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cd53e1721450fbafdb0683c60a946a3e | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bijnor | Bijnor | Bijnor
Bijnor, town, northwestern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies in the Upper Ganges-Yamuna Doab near the Ganges (Ganga) River, about 40 miles (65 km) northeast of Meerut.
Bijnor was ceded to the British East India Company in 1801. The present-day town is a trade centre for agricultural products and is also noted for thread manufacturing. It is linked by road and rail with Meerut and Delhi to the southwest as well as with Haridwar and Dehra Dun to the north in Uttarakhand state. Corbett National Park lies about 40 miles east of Bijnor. Pop. (2001) 79,346; (2011) 93,297.
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19558d58de7b33caa2937bca2785d2e7 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bistrita | Bistrița | Bistrița
Bistrița, town, capital of Bistrița-Năsăud județ (county), northern Romania. Settled in the 12th century by immigrant Germans, it acquired free-city status in 1353. Holding an annual fair, it developed extensive markets throughout Moldavia, and its craftsmen travelled extensively. In 1713 the Romanian population was expelled by the Saxon magistrates, but they returned later, and Bistrița was joined to Romania in 1918, along with all of Transylvania. It was part of Hungary from 1940 to 1944. Foodstuffs and building materials are important in the economy. The area around the town is noted for its timber and wines. Năsăud, a few miles northwest, is famous for its timber and fruit and for the fine embroidery on traditional peasant costumes. Pop. (2007 est.) 83,039.
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d69788144cad7e76579a7430dfbc85e4 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bithynium | Bithynium | Bithynium
…are ruins of the ancient Bithynium, a flourishing town of Asia Minor (Anatolia) and—as birthplace of the Roman emperor Hadrian’s favourite, Antinoüs—recipient of many privileges during that emperor’s reign (117–138 ce). Taken by the Ottoman Turks about 1325, Bolu is the reputed home of the legendary Turkish folk hero Köroğlu.
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7572b9b4ba74a023d7e6a70a28fd09a3 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bitlis | Bitlis | Bitlis
Bitlis, city, southeastern Turkey. It is located southwest of Lake Van at 4,600 feet (1,400 metres) above sea level.
Strategically situated in the narrow valley of the Bitlis Çay, a tributary of the Tigris River, it commands the only route from the Van basin to the Mesopotamian plains. It was mentioned frequently, as Bagesh, in old Armenian sources. Taken by the Muslim Arabs during the reign of the caliph ʿUmar I (634–644), it changed hands intermittently among the Arab dynasties, the Armenians, the Byzantines, the Persian Il-Khanids, and the Mongols until the establishment of a Kurdish dynasty in the 14th century. The Kurds at Bitlis, under Ottoman suzerainty, enjoyed considerable autonomy until 1847, when the town came under direct Ottoman administration. The Armenian insurrections at the end of the 19th century and the Russian occupation during World War I hurt Bitlis, reducing its population and damaging its weaving and dyeing industries. Historical monuments include a partly ruined medieval castle and numerous mosques, theological schools, and inns that date from the early Seljuq and Ottoman periods.
The area in which Bitlis is situated includes the eastern corner of the Muş Plain, the plateau west of Lake Van, and the wild, mountainous country on both sides of the city of Bitlis. The climate in mountainous areas is harsh, with long winters and heavy snowfalls. Agricultural products include fruits, grain, and tobacco; industry is limited to leatherworking, the manufacture of tobacco products, and the weaving and dyeing of coarse cloth. Kurds form the majority of the population. Tatvan, on Lake Van, is a major port. Pop. (2000) 44,923; (2013 est.) 46,111.
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9b8be4402576fc6dec80ed33ef446b40 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Black-Range | Black Range | Black Range
Black Range, mountain range extending 100 miles (160 km) north to south, through Catron and Sierra counties, southwestern New Mexico, U.S. The range follows the Continental Divide for much of its length. Most of the range lies within the Gila National Forest, near the headwaters of the Gila River. The highest point in the range is Reeds Peak (10,015 feet [3,053 metres]). State Highway 152, also called the Black Range Highway, was built through the mountains in 1937; most of the range is otherwise without roads, although a network of hiking trails enables access into the mountains at several points.
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7ca304da3027a9bd5c37b920aedb1d8a | https://www.britannica.com/place/Black-Rock-Canal | Black Rock Canal | Black Rock Canal
The Black Rock Canal, from Buffalo Harbor to a point a few miles down the Niagara River, extends the navigation period locally through a greater part of the winter, when the river itself becomes jammed with Lake Erie ice. The principal shipping between Lakes Erie and…
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b4844d29bf513b4fc05de6d21204777d | https://www.britannica.com/place/Blarney-Ireland | Blarney | Blarney
Blarney, Irish An Bhlarna, village, County Cork, Ireland, 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Cork city, famous for Blarney Castle (c. 1446). Below the battlements on the southern wall of the castle is the Blarney Stone, reputed to confer eloquence on those who kiss it; this feat can be achieved only by hanging head downward. “Blarney” as an expression of dubiousness is attributed to Elizabeth I of England, who used it when impugning the worth of Lord Blarney’s promises. Blarney lies in wooded country. Tweed is manufactured there, as also are polypropylene sacks. Pop. (2002) 2,146; (2011) 2,437.
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ff136b05e3c9ca8aebd5993c9257b1a3 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bloomfield-Hills | Bloomfield Hills | Bloomfield Hills
Bloomfield Hills, city, Oakland county, southeastern Michigan, U.S. It lies just southeast of Pontiac and northwest of Detroit. The site was settled in 1819 by Amasa Bagley and was known as Bagley’s Corners and Bloomfield Center until the present name was adopted in the 1890s. A farming community until Detroit residents began buying estates there, it then became a restricted residential community. The Cranbrook Foundation was established in 1927 by Ellen Scripps Booth and George G. Booth (president of the Detroit News) on their 300-acre (121-hectare) estate. Now known as Cranbrook Educational Community, it includes the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Cranbrook Art Museum, the Cranbrook Institute of Science, the Cranbrook House and Gardens, the Gothic-style Christ Church (Episcopalian), and the Cranbrook Schools, a group of private coeducational institutions for students from the preschool through the college preparatory level. The Detroit Temple (1999) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) is located in the city, as is the church’s local stake centre (or tabernacle; 1959). Oakland Community College was established in 1964. Inc. village, 1927; city, 1932. Pop. (2000) 3,940; (2010) 3,869.
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30e39b7e859b7809c08333994ab0d250 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bo-Sierra-Leone | Bo | Bo
Bo, town, south-central Sierra Leone, western Africa. Located near the intersection of roads from Freetown and Makeni, it became the largest town (and for a time capital, 1930–61) of the Sierra Leone Protectorate. The commercial hub of the interior, it trades in palm oil and kernels, ginger, coffee, cocoa, and rice, which are transported mainly by road to Freetown (108 miles [174 km] west-northwest). Bo has been the educational centre of the interior since the opening in 1906 of a secondary school for the sons of Mende and other chiefdoms; it now has government, Christian, and Muslim schools, a main library, and teacher-training colleges. Several periodicals are published locally. Bo also has the largest government hospital outside Freetown. Pop. (2004) 149,957.
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292591d295e2aef0ff4e4e153b9e53d7 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bodo-Norway | Bodø | Bodø
Bodø, town and port, north-central Norway. It is located at the end of a peninsula projecting into the Norwegian Sea, at the entrance to Salt Fjord. Bodø was founded by Trondheim merchants and chartered in 1816. A commercial-fishing centre specializing in cod drying, it also has ship repair yards and a brewery. In World War II much of the town was destroyed by German air and ground action, but it has been completely rebuilt and enlarged. Reconstruction included a large airport and the extension of the North Norway Railway to Bodø from Lønsdal to the southeast. Places of interest include the 13th-century Bodin Church and the Bodø Cathedral (Lutheran), a modern edifice (consecrated 1956). About 20 miles (30 km) from the town, at the southern side of Salt Fjord, is the narrow marine channel known as Saltstraumen, famous for its strong tidal current and its whirlpools, which rival those of the Maelstrom, to the northwest. Bodø’s far northern site enables the midnight sun to be seen for about a month (early June–early July). Pop. (2007 est.) mun., 45,575.
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da2300cb914f1d6b027c1af9d15f8099 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bok-Singing-Tower | Bok Singing Tower | Bok Singing Tower
…a peaceful setting for the Bok Singing Tower, 205 feet (62 metres) high, which contains a carillon of 57 bells. The Audubon Center is 6 miles (10 km) south, and Lake Kissimmee State Park is about 15 miles (25 km) east. A Mardi Gras celebration is held annually before the…
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fd473532feec7a16281007b8848b4d40 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bok-Tower-Gardens | Bok Tower Gardens | Bok Tower Gardens
Bok Tower Gardens was established in 1929 on nearby Iron Mountain (295 feet [90 metres], the highest point in peninsular Florida) by Edward W. Bok, Pulitzer Prize winner (1921) and editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal. The gardens, famed for their plant and animal life,…
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48bff3079a4a66890780904f01ac2e84 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bolivia | Bolivia | Bolivia
Bolivia, country of west-central South America. Extending some 950 miles (1,500 km) north-south and 800 miles (1,300 km) east-west, Bolivia is bordered to the north and east by Brazil, to the southeast by Paraguay, to the south by Argentina, to the southwest and west by Chile, and to the northwest by Peru. Bolivia shares Lake Titicaca, the second largest lake in South America (after Lake Maracaibo), with Peru. The country has been landlocked since it lost its Pacific coast territory to Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879–84), but agreements with neighbouring countries have granted it indirect access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The constitutional capital is the historic city of Sucre, where the Supreme Court is established, but the administrative capital is La Paz, where the executive and legislative branches of government function.
Bolivia is traditionally regarded as a highland country. Although only one-third of its territory lies in the Andes Mountains, most of the nation’s largest cities are located there, and for centuries the highlands have attracted the nation’s largest amount of mining, commercial, and business investment. In the late 20th century, however, the demographic and economic landscape began to change as the eastern lowlands—particularly the department of Santa Cruz—developed rapidly.
The country has a rich history. It was once the centre of the ancient Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) empire, and from the 15th to the early 16th century it was a part of the Inca empire. After the arrival of the conquistadores, Bolivia was subsumed within the Viceroyalty of Peru, and it provided Spain with immense wealth in silver.
Bolivia’s mountainous western region, which is one of the highest inhabited areas in the world, constitutes an important economic and political centre. There the Andes reach their greatest breadth and complexity. The system in Bolivia is dominated by two great parallel ranges. To the west along the border with Chile is the Cordillera Occidental, which contains numerous active volcanoes and the spectacular Uyuni Salt Flat; the cordillera is crowned by the republic’s highest peak, Mount Sajama, reaching an elevation of 21,463 feet (6,542 metres). To the east is the Cordillera Oriental, whose spectacular northern section near La Paz is called Cordillera Real (“Royal Range”). An impressive line of snowcapped peaks, some exceeding 20,000 feet (6,100 metres), characterize this northern section, which maintains an average elevation of more than 18,000 feet (5,500 metres) for more than 200 miles (320 km). Between these ranges lies the Altiplano (“High Plateau”), which extends from southern Peru through Bolivia to northern Argentina. The plateau is a relatively flat-floored depression about 500 miles (800 km) long and 80 miles (130 km) wide, lying at elevations between 12,000 and 12,500 feet (3,650 and 3,800 metres). To the north of the Cordillera Real is the Apolobamba range, bordered on the western slopes by lakes and protected areas where vicuñas, alpacas, and llamas thrive. Terraced fields built hundreds of years ago lie at the foothills of snow-covered peaks, which have been sacred to the Indians since ancient times.
The surface of the Altiplano is composed mostly of water- and wind-borne deposits from the bordering mountains, and it slopes gently southward, its evenness broken by occasional hills and ridges. The margins of the Altiplano are characterized by numerous spurs and interlocking alluvial fans (accumulations of silt, gravel, and other debris that were brought down from the mountains and that have spread out in the shape of a fan). In the middle of the Altiplano are the Titicaca and Poopó lakes and basins, which traditionally have been important agricultural, economic, and cultural areas.
From the high, snowcapped slopes of the Cordillera Real and the Apolobamba range, the descent to the eastern plains is extremely precipitous, plunging through a rainy and heavily forested belt of rugged terrain known as the Yungas—an Aymara word roughly translated as “Warm Lands” or “Warm Valleys.” The Yungas form the southern end of a region that extends along the eastern Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (where it is called the Alto Selva [“High Rainforest”]) and continues southeast through Bolivia as far as Santa Cruz. In Bolivia the name Yungas often refers to a smaller region northeast of La Paz, which, like the neighbouring region of Alto Beni (the upper basin of the Beni River north of Caranavi), is part of the larger Yungas region.
In southern Bolivia the Andes become much wider and are formed by a high, tilted block called the Puna, with west-facing escarpments and more gentle eastward slopes down to the plains. The Puna is broken up by the Valles, a system of fertile valleys and mountain basins that are generally larger and less confined than those in the Yungas. They lie at elevations mostly between 6,000 and 9,500 feet (1,800 and 2,900 metres) and are noted for their rich, varied agriculture and the so-called garden cities of Cochabamba, Sucre, and Tarija.
North and east of the Andes and Yungas is the Oriente region, an extension of the Amazon River basin that covers more than two-thirds of Bolivia. The vast area of the Oriente is composed of low alluvial plains (llanos), great swamps, flooded bottomlands, open savannas, and tropical forests. It supports the greatest variety of wildlife in the nation, as well as the largest population centre (Santa Cruz city) and the fastest-growing of Bolivia’s regional economies. In the extreme south is the Bolivian Chaco, which forms part of the Gran Chaco; it is a level area that varies strikingly with the seasons. During the rainy season it becomes a veritable swamp, but it is a hot semidesert during the remaining seven or eight months of the year. Northward from the Chaco the relief of the Santa Cruz department is somewhat more varied, exhibiting a gentle downward slope to the north. The Oriente includes much of the northern departments of Beni and Pando, where the low plains are covered by savanna and, in the far north, by expanses of tropical rainforest.
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8ebd86809cae5c03c50b285b88a1a173 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bolovens-Plateau | Bolovens Plateau | Bolovens Plateau
Bolovens Plateau, French Plateau des Bolovens, fertile, gently rolling upland, southern Laos. The plateau lies east of Pakxé between the Mekong River and the western foothills of the southern Annamese Cordillera (Chaîne Annamitique). Basically a large, basaltic lava extrusion, about 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation, the saucer-shaped upland is highest on its northern and southern rims, where peaks rise 5,194 feet and 3,058 feet (1,583 m and 932 m) above sea level. Directly in the path of the June-to-November southwest monsoon, the Boloven receives annually more than 160 inches (4,000 mm) of rainfall, the heaviest in Laos. The plateau is sparsely populated by the Loven, Nha Huen Sovei, and Sou of the Lao-Theung (Mon-Khmer) peoples. Though the region is reputed to have rich soil, it has been plagued by civil wars, poor transportation, and plant disease. The Muang Pakxong–Saravan (Salavan) highway crosses the plateau. Much of the region still remains in brush and tall grass. Some spices, notably cardamom, are raised for export, as is coffee. Pagodite, a stone used in carving, is mined.
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1bbc1cd863b525233c9c2a6db6a3b855 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bolsover-district-England | Bolsover | Bolsover
district, administrative and historic county of Derbyshire, England. The district takes its name from the principal town in an area of agricultural land interspersed with small coal-mining settlements.
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79c16ad9d2117e0a954f23888c4a9738 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bootes | Boötes | Boötes
Boötes, constellation in the northern sky, at about 15 hours right ascension and 30° north in declination. The brightest star in Boötes is Arcturus, the third brightest star in the sky. The radiant of the Quadrantid meteor shower, which happens in early January, is found in Boötes. The name Boötes is thought to stem from the Greek word for either “ox driver” or “noisy” (referring to the shouts of an ox driver or herdsman spurring on his animals). Greek mythology identified this constellation as either Icarius, the hero of the Attic deme of Icaria, or Arcas, a human son of Zeus.
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4514cb03772c4438afdb24e63d62d1ab | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bora-Bora | Bora-Bora | Bora-Bora
Bora-Bora, volcanic island, Îles Sous le Vent (Leeward Islands), in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. It lies in the central South Pacific Ocean, about 165 miles (265 km) northwest of Tahiti. The mountainous island, some 6 miles (10 km) long and 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, has Mount Otemanu (Temanu; 2,385 feet [727 metres]) and twin-peaked Mount Pahia (2,159 feet [658 metres]) as its highest peaks. It is surrounded by coral reefs. On the west side of Bora-Bora is a large lagoon in which the smaller islands of Toopua and Toopua Iti protect a spacious harbour, popular with yachtsmen. Vaitape, the principal village and administrative centre, is on the west coast.
The island’s name—the Tahitian spelling of which is Porapora—means “First Born”; according to tradition, it was the first island created after Raiatea. Bora-Bora was sighted by Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen in 1722, visited by Capt. James Cook in 1769 and 1777, and annexed by France in the late 19th century. During World War II the island had an Allied naval base, and the islet of Mute, on the northwest side of Bora-Bora’s reef, was an Allied air base; the airport is still in use. Tourism is Bora-Bora’s primary economic activity. Chief products include copra, vanilla, and mother-of-pearl. Area 14.7 square miles (38 square km). Pop. (2017) 10,605.
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b669af7f641e0752ef9c7a7a570ae890 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Boryspil-International-Airport | Boryspil International Airport | Boryspil International Airport
Boryspil International Airport operates direct flights to many Ukrainian towns and international service to major cities throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Within Kyiv itself there is efficient subway and rail, bus, streetcar, and trolleybus service.
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47c49c1a68962119bfde6ee4517be622 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bosporus | Bosporus | Bosporus
Bosporus, also spelled Bosphorus, Turkish İstanbul Boğazı or Karadenız Boğazı, strait (boğaz, “throat”) uniting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara and separating parts of Asian Turkey (Anatolia) from European Turkey.
The Bosporus is 19 miles (30 km) long, with a maximum width of 2.3 miles (3.7 km) at the northern entrance and a minimum width of 2,450 feet (750 metres) between the Ottoman fortifications of Rumelihisarı and Anadoluhisarı. Its depth varies from 120 to 408 feet (36.5 to 124 metres) in midstream. In its centre a rapid current flows from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, but a countercurrent below the surface carries water of greater salinity from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea. The Bosporus is heavily fished, since the channel is a seasonal migration route for fish to and from the Black Sea. Both shores are well wooded and are dotted with villages, resorts, and fine residences and villas.
Bosporus literally means “ox ford” and is traditionally connected with the legendary figure of Io, who in the form of a heifer crossed the Thracian Bosporus in her wanderings. Because of the strait’s strategic importance for the defense of Constantinople (Istanbul), straddling the southern end of the strait, the Byzantine emperors and later the Ottoman sultans constructed fortifications along its shores, especially on the European side. Two noteworthy examples are the castles of Anadoluhisarı, which was constructed on the Asian shore by Bayezid I in 1390–91, and Rumelihisarı, built directly across the strait by Mehmed II in 1452. With the growing influence of the European powers in the 19th century, rules were codified (in treaties of 1841 and 1871) governing the transit of commercial and naval vessels through the strait. An international commission assumed control of the strait after the Ottoman defeat in World War I. Turkey resumed control in 1936.
Two bridges have been built across the strait. The first, the Boğaziçi (Bosporus I) Bridge, was completed in 1973 and has a main span of 3,524 feet (1,074 metres). The second bridge, the Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Bosporus II), was completed in 1988 and has a main span of 3,576 feet (1,090 metres). A rail tunnel under the Bosporus opened in 2013.
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ac38244df82ab1aa7cd45c0f3e62bca8 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Boston | Boston | Boston
Boston, city, capital of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and seat of Suffolk county, in the northeastern United States. It lies on Massachusetts Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The city proper has an unusually small area for a major city, and more than one-fourth of the total—including part of the Charles River, Boston Harbor, and a portion of the Atlantic—is water. Area city, 46 square miles (119 square km). Pop. (2000) 589,141; Boston-Quincy Metro Division, 1,812,937; Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Metro Area, 4,391,344; (2010) 617,594; Boston-Quincy Metro Division, 1,887,792; Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Metro Area, 4,552,402.
The area, the people, and the institutions within its political boundaries can only begin to define the essence of Boston. Its nickname “Beantown” has its origin in colonial times, when Boston, as a stop on a major trade route with the West Indies, had a steady supply of molasses from the Caribbean, thus leading to the creation of a popular dish that became known as Boston baked beans (beans baked in molasses). As a city and as a name, Boston is a symbol of much that has gone into the development of the American consciousness, and its presence reaches far beyond its immediate environs. As the spiritual capital of the New England states, as the progenitor of the American Revolution and the nation, and as the earliest centre of American culture, Boston has influenced the country for some three centuries. Though Boston, like New England in general, has played a lessening role in national life since the early 20th century, it has remained the focal point of what may be the most diversified and dynamic combination of educational, cultural, medical, and scientific activities in the United States.
The Boston region’s topography was largely shaped by the glaciers that covered the land during the last ice age. The city and its sheltered deepwater harbour sit in a basin that extends to Lynn in the north and Quincy in the south and is ringed by modest hills: the Middlesex Fells (north) to the Blue Hills (south). There are harder, higher surface rocks (mostly granites) on those northern and southern edges, while inside the basin the lower-lying rocks—commonly known as pudding stone—are found mostly below the surface in such areas as Roxbury, Newton, Brookline, Mattapan, West Roxbury, and Dorchester. The land, enormously compressed by the vast accumulation of glacial ice on it, has since been rebounding (rising up) at an extremely gradual rate.
Numerous drumlins (mounds of glacial debris) form low hills in the city and islands that dot the harbour. At the beginning of English settlement in the 17th century, the Shawmut Peninsula was called Trimountain (or Tramount) because of its dominating three-topped hill on the northwest corner near the mouth of the Charles River. Beacon Hill is its only surviving, though greatly reduced, remnant. The other portions were leveled to become landfill that added to the city’s area in the 19th century.
The hilly Shawmut Peninsula, upon which Boston was settled, originally was almost completely surrounded by water. It was connected with mainland Roxbury to the south by a narrow neck of land along the line of present-day Washington Street. To the west of the neck were great reaches of mudflats and salt marshes that were covered by water at high tide and known collectively as the Back Bay. The Charles River flowed through the Back Bay to Boston Harbor and separated the peninsula from the mainland to the north and west. To the east, Town Cove indented Boston’s harbour front and divided the city into the North End and the South End. The centre of the colonial town was at the Old State House (built 1711–47).
Although that original centre and the colonial South End have long been given over to offices and retail stores, a few 18th-century buildings remain: Faneuil Hall (1742–1805), the Old Corner Bookstore (1718), the Old South Meeting House (1729), and King’s Chapel (1750). The North End is the only part of the early town that has remained residential since the 1630 settlement. Colonial survivals such as the Paul Revere House (c. 1680) and Christ Church (1723)—the Old North Church from which lanterns revealed the route of the British march to Lexington in 1775—coexist with the busy life of a traditionally Italian American community.
The long shoreline, only a few minutes’ walk from any part of the peninsula, provided ample space for wharves and shipyards. From the first years of settlement, the shoreline constantly encroached on the harbour as wharves were built and marshy coves were filled. West of the original settlement lay Boston Common, a tract that has remained public open space since its purchase by the town in 1634.
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3e5f175789913527a2113bfb5827236f | https://www.britannica.com/place/Botswana | Botswana | Botswana
Botswana, country in the centre of Southern Africa. The territory is roughly triangular—approximately 600 miles (965 km) from north to south and 600 miles from east to west—with its eastern side protruding into a sharp point. Its eastern and southern borders are marked by river courses and an old wagon road; its western borders are lines of longitude and latitude through the Kalahari, and its northern borders combine straight lines with a river course. Within the confines of Botswana’s borders is a rich variety of wildlife, including many species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish.
Before its independence in 1966, Botswana was a British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. It was also one of the poorest and least-developed states in the world. The country is named after its dominant ethnic group, the Tswana (“Bechuana” in older variant orthography). Since its independence the Republic of Botswana has gained international stature as a peaceful and increasingly prosperous democratic state. It is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the African Union (AU), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The secretariat of SADC is housed in the capital of Botswana, Gaborone (until 1969 spelled Gaberones—i.e., Gaborone’s town, after the tribal chief who had his capital at the site during the colonial period).
Botswana is bounded by Namibia to the west and north (the Caprivi Strip), Zambia and Zimbabwe to the northeast, and South Africa to the southeast and south. The Zambezi River border with Zambia is only several hundred yards long. The border along the main channel of the Chobe River up to the Zambezi was disputed with Namibia until a 1999 ruling by the International Court of Justice favoured Botswana. The point at which the borders of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe meet in the middle of the river has never been precisely determined.
Botswana extends from the Chobe River (which drains through the Zambezi to the Indian Ocean) in the north to the Molopo River (part of the Orange River system, which flows into the Atlantic) in the south. To the east it is bordered by the Limpopo River and its tributaries, the Ngotwane (Notwani), Marico (Madikwe), and Shashe.
The country has a mean altitude of 3,300 feet (1,000 metres) and consists largely of a sand-filled basin, with gently undulating plains rising to highlands in neighbouring countries. The highest point is 4,888 feet (1,490 metres) in the hills north of Lobatse in southeastern Botswana; the lowest point is 2,170 feet (660 metres) at the country’s easternmost point, in the Limpopo valley.
The country is divided into three main environmental regions. The hardveld region consists of rocky hill ranges and areas of shallow sand cover in eastern Botswana. The sandveld region is the area of deep Kalahari sand covering the rest of the country. The third region consists of ancient lake beds superimposed on the northern sandveld in the lowest part of the Kalahari Basin.
Geologic exploration has been limited by the depth and extent of Kalahari sand covering the surface geology. The rock groups underlying most of the sandveld are therefore the least-known but appear to be the youngest, belonging to the Karoo (Karroo) System, formed 290 to 208 million years ago. Elsewhere, Precambrian rock formations predominate. The surface geology of the eastern hardveld, exposed in its hill ranges, largely consists of basement complex rocks (more than 2.5 billion years old) intruding from northern South Africa and southern Zimbabwe. This complex is known to extend into younger rock formations (2.5 to 1.2 billion years old) in the extreme southern sandveld, while rocks of the Ghanzi and Damara groups (1.2 billion to 570 million years old) extend across the northwest corner of the country into northern Namibia.
Drainage through the marshes of the Okavango delta is complex and imperfectly understood. The perennial Okavango River runs southward into its delta across the Caprivi Strip from the highlands of Angola. Most of its water evaporates from the 4,000 square miles (10,000 square km) of the delta wetlands. Floodwater reaches down through the eastern side of the marshes to the Boteti River, which flows sporadically to Lake Xau (Dow) and the Makgadikgadi Pans (also roughly 4,000 square miles in area). Less and less water flowed through the western side of the Okavango marshes during the 20th century, so that the 70-square-mile (180-square-km) Lake Ngami—famous a century ago—is today dry and almost unrecognizable as a lake. Meanwhile, the eastern Makgadikgadi Pans are flooded annually by the otherwise ephemeral Nata River from the Zimbabwe highlands, while the southern tributaries of the pans are now dry fossil valleys.
The Molopo River and its Ramatlhabama tributary, on the southern border of Botswana with a course flowing into the Orange River, today rarely flood more than 50 miles (80 km) from their sources. Most rivers in Botswana are ephemeral channels, usually not flowing aboveground except in the summer rainy season. The two great exceptions to this rule are vigorous channels fed by the rains of central Africa—the Okavango River above its delta and the Chobe River flowing through its marshes along the northern border to join the Zambezi above the Victoria Falls.
The soils of the eastern hardveld consist of moderately dry red loamy mokata soils on the plains, or mixed chalky and sandy chawana soils, with brownish rocky seloko soils on and around hills. Seloko soils are considered best for grain crops. The fertility of all soils is limited by the amount of rainfall, which is sometimes inadequate on the hardveld and regularly unable to support any cultivation on the sandveld.
The alluvial soils of the ancient lake beds include gray loamy soils in the wetlands, gray-green saline soils on the pans, gray clayish soils to yellowish sandy soils around the wetlands, and very chalky light gray soils around the pans. There are also areas of gray to black cracking clay in former wet areas, such as those around Pandamatenga.
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53a6f58a237f70a3c487a101b791e0f5 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Boulder-Colorado | Boulder | Boulder
Boulder, city, seat (1861) of Boulder county, north-central Colorado, U.S., on Boulder Creek, at the base of the Flatiron Range of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of 5,354 feet (1,632 metres), 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Denver. Settled by miners in 1858, it was organized in 1859 and named descriptively for nearby Boulder Canyon. With the arrival of two railroads in 1873, the town grew as the gateway to the mines in the mountains to the west and also as a farming centre; the establishment there of the University of Colorado (1876) sustained its growth. An extensive government-industrial-educational complex has developed since the early 1950s. Boulder has become a leading centre for scientific and environmental research. A key section of the National Bureau of Standards, the U.S. branch of the World Data Center of Solar Activity, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research are located there, as are a growing number of industrial firms. The water supply is unique, coming partly from the city-owned Arapahoe Glacier high on the Continental Divide.
Following a two-decade period of rapid expansion, Boulder took measures to curtail growth in the mid-1990s, limiting new housing permits and preserving open land while refurbishing older buildings in the city centre. Portions of the central city are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Boulder remains a highly desirable location, with a thriving economy fueled by the development of high-technology manufacturing industries. Boulder is home to Naropa University (1974), a unique school that combines contemplative studies with traditional Western areas of scholarship, and also has a branch of Front Range Community College (founded in 1968 as Community College of Denver).
Boulder Canyon and other canyons in the vicinity have great scenic beauty. Boulder owns 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares) of mountain park lands. It is a main gateway to the Rocky Mountain National Park (northwest) and the Roosevelt National Forest (west). Inc. town, 1885; city, 1918. Pop. (2000) 94,673; Boulder Metro Area, 263,814; (2010) 97,385; Boulder Metro Area, 294,567.
