker's pneumoconiosis, autoimmune diseases or more rarely to a reaction to medication.[70] Severe respiratory disorders, where spontaneous breathing is not enough to maintain life, may need the use of mechanical ventilation to ensure an adequate supply of air.
+
+Lung cancer can either arise directly from lung tissue or as a result of metastasis from another part of the body. There are two main types of primary tumour described as either small-cell or non-small-cell lung carcinomas. The major risk factor for cancer is smoking. Once a cancer is identified it is staged using scans such as a CT scan and a sample of tissue (a biopsy) is taken. Cancers may be treated by surgically removing the tumour, radiotherapy, chemotherapy or combinations thereof, or with the aim of symptom control.[70] Lung cancer screening is being recommended in the United States for high-risk populations.[86]
+
+Congenital disorders include cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypoplasia (an incomplete development of the lungs)[87]congenital diaphragmatic hernia, and infant respiratory distress syndrome caused by a deficiency in lung surfactant. An azygos lobe is a congenital anatomical variation which though usually without effect can cause problems in thoracoscopic procedures.[88]
+
+A pneumothorax (collapsed lung) is an abnormal collection of air in the pleural space that causes an uncoupling of the lung from the chest wall.[89] The lung cannot expand against the air pressure inside the pleural space. An easy to understand example is a traumatic pneumothorax, where air enters the pleural space from outside the body, as occurs with puncture to the chest wall. Similarly, scuba divers ascending while holding their breath with their lungs fully inflated can cause air sacs (alveoli) to burst and leak high pressure air into the pleural space.
+
+As part of a physical examination in response to respiratory symptoms of shortness of breath, and cough, a lung examination may be carried out. This exam includes palpation and auscultation.[90] The areas of the lungs that can be listened to using a stethoscope are called the lung fields, and these are the posterior, lateral, and anterior lung fields. The posterior fields can be listened to from the back and include: the lower lobes (taking up three quarters of the posterior fields); the anterior fields taking up the other quarter; and the lateral fields under the axillae, the left axilla for the lingual, the right axilla for the middle right lobe. The anterior fields can also be auscultated from the front.[91] Abnormal breathing sounds heard during a lung exam can indicate the presence of a lung condition; wheezing for example is commonly associated with asthma and COPD.
+
+Lung function testing is carried out by evaluating a person's capacity to inhale and exhale in different circumstances.[92] The volume of air inhaled and exhaled by a person at rest is the tidal volume (normally 500-750mL); the inspiratory reserve volume and expiratory reserve volume are the additional amounts a person is able to forcibly inhale and exhale respectively. The summed total of forced inspiration and expiration is a person's vital capacity. Not all air is expelled from the lungs even after a forced breath out; the remainder of the air is called the residual volume. Together these terms are referred to as lung volumes.[92]
+
+Pulmonary plethysmographs are used to measure functional residual capacity.[93] Functional residual capacity cannot be measured by tests that rely on breathing out, as a person is only able to breathe a maximum of 80% of their total functional capacity.[94] The total lung capacity depends on the person's age, height, weight, and sex, and normally ranges between 4 and 6 litres.[92] Females tend to have a 20–25% lower capacity than males. Tall people tend to have a larger total lung capacity than shorter people. Smokers have a lower capacity than nonsmokers. Thinner persons tend to have a larger capacity. Lung capacity can be increased by physical training as much as 40% but the effect may be modified by exposure to air pollution.[94][95]
+
+Other lung function tests include spirometry, measuring the amount (volume) and flow of air that can be inhaled and exhaled. The maximum volume of breath that can be exhaled is called the vital capacity. In particular, how much a person is able to exhale in one second (called forced expiratory volume (FEV1)) as a proportion of how much they are able to exhale in total (FEV). This ratio, the FEV1/FEV ratio, is important to distinguish whether a lung disease is restrictive or obstructive.[70][92] Another test is that of the lung's  diffusing capacity – this is a measure of the transfer of gas from air to the blood in the lung capillaries.
+
+The lungs of birds are relatively small, but are connected to 8 or 9 air sacs that extend through much of the body, and are in turn connected to air spaces within the bones. On inhalation, air travels through the trachea of a bird into the air sacs. Air then travels continuously from the air sacs at the back, through the lungs, which are relatively fixed in size, to the air sacs at the front. From here, the air is exhaled. These fixed size lungs are called "circulatory lungs", as distinct from the "bellows-type lungs" found in most other animals.[96][98]
+
+The lungs of birds contain millions of tiny parallel passages called parabronchi. Small sacs called atria radiate from the walls of the tiny passages; these, like the alveoli in other lungs, are the site of gas exchange by simple diffusion.[98] The blood flow around the parabronchi and their atria forms a cross-current process of gas exchange (see diagram on the right).[96][97]
+
+The air sacs, which hold air, do not contribute much to gas exchange, despite being thin-walled, as they are poorly vascularised. The air sacs expand and contract due to changes in the volume in the thorax and abdomen. This volume change is caused by the movement of the sternum and ribs and this movement is often synchronised with movement of the flight muscles.[99]
+
+Parabronchi in which the air flow is unidirectional are called paleopulmonic parabronchi and are found in all birds. Some birds, however, have, in addition, a lung structure where the air flow in the parabronchi is bidirectional. These are termed neopulmonic parabronchi.[98]
+
+The lungs of most reptiles have a single bronchus running down the centre, from which numerous branches reach out to individual pockets throughout the lungs. These pockets are similar to alveoli in mammals, but much larger and fewer in number. These give the lung a sponge-like texture. In tuataras, snakes, and some lizards, the lungs are simpler in structure, similar to that of typical amphibians.[99]
+
+Snakes and limbless lizards typically possess only the right lung as a major respiratory organ; the left lung is greatly reduced, or even absent. Amphisbaenians, however, have the opposite arrangement, with a major left lung, and a reduced or absent right lung.[99]
+
+Both crocodilians and monitor lizards have developed lungs similar to those of birds, providing a unidirectional airflow and even possessing air sacs.[100] The now extinct pterosaurs have seemingly even further refined this type of lung, extending the airsacs into the wing membranes and, in the case of lonchodectids, tupuxuara, and azhdarchoids, the hindlimbs.[101]
+
+Reptilian lungs typically receive air via expansion and contraction of the ribs driven by axial muscles and buccal pumping. Crocodilians also rely on the hepatic piston method, in which the liver is pulled back by a muscle anchored to the pubic bone (part of the pelvis) called the diaphragmaticus,[102] which in turn creates negative pressure in the crocodile's thoracic cavity, allowing air to be moved into the lungs by Boyle's law. Turtles, which are unable to move their ribs, instead use their forelimbs and pectoral girdle to force air in and out of the lungs.[99]
+
+The lungs of most frogs and other amphibians are simple and balloon-like, with gas exchange limited to the outer surface of the lung. This is not very efficient, but amphibians have low metabolic demands and can also quickly dispose of carbon dioxide by diffusion across their skin in water, and supplement their oxygen supply by the same method. Amphibians employ a positive pressure system to get air to their lungs, forcing air down into the lungs by buccal pumping. This is distinct from most higher vertebrates, who use a breathing system driven by negative pressure where the lungs are inflated by expanding the rib cage.[103] In buccal pumping, the floor of the mouth is lowered, filling the mouth cavity with air. The throat muscles then presses the throat against the underside of the skull, forcing the air into the lungs.[104]
+
+Due to the possibility of respiration across the skin combined with small size, all known lungless tetrapods are amphibians. The majority of salamander species are lungless salamanders, which respirate through their skin and tissues lining their mouth. This necessarily restricts their size: all are small and rather thread-like in appearance, maximising skin surface relative to body volume.[105] Other known lungless tetrapods are the Bornean flat-headed frog[106] and Atretochoana eiselti, a caecilian.[107]
+
+The lungs of amphibians typically have a few narrow internal walls (septa) of soft tissue around the outer walls, increasing the respiratory surface area and giving the lung a honey-comb appearance. In some salamanders even these are lacking, and the lung has a smooth wall. In caecilians, as in snakes, only the right lung attains any size or development.[99]
+
+The lungs of lungfish are similar to those of amphibians, with few, if any, internal septa. In the Australian lungfish, there is only a single lung, albeit divided into two lobes. Other lungfish and Polypterus, however, have two lungs, which are located in the upper part of the body, with the connecting duct curving around and above the esophagus. The blood supply also twists around the esophagus, suggesting that the lungs originally evolved in the ventral part of the body, as in other vertebrates.[99]
+
+Some invertebrates have lung-like structures that serve a similar respiratory purpose as, but are not evolutionarily related to, vertebrate lungs. Some arachnids, such as spiders and scorpions, have structures called book lungs used for atmospheric gas exchange. Some species of spider have four pairs of book lungs but most have two pairs.[108] Scorpions have spiracles on their body for the entrance of air to the book lungs.[109]
+
+The coconut crab is terrestrial and uses structures called branchiostegal lungs to breathe air.[110] They cannot swim and would drown in water, yet they possess a rudimentary set of gills. They can breathe on land and hold their breath underwater.[111] The branchiostegal lungs are seen as a developmental adaptive stage from water-living to enable land-living, or from fish to amphibian.[112]
+
+Pulmonates are mostly land snails and slugs that have developed a simple lung from the mantle cavity. An externally located opening called the pneumostome allows air to be taken into the mantle cavity lung.[113][114]
+
+The lungs of today's terrestrial vertebrates and the gas bladders of today's fish are believed to have evolved from simple sacs, as outpocketings of the esophagus, that allowed early fish to gulp air under oxygen-poor conditions.[115] These outpocketings first arose in the  bony fish. In most of the ray-finned fish the sacs evolved into closed off gas bladders, while a number of carp, trout, herring, catfish, and eels have retained the physostome condition with the sack being open to the esophagus. In more basal bony fish, such as the gar, bichir, bowfin and the lobe-finned fish, the bladders have evolved to primarily function as lungs.[115] The lobe-finned fish gave rise to the land-based tetrapods. Thus, the lungs of vertebrates are homologous to the gas bladders of fish (but not to their gills).[116]

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+An autotroph or primary producer is an organism that produces complex organic compounds (such as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) using carbon from simple substances such as carbon dioxide,[1] generally using energy from light (photosynthesis) or inorganic chemical reactions (chemosynthesis).[2]  Autotrophs do not need a living source of carbon or energy and are the producers in a food chain, such as plants on land or algae in water (in contrast to heterotrophs as consumers of autotrophs or other heterotrophs).  Autotrophs can reduce carbon dioxide to make organic compounds for biosynthesis and as stored chemical fuel.  Most autotrophs use water as the reducing agent, but some can use other hydrogen compounds such as hydrogen sulfide.
+
+Some autotrophs, such as green plants and algae, are phototrophs, meaning that they convert electromagnetic energy from sunlight into chemical energy in the form of glucose. Others, including methanogens, are chemotrophs, which use organic or inorganic chemical compounds as a source of energy. Most chemoautotrophs are lithotrophs, using inorganic electron donors such as hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen gas, elemental sulfur, ammonium and ferrous oxide as reducing agents and hydrogen sources for biosynthesis and chemical energy release. Autotrophs use a portion of the ATP produced during photosynthesis or the oxidation of chemical compounds to reduce NADP+ to NADPH to form organic compounds.[3]
+
+The Greek term autotroph was coined by the German botanist Albert Bernhard Frank in 1892.[4] It stems from the ancient Greek word τροφή (trophḗ), meaning "nourishment" or "food". The first autotrophic organism developed about 2 billion years ago.[5] Photoautotrophs evolved from heterotrophic bacteria by developing photosynthesis. The earliest photosynthetic bacteria used hydrogen sulphide. Due to the scarcity of hydrogen sulphide, some photosynthetic bacteria evolved to use water in photosynthesis, leading to cyanobacteria.[6]
+
+Some organisms rely on organic compounds as a source of carbon, but are able to use light or inorganic compounds as a source of energy. Such organisms are not defined as autotrophic, but rather as heterotrophic. An organism that obtains carbon from organic compounds but obtains energy from light is called a photoheterotroph, while an organism that obtains carbon from organic compounds and energy from the oxidation of inorganic compounds is termed a chemolithoheterotroph.
+
+Evidence suggests that some fungi may also obtain energy from ionizing radiation: Such radiotrophic fungi were found growing inside a reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.[7]
+
+Autotrophs are fundamental to the food chains of all ecosystems in the world. They take energy from the environment in the form of sunlight or inorganic chemicals and use it to create fuel molecules such as carbohydrates. This mechanism is called primary production. Other organisms, called heterotrophs, take in autotrophs as food to carry out functions necessary for their life. Thus, heterotrophs – all animals, almost all fungi, as well as most bacteria and protozoa – depend on autotrophs, or primary producers, for the raw materials and fuel they need. Heterotrophs obtain energy by breaking down carbohydrates or oxidizing organic molecules (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) obtained in food.[8] Carnivorous organisms rely on autotrophs indirectly, as the nutrients obtained from their heterotrophic prey come from autotrophs they have consumed.
+
+Most ecosystems are supported by the autotrophic primary production of plants and cyanobacteria that capture photons initially released by the sun. Plants can only use a fraction (approximately 1%) of this energy for photosynthesis.[9] The process of photosynthesis splits a water molecule (H2O), releasing oxygen (O2) into the atmosphere, and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) to release the hydrogen atoms that fuel the metabolic process of primary production. Plants convert and store the energy of the photon into the chemical bonds of simple sugars during photosynthesis. These plant sugars are polymerized for storage as long-chain carbohydrates, including other sugars, starch, and cellulose; glucose is also used to make fats and proteins. When autotrophs are eaten by heterotrophs, i.e., consumers such as animals, the carbohydrates, fats, and proteins contained in them become energy sources for the heterotrophs.[10] Proteins can be made using nitrates, sulfates, and phosphates in the soil.[11][12]
+

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+
+
+The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and many other animals including a few fish and some snails. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart. Their function in the respiratory system is to extract oxygen from the atmosphere and transfer it into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere, in a process of gas exchange. Respiration is driven by different muscular systems in different species. Mammals, reptiles and birds use their different muscles to support and foster breathing. In early tetrapods, air was driven into the lungs by the pharyngeal muscles via buccal pumping, a mechanism still seen in amphibians. In humans, the main muscle of respiration that drives breathing is the diaphragm. The lungs also provide airflow that makes vocal sounds including human speech possible.
+
+Humans have two lungs, a right lung, and a left lung.  They are situated within the thoracic cavity of the chest. The right lung is bigger than the left, which shares space in the chest with the heart. The lungs together weigh approximately 1.3 kilograms (2.9 lb), and the right is heavier. The lungs are part of the lower respiratory tract that begins at the trachea and branches into the bronchi and bronchioles, and which receive air breathed in via the conducting zone. The conducting zone ends at the terminal bronchioles. These divide into the respiratory bronchioles of the respiratory zone which divide into alveolar ducts that give rise to the alveolar sacs that contain the alveoli, where gas exchange takes place. Alveoli are also sparsely present on the walls of the respiratory bronchioles and alveolar ducts. Together, the lungs contain approximately 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) of airways and 300 to 500 million alveoli. Each lung is enclosed within a pleural sac that contains pleural fluid, which allows the inner and outer walls to slide over each other whilst breathing takes place, without much friction. This sac also divides each lung into sections called lobes. The right lung has three lobes and the left has two. The lobes are further divided into  bronchopulmonary segments and  pulmonary lobules. The lungs have a unique blood supply, receiving deoxygenated blood from the heart in the pulmonary circulation for the purposes of receiving oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide, and a separate supply of oxygenated blood to the tissue of the lungs, in the bronchial circulation.
+
+The tissue of the lungs can be affected by a number of respiratory diseases, including pneumonia and lung cancer. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and can be related to smoking or exposure to harmful substances.  A number of occupational lung diseases can be caused by substances such as coal dust, asbestos fibres, and crystalline silica dust. Diseases such as bronchitis can also affect the respiratory tract. Medical terms related to the lung often begin with pulmo-, from the Latin pulmonarius (of the lungs) as in pulmonology, or with pneumo- (from Greek πνεύμων "lung") as in pneumonia.
+
+In embryonic development, the lungs begin to develop as an outpouching of the foregut, a tube which goes on to form the upper part of the digestive system. When the lungs are formed the fetus is held in the fluid-filled amniotic sac and so they do not function to breathe. Blood is also diverted from the lungs through the ductus arteriosus. At birth however, air begins to pass through the lungs, and the diversionary duct closes, so that the lungs can begin to respire. The lungs only fully develop in early childhood.
+
+The lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart in the rib cage. They are conical in shape with a narrow rounded apex at the top, and a broad concave base that rests on the convex surface of the diaphragm.[1] The apex of the lung extends into the root of the neck, reaching shortly above the level of the sternal end of the first rib. The lungs stretch from close to the backbone in the rib cage to the front of the chest and downwards from the lower part of the trachea to the diaphragm.[1] The left lung shares space with the heart, and has an indentation in its border called the cardiac notch of the left lung to accommodate this.[2][3] The front and outer sides of the lungs face the ribs, which make light indentations on their surfaces. The medial surfaces of the lungs face towards the centre of the chest, and lie against the heart, great vessels, and the carina where the trachea divides into the two main bronchi.[3]  The cardiac impression is an indentation formed on the surfaces of the lungs where they rest against the heart.
+
+Both lungs have a central recession called the  hilum at the root of the lung, where the blood vessels and airways pass into the lungs.[1] There are also bronchopulmonary lymph nodes on the hilum.[3]
+
+The lungs are surrounded by the pulmonary pleurae. The pleurae are two serous membranes; the outer parietal pleura lines the inner wall of the rib cage and the inner visceral pleura directly lines the surface of the lungs. Between the pleurae is a potential space called the pleural cavity containing a thin layer of lubricating pleural fluid.
+
+Lower
+
+Lingula
+
+Each lung is divided into lobes by the infoldings of the pleura as fissures.  The fissures are double folds of pleura that section the lungs and help in their expansion.[5]
+
+The main or primary bronchi enter the lungs at the hilum and initially branch into secondary bronchi also known as lobar bronchi that supply air to each lobe of the lung. The lobar bronchi branch into tertiary bronchi also known as segmental bronchi and these supply air to the further divisions of the lobes known as bronchopulmonary segments. Each bronchopulmonary segment has its own (segmental) bronchus and arterial supply.[6] Segments for the left and right lung are shown in the table.[4] The segmental anatomy is useful clinically for localising disease processes in the lungs.[4] A segment is a discrete unit that can be surgically removed without seriously affecting surrounding tissue.[7]
+
+The right lung has both more lobes and segments than the left. It is divided into three lobes, an upper, middle, and a lower lobe by two fissures, one oblique and one horizontal.[8] The upper, horizontal fissure, separates the upper from the middle lobe. It begins in the lower oblique fissure near the posterior border of the lung, and, running horizontally forward, cuts the anterior border on a level with the sternal end of the fourth costal cartilage; on the mediastinal surface it may be traced back to the hilum.[1]
+
+The lower, oblique fissure, separates the lower from the middle and upper lobes and is closely aligned with the oblique fissure in the left lung.[1][5]
+
+The mediastinal surface of the right lung is indented by a number of nearby structures. The heart sits in an impression called the cardiac impression. Above the hilum of the lung is an arched groove for the azygos vein, and above this is a wide groove for the superior vena cava and right brachiocephalic vein; behind this, and close to the top of the lung is a groove for the brachiocephalic artery. There is a groove for the esophagus behind the hilum and the pulmonary ligament, and near the lower part of the esophageal groove is a deeper groove for the inferior vena cava before it enters the heart.[3]
+
+The weight of the right lung varies between individuals, with a standard reference range in men of 155–720 g (0.342–1.587 lb)[9] and in women of 100–590 g (0.22–1.30 lb).[10]
+
+The left lung is divided into two lobes, an upper and a lower lobe, by the oblique fissure, which extends from the costal to the mediastinal surface of the lung both above and below the hilum.[1] The left lung, unlike the right, does not have a middle lobe, though it does have a homologous feature, a projection of the upper lobe termed the lingula.  Its name means "little tongue". The lingula on the left lung serves as an anatomic parallel to the middle lobe on the right lung, with both areas being predisposed to similar infections and anatomic complications.[11][12] There are two bronchopulmonary segments of the lingula: superior and inferior.[1]
+
+The mediastinal surface of the left lung has a large cardiac impression where the heart sits. This is deeper and larger than that on the right lung, at which level the heart projects to the left.[3]
+
+On the same surface, immediately above the hilum, is a well-marked curved groove for  the aortic arch, and a groove below it for the descending aorta. The left subclavian artery, a branch off the aortic arch, sits in a groove from the arch to near the apex of the lung. A shallower groove in front of the artery and near the edge of the lung, lodges the left brachiocephalic vein. The esophagus may sit in a wider shallow impression at the base of the lung.[3]
+
+The weight of the left lung, by standard reference range, in men is 110–675 g (0.243–1.488 lb)[9] in women 105–515 g (0.231–1.135 lb).[10]
+
+The lungs are part of the lower respiratory tract, and accommodate the bronchial airways when they branch from the trachea. The bronchial airways terminate in alveoli, the lung parenchyma (the tissue in between), and veins, arteries, nerves, and lymphatic vessels.[3][13] The trachea and bronchi have plexuses of lymph capillaries in their mucosa and submucosa. The smaller bronchi have a single layer of lymph capillaries, and they are absent in the alveoli.[14] Each lung is surrounded by a serous membrane of visceral pleura, which has an underlying layer of loose connective tissue attached to the substance of the lung.[15]
+
+The connective tissue of the lungs is made up of elastic and collagen fibres that are interspersed between the capillaries and the alveolar walls. Elastin is the key protein of the extracellular matrix and is the main component of the elastic fibres.[16] Elastin gives the necessary elasticity and resilience required for the persistent stretching involved in breathing, known as lung compliance. It is also responsible for the elastic recoil needed. Elastin is more concentrated in areas of high stress such as the openings of the alveoli, and alveolar junctions.[16] The connective tissue links all the alveoli to form the lung parenchyma which has a sponge-like appearance. The alveoli have interconnecting air passages in their walls known as the pores of Kohn.[17]
+
+All of the lower respiratory tract including the trachea, bronchi, and bronchioles is lined with respiratory epithelium. This is a ciliated epithelium interspersed with goblet cells which produce mucin the main component of mucus, ciliated cells, basal cells, and in the terminal bronchioles–club cells with actions similar to basal cells, and macrophages. The epithelial cells, and the submucosal glands throughout the respiratory tract secrete airway surface liquid (ASL), the composition of which is tightly regulated and determines how well mucociliary clearance works.[18]
+
+Pulmonary neuroendocrine cells are found throughout the respiratory epithelium including the alveolar epithelium,[19] though they only account for around 0.5 per cent of the total epithelial population.[20] PNECs are innervated airway epithelial cells that are particularly focused at airway junction points.[20] These cells can produce serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, as well as polypeptide products. Cytoplasmic processes from the pulmonary neuroendocrine cells extend into the airway lumen where they may sense the composition of inspired gas.[21]
+
+In the bronchi there are incomplete tracheal rings of cartilage and smaller plates of cartilage that keep them open.[22]:472 Bronchioles are too narrow to support cartilage and their walls are of smooth muscle, and this is largely absent in the narrower respiratory bronchioles which are mainly just of epithelium.[22]:472 The absence of cartilage in the terminal bronchioles gives them an alternative name of membranous bronchioles.[23]
+
+The conducting zone of the respiratory tract ends at the terminal bronchioles when they branch into the respiratory bronchioles. This marks the beginning of an acinus which includes the respiratory bronchioles, the alveolar ducts, alveolar sacs, and alveoli.[24] This is also called the terminal respiratory unit.[25] An acinus measures up to 10 mm in diameter.[24] A primary pulmonary lobule is that part of the acinus that includes the alveolar ducts, sacs, and alveoli but does not include the respiratory bronchioles.[26] The unit described as the secondary pulmonary lobule is the lobule most referred to as the pulmonary lobule or respiratory lobule.[22]:489[27] This lobule is a discrete unit that is the smallest component of the lung that can be seen without aid. The secondary pulmonary lobule is likely to be made up of between 30 and 50 primary lobules.[26] The lobule is supplied by a terminal bronchiole that branches into respiratory bronchioles. The respiratory bronchioles supply the alveoli in each acinus and is accompanied by a pulmonary artery branch. Each lobule is enclosed by an interlobular septa. Each acinus is incompletely separated by an interlobular septa.[24]
+
+The respiratory bronchiole gives rise to the alveolar ducts that lead to the alveolar sacs, which contain two or more alveoli.[17] The walls of the alveoli are extremely thin allowing a fast rate of diffusion.  The alveoli have interconnecting small air passages in their walls known as the pores of Kohn.[17]
+
+Alveoli consist of two types of alveolar cell and an alveolar macrophage. The two types of cell are known as type I and type II cells[28] (also known as pneumocytes).[3] Types I and II make up the walls and alveolar septa. Type I cells provide 95% of the surface area of each alveoli and are flat ("squamous"), and Type II cells generally cluster in the corners of the alveoli and have a cuboidal shape.[29] Despite this, cells occur in a roughly equal ratio of 1:1 or 6:4.[28][29]
+
+Type I are squamous epithelial cells that make up the alveolar wall structure. They have extremely thin walls that enable an easy gas exchange.[28] These type I cells also make up the alveolar septa which separate each alveolus. The septa consist of an epithelial lining and associated basement membranes.[29] Type I cells are not able to divide, and consequently rely on differentiation from Type II cells.[29]
+
+Type II are larger and they line the alveoli and produce and secrete epithelial lining fluid, and lung surfactant.[30][28] Type II cells are able to divide and differentiate to Type I cells.[29]
+
+The alveolar macrophages have an important immunological role. They remove substances which deposit in the alveoli including loose red blood cells that have been forced out from blood vessels.[29]
+
+There is a large presence of microorganisms in the lungs known as the lung microbiome or microbiota. The lung microbiome interacts with the airway epithelial cells. The microbiome is complex in healthy people, and altered in diseases such as asthma and COPD. The lung microbiome is dynamic and significant changes can take place in COPD following infection with rhinovirus. The interaction between the microbiome and the epithelial cells is of probable importance in the maintenance of stable homeostasis.[31] Fungal genera that are commonly found in the lung microbiota, known as the lung mycobiome include Candida, Malassezia, Saccharomyces, and Aspergillus.[32][33]
+
+The lower respiratory tract is part of the respiratory system, and consists of the trachea and the structures below this including the lungs.[28] The trachea receives air from the pharynx and travels down to a place where it splits (the carina) into a right and left bronchus. These supply air to the right and left lungs, splitting progressively into the secondary and tertiary bronchi for the lobes of the lungs, and into smaller and smaller bronchioles until they become the respiratory bronchioles. These in turn supply air through alveolar ducts into the alveoli, where the exchange of gases take place.[28] Oxygen breathed in, diffuses through the walls of the alveoli into the enveloping capillaries and into the circulation,[17] and carbon dioxide diffuses from the blood into the lungs to be breathed out.