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8fd4422830dee0898b793f19c62fbd0a | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bournemouth | Bournemouth | Bournemouth
Bournemouth, seaside resort town and unitary authority, geographic county of Dorset, historic county of Hampshire, southern England. It is located on the English Channel just west of Christchurch.
The town dates from the erection of a summer residence there by a Dorset squire, Lewis Tregonwell, after 1810. In 1841 there were still only 26 buildings, but thereafter Bournemouth grew rapidly, especially after the coming of the railway (1870). A piped water supply made possible large-scale residential development of the well-drained but agriculturally inferior pine woods and sandy heaths that front the cliff coast east of Poole Harbour. The heaths are dissected by small, steep-sided river valleys, or chines. One of these small streams, the Bourne, now enters the sea through ornamental gardens on the site of the first pier (1860). The main shopping and entertainment centre, with assembly halls and theatres, has grown near the river mouth.
The pleasant climate of southern England, with notably mild winters, not only lengthens the summer tourist season and attracts winter visitors but also favours Bournemouth as a retirement community. The beaches extend from Alum Chine to Hengistbury Head, and extensive residential areas with distinct local shopping centres lie behind the seafront. Inland sites of light industries have added to the economy of what is still predominantly a resort and residential town. It has also become one of England’s main conference and convention centres. Area 18 square miles (46 square km). Pop. (2001) 163,444; (2011) 183,491.
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0acd5341e6f49f55960c3720855a8359 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Boyaca | Boyacá | Boyacá
Boyacá, departamento, east-central Colombia. The departamento consists of cool Andean uplands in the west, densely forested lower mountain slopes, and the great expanse of the Llanos (plains) in the east. It was established in 1886. Lake Tota in the uplands is a noted beauty spot. Boyacá has traditionally had an agrarian economy based on grains, coffee, tobacco, and bananas and other fruits. It is also known for its emerald mines, the most famous of which are located at Muzo. Colombia’s first fully integrated iron and steel plant was built at Paz de Río in 1955. The plant uses iron ore and coal from major deposits nearby and produces most of the nation’s steel. Although the departamento’s transportation network is poorly developed, a major railroad and highway pass through Tunja, the departamento’s capital, and other major centres. The Chivor dam, one of the highest rock-fill dams in the world, on the Batá River, is a source of hydroelectric power. Area 8,953 square miles (23,189 square km). Pop. (2007 est.) 1,265,198.
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af4bd32b68e4b82c5aaf801311e4c2f1 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Braganca-Portugal | Bragança | Bragança
Bragança, English Braganza, city and concelho (municipality), northeastern Portugal. It lies on a branch of the Sabor River in the Culebra Mountains, 105 miles (170 km) northeast of Porto on the border with Spain.
Originally, Bragança was a Celtic city known as Brigantia; it later became the Juliobriga of the Romans. Historically, the city is important as the seat of the house of Bragança, which provided the kings of Portugal from 1640 to 1910 and the emperors of Brazil from 1822 to 1889; their feudal castle (built 1187) still remains. Catherine of Bragança became the queen consort (1662) of Charles II of England. Bragança, an episcopal see, was the capital of the historical Trás-os-Montes province. Notable landmarks in the city include the 12th-century Domus Municipalis (Portugal’s oldest and largest town hall), the Renaissance cathedral, and the town walls, with 18 watchtowers. The possessions of the house of Bragança belong to the Portuguese state and support the Fundaçao da Casa de Bragança, a foundation with a library, a museum, and a lecture centre in the 16th-century residence of the Bragança family in Vila Viçosa.
Bragança is an agricultural trade centre (wine, olive oil, grains, and livestock), and some manufacturing (textiles) is carried on there. The centuries-old Ash Wednesday celebration attracts many tourists each year. Bragança is connected to Porto by rail and paved road. The area surrounding Bragança is largely mountainous. High-grade iron ore is mined there. Pop. (2001) city, 20,309; mun., 34,750; (2011 est.) city, 20,700; (2011) mun., 35,341.
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db40016d31232dcd0c1656ffac5c3839 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bras-spungs | ’Bras-spungs | ’Bras-spungs
…at Dga’ldan (Ganden) in 1409, ’Bras-spungs (Drepung) in 1416, and Se-ra in 1419. The abbots of the ’Bras-spungs monastery first received the title Dalai Lama in 1578, and a period of struggle for the leadership of Tibet followed, principally with the Karma-pa sect. The Dge-lugs-pa eventually appealed to the Mongol…
…the head abbot of the ’Bras-spungs (Drepung) monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa, which thenceforward was the principal seat of the Dalai Lama. His successor, Bsod-nams-rgya-mtsho (1543–88), while on a visit to the Mongol chief Altan Khan, received from that ruler the honorific title ta-le (Anglicized as “dalai”), the Mongolian…
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79e1fbb587d01de1909ac6f249aa1d3c | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brasilia | Brasília | Brasília
Brasília, city, federal capital of Brazil. It is located in the Federal District (Distrito Federal) carved out of Goiás state on the central plateau of Brazil. At an elevation of some 3,500 feet (1,100 metres), it lies between the headwaters of the Tocantins, Paraná, and São Francisco rivers. Because of its unique city plan and architecture, as well as its unprecedented role in the development of the Brazilian interior, the city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987. Area Federal District, 2,240 square miles (5,802 square km). Pop. (2000) 1,961,499; Federal District, 2,051,146; metro. area, 2,952,276; (2010) 2,476,249; Federal District, 2,570,160; metro. area, 3,717,728.
The plan of the central city has been likened to a bird, a bow and arrow, or an airplane. Designed by the Brazilian architect Lúcio Costa, its form is emphasized by the Highway Axis (Eixo Rodoviário), which curves from the north to the southwest and links Brasília’s main residential neighbourhoods, and the straight Monumental Axis (Eixo Monumental), which runs northwest-southeast and is lined by federal and civic buildings. At the northwestern end of the Monumental Axis are federal district and municipal buildings, while at the southeastern end, near the middle shore of Lake Paranoá, stand the executive, judicial, and legislative buildings around the Square of Three Powers, the conceptual heart of the city.
These and other major structures were designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. In the Square of Three Powers, he created as a focal point the dramatic Congressional Palace, which is a composition of five parts: twin administrative towers flanked by a large, white concrete dome (the meeting place of the Senate) and by an equally massive concrete bowl (the Chamber of Deputies), which is joined to the dome by an underlying, flat-roofed building. A series of low-lying annexes (largely out of sight) flank both ends. Also in the square are the glass-faced Planalto Palace (housing the presidential offices) and the Palace of the Supreme Court. Farther east, on a triangle of land jutting into the lake, is the Palace of the Dawn (Palácio da Alvorada; the presidential residence). Between the federal and civic buildings on the Monumental Axis is the city’s cathedral, considered by many to be Niemeyer’s finest achievement. The parabolically shaped structure is characterized by its 16 gracefully curving supports, which join in a circle 115 feet (35 metres) above the floor of the nave; stretched between the supports are translucent walls of tinted glass. The nave is entered via a subterranean passage rather than conventional doorways. Other notable buildings are Buriti Palace, Itamaraty Palace (the Palace of Foreign Affairs), the National Theatre, and several foreign embassies that creatively embody features of their national architecture.
Both low-cost and luxury housing were built by the government in the central city area. The residential zones of the inner city are arranged into superquadras (“superblocks”), groups of apartment buildings along with a prescribed number and type of schools, retail stores, and open spaces. At the northern end of Lake Paranoá, separated from the inner city, is a peninsula upon which stand many fashionable homes; a similar neighbourhood exists on the southern lakeshore. Originally, the city planners envisioned extensive public areas along the shores of the artificial lake, but, during early development of the area, private clubs, hotels, and upscale residences and restaurants gained footholds around the water. Set well apart from the city are suburban “satellite towns,” including Gama, Ceilândia, Taguatinga, Núcleo Bandeirante, Sobradinho, and Planaltina. These areas were not planned as permanent settlements and thus offer stark contrasts to the symmetry and spacing of Brasília.
The city has been acclaimed for its use of modernist architecture on a grand scale and for its somewhat utopian city plan; however, it has been roundly criticized for much the same reasons. After a visit to Brasília, the French writer Simone de Beauvoir complained that all of its superquadras exuded “the same air of elegant monotony,” and other observers have equated the city’s large open lawns, plazas, and fields to wastelands. As the city has matured, some of these have gained adornments, and many have been improved by landscaping, giving some observers a sense of “humanized” spaciousness.
The climate is warm and mild with average minimum and maximum temperatures of about 57 °F (14 °C) and 81 °F (27 °C), respectively. Rainfall averages some 60 inches (1,600 mm) per year with a dry season from March to October, and humidity is generally between 40 and 80 percent (it fell to 11 percent during a drought in 1994).
Brasília’s inhabitants include both foreigners (notably ambassadorial staff) and Brazilians, some of whom came from economically impoverished areas in the Northeast to take part in the city’s building. Later, many more moved from Rio de Janeiro and other urban centres to staff the myriad government agencies. The population of both central and satellite areas grew tremendously in the first decade of the city’s construction; the city alone held some 64,000 inhabitants in 1959, and it was home to more than 272,000 by 1970. In the Federal District, 139,796 persons were counted in the 1960 census, and 537,492 were enumerated 10 years later. The populations of the city and the Federal District soon reached a rough parity, the number of residents in each exceeding two million in the early 21st century.
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b83ecc2d1ff7d0e1b5ef95c186b9a216 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Agriculture | Agriculture of Brazil | Agriculture of Brazil
The country is essentially self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and is a leading exporter of a wide range of crops, including oranges, soybeans, coffee, and cassava, which are grown mainly in the South and Southeast. Brazil, unlike most Latin American countries, has increased agricultural production by greatly enlarging its cultivated area since World War II, but this expansion has come at grave environmental cost in frontier areas.
Brazil is the world’s leading producer of coffee; it was the country’s most important single export in the early and mid-20th century. Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo are the principal coffee-producing states, followed by São Paulo and Paraná. In the 1990s soybeans and their derivative products, particularly animal feeds, became a more valuable source of revenue than coffee. Most of the country’s soybeans are grown in Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul; Mato Grosso do Sul state has also become a leading producer, because farmers there have increasingly used machinery and fertilizers to work the savanna soils.
About one-third of the world’s oranges are grown in Brazil—more than twice the amount produced in the United States, which is the world’s second major supplier. Brazil is also the world’s main producer of cassava and a leading grower of beans, corn (maize), cacao, bananas, and rice. Although the bulk of these products are consumed domestically, some are exported, including jute and black pepper from the Amazon region; palm oils from the Northeast coast; garlic from Minas Gerais; peanuts (groundnuts), oranges, and tea from São Paulo; and tobacco from Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil nuts are economically important only in limited areas of the North.
Brazil has one of the world’s largest livestock populations (at more than 200 million) and slaughters more cattle annually than does the United States. The most extensive grazing lands are concentrated in the South and Southeast, with a smaller but increasing share in northern states and frontier zones, such as Amazonia. The meatpacking industry’s principal operations are in Rio Grande do Sul, the state closest to the beef-producing plains of Uruguay and Argentina. Brazil also produces great quantities of poultry; both poultry and meat are important exports.
Mechanized farming is still somewhat rare in Brazil. Tractors and other large machinery are employed mostly in the South and Southeast as well as on the western frontier (Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Acre, and Rondônia). Few tractors are available in the Northeast, where even the sugar plantations rely on manual labour. That region contains about half of Brazil’s farms but most cover only some 12 acres (5 hectares) or less. The government has built costly, large-scale irrigation projects in the Northeast, but they have helped few family farms. Many poor families barely subsist on small, overworked patches of land, whereas some of the largest rural landholdings lie fallow or largely unused. To promote land reform, tens of thousands of impoverished Brazilians have participated in the Landless Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra), which has organized protests and property invasions, sometimes risking violent confrontations. The government began to redistribute land on an unprecedented scale in the 1990s, although budgetary constraints and administrative backlogs hampered the program.
Brazilian technological advances and scientific efforts have benefited the agricultural sector, including the discovery in mid-2000 of the genetic sequence of Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterium that infects orange trees. A government initiative in the 1970s began to replace costly, imported gasoline as a motor fuel with ethanol (ethyl alcohol) produced mainly from sugarcane, as well as rice and wood shavings. Brazil’s gasoline-substitution program became the most successful effort of its kind in the world: the area under sugarcane cultivation rapidly expanded in São Paulo state and on the Northeast coast, modern distilleries were built, and, for a few years, virtually all new automobiles in Brazil were engineered to run on the fuel. Many Brazilian engines now burn fuel that is one-fifth to one-fourth ethanol, and some use a larger proportion of ethanol than gasoline. Brazil is one of the leading producers of ethanol.
Brazil catches significantly less fish than does Argentina or Mexico, although most of Brazil’s population lives on or near the country’s extensive Atlantic coastline. Brazil’s commercial fishing fleets account for roughly two-thirds of the saltwater catch. They sail mainly from Southern and Southeastern ports, partly because of their proximity to markets but also because the coastal waters are warmed by the southward-flowing Brazil Current, which supports fewer fish than do the colder waters farther south. Most ocean fishing in the Northeast focuses on lobsters and shrimps, which are caught primarily for export.
Roughly one-fourth of Brazil’s total catch is freshwater fish, of which a major portion comes from the Amazon River system. The Northeast accounts for another large segment, much of it from reservoirs that the government has stocked with tilapia, a fast-growing fish introduced from Africa. In Fortaleza manufacturers use the skins of tilapia and cambulu, a saltwater fish, to make fashionable shoes, clothing, and accessories—products formerly made from the hides of alligators, which are now endangered.
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955b4d1f6db6f69bab0ab82d161eaf6b | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Brazil-since-1990 | Brazil since 1990 | Brazil since 1990
Brazil’s old-regime elites and military continued to inhibit reform of the political system in the early 1990s, while the country’s voters became disaffected and cynical, and the political parties remained superficial, depending on personality cults rather than platforms that addressed specific problems. In the final round of the 1989 elections, Fernando Collor de Mello of the small National Reconstruction Party faced Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known by his nickname Lula, of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores; PT), which presented an uncommonly well-articulated platform and a clearly socialist ideology. Collor nevertheless gained the support of most of the parties of the Sarney government and campaigned for economic growth, modernization, and eliminating government corruption and inefficiency. Although roughly one-fifth of the votes cast were abstentions or were nullified, Collor was declared the clear winner, and he took office in March 1990.
Collor’s government failed to improve the economy and was consumed by a corruption scandal in mid-1992. Millions of dollars from influence peddling had flowed into the president’s secret bank accounts. On September 29 the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to suspend and impeach Collor, and on December 29, minutes after the Senate opened the impeachment trial, he resigned. Vice President Itamar Franco assumed the presidency, marking the first time that the republic resolved a major political crisis without military intervention or arbitration. Investigations subsequently gained momentum and revealed further corruption at the state and federal level, including influence peddling, electoral fraud, and irregular banking procedures.
Franco had taken office with the support of both civil and military leaders, but he represented a political party whose ideology was markedly different from that of Collor and thus failed to inspire great confidence in the Brazilian people. Industrial production and the incomes of the overwhelming majority of Brazilians continued to decline, while the annual inflation rate accelerated drastically to nearly 2,700 percent; meanwhile, the country paid massive amounts of interest to service its foreign debt. Some proposed reorganizing Brazil’s political system as a way to emerge from the crisis, but a special plebiscite in April 1993 decisively rejected either a parliamentary or monarchical system; however, the following year Brazil adopted six constitutional amendments, including one that reduced the presidential term from five to four years in anticipation of permitting reelections (a question that was left to future legislative action).
Franco appointed as finance minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who put forth the Real Plan, a financial program partly inspired by a successful Argentine plan. The program stopped the government from periodically raising prices (a practice known as indexing inflation), introduced a new currency (the real) and an exchange rate that was partially linked to that of the U.S. dollar, and called for curbs on government spending. The Real Plan succeeded without severely limiting economic growth, and Cardoso’s resulting popularity encouraged him to run for president; many regarded him as a dynamic, modernizing leader in the mold of Kubitschek or Vargas who would guide the country through shifts in the global economy while simultaneously resolving domestic crises. Cardoso won the election by a wide margin over Lula, the perennial leftist candidate. Policies enacted during his first term (1995–99) permitted strong economic growth while lowering the annual inflation rate even more dramatically—from nearly 1,000 percent in 1994 to less than 20 percent within a year and nearly zero by 1998. The political parties backing Cardoso’s policies won a majority of the 1996 municipal elections.
Cardoso pushed through a law in 1997 that permitted presidents and governors to be reelected. His Brazilian Social Democratic Party formed a coalition with the Liberal Front Party, the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, the Progressive Renewal Party, and several smaller entities to enact major fiscal and administrative reforms, notably the decision to privatize such government-owned enterprises as the Rio Doce Valley Company. Brazil’s economy slowed as a result of financial crises in Asia and Russia in 1998, but Cardoso retained his popularity, won reelection to the presidency (again over Lula), and saw his coalition retain a decisive congressional majority.
The government subsequently attained support from the International Monetary Fund, carried out additional fiscal and administrative reforms, and devalued Brazil’s currency by allowing its exchange rate to float rather than continue its near parity with the U.S. dollar. Inflation remained under control, in spite of fears to the contrary, and the military seemed unlikely to intervene in civil affairs in the near future. Cardoso appointed a civilian-led minister of defense, whose duties replaced those of the separate military service ministers. The governing coalition fragmented, however, as parties and politicians maneuvered for advantage in the October 2000 municipal elections. Still, a record harvest and robust economic growth allowed Cardoso to move forward with his programs.
Cardoso constitutionally was barred from standing for reelection in 2002. Lula emerged once again as the leading opposition candidate against government-backed José Serra of Cardoso’s Brazilian Social Democratic Party. On October 27 Lula easily defeated Serra, garnering 61 percent of the vote, and on January 1, 2003, Cardoso oversaw the first transition from a democratically elected president to a democratically elected successor in Brazil in more than 40 years. Lula’s win swung the country’s political agenda to the left as he became the country’s first president from a labour-oriented party. He moderated the rhetoric of the leftist platform he had presented in past elections, and soon after taking office he instituted austerity measures aimed at keeping inflation in check. Under his leadership, Brazil issued bonds in its own currency, instead of the dollar, for the first time. Employment and real wages rose. Major priorities of his administration included reforming social security, pension, and tax policy, combatting hunger and poverty, and enhancing educational opportunities, particularly for poor children. Lula’s presidency was plagued by scandals, however, which included party members soliciting bribes for public works projects and the use of undeclared loans to repay campaign debt. Many Workers’ Party officials were forced to resign.
In 2006 Lula won a second term as president in a runoff election against Geraldo Alckmin of the centrist Brazilian Social Democratic Party. Though Lula’s party was still scarred by scandal, the Brazilian economy continued to grow under his administration. He enacted reforms to increase public investment and control spending. Agricultural and mining operations persistently expanded, and foreign investors and major trading partners showed renewed interest in the country. However, many problems persisted. The country’s cities were ill-prepared to serve the needs of their growing populations, and, in spite of increased regional growth, Brazil’s economic opportunities and population remained heavily concentrated in two regions, the Southeast and the South. Brazil also remained embroiled in domestic and international controversies regarding threats to the Amazon rainforest and to forest-dwelling Indian groups such as the Yanomami. Moreover, landless groups continued to clamour for agrarian reform.
In June 2009 President Lula signed a bill legalizing the landholdings of nearly one million residents of state-owned land in the Amazon basin. The bill was an effort to control the decades-long land-grabbing situation in the rainforest, wherein settlers and speculators had occupied and exploited a vast area of public land without legal permission. Under the new law, farmers, loggers, and other settlers who occupied small areas received the title to their land for free; occupiers of larger parcels of land were required to purchase them. Environmentalists complained that the law would encourage extensive use of the land and lead to deforestation.
Unable to run for a third consecutive term, Lula endorsed his former chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, as the Workers’ Party candidate in the 2010 presidential election. Her challengers in the October poll were José Serra, Lula’s Social Democratic rival in the 2002 election, and Marina Silva of the Green Party. Rousseff won nearly half of the vote, but, because she fell short of a majority, she and the runner-up, Serra, met in a runoff in October, which Rousseff won convincingly (56 percent to 44 percent) to be elected Brazil’s first woman president.
Shortly after taking office at the beginning of January 2011, Rousseff was confronted with one of Brazil’s worst natural disasters in decades: torrential rain created flash floods and mudslides that left thousands homeless and killed more than 500 in several mountainside communities just north of Rio de Janeiro. Hardest hit were the cities of Petrópolis, Teresópolis, and Nova Friburgo.
Following a sustained period of robust expansion, the Brazilian economy began to cool down in 2011 in response to the deteriorating global economy and a contraction in the Brazilian industrial sector. The country’s GDP growth declined from about 7.5 percent in 2010 to about 1.0 percent in 2012, though unemployment remained low. Throughout 2011 the Rousseff administration faced accusations of corruption, with allegations of influence peddling and other malfeasance leading to the resignations of five cabinet ministers by the end of the year.
As Brazil ramped up for its role as host of the 2014 football (soccer) World Cup and for Rio de Janeiro’s hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games, there was growing discontent among many Brazilians with the government’s expenditures on infrastructure for those events while education and health needs were seen as going unmet. In mid-June 2013 Brazilians across the country took to the streets to protest that as well as a raft of other issues, including government corruption, the administration’s handling of the struggling economy, and recent examples of heavy-handed police response to demonstrations. The public outcry spread from São Paolo—where police used rubber bullets on June 13 to quell protests over public-transportation fare hikes—to scores of other Brazilian cities. On June 20 some one million people demonstrated in towns and cities throughout Brazil.
In the wake of that turmoil, Rousseff’s approval rating tumbled from 65 percent to 30 percent at one point in 2013. Her popularity rebounded as the staging of the World Cup itself went largely according to plan in summer 2014, but a loss by the Brazilian team to Germany in a semifinal match (arguably the worst defeat in Brazil’s proud World Cup history) seemed to return national attention to the country’s social and economic woes (including the economy’s slide into recession early in 2014). In September the Brazilian delegation chose not to join more than 150 other countries in signing an anti-deforestation pledge at the climate-change summit in New York City, claiming that the pledge had been drafted without Brazilian participation. That refusal occurred as Rousseff faced a formidable challenge from the candidate of the Brazilian Socialist Party, green activist Marina Silva, in the first round of voting in the presidential election in early October.
Rousseff fended off Silva’s challenge with an aggressive negative campaign and finished atop the first-round candidates with nearly 42 percent of the vote (Silva took only about 21 percent). The president, however, did not reach the 50 percent level necessary to prevent a runoff, which would pit her against the surprising second-round finisher—the Brazilian Social Democratic Party’s Aécio Neves, the former governor of Minas Gerais state, whose late surge garnered him about 34 percent of the vote. The runoff in late October proved to be one of the closest presidential elections in recent Brazilian history: Rousseff won a second term by capturing more than 51 percent of the vote against more than 48 percent for Neves.
In early 2015 Brazil’s economy continued its slide, inflation rose, the deficit grew, and the Rousseff government’s efforts to combat those problems were complicated by its embroilment in arguably the country’s biggest political scandal to date. By March a mounting investigation of corruption had resulted in the indictment of dozens of politicians and businesspeople. Petrobas officials, the Workers’ Party and some of its members, and members of its coalition partner, the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), were accused of having received kickback payments for Petrobras contracts from a number of prominent companies, including a cartel of construction firms. Although an investigation by the attorney general cleared Rousseff of any involvement in the affair—she had served as the chairman of the board for Petrobras for much of the period during which the alleged kickbacks were made—many Brazilians doubted her ignorance of the alleged malfeasance. On March 15 some one million Brazilians took to the streets throughout the country to protest the government, its handling of the economy, and the scandal. On April 12 more mass demonstrations were held, and, though the crowds were not as large, their focus shifted to calls for Rousseff’s impeachment.
May marked the first reported appearance in Brazil—and in South America—of Zika fever, which is caused by a mosquito-borne virus similar to the one that causes dengue and which has been associated with neurological complications. The Zika virus was especially dangerous for pregnant women. Between October 2015 and January 2016 nearly 4,000 babies born with microcephaly (abnormal smallness of the head) were reported in Brazil; the mothers of many of those babies were presumed to have been infected with Zika virus. Concerned not only about the health of its citizens but also about the effect that the virus might have on the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016, the Brazilian government undertook aggressive measures to combat the outbreak of the virus.
But those concerns largely took a backseat to politics and economic matters in 2016, as the Petrobras scandal mushroomed and the Brazilian economy remained mired in its worst recession since the turn of the 20th century. The tentacles of the scandal reached so far as to ensnare Lula, who was formally charged with money laundering in March 2016. Although Rousseff was not implicated in the scandal, she came in for withering criticism when she sought to appoint Lula to her cabinet, a step that was decried as an attempt to protect him from prosecution. The outcry for Rousseff’s ouster spread through the public and the government, and her partners in the ruling coalition began to desert; the PMDB, the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, left the government first. On April 17 the Chamber of Deputies voted to recommend impeachment on charges that Rousseff had manipulated public bank funds to mask budget shortfalls in the run-up to her reelection in 2014. On May 12 the Senate voted to suspend Rousseff and to consider impeachment. Vice Pres. Michel Temer of the PMDB became acting president. On August 10 the Senate voted to hold an impeachment trial of Rousseff, which began on August 25. After Rousseff answered questions for more than 14 hours on August 29, the Senate voted 61–20 on August 31 to permanently remove her from office. Temer stood to complete Rousseff’s term, which was to end in January 2019.
Temer sought to revive the economy by promoting pro-market policies, calling for austerity measures, and pushing for pension and labour-law reform. By May 2017, however, his efforts were increasingly undermined by growing accusations of his own involvement in the Petrobras scandal. In July Lula was convicted of corruption and money laundering, the first of five charges that he was facing. He was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison but remained free pending appeal. When an appellate court in Porto Allegre upheld his conviction on January 24, 2018, it not only pointed to Lula’s imminent incarceration but appeared to prevent him from running for president in October 2018 under the prohibitions of the Clean Record law. Lula, however, still had the option of appealing the appellate court’s ruling to the Supreme Court. There was also speculation that he would appeal the prohibition on his candidacy. Even with the conviction hanging over his head, opinion polling showed Lula to be the leading candidate for the presidency by a large margin.
On April 5, 2018, however, the Supreme Court voted 6–5 to deny Lula’s request to remain free while he pursued his final appeal options. Lula was ordered to turn himself in the next day to begin serving his prison sentence. Instead, surrounded by a large crowd of supporters, he took refuge for two days outside São Paulo in the headquarters of the union where he had begun his political career. On April 7, after delivering an impassioned speech in which he once again protested his innocence but affirmed his belief in the rule of law, Lula gave himself up and began serving his sentence.
Despite Lula’s incarceration, the Workers’ Party chose him as its presidential standard bearer at the party’s national convention in early August. After the Superior Electoral Court ruled on August 31 that Lula was “ineligible” to run for the presidency, the former president announced on September 11 that he was ending his candidacy, and he threw his support behind his running mate, Fernando Haddad, former mayor of São Paulo. In the process, Lula’s position as the front-runner was taken over by Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist whose law-and-order anti-corruption rhetoric seemed to resonate with much of a Brazilian electorate that was fearful of rising crime and violence, disenchanted with the country’s widespread political corruption, and weary of Brazil’s still-struggling economy.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain and seven-term legislator who expressed controversial admiration for Brazil’s past military rulers, also won the support of the country’s considerable Evangelical Christian population with his steadfast opposition to abortion. At the same time, his history of having made remarks that were interpreted by some as homophobic, misogynist, and racist evoked strong opposition to his candidacy from many on the left. At a campaign appearance in Juiz de Fora on September 6, Bolsonaro was the victim of an assassination attempt in which he was stabbed. His wounds, which required lifesaving surgery, forced him to campaign from a hospital bed and then at home, and he finished far ahead of the rest of the 13-candidate field in the first round on October 7, though he did not capture the 50 percent of the vote necessary to preclude a runoff. Bolsonaro took about 46 percent of the vote, compared with about 29 percent for Haddad—who would be his opponent in the October 28 contest—and some 12 percent for Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labour Party. Bolsonaro then went on to win the runoff convincingly, taking more than 55 percent of the vote, with about 45 percent going to Haddad and the remainder blank or invalid votes.
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592debb95add1b971d7c6e88ec122d03 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Drainage | Drainage of Brazil | Drainage of Brazil
Brazil is drained by the Amazon River, which is the centrepiece of the most extensive river system in the world, and by other systems that are notable in their own right—the Tocantins-Araguaia in the north, the Paraguay-Paraná-Plata in the south, and the São Francisco in the east and northeast. Numerous smaller rivers and streams drain directly eastward to the Atlantic from the Brazilian interior, but most are short, have steep gradients, and are not impounded for hydroelectric developments or suitable for waterborne traffic. The more navigable rivers of this group are the Paranaíba, between the states of Piauí and Maranhão, and the Jacuí in Rio Grande do Sul.
The Amazon River rises from a point in the Peruvian Andes within 100 miles (160 km) of the Pacific Ocean, whence its course meanders some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to the Atlantic. There it contributes as much as one-fifth of all of the Earth’s surface runoff from the continents to the sea. The river’s great tributaries include the Juruá, Purus, Madeira, Tapajós, and Xingu rivers on the southern side and the Negro River on the northern side (see photograph). Six tributaries exceed 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in length, and some carry more water individually than does North America’s Mississippi River, so that the Amazon’s annual discharge to the Atlantic is more than 10 times that of the Mississippi. Ships of considerable size navigate upstream to Manaus, and smaller vessels can reach Iquitos in eastern Peru, some 2,300 miles (3,700 km) from the sea. However, shipping is limited on the Amazonian tributaries, all of which are interrupted by falls and rapids where they descend from the highlands; none of the main effluents have been harnessed to produce hydroelectric power.
The Paraguay-Paraná-Plata is the second of the great river systems of Brazil; it also drains large parts of Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. In Brazil the system rises in the highlands of Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Minas Gerais states and flows southward in two sections—the Paraguay and Paraná (or Alto Paraná, as it is sometimes called before the two rivers join). The upper reaches of the Paraguay flow through the Pantanal and form part of the border between Brazil and Paraguay. The Alto Paraná collects numerous tributaries from southeastern Brazil, including the Paranaíba (not to be confused with the Paranaíba of the Northeast), Grande, Tietê, and Paranapanema. The Alto Paraná and Paraguay rivers unite southwest of Brazil, on the Argentina-Paraguay border, to form the Paraná proper, which eventually reaches the sea through the Río de la Plata estuary. Brazil’s two southernmost states are drained through the Uruguay River, which also flows into the Río de la Plata. In Brazil these rivers were navigable only for short stretches until they were dredged in the 1990s. Brazilians have built hydroelectric complexes and reservoirs on many tributaries of the system, including the Iguaçu, Paranapanema, Tietê, and Grande.
The Tocantins-Araguaia river system rises in the highlands of Goiás and Mato Grosso states and discharges into the Pará River just south of the Amazon delta. The Tocantins, though popularly regarded as a tributary of the Amazon, is technically a separate system draining some 314,200 square miles (813,700 square km)—nearly one-tenth of Brazil’s national territory. The middle course of the Araguaia River, in a marshland some 220 miles (350 km) northwest of Brasília, temporarily divides into western and eastern branches to form the vast Bananal Island. The Araguaia joins the Tocantins after flowing northward another 600 miles (1,000 km). In the mid-1980s the Tucuruí Dam was built on the lower Tocantins, some 120 miles (200 km) southwest of Belém, in order to generate hydroelectric power for much of Pará and Maranhão as well as for the nearby Carajás mining complex.
The São Francisco River basin covers more than 249,000 square miles (645,000 square km) in eastern Brazil. The river rises in the highlands of western Minas Gerais and southern Goiás and flows more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) northward before it turns eastward to the Atlantic. Shallow-draft riverboats ply the waters between Pirapora in Minas Gerais and Juàzeiro in Bahia, at the eastern end of the Sobradinho Reservoir. Hydroelectric installations harness the river’s energy near Paulo Afonso Falls. and at Juàzeiro. Only the watercourse below the falls is navigable for oceangoing ships.
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67b3f12bb69619d1f560a940c2beb0ea | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Forestry | Forestry of Brazil | Forestry of Brazil
The South and Southeast account for the majority of Brazil’s timber production, about half of it from plantations of eucalyptus trees introduced from Australia; Honduras pine and several other exotic species are also harvested. The timber from plantations is used mainly to manufacture cellulose and paper products. Each year, Brazilians burn vast tracts of rainforest and wooded parts of the highlands to make room for pastures, crops, and settlements; however, few of the trees destroyed in that process are used for fuel, and almost none are used for wood products. Most of the small timber yield of the Northeast is used as fuelwood. The forests of eastern Minas Gerais produce the largest share of Brazil’s charcoal, followed by those of western Maranhão, southern Bahia, and Tocantins.
Whereas other Latin American countries export the vast majority of their mineral and petroleum production, Brazil’s powerful manufacturing sector is a ready market for primary materials.
Brazil’s industries absorb most of its mineral production, including iron ore from Minas Gerais and Pará (though ore from the Carajás region is largely exported); chrome, magnesium, and quartz from Bahia; copper and lead from Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul; bauxite from Pará; asbestos from Goiás; manganese from Amapá, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Bahia; zinc and graphite from Minas Gerais; nickel from Goiás and Minas Gerais; and limestone from various states. Brazil is self-sufficient in cassiterite (tin ore), found along a belt south of the Amazon. Mines in Rio Grande do Norte meet nearly all of the country’s tungsten requirements, and Bahia and Paraná provide most of Brazil’s silver. Coal production, which is centred in Santa Catarina, supplies more than half of the country’s needs.
Brazil is a major gold and diamond producer, but quantities fluctuate widely from year to year and place to place as deposits are located and exhausted. Most gold and diamonds are mined in Minas Gerais, and smaller amounts are produced in Pará, particularly in the vicinity of Serra Pelada, where tens of thousands of garimpeiros swarmed during gold rushes in the 1980s and ’90s. Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Espírito Santo are the major sources of Brazil’s enormous range of gems—topazes, amethysts, opals, aquamarines, tourmalines, emeralds, and others—that make Brazil a world leader in precious and semiprecious stones.
Brazil produces the majority of its petroleum and some natural gas, mainly from offshore fields along the continental shelf. Drilling was confined to the Northeast, in the Bahia basin just north of Salvador, from 1940 to the 1960s, after which the area of exploration expanded to include wells on the mainland and offshore from Fortaleza in the north to Santos (in São Paulo state) in the south. Brazil extracts more than two-thirds of its petroleum from the Campos basin on the continental shelf off Rio de Janeiro state. There Petrobrás has developed some of the most advanced deepwater drilling technology in the world, including a well more than 1.5 miles (2.4 km) below the surface. In the early 21st century Petrobrás confirmed that the Tupi offshore oil field, located about 4.3 miles (6.9 km) underwater, contained about five to eight million barrels of oil and natural gas, which boosted Brazil’s supply of oil reserves substantially. Most of the country’s natural gas comes from Bahia and Sergipe states, and there are petroleum and natural gas reserves throughout the Amazon basin, but oil refineries near Manaus have a limited capacity.
Brazil’s total power capacity has expanded rapidly since 1950, mainly through hydroelectricity, which now accounts for nine-tenths of the country’s electric power. The government has given lower priority to thermal power generation because of the poor quality of Brazilian coal. The opening of a gas pipeline from Bolivia in 1999 has led to a program for construction of gas-fired thermoelectric generating plants, chiefly in the Southeast. The opening of a Bolivia-Brazil natural gas pipeline in 1999 has encouraged the construction of numerous gas-fired thermoelectric plants, chiefly in the Southeast.
Brazil’s first nuclear reactor, Angra I, opened in 1982 near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s second nuclear reactor, Angra II, began operating in 2000. In 1984 the Itaipú hydroelectric complex, the world’s largest power station at its completion, began operating on the Alto Paraná River between Brazil and Paraguay. Dozens of smaller generating stations function on the Paraná and Uruguay rivers and their tributaries. Among other major complexes are Tucuruí, which began operating on the Tocantins River in the mid-1980s, and Sobradinho and the Paulo Afonso series of stations, all on the lower São Francisco River. Major hydroelectric projects for the Amazon region have been held in abeyance owing to ecological concerns.
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7ec0ce8ebb3dc207ef0ffc17d1abe9bf | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/History | History of Brazil | History of Brazil
The following discussion focuses on Brazilian history from the time of European settlement. For a treatment of the country in its regional context, see Latin America, history of.
Archaeological sites near the Amazonian towns of Santarém and Monte Alegre and elsewhere in Brazil show that the region has been inhabited since at least 9000 bc. Mixed communities of farmers, fishers, and hunters and gatherers developed in the Amazon lowlands, whereas hunters and gatherers predominated in the drier savannas and highlands. Between two million and six million indigenous Indians lived in the region at the time of European contact in 1500.
Tupian-speaking Indians inhabited the coastal areas and were among the more significant of the tropical forest groups. Portuguese explorers of the region first encountered Tupians and principally dealt with them for many years. Indeed, Tupians may have been the most important Indian influence in Brazil’s early colonial period and in the culture that subsequently developed; however, European diseases decimated the indigenous population, and many surviving Indians endured harsh treatment under Portuguese domination.
Europeans explored the Brazilian coastline only after mapping parts of the Caribbean Sea and the northeastern coast of South America; moreover, intensive exploration of Brazil resulted indirectly from Portugal’s efforts to expand its colonies in Africa and Asia. In 1498 the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama discovered an all-water route to the Indies and the Spice Islands via Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese king, hoping to capitalize on this discovery, dispatched an imposing armada to India under Pedro Álvares Cabral, whose sailing directions had been drawn up by da Gama himself. To avoid the calms off the Gulf of Guinea, Cabral bore so far to the west that on April 22, 1500, he sighted the mainland of South America. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between Spain and Portugal had established a line at about longitude 46° 30′ W that divided Spanish (west) and Portuguese (east) claims in the New World. The region sighted by Cabral lay well within the Portuguese zone, and the crown promptly claimed it. Portugal’s new possession was initially called Vera Cruz (“True Cross”), but it was soon renamed Brazil because of the copious amounts of brazilwood (pau-brasil) found there that yielded a valuable red dye.
The tidings of Cabral’s landing aroused great enthusiasm among the Portuguese, and the crown began to sponsor major transatlantic explorations, including that of the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, whose small fleet sailed along the coast of Brazil and for the first time estimated the extent of the land. Vespucci, calendar in hand, baptized different points on the coast with the names of the saints on whose days they were discovered.
Interest in Brazil waned over the subsequent two decades. The Portuguese began a desultory trade with the Indians for brazilwood, but they failed to discover precious metals in Brazil and thus focused their attention on the lucrative trade with Asia. Brazil became a sort of no-man’s-land over which the Portuguese crown wielded only a shadowy control, and European rivals quickly took advantage of that neglect. The French, in particular, trespassed on Portuguese claims in South America and shipped the dyewood to Europe. Portugal’s apathy ended, however, during the reign (1521–57) of John III, who gradually shifted the focus in colonial affairs from Asia to America.
The Portuguese crown made the first systematic effort to establish a government in Brazil in 1533. It divided the colony into 15 hereditary captaincies, or fiefs, each extending 50 leagues—i.e., about 160 miles (260 km)—along the coast and an indefinite distance inland. These grants were distributed to favoured persons, chiefly courtiers, who became known as donatários (“donees”) and wielded extensive rights and privileges; however, only two of the captaincies were ultimately successful: São Vicente (in present São Paulo state) and Pernambuco. The former included the town of São Vicente, the growing port of Santos, and the village of São Paulo on the Serra do Mar’s fertile Piratininga Plateau, all of which had a combined population of about 5,000 by the mid-16th century. The captaincy of Pernambuco developed in northeastern Brazil, centred on the town of Olinda. Its donatário, Duarte Coelho Pereira, converted Pernambuco into a great sugar-producing region, offering the first example of a profitable agrarian export from the New World to Europe.
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56f1938d87408b0f4521fec06e4a54c2 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Independence | Independence of Brazil | Independence of Brazil
Brazil entered nationhood with considerably less strife and bloodshed than did the Spanish-speaking nations of the New World; however, the transition was not entirely peaceful. José Joaquim da Silva Xavier, popularly known as Tiradentes (“Tooth Puller”), instigated in 1789 the first rebellion against the Portuguese, who defeated his forces, executed him, and unwittingly made him a national hero in his martyrdom.
The French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars deeply affected Brazil, although the main events of those conflicts unfolded across the Atlantic. In 1807 Napoleon I invaded Portugal, a British ally, largely to tighten the European blockade of Great Britain. The Portuguese prince regent Dom João (later King John VI [João VI]) decided to take refuge in Brazil, making it the only colony to serve as the seat of government for its mother country. The prince, the royal family, and a horde of nobles and functionaries left Portugal on November 29, 1807, under the protection of the British fleet. After several delays, they arrived at Rio de Janeiro on March 7, 1808.
The colonists, convinced that a new era had dawned for Brazil, warmly welcomed Dom João, who promptly decreed a number of reforms. He abolished the Portuguese commercial monopoly on Brazilian trade, opened all harbours to the commerce of friendly nations (mainly Great Britain), and repealed laws that had prohibited Brazilian manufacturing.
Dom João installed in Rio de Janeiro his ministry and Council of State, Supreme Court, exchequer and royal treasury, Royal Mint, royal printing office, and the Bank of Brazil. He also founded a royal library, a military academy, and medical and law schools. His decree of December 16, 1815, designated the Portuguese dominions the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus making Brazil coequal with Portugal. Dom João’s mother died in 1816, whereupon he ascended to the throne.
Most Portuguese desired John VI’s return after the French withdrawal, but he remained away as Iberian troubles mounted. The king finally became preoccupied with the situation when radical revolts erupted in Lisbon and Oporto in 1820. On April 22, 1821, he appointed his son Dom Pedro regent and two days later sailed for Lisbon.
Dom Pedro faced a difficult political situation: antagonism was growing between the Portuguese and Brazilians, republican propagandists were gaining greater influence, and the Cortes (parliament) of Lisbon instituted a series of shortsighted policies. The majority in the Cortes favoured restoring Brazil to its formerly dependent colonial status, and the parliament began repealing most of the reforms introduced by John VI. The Cortes then ordered Dom Pedro to return to Europe, fearing that he might head an independence movement.
These acts aroused great indignation in Brazil. Dom Pedro responded by defying the Cortes with a speech known as the “Fico” (“I Am Staying”), and most Brazilians supported his decision. In January 1822 he formed a ministry headed by José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, a distinguished Paulista scholar later known as the Patriarch of Independence because he proved a tower of strength to the young regent during the first uncertain months of independence. On June 3 Dom Pedro convoked a legislative and constituent assembly, and on September 7, on the plain of Ipiranga, near the city of São Paulo, he proclaimed the independence of Brazil; he was crowned emperor on December 1. The United States officially recognized the new nation in 1824, and the Portuguese acknowledged Brazilian independence the following year, whereupon other European monarchies established diplomatic relations. (See also Latin America, history of: Brazil.)
The first decades of independence were difficult though not as chaotic as in Latin America’s Spanish-speaking republics. Brazil underwent a series of regional revolts, some of which resulted in thousands of deaths, but the national economy remained strong and the central government largely intact. The emperor was impulsive, however, and made generally despotic and arbitrary decisions. In 1823 he dissolved the constituent assembly, which he regarded as unruly and radical, and sent Andrada e Silva and his two brothers into exile. However, the emperor and his Council of State subsequently wrote a constitution that was liberal and advanced for its time, although it strengthened the hand of emperor. The municipal councils debated and approved the document; Pedro promulgated it in 1824, and it proved versatile enough to last throughout the imperial period. The constitution helped centralize the government by granting the emperor power to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, select members of the Senate, and appoint and dismiss ministers of state. Pedro I’s popularity declined thereafter because he lost Brazil’s Cisplatine province (now the republic of Uruguay) following a costly war with Argentina (1825–28), appointed few mazombos (Brazilian Creoles) to high office, overly preoccupied himself with Portuguese affairs, failed to get along with the legislature, and signed treaties with Great Britain that kept import duties low and exacted a promise to abolish the slave trade. As a result, Pedro formally abdicated on April 7, 1831, in favour of his five-year-old son, Dom Pedro de Alcântara (later Pedro II).
The next decade proved to be the most agitated period in Brazilian history. From 1831 to 1835 a triple regency tried in vain to end civil warfare in the provinces and to control lawless and insubordinate soldiers. In 1834 it amended the constitution to provide for the election of a sole regent to a four-year term; the document also partly decentralized the government by creating provincial assemblies with considerable local power. The priest Diogo Antônio Feijó, who was chosen as regent in 1835, struggled for two years to hold the nation together, but he was forced to resign. Pedro de Araújo Lima succeeded him. Many Brazilians were impatient with the regency and believed that the entire nation would rally behind the young ruler once he was crowned. On July 23, 1840, both houses of parliament agreed that he had attained his majority, though he was only 14.
The reign of Pedro II lasted nearly half a century and constituted perhaps the most varied and fruitful epoch in Brazilian history. The prestige and progress of the nation were due largely to the enlightened statesmanship of its ruler, who was always simple, modest, and democratic, though not without personal distinction. He possessed an insatiable intellectual curiosity and was never happier than when conversing with scholars. He was generous and magnanimous to a fault. One of his favourite occupations was inspecting schools, and he professed a desire to have been a schoolteacher. Yet this kindly, genial, and scholarly ruler regarded his sovereign prerogatives and duties with great seriousness, and he was the final arbiter in all principal matters. A kind of parliamentary government functioned under the watchful eye of the emperor, who maintained power with the aid of Luis Alves de Lima e Silva (subsequently the duke of Caxias), Brazil’s most outstanding military figure. Lima e Silva, the son of General Francisco de Lima e Silva (who headed the first regency following Pedro I’s abdication), led several army units, quelled sundry regional revolts in the 1840s, and, the following decade, became minister of war and twice president of the Council of Ministers.
Pedro II’s government took a keen interest in the affairs of its southern neighbours, especially of Uruguay, which it sought to control through indirect measures. Brazil helped overthrow the Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1852. In 1864 Brazil invaded Uruguay to help decide the outcome of a civil war there; believing that Brazil was dangerously expanding its power in the region, the Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López declared war, first on Brazil and subsequently on Argentina. The resultant costly and bloody conflict became known as the War of the Triple Alliance, or Paraguayan War (1864–70). Brazil, allied with Argentina and Uruguay, eventually destroyed the Paraguayan army and navy and overthrew López. The war was the bloodiest in South American history; it devastated the Paraguayan population and also had profound consequences in Brazil. It provided an opportunity to free a significant number of Brazilian slaves, led to the army’s unwillingness to hunt down runaway slaves, and greatly weakened each state’s ability to recapture them. The war also caused young officers to question Brazil’s economic backwardness and to consider whether a drastic change of regime might be needed—a change that could be instigated by a military rebellion. The empire’s relations with the United States and with Europe were generally cordial, and Pedro II personally visited Europe in 1871, 1876, and 1888 and the United States in 1876.
The empire’s major social and economic problems during the period sprang from slave-based plantation agriculture. That system mainly produced sugar, which was the nation’s leading export, although cotton and coffee were becoming increasingly important. Real political power remained with large rural landholders, who controlled sugar production, formed the Brazilian elite class, and stood unrivaled economically because gold mining had declined; they were also largely insulated from the global antislavery sentiment of the times. Although manumission was common, and the number of freedmen and their descendants far surpassed the number of slaves in Brazil, the slave owners as a group resisted pressures for the complete abolition of the institution. The Brazilian emperor had agreed in 1831 to phase out the slave trade, but that promise was made under pressure from Great Britain, and transatlantic slave traffic did not completely cease for another 20 years. Antislavery agitation began in the 1860s. Pedro II was opposed to slavery, but he did not want to risk antagonizing slave owners; accordingly, he felt that the nation should abolish it by degrees. In 1871 Brazil enacted the Law of the Free Womb, which granted freedom to all children born to slaves and effectively condemned slavery to eventual extinction. However, this concession did not satisfy abolitionists for long, and the young lawyer and writer Joaquim Nabuco de Araújo led them in demanding immediate and complete abolition. Nabuco’s book O Abolicionismo (1883; Abolitionism) argued that slavery was poisoning the very life of the nation. The movement succeeded: in 1884 the governments of Ceará and Amazonas freed slaves in those regions, and the following year the national government liberated all slaves over 60 years of age. Finally, the princess regent (in the absence of the emperor) decreed complete emancipation without compensation to the owners on May 13, 1888. About 700,000 slaves were freed.
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39c6763fecbc7a07be6255e3904acdac | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Kubitscheks-administration | Kubitschek’s administration | Kubitschek’s administration
Vice President João Café Filho served out most of the remainder of Vargas’s term and carried out preparations for the presidential election of October 1955. The major political parties did not unite behind a single candidate; rather, three strong contenders emerged: former Minas Gerais state governor Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, popularly regarded as Vargas’s political heir; former São Paulo state governor Ademar de Barros, who had broad backing from financial and commercial groups; and Marshal Juárez Távora, considered to be the representative of conservative military and civilian groups. Kubitschek won the election with slightly more than one-third of the total vote. Brazilians widely interpreted the elections as a popular vindication of the Vargas position. However, civil unrest loomed on the horizon: the conservative press regarded Kubitschek as a dangerous radical, and the illegal but active Communist Party, which had thrown its unsolicited support to Kubitschek, claimed to have provided his margin of victory. In addition, following a heart attack that incapacitated Café Filho, rumours circulated of a coup that would prevent Kubitschek’s inauguration. However, Teixeira Lott, the war minister, and Marshal Odílio Denys, who commanded army troops in Rio de Janeiro, staged a “countercoup” on November 11, 1955, in order to guarantee the president elect’s inauguration, and Kubitschek took office as scheduled on January 31, 1956.
Kubitschek encouraged a widespread nationalistic spirit by appealing to the popular demand for economic development and to the belief that Brazil was destined to become a great power among the nations of the world. Kubitschek felt that the national government should play a vital role in economic areas that seemed unattractive to private investment; thus, his administration undertook ambitious programs to construct highways and hydroelectric power projects, expand iron, steel, petroleum, and coal production, and assist privately owned industries. His role in planning, initially constructing, and dedicating (April 21, 1960) Brasília, a new federal capital 580 miles (930 km) northwest of Rio de Janeiro, was perhaps his most outstanding and controversial accomplishment. Kubitschek wanted Brasília to focus attention on the interior of the country, hasten settlement of the region, and develop its untapped resources. Residents of Rio de Janeiro denounced the project, but most Brazilians in other regions regarded the nascent city as a symbol of the nation’s future greatness. In inter-American relations, the Kubitschek administration proposed adopting Operation Pan America, an economic development program for Latin America that foreshadowed the Alliance for Progress.
Brazil achieved great material progress during the Kubitschek period but at a high price: the cost of living and the volume of currency in circulation tripled between 1956 and 1961, while Brazil’s large foreign debt nearly doubled. The gross national product rose to unprecedented levels, but living standards mainly remained unchanged or declined. At the same time, evidence emerged of large-scale graft and favouritism among those holding public office.
The presidential and vice presidential elections of 1960 were hotly contested. Jânio Quadros, a maverick politician who had governed São Paulo successfully, won the presidential contest at the head of the National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional; UDN), the largest conservative party. João Goulart, the vice president under Kubitschek and a member of Vargas’s PTB won the vice presidential race. The two politically divergent politicians took office on January 31, 1961.
The election of Quadros was hailed as a revolution by ballot, because anti-Vargas political groups controlled the presidency for the first time in three decades. Quadros took office in an atmosphere of popular expectation, but he was soon opposed by the Congress, where parties loyal to the Vargas tradition still commanded a large majority. Quadros responded by attempting to dramatically expand his executive powers, but his arbitrary and autocratic manner alienated many of his former adherents, and he failed to enact political reforms or measures to fight inflation. In international affairs Quadros was more successful. His foreign policy, which was applauded by ultranationalists and deplored by moderates, seemed designed to move Brazil toward neutral and communist nations and away from its traditional ties with the United States. He opposed inter-American attempts to censure Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba and promoted relations with the Soviet Union and its European satellites. On August 25, 1961, after less than seven months in office, Quadros resigned unexpectedly, alleging that “terrible forces” had worked against him. Congress promptly installed Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, as temporary president, because Vice President Goulart, the constitutional successor, was then en route home from a state visit to China.
Brazil stood at the brink of civil war. Many military commanders and conservatives regarded Goulart as too radical to be entrusted with the nation’s highest office, although the great majority of civilian political leaders upheld his constitutional right to the presidency. The war minister, Odílio Denys, emerged as the chief spokesman of the anti-Goulart forces and demanded that Congress declare the office of vice president vacant and hold new elections. Congress refused. In southern Brazil the commanders of powerful army and air force units defied orders from the capital and sided with Goulart, who arrived in Porto Alegre (in Rio Grande do Sul state) insisting that he was already president. Faced with the prospect of armed conflict, Congress and the anti-Goulart group in the military compromised: they agreed that Goulart could take office, but only as a figurehead. On September 2, 1961, Brazil adopted a parliamentary system of government and transferred most presidential powers to the newly created post of prime minister. The legislature made provisions for a national plebiscite on the parliamentary experiment, and Goulart was confirmed as president.
The legislative elections of October 1962 did not greatly alter the balance of political power; in essence, the results indicated that the electorate was either divided or ambivalent regarding the administration’s reform proposals. Goulart seized the opportunity to lead the opponents of parliamentarianism in demanding a quick return to presidential rule. Brazil held a plebiscite on January 6, 1963, and, by a margin of more than five to one, the national electorate gave Goulart full presidential powers. Goulart, however, was subsequently unable to garner enough legislative votes to pass his proposals, and the government’s new plans for economic and social development did nothing to restrict inflation, which reached alarming proportions. The currency dropped to one-tenth its original value, the cost of living tripled, and the growth of the gross national product, which had been rising by 6 to 7 percent yearly, was brought to a complete halt.
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2fd873cedd005dfafc7fac97549b2974 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Language | Language of Brazil | Language of Brazil
Portuguese is the first language of the vast majority of Brazilians, but numerous foreign words have expanded the national lexicon. The Portuguese language has undergone many transformations, both in the mother country and in its former colony, since it was first introduced into Brazil in the 16th century. The two countries have largely standardized their spellings, but pronunciations, vocabularies, and the meanings of words have diverged so widely that it now may be easier for some Brazilians to understand Spanish-language films from other Latin American countries than films from Portugal. Italians, Germans, Japanese, and Spanish-speaking immigrants have introduced new words and expressions in Brazilian Portuguese, such as the ubiquitous expression tchau (“farewell”), which was adopted from the Italian ciao. Foreign products and technologies have introduced additional terms.
Brazil’s indigenous peoples speak dozens of discrete languages, and some authorities suggest that the greatest divergence of the Brazilian language from the Portuguese can be traced to initial contact with the Indians. The Tupian, or Tupí-Guaraní, language group has especially influenced Brazilian place-names and added perhaps thousands of words and expressions to Brazilian Portuguese. Tupian was the principal language of Brazil’s native peoples before European contact, and it became the lingua franca between Indians and Portuguese traders, missionaries, adventurers, and administrators; it was widely used in the Amazon region and western Brazil until the 19th century. The Tupian influence also caused Brazilians to enunciate more clearly and to use more nasal speech patterns than their Iberian counterparts.
About two-thirds of the Brazilian people adhere to Roman Catholicism, which ceased to be the official religion after the proclamation of the republic in 1889. After independence, which loosed the formerly close links between church and state, the predominance of Catholics among the immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries contributed to the lasting presence of that religion. Much of the rest of the population is Protestant, including fundamentalist and Pentecostal groups. (Evangelical groups gathered rapid support from the 1990s by taking some members from the Catholic ranks; in response, Catholic groups initiated a series of charismatic masses and rallies.)
Brazil has increasing numbers of adherents to Eastern Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Shintō, Islam, and other religions, all of which together are about numerically equal to those practicing a form of spiritualism, or spiritism, that is based on the 19th-century teachings of the French medium Allan Kardec. Many Brazilians also practice syncretic religions, such as Macumba, Candomblé, Xangô, and Umbanda, that blend Christian beliefs with rites imported from Africa or with spiritualistic practices. Candomblé predominates in Bahia. The Nagô Candomblé sect, derived from the religion of Yoruba slaves, is particularly widespread and influences the rites of other sects. Macumba and Umbanda have many adherents in Rio de Janeiro state, whereas Xangô is most influential in Pernambuco. Practitioners generally identify their deities with Roman Catholic saints and believe that these deities intercede for them with a supreme being. Priests and priestesses are mostly of African ancestry, but adherents are drawn from every ethnic group and social class, especially in urban centres. Perhaps tens of millions of Brazilian Catholics occasionally participate in syncretic or spiritualist feasts and ceremonies.
Like most developing countries, Brazil has a young population, but the median age has been increasing since the mid-20th century. By the 1980s the proportion of people under 20 had declined to less than half of the total, and the trend continued into the early 21st century, when between one-fourth and one-fifth of Brazilians were recorded as being under age 15. During that time the proportion of people in the older age groups increased, so that nearly three-tenths of the population was age 45 and over.
As Brazilian society has modernized and become more affluent, life expectancy has increased and the rate of population growth has declined. The birth rate has also generally declined but varies according to region. In 1960 the national average was just over 6 births per female of childbearing age, with a high of 8 to 8.5 in the most rural states and much lower rates in Rio de Janeiro. By the early 21st century the national average dropped to roughly 2 births per childbearing woman, partly because of the populace’s gradual acceptance of family planning measures. Infant mortality rates are still a serious concern but vary widely according to region and socioeconomic status: in the affluent urban districts the rate is quite low, but in the favelas and other poor communities, particularly in the Northeast, it is much higher.
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23d573e019a541faf0d8681127d4cbac | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Manufacturing | Manufacturing of Brazil | Manufacturing of Brazil
Manufacturing accounts for about one-fifth of the GDP and more than one-tenth of the labour force. With few exceptions, the Southeast contains the largest, most varied, and most efficient establishments in every sector of industry. It also employs three-fifths of the country’s industrial workers, who earn most of Brazil’s wages and produce the largest value of its goods. The South employs more than one-fifth of the country’s industrial workers, but the Northeast employs roughly half that number, and at lower wages than in the Southeast and South. Within the Southern and Southeastern states, the manufacturing sectors of Paraná, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, and Espírito Santo are increasingly offsetting the industrial strength of São Paulo, which alone produces nearly two-fifths of Brazil’s manufactured goods. Generally speaking, Brazil’s factories are not large; only a few employ a hundred or more workers. As might be expected, the largest firms are in the Southeast, followed by the South.
Since the mid-20th century Brazil has been a major world supplier of automobiles, producing nearly two million vehicles per year. Other major manufactures include electrical machinery, paints, soaps, medicines, chemicals, aircraft, steel, food products, and paper. Brazil has been a major producer of textiles, clothing, and footwear since the early 19th century. The textile industry began in Bahia in 1814, using local supplies of raw cotton; it is now centred in São Paulo and Fortaleza. The footwear industry, centred in Rio Grande do Sul, began in the 1820s with small leather works supplied by surplus hides from the meatpacking industry.