+
+Estimates of the total surface area of lungs vary from 50 to 75 square metres (540 to 810 sq ft);[28][29] although this is often quoted in textbooks and the media being "the size of a tennis court",[29][34][35] it is actually less than half the size of a singles court.[36]
+
+The bronchi in the conducting zone are reinforced with hyaline cartilage in order to hold open the airways. The bronchioles have no cartilage and are surrounded instead by smooth muscle.[29]  Air is warmed to 37 °C (99 °F), humidified and cleansed by the conducting zone. Particles from the air being removed by the cilia on the respiratory epithelium lining the passageways,[37] in a process called mucociliary clearance.
+
+Pulmonary stretch receptors in the smooth muscle of the airways initiate a reflex known as the Hering–Breuer reflex that prevents the lungs from over-inflation, during forceful inspiration.
+
+The lungs have a dual blood supply provided by a bronchial and a pulmonary circulation.[38] The bronchial circulation supplies oxygenated blood to the airways of the lungs, through the bronchial arteries that leave the aorta.  There are usually three arteries, two to the left lung and one to the right, and they branch alongside the bronchi and bronchioles.[28] The pulmonary circulation carries deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs and returns the oxygenated blood to the heart to supply the rest of the body.[28]
+
+The blood volume of the lungs is about 450 millilitres on average, about 9% of the total blood volume of the entire circulatory system. This quantity can easily fluctuate from between one-half and twice the normal volume.  Also, in the event of blood loss through hemorrhage, blood from the lungs can partially compensate by automatically transferring to the systemic circulation.[39]
+
+The lungs are supplied by nerves of the autonomic nervous system. Input from the parasympathetic nervous system occurs via the vagus nerve.[38] When stimulated by acetylcholine, this causes constriction of the smooth muscle lining the bronchus and bronchioles, and increases the secretions from glands.[40][page needed] The lungs also have a sympathetic tone from norepinephrine acting on the beta 2 adrenoceptors in the respiratory tract, which causes bronchodilation.[41]
+
+The action of breathing takes place because of nerve signals sent by the respiratory center in the brainstem, along the phrenic nerve from the cervical plexus to the diaphragm.[42]
+
+The lobes of the lung are subject to anatomical variations.[43] A horizontal interlobar fissure was found to be incomplete in 25% of right lungs, or even absent in 11% of all cases. An accessory fissure was also found in 14% and 22% of left and right lungs, respectively.[44] An oblique fissure was found to be incomplete in 21% to 47% of left lungs.[45] In some cases a fissure is absent, or extra, resulting in a right lung with only two lobes, or a left lung with three lobes.[43]
+
+A variation in the airway branching structure has been found specifically in the central airway
+branching. This variation is associated with the development of COPD in adulthood.[46]
+
+The development of the human lungs arise from the laryngotracheal groove and develop to maturity over several weeks in the foetus and for several years following birth.[47]
+
+The larynx, trachea, bronchi and lungs that make up the respiratory tract, begin to form during the fourth week of embryogenesis[48] from the lung bud which appears ventrally to the caudal portion of the foregut.[49]
+
+The respiratory tract has a branching structure, and is also known as the respiratory tree.[50] In the embryo this structure is developed in the process of branching morphogenesis, and is generated by the repeated splitting of the tip of the branch. In the development of the lungs (as in some other organs) the epithelium forms branching tubes.The lung has a left-right symmetry and each bud known as a bronchial bud grows out as a tubular epithelium that becomes a bronchus. Each bronchus branches into bronchioles.[51] The branching is a result of the tip of each tube bifurcating.[50] The branching process forms the bronchi, bronchioles, and ultimately the alveoli.[50] The four genes mostly associated with branching morphogenesis in the lung are the intercellular signalling protein – sonic hedgehog (SHH), fibroblast growth factors FGF10 and FGFR2b, and bone morphogenetic protein BMP4. FGF10 is seen to have the most prominent role. FGF10 is a paracrine signalling molecule needed for epithelial branching, and SHH inhibits FGF10.[50][51] The development of the alveoli is influenced by a different mechanism whereby continued bifurcation is stopped and the distal tips become dilated to form the alveoli.
+
+At the end of the fourth week the lung bud divides into two, the right and left primary bronchial buds on each side of the trachea.[52][53] During the fifth week the right bud branches into three secondary bronchial buds and the left branches into two secondary bronchial buds. These give rise to the lobes of the lungs, three on the right and two on the left. Over the following week, the secondary buds branch into tertiary buds, about ten on each side.[53] From the sixth week to the sixteenth week, the major elements of the lungs appear except the alveoli.[54] From week 16 to week 26, the bronchi enlarge and lung tissue becomes highly vascularised. Bronchioles and alveolar ducts also develop. By week 26 the terminal bronchioles have formed which branch into two respiratory bronchioles.[55] During the period covering the 26th week until birth the important blood–air barrier is established. Specialised type I alveolar cells where gas exchange will take place, together with the type II alveolar cells that secrete pulmonary surfactant, appear. The surfactant reduces the surface tension at the air-alveolar surface which allows expansion of the alveolar sacs. The alveolar sacs contain the primitive alveoli that form at the end of the alveolar ducts,[56]
+and their appearance around the seventh month marks the point at which limited respiration would be possible, and the premature baby could survive.[47]
+
+The developing lung is particularly vulnerable to changes in the levels of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency has been linked to changes in the epithelial lining of the lung and in the lung parenchyma. This can disrupt the normal physiology of the lung and predispose to respiratory diseases. Severe nutritional deficiency in vitamin A results in a reduction in the formation of the alveolar walls (septa) and to notable changes in the respiratory epithelium; alterations are noted in the extracellular matrix and in the protein content of the basement membrane. The extracellular matrix maintains lung elasticity; the basement membrane is associated with alveolar epithelium and is important in the blood-air barrier. The deficiency is associated with functional defects and disease states. Vitamin A is crucial in the development of the alveoli which continues for several years after birth.[57]
+
+At birth, the baby's lungs are filled with fluid secreted by the lungs and are not inflated. After birth the infant's central nervous system reacts to the sudden change in temperature and environment. This triggers the first breath, within about 10 seconds after delivery.[58] Before birth, the lungs are filled with fetal lung fluid.[59]      After the first breath, the fluid is quickly absorbed into the body or exhaled. The resistance in the lung's blood vessels decreases giving an increased surface area for gas exchange, and the lungs begin to breathe spontaneously. This accompanies other changes which result in an increased amount of blood entering the lung tissues.[58]
+
+At birth the lungs are very undeveloped with only around one sixth of the alveoli of the adult lung present.[47] The alveoli continue to form into early adulthood, and their ability to form when necessary is seen in the regeneration of the lung.[60][61] Alveolar septa have a double capillary network instead of the single network of the developed lung. Only after the maturation of the capillary network can the lung enter a normal phase of growth. Following the early growth in numbers of alveoli there is another stage of the alveoli being enlarged.[62]
+
+The major function of the lungs is gas exchange between the lungs and the blood.[63] The alveolar and pulmonary capillary gases equilibrate across the thin blood–air barrier.[30][64][65] This thin membrane (about 0.5 –2 μm thick) is folded into about 300 million alveoli, providing an extremely large surface area (estimates varying between 70 and 145 m2) for gas exchange to occur.[64][66]
+
+The lungs are not capable of expanding to breathe on their own, and will only do so when there is an increase in the volume of the thoracic cavity.[67] This is achieved by the muscles of respiration, through the contraction of the diaphragm, and the intercostal muscles which pull the rib cage upwards as shown in the diagram.[68] During breathing out the muscles relax, returning the lungs to their resting position.[69] At this point the lungs contain the functional residual capacity (FRC) of air, which, in the adult human, has a volume of about 2.5–3.0 litres.[69]
+
+During heavy breathing as in exertion, a large number of accessory muscles in the neck and abdomen are recruited, that during exhalation pull the ribcage down, decreasing the volume of the thoracic cavity.[69] The FRC is now decreased, but since the lungs cannot be emptied completely there is still about a litre of residual air left.[69] Lung function testing is carried out to evaluate lung volumes and capacities.
+
+The lungs possess several characteristics which protect against infection. The respiratory tract is lined by respiratory epithelium or respiratory mucosa, with hair-like projections called cilia that beat rhythmically and carry mucus. This mucociliary clearance is an important defence system against air-borne infection.[30] The dust particles and bacteria in the inhaled air are caught in the mucosal surface of the airways, and are moved up towards the pharynx by the rhythmic upward beating action of the cilia.[29][70]:661–730 The lining of the lung also secretes immunoglobulin A which protects against respiratory infections;[70] goblet cells secrete mucus[29] which also contains several antimicrobial compounds such as defensins, antiproteases, and antioxidants.[70] A rare type of specialised cell called a pulmonary ionocyte that is suggested may regulate mucus viscosity has been described.[71][72][73] In addition, the lining of the lung also contains macrophages, immune cells which engulf and destroy debris and microbes that enter the lung in a process known as phagocytosis; and dendritic cells which present antigens to activate components of the adaptive immune system such as T-cells and B-cells.[70]
+
+The size of the respiratory tract and the flow of air also protect the lungs from larger particles. Smaller particles deposit in the mouth and behind the mouth in the oropharynx, and larger particles are trapped in nasal hair after inhalation.[70]
+
+In addition to their function in respiration, the lungs have a number of other functions. They are involved in maintaining homeostasis, helping in the regulation of blood pressure as part of the renin–angiotensin system. The inner lining of the blood vessels secretes angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) an enzyme that catalyses the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II.[74] The lungs are involved in the blood's acid-base homeostasis by expelling carbon dioxide when breathing.[67][75]
+
+The lungs also serve a protective role. Several blood-borne substances, such as a few types of prostaglandins, leukotrienes, serotonin and bradykinin, are excreted through the lungs.[74] Drugs and other substances can be absorbed, modified or excreted in the lungs.[67][76] The lungs filter out small blood clots from veins and prevent them from entering arteries and causing strokes.[75]
+
+The lungs also play a pivotal role in speech by providing air and airflow for the creation of vocal sounds,[67][77] and other paralanguage communications such as sighs and gasps.
+
+New research suggests a role of the lungs in the production of blood platelets.[78]
+
+About 20,000 protein coding genes are expressed in human cells and almost 75% of these genes are expressed in the normal lung.[79][80] A little less than 200 of these genes are more specifically expressed in the lung with less than 20 genes being highly lung specific. The highest expression of lung specific proteins are different surfactant proteins,[30] such as SFTPA1, SFTPB and SFTPC, and napsin, expressed in type II pneumocytes. Other proteins with elevated expression in the lung are the dynein protein DNAH5 in ciliated cells, and the secreted SCGB1A1 protein in mucus-secreting  goblet cells of the airway mucosa.[81]
+
+Lungs can be affected by a variety of diseases. Pulmonology is the medical speciality that deals with diseases involving the respiratory tract,[82] and cardiothoracic surgery is the surgical field that deals with surgery of the lungs.[83]
+
+Inflammatory conditions of the lung tissue are pneumonia, of the respiratory tract are bronchitis and bronchiolitis, and of the pleurae surrounding the lungs pleurisy. Inflammation is usually caused by infections due to bacteria or viruses. When the lung tissue is inflamed due to other causes it is called pneumonitis. One major cause of bacterial pneumonia is tuberculosis.[70] Chronic infections often occur in those with immunodeficiency and can include a fungal infection by Aspergillus fumigatus that can lead to an aspergilloma forming in the lung.[70][84]
+
+A pulmonary embolism is a blood clot that becomes lodged in the pulmonary arteries. The majority of emboli arise because of deep vein thrombosis in the legs. Pulmonary emboli may be investigated using a ventilation/perfusion scan, a CT scan of the arteries of the lung, or blood tests such as the D-dimer.[70] Pulmonary hypertension describes an increased pressure at the beginning of the pulmonary artery that has a large number of differing causes.[70] Other rarer conditions may also affect the blood supply of the lung, such as granulomatosis with polyangiitis, which causes inflammation of the small blood vessels of the lungs and kidneys.[70]
+
+A lung contusion is a bruise caused by chest trauma. It results in hemorrhage of the alveoli causing a build-up of fluid which can impair breathing, and this can be either mild or severe.
+The function of the lungs can also be affected by compression from fluid in the pleural cavity pleural effusion, or other substances such as air (pneumothorax), blood (hemothorax), or rarer causes. These may be investigated using a chest X-ray or CT scan, and may require the insertion of a surgical drain until the underlying cause is identified and treated.[70]
+
+Asthma, chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are all obstructive lung diseases characterised by airway obstruction. This limits the amount of air that is able to enter alveoli because of constriction of the bronchial tree, due to inflammation. Obstructive lung diseases are often identified because of symptoms and diagnosed with pulmonary function tests such as spirometry. Many obstructive lung diseases are managed by avoiding triggers (such as dust mites or smoking), with symptom control such as bronchodilators, and with suppression of inflammation (such as through corticosteroids) in severe cases. A common cause of chronic bronchitis, and emphysema, is smoking; and common causes of bronchiectasis include severe infections and cystic fibrosis. The definitive cause of asthma is not yet known.[70]
+
+The breakdown of alveolar tissue, often as a result of tobacco-smoking leads to emphysema, which can become severe enough to develop into COPD. Elastase breaks down the elastin in the lung's connective tissue that can also result in emphysema. Elastase is inhibited by the acute-phase protein, alpha-1 antitrypsin, and when there is a deficiency in this, emphysema can develop. With persistent stress from smoking, the airway basal cells become disarranged and lose their regenerative ability needed to repair the epithelial barrier. The disorganised basal cells are seen to be responsible for the major airway changes that are characteristic of COPD, and with continued stress can undergo a malignant transformation. Studies have shown that the initial development of emphysema is centred on the early changes in the airway epithelium of the small airways.[85] Basal cells become further deranged in a smoker's transition to clinically defined COPD.[85]
+
+Some types of chronic lung diseases are classified as restrictive lung disease, because of a restriction in the amount of lung tissue involved in respiration. These include pulmonary fibrosis which can occur when the lung is inflamed for a long period of time. Fibrosis in the lung replaces functioning lung tissue with fibrous connective tissue. This can be due to a large variety of occupational lung diseases such as Coalworker's pneumoconiosis, autoimmune diseases or more rarely to a reaction to medication.[70] Severe respiratory disorders, where spontaneous breathing is not enough to maintain life, may need the use of mechanical ventilation to ensure an adequate supply of air.
+
+Lung cancer can either arise directly from lung tissue or as a result of metastasis from another part of the body. There are two main types of primary tumour described as either small-cell or non-small-cell lung carcinomas. The major risk factor for cancer is smoking. Once a cancer is identified it is staged using scans such as a CT scan and a sample of tissue (a biopsy) is taken. Cancers may be treated by surgically removing the tumour, radiotherapy, chemotherapy or combinations thereof, or with the aim of symptom control.[70] Lung cancer screening is being recommended in the United States for high-risk populations.[86]
+
+Congenital disorders include cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypoplasia (an incomplete development of the lungs)[87]congenital diaphragmatic hernia, and infant respiratory distress syndrome caused by a deficiency in lung surfactant. An azygos lobe is a congenital anatomical variation which though usually without effect can cause problems in thoracoscopic procedures.[88]
+
+A pneumothorax (collapsed lung) is an abnormal collection of air in the pleural space that causes an uncoupling of the lung from the chest wall.[89] The lung cannot expand against the air pressure inside the pleural space. An easy to understand example is a traumatic pneumothorax, where air enters the pleural space from outside the body, as occurs with puncture to the chest wall. Similarly, scuba divers ascending while holding their breath with their lungs fully inflated can cause air sacs (alveoli) to burst and leak high pressure air into the pleural space.
+
+As part of a physical examination in response to respiratory symptoms of shortness of breath, and cough, a lung examination may be carried out. This exam includes palpation and auscultation.[90] The areas of the lungs that can be listened to using a stethoscope are called the lung fields, and these are the posterior, lateral, and anterior lung fields. The posterior fields can be listened to from the back and include: the lower lobes (taking up three quarters of the posterior fields); the anterior fields taking up the other quarter; and the lateral fields under the axillae, the left axilla for the lingual, the right axilla for the middle right lobe. The anterior fields can also be auscultated from the front.[91] Abnormal breathing sounds heard during a lung exam can indicate the presence of a lung condition; wheezing for example is commonly associated with asthma and COPD.
+
+Lung function testing is carried out by evaluating a person's capacity to inhale and exhale in different circumstances.[92] The volume of air inhaled and exhaled by a person at rest is the tidal volume (normally 500-750mL); the inspiratory reserve volume and expiratory reserve volume are the additional amounts a person is able to forcibly inhale and exhale respectively. The summed total of forced inspiration and expiration is a person's vital capacity. Not all air is expelled from the lungs even after a forced breath out; the remainder of the air is called the residual volume. Together these terms are referred to as lung volumes.[92]
+
+Pulmonary plethysmographs are used to measure functional residual capacity.[93] Functional residual capacity cannot be measured by tests that rely on breathing out, as a person is only able to breathe a maximum of 80% of their total functional capacity.[94] The total lung capacity depends on the person's age, height, weight, and sex, and normally ranges between 4 and 6 litres.[92] Females tend to have a 20–25% lower capacity than males. Tall people tend to have a larger total lung capacity than shorter people. Smokers have a lower capacity than nonsmokers. Thinner persons tend to have a larger capacity. Lung capacity can be increased by physical training as much as 40% but the effect may be modified by exposure to air pollution.[94][95]
+
+Other lung function tests include spirometry, measuring the amount (volume) and flow of air that can be inhaled and exhaled. The maximum volume of breath that can be exhaled is called the vital capacity. In particular, how much a person is able to exhale in one second (called forced expiratory volume (FEV1)) as a proportion of how much they are able to exhale in total (FEV). This ratio, the FEV1/FEV ratio, is important to distinguish whether a lung disease is restrictive or obstructive.[70][92] Another test is that of the lung's  diffusing capacity – this is a measure of the transfer of gas from air to the blood in the lung capillaries.
+
+The lungs of birds are relatively small, but are connected to 8 or 9 air sacs that extend through much of the body, and are in turn connected to air spaces within the bones. On inhalation, air travels through the trachea of a bird into the air sacs. Air then travels continuously from the air sacs at the back, through the lungs, which are relatively fixed in size, to the air sacs at the front. From here, the air is exhaled. These fixed size lungs are called "circulatory lungs", as distinct from the "bellows-type lungs" found in most other animals.[96][98]
+
+The lungs of birds contain millions of tiny parallel passages called parabronchi. Small sacs called atria radiate from the walls of the tiny passages; these, like the alveoli in other lungs, are the site of gas exchange by simple diffusion.[98] The blood flow around the parabronchi and their atria forms a cross-current process of gas exchange (see diagram on the right).[96][97]
+
+The air sacs, which hold air, do not contribute much to gas exchange, despite being thin-walled, as they are poorly vascularised. The air sacs expand and contract due to changes in the volume in the thorax and abdomen. This volume change is caused by the movement of the sternum and ribs and this movement is often synchronised with movement of the flight muscles.[99]
+
+Parabronchi in which the air flow is unidirectional are called paleopulmonic parabronchi and are found in all birds. Some birds, however, have, in addition, a lung structure where the air flow in the parabronchi is bidirectional. These are termed neopulmonic parabronchi.[98]
+
+The lungs of most reptiles have a single bronchus running down the centre, from which numerous branches reach out to individual pockets throughout the lungs. These pockets are similar to alveoli in mammals, but much larger and fewer in number. These give the lung a sponge-like texture. In tuataras, snakes, and some lizards, the lungs are simpler in structure, similar to that of typical amphibians.[99]
+
+Snakes and limbless lizards typically possess only the right lung as a major respiratory organ; the left lung is greatly reduced, or even absent. Amphisbaenians, however, have the opposite arrangement, with a major left lung, and a reduced or absent right lung.[99]
+
+Both crocodilians and monitor lizards have developed lungs similar to those of birds, providing a unidirectional airflow and even possessing air sacs.[100] The now extinct pterosaurs have seemingly even further refined this type of lung, extending the airsacs into the wing membranes and, in the case of lonchodectids, tupuxuara, and azhdarchoids, the hindlimbs.[101]
+
+Reptilian lungs typically receive air via expansion and contraction of the ribs driven by axial muscles and buccal pumping. Crocodilians also rely on the hepatic piston method, in which the liver is pulled back by a muscle anchored to the pubic bone (part of the pelvis) called the diaphragmaticus,[102] which in turn creates negative pressure in the crocodile's thoracic cavity, allowing air to be moved into the lungs by Boyle's law. Turtles, which are unable to move their ribs, instead use their forelimbs and pectoral girdle to force air in and out of the lungs.[99]
+
+The lungs of most frogs and other amphibians are simple and balloon-like, with gas exchange limited to the outer surface of the lung. This is not very efficient, but amphibians have low metabolic demands and can also quickly dispose of carbon dioxide by diffusion across their skin in water, and supplement their oxygen supply by the same method. Amphibians employ a positive pressure system to get air to their lungs, forcing air down into the lungs by buccal pumping. This is distinct from most higher vertebrates, who use a breathing system driven by negative pressure where the lungs are inflated by expanding the rib cage.[103] In buccal pumping, the floor of the mouth is lowered, filling the mouth cavity with air. The throat muscles then presses the throat against the underside of the skull, forcing the air into the lungs.[104]
+
+Due to the possibility of respiration across the skin combined with small size, all known lungless tetrapods are amphibians. The majority of salamander species are lungless salamanders, which respirate through their skin and tissues lining their mouth. This necessarily restricts their size: all are small and rather thread-like in appearance, maximising skin surface relative to body volume.[105] Other known lungless tetrapods are the Bornean flat-headed frog[106] and Atretochoana eiselti, a caecilian.[107]
+
+The lungs of amphibians typically have a few narrow internal walls (septa) of soft tissue around the outer walls, increasing the respiratory surface area and giving the lung a honey-comb appearance. In some salamanders even these are lacking, and the lung has a smooth wall. In caecilians, as in snakes, only the right lung attains any size or development.[99]
+
+The lungs of lungfish are similar to those of amphibians, with few, if any, internal septa. In the Australian lungfish, there is only a single lung, albeit divided into two lobes. Other lungfish and Polypterus, however, have two lungs, which are located in the upper part of the body, with the connecting duct curving around and above the esophagus. The blood supply also twists around the esophagus, suggesting that the lungs originally evolved in the ventral part of the body, as in other vertebrates.[99]
+
+Some invertebrates have lung-like structures that serve a similar respiratory purpose as, but are not evolutionarily related to, vertebrate lungs. Some arachnids, such as spiders and scorpions, have structures called book lungs used for atmospheric gas exchange. Some species of spider have four pairs of book lungs but most have two pairs.[108] Scorpions have spiracles on their body for the entrance of air to the book lungs.[109]
+
+The coconut crab is terrestrial and uses structures called branchiostegal lungs to breathe air.[110] They cannot swim and would drown in water, yet they possess a rudimentary set of gills. They can breathe on land and hold their breath underwater.[111] The branchiostegal lungs are seen as a developmental adaptive stage from water-living to enable land-living, or from fish to amphibian.[112]
+
+Pulmonates are mostly land snails and slugs that have developed a simple lung from the mantle cavity. An externally located opening called the pneumostome allows air to be taken into the mantle cavity lung.[113][114]
+
+The lungs of today's terrestrial vertebrates and the gas bladders of today's fish are believed to have evolved from simple sacs, as outpocketings of the esophagus, that allowed early fish to gulp air under oxygen-poor conditions.[115] These outpocketings first arose in the  bony fish. In most of the ray-finned fish the sacs evolved into closed off gas bladders, while a number of carp, trout, herring, catfish, and eels have retained the physostome condition with the sack being open to the esophagus. In more basal bony fish, such as the gar, bichir, bowfin and the lobe-finned fish, the bladders have evolved to primarily function as lungs.[115] The lobe-finned fish gave rise to the land-based tetrapods. Thus, the lungs of vertebrates are homologous to the gas bladders of fish (but not to their gills).[116]

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+
+
+Purple refers to any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue.[1][2]
+
+Purple is closely associated with violet. In optics, purple and violet refer to colors that look similar, but purples are mixtures of red light and blue or violet light,[3][4] whereas violets are spectral colors (of single wavelengths of light). In common usage, both refer to colors that are between red and blue in hue, with purples closer to red and violets closer to blue.[5][6] Similarly, in the traditional painters' color wheel, purple and violet are both placed between red and blue, with purple closer to red.
+
+Purple has long been associated with royalty, originally because Tyrian purple dye was extremely expensive in antiquity.[7] Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and later by Roman Catholic bishops. Similarly in Japan, the color is traditionally associated with the emperor and aristocracy.[8]
+
+According to contemporary surveys in Europe and the United States, purple is the color most often associated with royalty, magic, mystery, and piety.[9][need quotation to verify] When combined with pink, it is associated with eroticism, femininity, and seduction.[10]
+
+The modern English word purple comes from the Old English purpul, which derives from Latin purpura, which, in turn, derives from the Greek πορφύρα (porphura),[11] the name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.[1][12] The first recorded use of the word purple dates to the late 900s AD.[1]
+
+Purple is closely associated with violet. In common usage, both refer to colors that are between red and blue in hue, with purples closer to red and violets closer to blue.[5][6] Similarly, in the traditional painters' color wheel, purple and violet are both placed between red and blue, with purple is closer to red.