The rapidly expanding service sector is Brazil’s largest employer, accounting for more than half of the labour force. It is composed of private and government services, including national and local bureaucracies, public utilities, and a host of special agencies. In the private sector the largest number of workers are employed in hospitality industries (hotels, restaurants, and bars) and repair shops of various kinds. Retail sales and personal services each account for most of the rest of the private-sector workers. Employment is growing most rapidly in the field of information technology.
The National Monetary Council, under the direction of the minister of finance, is Brazil’s chief financial policy-making body. It oversees the Central Bank of Brazil, which issues currency (the real) and controls the money supply, credit, foreign capital, and other top-level financial matters. The federal government also uses other public financial institutions to implement its policies, the most important of which is the Bank of Brazil. The largest bank in the country, it has numerous agencies at home and abroad and is the main source of long-term loans for farmers and exporters of manufactured goods. The National Economic and Social Development Bank channels government and international loans into large-scale development projects, including loans to state governments for projects that they cannot finance themselves, such as the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro subways. The National Housing Bank provides home-building loans, and the Federal Savings Bank (Caixa Econômica Federal) makes short-term loans to individuals.
Many states have their own government banks, among which the Bank of São Paulo is the most important. A lesser share of Brazil’s commercial banking is in the hands of private banks, which also provide short-term loans and savings accounts. In the 1990s federal and state governments privatized or closed several formerly state-owned banks and allowed foreign investors to control more financial institutions. The main stock market is that of São Paulo (1890); Rio de Janeiro has a smaller market (1845), and the cities of Pôrto Alegre, Vitória, Recife, Santos, and São Paulo have commodity exchanges. The securities system, which historically has been underregulated and volatile, underwent reforms at the beginning of the 21st century.
Foreign trade has been critical to the Brazilian economy throughout the country’s existence; however, exports historically accounted for only a small part of the national income, and Brazil had difficulty maintaining a favourable trade balance, partly because of its huge foreign debt payments. The situation began to change with several years of trade surpluses in the 1980s and ’90s. By the beginning of the 21st century, as the country’s foreign debt fell, exports flourished (spurred by government financing as well as efforts to negotiate increased access to foreign markets), and Brazil enjoyed a significant positive balance of trade. Another important contributor to the growth of exports was the country’s expanding ethanol industry.
China and the United States are Brazil’s principal trading partners. However, regional trade has been increasing, notably with Argentina, since the Southern Common Market (Mercosur, or Mercosul) was established in 1991. Other major trading partners include Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Italy, and South Korea.
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30741c609a7c3fc698aeaca2ce2a18e7 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Military-intervention-and-dictatorship | Military intervention and dictatorship | Military intervention and dictatorship
As the situation grew more desperate, the administration and its critics further repudiated one another. Goulart identified himself increasingly with the ultranationalistic left and surrounded himself with left-wing advisers, whereas military officers began to sympathize more openly with the moderate and conservative opposition. Goulart sought to neutralize the armed forces by frequently reshuffling the command structure and by developing a personal following among noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel. Many military officers and opposition political leaders, convinced that Goulart was planning a leftist dictatorship, began counterplotting in 1963 in different parts of the country. Governor José de Magalhães Pinto of Minas Gerais state and Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, chief of staff of the army, emerged as the chief coordinators of the conspiracy.
Goulart requested congressional authorization for a state of siege, which would have enhanced his powers, and when Congress refused he appealed directly to the people for support. At a mass rally in Rio de Janeiro in March 1964, he instituted a controversial agrarian reform program and nationalized various privately owned oil refineries. Later that month his administration refused to suppress a strike by naval enlisted men; the opposition deplored that inaction, because it considered military authority and discipline to be the last check on Goulart’s alleged ambitions. On March 31, 1964, Magalhães Pinto proclaimed a rebellion against the government by the civil leaders and military forces in Minas Gerais; he was joined by key politicians and by most of the armed forces. On April 2 Goulart fled into exile, and Congress declared his office vacant; Ranieri Mazzilli was again designated interim president.
With the fall of Goulart, power effectively passed to the leaders of the rebellion, who instituted sweeping political changes. The commanders set out to restore economic and financial order, eliminate what they perceived as communist infiltration, and purge corrupt and subversive elements; however, they also desired to retain a modified form of representative government. On April 9, 1964, they combined these goals in the First Institutional Act, which greatly amended the 1946 constitution. The executive was granted temporary authority to remove elected officials from office, dismiss civil servants, and revoke for 10 years the political rights of those found guilty of subversion or misuse of public funds. Congress then followed the lead of the senior military commanders in awarding the presidency to Castelo Branco on April 11.
During the following six months, the regime arrested thousands of people and abrogated the political rights of hundreds more, including union and government officials and the former presidents Goulart, Quadros, and Kubitschek. Congress retained the power to debate and amend—but not reject—proposals submitted to it by the executive.
The military regarded Castelo Branco’s term as a transitional period during which the quasi-military administration would enact sweeping political and economic reforms before it again entrusted the nation to a popularly elected government. Castelo Branco and his allies agreed on economic and social goals, but they disagreed on the means to attain their ends. The president wished to achieve reform through legislation while permitting various political activities; however, civilian and military extremists wanted to dissolve Congress and suspend all political parties until the military regime could consolidate its power.
The quarrel produced a crisis in October 1965, when opposition candidates in the key states of Minas Gerais and Guanabara won gubernatorial elections by substantial majorities. The extremists interpreted the results as a great setback for the government, and they demanded that Castelo Branco annul the two elections. When he refused, they plotted a coup, but Marshal Artur da Costa e Silva, the war minister, intervened and persuaded the dissident leaders to keep the peace in return for Castelo Branco’s promise to embrace the military’s extremist reforms.
On October 27, Castelo Branco signed the Second Institutional Act, which suspended all existing political parties, restored the president’s emergency powers for the remainder of his term, and set October 3, 1966, as the date for new presidential elections. The regime then created an artificial, two-party system composed of the government-sponsored National Renewal Alliance (Aliança Renovadora Nacional; ARENA) and an opposition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro; MDB). However, the MDB refused to nominate a candidate for the presidential election, which was run by the ARENA-dominated Congress, and Costa e Silva, the administration’s candidate, won the uncontested race.
A government-appointed commission subsequently drafted a new constitution, and Castelo Branco in December called an extraordinary session of Congress to approve the document, which was promulgated in January 1967. It incorporated much of the military’s program and confirmed the expanded powers of the executive and the central government, but it also allowed the president and vice president to be elected from a single ticket, reduced the presidential term from five to four years, permitted military courts to judge civilians charged with violating national security laws, granted the president authority to issue emergency decrees without consulting Congress, and denied Congress the right to delay any legislation requested by the executive.
The Castelo Branco administration employed emergency powers to contain inflation and revive the flagging economy. It limited and regulated sources of credit, restructured the tax system and collection procedures, and imposed wage and salary controls. The government also invested heavily in hydroelectric power and the transportation infrastructure. The administration achieved many of its goals, such as reestablishing Brazil’s international credit rating, reducing inflation, and helping to increase the gross national product. Every major sector of the economy was expanding when Castelo Branco left office, although unemployment remained a problem.
Costa e Silva promised to humanize the military government, but he did not depart markedly from the course set by his predecessor. His administration rejected petitions for a general amnesty, resisted proposals to amend the new constitution in order to restore direct elections, quashed attempts to form a second opposition party, and suppressed student disturbances. However, the government faced little serious political opposition, in part because its economic achievements mollified the populace.
The political situation deteriorated rapidly late in 1968. Costa e Silva, facing a resurgence of public and congressional criticism, seized emergency powers. The Fifth Institutional Act, issued on December 13, suspended all legislative bodies indefinitely, authorized the executive to rule by decree, and provided the legal basis for a new purge of political critics.
In August 1969 Costa e Silva suffered a stroke, and the government was run by the ministers of the army, navy, and air force until October, when General Emílio Garrastazú Médici was selected as the new president. The government again held federal, state, and municipal elections in November 1970; Médici’s ARENA party was the clear winner in most contests. Still, antigovernment demonstrations continued, and some insurgent groups gained attention by kidnapping foreign diplomats in Brazil.
In 1971 Médici presented the First National Development Plan, which helped to increase the rate of economic growth and to develop the Northeast and Amazonia, especially by means of road construction and redistribution of land. Brazilians, distracted by their newfound economic prosperity, seemed willing to tolerate political oppression and evidence of human rights violations. An electoral college was created in 1973, and in January 1974 it elected the ARENA party’s General Ernesto Geisel as president.
The 10th anniversary of the military coup was celebrated by lifting the prohibition on political activities of 106 leaders of the former regime, among them Kubitschek, Quadros, and Goulart. The Fifth Institutional Act, however, remained in force. The MDB demonstrated unexpected strength in the congressional elections of November 1974, gaining several seats in the Senate, and in the 1976 municipal elections the party pulled almost even with ARENA.
In April 1977 President Geisel dismissed Congress when it failed to pass judicial reforms that he had requested. He then used the emergency powers of the Fifth Institutional Act to institute those reforms and other electoral and constitutional changes, which included provisions for the indirect election of state governors and one-third of the federal senators and the increase of the presidential term to six years. The number of members of the Chamber of Deputies was to be based on the total population of the states instead of on the number of registered voters, and constitutional amendment could be effected by an absolute majority of Congress rather than the two-thirds vote of two successive sessions formerly required.
In October 1978 Geisel promoted a constitutional amendment that repealed the Fifth Institutional Act. The following month, his handpicked successor, General João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, won the indirect election for president. Before leaving office, Geisel repealed all remaining emergency legislation, including the presidential decree (of 1969) that banished persons accused of political crimes. In 1979 Congress enacted an amnesty program that restored political rights to all who had lost them since 1961. In addition, a reinvigorated freedom of expression sparked lively political debate. In 1982 direct elections for state governors were held for the first time since 1965, and opposition parties won most of the larger states.
Brazilians also witnessed changes owing to a slow and profound economic transformation that made Brazil one of the major industrial nations of the world by the early 1980s, boasting the world’s 10th largest gross national product. At the same time, fully seven-tenths of the population was urban. The transportation infrastructure had expanded immensely, and road networks in particular reached out to previously isolated corners of the vast nation. New pressure groups, such as organized labour, played increasingly influential roles, and the social structure was more widely diverse and complex.
Still, Brazil followed well-delineated patterns in the 1980s. The few governed the many and enjoyed most of the benefits of society. The large estates grew in size and number as Brazil’s agricultural frontier moved ever westward and through the Amazon. The export sector still dominated and shaped the economy. Poverty characterized the lives of the overwhelming majority of Brazilians. Indeed, Brazil did not escape the economic crises shaking Latin America in the 1980s. Its foreign debt ranked as the largest in the Third World. The nation emerged from the period of military dictatorship with a triple-figure inflation. Nor had the military governments resolved the problems of illiteracy, malnutrition, and high infant mortality that plagued the majority of the people.
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9f27930fb95491e678ea7d44a6815f91 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Performing-arts | Performing arts | Performing arts
The classical composer Heitor Villa-Lobos was a powerful force in breaking with tradition to create distinctively Brazilian compositions by weaving folk themes and rhythms of Portuguese, Indian, and African origins into his music. In contemporary music, João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim introduced the world to bossa nova rhythms (including the classic song “The Girl from Ipanema”) by blending samba rhythms with cool jazz. Francisco Buarque de Hollanda composed a wide range of popular music including ballads and socially relevant light opera. The poet-songwriter Vinicius de Moraes caught the urban Brazilian spirit in his memorable lyrics, and the pop singer Roberto Carlos Braga built up a considerable following throughout Latin America in the latter part of the 20th century. Other popular musical styles include sertanejo, especially in the South and Central-West, axé, which is a blend of samba and reggae often heard in the Northeast, and pagôde, an energetic samba style that developed in urban areas. Musical influences from Brazil, North America, and Europe have been blended to create the tropicália style. The larger Brazilian cities periodically host contemporary musical extravaganzas, and free outdoor concerts of classical music attract multitudes of listeners in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, and elsewhere. Brazil also has a long tradition of folk music, such as the Northeast’s cantoria (sung poetry) contests, in which musicians improvise to win “duels.”
Theatrical productions are widespread and well attended, from the bawdy regional comedies in neighbourhood theatres to lavish classical productions in Rio de Janeiro’s opera house. Brazilian theatre has reached international audiences through playwrights such as Alfredo Dias Gomes, author of Roque Santeiro (Roque, the Saint Maker). Motion pictures are enormously popular in Brazil, with offerings for popular and sophisticated audiences. Brazil’s film industry has produced several contenders for international prizes; actors such as Fernanda Montenegro and her daughter Fernanda Torres have won worldwide acclaim, as have many directors, including Fábio Barreto and Bruno Barreto. However, imported North American and European films are the most popular movie fare in Brazil.
The rapid large-scale urbanization of Brazil following World War II radically altered the lifestyle of the majority of the country’s inhabitants. In most ways, large Brazilian cities differ little from others in the Western world, but their greater degree of crowding and large volume of pedestrian traffic may in some cases compare more closely to the cities of China than of North America.
Brazilians’ family ties, both immediate and extended, generally remain stronger than in western Europe and North America; family members customarily live in relatively close proximity to one another, holding frequent reunions or gathering at a family farm or ranch on weekends and holidays. However, this traditional system of kinship ties depends on a certain degree of wealth and stability for its preservation, and it is no longer as strong as it once was, given the increased mobility and urbanization of the Brazilian people. In the favelas, various members of an extended family may occupy the same dwelling because of economic pressures or family tradition. Automobiles have become a household fixture for most middle-class families, to the extent that Brazilians are said to have a love affair with cars; however, families with lesser means must rely on bus trips as the only practical way to commute to work or, on the weekend, to the beach or countryside.
The traditional national dish of Brazil is the feijoada completa, a mixture of up to 20 different dried, salted, or smoked meats simmered in a stew of black beans (feijoadas) and often served with rice, vegetables, and other foods. There are many dishes of African origin in Bahia, such as vatapá, which is made of rice flour, coconut oil, fish, shrimps, red peppers, and assorted condiments. Rio de Janeiro contains acclaimed Portuguese restaurants, whereas Italian cuisine is better represented in São Paulo. Steak houses (churrascarias) abound throughout the country. North American fast-food chains are rapidly expanding in the large and medium-sized cities.
The four-day pre-Lenten Carnival is the most famous and exuberant Brazilian holiday. Carnival in Brazil is the traditional combination of a Roman Catholic festival with the lively celebrations of people of African ancestry. It evolved principally in urban coastal areas, notably in the former plantation zones along the coast between Recife and Rio de Janeiro.
Millions of Brazilians from the working and middle classes find a social outlet in Carnival preparations. During a considerable part of the year, they spend their leisure time preparing for the annual activities and competitions of Carnival in so-called samba schools (escolas de samba), which function as community clubs and neighbourhood centres. Both children’s and adults’ groups make up the several thousand dancers and musicians of each samba school, and many more people are involved in constructing floats and making elaborate costumes. The samba schools in Rio de Janeiro carry on the most extravagant expression of the festival, focused mainly along Copacabana beach. Most of the schools also attend competitions at the 85,000-seat Sambadrome (Samba Dome; 1984), which was designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Some Brazilians celebrate Carnival in nightclubs, where dancing and elaborate look-alike contests have grown in popularity. Nearly all the neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro and other cities are festooned with streamers and lights, and live samba music is ubiquitous. Salvador’s Carnival is less highly commercialized and has a stronger African component.
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f51eebb461a39b88fe77f64435f22adf | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Royal-governors-Jesuits-and-slaves | Royal governors, Jesuits, and slaves | Royal governors, Jesuits, and slaves
King John III resolved to strengthen his authority in Brazil by unifying the inefficient donatários under a central administration. He appointed as governor-general Tomé de Sousa, a Portuguese noble with impressive experience in Africa and India. Sousa landed in Brazil in 1549 and founded Salvador (Bahia), a capital from which Brazil was governed for 214 years. Sousa also placed local officials over the captaincies and fortified strategic points along the coast. In the cities, he established municipal organizations similar to those in Portugal. Brazil then began to attract settlers in increasing numbers. By 1600 Bahia and Pernambuco each had a population of roughly 2,000 Europeans and more than twice as many African slaves and Indians.
Jesuit brethren provided labour and expertise that were central to the progress of the colony. At the request of John III, Manuel da Nóbrega and several other Jesuits had accompanied Tomé de Sousa to Salvador and became the first of a long line of missionaries devoted to protecting and converting the Indians and raising the moral level of the colonists. As soon as they converted Indians to Christianity, the Jesuits settled them in aldeias (“villages”) that were akin to the missions in Spanish America. Most other Portuguese colonists owned Indian slaves, however, and resented the Jesuits’ control over such a valuable labour supply. A conflict arose between the two groups and reverberated throughout the colony, and both parties appealed to the crown. The Jesuits won a partial victory in a royal decree of 1574 that granted them full control over the Indians in the aldeias while permitting the colonists to enslave Indians captured in “legitimate warfare.” In the Amazon River basin, Father António Vieira became the centre of a somewhat similar conflict in the 17th century, when he established a chain of missions there. Though the missions helped protect Indians from slavery, they greatly contributed to the spread of deadly European diseases. Brazilian colonists, facing a compounding labour shortage in the mid-16th century, imported increasing numbers of African slaves.
Brazil had hardly been brought under royal Portuguese authority before the French made a determined effort to establish a permanent colony there. In 1555 French troops took possession of the beautiful harbour of Rio de Janeiro, which, inexplicably, the Portuguese had neglected to occupy. A large Portuguese force under Mem de Sá, the governor-general, blockaded the entrance to the harbour, eventually forced the French garrison to surrender, and founded (in 1567) the city of Rio de Janeiro to ward off future attacks.
Portugal was united with Spain from 1580 to 1640, and Brazil was consequently exposed to attacks by Spain’s enemies, including the newly independent Netherlands. The Dutch seized and briefly held Salvador in 1624–25, and in 1630 the Dutch West India Company dispatched a fleet that captured Pernambuco, which remained under Dutch control for a quarter-century. The company chose as governor of its new possession John Maurice, count of Nassau-Siegen, a prince of the house of Orange and perhaps the ablest administrator in the Netherlands. The Dutch also invited distinguished artists and scientists to make known to Europe the resources and beauties of Brazil; however, the profit-driven directors of the company refused to support John Maurice’s enlightened social policies, and he resigned in 1644. João Fernandes Vieira, a wealthy plantation owner, subsequently launched a rebellion that steadily gained ground against John Maurice’s incompetent successors. The Brazilians, acting without Portuguese aid, defeated and expelled the Dutch in 1654, an achievement that helped spark Brazilian nationalistic sentiments.
Brazil’s westward expansion was one of the most significant events of the colonial period. The Treaty of Tordesillas forbade the Portuguese from crossing 46° 30′ W, but Brazilian colonists soon expanded far beyond that line in three groups: missionaries, cattlemen, and bandeirantes (explorers and slave hunters). Missionaries continued to extend their reach along the Amazon and in the South and Southeast. In the Northeast, cattlemen searching for new pastures pushed inland from the sugar-producing zones of Pernambuco and Bahia to the present states of Piauí, Maranhão, and Goiás. Paulistas, as settlers from São Paulo were called, were the most active in the movement westward, organizing major expeditions into the interior, known as bandeiras, in order to capture Indian slaves and search for gold and precious stones. Some of the more adventuresome bandeirantes reached as far west as the silver-mining region of Alto Peru (now Bolivia) and as far northwest as Bogotá in Colombia. In the 17th century they explored the wildernesses of Mato Grosso and attacked the reducciones (Indian missions in Spanish-held areas) in the Paraná and Uruguay river basins. Indians and Jesuits resisted most of bandeirante encroachments, and near the Río de la Plata, in what is now Uruguay, Spanish settlers defeated the invading Paulistas. The bandeirantes’ efforts, though often violent and cruel, contributed significantly to the unification of the huge subcontinent of Brazil.
Shared cultural traits and economic factors also helped integrate the region. The Portuguese language formed a common bond between plantation residents, cattlemen, miners, slaves (both Indian and African), slave hunters, and city dwellers and distinguished them from their Spanish-speaking counterparts elsewhere in South America. Brazilians almost uniformly derived from Portugal an expanded, patriarchal family structure, and the heads of a few powerful families controlled nearly all of the land, slaves, cattle, and, later, mines that produced the wealth of the colony. Only four important cities developed in Brazil during the colonial period: Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and Ouro Prêto. Moreover, Portugal maintained contact with all parts of Brazil—albeit intermittently—and little trade or other regular contact existed between Brazil and neighbouring Spanish colonies. These common factors held Brazil together in spite of strong regional variations.
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71df2ea3c2514b3c72eea9a73f2fa349 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Settlement-patterns | Settlement patterns | Settlement patterns
Frontier settlement and domestic migration have been features of Brazilian society since prehistoric times. The settlement of what is now Brazil began many thousands of years ago with the arrival of hunters and gatherers. At the time of European contact (in 1500), skilled farmers and fishers occupied the best lands of the Amazon and Paraguay river systems and most of the coastal plains, making up the bulk of the region’s two to six million native inhabitants.
The first European occupants of Brazil settled in the early 16th century among the coastal Indian villages or at the trading posts that they established at Salvador and at Cabo Frio (now in Rio de Janeiro state). They exchanged hardware and trinkets with the Indians for brazilwood, which was used for making a valuable, fire-coloured dye (brasa is Portuguese for “live coals”). Sugarcane began to dominate the colonial economy in the second half of the 16th century, giving rise to a scattering of urban centres, among which Olinda and Salvador were the most important. By that time the coastal Indian populations had been decimated, and slaves from Africa were being imported to work on the rapidly expanding plantations, which flourished particularly during the early and mid-17th century.
During the first two centuries of Brazilian colonization, little attention was paid to the nearly inaccessible and seemingly unproductive highlands, although parties of explorers, known as bandeirantes, traversed them from time to time, capturing Indians for slaves and searching for precious metals and stones. Some of the bandeirantes settled in the interior and introduced small groups of cattle that eventually expanded into large herds; cattle raising came to dominate Brazil’s economy from the caatinga to the Pantanal. The first gold strike occurred in what is now Minas Gerais in 1695, and during the 18th century Brazil furnished a large portion of the world’s gold reserves. Diamonds were found in the same region in 1729, and visions of instant wealth attracted many plantation owners, with their slaves, from the Northeast. They spent money lavishly on the construction of fine towns, such as Ouro Prêto and Diamantina, and also invested in small industries to supply the mines and farms, which were soon producing a surplus for export. Brazil’s economic and political centre shifted from the Northeast to the Southeast after settlers built roads over the Serra do Mar to the coast, and the royal government transferred the colonial capital from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. During the 19th century, great coffee plantations brought additional wealth into the region. The plantations developed chiefly in the Paraíba do Sul valley, which runs from eastern São Paulo to eastern Rio de Janeiro states. By the 1860s thousands of European immigrants, chiefly Italians, were flowing into the region, and two decades later their influx increased to some 40,000 per year.
Rio de Janeiro’s population had passed 500,000 by the time the slaves were fully emancipated in 1888, whereas the city of São Paulo, the entrepôt for all of Brazil south and west of Minas Gerais, was still a modest town of 65,000. That situation changed as the flood of European immigrants began to arrive. Some of the newcomers worked as tenants on the coffee plantations that were expanding across São Paulo and northern Paraná states, while others established themselves on small freeholds along the southern coast and in the forests. The southernmost group remained physically and culturally isolated until after World War II, but the immigrants in São Paulo played a key role in building railroads and industries that gave the city and the state their preeminence in the Brazilian economy.
During the same period, the Northeast’s large population struggled to advance economically in the face of drought, high rates of unemployment, and an archaic landholding system that concentrated all of the best coastal lands in the hands of a few powerful landowners. The Northeast remained economically depressed throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and economic booms elsewhere drew people out of the region. Among the first groups to migrate outward were large numbers of farmers who had settled in the sertão, or backlands, of the Northeast; they abandoned their lands in the 1870s and ’80s because of severe drought but found employment by resettling in the Amazon region to the north and west, where they tapped rubber trees. Northeasterners took part in another mass migration in the mid-20th century, primarily to the central interior of the country to help construct Brasília. Others began moving to the sparsely populated forests in the northern part of the Brazilian Highlands and to the frontier Amazonian zones of Rondônia and Acre. There they were joined by migrants from southern Brazil who had lost their livelihoods to the spread of mechanized agriculture.
The entire Amazon region had an estimated population of merely 40,000 in the mid-19th century, but the population exploded after Northeasterners and other Brazilians poured into the area during the rubber boom, which reached its apex between 1879 and 1912. As a result, Belém and Manaus grew from somnolent villages into modest cities, and by the end of World War I the region’s population rose to some 1.4 million. In the late 1950s Japanese settlers began raising jute and black pepper along the lower Amazon, and in the process they created a temporary economic boom. Brazilians also developed manganese deposits in Amapá from the mid-20th century, and a pioneer zone appeared along a newly constructed highway between Belém and Brasília. Forestry, cattle raising, and gold mining spread deeper into the region at the expense of the rainforest; nevertheless, the Amazon region remained the most underpopulated part of Brazil, and government attempts to lure more settlers there had limited success.
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498a588c94eeea9a4aeec40f1d2f62bb | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Shipping | Shipping of Brazil | Shipping of Brazil
Brazilian coastal shipping was, for many years, in no better condition than its railways. After the federal government launched a shipbuilding program in the 1960s, however, cargo tonnage increased markedly, and, more significantly, ships began to carry a larger percentage of high-value goods as the frequency and reliability of services improved. Three-fourths of Brazil’s ships are involved in coastal trade, with the largest proportion of oceangoing vessels owned by Petrobrás.
Brazil has also upgraded its specialized bulk terminals, including one on Sepetiba Bay, west of Rio de Janeiro, and the Itaqui ore terminal, just south of São Luís, as well as the iron-ore terminal at Tubarão, near Vitória, and the oil terminal at São Sebastião, on the São Paulo coast. Traffic through São Sebastião accounts for about half of the export value of São Paulo state, and much of the rest is handled through the port of Santos, which is the country’s busiest port. Other significant ports include Rio de Janeiro, Paranaguá, Salvador, and Recife. Brazil’s major port facilities, historically known for their high costs and low efficiency, were significantly improved in the late 1990s, mainly through privatization.
The extensive Brazilian river system has a total navigability of some 31,000 miles (50,000 km). Navigable waterways are the principal means of transportation in the North, where the principal ports are Belém, at the mouth of the Pará River (an effluent of the Tocantins), and the Amazon port of Manaus, some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) inland. Smaller boats ply the Amazon River system as far west as Pôrto Velho, on the Madeira River in Rondônia state, and the Peruvian port of Iquitos. The Paraguay-Paraná-Plata river system is little suited for long-distance navigation, although certain stretches were used for local transport in the early days of settlement. Barge traffic is increasing, however, and shallow-draft vessels can use the system to access the Atlantic through the Río de la Plata estuary. In the late 1990s the government began to improve navigation on the Tocantins, Araguaia, and Tietê rivers.
The São Francisco River is navigable in two separate sections: for 1,000 miles (1,600 km) northward from Pirapora to the hydroelectric dam at Petrolina and Juàzeiro, and for about 170 miles (270 km) eastward from the Paulo Afonso Falls to the sea. Few of the shorter rivers flowing to the Atlantic are navigable; only the Paranaíba in the far north and the Jacuí in Rio Grande do Sul carry significant shallow-draft and barge traffic.
Brazilians were among the pioneers in flying, and they have long claimed that their countryman Alberto Santos-Dumont, not the Wright brothers, flew the first successful airplane. Numerous airlines flourished in Brazil at one time or another, but they have been consolidated into three major companies that compete nationwide: VARIG, which since the late 1920s has been a largely employee-owned airline; the now privately owned São Paulo State Airline (VASP), which handles mainly domestic flights; and Transbrasil.
Every capital and major city in Brazil has an airport, and some 1,500 smaller cities and towns have airstrips. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Brasília are all linked by air shuttle services, although the overall frequency of flights and the size of terminals are much smaller than those of comparable centres in western Europe and North America. This is due to the relatively high cost of air fares and competition from inexpensive intercity bus services. Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, which each have two international airports, handle most international air traffic.
Brazil is second only to French Guiana as a Latin American leader in space exploration. It began testing rockets in the 1960s and created the first wholly Brazilian-made satellite in the early 1990s. Satellites are launched from a base at Alcântara, on the Maranhão coast just south of the Equator, because rockets launched into orbit from equatorial regions require significantly less fuel than do those launched from higher latitudes. The Brazilian space industry, long under military control, was placed under civilian leadership in 1994. Several Brazilian companies cooperate to design and build launch vehicles and satellites.
Brazil is a federal republic divided into 26 states and the Federal District (Distrito Federal), the latter including the capital city, Brasília. Since 1934 the nation has had universal suffrage. In 1988 Brazil promulgated a new constitution—the eighth since the country’s independence in 1822—that abolished many traces of the military regime (1964–85), defined civil rights, and outlined the functions of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It restricted the president’s power to legislate, proscribed government censorship of the arts, condemned the use of torture, prohibited extradition for political crimes, set the minimum voting age at 16 years, and allowed the federal government to intervene in state and local affairs. The constitution has been amended several times since its promulgation, but some of the changes have been temporary, with specifically designated timespans.
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9add77dd52eb2f8b202e96568eedcc06 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/The-collapse-of-the-empire | The collapse of the empire | The collapse of the empire
Brazil had progressed considerably under Pedro II’s wise guidance. Its population grew from 4,000,000 to 14,000,000, its public revenues increased 14-fold, the value of its exports rose 10-fold, and the nation’s newly constructed railroads extended more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km). Immigration also increased, with more than 100,000 entering Brazil in 1889 alone. Yet people were generally dissatisfied.