+
+In optics, violet is a spectral color: It refers to the color of any different single wavelength of light on the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum, between approximately 380 and 450 nanometers,[14] whereas purple is the color of various combinations of red, blue, and violet light,[15][16] some of which humans perceive as similar to violet.
+
+In humans, the L (red) cone in the eye is primarily sensitive to long wavelength light in the yellow-red region of the spectrum, but is also somewhat sensitive to the shorter wavelength violet light that primarily stimulates the S (blue) cone. As a result, when violet light strikes the eye, the S-cone is stimulated strongly and the L-cone is stimulated weakly. Accordingly, strong blue light mixed with weaker red light can mimic this pattern of stimulation, causing humans to perceive colors that the same hue as violet, but with lower saturation.[citation needed] Computer and television screens rely on this phenomenon. Because they use the RGB color model, they cannot produce violet light and instead substitute purple (a mixture of red and blue light).
+
+Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic era.  The artists of Pech Merle cave and other Neolithic sites in France used sticks of manganese and hematite powder to draw and paint animals and the outlines of their own hands on the walls of their caves. These works have been dated to between 16,000 and 25,000 BC.[17]
+
+As early as the 15th century BC the citizens of Sidon and Tyre, two cities on the coast of Ancient Phoenicia, (present day Lebanon), were producing purple dye from a sea snail called the spiny dye-murex.[18]  Clothing colored with the Tyrian dye was mentioned in both the Iliad of Homer and the Aeneid  of Virgil.[18] The deep, rich purple dye made from this snail became known as Tyrian purple.[19]
+
+The process of making the dye was long, difficult and expensive. Thousands of the tiny snails had to be found, their shells cracked, the snail removed. Mountains of empty shells have been found at the ancient sites of Sidon and Tyre.  The snails were left to soak, then a tiny gland was removed and the juice extracted and put in a basin, which was placed in the sunlight. There, a remarkable transformation took place. In the sunlight the juice turned white, then yellow-green, then green, then violet, then a red which turned darker and darker. The process had to be stopped at exactly the right time to obtain the desired color, which could range from a bright crimson to a dark purple, the color of dried blood. Then either wool, linen or silk would be dyed.  The exact hue varied between crimson and violet, but it was always rich, bright and lasting.[20]
+
+Tyrian purple became the color of kings, nobles, priests and magistrates all around the Mediterranean. It was mentioned in the Old Testament; in the Book of Exodus, God instructs Moses to have the Israelites bring him an offering including cloth "of blue, and purple, and scarlet,"[21] to be used in the curtains of the Tabernacle and the garments of priests. The term used for purple in the 4th-century Latin Vulgate version of the Bible passage is purpura or Tyrian purple.[22] In the Iliad of Homer, the belt of Ajax is purple, and the tails of the horses of Trojan warriors are dipped in purple. In the Odyssey, the blankets on the wedding bed of Odysseus are purple. In the poems of Sappho (6th century BC) she celebrates the skill of the dyers of the Greek kingdom of Lydia who made purple footwear, and in the play of Aeschylus (525–456 BC), Queen Clytemnestra welcomes back her husband Agamemnon by decorating the palace with purple carpets. In 950 BC, King Solomon was reported to have brought artisans from Tyre to provide purple fabrics to decorate the Temple of Jerusalem.[23]
+
+Alexander the Great (when giving imperial audiences as the basileus of the Macedonian Empire), the basileus of the Seleucid Empire, and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt all wore Tyrian purple.
+
+The Roman custom of wearing purple togas may have come from the Etruscans; an Etruscan tomb painting from the 4th century BC shows a nobleman wearing a deep purple and embroidered toga.
+
+In Ancient Rome, the Toga praetexta was an ordinary white toga with a broad purple stripe on its border. It was worn by freeborn Roman boys who had not yet come of age,[24] curule magistrates,[25][26]
+certain categories of priests,[27]  and a few other categories of citizens.
+
+The Toga picta was solid purple, embroidered with gold. During the Roman Republic, it was worn by generals in their triumphs, and by the Praetor Urbanus when he rode in the chariot of the gods into the circus at the Ludi Apollinares.[28]  During the Empire, the toga picta was worn by magistrates giving public gladiatorial games, and by the consuls, as well as by the emperor on special occasions.
+
+During the Roman Republic, when a triumph was held, the general being honored wore an entirely purple toga bordered in gold, and Roman Senators wore a toga with a purple stripe. However, during the Roman Empire, purple was more and more associated exclusively with the emperors and their officers.[29] Suetonius claims that the early emperor Caligula had the King of Mauretania murdered for the splendour of his purple cloak, and that Nero forbade the use of certain purple dyes.[30] In the late empire the sale of purple cloth became a state monopoly protected by the death penalty.[31]
+
+Jesus Christ, in the hours leading up to his crucifixion, was dressed in purple (πορφύρα: porphura) by the Roman garrison to mock his claim to be 'King of the Jews'.[32]
+
+The actual color of Tyrian purple seems to have varied from a reddish to a bluish purple. According to the Roman writer Vitruvius, (1st century BC), the murex coming from northern waters, probably murex brandaris, produced a more bluish color than those of the south, probably murex trunculus. The most valued shades were said to be those closer to the color of dried blood, as seen in the mosaics of the robes of the Emperor Justinian in Ravenna. The chemical composition of the dye from the murex is close to that of the dye from indigo, and indigo was sometimes used to make a counterfeit Tyrian purple, a crime which was severely punished. What seems to have mattered about Tyrian purple was not its color, but its luster, richness, its resistance to weather and light, and its high price.[33]
+
+In modern times, Tyrian purple has been recreated, at great expense. When the German chemist, Paul Friedander, tried to recreate Tyrian purple in 2008, he needed twelve thousand mollusks to create 1.4 ounces of dye, enough to color a handkerchief. In the year 2000, a gram of Tyrian purple made from ten thousand mollusks according to the original formula, cost two thousand euros.[34][35]
+
+In ancient China, purple was obtained not through the Mediterranean mollusc, but purple gromwell.  The dye obtained did not easily adhere to fabrics, making purple fabrics expensive.  Purple became a fashionable color in the state of Qi (齊) because its ruler developed a preference for it.  As a result, the price of a purple spoke of fabric was in excess of five times that of a plain spoke.  His minister, Guan Zhong (管仲), eventually convinced him to relinquish this preference.
+
+Purple was regarded as a secondary color in ancient China.  In classical times, secondary colors were not as highly prized as the five primary colors of the Chinese spectrum, and purple was used to allude to impropriety, compared to crimson, which was deemed a primary color and thus symbolized legitimacy.  Nevertheless, by the 6th Century, purple was ranked above crimson.  Several changes to the ranks of colors occurred after that time.
+
+An Egyptian bowl colored with Egyptian blue, with motifs painted in dark manganese purple. (between 1550 and 1450 BC)
+
+Painting of a man wearing an all-purple toga picta, from an Etruscan tomb (about 350 BC).
+
+Roman men wearing togae praetextae with reddish-purple stripes during a religious procession (1st century BC).
+
+different purple hues obtained from three types of sea snails
+
+Dye bath of Tyrian purple
+
+Cloth dyed with Tyrian purple. The color could vary from crimson to deep purple, depending upon the type of murex sea-snail and how it was made.
+
+Through the early Christian era, the rulers of the Byzantine Empire continued the use of purple as the imperial color, for diplomatic gifts, and even for imperial documents and the pages of the Bible. Gospel manuscripts were written in gold lettering on parchment that was colored Tyrian purple.[36]
+Empresses gave birth in the Purple Chamber, and the emperors born there were known as "born to the purple," to separate them from emperors who won or seized the title through political intrigue or military force. Bishops of the Byzantine church wore white robes with stripes of purple, while government officials wore squares of purple fabric to show their rank.
+
+In western Europe, the Emperor Charlemagne was crowned in 800 wearing a mantle of Tyrian purple, and was buried in 814 in a shroud of the same color, which still exists (see below). However, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the color lost its imperial status. The great dye works of Constantinople were destroyed, and gradually scarlet, made with dye from the cochineal insect, became the royal color in Europe.[37]
+
+The Empress Theodora, the wife of the Emperor Justinian, dressed in Tyrian purple. (6th century).
+
+11th-century Byzantine robe, dyed Tyrian purple with murex dye. Creatures are griffins
+
+A medieval depiction of the coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne in 800. The bishops and cardinals wear purple, and the Pope wears white.
+
+A fragment of the shroud in which the Emperor Charlemagne was buried in 814. It was made of gold and Tyrian purple from Constantinople.
+
+In 1464, Pope Paul II decreed that cardinals should no longer wear Tyrian purple, and instead wear scarlet, from kermes and alum,[38] since the dye from Byzantium was no longer available. Bishops and archbishops, of a lower status than cardinals, were assigned the color purple, but not the rich Tyrian purple. They wore cloth dyed first with the less expensive indigo blue, then overlaid with red made from kermes dye.[39][40]
+
+While purple was worn less frequently by Medieval and Renaissance kings and princes, it was worn by the professors of many of Europe's new universities.  Their robes were modeled after those of the clergy, and they often wore square violet or purple caps and robes, or black robes with purple trim. Purple robes were particularly worn by students of divinity.
+
+Purple and violet also played an important part in the religious paintings of the Renaissance.  Angels and the Virgin Mary were often portrayed wearing purple or violet robes.
+
+A 12th-century painting of Saint Peter consecrating Hermagoras, wearing purple, as a bishop.
+
+In the Ghent Altarpiece (1422) by Jan van Eyck, the popes and bishops are wearing purple robes.
+
+A purple-clad angel from the Resurrection of Christ by Raphael (1483–1520)
+
+In the 18th century, purple was still worn on occasion by Catherine the Great and other rulers, by bishops and, in lighter shades, by members of the aristocracy, but rarely by ordinary people, because of its high cost. But in the 19th century, that changed.
+
+In 1856, an eighteen-year-old British chemistry student named William Henry Perkin was trying to make a synthetic quinine. His experiments produced instead the first synthetic aniline dye, a purple shade called mauveine, shortened simply to mauve. It took its name from the mallow flower, which is the same color.[41] The new color quickly became fashionable, particularly after Queen Victoria wore a silk gown dyed with mauveine to the Royal Exhibition of 1862. Prior to Perkin's discovery, mauve was a color which only the aristocracy and rich could afford to wear. Perkin developed an industrial process, built a factory, and produced the dye by the ton, so almost anyone could wear mauve. It was the first of a series of modern industrial dyes which completely transformed both the chemical industry and fashion.[42]
+
+Purple was popular with the pre-Raphaelite painters in Britain, including Arthur Hughes, who loved bright colors and romantic scenes.
+
+Portrait of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, by Fyodor Rokotov. (State Hermitage Museum).
+
+In England, pre-Raphaelite painters like Arthur Hughes were particularly enchanted by purple and violet. This is April Love (1856).
+
+Portrait of Félix Pissarro (1881), by Camille Pissarro
+
+Portrait of Caroline Remy de Guebhard, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919).
+
+Order of Leopold founded in 1830.
+
+At the turn of the century, purple was a favorite color of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, who flooded his pictures with sensual purples and violets.
+
+In the 20th century, purple retained its historic connection with royalty; George VI (1896–1952), wore purple in his official portrait, and it was prominent in every feature of the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, from the invitations to the stage design inside Westminster Abbey. But at the same time, it was becoming associated with social change; with the Women's Suffrage movement for the right to vote for women in the early decades of the century, with Feminism in the 1970s, and with the psychedelic drug culture of the 1960s.
+
+In the early 20th century, purple, green, and white were the colors of the Women's Suffrage movement, which fought to win the right to vote for women, finally succeeding with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.  Later, in the 1970s, in a tribute to the Suffragettes, it became the color of the women's liberation movement.[43]
+
+In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, prisoners who were members of non-conformist religious groups, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, were required to wear a purple triangle.[44]
+
+During the 1960s and early 1970s, it was also associated with counterculture, psychedelics, and musicians like Jimi Hendrix with his 1967 song "Purple Haze", or the English rock band of Deep Purple which formed in 1968. Later, in the 1980s, it was featured in the song and album Purple Rain (1984) by the American musician Prince.
+
+The Purple Rain Protest was a protest against apartheid that took place in Cape Town, South Africa on 2 September 1989, in which a police water cannon with purple dye sprayed thousands of demonstrators. This led to the slogan The Purple Shall Govern.
+
+The violet or purple necktie became very popular at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, particularly among political and business leaders. It combined the assertiveness and confidence of a red necktie with the sense of peace and cooperation of a blue necktie, and it went well with the blue business suit worn by most national and corporate leaders.[45]
+
+Gustav Klimt portrait of woman with a purple hat (1912).
+
+George VI (1895–1952) wore purple in his official portrait.
+
+The Coronation portrait of Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh (1953) has three different shades of purple in the train, curtains and crown.
+
+Program from the Woman Suffrage Procession, a 1913 Women's Suffrage march.
+
+A pennant from the Women's Suffrage movement in the state of Indiana.
+
+Symbol of the Feminist movement in the United States (1970s). The purple color was chosen as a tribute to the Suffragette movement a half-century earlier.
+
+Purple, unlike violet, is not one of the colors of the visible spectrum.[46]  It was not one of the colors of the rainbow identified by Isaac Newton, and it does not have its own wavelength of light.  For this reason, it is called a non-spectral color.  It exists in culture and art, but not, in the same way that violet does, in optics. It is simply a combination, in various proportions, of two primary colors, red and blue.
+
+In color theory, a "purple" is defined as any non-spectral color between violet and red (excluding violet and red themselves).[47] The spectral colors violet and indigo are not purples according to color theory, but they are purples according to common English usage since they are perceived to be similar.
+
+In the traditional color wheel long used by painters, purple is usually placed between crimson and violet.[48] In a slightly different variation, on the color wheel, it is placed between magenta and violet. This shade is sometimes called electric purple (See shades of purple).[49]
+
+In the RGB color model, named for the colors red, green, and blue, used to create all the colors on a computer screen or television, the range of purples is created by mixing red and blue light of different intensities on a black screen. The standard HTML color purple is created by red and blue light of equal intensity, at a brightness that is halfway between full power and darkness.
+
+In color printing, purple is sometimes represented by the color magenta, or sometimes by mixing magenta with red or blue.  It can also be created by mixing just red and blue alone, but in that case the purple is less bright, with lower
+saturation or intensity.  A less bright purple can also be created with light or paint by adding a certain quantity of the third primary color (green for light or yellow for pigment).
+
+On a chromaticity diagram, the straight line connecting the extreme spectral colors (red and violet) is known as the line of purples (or 'purple boundary'); it represents one limit of human color perception. The color magenta used in the CMYK printing process is near the center of the line of purples, but most people associate the term "purple" with a somewhat bluer tone, such as is displayed by the color "electric purple" (a color also directly on the line of purples), shown below. Some common confusion exists concerning the color names "purple" and "violet". Purple is a mixture of red and blue light, whereas violet is a spectral color.
+
+On the CIE xy chromaticity diagram, violet is on the curved edge in the lower left, while purples are on the straight line connecting the extreme colors red and violet; this line is known as the line of purples, or the purple line.[50][51]
+
+On a computer or television screen, purple colors are created by mixing red and blue light. This is called the RGB color model.
+
+The CIE xy chromaticity diagram
+
+During the Middle Ages, artists usually made purple by combining red and blue pigments; most often blue azurite or lapis-lazuli with red ochre, cinnabar, or minium. They also combined lake colors made by mixing dye with powder; using woad or indigo dye for the blue, and dye made from cochineal for the red.[53]
+
+Manganese pigments were used in the neolithic paintings in the Lascaux cave, France.
+
+Hematite was often used as the red-purple color in the cave paintings of Neolithic artists.
+
+A sample of purpurite, or manganese phosphate, from the Packrat Mine in Southern California.
+
+A swatch of cobalt violet, popular among the French impressionists.
+
+Manganese violet is a synthetic pigment invented in the mid-19th century.
+
+Quinacridone violet, a synthetic organic pigment sold under many different names.
+
+The most famous purple dye in the ancient world was Tyrian purple, made from a type of sea snail called the murex, found around the Mediterranean. (See history section above).[46]
+
+In western Polynesia, residents of the islands made a purple dye similar to Tyrian purple from the sea urchin.  In Central America, the inhabitants made a dye from a different sea snail, the purpura, found on the coasts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua.  The Mayans used this color to dye fabric for religious ceremonies, while the Aztecs used it for paintings of ideograms, where it symbolized royalty.[53]
+
+In the Middle Ages, those who worked with blue and black dyes belonged to separate guilds from those who worked with red and yellow dyes, and were often forbidden to dye any other colors than those of their own guild.[55]  Most purple fabric was made by the dyers who worked with red, and who used dye from madder or cochineal, so Medieval violet colors were inclined toward red.[citation needed]
+
+Orcein, or purple moss, was another common purple dye. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, and was made from a Mediterranean lichen called archil or dyer's moss (Roccella tinctoria), combined with an ammoniac, usually urine. Orcein began to achieve popularity again in the 19th century, when violet and purple became the color of demi-mourning, worn after a widow or widower had worn black for a certain time, before he or she returned to wearing ordinary colors.[56]
+
+From the Middle Ages onward, purple and violet dyes for the clothing of common people were often made from the blackberry or other red fruit of the genus rubus, or from the mulberry.  All of these dyes were more reddish than bluish, and faded easily with washing and exposure to sunlight.
+
+A popular new dye which arrived in Europe from the New World during the Renaissance was made from the wood of the logwood tree (Haematoxylum campechianum), which grew in Spanish Mexico.  Depending on the different minerals added to the dye, it produced a blue, red, black or, with the addition of alum, a purple color,  It made a good color, but, like earlier dyes, it did not resist sunlight or washing.
+
+In the 18th century, chemists in England, France and Germany began to create the first synthetic dyes.  Two synthetic purple dyes were invented at about the same time. Cudbear is a dye extracted from orchil lichens that can be used to dye wool and silk, without the use of mordant.  Cudbear was developed by Dr Cuthbert Gordon of Scotland: production began in 1758, The lichen is first boiled in a solution of ammonium carbonate. The mixture is then cooled and ammonia is added and the mixture is kept damp for 3–4 weeks. Then the lichen is dried and ground to powder. The manufacture details were carefully protected, with a ten-feet high wall being built around the manufacturing facility, and staff consisting of Highlanders sworn to secrecy.
+
+French purple was developed in France at about the same time.  The lichen is extracted by urine or ammonia. Then the extract is acidified, the dissolved dye precipitates and is washed. Then it is dissolved in ammonia again, the solution is heated in air until it becomes purple, then it is precipitated with calcium chloride; the resulting dye was more solid and stable than other purples.
+
+Cobalt violet is a synthetic pigment that was invented in the second half of the 19th century, and is made by a similar process as cobalt blue, cerulean blue  and cobalt green.  It is the violet pigment most commonly used today by artists.
+
+Mauveine, also known as aniline purple and Perkin's mauve, was the first synthetic organic chemical dye,[57][58] discovered serendipitously in 1856.
+Its chemical name is
+3-amino-2,±9-dimethyl-5-phenyl-7-(p-tolylamino)phenazinium acetate.
+
+Fuchsine was another synthetic dye made shortly after mauveine.  It produced a brilliant fuchsia color.
+
+In the 1950s, a new family of purple and violet synthetic organic pigments called quinacridone came onto the market. It had originally been discovered in 1896, but were not synthetized until 1936, and not manufactured until the 1950s. The colors in the group range from deep red to bluish purple in color, and have the molecular formula C20H12N2O2. They have strong resistance to sunlight and washing, and are widely used today in oil paints, water colors, and acrylics, as well as in automobile coatings and other industrial coatings.
+
+Blackberries were sometimes used to make purple dye in the Middle Ages.
+
+This lichen, growing on a tree in Scotland, was used in the 18th century to make a common purple dye called Cudbear.
+
+A sample of silk dyed with the original mauveine dye.
+
+A sample of fuchsine dye
+
+The male violet-backed starling sports a very bright, iridescent purple plumage.
+
+The purple frog is a species of amphibian found in India.
+
+Pseudanthias pascalus or purple queenfish.
+
+The purple sea urchin from Mexico.
+
+A purple heron in flight (South Africa).
+
+A purple finch (North America).
+
+The Lorius domicella, or purple-naped lory, from Indonesia.
+
+Certain grapes, eggplants, pansies and other fruits, vegetables and flowers may appear purple due to the presence of natural pigments called anthocyanins. These pigments are found in the leaves, roots, stems, vegetables, fruits and flowers of all plants. They aid photosynthesis by blocking harmful wavelengths of light that would damage the leaves. In flowers, the purple anthocyanins help attract insects who pollinate the flowers. Not all anthocyanins are purple; they vary in color from red to purple to blue, green, or yellow, depending upon the level of their pH.
+
+The purple colors of this cauliflower, grapes, fruits, vegetables and flowers comes from natural pigments called anthocyanins.
+
+Anthocyanins range in color from red to purple to green, blue and yellow, depending upon the level of their pH.
+
+Anthocyanins also account for the purple color in these copper beech trees, and in purple autumn leaves.
+
+Anthocyanins produce the purple color in blood oranges.
+
+A purple pansy.
+
+“Blue” hydrangea is often actually purple.
+
+An artichoke flower in blossom in Dalat, Vietnam
+
+Iris germanica flowers
+
+Syringa vulgaris, or lilac blossoms
+
+Medicago sativa, known as alfalfa in the U.S. and lucerne in the U.K.
+
+The Aster alpinus, or alpine aster, is native to the European mountains, including the Alps, while a subspecies is found in Canada and the United States.
+
+Lavender flowers.
+
+A purple rose.
+
+Wisteria is a pale purple color.
+
+salsify
+
+Purple Mountain near Killarney, Ireland.
+
+Purple Mountain in Yellowstone National Park.
+
+Purple Mountain, Nanjing.
+
+It has been observed that the greater the distance between a viewers eyes and mountains, the lighter and more blue or purple they will appear. This phenomenon, long recognized by Leonardo da Vinci and other painters, is called aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective. The more distant the mountains are, the less contrast the eye sees between the mountains and the sky.
+
+The bluish color is caused by an optical effect called Rayleigh scattering. The sunlit sky is blue because air scatters short-wavelength light more than longer wavelengths. Since blue light is at the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum, it is more strongly scattered in the atmosphere than long wavelength red light. The result is that the human eye perceives blue when looking toward parts of the sky other than the sun.[62]
+
+At sunrise and sunset, the light is passing through the atmosphere at a lower angle, and traveling a greater distance through a larger volume of air. Much of the green and blue is scattered away, and more red light comes to the eye, creating the colors of the sunrise and sunset and making the mountains look purple.
+
+A Crayola crayon called Purple Mountains' Majesty (or Purple Mountain Majesty) is named after this natural phenomenon. It was first formulated in 1993.
+
+The more distant mountains are, the lighter and more blue they are.  This is called atmospheric perspective or aerial perspective.
+
+Sunset at Auke Bay, Alaska. Thanks to Rayleigh scattering, the mountains appear purple.
+
+Julius Pollux, a Greek grammarian who lived in the second century AD, attributed the discovery of purple to the Phoenician god and guardian of the city of Tyre, Heracles.[63] According to his account, while walking along the shore with the nymph Tyrus, the god's dog bit into a murex shell, causing his mouth to turn purple. The nymph subsequently requested that Heracles create a garment for her of that same color, with Heracles obliging her demands giving birth to Tyrian purple.[63][41]
+
+In Europe, since the time that the Roman emperors wore a Tyrian purple (purpura) toga praetexta, purple has been the color most associated with power and royalty.[46] The British Royal Family and other European royalty still use it as a ceremonial color on special occasions.[64] In Japan, purple is associated with the emperor and Japanese aristocracy.[8]
+
+A purple postage stamp honored Queen Elizabeth II in 1958
+
+Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2010.
+
+In the West, purple or violet is the color most associated with piety and religious faith.[64] In AD 1464, shortly after the Muslim conquest of Constantinople, which terminated the supply of Tyrian purple to Roman Catholic Europe, Pope Paul II decreed that cardinals should henceforth wear scarlet instead of purple, the scarlet being dyed with expensive cochineal. Bishops were assigned the color amaranth, being a pale and pinkish purple made then from a less-expensive mixture of indigo and cochineal.
+
+In the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic liturgy, purple symbolizes penitence; Anglican and Catholic priests wear a purple stole when they hear confession and a purple stole and chasuble during Advent and Lent.  Since the Second Vatican Council of 1962–5, priests may wear purple vestments, but may still wear black ones, when officiating at funerals. The Roman Missal permits black, purple (violet), or white vestments for the funeral Mass. White is worn when a child dies before the age of reason. Students and faculty of theology also wear purple academic dress for graduations and other university ceremonies.
+
+Purple is also often worn by senior pastors of Protestant churches and bishops of the Anglican Communion.
+
+In the Roman Catholic Church, cardinals now wear scarlet and bishops wear amaranth.
+
+Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States
+
+The color purple is also associated with royalty in Christianity, being one of the three traditional offices of Jesus Christ, i. e. king, although such a symbolism was assumed from the earlier Roman association or at least also employed by the ancient Romans.
+
+In Europe and America, purple is the color most associated with vanity, extravagance, and individualism.  Among the seven major sins, it represents vanity.  It is a color which is used to attract attention.[65]
+
+Purple is the color most often associated with the artificial and the unconventional.  It is the major color that occurs the least frequently in nature, and was the first color to be synthesized.[66]
+
+Purple is the color most associated with ambiguity.  Like other colors made by combining two primary colors, it is seen as uncertain and equivocal.[67]
+
+In Britain, purple is sometimes associated with mourning.  In Victorian times,  close relatives wore black for the first year following a death ("deep mourning"), and then replaced it with purple or dark green trimmed with black.  This is rarely practised today.[68]
+
+Han purple and Han blue were synthetic colors made by artisans in China during the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) or even earlier.
+
+A Japanese woman in a kimono.