Many historians have ascribed the fall of the monarchy to a restive military, a brooding landed aristocracy, and a resentful clergy. Indeed, those three powerful groups were increasingly critical of the emperor. Perhaps more pertinent, however, was the stress placed on the traditional social structure in the late 19th century, owing to a widening gulf between the elites in the neo-feudal countryside and the more progressive urban residents and coffee planters. Members of the urban middle class, the military, and the coffee planters believed that the monarchy represented the past and was too closely tied to the landed elite. They reasoned that a republic better suited the goals of Brazil’s emerging capitalist system, which increasingly was based on coffee and industrial production. A civil-military conspiracy formed, and military officers carried out a coup on November 15, 1889. Pedro II abdicated and went into exile in Europe. The abolition of slavery in 1888 and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1889 terminated the two major institutions that had shaped Brazil’s past; in so doing they initiated a period of social, economic, and political change that accelerated modernization. Accordingly, the period between 1888 and 1922 has been described as the emergence of a “new Brazil.”
Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca, who had led the coup, became provisional president of the military-led government with the support of the nascent middle class and the prosperous coffee planters. He established a republic, separated the powers of church and state, and on February 24, 1891, promulgated a new constitution that combined elements of presidential, federal, democratic, and republican forms of government. The new states of the republic exercised more power than had the empire’s provinces.
Congress elected Fonseca president later that year, but he proved unable to govern under the new constitution. When he attempted to dissolve the dissenting Congress and rule by decree, the public raised such an outcry that he was forced to resign. Floriano Peixoto, the equally militaristic vice president, ascended to office on November 23, defeated several monarchist and military revolts, and restored a measure of tranquillity and order to the nation.
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6481e6c2193e9e90681f9813448d698a | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/The-Vargas-era | The Vargas era | The Vargas era
Getúlio Vargas, the losing candidate in the 1930 presidential election, led a revolt that placed him in power. Vargas, formerly the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, remained central to Brazilian national life for the next 24 years, holding office as chief executive on two occasions, 1930–45 and 1951–54.
The Great Depression of the 1930s, which occurred during Vargas’s first presidency, caused considerable economic difficulties for Brazil. In addition, the states vied with the national government for political control, and the people of São Paulo staged a bloody, though unsuccessful, revolt. In 1934 a new constitution granted the central government greater authority and provided for universal suffrage. Three years later, following another uprising, President Vargas seized virtually absolute powers and set up still another constitution, under which he continued as president. The new administration, known as the Estado Nôvo (“New State”), so heightened Vargas’s control that he was able to suppress all manifestations of popular will and strip Brazil of most of the trappings through which it might eventually hope to become a democracy. Vargas increasingly shifted the states’ political, economic, and social functions to the aegis of the national government. However, he also diversified the agricultural sector, enacted social legislation that benefited the working class, and urged further industrialization through import-substitution (using protective tariffs and other policies to limit imports while encouraging domestic manufacturing).
After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Vargas government supported the U.S. policy of inter-American solidarity, and on August 22, 1942, it declared war against Germany and Italy. Brazil’s air force helped defend the South Atlantic by flying antisubmarine patrols, and the United States used some Brazilian naval and air bases, including a major air field at Natal that provided the closest link between the Americas and Africa. Brazil sent an expeditionary force to Italy in July 1944 that distinguished itself in several battles. The Brazilian armed forces significantly upgraded their equipment through the U.S. lend-lease program, and the two governments agreed to increase Brazil’s exports of raw materials. As the war drew to a close, some military officers believed that President Vargas might attempt to retain power, and on October 29, 1945, they staged a coup that forced him to resign. Brazil then experimented with democracy.
General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Vargas’s own choice, won the presidential election in December 1945; Vargas himself was elected to the Senate. The following year Brazil promulgated a new constitution—the nation’s fifth and the fourth of the republican era—which included safeguards intended to prevent the rise of another overpowering president or dictator. It limited the presidential term to five years, separated the three branches of government, and restricted federal intervention in the affairs of the states.
The general elections of 1950 returned Vargas to power by a substantial margin. Although he failed to win a clear majority in the four-way race, he secured 1,500,000 more votes than the runner-up and nearly as many as the combined total for the three rival candidates. Accordingly, he was again installed in the presidency on January 31, 1951, in spite of the serious apprehensions of the military leaders who had deposed him in 1945. Vargas, however, was unable to dominate the political forces of the country or to exploit social and economic trends to his advantage, and, because he endeavoured to abide by the constitution of 1946, some Brazilians criticized him for weak leadership. Lacking a firm majority in the Congress, he could neither enact his own programs nor resist the contradictory pressures of his supporters and opponents. Brazil faced grave economic problems, including inflation and a growing national debt, as government expenditures consistently outran revenues. To counter these trends, Brazilians desired more rapid industrial development and measures to limit inflation and government spending. Vargas maintained a precarious balance between those advocating greater state intervention in the economy (including government ownership of industries and natural resources) and those insisting instead on domestic and foreign private investment. In 1953 the government intervened directly by creating a national petroleum corporation, Petrobrás.
For three years Vargas’s popularity largely protected him from attack by political adversaries, who directed their criticism against members of his administration. João Goulart, Vargas’s young protégé and vice president of the Brazilian Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro; PTB), was accused of using his office to transform organized labour into a political machine loyal to Vargas. He was dismissed as labour minister in 1954 because of his role (with the president’s acquiescence) in radically doubling the minimum wage, an action that contributed greatly to the inflationary spiral. A series of crises followed, reaching a climax on August 5, 1954, when assassins murdered an air force officer and attempted to kill Carlos Lacerda, the editor of an opposition newspaper. Subsequent investigations revealed that the president’s personal guard had hired the assassins and that corruption was widespread within the administration. The former dictator was engulfed in a wave of antipathy. In response, a group of army officers demanded Vargas’s resignation, and on August 24, 1954, he committed suicide in an apparent attempt to engender sympathy for his policies and his followers.
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0831b5cd6d89483db9a9d0e6e0e798a9 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/Tourism | Tourism of Brazil | Tourism of Brazil
Tourism is a growing industry in Brazil, which receives some three million foreign visitors a year. However, Brazilians visiting abroad spend significantly more money than do foreigners visiting Brazil; among Brazilians’ preferred destinations are Uruguay, Argentina, and the United States. Most tourists in Brazil travel to Rio de Janeiro and other easily accessible sites that are in or around urban centres with well-established hospitality industries. Salvador and other parts of Bahia are major tourist attractions, and increasing numbers of vacationers are visiting other coastal areas of the Northeast. Eco-tourism is moderately popular in the Amazon region, while in the South the beaches of Santa Catarina draw large crowds of Argentine tourists. The spectacular Iguaçu Falls, which are now connected to major urban centres by highways and air routes, annually attract more than one million foreign and domestic tourists. Pristine beaches in the Northeast, national parks in the interior, and historic sites throughout Brazil are garnering increasing interest. In the 1980s the cities Ouro Prêto, Olinda, Salvador, and Brasília were designated World Heritage sites, as were portions of the Northeast coast in 1999.
The larger Brazilian cities have a wide range of accommodations, but most luxury hotels are in Rio de Janeiro, and there are some large spas, hotels, and resorts in the Minas Gerais highlands and at Iguaçu Falls. Hotel construction has boomed in the cities of the Northeast and South. A growing number of Brazilians travel throughout the country by automobile and aircraft during vacations.
Developing an efficient means of transportation has been a matter of critical importance for a country as large as Brazil. Throughout much of its history the country’s coastal regions were connected via shipping and a few short roads, whereas the interior remained an isolated frontier. Railroads were built in the 19th century to link Brazil’s mineral-producing regions to ocean ports; however, they facilitated only limited settlement of the interior, unlike in other Latin American countries, and the rail network could not be integrated quickly because different rail companies used incompatible gauges. Brazil’s transportation infrastructure changed dramatically after World War II, first with the growth of air transport and, subsequently, with the extension of a modern road network. By the 1970s Brazil had the world’s third largest commercial air fleet, and its roads were developing rapidly. In the 1990s the country’s road system was the third-longest in the world (after the United States and India), and Brazil was among the top 10 countries in automobile registrations.
Roads account for the vast majority of passenger traffic and roughly two-thirds of freight tonnage hauled. The country had few good paved roads at the time Brasília was constructed in the late 1950s. A four-lane highway linked Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but there were no paved roads from those cities to Pôrto Alegre, Curitiba, the Northeast, or west of Belo Horizonte. During the rainy season some roads could be flooded or blocked for a week or more at a time, stranding motorists in areas with limited housing and food supplies.
The construction of Brasília, for which many bulky materials had to be airlifted in during the rainy season, alerted the country to the poor state of its roads, and when the military assumed power in 1964 it made the upgrading of the road system a primary objective. As a result, a comprehensive system of paved highways now connects all of the major points in Brazil, including several cities in the Amazon region; paved roads account for about one-tenth of the Brazilian road system. Among the more prominent arteries are the Trans-Amazonian Highway and the Trans-Brasiliana project. Given Brazil’s vast extent, these and other highways are extremely long and difficult to maintain, especially in the Amazon region.
Railroads are of little importance to Brazil’s transportation network except for certain bulk ore carriers and the commuter lines to the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília. In contrast to Brazil’s dynamic highway construction program, few new railways of any significance have been built in the country since World War II, when Rio de Janeiro was linked by rail to Salvador because of attacks by German submarines on coastal shipping. The modest construction since that time has included a branch line from Minas Gerais to Brasília, the ore-carrying line (opened in 1985) between the Carajás mining project and Pôrto do Itaqui (near São Luis), and the Ferronorte line, which carries bulk agricultural products between Alto Taquari and the Alto Paraná River in the Central-West. Brasília’s metropolitan rail system, linking the capital with its suburbs, inaugurated its first section in 1994 and expanded rapidly thereafter. The federal government sold off its controlling shares of railways in 1997, but many states and cities retain control of local lines.
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164dfc4eeecf62d2aeaf6eaf971e8713 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bressanone | Bressanone | Bressanone
Bressanone, German Brixen, town, Trentino–Alto Adige region, northern Italy; it lies at the confluence of the Rienza (Rienz) and Isarco (Eisack) rivers, on the Brenner railway at an altitude of 1,834 ft (559 m), northeast of Bolzano. An episcopal see was transferred to Bressanone from Sabiona in 992. In the 11th century, Bressanone became the seat of an ecclesiastical principality that was in constant conflict with the counts of Tirol. Secularized in 1803, it passed to Austria as part of the Tirol and was ceded to Italy in 1918. The population is largely German speaking. Notable landmarks include the Baroque cathedral (rebuilt 1745–54), the Palazzo dei Principi Vescovi (Bishop’s Palace; 13th century), 12 churches, including the round church of S. Michele (12th and 15th centuries), and 5 monasteries. Wool and hydroelectric power are produced, orchards and vineyards are cultivated, and there is a busy tourist trade. Pop. (2006 est.) mun., 19,504.
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005ad95e0b455ad28b4f5a496556c40a | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brighton-Colorado | Brighton | Brighton
Brighton, city, seat (1902) of Adams county (and lying partially within Weld county), north-central Colorado, U.S., on the South Platte River. Originally a rest stop on a fur-trading trail between Fort Bent and Fort Laramie, Wyoming, the town developed (in the late 1860s) at the junction of the Denver Pacific and the Denver, Marshall and Boulder railways as Hughes Station, named for Bela M. Hughes, a railroad promoter. In 1881 the town was platted by D.F. Carmichael, an engineer, and named by his wife after her birthplace, Brighton Beach, New York. Brighton became the site of a vegetable-canning factory and brickworks in 1889 and a sugar refinery in 1917.
The city developed as a processing and shipping centre for local produce including carnations, sugar beets, wheat, corn (maize), barley, hay, and beef and dairy cattle. At the turn of the 21st century, more than half of Brighton’s workers were engaged in service industries. Inc. town, 1887; city, 1910. Pop. (2000) 20,905; (2010) 33,352.
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08a41e09a4db8e61d68927a71bdac5ac | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bristol-England | Bristol | Bristol
Bristol, city and unitary authority, southwestern England. The historic centre of Bristol and the sections of the city north of the River Avon (Lower, or Bristol, Avon) were part of the historic county of Gloucestershire, while the areas south of the Avon lay within the historic county of Somerset until the creation of the county of Bristol (1373–1974) and then of the county of Avon (1974–96). When the county of Avon was abolished, Bristol became a unitary authority.
Bristol is located about 120 miles (190 km) west of London at the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Frome. Just west of the city, the Avon flows into the estuary of the River Severn, which itself empties into Bristol Channel of the Atlantic Ocean, about 8 miles to the northwest. Bristol is a historic seaport and commercial centre. Area 42 square miles (110 square km). Pop. (2001) 380,615; (2011) 428,234.
The medieval town of Bristol was incorporated in 1155. The harbour was improved in 1247 by diverting the Frome to the west and building a stone bridge at the point of its former confluence with the Avon. During the reign of Edward III (1327–77) Bristol imported raw wool from Ireland and manufactured woolen cloth, which it sold to Spain and Portugal in return for sherry and port wine. By the 16th century Bristol had become a major port, a manufacturing town, and a distribution centre for both overseas and inland trade. The city also played a notable part in maritime history: from its port John Cabot sailed in 1497 on his voyage to North America. In 1552 the Society of Merchant Venturers was incorporated in the city; its hall, along with a number of other historic buildings, was destroyed by German bombing during World War II. Bristol was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil Wars until it was captured by the Parliamentarians in 1645.
During the later 17th and the 18th centuries Bristol prospered as a processing centre for sugar and tobacco imported from Britain’s colonies in the Americas, to whom it supplied textiles, pottery, glass, and other manufactured goods. The import of Jamaican sugar and cacao from West Africa led to the creation of the “sugar houses” of Bristol and to chocolate manufacture. By the 19th century, however, the rise of the Lancashire cotton industry, together with the limitation on shipping imposed by the Avon Gorge below Clifton, led to the loss of much of Bristol’s trade to Liverpool.
In 1809 tidal waters of the Avon and the Frome were diverted to create a floating, or tideless, harbour with a constant water depth. The engineer John Loudon McAdam improved Bristol’s roads (c. 1815) with his technique of laying raised-stone surfaces (macadamizing), and the Bristol roads became a model for road improvements throughout Great Britain. Bristol served as the launching point in 1838 for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western, the second steamship to cross the Atlantic. The coming of the railway in 1841, followed by dock extensions at Avonmouth and Portishead, led to a revival of Bristol’s trade, and a suspension bridge across the Avon Gorge, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864, further encouraged traffic.
The destruction of a large part of the city centre during World War II provided an opportunity for replanning. Postwar reconstruction included the Council House (1956), other modern public structures, and a new shopping centre in Broadmead. The Royal Portbury Dock has been added to the port complex, whose imports now include refined petroleum products, animal foodstuffs, and forest products. Bristol’s exports consist mainly of manufactured goods from the West Midlands, notably automobiles, tractors, and machinery. Local industries include the refining of sugar, cocoa and chocolate making, wine bottling, and the making of fine glass (Bristol “blue”), porcelain, and pottery. The locality’s most notable industry today is aircraft design and construction at Filton. The construction of the Severn Bridge on the city’s northern outskirts and the completion of the M4 motorway to southern Wales greatly enhanced Bristol’s position as the principal distribution centre of southwestern England.
Bristol is also an education centre, its schools including Bristol Grammar School, the Cathedral School, and Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, all founded in the 1500s; Colston’s School (1708); and Clifton College, founded in the residential suburb of Clifton in 1862. The University of Bristol, founded as University College in 1876, was established in 1909.
The most striking ecclesiastical building in Bristol to survive the war is the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, a 14th-century structure whose grandeur of proportion and majestic Perpendicular Gothic design have made it one of the most celebrated parish churches in England. Bristol’s cathedral church, which originated as the abbey church of St. Augustine of Canterbury (founded 1142), is famous for its Norman chapter house and gateway. Other notable buildings to escape destruction are St. Mark’s, or the Lord Mayor’s Chapel; a Dominican priory associated with William Penn and the early history of the Society of Friends (Quakers); the New Room in Broadmead, the first Methodist chapel in the world and headquarters of that faith’s founder, John Wesley, after 1739; Broadmead Baptist Chapel, also associated with the early Nonconformist movement in Bristol; and the Theatre Royal, built in 1766.
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d11b8e8b993124bd9d87bdf14d848c0e | https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Antarctic-Territory | British Antarctic Territory | British Antarctic Territory
British Antarctic Territory, a territory of the United Kingdom lying southeast of South America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. Triangular in shape, it has an area (mostly ocean) of 2,095,000 square miles (5,425,000 square km), bounded by the South Pole (south), latitude 60° S (north), and by longitudes 20° W (east) and 80° W (west). It includes all land areas south of 60° S and between the aforementioned longitudes, including the South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent islands, and mainland Antarctica extending to the South Pole. In area, the land portion of the territory covers about 660,000 square miles (1,700,000 square km). Most of the islands in the territory are glaciated; the Antarctic Peninsula is mountainous, with a snow-covered plateau extending the length of the peninsula, rising from 4,000 feet (1,200 m) in the north to about 7,000 feet (2,000 m) in the south; and the main continental area is covered by permanent ice cap and fringed by floating or grounded ice shelves.
Designated a territory in 1962 by the British government, it consists of the area (excepting South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) previously known as the Falkland Islands Dependencies. The territory is administered by a High Commissioner resident in Stanley, Falkland Islands. The population of the territory (usually between 50 and 100) consists of scientists and technicians who maintain the British Antarctic Survey stations. In the summer months, relief personnel and summer field-workers arriving by airplane and ship enlarge the population.
Argentina claims the Antarctic region bounded by latitude 60° S and longitudes 25° W and 74° W; Chile claims the area bounded by latitude 60° S and longitudes 53° W and 90° W. All territorial claims in Antarctica south of 60° S, including the British one that is the basis of the British Antarctic Territory, are in abeyance for the duration of the Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959.
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aeb945a9f92945966b1f50d7b866c55c | https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Somaliland | British Somaliland | British Somaliland
British Somaliland, Former British protectorate, southern shore of the Gulf of Aden, eastern Africa. In the Middle Ages it was a powerful Arab sultanate; it was broken up in the 17th century. Its coast came under British influence in the early 19th century, but formal control was not acquired until it was taken from Egypt in 1884. It fell under Italian control in World War II. In 1960 it was united with the former Italian Somaliland to form Somalia. In 1991 a government opposition group declared the region comprising the former British Somaliland to be an independent state; however, it was not internationally recognized. See also Somaliland.
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8de66a8695aab0baa0947291c6cb1982 | https://www.britannica.com/place/British-West-Africa | British West Africa | British West Africa
British West Africa, assortment of widely separated territories in western Africa that were administered by Great Britain during the colonial period. These included Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Nigeria (with the British Cameroons), and the Gold Coast (including Gold Coast crown colony, the Asante empire, the Northern Territories, and British Togoland).
Sierra Leone was colonized in 1787 by freed slaves arriving from England; other groups followed from Nova Scotia (1792) and Jamaica (1800). They were sponsored and governed by the private Sierra Leone Company until 1808, when Britain made Sierra Leone a crown colony. In 1816 the British founded the colony of Bathurst at the mouth of the Gambia River. Both colonies served as bases for the British effort to block the slave trade along the coast. Later in the century British rule spread to the interior of Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Both interiors became protectorates governed through indigenous rulers.
The British policy of indirect rule was most clearly formulated by Frederick J.D. Lugard in Nigeria. In the early 1900s, long after Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony (1861), Lugard conquered the north. Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria, established as separate units in 1906, were merged in 1914 under Lugard’s direction. His central government comprised an appointed governor, an executive, and a legislative council. Local administration and jurisdiction, however, depended on traditional rulers and traditional institutions. In some cases this meant removing authority from the new class of Western-educated Africans and suppressing social change that was already under way. A British resident or district officer served as the liaison between the traditional ruler and the colonial regime. Lugard’s system became the model for all of British West Africa.
Parts of the Gold Coast (present Ghana) were acquired by Britain at different times. The Gold Coast crown colony, on the Gulf of Guinea coast, was established in 1874 in Fante and Ga lands near the British coastal trading forts. The mighty Asante empire to the north was conquered and made a protectorate in 1900–01. The far north, too, became a protectorate. Sir Gordon Guggisberg, who served as governor from 1919 to 1929, introduced indirect rule by restoring the Asante king to his title.
After World War I the former German colonies of Togoland and Kamerun were each divided between Britain and France as League of Nations mandates. British Togoland was administered from the Gold Coast, the British Cameroons from Nigeria. In 1946 they were redefined as United Nations trusteeships (see Trusteeship Council).
British West Africa came to an end when Western-educated Africans, who were excluded from power under indirect rule, led nationalist movements for independence. Ghana (including British Togoland) became independent in 1957. Nigeria followed in 1960, Sierra Leone in 1961, and The Gambia in 1965. The British Cameroons were divided between Nigeria and the Republic of Cameroon.
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93fbda5d4e7fa6be6905c897168635cc | https://www.britannica.com/place/Broome-Western-Australia | Broome | Broome
Broome, town and port, northern Western Australia, on the north shore of Roebuck Bay, an inlet of the Indian Ocean. It is situated on the Great Northern Highway to Perth (1,390 miles [2,240 km] southwest).
The region of the coast including Broome was explored in 1688 and 1699 by the English adventurer and buccaneer William Dampier, whose report on the barren conditions discouraged later settlement. It was not until the discovery of pearl oyster beds offshore in 1883 that the site was settled and named for Sir Frederick Napier Broome, governor of Western Australia (1883–91). It became the centre of a prosperous pearling trade, which declined in the 1930s and collapsed with the advent of plastics in the ’50s. There remains some fishing for immature oysters to supply cultured pearl farms at Kure Bay, 250 miles (400 km) northeast.
Broome has always been a multicultural town. It was made exempt from Australia’s Immigration Restriction Act (1901), allowing it to remain open to Malay, Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants who long worked the pearl beds. Their descendants make up a substantial proportion of Broome’s population. The town serves the cattle-grazing Kimberley district. Cattle are shipped for export from the port’s deepwater wharf at the end of a 2,700-foot (825-metre) jetty, built to overcome the difficulties presented by a 30-foot (9-metre) tidal range. The port also receives container ships, cruise ships, and vessels handling oil and gas exploration supplies. Offshore drilling for oil and natural gas is an important local industry. The terminus of a submarine cable from Java (1889), Broome was attacked by the Japanese during World War II. By the late 20th century the town had become a major tourist destination and cultural centre, particularly in the area of Aboriginal culture. Pop. (2006) local government area, 13,059; (2011) local government area, 14,997.
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ab418f30a40106fe37dcf3310f1028bf | https://www.britannica.com/place/Brus-Laguna | Brus Laguna | Brus Laguna
Brus Laguna, town, northeastern Honduras. It lies in the coastal lowlands near the Sicre River, which empties into Brus Lagoon.
Brus Laguna is the commercial centre for the large but sparsely populated department. Coconuts are gathered and livestock are raised in the vicinity; there is some sawmilling in the town. The isolation of Brus Laguna is extreme; it is not accessible by highway or railroad. Pop. (2001) 3,599; (2013) 4,563.
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6b63188a9c21020ee7ed7103cfe88a79 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bryansk-oblast-Russia | Bryansk | Bryansk
Bryansk, also spelled Br’ansk, orBriansk, oblast (province), western Russia, in the broad basin of the Desna River. In the north and east are low hills with mixed forest cover, but elsewhere most of the land has been plowed. Agriculture, especially grain and industrial crops, is highly developed. Towns are small (except for Bryansk, the capital) and engaged chiefly in processing farm products and in engineering. The iron ore in the oblast has been exploited. Area 13,475 square miles (34,900 square km). Pop. (2006 est.) 1,331,363.
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bad35c055612d434e3afef879699cc35 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bucegi-Massif | Bucegi Massif | Bucegi Massif
Bucegi Massif, Romanian Munții Bucegi, mountain massif, one of the four forming the Transylvanian Alps (Southern Carpathians), south central Romania, rising to 8,225 ft (2,507 m) in Mt. Omu. The group includes the Leaota Massif and Piatra Craiului, both structurally part of the Bucegi Massif but separated from it by the Bran Pass and often considered to be part of the eastern Făgăraș Mountains (q.v.). Leaota is a rounded profile of crystalline rocks, but Bucegi and Piatra Craiului are overlain by calcareous conglomerates and have sharper landforms. These include the Sphinx and Babele (Old Women), the latter shaped like giant toadstools. The mountains are a centre for hiking, climbing, and winter sports.
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e581a532ae8b65a9f3a6600f4153973a | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buckinghamshire | Buckinghamshire | Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire, administrative, geographic, and historic county of southern England. It stretches from the River Thames in the south and the outskirts of London in the southeast across the ridge of chalk upland known as the Chiltern Hills, thence across the fertile Vale of Aylesbury and a low sandy ridge to the valley of the River Ouse (or Great Ouse) in the north.
Within that region, the administrative, geographic, and historic counties encompass slightly different areas. The administrative county comprises four districts: Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks, and Wycombe. The geographic county also includes the unitary authority of Milton Keynes. The historic county encompasses the entire geographic county as well as the unitary authority of Slough, the part of the unitary authority of Windsor and Maidenhead that is north of the Thames, and the town of Linslade, which lies in South Bedfordshire district in the administrative county of Bedfordshire. Aylesbury is the county town (seat).
Landscapes are varied, and prior to the 20th century the historic county was deeply rural. The modern growth of London has, with the help of excellent road and rail links with the city, dominated the southernmost third of the county and created long ribbons of suburban development in the valleys of the Chiltern Hills. Commuter rail services extend to Aylesbury and High Wycombe, which are some of London’s wealthiest suburbs.
The historic county of Buckinghamshire was affected by each phase of English settlement from the Neolithic to the Saxon, and under the latter’s rule it was part of the kingdom of Mercia, resisted Danish invasion from the east, and became prosperous. The Chiltern Hills were heavily forested, however, and clearance of the woodland was completed only in the early 17th century. A principal feature of the period that followed was the creation of great estates with magnificent houses, e.g., Cliveden, now owned by the National Trust, and Stowe, converted into a school. Access to London was a factor in that development and has continued to be responsible for population growth in the county.
Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury is internationally known for its treatment of spinal-cord injuries and has hosted the World Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Games—the forerunner of the Paralympic Games—since 1948. The town of Olney, in north Buckinghamshire, was the home of the 18th-century poet William Cowper.
Industry in the historic county was, until after World War II, represented by printing and light manufacturing at Aylesbury, furniture at High Wycombe, diversified manufacturing at Slough, and railway workshops at Wolverton. Since the late 20th century, however, remarkable new growth has been registered in the northernmost tip of the county, where the former small towns of Bletchley, Newport Pagnell, and Wolverton have been absorbed by the new town of Milton Keynes, created in 1967. That new development attracted industry and research institutions, and in 1971 it became the headquarters of Great Britain’s Open University. Meanwhile, suburban residential development continued in the southern part of the geographic county. Area, administrative county, 604 square miles (1,565 square km); geographic county, 724 square miles (1,876 square km). Pop. (2001) administrative county, 479,026; geographic county, 676,083; (2011) administrative county, 505,283; geographic county, 754,014.
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2bf8d45152e727a9a1ae7d10941faf37 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bucks | Bucks | Bucks
Bucks, county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., bordered to the east by New Jersey (the Delaware River constituting the boundary). It consists of piedmont terrain surrounded by the cities of Allentown, Pa., Trenton, N.J., and Philadelphia, Pa. In addition to the Delaware, the county is drained by Cooks, Tohickon, Neshaminy, and East Branch Perkiomen creeks. Recreational areas include Lakes Nockamixon and Galena and five state parks.
One of Pennsylvania’s three original counties, Bucks county was founded in 1682 by English Quaker William Penn, who built his estate, Pennsbury Manor, on the Delaware River near Van Sciver Lake. The county was named for Buckinghamshire, Eng. Parks in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey mark the site where General George Washington and his colonial army crossed the icy Delaware River on Dec. 25, 1776, during the U.S. War of Independence. In 1812 the county seat moved to Doylestown from Newtown, which had replaced Bristol as the county seat in 1726. For almost a century the Delaware Canal operated between Bristol and Easton (1832–1931).
Some other communities are Morrisville, Quakertown, Warminster, and Levittown, a mass-produced housing complex built in the early 1950s that was modeled on Levittown, N.Y. The primary economic activities are services (health care and business), manufacturing (industrial machinery and technical instruments), and trade. Area 608 square miles (1,574 square km). Pop. (2000) 597,635; (2010) 625,249.
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139a82ab3e69c6143c02cd9b37f6c21d | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buenos-Aires/History | History of Buenos Aires | History of Buenos Aires
The city of Buenos Aires was founded twice. It was first founded in 1536 by an expedition led by the Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza, who named it Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Aire (“Our Lady St. Mary of the Good Air”). He was made the first governor-general of the Río de la Plata region. That settlement soon fell victim to local Indians and to deficient supplies, and the survivors had to retreat up the river to the fortified settlement of Asunción. Nearly 50 years later Juan de Garay led a more substantial expedition back to the site, and there, at the mouth of the Riachuelo River, he refounded the city, which he called Ciudad de Trinidad (“City of Trinidad”), in 1580. Huge tracts of land in the environs of the city were granted to members of the expedition, and they began immediately to harvest the pastoral animals that had multiplied since being left by the original party.
For nearly two centuries Buenos Aires grew at a modest pace. It was a reasonably good port, but it suffered from the rigid organization of the Spanish empire in America, under which only selected ports could be used for trade. The entire Río de la Plata region was made part of the Viceroyalty of Peru and was governed from Lima. Within the viceroyalty, only Callao, the port near Lima, was granted permission to trade with Spanish merchants. This effectively reduced Buenos Aires to a backwater. Goods from Callao took nearly six months to reach Buenos Aires by oxcart. Any goods the settlers wanted to sell to Spain took that long to reach Callao and another four or six months before they might be shipped from the port to Cádiz. A complete exchange took at least 24 months.
The vast distance separating Buenos Aires from other centres of population in the viceroyalty left the city with only sporadic contact with the administrative authority of the crown. Gradually, the city evolved its own way of life, based on extensive ranching and contraband trade, while the rest of the viceroyalty was focused to one degree or another on the mining enterprises of the Andean region called Upper Peru (modern-day Bolivia). A string of settlements was established along the foothills of the Andes to serve the mining region. Their links with the port on the Río de la Plata were of little consequence.
Instead of suffering from neglect, the porteños, the people of Buenos Aires, thrived. In the last quarter of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th, settlements spread rapidly to the northwest along the banks of the Paraná River, a fertile area well irrigated by many streams and small rivers; these were easily navigated by small boats operated by smugglers who reached the many farms and ranches that lined the river. By the beginning of the 18th century, Argentina was exporting thousands of tons of cereals, tens of thousands of cattle hides, and tons of dried beef destined for the plantations of northern Brazil and the Caribbean islands. The British were the principal source of capital and of transportation for this contraband trade.
By the middle of the 18th century, Buenos Aires was a thriving, if still modest, commercial entrepôt of nearly 20,000 inhabitants. The houses were built along the narrow earthen streets stretching north from the Riachuelo. The original harbour had become silted up, and the larger boats that now called at the port had to anchor offshore. But the economic success of the region was undeniable, and in 1776, as part of the Bourbon monarchy’s broad reform effort, Buenos Aires was named the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The Bourbon monarchs (see house of Bourbon) hoped that by expanding their administrative setup in the Americas they would increase tax revenue from the colonies and, at the same time, increase control over the colonies to protect them from the covetous attentions of Spain’s rivals, especially the British. Trade out of Buenos Aires was by this time legal, although the crown still attempted to control its flow and pattern. Because the major mining towns of Upper Peru were now within the confines of the viceroyalty, silver was the most valuable export. The city flourished, and, over the last quarter of the 18th century and in the early 19th century, the population of the city nearly doubled, from 24,000 in 1778 to 42,500 in 1810. Official trade reflected Buenos Aires’s position as the administrative centre of the viceroyalty. Spain became the region’s principal trading partner.
Perhaps the most significant result of the administrative reforms of 1776 was that they split the elite into two groups whose economic interests were divergent. One continued to concentrate its energies on the pastoral activities of the city’s hinterland and the related trade with Cuba, Brazil, and Great Britain; its interests were more international. The other group was tied economically and administratively to the official activities of the viceroyalty. It was linked to the official bodies, such as the consulado (the trade board), that were recognized by the crown and through which the crown attempted to channel all economic activity. This group’s interests were more regional.
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c701a815eaa057f7419bca670da8b8d9 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buffalo-New-York | Buffalo | Buffalo
Buffalo, city and port, seat (1821) of Erie county, western New York, U.S. It is located where the eastern end of Lake Erie narrows into the Niagara River. New York’s second largest city, it is the metropolis of a large urban complex that includes the cities of Lackawanna, Lockport, Niagara Falls, and Tonawanda–North Tonawanda, as well as the towns (townships) of Amherst, Cheektowaga, Hamburg, Lancaster, and West Seneca. Lake Erie strongly affects Buffalo’s climate, moderating summer and winter temperatures and contributing much of the moisture that produces the city’s renowned heavy winter snowfalls. Area city, 53 square miles (137 square km). Pop. (2000) 292,648; Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metro Area, 1,170,111; (2010) 261,310; Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metro Area, 1,135,509.
Buffalo’s site, at the natural junction of east-west transportation routes from the Hudson-Mohawk river valleys to the Great Lakes basin, was visited by early French trappers and Jesuit missionaries. It was there on the banks of the Niagara River that the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, built his ship the Griffon in 1679. A French trading post under Chabert Joncaire was established in 1758 but was abandoned the following year after it was burned by the British. Seneca Indians under British protection settled the area in 1780. The town was laid out in 1803–04 by Joseph Ellicott of the Holland Land Company. Named New Amsterdam (but popularly called Buffalo), it had a population of about 1,500 at the time of the War of 1812 and became the American military headquarters for operations on the Niagara frontier. It was again burned by the British in 1813 but was rebuilt and incorporated as the village of Buffalo in 1816. The origin of the place-name is in dispute, as buffalo (bison) did not inhabit the area; it may reflect a mispronunciation of the French beau fleuve (“beautiful river”), in reference to the local Buffalo Creek.
The first steamboat on the upper Great Lakes, Walk-on-the-Water, was built at Buffalo in 1818. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 brought a tremendous economic boom to the community, attracting immigrants and boosting its population to some 10,000 at the time of its incorporation as a city in 1832. Trade with the expanding West grew rapidly during the American Civil War period. Railroads, attracted by existing markets and trade routes, converged on the city. Shipyards, iron and steel mills, meat-packing plants, flour mills, and railroad car industries developed. The harnessing of Niagara waterpower in the 1890s further stimulated the growth of highly diversified industry.
Buffalo was the home of two U.S. presidents: Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland, who was elected mayor in 1881. President William McKinley was assassinated in the city while visiting the Pan-American Exposition (1901). The Ansley Wilcox Mansion, where Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office following the assassination, was dedicated a national historic site in 1966. Niagara Square, dominated by the McKinley Monument and site of the City Hall (1932) and federal buildings, is the focus of the city.
The chief manufactures include auto parts, chemicals, plastics, medical supplies, machine tools, pharmaceuticals, and wood products. However, services (notably those related to trade and government employment) constitute the largest share of the city’s economy. Buffalo is a major port of the St. Lawrence Seaway; it is the terminus of the New York State Canal System and is a major rail centre and highway crossroads. As the main U.S. gateway to the Toronto-Hamilton industrial region of Ontario, it processes a large percentage of trade between the United States and Canada. The international Peace Bridge to Fort Erie, Ontario, was opened in 1927 as a memorial to 100 years of peaceful relations between the United States and Canada.
The State University of New York at Buffalo (University at Buffalo) was founded in 1846, and the State University College at Buffalo (Buffalo State College) originated in 1867. Colleges in the city and suburbs include Canisius (1870), Medaille (1875; chartered 1937), D’Youville (1908), Erie Community (1946), Daemen (1947), Trocaire (1958), and Villa Maria (1960). Buffalo is also an established centre for medical research. Cultural institutions include the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, the Buffalo Museum of Science, Kleinhans Music Hall (home of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra), Shea’s Performing Arts Center (in a renovated theatre built in 1926), and Studio Arena (a professional theatre founded in 1965).
Ralph Wilson Stadium is the home of the Buffalo Bills (professional American gridiron football team), and the First Niagara Center houses the Sabres professional ice hockey team. Buffalo is the gateway to the region’s numerous recreational areas and tourist attractions. Most notable are the Niagara Falls on the Niagara River, some 20 miles (32 km) northwest of downtown. Several state parks and ski areas are near the city, including Fort Niagara State Park at the mouth of the Niagara River.
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a3015597ef1666d79d6a24fd773122ee | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buffalo-Wyoming | Buffalo | Buffalo
Buffalo, city, seat (1881) of Johnson county, north-central Wyoming, U.S., on Clear Creek, immediately east of the Bighorn Mountains and Bighorn National Forest. The region was prime hunting ground for Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians, and many armed conflicts ensued as settlers moved into the area. Forts were established to protect miners and other white travelers on the Bozeman Trail; these were abandoned in 1868, but white settlement was not far in the future. Founded in 1879 on a buffalo trail that forded the creek, the community that became Buffalo soon saw considerable conflict between farmers and cattlemen, and the site of the final battle in the Johnson County Cattle War (1892) is 13 miles (21 km) south at the TA Ranch.
Buffalo is a shipping point for livestock and lumber, with grain and sugar beet cultivation and oil wells in the vicinity. It also serves as a tourist centre for the Bighorn Mountains region. The sites of Fort Phil Kearny and the Fetterman Massacre (1886), in which 80 U.S. soldiers were trapped and killed by Sioux Indians, are a few miles northwest. Lake De Smet is 7 miles (11 km) north. Inc. 1884. Pop. (2000) 3,900; (2010) 4,585.
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601e936716ea1fa9f433cc47fbc25f91 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buka-Island | Buka Island | Buka Island
Buka Island, island of Papua New Guinea in the Solomon Sea, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Geographically, Buka is one of the northern Solomon Islands and lies northwest of Bougainville Island, from which it is separated by the deep, narrow Buka Passage, which ranges from about 980 to 3,500 feet (300 to 1,070 metres) wide. With Bougainville and several island groups, it forms the autonomous region of Bougainville. A volcanic formation measuring 35 miles by 9 miles (56 km by 14 km), Buka has a total land area of 190 square miles (492 square km). Rising to 1,634 feet (498 metres) in hills on the southwest, the island is densely forested in the interior. Rainfall is abundant, with more than 100 inches (2,500 mm) annually. Coral reefs fringe the south and west coasts, the latter deeply indented by Queen Carola Harbour.
Archaeological evidence shows that Buka has been occupied for at least 28,000 years. The island was visited in 1767 by a British navigator, Philip Carteret, who named it Winchelsea. Placed under a German protectorate in 1885, the island remained under that administration by virtue of a British-American-German agreement reached just before the turn of the century. The island was taken by Australian troops in 1914 and mandated to Australia in 1920. It was held by the Japanese from 1942 to 1945, was included in the UN Trust Territory of New Guinea after World War II, and became part of Papua New Guinea when that country achieved its independence in 1975. With Bougainville Island and several small island groups, Buka formed the North Solomons province (renamed Bougainville province in 1997).
In 1988 rebels seeking Bougainville’s independence from Papua New Guinea mounted an insurrection, and in 1990 Buka became the scene of violent clashes. In 2001 a peace agreement was reached, and in 2005 Bougainville and Buka, as well as several nearby islands, officially became an autonomous region. Buka, which had been the provincial headquarters since 1997, became the region’s administrative centre.
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7a86940af1efada569a94d384aec26c2 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bukadaban-Peak | Bukadaban Peak | Bukadaban Peak
…reaches, including Mount Muztag and Bukadaban Peak (22,507 feet [6,860 metres]). The surrounding plain lies above 16,000 feet (4,900 metres); hence, these mountains do not have the prominence of other high mountains in Asia. Soil zonation is simple in structure, with steppe soils and desert soils, both including those of…
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4d1d40f6587f056c4c776f8184fc50df | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bulgaria | Bulgaria | Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially Republic of Bulgaria, Bulgarian Republika Bŭlgariya, country occupying the eastern portion of the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. Founded in the 7th century, Bulgaria is one of the oldest states on the European continent. It is intersected by historically important routes from northern and eastern Europe to the Mediterranean basin and from western and central Europe to the Middle East. Before the creation of the Bulgarian state, the empires of ancient Rome, Greece, and Byzantium were strong presences, and people and goods traveled the land with frequency.
Emerging from centuries of Ottoman rule, Bulgaria gained its independence in the late 19th century, joined the losing side of several conflagrations in the first half of the 20th century, and, despite gravitating toward the Axis powers in World War II, found itself within close orbit of the Soviet Union by mid-century. This alliance had profound effects on the Bulgarian state and psyche, altering everything from land use and labour practices to religion and the arts. As communist governments fell in eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bulgaria was suddenly released from the magnetic field of the Soviet giant and drifted into the uneasy terrain of postcommunism. Today its gaze is firmly fixed on the West; Bulgaria became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004 and of the European Union (EU) in 2007. The members of the EU engage in the bulk of Bulgarian trade.
The country is remarkable for its variety of scenery; its rugged mountains and relaxing Black Sea resorts attract many visitors. Like other nations of the Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria claims a mix of Eastern and Western cultures, and the mingling is evident in its cuisine, its architecture, and its religious heritage. Though located in western Bulgaria, the capital, Sofia, is neatly positioned near the geographic centre of the Balkan region, and in nearly every other respect it occupies the central position within Bulgaria. With more than one million inhabitants, Sofia has three times as many people as the next largest cities, Plovdiv and Varna. The Bulgarian writer Yordan Radichkov has placed the capital along the axis of two major transnational routes: (1) the historic Silk Road that connects China and the West and (2) a major natural path of migrating birds known as the “grand route of Aristotle.” According to Radichkov, “The universal core of Bulgaria is to be found at the crossroads of these two routes.”
Nearly rectangular in outline, Bulgaria is bounded by Romania to the north, with most of the border marked by the lower Danube River. The Black Sea lies to the east, Turkey and Greece to the south, North Macedonia to the southwest, and Serbia to the west. The capital city, Sofia, lies in a mountainous basin in the west.
Within a relatively small compass, the Bulgarian landscape exhibits striking topographic variety. Open expanses of lowland alternate with broken mountain country, cut by deep river gorges and harbouring upland basins such as that in which Sofia lies. Three basic structural and physiographic divisions run east-west, splitting the country into the traditional regions of North Bulgaria, including the Danubian Plain and the Balkan Mountains; South Bulgaria, including the Rila-Rhodope Massif; and a transitional area between them.
All but a short section of the northern frontier of Bulgaria is marked by the lower Danube River. The abrupt and often steep banks on the Bulgarian side contrast with the swamps and lagoons of the Romanian side. Extending southward from the Danube to the foothills of the Balkan Mountains is the fertile, hilly Danubian Plain. The average elevation of the region is 584 feet (178 metres), and it covers some 12,200 square miles (31,600 square km). Several rivers cross the plain, flowing northward from the Balkans to join the Danube. The Balkan Mountains border the Danubian Plain on the south. Their rounded summits have an average height of 2,368 feet (722 metres) and rise to 7,795 feet (2,376 metres) at Mount Botev, the highest peak.
The mountain chain is larger than the adjacent ranges that run parallel in a transitional region of complex relief. Block faulting—the raising or lowering of great structural segments along regular lines of crustal weakness—has produced there the Sredna Mountains, the Vitosha Massif near Sofia, a number of sheltered structural basins, and the Upper Thracian and Tundzha lowlands.
Another mountain mass covers southern Bulgaria. This includes the Rhodope Mountains (Bulgarian: Rodopi; Greek: Rhodopis), which rise to 7,188 feet (2,190 metres) at Golyam Perelik Peak; the Rila Mountains, rising to 9,596 feet (2,925 metres) at Musala Peak, which is the highest point in the country and indeed in the whole Balkan Peninsula; the Pirin Mountains, with Vikhren Peak reaching 9,560 feet; and a frontier range known as the Belasitsa Mountains. These majestic ranges discharge meltwater from montane snowfields throughout the summer, and their sharp outlines, pine-clad slopes, and, in the Rila and Pirin ranges, several hundred lakes of glacial origin combine to form some of the most beautiful Bulgarian landscapes.
Trending north-south at the eastern fringe of three principal regions is the narrow Black Sea coastal region. With the exception of the fine harbours of Varna and Burgas, the coast has few bays, but it does have extensive stretches of sandy beach that are features of a number of picturesque seaside resorts.
Bulgaria has a complex drainage pattern characterized, with the notable exception of the Danube, by relatively short rivers. The major rivers are the Maritsa (Marica), Iskŭr, Struma, Arda, Tundzha, and Yantra. Overall, more than half of the runoff drains to the Black Sea, and the rest flows to the Aegean Sea.
Bulgaria’s numerous lakes may be coastal (such as the large lakes around Varna and Burgas, both on the Black Sea), glacial (such as those in the southern mountains), structural, or karst in origin. The country has some 500 mineral springs, half of which are warm or hot (reaching 217 °F [103 °C] at Sapareva Banya, in the west). Numerous dams have been constructed in the mountains.
The varied Bulgarian natural environment has produced about 20 soil types and subtypes, which may be grouped into three main regions. Northern Bulgaria is characterized by the fertile black-earth soils known as chernozems and also by gray soils of forest origin. Southern Bulgaria has forest soils with acidic (cinnamonic) traces—by far the most extensive single category—as well as the modified chernozems known as chernozem-smolnitzas (a dark-coloured zonal soil with a deep and rich humus horizon). The rugged high mountain regions have brown forest, dark mountain forest, and mountain meadow soils.
Most of Bulgaria has a moderate continental climate, which is tempered by Mediterranean influences in the south. The average annual temperature is 51 °F (10.5 °C), but this conceals a wide variation; temperatures as low as −37 °F (−38 °C) and as high as 113 °F (45 °C) have been recorded. Mean annual precipitation ranges from about 18 inches (450 mm) in the northeast to more than 47 inches (1,190 mm) in the highest mountains. The lowlands receive snowfall from mid-October to mid-May, with an annual average of 25–30 days of snow cover. Hailstorms occur between May and August.
The relatively large number of Bulgarian plant and animal species reflects the country’s location adjoining several of the great Eurasian biogeographic zones. During the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago), life in the region was not destroyed by advancing glaciers as occurred in much of Europe but was actually enriched by the immigration of species from the north, some of which still survive. Influences from the steppes of western Asia also penetrated the region at that time. Nonetheless, most of the plant and animal life is central European, mixed with a type that blends Arctic and alpine characteristics in the high mountains. Steppe species are most characteristic in the northeast and southeast, while the south is rich in sub-Mediterranean and Mediterranean species.
Rila National Park is a refuge for local fauna, such as suslik, rock partridges, chamois, capercaillie, chough, accentor, wall creeper, owls, bats, and martens. About one-third of the nesting birds in Bulgaria can be found in the park, as well as one-third of invertebrates. Fish species include the Balkan trout and common minnow.
The Bulgarian government has introduced a number of conservation measures, including steps to protect soil, water, and air from pollution and to establish protected areas of outstanding interest to naturalists. The Srebarna Nature Reserve, a freshwater lake and bird sanctuary adjoining the Danube River, was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983 and then placed on UNESCO’s endangered list in 1992 after environmental decline; improvements were seen in the early 21st century.
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13d0cbf55dadaf78afa058f39cbd3a94 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bulgaria/Economy | Economy of Bulgaria | Economy of Bulgaria
The rapid industrialization of Bulgaria since World War II and the economic transition it underwent with the demise of the communist regime had a profound effect on Bulgarian society. Liberalization of price controls in the early 1990s led to a marked rise in prices. As a result, inflation rose and strikes became more frequent. The growing pains of the private sector and the strict financial discipline required to ease the heavy foreign debt also resulted in periods of high unemployment and decreased social services. Against this backdrop the Bulgarian government pursued economic stability with the assistance of international financial institutions, and with the introduction of the currency board in 1997 and other reforms, inflation was dramatically reduced by the end of the decade. By the beginning of the 21st century, with the government aggressively privatizing state-run industries, the restructured Bulgarian economy had markedly improved (aided in 2007 by the country’s ascent to full membership in the EU). GDP increased at an average annual rate of more than 4 percent during the first decade of the new century.
Agriculture accounts for less than one-tenth of the national income of Bulgaria. Cereal crops are grown on almost three-fifths of the sown land. Wheat is by far the most important, followed by corn (maize) and barley; rye, oats, soybeans, and rice also are grown. Tobacco, which is of a good-quality Oriental type and is grown mainly in the south, is an especially important industrial crop. The state-run tobacco company, Bulgartabac, was sold to a Russian firm in 2011.
Sunflower seed is the chief oilseed crop; after extraction of the oil, the pulp is made into cattle feed. Sunflowers, like sugar beets, grow mainly in the north. Bulgaria has become a leading exporter of grapes and tomatoes. There is stock breeding of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry. The forestry industry claims nearly 4,000,000 hectares (9,900,000 acres) of land.
A cooperative movement in agriculture developed before World War II. After the war, cooperative farms were established in the fashion of Soviet kolkhozy on most arable land. The cooperative and state farms later merged into large state and collective units. These were further consolidated in 1970–71 into even larger groupings, called agro-industrial complexes, that took advantage of integrated systems of automation, supply, and marketing.
In 1990 the government lifted restrictions on private farming, and almost all agricultural land was restored thereafter to private ownership while loans for the establishment of small farms and food-processing facilities were made available.
Bulgaria is relatively well-endowed with a variety of both metallic and nonmetallic minerals. Geologic exploration has identified about 40 coal basins, which together contain almost 3 billion tons of proven recoverable reserves. Of the reserves, virtually all is lignite. The main mining areas are in the Pernik basin southwest of Sofia, in the Maritsa basin (at two locations: south of Stara Zagora and further southwest, at Dimitrovgrad), and in the northwest at Lom on the Danube. Lignite and brown coal fire the country’s thermal power stations and are used as fuel and raw material for many of Bulgaria’s industries.
Although deposits of anthracite and bituminous coal have been almost exhausted in Bulgaria, other deposits of black coking coal have been found in the northeast, in the Dobruja region. One of the largest reserves is near Sofia, at Kremikovtsi, the site of the country’s largest metallurgical plant. Smaller quantities of iron ore are mined in the northwest (Montana [formerly Mikhaylovgrad]), in the central region (Troyan), and in the southeast (Yambol). There are significant deposits of nonferrous ores (copper, lead, and zinc) in the Rhodope, Balkan, and Sredna mountains.
Bulgaria is also rich in less-valuable minerals, including rock salt, gypsum, limestone, dolomite, kaolin (china clay), asbestos, and barite. The country has only small deposits of oil and natural gas, though it is hoped that offshore exploration of the Black Sea will reap new deposits. Bulgaria relies on Russia for supplies of natural gas.
About one-half of Bulgaria’s energy is imported. Coal and nuclear power combine about equally to provide nearly nine-tenths of the country’s electrical production. The major source of energy within Bulgaria is the Maritsa lignite field, which provides fuel for large thermoelectric plants at Dimitrovgrad and Maritsa-Iztok; there are also thermal power stations at Pernik, Sofia, Plovdiv, and Burgas. Bulgaria’s first and only nuclear power station, at Kozloduy, was constructed with Soviet aid and began operation in 1974. Two reactors were closed there in 2002, and another two were shut down in 2006 as a condition of EU accession.
Before World War II, Bulgarian industries were of minor importance. Under the socialist system industrialization became one of the principal aims of economic policy, with particular emphasis on basic industries such as electric power, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, and chemicals. Central planning of management, production, and investment channeled a large portion of national resources into industry. The industrial base remained important even after Bulgaria discarded socialism for a market economy at the end of the 20th century.
Before World War II, shipbuilding at Varna and foundries at Sofia, Plovdiv, Ruse, and Pernik were the most important metallurgical industries. Those developed after the war include iron and steel works at Pernik, utilizing local brown coal and iron ore from the Sofia district; a large steel project at Kremikovtsi; a lead and zinc works at Kŭrdzhali; and a copper and sulfuric acid plant at Pirdop.
A chemical industry was developed at Dimitrovgrad, and chemical plants were also built at Stara Zagora, Vratsa, Devnya, and Vidin, as well as a petrochemical plant at Burgas. The biotechnology sector is increasingly important in the economy, as is machine building; their relative share of industrial production has jumped dramatically. Machine building and metal processing are widely dispersed throughout the country; the largest plants are located in Sofia, Varna, Ruse, Burgas, and Plovdiv. In general, the production of chemicals and rubber is centred on Sofia, Dimitrovgrad, Varna, Devnya, and Plovdiv.
Since the 1960s three other industries have had marked regional development: food, beverage, and tobacco processing, textiles, and tourism. While food processing and beverage production are found throughout the country, three main industrial regions may be defined. The first, in the south, includes the towns of Plovdiv, Krichim, Pazardzhik, Asenovgrad, and Pŭrvomay, which primarily specialize in canning and tobacco processing. The second region, in northern Bulgaria (comprising Gorna Oryakhovitsa, Veliko Tŭrnovo, and Lyaskovets), concentrates on canning, sugar refining, and meat processing. A third region, to the northwest (Pleven, Dolna Mitropoliya, and Cherven Bryag), has become important for flour, paste products, poultry processing, canning, sugar refining, and the processing of vegetable oils.
Fishing and fish breeding have also become important industries. As the production of wine increased at the end of the 20th century, it became an important export item.
Before World War II, textile industries were mainly found where the demand for textiles was constant (Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna) or where raw materials were available (Sliven and Vratsa). Under the communists’ five-year plans, large new mills were built at Sofia, Sliven, and Plovdiv, and the total output of textile fabrics rose tremendously.
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8ce9a8abd38f3112b7c2884f49256dd1 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Burgundy/History | History of Burgundy | History of Burgundy
The Burgundians were a Scandinavian people whose original homeland lay on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, where the island of Bornholm (Burgundarholm in the Middle Ages) still bears their name. About the 1st century ce they moved into the lower valley of the Vistula River, but, unable to defend themselves there against the Gepidae, they migrated westward to the borders of the Roman Empire. There, serving as foederati, or auxiliaries, in the Roman army, they established a powerful kingdom, which by the early 5th century extended to the west bank of the Rhine River and later centred on Sapaudia (Savoy) near Lake Geneva.
As Rome’s hold over the Western Empire declined in the second half of the 5th century, the Burgundians gradually spread their control over areas to the north and west of Savoy and then throughout the Rhône and Saône river valleys. This second Burgundian kingdom reached its zenith under the lawgiver and Christian king Gundobad (474–516), who promulgated a written code of laws, the Lex Gundobada, for the Burgundians and a separate code, the Lex Romana Burgundionum, for his Gallo-Roman subjects. This Burgundy remained independent until 534, when the Franks occupied the kingdom, extinguishing the royal dynasty.
With the death of the Frankish king Clotar I in 561, however, the Frankish kingdom was partitioned among members of the Merovingian dynasty, and one of Clotar’s sons, Guntram, secured the regnum Burgundiae, or kingdom of Burgundy. This kingdom eventually included not only all the former Burgundian lands but also the diocese of Arles in Provence, the Val d’Aosta east of the Alps, and even extensive territory in north-central France. It remained a separate Merovingian kingdom until Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, subjugated it to Frankish Austrasia early in the 8th century.
The Carolingians made several partitions of Burgundy before Boso, ruler of the Viennois, had himself proclaimed king of all Burgundy from Autun to the Mediterranean Sea in 879. The French Carolingians later recovered the country west of the Saône and north of Lyons from him, and the German Carolingians recovered Jurane, or Upper, Burgundy (i.e., Transjurane Burgundy, or the country between the Jura and the Alps, together with Cisjurane Burgundy, or Franche-Comté). Boso and his successors, however, were able to maintain themselves in the kingdom of Provence, or Lower Burgundy, until about 933.
In 888 Rudolf I (died 912) of the German Welf family was recognized as king of Jurane Burgundy, including much of what is now Switzerland. His son and successor, Rudolf II, was able to conclude a treaty about 931 with Hugh of Provence, successor of Boso’s son Louis the Blind, whereby he extended his rule over the entire regnum Burgundiae except the areas west of the Saône. This union of Upper and Lower Burgundy was bequeathed in 1032 to the German king and emperor Conrad II and became known from the 13th century as the kingdom of Arles—the name Burgundy being increasingly reserved for the county of Burgundy (Cisjurane Burgundy) and for the duchy of Burgundy.
The duchy of Burgundy was that part of the regnum Burgundiae west of the Saône River; it was recovered from Boso by the French Carolingians and remained a part of the kingdom of France. Boso’s brother Richard, count of Autun, organized the greater part of the territory under his own authority. His son Rudolph (Raoul), who succeeded him in 921, was elected king of France in 923. On Rudolph’s death in 936 the Carolingian king Louis IV and Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks, detached Sens, Troyes, and (temporarily) Langres from Burgundy.
The duchy thus formed, though smaller than its 10th-century predecessor, was stronger and remained in the Capetian family until 1361. In their foreign policy the Capetian dukes adhered loyally to their cousins the kings of France and in internal affairs enlarged their domain and enforced obedience from their vassals. Burgundy came to be recognized as the premier peerage of the French kingdom.
Both the duchy of Burgundy and Cisjurane Burgundy (the county of Burgundy) flourished during this period. The towns prospered: Dijon became an important market town. Pilgrims flocked to Vézelay and Autun, where in 1146 a magnificent church was built around the tomb of St. Lazare. Burgundian monasteries were famous: Cluny (founded 910) became the centre of an order of monks extending from England to Spain, and in 1098 the monastery of Cîteaux was founded and with it a new religious order, the Cistercians.
A reunification of the two Burgundies was effected in 1335 and ended in 1361. The king of France, John II (the Good), reunited the duchy with the domain of the crown, while Cisjurane Burgundy, or Franche-Comté, went to the independent count of Flanders. A new period of Burgundian ducal history began under John II, who in 1363 gave the duchy to his son Philip, who became Philip II, known as “the Bold.” In 1369 Philip married the heiress of the county, Margaret of Flanders. In 1384, when his father-in-law died, Philip inherited Nevers, Rethel, Artois, and Flanders, as well as Franche-Comté. The two Burgundies formed the southern part of a state, the northern possessions of which extended over the Netherlands, the valley of the Meuse, and the Ardennes. In the north, expansion was to continue (Hainaut, 1428; Brabant, 1430; Luxembourg, 1443), but the south, from which Nevers was again detached in 1404, became less and less important. Philip II, however, who lived in Burgundy, did purchase the southern territory of Charolais in 1390.
John the Fearless succeeded Philip II in 1404 and devoted himself to the struggle with his rival Louis, duc d’Orleans, and with Louis’s supporters under the count of Armagnac, who devastated the southern borders of Burgundy between 1412 and 1435. John was assassinated in 1419, and his son Philip III (the Good) continued the struggle against the Armagnacs and threw his support to the English during the Hundred Years’ War. The Treaty of Arras (1435), which established peace between Burgundy and Charles VII of France, added greatly to the Burgundian domain. Even so, mercenary bands continued their depredations in Burgundy until 1445, after which the duchy enjoyed peace until Philip III’s death in 1467.
The next duke, Charles the Bold, was constantly in conflict with the French king Louis XI. Charles’s aim was to unite the northern and southern sections of the kingdom by annexing Lorraine, and he demanded from the Holy Roman emperor the title of king of Burgundy. Charles was thwarted in these efforts by the persistent efforts of Louis XI, who conducted several campaigns against him and subjected Burgundy to an economic blockade.