+
+Emperor Komyo of Japan. (1322–1380). Purple was the color of the aristocracy in Japan and China.
+
+The color purple plays a significant role in the traditions of engineering schools across Canada.[citation needed] Purple is also the color of the Engineering Corp in the British Military.
+
+Roses are red, violets are purple
+Sugar is sweet and so is maple surple
+
+Purple is sometimes associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. It is the symbolic color worn on Spirit Day, a commemoration that began in 2010 to show support for young people who are bullied because of their sexual orientation.[75][76] Purple is closely associated with bisexuality, largely in part to the bisexual pride flag which combines pink – representing homosexuality – and blue – representing heterosexuality – to create the bisexual purple. The purple hand is another symbol sometimes used by the LGBT community during parades and demonstrations.
+
+The British chocolate company Cadbury chose purple as it was Queen Victoria’s favourite color.[77] The company trademarked the color purple for chocolates with registrations in 1995[78] and 2004.[79] However, the validity of these trademarks is the matter of an ongoing legal dispute following objections by Nestlé.[80]
+
+Flag of Dominica, features a purple sisserou parrot.
+
+Flag of Nicaragua, although at this size the purple band of the rainbow is nearly indistinguishable.
+
+Flag of the second Spanish republic (1931–39), known in Spanish as la tricolor, still widely used by left-wing political organizations.

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+
+
+Oscar-Claude Monet (UK: /ˈmɒneɪ/, US: /moʊˈneɪ/,[1][2] French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter, a founder of French Impressionist painting and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air landscape painting.[3][4] The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.[5]
+
+Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons.[6] From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. He began painting the water lilies in 1899, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.
+
+Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.[7] He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptized in the local parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar.[7][8] (He signed his juvenilia "O. Monet".) Despite being baptized Catholic, Monet later became an atheist.[9][10]
+
+In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family's ship-chandling and grocery business,[11] but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer, and supported Monet's desire for a career in art.[12]
+
+On 1 April 1851, Monet entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. Locals knew him well for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy around 1856 he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting.[13] Both were influenced by Johan Barthold Jongkind.
+
+On 28 January 1857, his mother died. At the age of sixteen, he left school and went to live with his widowed, childless aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre.
+
+When Monet traveled to Paris to visit the Louvre, he witnessed painters copying from the old masters. Having brought his paints and other tools with him, he would instead go and sit by a window and paint what he saw.[14] Monet was in Paris for several years and met other young painters, including Édouard Manet and others who would become friends and fellow Impressionists.
+
+After drawing a low ballot number in March 1861, Monet was drafted into the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry (Chasseurs d'Afrique) in Algeria for a seven-year period of military service. His prosperous father could have purchased Monet's exemption from conscription but declined to do so when his son refused to give up painting. While in Algeria, Monet did only a few sketches of casbah scenes, a single landscape, and several portraits of officers, all of which have been lost. In a Le Temps interview of 1900 however he commented that the light and vivid colours of North Africa "contained the germ of my future researches".[15] After about a year of garrison duty in Algiers, Monet contracted typhoid fever and briefly went absent without leave. Following convalescence, Monet's aunt intervened to remove him from the army if he agreed to complete a course at an art school. It is possible that the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, whom Monet knew, may have prompted his aunt on this matter.
+
+Disillusioned with the traditional art taught at art schools, in 1862 Monet became a student of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches to art, painting the effects of light en plein air with broken colour and rapid brushstrokes, in what later came to be known as Impressionism.
+
+In January 1865 Monet was working on a version of Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, aiming to present it for hanging at the Salon, which had rejected Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe two years earlier.[17] Monet's painting was very large and could not be completed in time. (It was later cut up, with parts now in different galleries.) Monet submitted instead a painting of Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La femme à la robe verte), one of many works using his future wife, Camille Doncieux, as his model. Both this painting and a small landscape were hung.[17] The following year Monet used Camille for his model in Women in the Garden, and On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt in 1868. Camille became pregnant and gave birth to their first child, Jean, in 1867.[18] Monet and Camille married on 28 June 1870, just before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War,[19] and, after their excursion to London and Zaandam, they moved to Argenteuil, in December 1871. During this time Monet painted various works of modern life. He and Camille lived in poverty for most of this period. Following the successful exhibition of some maritime paintings, and the winning of a silver medal at Le Havre, Monet's paintings were seized by creditors, from whom they were bought back by a shipping merchant, Gaudibert, who was also a patron of Boudin.[17]
+
+From the late 1860s, Monet and other like-minded artists met with rejection from the conservative Académie des Beaux-Arts, which held its annual exhibition at the Salon de Paris. During the latter part of 1873, Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley organized the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs (Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers) to exhibit their artworks independently. At their first exhibition, held in April 1874, Monet exhibited the work that was to give the group its lasting name. He was inspired by the style and subject matter of previous modern painters Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet.[20]
+
+Impression, Sunrise was painted in 1872, depicting a Le Havre port landscape. From the painting's title the art critic Louis Leroy, in his review, "L'Exposition des Impressionnistes," which appeared in Le Charivari, coined the term "Impressionism".[21] It was intended as disparagement but the Impressionists appropriated the term for themselves.[22][23]
+
+After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870), Monet and his family took refuge in England in September 1870,[24] where he studied the works of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, both of whose landscapes would serve to inspire Monet's innovations in the study of colour. In the spring of 1871, Monet's works were refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition.[19]
+
+In May 1871, he left London to live in Zaandam, in the Netherlands,[19] where he made twenty-five paintings (and the police suspected him of revolutionary activities).[25] He also paid a first visit to nearby Amsterdam. In October or November 1871, he returned to France. From December 1871 to 1878 he lived at Argenteuil, a village on the right bank of the Seine river near Paris, and a popular Sunday-outing destination for Parisians, where he painted some of his best-known works. In 1873, Monet purchased a small boat equipped to be used as a floating studio.[26] From the boat studio Monet painted landscapes and also portraits of Édouard Manet and his wife; Manet in turn depicted Monet painting aboard the boat, accompanied by Camille, in 1874.[26] In 1874, he briefly returned to Holland.[27]
+
+The first Impressionist exhibition was held in 1874 at 35 boulevard des Capucines, Paris, from 15 April to 15 May. The primary purpose of the participants was not so much to promote a new style, but to free themselves from the constraints of the Salon de Paris. The exhibition, open to anyone prepared to pay 60 francs, gave artists the opportunity to show their work without the interference of a jury.[28][29][30]
+
+Renoir chaired the hanging committee and did most of the work himself, as others members failed to present themselves.[28][29]
+
+In addition to Impression: Sunrise (pictured above), Monet presented four oil paintings and seven pastels. Among the paintings he displayed was The Luncheon (1868), which features Camille Doncieux and Jean Monet, and which had been rejected by the Paris Salon of 1870.[31] Also in this exhibition was a painting titled Boulevard des Capucines, a painting of the boulevard done from the photographer Nadar's apartment at no. 35. Monet painted the subject twice, and it is uncertain which of the two pictures, that now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, or that in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, was the painting that appeared in the groundbreaking 1874 exhibition, though more recently the Moscow picture has been favoured.[32][33] Altogether, 165 works were exhibited in the exhibition, including 4 oils, 2 pastels and 3 watercolours by Morisot; 6 oils and 1 pastel by Renoir; 10 works by Degas; 5 by Pissarro; 3 by Cézanne; and 3 by Guillaumin. Several works were on loan, including Cézanne's Modern Olympia, Morisot's Hide and Seek (owned by Manet) and 2 landscapes by Sisley that had been purchased by Durand-Ruel.[28][29][30]
+
+The total attendance is estimated at 3500, and some works did sell, though some exhibitors had placed their prices too high. Pissarro was asking 1000 francs for The Orchard and Monet the same for Impression: Sunrise, neither of which sold. Renoir failed to obtain the 500 francs he was asking for La Loge, but later sold it for 450 francs to Père Martin, dealer and supporter of the group.[28][29][30]
+
+View at Rouelles, Le Havre 1858, Private collection; an early work showing the influence of Corot and Courbet
+
+Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur, 1865, Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena, CA; indicates the influence of Dutch maritime painting.[34]
+
+Women in the Garden, 1866–1867, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.[35]
+
+Woman in the Garden, 1867, Hermitage, St. Petersburg; a study in the effect of sunlight and shadow on colour
+
+Garden at Sainte-Adresse ("Jardin à Sainte-Adresse"), 1867, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[36]
+
+The Luncheon, 1868, Städel, which features Camille Doncieux and Jean Monet, was rejected by the Paris Salon of 1870 but included in the first Impressionists' exhibition in 1874.[37]
+
+La Grenouillére 1869, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; a small plein-air painting created with broad strokes of intense colour.[38]
+
+The Magpie, 1868–1869. Musée d'Orsay, Paris; one of Monet's early attempts at capturing the effect of snow on the landscape. See also Snow at Argenteuil.
+
+Le port de Trouville (Breakwater at Trouville, Low Tide), 1870, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.[39]
+
+La plage de Trouville, 1870, National Gallery, London. The left figure may be Camille, on the right possibly the wife of Eugène Boudin, whose beach scenes influenced Monet.[40]
+
+Houses on the Achterzaan, 1871, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
+
+Jean Monet on his hobby horse, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
+
+Springtime 1872, Walters Art Museum
+
+In 1876, Camille Monet became ill with tuberculosis. Their second son, Michel, was born on 17 March 1878. This second child weakened her already fading health. In the summer of that year, the family moved to the village of Vétheuil where they shared a house with the family of Ernest Hoschedé, a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts. In 1878, Camille Monet was diagnosed with uterine cancer.[41][42][43] She died on 5 September 1879 at the age of thirty-two.[44][45]
+
+Monet made a study in oils of his dead wife. Many years later, Monet confessed to his friend Georges Clemenceau that his need to analyse colours was both the joy and torment of his life. He explained,
+
+I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife's dead face and just systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex!
+
+John Berger describes the work as "a blizzard of white, grey, purplish paint ... a terrible blizzard of loss which will forever efface her features. In fact there can be very few death-bed paintings which have been so intensely felt or subjectively expressive."[46]
+
+After several difficult months following the death of Camille, Monet began to create some of his best paintings of the 19th century. During the early 1880s, Monet painted several groups of landscapes and seascapes in what he considered to be campaigns to document the French countryside. These began to evolve into series of pictures in which he documented the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons.
+
+Monet's friend Ernest Hoschedé became bankrupt, and left in 1878 for Belgium. After the death of Camille Monet in September 1879, and while Monet continued to live in the house in Vétheuil, Alice Hoschedé helped Monet to raise his two sons, Jean and Michel. She took them to Paris to live alongside her own six children,[47] Blanche (who married Jean Monet), Germaine, Suzanne, Marthe, Jean-Pierre, and Jacques. In the spring of 1880, Alice Hoschedé and all the children left Paris and rejoined Monet at Vétheuil.[48] In 1881, all of them moved to Poissy, which Monet hated. In April 1883, looking out the window of the little train between Vernon and Gasny, he discovered Giverny in Normandy.[47][49][50] Monet, Alice Hoschedé and the children moved to Vernon, then to the house in Giverny, where he planted a large garden and where he painted for much of the rest of his life. Following the death of her estranged husband, Monet married Alice Hoschedé in 1892.[13]
+
+Camille Monet on a Garden Bench, 1873, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
+
+The Artist's house at Argenteuil, 1873, The Art Institute of Chicago
+
+Coquelicots, La promenade (Poppies), 1873, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
+
+Argenteuil, 1874, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
+
+The Studio Boat, 1874, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands
+
+Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875
+
+Flowers on the riverbank at Argenteuil, 1877, Pola Museum of Art, Japan
+
+Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, The Art Institute of Chicago
+
+Vétheuil in the Fog, 1879, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
+
+Monet rented and eventually purchased a house and gardens in Giverny. At the beginning of May 1883, Monet and his large family rented the home and 8,000 square metres (2.0 acres) from a local landowner. The house was situated near the main road between the towns of Vernon and Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards and a small garden. The house was close enough to the local schools for the children to attend, and the surrounding landscape offered many suitable motifs for Monet's work.
+
+The family worked and built up the gardens, and Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, had increasing success in selling his paintings.[51] By November 1890, Monet was prosperous enough to buy the house, the surrounding buildings and the land for his gardens. During the 1890s, Monet built a greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious building well lit with skylights.
+
+Monet wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet's wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners.[52]
+
+Monet purchased additional land with a water meadow. In 1893 he began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. White water lilies local to France were planted along with imported cultivars from South America and Egypt, resulting in a range of colours including yellow, blue and white lilies that turned pink with age.[53] In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.[54] This scenery, with its alternating light and mirror-like reflections, became an integral part of his work. By the mid-1910s Monet had achieved:
+
+"a completely new, fluid, and somewhat audacious style of painting in which the water-lily pond became the point of departure for an almost abstract art".
+
+In the Garden, 1895, Collection E. G. Buehrle, Zürich
+
+Agapanthus, between 1914 and 1926, Museum of Modern Art, New York
+
+Flowering Arches, Giverny, 1913, Phoenix Art Museum
+
+Water Lilies and the Japanese bridge, 1897–1899, Princeton University Art Museum
+
+Water Lilies, 1906, Art Institute of Chicago
+
+Water Lilies, Musée Marmottan Monet
+
+Water Lilies, c. 1915, Neue Pinakothek, Munich
+
+Water Lilies, c. 1915, Musée Marmottan Monet
+
+Monet's second wife, Alice, died in 1911, and his oldest son Jean, who had married Alice's daughter Blanche, Monet's particular favourite, died in 1914.[13] After Alice died, Blanche looked after and cared for Monet. It was during this time that Monet began to develop the first signs of cataracts.[57]
+
+During World War I, in which his younger son Michel served and his friend and admirer Georges Clemenceau led the French nation, Monet painted a series of weeping willow trees as homage to the French fallen soldiers. In 1923, he underwent two operations to remove his cataracts. The paintings done while the cataracts affected his vision have a general reddish tone, which is characteristic of the vision of cataract victims. It may also be that after surgery he was able to see certain ultraviolet wavelengths of light that are normally excluded by the lens of the eye; this may have had an effect on the colours he perceived. After his operations he even repainted some of these paintings, with bluer water lilies than before.[58]
+
+Monet died of lung cancer on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery.[49] Monet had insisted that the occasion be simple; thus only about fifty people attended the ceremony.[59] At his funeral, his long-time friend Georges Clemenceau removed the black cloth draped over the coffin, stating, "No black for Monet!" and replaced it with a flower-patterned cloth.[60] Monet did not leave a will and so his son Michel inherited his entire estate.
+
+Monet's home, garden, and waterlily pond were bequeathed by Michel to the French Academy of Fine Arts (part of the Institut de France) in 1966. Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the house and gardens were opened for visits in 1980, following restoration.[61] In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The house and garden, along with the Museum of Impressionism, are major attractions in Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world.
+
+Water Lilies and Reflections of a Willow (1916–1919), Musée Marmottan Monet
+
+Water-Lily Pond and Weeping Willow, 1916–1919, Sale Christie's New York, 1998
+
+Weeping Willow, 1918–19, Columbus Museum of Art
+
+Weeping Willow, 1918–19, Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth, Monet's Weeping Willow paintings were an homage to the fallen French soldiers of World War I
+
+House Among the Roses, between 1917 and 1919, Albertina, Vienna
+
+The Rose Walk, Giverny, 1920–1922, Musée Marmottan Monet
+
+The Japanese Footbridge, 1920–1922, Museum of Modern Art
+
+The Garden at Giverny
+
+Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism".[62] Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other.[63] Monet's long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim.
+
+In 1856, his chance meeting with Eugene Boudin, a painter of small beach scenes, opened his eyes to the possibility of plein-air painting. From that time, with a short interruption for military service, he dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Paris Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists.[62] The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings."[64]
+
+In 1877 a series of paintings at St-Lazare Station had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape.[65] The study of the effects of atmosphere was to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject (such as his water lilies series)[66] in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926.
+
+His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced what is probably his best-known series, twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral.[63] In these paintings Monet broke with painterly traditions by cropping the subject so that only a portion of the façade is seen on the canvas. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry.[67]
+
+Other series include Poplars, Mornings on the Seine, and the Water Lilies that were painted on his property at Giverny. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London, Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes:
+
+Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms.[68]
+
+La Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, Musée d'Orsay
+
+Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, The Art Institute of Chicago[69]
+
+The Cliffs at Etretat, 1885, Clark Institute, Williamstown
+
+Sailboats behind the needle at Etretat, 1885
+
+Two paintings from a series of grainstacks, 1890–91: Grainstacks in the Sunlight, Morning Effect,
+
+Grainstacks, end of day, Autumn, 1890–1891, Art Institute of Chicago
+
+Poplars (Autumn), 1891, Philadelphia Museum of Art
+
+Poplars at the River Epte, 1891 Tate
+
+The Seine Near Giverny, 1897, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
+
+Morning on the Seine, 1898, National Museum of Western Art
+
+Charing Cross Bridge, 1899, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Madrid
+
+Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1899–1901, Saint Louis Art Museum
+
+Two paintings from a series of The Houses of Parliament, London, 1900–01, Art Institute of Chicago
+
+London, Houses of Parliament. The Sun Shining through the Fog, 1904, Musée d'Orsay
+
+Grand Canal, Venice, 1908, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
+
+Grand Canal, Venice, 1908, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
+
+In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, le Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard; 1904), sold for US$20.1 million.[70] In 2006, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society published a paper providing evidence that these were painted in situ at St Thomas' Hospital over the river Thames.[71]
+
+Falaises près de Dieppe (Cliffs Near Dieppe) has been stolen on two separate occasions: once in 1998 (in which the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed for five years and two months along with two accomplices) and most recently in August 2007.[72] It was recovered in June 2008.[73]
+
+Monet's Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for a record $41.4 million at Christie's auction in New York on 6 May 2008. The previous record for his painting stood at $36.5 million.[74] A few weeks later, Le bassin aux nymphéas (from the water lilies series) sold at Christie's 24 June 2008 auction in London[75] for £40,921,250 ($80,451,178), nearly doubling the record for the artist.[76]
+
+This purchase represented one of the top 20 highest prices paid for a painting at the time.
+
+In October 2013, Monet's paintings, L'Eglise de Vetheuil and Le Bassin aux Nympheas, became subjects of a legal case in New York against NY-based Vilma Bautista, one-time aide to Imelda Marcos, wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos,[77] after she sold Le Bassin aux Nympheas for $32 million to a Swiss buyer. The said Monet paintings, along with two others, were acquired by Imelda during her husband's presidency and allegedly bought using the nation's funds. Bautista's lawyer claimed that the aide sold the painting for Imelda but did not have a chance to give her the money. The Philippine government seeks the return of the painting.[77] Le Bassin aux Nympheas, also known as Japanese Footbridge over the Water-Lily Pond at Giverny, is part of Monet's famed Water Lilies series.
+
+Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas, 1919. Monet's late series of Waterlily paintings are among his best-known works.
+
+Water Lilies, 1919, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
+
+Water Lilies, 1917–1919, Honolulu Museum of Art
+
+Water lilies (Yellow Nirwana), 1920, The National Gallery, London, London
+
+Water Lilies, c. 1915–1926, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
+
+The Water Lily Pond, c. 1917–1919, Albertina, Vienna

en/4773.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+
+
+Buoyancy (/ˈbɔɪənsi, ˈbuːjənsi/)[1][2] or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the pressure at the bottom of a column of fluid is greater than at the top of the column. Similarly, the pressure at the bottom of an object submerged in a fluid is greater than at the top of the object. The pressure difference results in a net upward force on the object. The magnitude of the force is proportional to the pressure difference, and (as explained by Archimedes' principle) is equivalent to the weight of the fluid that would otherwise occupy the submerged volume of the object, i.e. the displaced fluid.
+
+For this reason, an object whose average density is greater than that of the fluid in which it is submerged tends to sink. If the object is less dense than the liquid, the force can keep the object afloat. This can occur only in a non-inertial reference frame, which either has a gravitational field or is accelerating due to a force other than gravity defining a "downward" direction.[3]
+
+The center of buoyancy of an object is the centroid of the displaced volume of fluid.
+
+Archimedes' principle is named after Archimedes of Syracuse, who first discovered this law in 212 BC.[4] For objects, floating and sunken, and in gases as well as liquids (i.e. a fluid), Archimedes' principle may be stated thus in terms of forces:
+
+Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object
+
+—with the clarifications that for a sunken object the volume of displaced fluid is the volume of the object, and for a floating object on a liquid, the weight of the displaced liquid is the weight of the object.[5]
+
+More tersely: buoyant force = weight of displaced fluid.
+
+Archimedes' principle does not consider the surface tension (capillarity) acting on the body,[6] but this additional force modifies only the amount of fluid displaced and the spatial distribution of the displacement, so the principle that buoyancy = weight of displaced fluid remains valid.
+
+The weight of the displaced fluid is directly proportional to the volume of the displaced fluid (if the surrounding fluid is of uniform density). In simple terms, the principle states that the buoyancy force on an object is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object, or the density of the fluid multiplied by the submerged volume times the gravitational acceleration, g. Thus, among completely submerged objects with equal masses, objects with greater volume have greater buoyancy. This is also known as upthrust.
+
+Suppose a rock's weight is measured as 10 newtons when suspended by a string in a vacuum with gravity acting upon it. Suppose that when the rock is lowered into water, it displaces water of weight 3 newtons. The force it then exerts on the string from which it hangs would be 10 newtons minus the 3 newtons of buoyancy force: 10 − 3 = 7 newtons. Buoyancy reduces the apparent weight of objects that have sunk completely to the sea floor. It is generally easier to lift an object up through the water than it is to pull it out of the water.
+
+Assuming Archimedes' principle to be reformulated as follows,
+
+then inserted into the quotient of weights, which has been expanded by the mutual volume
+
+yields the formula below. The density of the immersed object relative to the density of the fluid can easily be calculated without measuring any volumes.:
+
+(This formula is used for example in describing the measuring principle of a dasymeter and of hydrostatic weighing.)
+
+Example: If you drop wood into water, buoyancy will keep it afloat.
+
+Example: A helium balloon in a moving car. During a period of increasing speed, the air mass inside the car moves in the direction opposite to the car's acceleration (i.e., towards the rear). The balloon is also pulled this way.  However, because the balloon is buoyant relative to the air, it ends up being pushed "out of the way", and will actually drift in the same direction as the car's acceleration (i.e., forward).  If the car slows down, the same balloon will begin to drift backward.  For the same reason, as the car goes round a curve, the balloon will drift towards the inside of the curve.
+
+The equation to calculate the pressure inside a fluid in equilibrium is:
+
+where f is the force density exerted by some outer field on the fluid, and σ is the Cauchy stress tensor. In this case the stress tensor is proportional to the identity tensor:
+
+Here δij is the Kronecker delta. Using this the above equation becomes:
+
+Assuming the outer force field is conservative, that is it can be written as the negative gradient of some scalar valued function:
+
+Then:
+
+Therefore, the shape of the open surface of a fluid equals the equipotential plane of the applied outer conservative force field. Let the z-axis point downward. In this case the field is gravity, so Φ = −ρfgz where g is the gravitational acceleration, ρf is the mass density of the fluid. Taking the pressure as zero at the surface, where z is zero, the constant will be zero, so the pressure inside the fluid, when it is subject to gravity, is
+
+So pressure increases with depth below the surface of a liquid, as z denotes the distance from the surface of the liquid into it. Any object with a non-zero vertical depth will have different pressures on its top and bottom, with the pressure on the bottom being greater. This difference in pressure causes the upward buoyancy force.
+
+The buoyancy force exerted on a body can now be calculated easily, since the internal pressure of the fluid is known. The force exerted on the body can be calculated by integrating the stress tensor over the surface of the body which is in contact with the fluid:
+
+The surface integral can be transformed into a volume integral with the help of the Gauss theorem:
+
+where V is the measure of the volume in contact with the fluid, that is the volume of the submerged part of the body, since the fluid doesn't exert force on the part of the body which is outside of it.
+
+The magnitude of buoyancy force may be appreciated a bit more from the following argument. Consider any object of arbitrary shape and volume V surrounded by a liquid. The force the liquid exerts on an object within the liquid is equal to the weight of the liquid with a volume equal to that of the object. This force is applied in a direction opposite to gravitational force, that is of magnitude:
+
+where ρf is the density of the fluid, Vdisp is the volume of the displaced body of liquid, and g is the gravitational acceleration at the location in question.
+
+If this volume of liquid is replaced by a solid body of exactly the same shape, the force the liquid exerts on it must be exactly the same as above. In other words, the "buoyancy force" on a submerged body is directed in the opposite direction to gravity and is equal in magnitude to
+
+The net force on the object must be zero if it is to be a situation of fluid statics such that Archimedes principle is applicable, and is thus the sum of the buoyancy force and the object's weight
+
+If the buoyancy of an (unrestrained and unpowered) object exceeds its weight, it tends to rise. An object whose weight exceeds its buoyancy tends to sink. Calculation of the upwards force on a submerged object during its accelerating period cannot be done by the Archimedes principle alone; it is necessary to consider dynamics of an object involving buoyancy. Once it fully sinks to the floor of the fluid or rises to the surface and settles, Archimedes principle can be applied alone. For a floating object, only the submerged volume displaces water. For a sunken object, the entire volume displaces water, and there will be an additional force of reaction from the solid floor.
+
+In order for Archimedes' principle to be used alone, the object in question must be in equilibrium (the sum of the forces on the object must be zero), therefore;
+
+and therefore
+
+showing that the depth to which a floating object will sink, and the volume of fluid it will displace, is independent of the gravitational field regardless of geographic location.
+
+It can be the case that forces other than just buoyancy and gravity come into play. This is the case if the object is restrained or if the object sinks to the solid floor. An object which tends to float requires a tension restraint force T in order to remain fully submerged. An object which tends to sink will eventually have a normal force of constraint N exerted upon it by the solid floor. The constraint force can be tension in a spring scale measuring its weight in the fluid, and is how apparent weight is defined.