The two Burgundies suffered from the ravages of the Black Death in 1348 and from the mercenaries’ bands of the Hundred Years’ War. The population declined perceptibly, and this put a heavy strain on production in the 15th century. The lucrative trade in grain, wines, and finished wool was threatened, and the market-fairs lost some of their importance. But on the whole the two Burgundies seem to have enjoyed more security than much of Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries.
After the death of Charles the Bold in 1477, his heiress, Mary of Burgundy, married the Austrian archduke Maximilian of Habsburg (later the Holy Roman emperor), thus disappointing French hopes that she would marry Louis XI’s son Charles, the future Charles VIII of France. The Treaty of Arras (1482), however, ceded Franche-Comté to Charles on his betrothal to Mary’s daughter Margaret of Austria. When he broke this engagement, he had to cede Franche-Comté to Austria by the Treaty of Senlis in 1493.
For the next 185 years Franche-Comté was a possession of the Habsburgs. By the Treaty of Saint-Jean-de-Losne (1522) with France, the neutrality of the county was ensured during the wars between the Habsburgs and the last French kings of the Valois line. Its enduring prosperity, enhanced by industrial development, can be judged by the splendid Renaissance architecture of its towns. Civil disturbances, however, came with the Reformation, when bands of Protestants entered the mainly Roman Catholic county from Germany and Switzerland. Franche-Comté passed to the Spanish Habsburgs through the emperor Charles V’s partition of his dominions in 1556. Under Philip II of Spain a forceful repression of Protestants took place, and Henry IV of France, in his war with Philip, violated Franche-Comté’s neutrality. From 1598 to 1635 peace was maintained, but French fear of Habsburg encirclement led Louis XIII to attempt to annex the county. He invaded and ravaged the area annually from 1636 to 1639, but the Peace of Westphalia (1648) confirmed Habsburg control.
Conquered in 1668 by the Great Condé in the War of Devolution but returned to Spain by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (May 2, 1668), Franche-Comté was finally conquered for France by Condé in the last of the so-called Dutch Wars, the French annexation being recognized by the Peace of Nijmegen in 1678. Louis XIV moved the capital of the new province to the former imperial city of Besançon. In 1790, along with the rest of France, Franche-Comté was divided into separate départements—Jura, Doubs, and Haute-Saône.
After the death of Charles the Bold (1477), the duchy of Burgundy was annexed by the French crown. During the 16th century it was devastated by the Wars of Religion. The towns had to be fortified, and mercenaries roamed the country. The duchy was again ravaged in the Thirty Years’ War and also during the aristocratic revolt known as the Fronde (1648–53) led by the Great Condé. Not until the French annexation of Franche-Comté in 1678 were peace and security restored. From 1631 to 1789 the duchy was governed by the princes de Condé. After the French Revolution the province of Burgundy disappeared, divided into the départements of Côte-d’Or, Saône-et-Loire, and Yonne. In 2016 the région of Burgundy was merged with Franche-Comté as part of a national plan to increase bureaucratic efficiency.
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1750292043f6674864f42bf0e105dcaf | https://www.britannica.com/place/Burkina-Faso/Demographic-trends | Demographic trends | Demographic trends
Burkina Faso’s yearly population growth rate is more than double the world average. More than two-fifths of the population is younger than age 15. Average life expectancy is just above 60 years—lower than the global average but similar to that of neighbouring countries.
About nine-tenths of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture or livestock raising. Difficult economic conditions, made worse by severe intermittent droughts, have provoked considerable migration from rural to urban areas within Burkina Faso and to neighbouring countries, most notably Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. As many as 1.5 million people, or almost one-third of the country’s labour force, have been abroad at any given time. (In the early 21st century, however, unrest in neighbouring countries, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, made it difficult for Burkinabés to find employment.) The development of industry in Burkina Faso is hampered by the small size of the market economy and by the absence of a direct outlet to the sea. Beginning in the late 1990s, the government began to privatize some state-owned entities in order to attract foreign investment.
Agricultural production consists of subsistence foodstuffs, with the surplus being sold as cash crops. Surplus cotton, shea nuts, sesame, and sugarcane are exported, while sorghum, millet, corn (maize), peanuts (groundnuts), and rice are grown for local consumption. Fonio (a crabgrass with seeds that are used as cereal), cassava (manioc), sweet potatoes, and beans are also grown. Livestock raising is one of the principal sources of revenue; animals raised include cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, horses, camels, chickens, ducks, and guinea fowl.
Minerals, particularly manganese and gold, are the chief sources of potential wealth for the country. There are gold mines at Poura, southwest of Koudougou, and smaller gold deposits near Sebba and Dori-Yalogo in the north exist. Reserves of nickel, bauxite, zinc, lead, and silver are also found in the country. Burkina Faso’s substantial manganese deposits at Tambao in the northeast potentially represent its most important resource and one of the world’s richest sources of this mineral. Exploitation is limited by existing transport inadequacies.
Industry is limited to a number of plants that are mainly in the cities and larger towns. Chief manufactures include foodstuffs, beverages, textiles, shoes, and bicycle parts.
Burkina Faso’s currency is the CFA (Communauté Financière Africaine) franc, which has been officially pegged to the euro. It is issued by the Central Bank of West African States, an agency of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, which consists of eight countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo) that were once French colonies in Africa. Branches of the central bank in Burkina Faso are located in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso. Among the partially or wholly state-owned commercial banks, the most important is the Banque Internationale du Burkina in Ouagadougou.
Burkina Faso is also a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a body encompassing most states in western Africa, which attempts to integrate and harmonize the economic interests of the region. One of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso relies heavily on international aid and on remittances from migrants to help offset its current account deficit.
Burkina Faso’s main exports in the early 21st century included cotton, gold, livestock, sugar, and fruit. Some of its exports are sent to African countries, but others, including cotton and minerals, are exported to countries such as Switzerland and Singapore.
Chief imports include petroleum, chemical products, machinery, and foodstuffs, which mainly come from African countries as well as from China and France. There is a deficit in the balance of payments, largely because of the relatively small amounts of exports, which are not of sufficient value to equal the value of imported materials required for promoting further development.
A rail line links Ouagadougou to the port of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. It is some 700 miles (1,100 km) long, of which about 320 miles (500 km) run through Burkina Faso. (For several years in the early 2000s, the line was closed because of civil war in Côte d’Ivoire). Running from east to west before crossing the border, the line serves the towns of Koudougou, Bobo Dioulasso, and Banfora.
The capital is also linked by road to the principal administrative centres in the country and to the capitals of neighbouring countries. Burkina Faso’s road networks are poorly developed, with only a small percentage of the network usable year-round. The remainder consists mostly of unpaved rural roads.
International airports are located at Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso. Numerous smaller airstrips are found throughout the country.
Burkina Faso’s constitution was adopted by referendum in 1991 and has since been amended. It allows for multiparty elections and a parliamentary republic with a president as chief of state and a prime minister, who is appointed by the president, as the head of the government. The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term and may serve up to two consecutive terms. The legislative branch of the government is represented by the National Assembly, whose members are elected by universal suffrage for five-year terms. In 2014 popular unrest led to the dissolution of the government in October, followed by the establishment of a transitional administration in November. It was succeeded by a democratically elected government that commenced with the inauguration of a new president and a new National Assembly in late December 2015 and a new prime minister in January 2016.
Burkina Faso is divided into régions, which in turn are divided into provinces, which are further divided into départements. Each région is administered by a governor, and each province is administered by a high commissioner.
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05dd562dadc5a473ef5c806c9eb313cc | https://www.britannica.com/place/Burlington-county-New-Jersey | Burlington | Burlington
Burlington, county, central New Jersey, U.S., bounded by Pennsylvania to the west (the Delaware River constituting the border) and the mouth of Great Bay in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mullica River to the southeast and south. It consists of a coastal lowland drained by the Bass, Batsto, Mullica, Oswego, and Wading rivers. The county contains the state’s largest area of timberland (primarily shortleaf pine), which includes Wharton, Penn, Lebanon, and Bass River state forests. Other public facilities are Rancocas State Park and McGuire Air Force Base.
European colonists upon their arrival in the 17th century encountered Algonquian-speaking Delaware Indians. The city of Burlington, settled by Quakers in 1677, was the capital of the West Jersey colony from 1681 and then alternated as provincial capital of New Jersey with Perth Amboy from 1702 to 1790. Another historic Quaker settlement was Mount Holly, the county seat. The city of Bordentown was attacked by British forces in May 1778 during the American Revolution. Batsto Village is a restoration of an 18th- and 19th-century iron-making village. Other communities are Willingboro, Pemberton, Mount Laurel, and Medford.
The county was created in 1694 and named for Bridlington (or Burlington), Eng. By the 1880s its residents were harvesting half of the nation’s cranberries. Today cranberries remain one of the county’s primary crops; corn (maize), barley, and soybeans also are grown. Burlington county has the largest area of any county in New Jersey. Area 805 square miles (2,084 square km). Pop. (2000) 423,394; (2010) 448,734.
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7aedb047ae92351db60c07e9edfda775 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bursa-Turkey | Bursa | Bursa
Bursa, formerly Brusa, original name Prusa, city, northwestern Turkey. It is situated along the northern foothills of Ulu Dağ (the ancient Mysian Olympus).
Probably founded by a Bithynian king in the 3rd century bce, it prospered during Byzantine times after the emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565 ce) built a palace there. The city first fell to the Seljuq Turks at the end of the 11th century, but, beginning with the First Crusade in 1096, it changed hands several times. After the sack of Constantinople (now Istanbul) by Crusaders in 1204, it served as a centre of Byzantine resistance. The Ottomans took it in the 1320s and made it their first great capital, but Timur (Tamerlane) sacked the city in 1402, and, when the Ottomans recovered their territory, they relocated their capital, first to Edirne (1413) and later to Constantinople (1458). Bursa, nevertheless, expanded and prospered under Ottoman rule.
Set among orchards watered by plentiful mountain streams, Bursa is a city of brightly coloured houses and winding streets dotted with fountains. It retains its Ottoman flavour and contains some of the outstanding examples of Ottoman architecture. Among its mosques, Ulu Mosque (1421) is a vast building with 20 domes, noted for the variety and fineness of its calligraphic ornamentation. Yeşil Mosque (1421) marked the beginning of a purely Turkish style; it includes a theological college, library, and ablution fountain. Nearby is the Yeşil Mausoleum, containing the tomb of Sultan Mehmed I. The Muradiye Mosque (15th century) is surrounded by the tombs of sultans and their families. On a terrace overlooking the city are the tombs of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman dynasty, and his son Orhan (Orkhan). A 15th-century theological school houses the city’s archaeological museum. Bursa’s several baths, fed by thermal springs famous in Roman times, include medieval structures that incorporated material from Justinian’s imperial baths from the 6th century.
Bursa’s silk industry has a long heritage; the city was a centre of silk trade in the 15th century and by the 17th century was famous in Europe and Asia for its silk textiles, which are still produced. Other industries include cotton and woolen textiles, canned foods and dairy products, and machinery. Bursa is the site of Bursa University (1975) and is linked by air with Istanbul. It has long been a favourite tourist centre. Pop. (2000) 1,194,687; (2013 est.) 1,734,705.
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2ba9f942c098318881b9498af06f8c0f | https://www.britannica.com/place/Bushveld-Complex | Bushveld Complex | Bushveld Complex
…2 billion years ago the Bushveld Complex—which is one of the largest differentiated igneous bodies on Earth, containing major deposits of platinum, chromium, and vanadium—was emplaced in the northern Kaapvaal craton. The middle part of the early Proterozoic was dominated by powerful orogenic (mountain-building) processes that gave rise to fold…
The Bushveld Complex underlies an area of about 50,000 square km (20,000 square miles); and the Great Dyke of Zimbabwe, another layered complex, has been traced for more than 480 km (300 miles). Anorthosite is also found on the lunar surface.
…and most famous is the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, which is 9 km (5.6 miles) thick and covers an area of 66,000 square km (about 25,500 square miles). It was intruded nearly 2.1 billion years ago and is the largest repository of magmatic ore deposits in the world. The…
…are huge in size; the Bushveld intrusive complex in South Africa, for example, has an area of about 66,000 square kilometres and an exposed thickness of 8 kilometres. The Muskox intrusion, mentioned above, is another large lopolith, which is estimated to be about 80 kilometres long and 11 kilometres wide…
…a classic example is the Bushveld Igneous Complex of South Africa, which is composed of both granite and basic rocks. Many other lopoliths are either composite or differentiated. The feeder of a lopolith is assumed to be relatively small and probably is centrally located; it may connect the lopolith with…
…dramatic example occurs in the Bushveld Igneous Complex of South Africa, where cumulus layers of chromite (iron-magnesium-chromium oxide, the only chromium ore mineral) are encased in cumulus layers of anorthite (calcium-rich feldspar).
…world’s largest deposit is the Bushveld Complex of South Africa. Other major deposits include the Sudbury deposit of Ontario, Canada, and the Norilsk-Talnakh deposit of Siberia in Russia. Within the United States the largest deposit is the Stillwater Complex in Montana, but this is substantially smaller than the deposits cited…
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ff4e17286f40ad85b0f27672a2a359d7 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buzau-Romania | Buzău | Buzău
Buzău, city, capital of Buzău județ (county), southeastern Romania, on the Buzău River, approximately 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Bucharest. Its location near the foothills of the Eastern Carpathians at the limit of the Danube Plain fostered its development as a market and trading centre. It was first documented in the records of the Brașov merchants in a reference to the Buzău Fair of 1431. The Romanian Orthodox cathedral was built around 1500 and rebuilt in 1650. The county around Buzău is rich in orchards, market gardens, and vineyards. It has metallurgical engineering and plastics industries. Pop. (2007 est.) 134,619.
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4dbcc800de2cbbb1cfcaf8dd6759adc5 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Buzzards-Bay-inlet-Massachusetts | Buzzards Bay | Buzzards Bay
Buzzards Bay, inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, indenting southeastern Massachusetts, U.S. The bay is 30 miles (48 km) long and 5–10 miles (8–16 km) wide. It extends to the base of the Cape Cod peninsula (northeast) and is bounded on the southeast by the Elizabeth Islands. It is connected to Cape Cod Bay by the Cape Cod Canal (northeast). The name Buzzards Bay may have originated from the misidentification of ospreys in the area as buzzards. The inlet’s jagged coastline is dotted with numerous fishing villages, summer resorts, and yacht clubs. The largest population centres are New Bedford and Fairhaven, which are located at the mouth of the Achushnet River. Woods Hole (in Falmouth town) is a centre for marine research. Among the lighthouses in the area are the 19th-century structures of Bird Island, Dumpling Rock, Ned Point, Wing Neck, and Cleveland. The Buzzards Bay Light Tower, rising 170 feet (52 metres) above mean low water, was the first lighthouse in the United States to be built (1951) over open water (i.e., lacking a foundation on dry land); the four-masted structure was scheduled for demolition in the mid-1990s. The name Buzzards Bay also corresponds to a village in the town (township) of Bourne, at the northeastern end of the bay.
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fc9d7fb1ffe1bc21d3aa82e330071e29 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Byblos | Byblos | Byblos
Byblos, modern Jbail, also spelled Jubayl, or Jebeil, biblical Gebal, ancient seaport, the site of which is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, about 20 miles (30 km) north of the modern city of Beirut, Lebanon. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. The name Byblos is Greek; papyrus received its early Greek name (byblos, byblinos) from its being exported to the Aegean through Byblos. Hence the English word Bible is derived from byblos as “the (papyrus) book.”
Modern archaeological excavations have revealed that Byblos was occupied at least by the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age; c. 8000–c. 4000 bc) and that during the 4th millennium bc an extensive settlement developed there. Because Byblos was the chief harbour for the export of cedar and other valuable wood to Egypt, it soon became a great trading centre; it was called Kubna in ancient Egyptian and Gubla in Akkadian, the language of Assyria. Egyptian monuments and inscriptions found on the site attest to close relations with the Nile River valley throughout the second half of the 2nd millennium. During Egypt’s 12th dynasty (1938–1756 bc), Byblos again became an Egyptian dependency, and the chief goddess of the city, Baalat (“The Mistress”), with her well-known temple at Byblos, was worshiped in Egypt. After the collapse of the Egyptian New Kingdom in the 11th century bc, Byblos became the foremost city of Phoenicia.
The Phoenician alphabet was developed at Byblos, and the site has yielded almost all of the known early Phoenician inscriptions, most of them dating from the 10th century bc. By that time, however, the Sidonian kingdom, with its capital at Tyre, had become dominant in Phoenicia, and Byblos, though it flourished into Roman times, never recovered its former supremacy. The Crusaders captured the town in 1103 and called it Gibelet. They built a castle there (using stone from earlier structures) but were driven out by the Ayyūbid sultan Saladin in 1189. The town subsequently sank into obscurity.
The ancient ruins of Byblos were rediscovered by the French historian Ernest Renan, who led a survey of the area. Systematic excavations were begun there by Pierre Montet in 1921; in the mid-1920s Maurice Dunand resumed the work and continued it until the mid-1970s. The ruins today consist of the Crusader fortifications and gate; a Roman colonnade and small theatre; Phoenician ramparts, three major temples, and a necropolis; and remains of Neolithic dwellings. Byblos was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984.
Present-day Jbail is adjacent to the archaeological site, extending from there to the waterfront area. Tourism is a major component of the local economy. In addition to the ruins, other notable attractions are the Church of St. John the Baptist, portions of which date to the early Crusader period, and a wax museum (opened 1970) dedicated to the area’s history and rural Lebanese life. Pop. (2002 est.) 18,800.
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cea2567ea39491b2e7adb732007ea25a | https://www.britannica.com/place/Cabrera-island-Spain | Cabrera | Cabrera
…and the small island of Cabrera. The western group is known as the Pitiusas and includes the islands of Ibiza (Eivissa) and Formentera. The archipelago is an extension of the sub-Baetic cordillera of peninsular Spain, and the two are linked by a sill near Cape Nao in the province of…
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64a72eece83e6640e56b52a4555ed392 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Caen | Caen | Caen
Caen, city, capital of Calvados département, Normandy région, northwestern France, on the Orne River, 9 miles (14 km) from the English Channel, southwest of Le Havre.
It first became important under the Norman dukes in the 10th and 11th centuries and was the capital of lower Normandy in the time of William the Conqueror. Captured by the English twice—in 1346 and in 1417—it was held by them until 1450. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) broke the prosperity of the city, which had become Protestant. During the French Revolution, it was a centre for the Girondist movement. Following the Allied Normandy Invasion in 1944, the Germans used Caen as the hinge of their resistance to the British–Canadian advance, and the city was two-thirds destroyed. It was reconstructed, with planned industrial zones between the Orne and the port canal. A green plain, the Prairie Saint-Gilles, faces the city’s southwest side, and public gardens were planted in the city centre. The university, founded in 1432 by Henry VI of England, was resited and reopened in 1957. The Caen Memorial (opened 1988) is a museum dedicated to both war and peace.
The churches of Saint-Étienne (the Abbaye-aux-Hommes) La Trinité (the Abbaye-aux-Dames) escaped war damage; both date from the 1060s and are fine specimens of Norman Romanesque. William the Conqueror’s tomb is in front of Saint-Étienne’s high altar, and the tomb of his wife, Matilda, stands in La Trinité’s choir. William’s remains were thrown out during the Revolution. Saint-Étienne has an austere facade bare of ornament. Its two towers, rising to 295 feet (90 m), are topped by 13th-century spires. The abbey buildings, redone in the 17th century, now house municipal offices. La Trinité’s Norman solidity is overburdened by later (especially 19th-century) restoration work. The nave serves as the parish church, the transept and choir as part of the city hospital (hôtel-dieu). Midway between these two churches is the highly decorated church of Saint-Pierre, its Gothic and French Renaissance beauties restored after wartime damage. On the Place Saint-Pierre stands the Hôtel Le Valois d’Escoville, a restored Renaissance mansion (1538). The house where the poet François de Malherbe was born (1555) is on the rue Saint-Pierre.
Caen’s importance as a port dates from the 19th-century construction of the ship canal (about 9 miles [14 km] long), which parallels the river and opens to the English Channel at Ouistreham. It serves largely to import coke and export steel. The city’s steel industry is fed by the iron ore mines of the Orne valley. The blast furnaces of Mondeville have been reconstructed, and the working population is housed in the new city of Hérouville. The industrial aspect of the city grew greatly with the location there of automobile, electrical appliance, and electronics plants. Situated in the centre of a fertile grain-growing region, within sight of the verdant bocage of Normandy, Caen is a major service centre for all of western Normandy. Pop. (1999) 113,987; (2014 est.) 106,538.
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21a8a2aae2b1c0396a4970abd386023d | https://www.britannica.com/place/Calabria-ancient-city-Italy | Calabria | Calabria
Calabria, ancient city whose name applied, from the 3rd century bce to the 7th century ce, to a district in the southeastern extremity of the Italian peninsula between the Adriatic and the Gulf of Tarentum. According to the geographer Strabo (1st century bce), the region had once been the site of 13 prosperous cities, but by the 3rd century bce only the ports of Tarentum (Taranto) and Brundisium (Brindisi), famous for their wool trade, were still thriving. After Rome subjugated the area, founding a colony at Brundisium in 246 and capturing Tarentum in 209, the designation Calabria came to be used. When the Lombards seized Calabria about 668 ce, its name was transferred to the southwestern peninsula of Italy.
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bdbaa9f568eeb1732bc84e158ea8db6c | https://www.britannica.com/place/Calabria-region-Italy | Calabria | Calabria
Calabria, regione, southern Italy, composed of the province of Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio di Calabria, and Vibo Valentia. Sometimes referred to as the “toe” of the Italian “boot,” Calabria is a peninsula of irregular shape, jutting out in a northeast-southwest direction from the main body of Italy and separating the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas.
Most of the region is mountainous or hilly, the only extensive lowlands being those of the lower Crati River valley near Sibari, of the Marchesato (territory) near Crotone (Crotona), of Sant’Eufemia, and of Gioia Tauro. In the north, Calabria is linked to the Appennino Lucano of the Apennine Range by the Mount Pollino massif (7,375 feet [2,248 m]), which is continued southward by the west coast range, which is in turn separated by the Crati River from the extensive La Sila massif (rising to 6,325 feet [1,928 m]). A narrow isthmus between the gulfs of Sant’Eufemia (west) and Squillace (east) separates the northern from the southern part of the region, in which the uplands continue as the Appennino Calabrese and culminate in the extreme south in the Aspromonte massif (Montalto, 6,417 feet [1,956 m]).
In ancient times the region was the focus of powerful and prosperous Greek colonization, notably at Crotona, Sybaris, and Rhegium (Reggio di Calabria). After Rome subjugated the area, founding a colony at Brundisium (Brindisi) in 246 and capturing Tarentum (Taranto) in 209, the Ager Bruttius, as the region was then called, gradually declined into a remote provincial existence. Eventually it passed to the Byzantines, who called the region Calabria. From the 3rd century bc to the 7th century ad, the name Calabria had specifically referred to a district in the southeastern extremity of the Italian peninsula between the Adriatic and the Gulf of Tarentum. According to the Greek geographer Strabo (1st century bc), the region had at one time been the site of 13 prosperous cities, but by the 3rd century bc only the ports of Tarentum and Brundisium, famous for their wool trade, were still thriving.
The expanded region of Calabria was later controlled by the Lombards, the Byzantines again, and the Normans. It then shared with the rest of southern Italy its Hohenstaufen, Angevin (House of Anjou), Aragonese, and Bourbon rulers. Calabria was a stronghold of Italian republicanism until the Risorgimento (movement for political unity) and became part of Italy after the 1860 expedition of the nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi.
The mainstay of Calabria’s economy, despite the small lowland area, is farming, which was once characterized by large landed estates (latifundia) and tiny peasant holdings. Under the Italian land reform, the majority of the former latifundia were broken up after 1951 and new, small peasant holdings created, with rural service centres, new houses, and new roads. Formerly, Calabrian agriculture concentrated almost entirely on cereals, olives, and the raising of sheep and goats, with occasional work in the forests of the Sila uplands. The region was long one of the poorest areas in Italy because of its eroded soils and scanty cultivation of them. But the land reforms of the 1950s and subsequent government investment introduced new and more profitable commercial crops, such as citrus fruits (mostly on the west coast), figs, and chestnuts. The government also promoted the development of resorts and recreational areas for tourists in suitable spots along the coasts.
Despite these changes the local Calabrian Mafia, called the ’ndrangheta, persists, and its long-established practice of kidnapping was a model for similar acts by others which plagued Italy during the 1970s. The region’s economic development is still hindered by rugged terrain, frequent earthquakes, and poor communications, and there is very little industry of any importance. Hydroelectric power was developed in La Sila in the 1920s and ’30s and is now an important feature of the Calabrian economy, supplying power for electric railways and the chemical industries at Crotone. Catanzaro, the regional capital (1971), Reggio di Calabria, and Cosenza are the only cities of any size. Rail communications are still largely limited to the coasts and consist of the Rome–Naples–Reggio di Calabria line running along the west coast and the Ionian, or Taranto–Reggio di Calabria, line on the east coast. These two railroad lines are connected from Paola to Sibari and from Sant’Eufemia to Marina di Catanzaro. A railway and car ferry link the ports of Reggio di Calabria and Villa San Giovanni with Messina in Sicily.
Calabria is one of the few areas of southern Italy that has a non-Italian minority: a substantial number of Albanians fled the Turkish conquest of their homeland in the 15th and 16th centuries and settled there. They have retained their use of the Albanian language, the Greek Orthodox rite in their churches, and, on occasion, their colourful national costumes. Area 5,823 square miles (15,080 square km). Pop. (2006 est.) 2,004,415.
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424efc6049f1b0317b43c7e3f4261768 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Caldey-Island | Caldey Island | Caldey Island
Caldey Island, also spelled Caldy Island, Welsh Ynys Bŷr, island in Carmarthen Bay of the Bristol Channel, Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro) county, southwestern Wales. It lies 2.3 miles (3.7 km) south of the port of Tenby. The island is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long and 1 mile (1.6 km) across at its widest.
Since at least the 6th century, when it was inhabited by Celtic monks, Caldey has been associated with religious communities. In 1906 it was bought by Anglican Benedictines, who built the present monastery and abbey, but in 1928 they were succeeded by Trappists from Belgium, who farm the island and make perfumes and toiletries from herbs they grow. Its sister island to the west, St. Margaret’s, is a seal and bird sanctuary. Both islands are within Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and are popular with tourists and naturalists. Caldey contains a small community and a lighthouse and is accessible by boat from Tenby..
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5217d7d472865f007e8caa0caa0fc895 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Caledonia-county-Vermont | Caledonia | Caledonia
Caledonia, county, northeastern Vermont, U.S., bounded on the southeast by New Hampshire, the Connecticut River constituting the border. Piedmont terrain occupies most of the county except the northeastern corner, which lies in a highland region. The principal waterways are the Passumpsic, Lamoille, Wells, and Moose rivers, as well as Lake Groton, Harvey Lake, and Peacham Pond. The main species of timber are spruce, fir, white pine, and hard maple. Recreational lands include Groton and Willoughby state forests and Burke Mountain Ski Area.
The county, formed in 1792, was named Caledonia—the historic name of Scotland through the 11th century—because many early settlers were Scottish. The county seat is St. Johnsbury, which developed into a manufacturing centre after the arrival of the Fairbanks family in the early 19th century; Thaddeus Fairbanks invented the platform scale in 1830. The family founded St. Johnsbury Academy (1842), the Athenaeum (1871), and the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium (1889).
The county’s economy now rests primarily on manufacturing, retail trade, and health care services. Logging and maple sugar production are also important. Area 651 square miles (1,686 square km). Pop. (2000) 29,702; (2010) 31,227.
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5a05d6ae4e0874d479495e77967caba3 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Calexico | Calexico | Calexico
Calexico, city and port of entry, Imperial county, southern California, U.S. It is located at the southern end of the Imperial Valley and is separated from the city of Mexicali, Mexico, by a reinforced steel fence. Founded in 1900, Calexico was once a tent town for the Imperial Land Company. It developed as a trade and shipping centre and a port of entry, with some light manufacturing, but transnational tourism is the economic mainstay. Near the city limits is the All-American Canal, which irrigates the valley. The city’s name, like that of Mexicali, is a combination of the names California and Mexico. Inc. 1908. Pop. (2000) 27,109; (2010) 38,572.
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1b508cbf6525e08eaad581f518889aad | https://www.britannica.com/place/California-state | California | California
California, constituent state of the United States of America. It was admitted as the 31st state of the union on September 9, 1850, and by the early 1960s it was the most populous U.S. state. No version of the origin of California’s name has been fully accepted, but there is wide support for the contention that it derived from an early 16th-century Spanish novel, Las sergas de Esplandián (“The Adventures of Esplandián”), that described a paradisiacal island full of gold and precious stones called California. The influence of the Spanish settlers of the 18th and 19th centuries is evident in California’s architecture and place-names. The capital is Sacramento.
California is bounded by the U.S. state of Oregon to the north, by the states of Nevada and Arizona to the east, by the Mexican state of Baja California to the south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. From the rainy northern coast to the parched Colorado Desert in the south, and from the Mediterranean-like central and southern littoral to the volcanic plateau of the far northeast, California is a land of stunning physical contrasts. Both the highest and lowest points in the 48 conterminous states are in the state of California—Mount Whitney and Death Valley, respectively. The former is the culminating summit of the Sierra Nevada, one of the major mountain ranges of North America.
The fluid nature of the state’s social, economic, and political life—shaped so largely by the influx of people from other states and countries—has for centuries made California a laboratory for testing new modes of living. California’s population, concentrated mostly along the coast, is the most urban in the United States, with more than three-fourths of the state’s people living in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego metropolitan areas. Despite its urbanization and the loss of land to industry, California still leads the country in agricultural production. About one-half of the state’s land is federally owned. National parks located throughout the state are devoted to the preservation of nature and natural resources. Area 163,695 square miles (423,967 square km). Population (2010) 37,253,956; (2019 est.) 39,512,223.