+
+If the object would otherwise float, the tension to restrain it fully submerged is:
+
+When a sinking object settles on the solid floor, it experiences a normal force of:
+
+Another possible formula for calculating buoyancy of an object is by finding the apparent weight of that particular object in the air (calculated in Newtons), and apparent weight of that object in the water (in Newtons). To find the force of buoyancy acting on the object when in air, using this particular information, this formula applies:
+
+The final result would be measured in Newtons.
+
+Air's density is very small compared to most solids and liquids. For this reason, the weight of an object in air is approximately the same as its true weight in a vacuum. The buoyancy of air is neglected for most objects during a measurement in air because the error is usually insignificant (typically less than 0.1% except for objects of very low average density such as a balloon or light foam).
+
+A simplified explanation for the integration of the pressure over the contact area may be stated as follows:
+
+Consider a cube immersed in a fluid with the upper surface horizontal.
+
+The sides are identical in area, and have the same depth distribution, therefore they also have the same pressure distribution, and consequently the same total force resulting from hydrostatic pressure, exerted perpendicular to the plane of the surface of each side.
+
+There are two pairs of opposing sides, therefore the resultant horizontal forces balance in both orthogonal directions, and the resultant force is zero.
+
+The upward force on the cube is the pressure on the bottom surface integrated over its area. The surface is at constant depth, so the pressure is constant. Therefore, the integral of the pressure over the area of the horizontal bottom surface of the cube is the hydrostatic pressure at that depth multiplied by the area of the bottom surface.
+
+Similarly, the downward force on the cube is the pressure on the top surface integrated over its area. The surface is at constant depth, so the pressure is constant. Therefore, the integral of the pressure over the area of the horizontal top surface of the cube is the hydrostatic pressure at that depth multiplied by the area of the top surface.
+
+As this is a cube, the top and bottom surfaces are identical in shape and area, and the pressure difference between the top and bottom of the cube is directly proportional to the depth difference, and the resultant force difference is exactly equal to the weight of the fluid that would occupy the volume of the cube in its absence.
+
+This means that the resultant upward force on the cube is equal to the weight of the fluid that would fit into the volume of the cube, and the downward force on the cube is its weight, in the absence of external forces.
+
+This analogy is valid for variations in the size of the cube.
+
+If two cubes are placed alongside each other with a face of each in contact, the pressures and resultant forces on the sides or parts thereof in contact are balanced and may be disregarded, as the contact surfaces are equal in shape, size and pressure distribution, therefore the buoyancy of two cubes in contact is the sum of the buoyancies of each cube. This analogy can be extended to an arbitrary number of cubes.
+
+An object of any shape can be approximated as a group of cubes in contact with each other, and as the size of the cube is decreased, the precision of the approximation increases. The limiting case for infinitely small cubes is the exact equivalence.
+
+Angled surfaces do not nullify the analogy as the resultant force can be split into orthogonal components and each dealt with in the same way.
+
+A floating object is stable if it tends to restore itself to an equilibrium position after a small displacement. For example, floating objects will generally have vertical stability, as if the object is pushed down slightly, this will create a greater buoyancy force, which, unbalanced by the weight force, will push the object back up.
+
+Rotational stability is of great importance to floating vessels. Given a small angular displacement, the vessel may return to its original position (stable), move away from its original position (unstable), or remain where it is (neutral).
+
+Rotational stability depends on the relative lines of action of forces on an object. The upward buoyancy force on an object acts through the center of buoyancy, being the centroid of the displaced volume of fluid. The weight force on the object acts through its center of gravity. A buoyant object will be stable if the center of gravity is beneath the center of buoyancy because any angular displacement will then produce a 'righting moment'.
+
+The stability of a buoyant object at the surface is more complex, and it may remain stable even if the centre of gravity is above the centre of buoyancy, provided that when disturbed from the equilibrium position, the centre of buoyancy moves further to the same side that the centre of gravity moves, thus providing a positive righting moment. If this occurs, the floating object is said to have a positive metacentric height. This situation is typically valid for a range of heel angles, beyond which the centre of buoyancy does not move enough to provide a positive righting moment, and the object becomes unstable. It is possible to shift from positive to negative or vice versa more than once during a heeling disturbance, and many shapes are stable in more than one position.
+
+The atmosphere's density depends upon altitude. As an airship rises in the atmosphere, its buoyancy decreases as the density of the surrounding air decreases. In contrast, as a submarine expels water from its buoyancy tanks, it rises because its volume is constant (the volume of water it displaces if it is fully submerged) while its mass is decreased.
+
+As a floating object rises or falls, the forces external to it change and, as all objects are compressible to some extent or another, so does the object's volume. Buoyancy depends on volume and so an object's buoyancy reduces if it is compressed and increases if it expands.
+
+If an object at equilibrium has a compressibility less than that of the surrounding fluid, the object's equilibrium is stable and it remains at rest. If, however, its compressibility is greater, its equilibrium is then unstable, and it rises and expands on the slightest upward perturbation, or falls and compresses on the slightest downward perturbation.
+
+Submarines rise and dive by filling large ballast tanks with seawater. To dive, the tanks are opened to allow air to exhaust out the top of the tanks, while the water flows in from the bottom. Once the weight has been balanced so the overall density of the submarine is equal to the water around it, it has neutral buoyancy and will remain at that depth. Most military submarines operate with a slightly negative buoyancy and maintain depth by using the "lift" of the stabilizers with forward motion.[citation needed]
+
+The height to which a balloon rises tends to be stable. As a balloon rises it tends to increase in volume with reducing atmospheric pressure, but the balloon itself does not expand as much as the air on which it rides. The average density of the balloon decreases less than that of the surrounding air. The weight of the displaced air is reduced. A rising balloon stops rising when it and the displaced air are equal in weight. Similarly, a sinking balloon tends to stop sinking.
+
+Underwater divers are a common example of the problem of unstable buoyancy due to compressibility. The diver typically wears an exposure suit which relies on gas-filled spaces for insulation, and may also wear a buoyancy compensator, which is a variable volume buoyancy bag which is inflated to increase buoyancy and deflated to decrease buoyancy. The desired condition is usually neutral buoyancy when the diver is swimming in mid-water, and this condition is unstable, so the diver is constantly making fine adjustments by control of lung volume, and has to adjust the contents of the buoyancy compensator if the depth varies.
+
+If the weight of an object is less than the weight of the displaced fluid when fully submerged, then the object has an average density that is less than the fluid and when fully submerged will experience a buoyancy force greater than its own weight.[7] If the fluid has a surface, such as water in a lake or the sea, the object will float and settle at a level where it displaces the same weight of fluid as the weight of the object. If the object is immersed in the fluid, such as a submerged submarine or air in a balloon, it will tend to rise.
+If the object has exactly the same density as the fluid, then its buoyancy equals its weight. It will remain submerged in the fluid, but it will neither sink nor float, although a disturbance in either direction will cause it to drift away from its position.
+An object with a higher average density than the fluid will never experience more buoyancy than weight and it will sink.
+A ship will float even though it may be made of steel (which is much denser than water), because it encloses a volume of air (which is much less dense than water), and the resulting shape has an average density less than that of the water.

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+
+
+The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that interprets and applies law in legal cases.
+
+The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary can also be thought of as the mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary generally does not make statutory law (which is the responsibility of the legislature) or enforce law (which is the responsibility of the executive), but rather interprets law and applies it to the facts of each case. However, in some countries the judiciary does make common law.
+
+In many jurisdictions the judicial branch has the power to change laws through the process of judicial review. Courts with judicial review power may annul the laws and rules of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher norm, such as primary legislation, the provisions of the constitution, treaties or international law. Judges constitute a critical force for interpretation and implementation of a constitution, thus in common law countries creating the body of constitutional law.
+
+This is a more general overview of the development of the judiciary and judicial systems over the course of history.
+
+The most important part was Ius Civile (Latin for "civil law"). This consisted of Mos Maiorum (Latin for "way of the ancestors") and Leges (Latin for "laws"). Mos Maiorum was the rules of conduct based on social norms created over the years by predecessors. In 451–449 BC, the Mos Maiorum was written down in the Twelve Tables.[1][2][3] Leges were rules set by the leaders, first the kings, later the popular assembly during the Republic. In these early years, the legal process consisted of two phases. The first phase, In Iure, was the judicial process. One would go to the head of the judicial system (at first the priests as law was part of religion) who would look at the applicable rules to the case. Parties in the case could be assisted by jurists.[4] Then the second phase would start, the Apud Iudicem. The case would be put before the judges, which were normal Roman citizens in an uneven number. No experience was required as the applicable rules were already selected. They would merely have to judge the case.[5]
+
+The most important change in this period was the shift from priest to praetor as the head of the judicial system. The praetor would also make an edict in which he would declare new laws or principles for the year he was elected. This edict is also known as praetorian law.[6][7]
+
+The Principate is the first part of the Roman Empire, which started with the reign of Augustus. This time period is also known as the "classical era of Roman Law" In this era, the praetor's edict was now known as edictum perpetuum, which were all the edicts collected in one edict by Hadrian. Also, a new judicial process came up: cognitio extraordinaria (Latin for "extraordinary process").[8][9] This came into being due to the largess of the empire. This process only had one phase, where the case was presented to a professional judge who was a representative of the emperor. Appeal was possible to the immediate superior.
+
+During this time period, legal experts started to come up. They studied the law and were advisors to the emperor. They also were allowed to give legal advise on behalf of the emperor.[10]
+
+This era is also known as the "post-classical era of roman law". The most important legal event during this era was the Codification by Justinianus: the Corpus Iuris Civilus.[11] This contained all Roman Law. It was both a collection of the work of the legal experts and commentary on it, and a collection of new laws. The Corpus Iuris Civilus consisted of four parts:
+
+During the late Middle Ages, education started to grow. First education was limited to the monasteries and abbies, but expanded to cathedrals and schools in the city in the 11th century, eventually creating universities.[12] The universities had five faculties: arts, medicine, theology, canon law and Ius Civile, or civil law. Canon law, or ecclesiastical law are laws created by the Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church.  The last form was also called secular law, or Roman law. It was mainly based on the Corpus Iuris Civilis, which had been rediscovered in 1070. Roman law was mainly used for "worldly" affairs, while canon law was used for questions related to the church.[13]
+
+The period starting in the 11th century with the discovery of the Corpus Iuris Civilis is also called the Scholastics, which can be divided in the early and late scholastics. It is characterised with the renewed interest in the old texts.
+
+The rediscovery of the Digesta from the Corpus Iuris Civilis led the university of Bologna to start teaching Roman law.[14] Professors at the university were asked to research the Roman laws and advise the Emperor and the Pope with regards to the old laws. This led to the Glossators to start translating and recreating the Corpus Iuris Civilis and create literature around it:
+
+Accursius wrote the Glossa Ordinaria in 1263, ending the early scholastics.[16]
+
+The successors of the Glossators were the Post-Glossators or Commentators. They looked at a subject in a logical and systematic way by writing comments with the texts, treatises and consilia, which are advises given according to the old Roman law.[17][18]
+
+Canon law knows a few forms of laws: the canones, decisions made by Councils, and the decreta, decisions made by the Popes. The monk Gratian, one of the well-known decretists, started to organise all of the church law, which is now known as the Decretum Gratiani, or simply as Decretum. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. It was used by canonists of the Roman Catholic Church until Pentecost (19 May) 1918, when a revised Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) promulgated by Pope Benedict XV on 27 May 1917 obtained legal force.[19][20][21]
+
+The Decretalists, like the post-glossators for Ius Civile, started to write treatises, comments and advises with the texts.[22][23]
+
+Around the 15th century a process of reception and acculturation started with both laws. The final product was known as Ius Commune. It was a combination of canon law, which represented the common norms and principles, and Roman law, which were the actual rules and terms. It meant the creation of more legal texts and books and a more systematic way of going through the legal process.[24] In the new legal process, appeal was possible. The process would be partially inquisitorial, where the judge would actively investigate all the evidence before him, but also partially adversarial, where both parties are responsible for finding the evidence to convince the judge.[25]
+
+After the French Revolution, lawmakers stopped interpretation of law by judges, and the legislature was the only body permitted to interpret the law; this prohibition was later overturned by the Napoleonic Code.[28]
+
+In common law jurisdictions, courts interpret law; this includes constitutions, statutes, and regulations. They also make law (but in a limited sense, limited to the facts of particular cases) based upon prior case law in areas where the legislature has not made law. For instance, the tort of negligence is not derived from statute law in most common law jurisdictions. The term common law refers to this kind of law. Common law decisions set precedent for all courts to follow. This is sometimes called stare decisis.
+
+In civil law jurisdictions, courts interpret the law, but are prohibited from creating law, and thus do not issue rulings more general than the actual case to be judged. In other words, they do not set precedent. Jurisprudence does not necessarily play a similar role to case law. Courts can decide if they follow jurisprudence in a given case or not.
+
+Country-specific functions
+In the United States court system, the Supreme Court is the final authority on the interpretation of the federal Constitution and all statutes and regulations created pursuant to it, as well as the constitutionality of the various state laws; in the US federal court system, federal cases are tried in trial courts, known as the US district courts, followed by appellate courts and then the Supreme Court. State courts, which try 98% of litigation,[29] may have different names and organization; trial courts may be called "courts of common plea", appellate courts "superior courts" or "commonwealth courts".[30] The judicial system, whether state or federal, begins with a court of first instance, is appealed to an appellate court, and then ends at the court of last resort.[31]
+
+In France, the final authority on the interpretation of the law is the Council of State for administrative cases, and the Court of Cassation for civil and criminal cases.
+
+In the People's Republic of China, the final authority on the interpretation of the law is the National People's Congress.
+
+Other countries such as Argentina have mixed systems that include lower courts, appeals courts, a cassation court (for criminal law) and a Supreme Court. In this system the Supreme Court is always the final authority, but criminal cases have four stages, one more than civil law does. On the court sits a total of nine justices. This number has been changed several times.
+
+Japan's process for selecting judges is longer and more stringent than in various countries, like the United States and in Mexico.[32] Assistant judges are appointed from those who have completed their training at the Legal Training and Research Institute located in Wako. Once appointed, assistant judges still may not qualify to sit alone until they have served for five years, and have been appointed by the Supreme Court of Japan. Judges require ten years of experience in practical affairs, as a public prosecutor or practicing attorney. In the Japanese judicial branch there is the Supreme Court, eight high courts, fifty district courts, fifty family courts, and 438 summary courts.[33][34]
+
+Justices of the Mexican Supreme Court are appointed by the President of Mexico, and then are approved by the Mexican Senate to serve for a life term. Other justices are appointed by the Supreme Court and serve for six years. Federal courts consist of the 21 magistrates of the Supreme Court, 32 circuit tribunals and 98 district courts. The Supreme Court of Mexico is located in Mexico City. Supreme Court Judges must be of ages 35 to 65 and hold a law degree during the five years preceding their nomination.[35]
+
+United States Supreme Court justices are appointed by the President of the United States and approved by the United States Senate. The Supreme Court justices serve for a life term or until retirement. The Supreme Court is located in Washington, D.C. The United States federal court system consists of 94 federal judicial districts. The 94 districts are then divided up into twelve regional circuits. The United States has five different types of courts that are considered subordinate to the Supreme Court: United States bankruptcy courts, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, United States Court of International Trade, United States courts of appeals, and United States district courts.[36][37]
+
+Immigration courts are not part of the judicial branch; immigration judges are employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, part of the United States Department of Justice in the executive branch.

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+
+
+Prague (/prɑːɡ/; Czech: Praha [ˈpraɦa] (listen), German: Prag, Latin: Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, the 13th largest city in the European Union[9] and the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated on the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 2.7 million.[4] The city has a temperate oceanic climate, with relatively warm summers and chilly winters.
+
+Prague is a political, cultural and economic centre of central Europe complete with a rich history. Founded during the Romanesque and flourishing by the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque eras, Prague was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the main residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably of Charles IV (r. 1346–1378).[10]
+It was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city played major roles in the Bohemian and Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history as the capital of Czechoslovakia between the World Wars and the post-war Communist era.[11]
+
+Prague is home to a number of well-known cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence and destruction of 20th-century Europe. Main attractions include Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, the Jewish Quarter, Petřín hill and Vyšehrad. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
+
+The city has more than ten major museums, along with numerous theatres, galleries, cinemas and other historical exhibits. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city. It is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe.[12]
+
+Prague is classified as an "Alpha-" global city according to GaWC studies[13] and ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016.[14] In 2019, the city was ranked as 69th most liveable city in the world by Mercer.[15] In the same year, the PISCA Index ranked the city as 13th most liveable city in the world.[16] Its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination and as of 2017, the city receives more than 8.5 million international visitors annually. In 2017 Prague was listed as the fifth most visited European city after London, Paris, Rome and Istanbul.[17]
+
+During the thousand years of its existence, Prague grew from a settlement stretching from Prague Castle in the north to the fort of Vyšehrad in the south, to become the capital of a modern European country.
+
+The region was settled as early as the Paleolithic age.[18] Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the city was founded as Boihaem in c. 1306 BC by an ancient king, Boyya.[19]
+
+Around the fifth and fourth century BC, a Celtic tribe appeared in the area, later establishing settlements including an oppidum in Závist, a present-day suburb of Prague, and naming the region of Bohemia, which means "home of the Boii people".[18][20] In the last century BC, the Celts were slowly driven away by Germanic tribes (Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards and possibly the Suebi), leading some to place the seat of the Marcomanni king, Maroboduus, in southern Prague in the suburb now called Závist.[21][19] Around the area where present-day Prague stands, the 2nd century map drawn by Ptolemaios mentioned a Germanic city called Casurgis.[22]
+
+In the late 5th century AD, during the great Migration Period following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes living in Bohemia moved westwards and, probably in the 6th century, the Slavic tribes (Venedi) settled the Central Bohemian Region. In the following three centuries, the Czech tribes built several fortified settlements in the area, most notably in the Šárka valley, Butovice and Levý Hradec.[18]
+
+The construction of what came to be known as Prague Castle began near the end of the 9th century, expanding a fortified settlement that had existed on the site since the year 800.[23] The first masonry under Prague Castle dates from the year 885 at the latest.[24] The other prominent Prague fort, the Přemyslid fort Vyšehrad, was founded in the 10th century, some 70 years later than Prague Castle.[25] Prague Castle is dominated by the cathedral, which began construction in 1344, but wasn't completed until the 20th century.[26]
+
+The legendary origins of Prague attribute its foundation to the 8th-century Czech duchess and prophetess Libuše and her husband, Přemysl, founder of the Přemyslid dynasty. Legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied: "I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars." She ordered a castle and a town called Praha to be built on the site.[18]
+
+The region became the seat of the dukes, and later kings of Bohemia. Under Holy Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973.[27] Until Prague was elevated to archbishopric in 1344, it was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Mainz.[28]
+
+Prague was an important seat for trading where merchants from across Europe settled, including many Jews, as recalled in 965 by the Hispano-Jewish merchant and traveller Abraham ben Jacob.[29] The Old New Synagogue of 1270 still stands in the city. Prague was also once home to an important slave market.[30]
+
+At the site of the ford in the Vltava river, King Vladislaus I had the first bridge built in 1170, the Judith Bridge (Juditin most), named in honour of his wife Judith of Thuringia.[31] This bridge was destroyed by a flood in 1342, but some of the original foundation stones of that bridge remain in the river. It was rebuilt and named the Charles Bridge.[31]
+
+In 1257, under King Ottokar II, Malá Strana ("Lesser Quarter") was founded in Prague on the site of an older village in what would become the Hradčany (Prague Castle) area.[32] This was the district of the German people, who had the right to administer the law autonomously, pursuant to Magdeburg rights.[33] The new district was on the bank opposite of the Staré Město ("Old Town"), which had borough status and was bordered by a line of walls and fortifications.
+
+Prague flourished during the 14th-century reign (1346–1378) of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and the king of Bohemia of the new Luxembourg dynasty. As King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, he transformed Prague into an imperial capital and it was at that time by the area the third-largest city in Europe (after Rome and Constantinople).
+
+Charles IV ordered the building of the New Town (Nové Město) adjacent to the Old Town and laid out the design himself. The Charles Bridge, replacing the Judith Bridge destroyed in the flood just prior to his reign, was erected to connect the east bank districts to the Malá Strana and castle area. On 9 July 1357 at 5:31 am, Charles IV personally laid the first foundation stone for the Charles Bridge. The exact time of laying the first foundation stone is known because the palindromic number 135797531 was carved into the Old Town bridge tower having been chosen by the royal astrologists and numerologists as the best time for starting the bridge construction.[34] In 1347, he founded Charles University, which remains the oldest university in Central Europe.
+
+He began construction of the Gothic Saint Vitus Cathedral, within the largest of the Prague Castle courtyards, on the site of the Romanesque rotunda there. Prague was elevated to an archbishopric in 1344,[35] the year the cathedral was begun.
+
+The city had a mint and was a centre of trade for German and Italian bankers and merchants. The social order, however, became more turbulent due to the rising power of the craftsmen's guilds (themselves often torn by internal fights), and the increasing number of poor.
+
+The Hunger Wall, a substantial fortification wall south of Malá Strana and the Castle area, was built during a famine in the 1360s. The work is reputed to have been ordered by Charles IV as a means of providing employment and food to the workers and their families.
+
+Charles IV died in 1378. During the reign of his son, King Wenceslaus IV (1378–1419), a period of intense turmoil ensued. During Easter 1389, members of the Prague clergy announced that Jews had desecrated the host (Eucharistic wafer) and the clergy encouraged mobs to pillage, ransack and burn the Jewish quarter. Nearly the entire Jewish population of Prague (3,000 people) was murdered.[36][37]
+
+Jan Hus, a theologian and rector at the Charles University, preached in Prague. In 1402, he began giving sermons in the Bethlehem Chapel. Inspired by John Wycliffe, these sermons focused on what were seen as radical reforms of a corrupt Church. Having become too dangerous for the political and religious establishment, Hus was summoned to the Council of Constance, put on trial for heresy, and burned at the stake in Constanz in 1415.
+
+Four years later Prague experienced its first defenestration, when the people rebelled under the command of the Prague priest Jan Želivský. Hus' death, coupled with Czech proto-nationalism and proto-Protestantism, had spurred the Hussite Wars. Peasant rebels, led by the general Jan Žižka, along with Hussite troops from Prague, defeated Emperor Sigismund, in the Battle of Vítkov Hill in 1420.
+
+During the Hussite Wars when the City of Prague was attacked by "Crusader" and mercenary forces, the city militia fought bravely under the Prague Banner. This swallow-tailed banner is approximately 4 by 6 feet (1.2 by 1.8 metres), with a red field sprinkled with small white fleurs-de-lis, and a silver old Town Coat-of-Arms in the centre. The words "PÁN BŮH POMOC NAŠE" (The Lord is our Relief) appeared above the coat-of-arms, with a Hussite chalice centred on the top. Near the swallow-tails is a crescent-shaped golden sun with rays protruding.
+
+One of these banners was captured by Swedish troops in Battle of Prague (1648), when they captured the western bank of the Vltava river and were repulsed from the eastern bank, they placed it in the Royal Military Museum in Stockholm; although this flag still exists, it is in very poor condition. They also took the Codex Gigas and the Codex Argenteus. The earliest evidence indicates that a gonfalon with a municipal charge painted on it was used for Old Town as early as 1419. Since this city militia flag was in use before 1477 and during the Hussite Wars, it is the oldest still preserved municipal flag of Bohemia.
+
+In the following two centuries, Prague strengthened its role as a merchant city. Many noteworthy Gothic buildings[39][40] were erected and Vladislav Hall of the Prague Castle was added.
+
+In 1526, the Bohemian estates elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg. The fervent Catholicism of its members brought them into conflict in Bohemia, and then in Prague, where Protestant ideas were gaining popularity.[41] These problems were not pre-eminent under Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, elected King of Bohemia in 1576, who chose Prague as his home. He lived in the Prague Castle, where his court welcomed not only astrologers and magicians but also scientists, musicians, and artists. Rudolf was an art lover too, and Prague became the capital of European culture. This was a prosperous period for the city: famous people living there in that age include the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, the painter Arcimboldo, the alchemists Edward Kelley and John Dee, the poet Elizabeth Jane Weston, and others.
+
+In 1618, the famous second defenestration of Prague provoked the Thirty Years' War, a particularly harsh period for Prague and Bohemia. Ferdinand II of Habsburg was deposed, and his place as King of Bohemia taken by Frederick V, Elector Palatine; however his army was crushed in the Battle of White Mountain (1620) not far from the city. Following this in 1621 was an execution of 27 Czech Protestant leaders (involved in the uprising) in Old Town Square and the exiling of many others. Prague was forcibly converted back to Roman Catholicism followed by the rest of Czech lands. The city suffered subsequently during the war under an attack by Electoral Saxony (1631) and during the Battle of Prague (1648).[42] Prague began a steady decline which reduced the population from the 60,000 it had had in the years before the war to 20,000. In the second half of the 17th century, Prague's population began to grow again. Jews had been in Prague since the end of the 10th century and, by 1708, they accounted for about a quarter of Prague's population.[43]
+
+In 1689, a great fire devastated Prague, but this spurred a renovation and a rebuilding of the city. In 1713–14, a major outbreak of plague hit Prague one last time, killing 12,000 to 13,000 people.[44]
+
+In 1744, Frederick the Great of Prussia invaded Bohemia. He took Prague after a severe and prolonged siege in the course of which a large part of the town was destroyed.[45] In 1757 the Prussian bombardment[45] destroyed more than one quarter of the city and heavily damaged St. Vitus Cathedral. However a month later, Frederick the Great was defeated and forced to retreat from Bohemia.
+
+The economy of Prague continued to improve during the 18th century. The population increased to 80,000 inhabitants by 1771. Many rich merchants and nobles enhanced the city with a host of palaces, churches and gardens full of art and music, creating a Baroque city renowned throughout the world to this day.
+
+In 1784, under Joseph II, the four municipalities of Malá Strana, Nové Město, Staré Město, and Hradčany were merged into a single entity. The Jewish district, called Josefov, was included only in 1850. The Industrial Revolution had a strong effect in Prague, as factories could take advantage of the coal mines and ironworks of the nearby region. A first suburb, Karlín, was created in 1817, and twenty years later the population exceeded 100,000.
+
+The revolutions in Europe in 1848 also touched Prague, but they were fiercely suppressed. In the following years, the Czech National Revival began its rise, until it gained the majority in the town council in 1861. Prague had a German-speaking majority in 1848, but by 1880 the number of German speakers had decreased to 14% (42,000), and by 1910 to 6.7% (37,000), due to a massive increase of the city's overall population caused by the influx of Czechs from the rest of Bohemia and Moravia and also due to return of social status importance of the Czech language.
+
+World War I ended with the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of Czechoslovakia. Prague was chosen as its capital and Prague Castle as the seat of president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. At this time Prague was a true European capital with highly developed industry. By 1930, the population had risen to 850,000.
+
+Hitler ordered the German Army to enter Prague on 15 March 1939, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate. For most of its history, Prague had been a multi-ethnic city[46] with important Czech, German and (mostly native German-speaking) Jewish populations.[47] From 1939, when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany, and during the Second World War, most Jews were deported and killed by the Germans. In 1942, Prague was witness to the assassination of one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany—Reinhard Heydrich—during Operation Anthropoid, accomplished by Czechoslovak national heroes Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. Hitler ordered bloody reprisals.[48]
+
+In February 1945, Prague suffered several bombing raids by the US Army Air Forces. 701 people were killed, more than 1,000 people were injured and some buildings, factories and historical landmarks (Emmaus Monastery, Faust House, Vinohrady Synagogue) were destroyed.[49] Many historic structures in Prague, however, escaped the destruction of the war and the damage was small compared to the total destruction of many other cities in that time. According to American pilots, it was the result of a navigational mistake. In March, a deliberate raid targeted military factories in Prague, killing about 370 people.[50]
+
+On 5 May 1945, two days before Germany capitulated, an uprising against Germany occurred. Several thousand Czechs were killed in four days of bloody street fighting, with many atrocities committed by both sides. At daybreak on 9 May, the 3rd Shock Army of the Red Army took the city almost unopposed. The majority (about 50,000 people) of the German population of Prague either fled or were expelled by the Beneš decrees in the aftermath of the war.
+
+Prague was a city in the territory of military and political control of the Soviet Union (see Iron Curtain). The largest Stalin Monument was unveiled on Letná hill in 1955 and destroyed in 1962. The 4th Czechoslovak Writers' Congress held in the city in June 1967 took a strong position against the regime.[51] On 31 October 1967 students demonstrated at Strahov. This spurred the new secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Alexander Dubček, to proclaim a new deal in his city's and country's life, starting the short-lived season of the "socialism with a human face". It was the Prague Spring, which aimed at the renovation of institutions in a democratic way. The other Warsaw Pact member countries, except Romania and Albania, reacted with the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the capital on 21 August 1968 by tanks, suppressing any attempt at reform.
+Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc committed suicide by self-immolation in January and February 1969 to protest against the "normalization" of the country.
+
+In 1989, after the riot police beat back a peaceful student demonstration, the Velvet Revolution crowded the streets of Prague, and the capital of Czechoslovakia benefited greatly from the new mood. In 1993, after the Velvet Divorce, Prague became the capital city of the new Czech Republic. From 1995 high-rise buildings began to be built in Prague in large quantities. In the late 1990s, Prague again became an important cultural centre of Europe and was notably influenced by globalisation.[52] In 2000, IMF and World Bank summit took place in Prague and anti-globalization riots took place here. In 2002, Prague suffered from widespread floods that damaged buildings and its underground transport system.
+
+Prague launched a bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics,[53] but failed to make the candidate city shortlist. In June 2009, as the result of financial pressures from the global recession, Prague's officials also chose to cancel the city's planned bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics.[54]
+
+The Czech name Praha is derived from an old Slavic word, práh, which means "ford" or "rapid", referring to the city's origin at a crossing point of the Vltava river.[55] The same etymology is associated with the Praga district of Warsaw.[56]
+
+Another view to the origin of name is also related to the Czech word práh (in the mean of a threshold) and a legendary etymology connects the name of the city with princess Libuše, prophetess and a wife of mythical founder of the Přemyslid dynasty. She is said to have ordered the city "to be built where a man hews a threshold of his house". The Czech práh might thus be understood to refer to rapids or fords in the river, the edge of which could have acted as a means of fording the river – thus providing a "threshold" to the castle.
+
+Another derivation of the name Praha is suggested from na prazě, the original term for the shale hillside rock upon which the original castle was built. At that time, the castle was surrounded by forests, covering the nine hills of the future city – the Old Town on the opposite side of the river, as well as the Lesser Town beneath the existing castle, appeared only later.[citation needed]
+
+The English spelling of the city's name is borrowed from French. It is written in a verse of The Beleaguered City by Longfellow (1839) and also in the limerick There was an Old Lady of Prague by Edward Lear (1846) and in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was pronounced in English with the same pronunciation, for example by Lady Diana Cooper (born 1892) on Desert Island Discs in 1969.[57]
+
+Prague is also called the "City of a Hundred Spires", based on a count by 19th century mathematician Bernard Bolzano; today's count is estimated by the Prague Information Service at 500.[58] Nicknames for Prague have also included: the Golden City, the Mother of Cities and the Heart of Europe.[59]
+
+Prague is situated on the Vltava river, at 50°05′N 14°27′E / 50.083°N 14.450°E / 50.083; 14.450.[60] in the centre of the Bohemian Basin. Prague is approximately at the same latitude as Frankfurt, Germany;[61] Paris, France;[62] and Vancouver, Canada.[63]
+
+Prague has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb)[64][65] with humid continental (Dfb) influences, defined as such by the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm.[66] The winters are relatively cold with average temperatures at about freezing point, and with very little sunshine. Snow cover can be common between mid-November and late March although snow accumulations of more than 20 cm (8 in) are infrequent. There are also a few periods of mild temperatures in winter. Summers usually bring plenty of sunshine and the average high temperature of 24 °C (75 °F). Nights can be quite cool even in summer, though. Precipitation in Prague (and most of the Bohemian lowland) is rather low (just over 500 mm [20 in] per year) since it is located in the rain shadow of the Sudetes and other mountain ranges. The driest season is usually winter while late spring and summer can bring quite heavy rain, especially in form of thundershowers. Temperature inversions are relatively common between mid-October and mid-March bringing foggy, cold days and sometimes moderate air pollution. Prague is also a windy city with common sustained western winds and an average wind speed of 16 km/h (10 mph) that often help break temperature inversions and clear the air in cold months.
+
+Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic and as such is the regular seat of its central authorities. Since 24 November 1990, it is de facto again a statutory town, but has a specific status of the municipality and the region at the same time. Prague also houses the administrative institutions of the Central Bohemia Region.
+
+Until 1949, all administrative districts of Prague were formed by the whole one or more cadastral unit, municipality or town. Since 1949, there has been a fundamental change in the administrative division. Since then, the boundaries of many urban districts, administrative districts and city districts are independent of the boundaries of cadastral territories and some cadastral territories are thus divided into administrative and self-governing parts of the city. Cadastral area (for example, Vinohrady, Smíchov) are still relevant especially for the registration of land and real estate and house numbering.
+
+Prague is divided into 10 municipal districts (1-10), 22 administrative districts (1-22), 57 municipal parts, or 112 cadastral areas.
+
+Prague is automously administered by the Prague City Assembly, which is elected through municipal elections and consists of 55 to 70 members. Executive body of Prague, elected by the Assembly is a Prague City Council. The municipal office of Prague is called Prague City Hall. It has 11 members including the mayor and it prepares proposals for the Assembly meetings and ensures that adopted resolutions are fulfilled. The Mayor of Prague is Czech Pirate Party member Zdeněk Hřib.[70]
+
+According to the 2011 census, about 14% of the city inhabitants were born outside the Czech Republic. That is the highest proportion in the country.[71] However, in 2011, 64.8 per cent of the city's population self-identified themselves as Czechs, which is higher than the national average. Even though official population of Prague hovers around 1.3–1.4 million, the real population is much higher due to only 65% of its residents being marked as permanently living in the city,[72] these data were taken from mobile phone movements around the city, and bring total population of Prague to about 1.9–2 million, and with additional 300,000 to 400,000 people coming to the city for work, education or shopping, on weekdays there are more than 2 million people in the city.[73]
+
+Development of the Prague population since 1378:[74][75][76]
+
+The city is traditionally one of the cultural centres of Europe, hosting many cultural events. Some of the significant cultural institutions include the National Theatre (Národní Divadlo) and the Estates Theatre (Stavovské or Tylovo or Nosticovo divadlo), where the premières of Mozart's Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito were held. Other major cultural institutions are the Rudolfinum which is home to the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Municipal House which is home to the Prague Symphony Orchestra. The Prague State Opera (Státní opera) performs at the Smetana Theatre.
+
+The city has many world-class museums, including the National Museum (Národní muzeum), the Museum of the Capital City of Prague, the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Alfons Mucha Museum, the African-Prague Museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the Náprstek Museum (Náprstkovo Muzeum), the Josef Sudek Gallery and The Josef Sudek Studio, the National Library and the National Gallery, which manages the largest collection of art in the Czech Republic.
+
+There are hundreds of concert halls, galleries, cinemas and music clubs in the city. It hosts music festivals including the Prague Spring International Music Festival, the Prague Autumn International Music Festival, the Prague International Organ Festival and the Prague International Jazz Festival. Film festivals include the Febiofest, the One World Film Festival and Echoes of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The city also hosts the Prague Writers' Festival, the Prague Folklore Days, Prague Advent Choral Meeting the Summer Shakespeare Festival,[79] the Prague Fringe Festival, the World Roma Festival, as well as the hundreds of Vernissages and fashion shows.
+
+Many films have been made at Barrandov Studios and at Prague Studios. Hollywood films set in Prague include Mission Impossible, xXx, Blade II, Children of Dune, Alien vs. Predator, Doom, Chronicles of Narnia, Hellboy, EuroTrip, Van Helsing, Red Tails, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.[80] Other Czech films shot in Prague include Empties, Amadeus and The Fifth Horseman is Fear. Also, the romantic music video "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS, "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" by Kanye West was shot in the city, and features shots of the Charles Bridge and the Astronomical Clock, among other landmarks. Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music" video was filmed at Prague's Radost FX Club. The city was also the setting for the film Dungeons and Dragons in 2000. The music video "Silver and Cold" by AFI, an American rock band, was also filmed in Prague. Many Indian films have also been filmed in the city including Yuvraaj, Drona and Rockstar. Early 2000s europop hit "Something" by "Lasgo" was filmed at the central train station in Prague.
+
+Video games set in Prague include Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Still Life, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
+
+With the growth of low-cost airlines in Europe, Prague has become a weekend city destination allowing tourists to visit its museums and cultural sites as well as try its Czech beers and cuisine.
+
+The city has many buildings by renowned architects, including Adolf Loos (Villa Müller), Frank O. Gehry (Dancing House) and Jean Nouvel (Golden Angel).
+
+Recent major events held in Prague:
+
+In 2008 the Allegro restaurant received the first Michelin star in the whole of the post-Communist part of Central Europe. It retained its star until 2011. As of 2018[update] there are two Michelin-starred restaurants in Prague: La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise and Field. Another six have been awarded Michelin's Bib Gourmand: Bistrøt 104, Divinis, Eska, Maso a Kobliha, Na Kopci and Sansho.
+
+In Malá Strana, Staré Město, Žižkov and Nusle there are hundreds of restaurants, bars and pubs, especially with Czech beer. Prague also hosts the Czech Beer Festival (Český pivní festival), which is the largest beer festival in the Czech Republic held for 17 days every year in May. At the festival, more than 70 brands of Czech beer can be tasted. There are several microbrewery festivals throughout the year as well.
+
+Czech beer has a long history, with brewing taking place in Břevnov Monastery in 993. Prague is home to historical breweries Staropramen (Praha 5), U Fleků, U Medvídků, U Tří růží, Strahov Monastery Brewery (Praha 1) and Břevnov Monastery Brewery (Praha 6). Among many microbreweries are: Novoměstský, Pražský most u Valšů, Národní, Boršov, Loď pivovar, U Dobřenských, U Dvou koček, U Supa (Praha 1), Pivovarský dům (Praha 2), Sousedský pivovar Bašta (Praha 4), Suchdolský Jeník, Libocký pivovar (Praha 6), Marina (Praha 7), U Bulovky (Praha 8), Beznoska, Kolčavka (Praha 9), Vinohradský pivovar, Zubatý pes, Malešický mikropivovar (Praha 10), Jihoměstský pivovar (Praha 11), Lužiny (Praha 13), Počernický pivovar (Praha 14) and Hostivar (Praha 15).
+
+Prague's economy accounts for 25% of the Czech GDP[81] making it the highest performing regional economy of the country. As of 2017 its GDP per capita in purchasing power standard is €56,200, making it the sixth best performing region in the EU[82] at 182.4 per cent of the EU-28 average in 2016.[83]
+
+Prague employs almost a fifth of the entire Czech workforce, and its wages are significantly above average (≈+25%). In 2Q/2019, average salaries available in Prague reached CZK 42.297 (≈€1,650) per month, an annual increase of 6.3%, which was nevertheless lower than national increase of 7.2% both in nominal and real terms. (Inflation in Prague was 2.8% in 2Q/2019 as well as with 2.8% nationally.)[83][84] Since 1990, the city's economic structure has shifted from industrial to service-oriented. Industry is present in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, printing, food processing, manufacture of transport equipment, computer technology and electrical engineering. In the service sector, financial and commercial services, trade, restaurants, hospitality and public administration are the most significant. Services account for around 80 per cent of employment. There are 800,000 employees in Prague, including 120,000 commuters.[81] The number of (legally registered) foreign residents in Prague has been increasing in spite of the country's economic downturn. As of March 2010, 148,035 foreign workers were reported to be living in the city making up about 18 per cent of the workforce, up from 131,132 in 2008.[85] Approximately one-fifth of all investment in the Czech Republic takes place in the city.
+
+Almost one-half of the national income from tourism is spent in Prague. The city offers approximately 73,000 beds in accommodation facilities, most of which were built after 1990, including almost 51,000 beds in hotels and boarding houses.
+
+From the late 1990s to late 2000s, the city was a common filming location for international productions such as Hollywood and Bollywood motion pictures. A combination of architecture, low costs and the existing motion picture infrastructure have proven attractive to international film production companies.
+
+The modern economy of Prague is largely service and export-based and, in a 2010 survey, the city was named the best city in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for business.[86]
+
+In 2005, Prague was deemed among the three best cities in Central and Eastern Europe according to The Economist's livability rankings.[87] The city was named as a top-tier nexus city for innovation across multiple sectors of the global innovation economy, placing 29th globally out of 289 cities, ahead of Brussels and Helsinki for innovation in 2010 in 2thinknow annual analysts Innovation Cities Index.[88]
+
+Na příkopě is the most expensive street among all the states of the V4.[89] In 2017, with the amount of rent €2,640 (CZK 67,480) per square meter per year, ranked on 22nd place among the most expensive streets in the world.[90] The second most expensive is Pařížská street.
+
+In the Eurostat research, Prague ranked fifth among Europe's 271 regions in terms of gross domestic product per inhabitant, achieving 172 per cent of the EU average. It ranked just above Paris and well above the country as a whole, which achieved 80 per cent of the EU average.[91][92]
+
+Companies with highest turnover in the region in 2014:[93]
+
+Prague is also the site of some of the most important offices and institutions of the Czech Republic
+
+Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Prague has become one of the world's most popular tourist destinations. Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Romanesque, to Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Gothic, Art Nouveau, Cubist, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern.
+
+Prague is classified as an "Alpha-" global city according to GaWC studies, comparable to Vienna, Manila and Washington, D.C.[94] Prague ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016.[14] Its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination, and the city receives more than 8.4 million international visitors annually, as of 2017[update].
+
+The Charles Bridge is a historic bridge from the 14th century
+
+Prague Castle is the biggest ancient castle in the world
+
+Old Town Square featuring Church of Our Lady before Týn and Old Town City Hall with Prague Orloj
+
+St. Nicholas Church in Malá Strana is the best example of the Baroque style in Prague
+
+Vyšehrad fortress contains Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, the Vyšehrad Cemetery and the oldest Rotunda of St. Martin
+
+View of Pařížská St. from Letná Park
+
+Náměstí Míru (Peace Square) with Vinohrady Theatre and Church of St. Ludmila
+
+National Theatre offers opera, drama, ballet and other performances
+
+Výstaviště compound contains Průmyslový palác, Křižík's Light Fountain and host funfair Lunapark
+
+Old New Synagogue is Europe's oldest active synagogue. Legend has Golem lying in the loft
+
+National Monument on Vítkov Hill, the statue of Jan Žižka is the third largest bronze equestrian statue in the world
+
+Prague Zoo, selected in 2015 as the fourth best zoo in the world by TripAdvisor
+
+Nine public universities and thirty six private universities are located in the city, including:[102]
+
+The region city of Prague is an important centre of research. It is the seat of 39 out of 54 institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences, including the largest ones, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Microbiology and the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. It is also a seat of 10 public research institutes, four business incubators and large hospitals performing research and development activities such as the Motol University Hospital or Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, which was the largest transplant center in Europe as of 2019.[103] Universities seated in Prague (see section Colleges and Universities) also represent important centres of science and research activities.
+
+As of 2008[update], there were 13,000 researchers (out of 30,000 in the country, counted in full-time equivalents), representing a 3% share of Prague's economically active population. Gross expenditure on research and development accounted for €901.3 million (41.5% of country's total).[104]
+
+Some well-known multinational companies have established research and development facilities in Prague, among them Siemens, Honeywell, Oracle, Microsoft and Broadcom.
+
+Prague was selected to host administration of the EU satellite navigation system Galileo. It started to provide its first services in December 2016 and full completion is expected by 2020.
+
+As of 2017, Prague had transport modal share: 52% of all trips are done in public transport, 24,5% in car, 22,4% on foot, 0,4% on bike and 0,5% by airplane.[105]
+
+The public transport infrastructure consists of a heavily used Prague Integrated Transport (PID, Pražská integrovaná doprava) of Prague Metro (lines A, B, and C – its length is 65 km (40 mi) with 61 stations in total), Prague tram system, Prague buses, commuter S-trains, funiculars, and six ferries. Prague has one of the highest rates of public transport usage in the world,[106] with 1.2 billion passenger journeys per year. Prague has about 300 bus lines (numbers 100–960) and 34 tram lines (numbers 1–26 without 19 and 91–99 ). There are also three funiculars, one on Petřín Hill, one on Mrázovka Hill and a third at the Zoo in Troja.
+
+The Prague tram system now operates various types of trams, including the Tatra T3, newer Tatra KT8D5, T6A5, Škoda 14 T (designed by Porsche), newer modern Škoda 15 T and nostalgic tram lines 23 and 41. Around 400 vehicles are the modernized T3 class, which are typically operated coupled together in pairs.
+
+The Prague tram system is the twelfth longest in the world (142 km) and its rolling stock consists of 857 individual cars,[107] which is the third largest in the world behind Moscow and Budapest. The system carries more than 360 million passengers annually, the highest tram patronage in the world after Budapest, on a per capita basis, Prague has the second highest tram patronage after Zürich.
+
+All services (metro, tramways, city buses, funiculars and ferries) have a common ticketing system that operates on a proof-of-payment system. Basic transfer ticket can be bought for a 30/90-minute ride, short-term tourist passes are available for periods of 24 hours or 3 days, longer-term tickets can be bought on the smart ticketing system Lítačka card, for periods of one month, three months or one year.[108]
+
+Services are run by the Prague Public Transport Company (Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy, a. s.) and several other companies. Recently, the Regional Organiser of Prague Integrated Transport (ROPID) has franchised operation of ferries on the Vltava river, which are also a part of the public transport system with common fares. Taxi services make pick-ups on the streets or operate from regulated taxi stands.
+
+The Metro has three major lines extending throughout the city: A (green), B (yellow) and C (red). A fourth Metro line D is planned, which would connect the city centre to southern parts of the city.[109] The Prague Metro system served 589.2 million passengers in 2012,[110] making it the fifth busiest metro system in Europe and the most-patronised in the world on a per capita basis. The first section of the Prague metro was put into operation in 1974. It was the stretch between stations Kačerov and Florenc on the current line C. The first part of Line A was opened in 1978 (Dejvická – Náměstí Míru), the first part of line B in 1985 (Anděl – Florenc).
+
+In April 2015, construction finished to extend the green line A further into the northwest corner of Prague closer to the airport.[111] A new interchange station for the bus in the direction of the airport is the station Nádraží Veleslavín. The final station of the green line is Nemocnice Motol (Motol Hospital), giving people direct public transportation access to the largest medical facility in the Czech Republic and one of the largest in Europe. A railway connection to the airport is planned.
+
+In operation there are two kinds of units: "81-71M" which is modernized variant of the Soviet Metrovagonmash 81-71 (completely modernized between 1995 and 2003) and new "Metro M1" trains (since 2000), manufactured by consortium consisting of Siemens, ČKD Praha and ADtranz. The minimum interval between two trains is 90 seconds.
+
+The original Soviet vehicles "Ečs" were excluded in 1997, but one vehicle is placed in public transport museum in depot Střešovice.[112] The Náměstí Míru metro station is the deepest station and is equipped with the longest escalator in European Union. The Prague metro is generally considered very safe.
+
+The main flow of traffic leads through the centre of the city and through inner and outer ring roads (partially in operation).
+
+The city forms the hub of the Czech railway system, with services to all parts of the country and abroad. The railway system links Prague with major European cities (which can be reached without transfers), including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Nurenberg and Dresden (Germany); Vienna, Graz and Linz (Austria); Warsaw and Cracow (Poland); Bratislava and Košice (Slovakia); Budapest (Hungary); Zürich (Switzerland); Split and Rijeka (Croatia, seasonal); Belgrade (Serbia, seasonal) and Moscow (Russia). Travel times range between 2 hours to Dresden and 28 hours to Moscow.[115]
+
+Prague's main international railway station is Hlavní nádraží,[116] rail services are also available from other main stations: Masarykovo nádraží, Holešovice and Smíchov, in addition to suburban stations. Commuter rail services operate under the name Esko Praha, which is part of PID (Prague Integrated Transport).
+
+Prague is served by Václav Havel Airport Prague, the largest airport in the Czech Republic and one of the largest and busiest airports in central and eastern Europe. The airport is the hub of carriers Smartwings and Czech Airlines operating throughout Europe. Other airports in Prague include the city's original airport in the north-eastern district of Kbely, which is serviced by the Czech Air Force, also internationally. It also houses the Prague Aviation Museum. The nearby Letňany airport is mainly used for private aviation and aeroclub aviation. Another airport in the proximity is Aero Vodochody aircraft factory to the north, used for testing purposes, as well as for aeroclub aviation. There are a few aeroclubs around Prague, such as the Točná airfield.
+
+In 2018, 2% of people commute by bike in Prague, cycling is very common as a sport or recreation.[117] As of 2017, there were 178 km (111 mi) of protected cycle paths and routes. Also, there were 48 km (30 mi) of bike lanes and 24 km (15 mi) of specially marked bus lanes that are free to be used by cyclists.[118] Bike sharing is offered by four different companies, three of them are Czech. The first one is Rekola operating in Prague since 2013, which has 900 free flowing bikes around Prague as of 2019. The second one is called Freebike and it is operated by Homeport, it is operating 450 electric bikes in Prague as of 2019. The third one is Velonet, operating less than 50 bikes in Prague 4. Since 2018, scooter sharing is offered by American transportation company Lime which operates more than 1000 electric scooters in Prague as of 2019.[119]
+
+Prague is the site of many sports events, national stadiums and teams.
+
+The city of Prague maintains its own EU delegation in Brussels called Prague House.[122]
+
+Prague was the location of U.S. President Barack Obama's speech on 5 April 2009, which led to the New START treaty with Russia, signed in Prague on 8 April 2010.[123]
+
+The annual conference Forum 2000, which was founded by former Czech President Václav Havel, Japanese philanthropist Yōhei Sasakawa, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel in 1996, is held in Prague. Its main objective is "to identify the key issues facing civilization and to explore ways to prevent the escalation of conflicts that have religion, culture or ethnicity as their primary components", and also intends to promote democracy in non-democratic countries and to support civil society. Conferences have attracted a number of prominent thinkers, Nobel laureates, former and acting politicians, business leaders and other individuals like: Frederik Willem de Klerk, Bill Clinton, Nicholas Winton, Oscar Arias Sánchez, Dalai Lama, Hans Küng, Shimon Peres and Madeleine Albright.
+
+Prague is twinned with:[124]
+
+A number of other settlements are derived or similar to the name of Prague. In many of these cases, Czech emigration has left a number of namesake cities scattered over the globe, with a notable concentration in the New World.
+
+Additionally, Kłodzko is sometimes referred to as "Little Prague" (German: Klein-Prag). Although now in Poland, it had been traditionally a part of Bohemia until 1763 when it became part of Silesia.[129]

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+In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity from clouds.[2]  The main forms of precipitation include  drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail.  Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor (reaching 100% relative humidity), so that the water condenses and "precipitates".  Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but colloids, because the water vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate.  Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated: cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air. Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud.  Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called "showers."[3]
+
+Moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is typically active when freezing rain occurs. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain and serves as the focus for forcing and rising air. Provided there is necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely nimbostratus and cumulonimbus if significant precipitation is involved. Eventually, the cloud droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops and descend toward the Earth where they will freeze on contact with exposed objects.  Where relatively warm water bodies are present, for example due to water evaporation from lakes, lake-effect snowfall becomes a concern downwind of the warm lakes within the cold cyclonic flow around the backside of extratropical cyclones.  Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy.  Thundersnow is possible within a cyclone's comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands.  In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation.  On the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating.  Most precipitation occurs within the tropics[4] and is caused by convection.  The movement of the monsoon trough, or intertropical convergence zone, brings rainy seasons to savannah regions.
+
+Precipitation is a major component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres (121,000 cu mi) of water falls as precipitation each year; 398,000 cubic kilometres (95,000 cu mi) of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres (26,000 cu mi) over land.[5] Given the Earth's surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres (39 in), but over land it is only 715 millimetres (28.1 in). Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes.
+
+Precipitation may occur on other celestial bodies, e.g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost, rather than rain or snow.[6]
+
+Precipitation is a major component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 (121,000 mi3) of water falls as precipitation each year, 398,000 km3 (95,000 cu mi) of it over the oceans.[5] Given the Earth's surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres (39 in).
+
+Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform,[7] and orographic rainfall.[8]  Convective processes involve strong vertical motions that can cause the overturning of the atmosphere in that location within an hour and cause heavy precipitation,[9] while stratiform processes involve weaker upward motions and less intense precipitation.[10]  Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice.  Mixtures of different types of precipitation, including types in different categories, can fall simultaneously.  Liquid forms of precipitation include rain and drizzle.  Rain or drizzle that freezes on contact within a subfreezing air mass is called "freezing rain" or "freezing drizzle".  Frozen forms of precipitation include snow, ice needles, ice pellets, hail, and graupel.[11]
+
+The dew point is the temperature to which a parcel of air must be cooled in order to become saturated, and (unless super-saturation occurs) condenses to water.[12]  Water vapor normally begins to condense on condensation nuclei such as dust, ice, and salt in order to form clouds.  An elevated portion of a frontal zone forces broad areas of lift, which form cloud decks such as altostratus or cirrostratus.  Stratus is a stable cloud deck which tends to form when a cool, stable air mass is trapped underneath a warm air mass.  It can also form due to the lifting of advection fog during breezy conditions.[13]
+
+There are four main mechanisms for cooling the air to its dew point: adiabatic cooling, conductive cooling, radiational cooling, and evaporative cooling. Adiabatic cooling occurs when air rises and expands.[14] The air can rise due to convection, large-scale atmospheric motions, or a physical barrier such as a mountain (orographic lift). Conductive cooling occurs when the air comes into contact with a colder surface,[15] usually by being blown from one surface to another, for example from a liquid water surface to colder land.  Radiational cooling occurs due to the emission of infrared radiation, either by the air or by the surface underneath.[16]  Evaporative cooling occurs when moisture is added to the air through evaporation, which forces the air temperature to cool to its wet-bulb temperature, or until it reaches saturation.[17]
+
+The main ways water vapor is added to the air are: wind convergence into areas of upward motion,[9] precipitation or virga falling from above,[18] daytime heating evaporating water from the surface of oceans, water bodies or wet land,[19] transpiration from plants,[20] cool or dry air moving over warmer water,[21] and lifting air over mountains.[22]
+
+Coalescence occurs when water droplets fuse to create larger water droplets, or when water droplets freeze onto an ice crystal, which is known as the Bergeron process. The fall rate of very small droplets is negligible, hence clouds do not fall out of the sky; precipitation will only occur when these coalesce into larger drops.  When air turbulence occurs, water droplets collide, producing larger droplets. As these larger water droplets descend, coalescence continues, so that drops become heavy enough to overcome air resistance and fall as rain.[23]
+
+Raindrops have sizes ranging from 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) to 9 millimetres (0.35 in) mean diameter, above which they tend to break up. Smaller drops are called cloud droplets, and their shape is spherical. As a raindrop increases in size, its shape becomes more oblate, with its largest cross-section facing the oncoming airflow. Contrary to the cartoon pictures of raindrops, their shape does not resemble a teardrop.[24] Intensity and duration of rainfall are usually inversely related, i.e., high intensity storms are likely to be of short duration and low intensity storms can have a long duration.[25][26]  Rain drops associated with melting hail tend to be larger than other rain drops.[27]  The METAR code for rain is RA, while the coding for rain showers is SHRA.[28]
+
+Ice pellets or sleet are a form of precipitation consisting of small, translucent balls of ice. Ice pellets are usually (but not always) smaller than hailstones.[29]  They often bounce when they hit the ground, and generally do not freeze into a solid mass unless mixed with freezing rain.  The METAR code for ice pellets is PL.[28]
+
+Ice pellets form when a layer of above-freezing air exists with sub-freezing air both above and below.  This causes the partial or complete melting of any snowflakes falling through the warm layer.  As they fall back into the sub-freezing layer closer to the surface, they re-freeze into ice pellets.  However, if the sub-freezing layer beneath the warm layer is too small, the precipitation will not have time to re-freeze, and freezing rain will be the result at the surface.  A temperature profile showing a warm layer above the ground is most likely to be found in advance of a warm front during the cold season,[30] but can occasionally be found behind a passing cold front.
+
+Like other precipitation, hail forms in storm clouds when supercooled water droplets freeze on contact with condensation nuclei, such as dust or dirt.  The storm's updraft blows the hailstones to the upper part of the cloud.  The updraft dissipates and the hailstones fall down, back into the updraft, and are lifted again.  Hail has a diameter of 5 millimetres (0.20 in) or more.[31]  Within METAR code, GR is used to indicate larger hail, of a diameter of at least 6.4 millimetres (0.25 in).  GR is derived from the French word grêle.  Smaller-sized hail, as well as snow pellets, use the coding of GS, which is short for the French word grésil.[28]  Stones just larger than golf ball-sized are one of the most frequently reported hail sizes.[32]  Hailstones can grow to 15 centimetres (6 in) and weigh more than 500 grams (1 lb).[33]  In large hailstones, latent heat released by further freezing may melt the outer shell of the hailstone.  The hailstone then may undergo 'wet growth', where the liquid outer shell collects other smaller hailstones.[34]  The hailstone gains an ice layer and grows increasingly larger with each ascent. Once a hailstone becomes too heavy to be supported by the storm's updraft, it falls from the cloud.[35]
+
+Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 μm in diameter) freeze. Once a droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment. Because water droplets are more numerous than the ice crystals the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometers in size at the expense of the water droplets.  This process is known as the Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process.  The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the droplets to evaporate, meaning that the ice crystals grow at the droplets' expense.  These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass, and may collide and stick together in clusters, or aggregates.  These aggregates are snowflakes, and are usually the type of ice particle that falls to the ground.[36]  Guinness World Records list the world's largest snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana; allegedly one measured 38 cm (15 inches) wide.[37] The exact details of the sticking mechanism remain a subject of research.
+
+Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows/imperfections mean that the crystals often appear white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small ice particles.[38]  The shape of the snowflake is determined broadly by the temperature and humidity at which it is formed.[36] Rarely, at a temperature of around −2 °C (28 °F), snowflakes can form in threefold symmetry—triangular snowflakes.[39] The most common snow particles are visibly irregular, although near-perfect snowflakes may be more common in pictures because they are more visually appealing.  No two snowflakes are alike,[40] as they grow at different rates and in different patterns depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere through which they fall on their way to the ground.[41] The METAR code for snow is SN, while snow showers are coded SHSN.[28]
+
+Diamond dust, also known as ice needles or ice crystals, forms at temperatures approaching −40 °C (−40 °F) due to air with slightly higher moisture from aloft mixing with colder, surface-based air.[42]  They are made of simple ice crystals, hexagonal in shape.[43] The METAR identifier for diamond dust within international hourly weather reports is IC.[28]
+
+Stratiform or dynamic precipitation occurs as a consequence of slow ascent of air in synoptic systems (on the order of cm/s), such as over surface cold fronts, and over and ahead of warm fronts. Similar ascent is seen around tropical cyclones outside of the eyewall, and in comma-head precipitation patterns around mid-latitude cyclones.[44] A wide variety of weather can be found along an occluded front, with thunderstorms possible, but usually their passage is associated with a drying of the air mass. Occluded fronts usually form around mature low-pressure areas.[45]  Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies other than Earth. When it gets cold, Mars has precipitation that most likely takes the form of ice needles, rather than rain or snow.[6]
+
+Convective rain, or showery precipitation, occurs from convective clouds, e.g. cumulonimbus or cumulus congestus. It falls as showers with rapidly changing intensity. Convective precipitation falls over a certain area for a relatively short time, as convective clouds have limited horizontal extent. Most precipitation in the tropics appears to be convective; however, it has been suggested that stratiform precipitation also occurs.[26][44] Graupel and hail indicate convection.[46] In mid-latitudes, convective precipitation is intermittent and often associated with baroclinic boundaries such as cold fronts, squall lines, and warm fronts.[47]
+
+Orographic precipitation occurs on the windward (upwind) side of mountains and is caused by the rising air motion of a large-scale flow of moist air across the mountain ridge, resulting in adiabatic cooling and condensation.  In mountainous parts of the world subjected to relatively consistent winds (for example, the trade winds), a more moist climate usually prevails on the windward side of a mountain than on the leeward or downwind side. Moisture is removed by orographic lift, leaving drier air (see katabatic wind) on the descending and generally warming, leeward side where a rain shadow is observed.[22]
+
+In Hawaii, Mount Waiʻaleʻale, on the island of Kauai, is notable for its extreme rainfall, as it has the second-highest average annual rainfall on Earth, with 12,000 millimetres (460 in).[48] Storm systems affect the state with heavy rains between October and March. Local climates vary considerably on each island due to their topography, divisible into windward (Koʻolau) and leeward (Kona) regions based upon location relative to the higher mountains. Windward sides face the east to northeast trade winds and receive much more rainfall; leeward sides are drier and sunnier, with less rain and less cloud cover.[49]
+
+In South America, the Andes mountain range blocks Pacific moisture that arrives in that continent, resulting in a desertlike climate just downwind across western Argentina.[50] The Sierra Nevada range creates the same effect in North America forming the Great Basin and Mojave Deserts.[51][52] Similarly, in Asia, the Himalaya mountains create an obstacle to monsoons which leads to extremely high precipitation on the southern side and lower precipitation levels on the northern side.
+
+Extratropical cyclones can bring cold and dangerous conditions with heavy rain and snow with winds exceeding 119 km/h (74 mph),[53] (sometimes referred to as windstorms in Europe). The band of precipitation that is associated with their warm front is often extensive, forced by weak upward vertical motion of air over the frontal boundary which condenses as it cools and produces precipitation within an elongated band,[54] which is wide and stratiform, meaning falling out of nimbostratus clouds.[55] When moist air tries to dislodge an arctic air mass, overrunning snow can result within the poleward side of the elongated precipitation band. In the Northern Hemisphere, poleward is towards the North Pole, or north. Within the Southern Hemisphere, poleward is towards the South Pole, or south.
+
+Southwest of extratropical cyclones, curved cyclonic flow bringing cold air across the relatively warm water bodies can lead to narrow lake-effect snow bands. Those bands bring strong localized snowfall which can be understood as follows: Large water bodies such as lakes efficiently store heat that results in significant temperature differences (larger than 13 °C or 23 °F) between the water surface and the air above.[56] Because of this temperature difference, warmth and moisture are transported upward, condensing into vertically oriented clouds (see satellite picture) which produce snow showers. The temperature decrease with height and cloud depth are directly affected by both the water temperature and the large-scale environment. The stronger the temperature decrease with height, the deeper the clouds get, and the greater the precipitation rate becomes.[57]
+
+In mountainous areas, heavy snowfall accumulates when air is forced to ascend the mountains and squeeze out precipitation along their windward slopes, which in cold conditions, falls in the form of snow. Because of the ruggedness of terrain, forecasting the location of heavy snowfall remains a significant challenge.[58]
+
+The wet, or rainy, season is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region falls.[59]  The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities.[60]  Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the tropics and subtropics.[61] Savanna climates and areas with monsoon regimes have wet summers and dry winters.  Tropical rainforests technically do not have dry or wet seasons, since their rainfall is equally distributed through the year.[62]  Some areas with pronounced rainy seasons will see a break in rainfall mid-season when the intertropical convergence zone or monsoon trough move poleward of their location during the middle of the warm season.[25]  When the wet season occurs during the warm season, or summer, rain falls mainly during the late afternoon and early evening hours.  The wet season is a time when air quality improves,[63] freshwater quality improves,[64][65] and vegetation grows significantly.  Soil nutrients diminish and erosion increases.[25]  Animals have adaptation and survival strategies for the wetter regime.  The previous dry season leads to food shortages into the wet season, as the crops have yet to mature.  Developing countries have noted that their populations show seasonal weight fluctuations due to food shortages seen before the first harvest, which occurs late in the wet season.[66]
+
+Tropical cyclones, a source of very heavy rainfall, consist of large air masses several hundred miles across with low pressure at the centre and with winds blowing inward towards the centre in either a clockwise direction (southern hemisphere) or counterclockwise (northern hemisphere).[67]  Although cyclones can 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.[68]  Areas in their path can receive a year's worth of rainfall from a tropical cyclone passage.[69]
+
+On the large scale, the highest precipitation amounts outside topography fall in the tropics, closely tied to the Intertropical Convergence Zone, itself the ascending branch of the Hadley cell.  Mountainous locales near the equator in Colombia are amongst the wettest places on Earth.[70]  North and south of this are regions of descending air that form subtropical ridges where precipitation is low;[71] the land surface underneath these ridges is usually arid, and these regions make up most of the Earth's deserts.[72]  An exception to this rule is in Hawaii, where upslope flow due to the trade winds lead to one of the wettest locations on Earth.[73]  Otherwise, the flow of the Westerlies into the Rocky Mountains lead to the wettest, and at elevation snowiest,[74]  locations within North America.  In Asia during the wet season, the flow of moist air into the Himalayas leads to some of the greatest rainfall amounts measured on Earth in northeast India.
+
+The standard way of measuring rainfall or snowfall is the standard rain gauge, which can be found in 100 mm (4 in) plastic and 200 mm (8 in) metal varieties.[75] The inner cylinder is filled by 25 mm (1 in) of rain, with overflow flowing into the outer cylinder. Plastic gauges have markings on the inner cylinder down to 0.25 mm (0.01 in) resolution, while metal gauges require use of a stick designed with the appropriate 0.25 mm (0.01 in) markings. After the inner cylinder is filled, the amount inside it is discarded, then filled with the remaining rainfall in the outer cylinder until all the fluid in the outer cylinder is gone, adding to the overall total until the outer cylinder is empty. These gauges are used in the winter by removing the funnel and inner cylinder and allowing snow and freezing rain to collect inside the outer cylinder.  Some add anti-freeze to their gauge so they do not have to melt the snow or ice that falls into the gauge.[76]  Once the snowfall/ice is finished accumulating, or as 300 mm (12 in) is approached, one can either bring it inside to melt, or use lukewarm water to fill the inner cylinder with in order to melt the frozen precipitation in the outer cylinder, keeping track of the warm fluid added, which is subsequently subtracted from the overall total once all the ice/snow is melted.[77]
+
+Other types of gauges include the popular wedge gauge (the cheapest rain gauge and most fragile), the tipping bucket rain gauge, and the weighing rain gauge.[78] The wedge and tipping bucket gauges will have problems with snow. Attempts to compensate for snow/ice by warming the tipping bucket meet with limited success, since snow may sublimate if the gauge is kept much above freezing. Weighing gauges with antifreeze should do fine with snow, but again, the funnel needs to be removed before the event begins. For those looking to measure rainfall the most inexpensively, a can that is cylindrical with straight sides will act as a rain gauge if left out in the open, but its accuracy will depend on what ruler is used to measure the rain with. Any of the above rain gauges can be made at home, with enough know-how.[79]
+
+When a precipitation measurement is made, various networks exist across the United States and elsewhere where rainfall measurements can be submitted through the Internet, such as CoCoRAHS or GLOBE.[80][81]  If a network is not available in the area where one lives, the nearest local weather office will likely be interested in the measurement.[82]
+
+A concept used in precipitation measurement is the hydrometeor. Any particulates of liquid or solid water in the atmosphere are known as hydrometeors.  Formations due to condensation, such as clouds, haze, fog, and mist, are composed of hydrometeors.  All precipitation types are made up of hydrometeors by definition, including virga, which is precipitation which evaporates before reaching the ground.  Particles blown from the Earth's surface by wind, such as blowing snow and blowing sea spray, are also hydrometeors, as are hail and snow.[83]
+
+Although surface precipitation gauges are considered the standard for measuring precipitation, there are many areas in which their use is not feasible. This includes the vast expanses of ocean and remote land areas. In other cases, social, technical or administrative issues prevent the dissemination of gauge observations. As a result, the modern global record of precipitation largely depends on satellite observations.[84]
+
+Satellite sensors work by remotely sensing precipitation—recording various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that theory and practice show are related to the occurrence and intensity of precipitation. The sensors are almost exclusively passive, recording what they see, similar to a camera, in contrast to active sensors (radar, lidar) that send out a signal and detect its impact on the area being observed.
+
+Satellite sensors now in practical use for precipitation fall into two categories. Thermal infrared (IR) sensors record a channel around 11 micron wavelength and primarily give information about cloud tops. Due to the typical structure of the atmosphere, cloud-top temperatures are approximately inversely related to cloud-top heights, meaning colder clouds almost always occur at higher altitudes. Further, cloud tops with a lot of small-scale variation are likely to be more vigorous than smooth-topped clouds. Various mathematical schemes, or algorithms, use these and other properties to estimate precipitation from the IR data.[85]
+
+The second category of sensor channels is in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The frequencies in use range from about 10 gigahertz  to a few hundred GHz. Channels up to about 37 GHz primarily provide information on the liquid hydrometeors (rain and drizzle) in the lower parts of clouds, with larger amounts of liquid emitting higher amounts of microwave radiant energy. Channels above 37 GHz display emission signals, but are dominated by the action of solid hydrometeors (snow, graupel, etc.) to scatter microwave radiant energy. Satellites such as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission employ microwave sensors to form precipitation estimates.
+
+Additional sensor channels and products have been demonstrated to provide additional useful information including visible channels, additional IR channels, water vapor channels and atmospheric sounding retrievals. However, most precipitation data sets in current use do not employ these data sources.[86]
+
+The IR estimates have rather low skill at short time and space scales, but are available very frequently (15 minutes or more often) from satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit. IR works best in cases of deep, vigorous convection—such as the tropics—and becomes progressively less useful in areas where stratiform (layered) precipitation dominates, especially in mid- and high-latitude regions. The more-direct physical connection between hydrometeors and microwave channels gives the microwave estimates greater skill on short time and space scales than is true for IR. However, microwave sensors fly only on low Earth orbit satellites, and there are few enough of them that the average time between observations exceeds three hours. This several-hour interval is insufficient to adequately document precipitation because of the transient nature of most precipitation systems as well as the inability of a single satellite to appropriately capture the typical daily cycle of precipitation at a given location.
+
+Since the late 1990s, several algorithms have been developed to combine precipitation data from multiple satellites' sensors, seeking to emphasize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the individual input data sets. The goal is to provide "best" estimates of precipitation on a uniform time/space grid, usually for as much of the globe as possible. In some cases the long-term homogeneity of the dataset is emphasized, which is the Climate Data Record standard.
+
+In other cases, the goal is producing the best instantaneous satellite estimate, which is the High Resolution Precipitation Product approach. In either case, of course, the less-emphasized goal is also considered desirable. One key result of the multi-satellite studies is that including even a small amount of surface gauge data is very useful for controlling the biases that are endemic to satellite estimates. The difficulties in using gauge data are that 1) their availability is limited, as noted above, and 2) the best analyses of gauge data take two months or more after the observation time to undergo the necessary transmission, assembly, processing and quality control. Thus, precipitation estimates that include gauge data tend to be produced further after the observation time than the no-gauge estimates. As a result, while estimates that include gauge data may provide a more accurate depiction of the "true" precipitation, they are generally not suited for real- or near-real-time applications.
+
+The work described has resulted in a variety of datasets possessing different formats, time/space grids, periods of record and regions of coverage, input datasets, and analysis procedures, as well as many different forms of dataset version designators.[87] In many cases, one of the modern multi-satellite data sets is the best choice for general use.
+
+The likelihood or probability of an event with a specified intensity and duration, is called the return period or frequency.[88] The intensity of a storm can be predicted for any return period and storm duration, from charts based on historic data for the location.[89]  The term 1 in 10 year storm describes a rainfall event which is rare and is only likely to occur once every 10 years, so it has a 10 percent likelihood any given year. The rainfall will be greater and the flooding will be worse than the worst storm expected in any single year.  The term 1 in 100 year storm describes a rainfall event which is extremely rare and which will occur with a likelihood of only once in a century, so has a 1 percent likelihood in any given year. The rainfall will be extreme and flooding to be worse than a 1 in 10 year event.  As with all probability events, it is possible though unlikely to have two "1 in 100 Year Storms" in a single year.[90]
+
+A significant portion of the annual precipitation in any particular place falls on only a few days, typically about 50% during the 12 days with the most precipitation.[91]
+
+The Köppen classification depends on average monthly values of temperature and precipitation.  The most commonly used form of the Köppen classification has five primary types labeled A through E. Specifically, the primary types are A, tropical; B, dry; C, mild mid-latitude; D, cold mid-latitude; and E, polar. The five primary classifications can be further divided into secondary classifications such as rain forest, monsoon, tropical savanna, humid subtropical, humid continental, oceanic climate, Mediterranean climate, steppe, subarctic climate, tundra, polar ice cap, and desert.
+
+Rain forests are characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1,750 and 2,000 mm (69 and 79 in).[93]  A tropical savanna is a grassland biome located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and tropical latitudes, with rainfall between 750 and 1,270 mm (30 and 50 in) a year.  They are widespread on Africa, and are also found in India, the northern parts of South America, Malaysia, and Australia.[94]  The humid subtropical climate zone is where winter rainfall (and sometimes snowfall) is associated with large storms that the westerlies steer from west to east. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms and from occasional tropical cyclones.[95]  Humid subtropical climates lie on the east side continents, roughly between latitudes 20° and 40° degrees from the equator.[96]
+
+An oceanic (or maritime) climate is typically found along the west coasts at the middle latitudes of all the world's continents, bordering cool oceans, as well as southeastern Australia, and is accompanied by plentiful precipitation year-round.[97]  The Mediterranean climate regime resembles the climate of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, parts of western North America, parts of western and southern Australia, in southwestern South Africa and in parts of central Chile. The climate is characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters.[98]  A steppe is a dry grassland.[99]  Subarctic climates are cold with continuous permafrost and little precipitation.[100]
+
+Precipitation, especially rain, has a dramatic effect on agriculture.  All plants need at least some water to survive, therefore rain (being the most effective means of watering) is important to agriculture.  While a regular rain pattern is usually vital to healthy plants, too much or too little rainfall can be harmful, even devastating to crops.  Drought can kill crops and increase erosion,[101] while overly wet weather can cause harmful fungus growth.[102]  Plants need varying amounts of rainfall to survive. For example, certain cacti require small amounts of water,[103] while tropical plants may need up to hundreds of inches of rain per year to survive.
+
+In areas with wet and dry seasons, soil nutrients diminish and erosion increases during the wet season.[25]  Animals have adaptation and survival strategies for the wetter regime.  The previous dry season leads to food shortages into the wet season, as the crops have yet to mature.[104]  Developing countries have noted that their populations show seasonal weight fluctuations due to food shortages seen before the first harvest, which occurs late in the wet season.[66]
+
+Increasing temperatures tend to increase evaporation which leads to more precipitation. Precipitation has generally increased over land north of 30°N from 1900 to 2005 but has declined over the tropics since the 1970s.  Globally there has been no statistically significant overall trend in precipitation over the past century, although trends have varied widely by region and over time.  Eastern portions of North and South America, northern Europe, and northern and central Asia have become wetter.  The Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia have become drier.  There has been an increase in the number of heavy precipitation events over many areas during the past century, as well as an increase since the 1970s in the prevalence of droughts—especially in the tropics and subtropics.  Changes in precipitation and evaporation over the oceans are suggested by the decreased salinity of mid- and high-latitude waters (implying more precipitation), along with increased salinity in lower latitudes (implying less precipitation, more evaporation, or both).  Over the contiguous United States, total annual precipitation increased at an average rate of 6.1% per century since 1900, with the greatest increases within the East North Central climate region (11.6% per century) and the South (11.1%). Hawaii was the only region to show a decrease (−9.25%).[105]
+
+The urban heat island warms cities 0.6 to 5.6 °C (1.1 to 10.1 °F) above surrounding suburbs and rural areas.  This extra heat leads to greater upward motion, which can induce additional shower and thunderstorm activity.  Rainfall rates downwind of cities are increased between 48% and 116%.  Partly as a result of this warming, monthly rainfall is about 28% greater between 32 to 64 kilometres (20 to 40 mi) downwind of cities, compared with upwind.[106]  Some cities induce a total precipitation increase of 51%.[107]
+
+The Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (abbreviated QPF) is the expected amount of liquid precipitation accumulated over a specified time period over a specified area.[108]  A QPF will be specified when a measurable precipitation type reaching a minimum threshold is forecast for any hour during a QPF valid period.  Precipitation forecasts tend to be bound by synoptic hours such as 0000, 0600, 1200 and 1800 GMT.  Terrain is considered in QPFs by use of topography or based upon climatological precipitation patterns from observations with fine detail.[109] Starting in the mid to late 1990s, QPFs were used within hydrologic forecast models to simulate impact to rivers throughout the United States.[110] Forecast models show significant sensitivity to humidity levels within the planetary boundary layer, or in the lowest levels of the atmosphere, which decreases with height.[111]  QPF can be generated on a quantitative, forecasting amounts, or a qualitative, forecasting the probability of a specific amount, basis.[112]  Radar imagery forecasting techniques show higher skill than model forecasts within six to seven hours of the time of the radar image.  The forecasts can be verified through use of rain gauge measurements, weather radar estimates, or a combination of both.  Various skill scores can be determined to measure the value of the rainfall forecast.[113]
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+In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity from clouds.[2]  The main forms of precipitation include  drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail.  Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor (reaching 100% relative humidity), so that the water condenses and "precipitates".  Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but colloids, because the water vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate.  Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated: cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air. Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud.  Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called "showers."[3]
+
+Moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is typically active when freezing rain occurs. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain and serves as the focus for forcing and rising air. Provided there is necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely nimbostratus and cumulonimbus if significant precipitation is involved. Eventually, the cloud droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops and descend toward the Earth where they will freeze on contact with exposed objects.  Where relatively warm water bodies are present, for example due to water evaporation from lakes, lake-effect snowfall becomes a concern downwind of the warm lakes within the cold cyclonic flow around the backside of extratropical cyclones.  Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy.  Thundersnow is possible within a cyclone's comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands.  In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation.  On the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating.  Most precipitation occurs within the tropics[4] and is caused by convection.  The movement of the monsoon trough, or intertropical convergence zone, brings rainy seasons to savannah regions.
+
+Precipitation is a major component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres (121,000 cu mi) of water falls as precipitation each year; 398,000 cubic kilometres (95,000 cu mi) of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres (26,000 cu mi) over land.[5] Given the Earth's surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres (39 in), but over land it is only 715 millimetres (28.1 in). Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes.
+
+Precipitation may occur on other celestial bodies, e.g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost, rather than rain or snow.[6]
+
+Precipitation is a major component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 (121,000 mi3) of water falls as precipitation each year, 398,000 km3 (95,000 cu mi) of it over the oceans.[5] Given the Earth's surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres (39 in).
+
+Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform,[7] and orographic rainfall.[8]  Convective processes involve strong vertical motions that can cause the overturning of the atmosphere in that location within an hour and cause heavy precipitation,[9] while stratiform processes involve weaker upward motions and less intense precipitation.[10]  Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice.  Mixtures of different types of precipitation, including types in different categories, can fall simultaneously.  Liquid forms of precipitation include rain and drizzle.  Rain or drizzle that freezes on contact within a subfreezing air mass is called "freezing rain" or "freezing drizzle".  Frozen forms of precipitation include snow, ice needles, ice pellets, hail, and graupel.[11]
+
+The dew point is the temperature to which a parcel of air must be cooled in order to become saturated, and (unless super-saturation occurs) condenses to water.[12]  Water vapor normally begins to condense on condensation nuclei such as dust, ice, and salt in order to form clouds.  An elevated portion of a frontal zone forces broad areas of lift, which form cloud decks such as altostratus or cirrostratus.  Stratus is a stable cloud deck which tends to form when a cool, stable air mass is trapped underneath a warm air mass.  It can also form due to the lifting of advection fog during breezy conditions.[13]
+
+There are four main mechanisms for cooling the air to its dew point: adiabatic cooling, conductive cooling, radiational cooling, and evaporative cooling. Adiabatic cooling occurs when air rises and expands.[14] The air can rise due to convection, large-scale atmospheric motions, or a physical barrier such as a mountain (orographic lift). Conductive cooling occurs when the air comes into contact with a colder surface,[15] usually by being blown from one surface to another, for example from a liquid water surface to colder land.  Radiational cooling occurs due to the emission of infrared radiation, either by the air or by the surface underneath.[16]  Evaporative cooling occurs when moisture is added to the air through evaporation, which forces the air temperature to cool to its wet-bulb temperature, or until it reaches saturation.[17]
+
+The main ways water vapor is added to the air are: wind convergence into areas of upward motion,[9] precipitation or virga falling from above,[18] daytime heating evaporating water from the surface of oceans, water bodies or wet land,[19] transpiration from plants,[20] cool or dry air moving over warmer water,[21] and lifting air over mountains.[22]
+
+Coalescence occurs when water droplets fuse to create larger water droplets, or when water droplets freeze onto an ice crystal, which is known as the Bergeron process. The fall rate of very small droplets is negligible, hence clouds do not fall out of the sky; precipitation will only occur when these coalesce into larger drops.  When air turbulence occurs, water droplets collide, producing larger droplets. As these larger water droplets descend, coalescence continues, so that drops become heavy enough to overcome air resistance and fall as rain.[23]
+
+Raindrops have sizes ranging from 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) to 9 millimetres (0.35 in) mean diameter, above which they tend to break up. Smaller drops are called cloud droplets, and their shape is spherical. As a raindrop increases in size, its shape becomes more oblate, with its largest cross-section facing the oncoming airflow. Contrary to the cartoon pictures of raindrops, their shape does not resemble a teardrop.[24] Intensity and duration of rainfall are usually inversely related, i.e., high intensity storms are likely to be of short duration and low intensity storms can have a long duration.[25][26]  Rain drops associated with melting hail tend to be larger than other rain drops.[27]  The METAR code for rain is RA, while the coding for rain showers is SHRA.[28]
+
+Ice pellets or sleet are a form of precipitation consisting of small, translucent balls of ice. Ice pellets are usually (but not always) smaller than hailstones.[29]  They often bounce when they hit the ground, and generally do not freeze into a solid mass unless mixed with freezing rain.  The METAR code for ice pellets is PL.[28]
+
+Ice pellets form when a layer of above-freezing air exists with sub-freezing air both above and below.  This causes the partial or complete melting of any snowflakes falling through the warm layer.  As they fall back into the sub-freezing layer closer to the surface, they re-freeze into ice pellets.  However, if the sub-freezing layer beneath the warm layer is too small, the precipitation will not have time to re-freeze, and freezing rain will be the result at the surface.  A temperature profile showing a warm layer above the ground is most likely to be found in advance of a warm front during the cold season,[30] but can occasionally be found behind a passing cold front.
+
+Like other precipitation, hail forms in storm clouds when supercooled water droplets freeze on contact with condensation nuclei, such as dust or dirt.  The storm's updraft blows the hailstones to the upper part of the cloud.  The updraft dissipates and the hailstones fall down, back into the updraft, and are lifted again.  Hail has a diameter of 5 millimetres (0.20 in) or more.[31]  Within METAR code, GR is used to indicate larger hail, of a diameter of at least 6.4 millimetres (0.25 in).  GR is derived from the French word grêle.  Smaller-sized hail, as well as snow pellets, use the coding of GS, which is short for the French word grésil.[28]  Stones just larger than golf ball-sized are one of the most frequently reported hail sizes.[32]  Hailstones can grow to 15 centimetres (6 in) and weigh more than 500 grams (1 lb).[33]  In large hailstones, latent heat released by further freezing may melt the outer shell of the hailstone.  The hailstone then may undergo 'wet growth', where the liquid outer shell collects other smaller hailstones.[34]  The hailstone gains an ice layer and grows increasingly larger with each ascent. Once a hailstone becomes too heavy to be supported by the storm's updraft, it falls from the cloud.[35]
+
+Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 μm in diameter) freeze. Once a droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment. Because water droplets are more numerous than the ice crystals the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometers in size at the expense of the water droplets.  This process is known as the Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process.  The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the droplets to evaporate, meaning that the ice crystals grow at the droplets' expense.  These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass, and may collide and stick together in clusters, or aggregates.  These aggregates are snowflakes, and are usually the type of ice particle that falls to the ground.[36]  Guinness World Records list the world's largest snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana; allegedly one measured 38 cm (15 inches) wide.[37] The exact details of the sticking mechanism remain a subject of research.
+
+Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows/imperfections mean that the crystals often appear white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small ice particles.[38]  The shape of the snowflake is determined broadly by the temperature and humidity at which it is formed.[36] Rarely, at a temperature of around −2 °C (28 °F), snowflakes can form in threefold symmetry—triangular snowflakes.[39] The most common snow particles are visibly irregular, although near-perfect snowflakes may be more common in pictures because they are more visually appealing.  No two snowflakes are alike,[40] as they grow at different rates and in different patterns depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere through which they fall on their way to the ground.[41] The METAR code for snow is SN, while snow showers are coded SHSN.[28]
+
+Diamond dust, also known as ice needles or ice crystals, forms at temperatures approaching −40 °C (−40 °F) due to air with slightly higher moisture from aloft mixing with colder, surface-based air.[42]  They are made of simple ice crystals, hexagonal in shape.[43] The METAR identifier for diamond dust within international hourly weather reports is IC.[28]
+
+Stratiform or dynamic precipitation occurs as a consequence of slow ascent of air in synoptic systems (on the order of cm/s), such as over surface cold fronts, and over and ahead of warm fronts. Similar ascent is seen around tropical cyclones outside of the eyewall, and in comma-head precipitation patterns around mid-latitude cyclones.[44] A wide variety of weather can be found along an occluded front, with thunderstorms possible, but usually their passage is associated with a drying of the air mass. Occluded fronts usually form around mature low-pressure areas.[45]  Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies other than Earth. When it gets cold, Mars has precipitation that most likely takes the form of ice needles, rather than rain or snow.[6]
+
+Convective rain, or showery precipitation, occurs from convective clouds, e.g. cumulonimbus or cumulus congestus. It falls as showers with rapidly changing intensity. Convective precipitation falls over a certain area for a relatively short time, as convective clouds have limited horizontal extent. Most precipitation in the tropics appears to be convective; however, it has been suggested that stratiform precipitation also occurs.[26][44] Graupel and hail indicate convection.[46] In mid-latitudes, convective precipitation is intermittent and often associated with baroclinic boundaries such as cold fronts, squall lines, and warm fronts.[47]
+
+Orographic precipitation occurs on the windward (upwind) side of mountains and is caused by the rising air motion of a large-scale flow of moist air across the mountain ridge, resulting in adiabatic cooling and condensation.  In mountainous parts of the world subjected to relatively consistent winds (for example, the trade winds), a more moist climate usually prevails on the windward side of a mountain than on the leeward or downwind side. Moisture is removed by orographic lift, leaving drier air (see katabatic wind) on the descending and generally warming, leeward side where a rain shadow is observed.[22]
+
+In Hawaii, Mount Waiʻaleʻale, on the island of Kauai, is notable for its extreme rainfall, as it has the second-highest average annual rainfall on Earth, with 12,000 millimetres (460 in).[48] Storm systems affect the state with heavy rains between October and March. Local climates vary considerably on each island due to their topography, divisible into windward (Koʻolau) and leeward (Kona) regions based upon location relative to the higher mountains. Windward sides face the east to northeast trade winds and receive much more rainfall; leeward sides are drier and sunnier, with less rain and less cloud cover.[49]
+
+In South America, the Andes mountain range blocks Pacific moisture that arrives in that continent, resulting in a desertlike climate just downwind across western Argentina.[50] The Sierra Nevada range creates the same effect in North America forming the Great Basin and Mojave Deserts.[51][52] Similarly, in Asia, the Himalaya mountains create an obstacle to monsoons which leads to extremely high precipitation on the southern side and lower precipitation levels on the northern side.
+
+Extratropical cyclones can bring cold and dangerous conditions with heavy rain and snow with winds exceeding 119 km/h (74 mph),[53] (sometimes referred to as windstorms in Europe). The band of precipitation that is associated with their warm front is often extensive, forced by weak upward vertical motion of air over the frontal boundary which condenses as it cools and produces precipitation within an elongated band,[54] which is wide and stratiform, meaning falling out of nimbostratus clouds.[55] When moist air tries to dislodge an arctic air mass, overrunning snow can result within the poleward side of the elongated precipitation band. In the Northern Hemisphere, poleward is towards the North Pole, or north. Within the Southern Hemisphere, poleward is towards the South Pole, or south.
+
+Southwest of extratropical cyclones, curved cyclonic flow bringing cold air across the relatively warm water bodies can lead to narrow lake-effect snow bands. Those bands bring strong localized snowfall which can be understood as follows: Large water bodies such as lakes efficiently store heat that results in significant temperature differences (larger than 13 °C or 23 °F) between the water surface and the air above.[56] Because of this temperature difference, warmth and moisture are transported upward, condensing into vertically oriented clouds (see satellite picture) which produce snow showers. The temperature decrease with height and cloud depth are directly affected by both the water temperature and the large-scale environment. The stronger the temperature decrease with height, the deeper the clouds get, and the greater the precipitation rate becomes.[57]
+
+In mountainous areas, heavy snowfall accumulates when air is forced to ascend the mountains and squeeze out precipitation along their windward slopes, which in cold conditions, falls in the form of snow. Because of the ruggedness of terrain, forecasting the location of heavy snowfall remains a significant challenge.[58]
+
+The wet, or rainy, season is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region falls.[59]  The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities.[60]  Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the tropics and subtropics.[61] Savanna climates and areas with monsoon regimes have wet summers and dry winters.  Tropical rainforests technically do not have dry or wet seasons, since their rainfall is equally distributed through the year.[62]  Some areas with pronounced rainy seasons will see a break in rainfall mid-season when the intertropical convergence zone or monsoon trough move poleward of their location during the middle of the warm season.[25]  When the wet season occurs during the warm season, or summer, rain falls mainly during the late afternoon and early evening hours.  The wet season is a time when air quality improves,[63] freshwater quality improves,[64][65] and vegetation grows significantly.  Soil nutrients diminish and erosion increases.[25]  Animals have adaptation and survival strategies for the wetter regime.  The previous dry season leads to food shortages into the wet season, as the crops have yet to mature.  Developing countries have noted that their populations show seasonal weight fluctuations due to food shortages seen before the first harvest, which occurs late in the wet season.[66]
+
+Tropical cyclones, a source of very heavy rainfall, consist of large air masses several hundred miles across with low pressure at the centre and with winds blowing inward towards the centre in either a clockwise direction (southern hemisphere) or counterclockwise (northern hemisphere).[67]  Although cyclones can 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.[68]  Areas in their path can receive a year's worth of rainfall from a tropical cyclone passage.[69]
+
+On the large scale, the highest precipitation amounts outside topography fall in the tropics, closely tied to the Intertropical Convergence Zone, itself the ascending branch of the Hadley cell.  Mountainous locales near the equator in Colombia are amongst the wettest places on Earth.[70]  North and south of this are regions of descending air that form subtropical ridges where precipitation is low;[71] the land surface underneath these ridges is usually arid, and these regions make up most of the Earth's deserts.[72]  An exception to this rule is in Hawaii, where upslope flow due to the trade winds lead to one of the wettest locations on Earth.[73]  Otherwise, the flow of the Westerlies into the Rocky Mountains lead to the wettest, and at elevation snowiest,[74]  locations within North America.  In Asia during the wet season, the flow of moist air into the Himalayas leads to some of the greatest rainfall amounts measured on Earth in northeast India.
+
+The standard way of measuring rainfall or snowfall is the standard rain gauge, which can be found in 100 mm (4 in) plastic and 200 mm (8 in) metal varieties.[75] The inner cylinder is filled by 25 mm (1 in) of rain, with overflow flowing into the outer cylinder. Plastic gauges have markings on the inner cylinder down to 0.25 mm (0.01 in) resolution, while metal gauges require use of a stick designed with the appropriate 0.25 mm (0.01 in) markings. After the inner cylinder is filled, the amount inside it is discarded, then filled with the remaining rainfall in the outer cylinder until all the fluid in the outer cylinder is gone, adding to the overall total until the outer cylinder is empty. These gauges are used in the winter by removing the funnel and inner cylinder and allowing snow and freezing rain to collect inside the outer cylinder.  Some add anti-freeze to their gauge so they do not have to melt the snow or ice that falls into the gauge.[76]  Once the snowfall/ice is finished accumulating, or as 300 mm (12 in) is approached, one can either bring it inside to melt, or use lukewarm water to fill the inner cylinder with in order to melt the frozen precipitation in the outer cylinder, keeping track of the warm fluid added, which is subsequently subtracted from the overall total once all the ice/snow is melted.[77]
+
+Other types of gauges include the popular wedge gauge (the cheapest rain gauge and most fragile), the tipping bucket rain gauge, and the weighing rain gauge.[78] The wedge and tipping bucket gauges will have problems with snow. Attempts to compensate for snow/ice by warming the tipping bucket meet with limited success, since snow may sublimate if the gauge is kept much above freezing. Weighing gauges with antifreeze should do fine with snow, but again, the funnel needs to be removed before the event begins. For those looking to measure rainfall the most inexpensively, a can that is cylindrical with straight sides will act as a rain gauge if left out in the open, but its accuracy will depend on what ruler is used to measure the rain with. Any of the above rain gauges can be made at home, with enough know-how.[79]
+
+When a precipitation measurement is made, various networks exist across the United States and elsewhere where rainfall measurements can be submitted through the Internet, such as CoCoRAHS or GLOBE.[80][81]  If a network is not available in the area where one lives, the nearest local weather office will likely be interested in the measurement.[82]
+
+A concept used in precipitation measurement is the hydrometeor. Any particulates of liquid or solid water in the atmosphere are known as hydrometeors.  Formations due to condensation, such as clouds, haze, fog, and mist, are composed of hydrometeors.  All precipitation types are made up of hydrometeors by definition, including virga, which is precipitation which evaporates before reaching the ground.  Particles blown from the Earth's surface by wind, such as blowing snow and blowing sea spray, are also hydrometeors, as are hail and snow.[83]
+
+Although surface precipitation gauges are considered the standard for measuring precipitation, there are many areas in which their use is not feasible. This includes the vast expanses of ocean and remote land areas. In other cases, social, technical or administrative issues prevent the dissemination of gauge observations. As a result, the modern global record of precipitation largely depends on satellite observations.[84]
+
+Satellite sensors work by remotely sensing precipitation—recording various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that theory and practice show are related to the occurrence and intensity of precipitation. The sensors are almost exclusively passive, recording what they see, similar to a camera, in contrast to active sensors (radar, lidar) that send out a signal and detect its impact on the area being observed.
+
+Satellite sensors now in practical use for precipitation fall into two categories. Thermal infrared (IR) sensors record a channel around 11 micron wavelength and primarily give information about cloud tops. Due to the typical structure of the atmosphere, cloud-top temperatures are approximately inversely related to cloud-top heights, meaning colder clouds almost always occur at higher altitudes. Further, cloud tops with a lot of small-scale variation are likely to be more vigorous than smooth-topped clouds. Various mathematical schemes, or algorithms, use these and other properties to estimate precipitation from the IR data.[85]
+
+The second category of sensor channels is in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The frequencies in use range from about 10 gigahertz  to a few hundred GHz. Channels up to about 37 GHz primarily provide information on the liquid hydrometeors (rain and drizzle) in the lower parts of clouds, with larger amounts of liquid emitting higher amounts of microwave radiant energy. Channels above 37 GHz display emission signals, but are dominated by the action of solid hydrometeors (snow, graupel, etc.) to scatter microwave radiant energy. Satellites such as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission employ microwave sensors to form precipitation estimates.
+
+Additional sensor channels and products have been demonstrated to provide additional useful information including visible channels, additional IR channels, water vapor channels and atmospheric sounding retrievals. However, most precipitation data sets in current use do not employ these data sources.[86]
+
+The IR estimates have rather low skill at short time and space scales, but are available very frequently (15 minutes or more often) from satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit. IR works best in cases of deep, vigorous convection—such as the tropics—and becomes progressively less useful in areas where stratiform (layered) precipitation dominates, especially in mid- and high-latitude regions. The more-direct physical connection between hydrometeors and microwave channels gives the microwave estimates greater skill on short time and space scales than is true for IR. However, microwave sensors fly only on low Earth orbit satellites, and there are few enough of them that the average time between observations exceeds three hours. This several-hour interval is insufficient to adequately document precipitation because of the transient nature of most precipitation systems as well as the inability of a single satellite to appropriately capture the typical daily cycle of precipitation at a given location.
+
+Since the late 1990s, several algorithms have been developed to combine precipitation data from multiple satellites' sensors, seeking to emphasize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the individual input data sets. The goal is to provide "best" estimates of precipitation on a uniform time/space grid, usually for as much of the globe as possible. In some cases the long-term homogeneity of the dataset is emphasized, which is the Climate Data Record standard.
+
+In other cases, the goal is producing the best instantaneous satellite estimate, which is the High Resolution Precipitation Product approach. In either case, of course, the less-emphasized goal is also considered desirable. One key result of the multi-satellite studies is that including even a small amount of surface gauge data is very useful for controlling the biases that are endemic to satellite estimates. The difficulties in using gauge data are that 1) their availability is limited, as noted above, and 2) the best analyses of gauge data take two months or more after the observation time to undergo the necessary transmission, assembly, processing and quality control. Thus, precipitation estimates that include gauge data tend to be produced further after the observation time than the no-gauge estimates. As a result, while estimates that include gauge data may provide a more accurate depiction of the "true" precipitation, they are generally not suited for real- or near-real-time applications.
+
+The work described has resulted in a variety of datasets possessing different formats, time/space grids, periods of record and regions of coverage, input datasets, and analysis procedures, as well as many different forms of dataset version designators.[87] In many cases, one of the modern multi-satellite data sets is the best choice for general use.
+
+The likelihood or probability of an event with a specified intensity and duration, is called the return period or frequency.[88] The intensity of a storm can be predicted for any return period and storm duration, from charts based on historic data for the location.[89]  The term 1 in 10 year storm describes a rainfall event which is rare and is only likely to occur once every 10 years, so it has a 10 percent likelihood any given year. The rainfall will be greater and the flooding will be worse than the worst storm expected in any single year.  The term 1 in 100 year storm describes a rainfall event which is extremely rare and which will occur with a likelihood of only once in a century, so has a 1 percent likelihood in any given year. The rainfall will be extreme and flooding to be worse than a 1 in 10 year event.  As with all probability events, it is possible though unlikely to have two "1 in 100 Year Storms" in a single year.[90]
+
+A significant portion of the annual precipitation in any particular place falls on only a few days, typically about 50% during the 12 days with the most precipitation.[91]
+
+The Köppen classification depends on average monthly values of temperature and precipitation.  The most commonly used form of the Köppen classification has five primary types labeled A through E. Specifically, the primary types are A, tropical; B, dry; C, mild mid-latitude; D, cold mid-latitude; and E, polar. The five primary classifications can be further divided into secondary classifications such as rain forest, monsoon, tropical savanna, humid subtropical, humid continental, oceanic climate, Mediterranean climate, steppe, subarctic climate, tundra, polar ice cap, and desert.
+
+Rain forests are characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1,750 and 2,000 mm (69 and 79 in).[93]  A tropical savanna is a grassland biome located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and tropical latitudes, with rainfall between 750 and 1,270 mm (30 and 50 in) a year.  They are widespread on Africa, and are also found in India, the northern parts of South America, Malaysia, and Australia.[94]  The humid subtropical climate zone is where winter rainfall (and sometimes snowfall) is associated with large storms that the westerlies steer from west to east. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms and from occasional tropical cyclones.[95]  Humid subtropical climates lie on the east side continents, roughly between latitudes 20° and 40° degrees from the equator.[96]
+
+An oceanic (or maritime) climate is typically found along the west coasts at the middle latitudes of all the world's continents, bordering cool oceans, as well as southeastern Australia, and is accompanied by plentiful precipitation year-round.[97]  The Mediterranean climate regime resembles the climate of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, parts of western North America, parts of western and southern Australia, in southwestern South Africa and in parts of central Chile. The climate is characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters.[98]  A steppe is a dry grassland.[99]  Subarctic climates are cold with continuous permafrost and little precipitation.[100]
+
+Precipitation, especially rain, has a dramatic effect on agriculture.  All plants need at least some water to survive, therefore rain (being the most effective means of watering) is important to agriculture.  While a regular rain pattern is usually vital to healthy plants, too much or too little rainfall can be harmful, even devastating to crops.  Drought can kill crops and increase erosion,[101] while overly wet weather can cause harmful fungus growth.[102]  Plants need varying amounts of rainfall to survive. For example, certain cacti require small amounts of water,[103] while tropical plants may need up to hundreds of inches of rain per year to survive.
+
+In areas with wet and dry seasons, soil nutrients diminish and erosion increases during the wet season.[25]  Animals have adaptation and survival strategies for the wetter regime.  The previous dry season leads to food shortages into the wet season, as the crops have yet to mature.[104]  Developing countries have noted that their populations show seasonal weight fluctuations due to food shortages seen before the first harvest, which occurs late in the wet season.[66]
+
+Increasing temperatures tend to increase evaporation which leads to more precipitation. Precipitation has generally increased over land north of 30°N from 1900 to 2005 but has declined over the tropics since the 1970s.  Globally there has been no statistically significant overall trend in precipitation over the past century, although trends have varied widely by region and over time.  Eastern portions of North and South America, northern Europe, and northern and central Asia have become wetter.  The Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia have become drier.  There has been an increase in the number of heavy precipitation events over many areas during the past century, as well as an increase since the 1970s in the prevalence of droughts—especially in the tropics and subtropics.  Changes in precipitation and evaporation over the oceans are suggested by the decreased salinity of mid- and high-latitude waters (implying more precipitation), along with increased salinity in lower latitudes (implying less precipitation, more evaporation, or both).  Over the contiguous United States, total annual precipitation increased at an average rate of 6.1% per century since 1900, with the greatest increases within the East North Central climate region (11.6% per century) and the South (11.1%). Hawaii was the only region to show a decrease (−9.25%).[105]
+
+The urban heat island warms cities 0.6 to 5.6 °C (1.1 to 10.1 °F) above surrounding suburbs and rural areas.  This extra heat leads to greater upward motion, which can induce additional shower and thunderstorm activity.  Rainfall rates downwind of cities are increased between 48% and 116%.  Partly as a result of this warming, monthly rainfall is about 28% greater between 32 to 64 kilometres (20 to 40 mi) downwind of cities, compared with upwind.[106]  Some cities induce a total precipitation increase of 51%.[107]
+
+The Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (abbreviated QPF) is the expected amount of liquid precipitation accumulated over a specified time period over a specified area.[108]  A QPF will be specified when a measurable precipitation type reaching a minimum threshold is forecast for any hour during a QPF valid period.  Precipitation forecasts tend to be bound by synoptic hours such as 0000, 0600, 1200 and 1800 GMT.  Terrain is considered in QPFs by use of topography or based upon climatological precipitation patterns from observations with fine detail.[109] Starting in the mid to late 1990s, QPFs were used within hydrologic forecast models to simulate impact to rivers throughout the United States.[110] Forecast models show significant sensitivity to humidity levels within the planetary boundary layer, or in the lowest levels of the atmosphere, which decreases with height.[111]  QPF can be generated on a quantitative, forecasting amounts, or a qualitative, forecasting the probability of a specific amount, basis.[112]  Radar imagery forecasting techniques show higher skill than model forecasts within six to seven hours of the time of the radar image.  The forecasts can be verified through use of rain gauge measurements, weather radar estimates, or a combination of both.  Various skill scores can be determined to measure the value of the rainfall forecast.[113]
+