The heartland of California is the Central Valley, which runs for 450 miles (725 km) through the centre of the state, forming a trough between the Coast Ranges to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east. The valley is the state’s agricultural centre. Its single opening is the delta through which the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers drain into San Francisco Bay. The valley is sealed off by the Cascade Range to the northeast and by the Klamath Mountains to the northwest. In the far north the terrain is rugged and heavily forested, becoming wetter on the coastal side and drier and barren in the higher northeast. In the south the Central Valley is closed off by the transverse ranges, most notably the Tehachapi Mountains, which are regarded as a dividing wall between southern and central California.
Most of eastern California is desert. The sparsely settled northeastern corner of the state is a jumble of barren plains and mountains, as well as a volcanic plateau. In the east-central region is the Trans-Sierra desert, which extends along the sheer east escarpment of the Sierra Nevada range and comprises part of the vast interstate Great Basin of the Basin and Range Province. The Trans-Sierra desert ranges from 2,000 to 7,400 feet (600 to 2,300 metres) above sea level. Its largest towns are in the Owens Valley, which was a fertile farmland until its groundwater flow was diverted to Los Angeles through a mammoth series of conduits built in 1908–13.
The Sierra Nevada rises just to the west of the Trans-Sierra desert. The eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada is sheer, dropping some 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) within a 10-mile (16-km) stretch near Owens Lake. On the west the range slopes in gradually declining foothills toward the Central Valley, comprising the San Joaquin and Sacramento river valleys. From the wall that rises near Lassen Peak in the north, the Sierra Nevada extends south for 430 miles (700 km) to the fringes of Los Angeles. Aside from Mount Whitney (14,494 feet [4,418 metres] above sea level), 10 other peaks in the Sierra Nevada exceed 14,000 feet (4,200 metres) in elevation. East-west passes are few but high; some are found at more than 9,000 feet (2,700 metres) in elevation. There are three national parks in the Sierra Nevada: Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite. The last, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978, rises from the purplish foothills of the Mother Lode Country and extends through the ice-carved valleys of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers. Its valleys feature waterfalls and granite domes.
In the southeast lies the Mojave Desert, which, at more than 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km), occupies one-sixth of the land area of California. Its landmarks are broad basins and eroded mountains, fault blocks, and alluvial surfaces, most of which are more than 2,000 feet (600 metres) above sea level. Vegetation includes the evergreen creosote bush, yucca, saltbush, burroweed, encelia, cottonwood, and mesquite. Higher up are juniper and piñon pine.
Just south of the Mojave Desert is the lower Colorado Desert, an extension of the Sonoran Desert, which begins in the Coachella Valley. The Colorado Desert descends to the Imperial Valley adjacent to the Mexican border. The valley is a heavily irrigated agricultural area known for its winter crops. More than 4,000 square miles (10,500 square km) of the desert lie below sea level, including the 300-square-mile (800-square-km) Salton Sea, a lake with no outlet that was created in 1905–07 when the nearby Colorado River broke out of its channel.
The roughly 1,100-mile- (1,800-km-) long coastline of California is mountainous, most dramatically so in the Santa Lucia Range south of San Francisco, where towering cliffs rise about 800 feet (240 metres) above the ocean. Hills of lesser elevation flank entrances to the coast’s three major natural harbours, at San Diego, San Francisco, and Eureka. Coastal mountains, made up of many indistinct chains, are from about 20 to 40 miles (30 to 65 km) in width and from 2,000 to 8,000 feet (600 to 2,400 metres) in elevation.
Southern California’s dense settlement lies along a coastal plateau and in valleys ranging from about 10 to 60 miles (16 to 100 km) inland. Along the coast north of the Tehachapi Mountains, the population becomes sparser, though the central coastal region has grown rapidly since the 1990s. The populous coastal area around San Francisco Bay gives way to the less-developed northern coast, where lumbering and fishing villages lie beside creeks and rivers flowing from the Coast Ranges. This is the area of coastal redwood forests and Redwood National Park, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.
The 800-mile (1,300-km) San Andreas Fault is a major fault line running through most of California. Tectonic movement along the fault has caused massive earthquakes, including the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The Hayward Fault in the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Gabriel fault zone in metropolitan Los Angeles have produced several major earthquakes, though the destructive quake centred in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge in 1994 occurred along one of the San Andreas’s larger secondary faults. Separate fault systems in the Sierra Nevada and the Klamath Mountains are tectonically active as well.
Water is chronically scarce in southern California and the desert regions, but excesses of rain and snowmelt cause winter flooding along the rivers of the northern coast. Complex systems of dams and aqueducts transport water from north to south, but not without the protests of those who regard the export of water from their regions as a bar to future growth or as a threat to environmental balance. The Colorado River Aqueduct at the Arizona border carries water from that river across the southern California desert and mountains to serve the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The California State Water Project, launched in 1960, is the largest water-transfer system ever undertaken. It is designed to deliver water daily from the Feather River (a tributary of the Sacramento River) in north-central California to communities as far south as the Mexican border.
The largest lake of the Sierra Nevada is Lake Tahoe, astride the California-Nevada border at an elevation of 6,229 feet (1,899 metres). A mountain-ringed alpine lake about 193 square miles (500 square km) in area, it has among the world’s greatest average depth and a maximum depth of about 1,640 feet (500 metres). Elsewhere in the Sierra lie hundreds of smaller lakes, some above the timberline in regions of tumbled granite and smooth-walled canyons. West of the Sierra Nevada is Clear Lake; at 67 square miles (174 square km), it is the largest natural lake wholly within the state. On the eastern flank of the Sierra are Mono Lake and Owens Lake, both long endangered by agricultural development.
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57f4cc51a62e7835c3bee3d200ba60e4 | https://www.britannica.com/place/California-state/History | History of California | History of California
When Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to sight the region that is present-day California in 1542, there were about 130,000 Native Americans inhabiting the area. The territory was neglected by Spain for more than two centuries (until 1769) because of reports of the region’s poverty and a general slowdown of Spanish exploration. The merchant Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed from Mexico to the southern California coast in 1602, naming San Diego, Santa Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, and Monterey. Working with inaccurate maps, Vizcaíno and several later explorers believed that California was an island and were discouraged when they were unable to chart its surrounding seas.
Pressure for settlement came from missionaries eager to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, from the intrusion of Russian and British traders, primarily in search of sea otter pelts, and from the quest for the Northwest Passage across the North American continent. In 1769 the Spanish viceroy dispatched land and sea expeditions from Baja California, and the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra established the first mission at San Diego. Gaspar de Portolá set up a military outpost in 1770 at Monterey. Colonization began after 1773 with the opening of an overland supply route across the southwestern deserts that was intended to link other Spanish settlements in what are the present-day states of Arizona and New Mexico to the coast.
The 21 missions established by Serra and his successors were the strongest factors in developing California. While attempting to Christianize the Mission Indians, the padres taught them farming and crafts. With the forced labour of the Mission Indians, the padres irrigated vast ranches and traded hides, tallow, wine, brandy, olive oil, grain, and leatherwork for the manufactured goods brought by Yankee trading vessels around Cape Horn.
Secularization of the missions was sought by Spanish Mexican settlers known as Californios when Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821. Between 1833 and 1840 the mission ranches were parceled out to political favourites by the Mexican government. The padres withdrew, and the Native Americans were cruelly exploited and diminished. In 1841 the first wagon train of settlers left Missouri for California. The colony grew slowly, but in 1846 the Northwest became a part of the United States, and settlers at Sonoma proclaimed an independent California republic during the Bear Flag Revolt. In May the United States declared war on Mexico, and in July the U.S. flag was raised at Monterey. Minor skirmishes occurred before the Californios surrendered to troops under John C. Frémont near Los Angeles in January 1847. Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding to the United States a vast area of the Southwest that included all of present-day California.
Early in 1848 James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, picked up nuggets of gold from the American River at the site of a sawmill (John Sutter’s Mill) he was building near Coloma. (This discovery occurred just nine days before the end of the Mexican-American War.) By August the hillsides above the river were strewn with the tents and wood huts of the first 4,000 gold miners. From the East, prospectors sailed around Cape Horn or risked disease hiking across the Isthmus of Panama. The hardiest took the 2,000-mile (3,220-km) overland route, on which cholera proved a far greater killer than the Native Americans. About 40,000 people arrived at San Francisco by boat in 1849. Some 6,000 wagons, carrying about 40,000 more fortune seekers, moved west that year over the California Trail. Few of the prospectors struck it rich. The work was hard, prices were high, and living conditions were primitive. The wiser immigrants became farmers and storekeepers.
The Gold Rush hastened statehood in 1850 (as a part of the Compromise of 1850); and, though the Gold Rush peaked in 1852, the momentum of settlement did not subside. Nearly $2 billion in gold was extracted from the earth before mining became virtually dormant.
The Compromise of 1850 did not settle the slavery issue in California. Political parties were divided according to whether they believed that California should be a free state or a slave state. One movement, led by the backers of California Sen. William M. Gwin, sought to divide California into two states, one slave and one free. The same group also attempted to promote a Pacific Coast republic. At the onset of the Civil War, however, California sided with the North and provided it with materiel and soldiers.
After the war, control of the governor’s office passed back and forth between Democrats and Republicans to the end of the century. The political climate after 1876 was distinguished by labour problems and the activity of those seeking to control mining, irrigation, and fruit growing through state funding. An economic slump in the 1870s brought increased discontent among the labour unions, one result of which was a demand for the exclusion of Chinese labourers, who worked for lower rates of pay than did “whites.”
The problems and agitation of the period resulted in the constitution of 1879, which included reforms but discriminated against the Chinese. An exclusion law passed by the U.S. Congress that year was killed by presidential veto, but in the next year a treaty agreement with China allowed U.S. regulation of Chinese immigration. This was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which suspended Chinese immigration for 10 years. In 1902 Congress reenacted exclusion legislation against the Chinese. By cutting off cheap labour, exclusion helped make the huge single-crop ranches unprofitable and led to the proliferation of smaller farms growing varied crops.
Japanese farmworkers were brought in to replace the Chinese, but as they grew successful the “yellow peril” outcry rose once again. Japanese agitation, focused largely in San Francisco, affected domestic and international policies. The Gentlemen’s Agreement between Japan and the United States in 1907 halted further Japanese immigration to the United States. In 1913 the Webb Alien Land Law, designed to keep the Japanese from owning land, was the culmination of anti-Japanese lobbying.
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a90bdd1b5a12f1947bf34c674d5ad65b | https://www.britannica.com/place/Calvados | Calvados | Calvados
…the northwestern départements of Orne, Calvados, and Manche. The northern and western shores of the region are washed by the English Channel. In 2016 the Basse-Normandie région was joined with the région of Haute-Normandie to form the new administrative entity of Normandy.
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b63c7a9ee42c6dc1cade0b43373139fc | https://www.britannica.com/place/Camarina | Camarina | Camarina
Camarina showed fine types of the river god Hipparis and the nymph Camarina on a swan. Himera, before its destruction in 409, issued some very interesting types, such as the nymph Himera sacrificing while Silenus beside her bathes at the thermal spring for which Himera…
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7615f1b805dc5fb12ef02e4d0ffc3d33 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambodia/Civil-war | Civil war | Civil war
In March 1970, while Prince Sihanouk was visiting the Soviet Union, the National Assembly voted to remove him from office as head of state. Lon Nol subsequently took control of the government. Confused and hurt, Sihanouk traveled to Beijing and accepted Chinese advice to resist the coup by taking charge of a united front government-in-exile. That government was to be allied with China and North Vietnam and was to use the Cambodian communist forces led by Saloth Sar, which only a few days before had been fighting against Sihanouk’s army.
In Phnom Penh, Lon Nol’s new government was initially popular, particularly for his quixotic pledge to rid Cambodia of Vietnamese communist troops. In fact, the resulting confrontation dragged Cambodia fully into the Vietnam conflict. In May 1970 a task force of U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded eastern Cambodia, but communist forces had already retreated to the west. Two offensives launched by Lon Nol—named for the semimythical Cambodian kingdom of Chenla—were smashed by the Vietnamese, and thereafter his troops assumed a defensive stance. North Vietnamese support for the Cambodian communists diminished in 1973, following a cease-fire agreement reached in Paris with the Americans. The Cambodian communists, however, refused to adhere to the agreements, and in 1973 they were subjected to a massive American aerial bombardment, although the United States and Cambodia were not at war and no U.S. troops were endangered by Cambodia. The bombing slowed communist attacks on Phnom Penh and wreaked havoc in the heavily populated countryside around the capital. The civil war lasted two more years, but already by the end of 1973 the Lon Nol government controlled only Phnom Penh, the northwest, and a handful of provincial towns.
In the meantime, Sihanouk declined in importance. By the end of 1973 the Cambodian communists dominated every element of the resistance, although they still claimed Sihanouk as a figurehead. Lon Nol’s isolated regime in Phnom Penh continued to receive large infusions of American aid, increasing opportunities for corruption.
In April 1975 the Lon Nol government collapsed. Communist forces quickly entered Phnom Penh and immediately ordered its inhabitants to abandon the city and take up life in rural areas. Phnom Penh and other cities and towns throughout the country were emptied in less than a week. Thousands of city dwellers died on the forced marches, and in subsequent years conditions worsened.
Over the next six months, following the directives of a still-concealed Communist Party of Kampuchea, Cambodia experienced the most rapid and radical social transformation in its history. Money, markets, and private property were abolished. Schools, hospitals, shops, offices, and monasteries were closed. Nothing was published; no one could travel without permission; and everyone was ordered to wear peasant work clothes. As in Mao Zedong’s China, the poorest peasants were favoured at everyone else’s expense. A handful of party leaders controlled everything in the country, but they remained in hiding and explained few of their decisions. Instead, they urged everyone to “build and defend” the country. In April 1976 Sihanouk resigned as head of state, soon after a new constitution had renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. A soft-spoken and unknown figure named Pol Pot became prime minister, and more than a year passed before observers outside the country were able to identify him as Saloth Sar.
In 1976–77 the new regime, following the lead of Maoist China, sought to collectivize Cambodia totally, mobilizing its population into an unpaid labour force and seeking to double the average prerevolutionary yields of rice immediately and on a national scale. The human costs of that ill-conceived experiment were enormous, and the Khmer Rouge were widely condemned by the international community once the magnitude of their crimes became known, most notably through the release in 1984 of The Killing Fields, a film adaptation of the Khmer Rouge story. Conservative estimates are that between April 1975 and early 1979, when the regime was overthrown, at least 1.5 million Cambodians—about 20 percent of the total population—died from overwork, starvation, disease, or execution. Parallels have been drawn between those events and Joseph Stalin’s collectivization of Ukrainian agriculture in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the Nazi Holocaust of World War II, Mao’s Great Leap Forward in China in the late 1950s, and the massacres in Rwanda in the mid-1990s. The Soviet and Chinese experiments appear to have been models for the Khmer Rouge, although the proportion of the population killed in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was greater than it had been in China or the Soviet Union. The number of deaths stemmed from the literalism with which plans were carried out (Pol Pot’s supporters were told to “smash” the enemy), the cruelty of the inexperienced communist cadres, and—as far as executions were concerned—the suspicions of the leadership that the failure of their experiment could be traced to “traitors” in the pay of foreign powers. The Communist Party’s interrogation centre in Phnom Penh, a prison code-named “S-21,” was the site of more than 15,000 such executions. Those tortured and put to death included men and women who had served the party faithfully for years—victims of the extreme paranoia of Pol Pot and his colleagues.
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8d490284fb00338035eaa45708536a56 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambodia/Religion | Religion of Cambodia | Religion of Cambodia
Most ethnic Khmer are Theravada (Hinayana) Buddhists (i.e., belonging to the older and more traditional of the two great schools of Buddhism, the other school being Mahayana). Until 1975 Buddhism was officially recognized as the state religion of Cambodia.
Under the Khmer Rouge, all religious practices were forbidden. The pro-Vietnamese communist regime that ruled Cambodia in the 1980s encouraged Buddhism in a limited way, and Theravada Buddhism was restored as Cambodia’s state religion in 1993. Almost 20 years of neglect have been difficult to reverse, however, and the religion has not regained the popularity and prestige that it had before 1975. Nonetheless, the social and psychological characteristics often ascribed to the Khmer—individualism, conservatism, patience, gentleness, and lack of concern for material wealth—represent Buddhist ideals toward which Cambodians, especially in rural areas, continue to aspire. Buddhist precepts, however, do not permeate Cambodian education and ideology as strongly as they did before 1975.
Minority populations are not Theravada Buddhists. Khmer Loeu groups generally follow local religions, while ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese are eclectic, following Mahayana Buddhism and Daoism. Many Vietnamese are members of the Roman Catholic Church or of such syncretic Vietnamese religious movements as Cao Dai. The Cham minority is Muslim, generally of the Sunni branch. More recently, thousands have converted to Evangelical Protestantism, particularly urban Khmer.
Cambodia has always been overwhelmingly a land of villages. Only a fraction of the total population has ever lived in a town of more than 10,000 inhabitants. Since the 1920s most of these urban dwellers have been concentrated in Phnom Penh, which is situated at the confluence of the Mekong, Basăk (Bassac), and Sab rivers. Some four-fifths of the population still live in rural areas, the remainder being classified as urban.
Until the mid-1970s the vast majority of Cambodia’s people inhabited the central lowland region, where the rural village was second only to the family as the basic social unit. The typical Khmer family consisted of a married couple and their unmarried children. Both sons and daughters usually left the parental home after marriage to establish their own households. Most Cambodian villages in those days were made up of ethnically homogeneous people and had a population of fewer than 300 persons. The village (phum) was part of a commune or community (khum) with which it shared one or more Buddhist temples (wat), an elementary school, and several small shops. Cambodian villages usually developed in a linear pattern along waterways and roads, but houses were also often found on largely self-contained paddy farms. Houses in Cambodia were generally built on wooden pilings and had thatched roofs, walls of palm matting, and floors of woven bamboo strips resting on bamboo joists. Houses for the more-prosperous, while still on pilings, were built of wood and had tile or metal roofs.
There were a few large landowners in Cambodia until, under the rulers of Democratic Kampuchea, they were forced off their land and into collectives in 1975 and made to live as ordinary peasants; hardly any of these people reemerged after decollectivization in the 1980s. Before collectivization, villagers typically owned and worked enough land to provide for their families and generate small surpluses that could be converted into cash to buy additional goods or to pay taxes. Landholdings tended to be small in the crowded south-central regions of the country. During the 1960s the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk was successful in colonizing frontier regions, especially in the northwest, with army veterans or poor farmers from more-crowded parts of the country. These programs, however, did not significantly alter Cambodian settlement patterns.
Throughout rural Cambodia, lifestyle was attuned to the agricultural cycle, which was based in large part on family-oriented subsistence farming. Family members were awake before dawn, and most of the day’s work was accomplished before noon, although minor tasks were performed in the cool of the early evening. Electricity has always been rare in village areas, and country people were generally asleep soon after sunset. During the rice-growing season, all family members worked together in the fields, as the work of planting, transplanting, and harvesting had to be done quickly. Farmers had no access to agricultural machinery, and the work of several people was needed to grow enough rice to feed a family for a year. Because paddy farming required intensive labour, obligations would build up among families within a village during the agricultural season. Festivals and marriages, celebrated by a whole village, were usually held after the rice had been harvested and money had been obtained from selling the surplus grain.
The urban areas of Cambodia emerged in their present form in the early 20th century, during the French colonial period, as commercial and administrative centres serving their surrounding rural regions. Most of them were located at the intersections of land or river routes and were relatively accessible to the areas they served. Phnom Penh (phnom means “hill”; Penh is a woman’s name) is Cambodia’s single metropolis, and its population fluctuations since the 1960s reflect the country’s recent history. Before the outbreak of war in 1970, it held about 500,000 people, but its population by 1975, then swollen with refugees, numbered some 2,000,000. Phnom Penh was virtually abandoned during the Democratic Kampuchea period, but people began returning to the city in 1979. Its population has grown rapidly since then, exceeding its 1970 level by the late 1980s and surpassing 1,000,000 by the start of the 21st century. Other cities, such as Bătdâmbâng and Kâmpóng Cham, are considerably smaller than Phnom Penh.
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f3ec59782428b68275d31201f0a6e498 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambodia/Vietnamese-intervention | Vietnamese intervention | Vietnamese intervention
The Khmer Rouge initially had been trained by the Vietnamese, but from the early 1970s they had been resentful and suspicious of Vietnam and Vietnamese intentions. Scattered skirmishes between the two sides in 1975 had escalated into open warfare by the end of 1977. The Cambodians were no match for the Vietnamese forces, despite continuing infusions of Chinese aid. In December 1978 a large Vietnamese army moved into Cambodia, brushing aside the Democratic Kampuchean forces. Within two weeks the government had fled Phnom Penh for Thailand, and the Vietnamese had installed a puppet regime—called the People’s Republic of Kampuchea—consisting largely of Cambodian communists who had deserted Pol Pot in 1977–78.
Over the next decade, under the relatively benign tutelage of the Vietnamese, Cambodia struggled back to its feet. Private property was restored; schools reopened, and some Buddhist practices were reintroduced; cities were repopulated; and, with freedom of movement, internal trade flourished. At the same time, at least 500,000 Cambodians, including some 100,000 associated with the communists, fled to Thailand in the aftermath of Democratic Kampuchea’s fall and because of the hardship, uncertainty, and disorder that accompanied the installation of the new regime. Of those, perhaps 200,000 people, including most of the surviving members of Cambodia’s educated elite, sought refuge in other countries, while the rest came under the control of three resistance groups camped along the Thai-Cambodian border: Norodom Sihanouk and his followers, the Khmer Rouge, and the noncommunist Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (renamed the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party in 1992) under the leadership of Son Sann (a former prime minister). Those groups were supported financially by foreign powers, including the United States, who were eager to oppose Vietnam. Thousands of Cambodians continued to enter Thailand in the 1980s, and by the end of the decade those in refugee camps were thought to exceed 300,000.
In 1982 an uneasy alliance was reached among the three groups opposing the Vietnamese-backed regime in Phnom Penh, and a government-in-exile was established with Sihanouk as president and Son Sann as prime minister. That government, despite recognition by the United Nations, received little support from Cambodians inside the country and was largely ineffectual. The member groups of the coalition continued independently to resist the Phnom Penh regime, the larger and better-equipped forces of the Khmer Rouge being the most effective.
The political stalemate that developed among the four groups vying for power was broken in the late 1980s when international political pressure, an economic boycott of Cambodia led by the United States, and a reduction in aid from the Soviet Union contributed to Vietnam’s decision to withdraw its forces from Cambodia, which was completed in 1989. Freed from Vietnamese tutelage, the Phnom Penh government took two initiatives that sharply increased its popularity. It legalized property ownership, which created a real-estate boom in Phnom Penh. More significantly, it openly encouraged the practice of Buddhism, and hundreds of Buddhist monasteries were restored, often with funds provided by Cambodians living overseas. One result of the resurgence of Buddhism was that thousands of young Cambodian males became Buddhist monks, even if only for a brief time, as in most cases. The withdrawal of the Vietnamese also allowed the resistance factions to seek through negotiation the political objectives that they had been unable to obtain by military action against the Phnom Penh government; they were encouraged in that endeavour by their foreign patrons.
The negotiations, which had been conducted for some time and which had intensified after 1989, led in 1991 to two significant results. The first was the creation of a largely ceremonial coalition government under a Supreme National Council (SNC) chaired by Sihanouk and composed of representatives of the government and the three factions. Although the SNC was recognized by the United Nations, effective control in most of Cambodia remained in the hands of the Phnom Penh regime. The second and more-important result was the conclusion of a peace agreement among the factions that also provided for a popularly elected government. The UN Security Council, with the backing of the factions, endorsed the treaty and agreed to establish in the country a peacekeeping operation consisting of both soldiers and civil servants under the control of a United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia that would monitor progress toward conducting elections, temporarily run several government ministries, and safeguard human rights.
The operation, inaugurated in January 1992, was difficult to implement, notably because the Khmer Rouge refused to disarm and cooperate, the UN machinery for such an innovative mission was cumbersome, and the ruling party in Phnom Penh was unwilling to cede day-to-day political power to the UN. Nonetheless, more than 300,000 refugees were repatriated from Thailand under UN auspices in 1992–93, and in July 1993 national elections were held under UN supervision. Those were arguably the first free and fair elections in Cambodian history. More than 90 percent of the registered voters went to the polls, and by a clear majority they chose candidates from the United National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (Funcinpec), a royalist political faction sponsored by Prince Sihanouk, who had returned home in 1992 after 12 years of residence in China and North Korea. The incumbent Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the former prime minister, Hun Sen, refused to accept the results of the election. In a deal brokered by Prince Sihanouk and approved by the UN, the victorious royalists, led by Sihanouk’s son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, agreed to form a coalition with the CPP, with Ranariddh as first prime minister and Hun Sen as second prime minister. Under the new constitution, Cambodia became a kingdom again, and Sihanouk became its monarch for the second time.
Because the CPP controlled the army, the judiciary, and the police, it soon dominated the coalition, and Prince Ranariddh, despite his position, was unable to influence events. The Khmer Rouge movement collapsed in the mid-1990s as it lost foreign backing, its leaders quarreled among themselves, and thousands of supporters defected to the government and were offered positions in the Cambodian army. In 1997 Hun Sen staged a coup against his coalition partners, deposed Ranariddh, and tightened his control over the country. The brutality of the coup alarmed foreign donors and delayed Cambodia’s entry into ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
By 1998 Pol Pot was dead, the Khmer Rouge movement had fallen apart, and for the first time in 30 years Cambodia was at peace. In March Prince Ranariddh, who had fled the country after the coup, was tried in absentia and convicted on charges that included attempting to overthrow the government. He was subsequently pardoned by his father and returned to Cambodia to participate in internationally monitored elections to the National Assembly in July that were deemed relatively free and fair. The CPP captured the largest number of seats, and Hun Sen returned as prime minister, but since the CPP did not have the necessary two-thirds majority in the chamber to govern outright, it was forced to form a second coalition government with Funcinpec. Ranariddh was named president of the assembly.
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c72e2df13414d9efb7b8d8ef60e4b963 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambridgeshire | Cambridgeshire | Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire, administrative, geographic, and historic county of eastern England. The administrative county covers a much larger area than the ancient shire, or historic county. Formed in 1974, the administrative county incorporates almost all of the historic county of Cambridgeshire and most of the historic county of Huntingdonshire (which is nearly coterminous with the district of the same name). The parts of the historic county that lie outside the administrative county are a small area north of Sandy in the unitary authority of Central Bedfordshire and an area around Thorney in the unitary authority of Peterborough. The historic county is sometimes considered part of the traditional region of East Anglia, and the Isle of Ely forms a distinct historic region within the historic county of Cambridgeshire. The administrative county of Cambridgeshire comprises five districts—East Cambridgeshire, Fenland, Huntingdonshire, South Cambridgeshire, and the city of Cambridge—and incorporates a small area, around Great Chishill, that belongs to the historic county of Essex The geographic county encompasses the entire administrative county as well as the unitary authority of Peterborough. Cambridge serves as the county town (seat).
The arm of the North Sea today known as The Wash extended much farther inland during prehistoric times. Lying between sea and land, this area was alternately inundated and exposed as it filled with deposits of peat, silt, and sea clay. It was encircled by a rim of low hills. The present geographic county comprises much of that rim, together with the southern half of the inlet, now drained and reclaimed to form the Fens. Here and there low ridges, which break the flatness of the Fens, represent former islands. The largest of them, the Isle of Ely, formed a safe retreat for Englishmen, led by Hereward the Wake, who opposed William I the Conqueror and his invading Normans.
The geographic county is crossed by two major rivers: the Nene and the Ouse (or Great Ouse), with its tributary the Cam. As these were progressively regularized and embanked, the surface of the county became available for agriculture. Crop specialization is well developed, with cereals grown on the chalky eastern rim. Cereals, potatoes, sugar beets (processed at Ely town), and vegetables are grown on the Fens, and fruits for canning and jam making are produced on the slopes of the former islands and around Wisbech.
Apart from the widely scattered food industries is the geographic county’s main manufacturing centre, Peterborough, whose expansion from the mid-20th century both in population and in engineering industries has been remarkable. Cambridge possesses light industries, including scientific instruments and electronics. The hilly rim along the southern edge of the county falls within the residential commuter belt both of Cambridge itself, with its large university population, and of London, 40 to 50 miles (70 to 80 km) to the south.
Prehistoric tracks and other archaeological finds indicate a prolonged occupation of the area ringing the Fens, which were a swampy expanse in prehistoric times. Under the Romans the Cam valley was the most heavily settled area, and the Romans apparently began the drainage of the Fens. Anglo-Saxon settlement of the area began in the 5th century. The county lay at the edge of the Danelaw and was contested from the 9th through the 11th century by the Danes and the Saxons. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the historic county and the neighbouring county of Huntingdonshire were administered by a single sheriff. The founding of the University of Cambridge in the 13th century made the town of Cambridge one of England’s most important intellectual centres, and the drainage of the Fens, virtually completed by the middle of the 17th century, brought large new areas under pasturage and cultivation. The historic county’s major architectural landmarks are the splendid cathedral of Ely and the university buildings in Cambridge. Area administrative county, 1,176 square miles (3,046 square km); geographic county, 1,308 square miles (3,387 square km). Pop. (2001) administrative county, 552,658; geographic county, 708,719; (2011) adminstrative county, 621,210; geographic county, 804,841.
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d2815a1d3466c2655ed84b21c7fa80cb | https://www.britannica.com/place/Cameroon | Cameroon | Cameroon
Cameroon, country lying at the junction of western and central Africa. Its ethnically diverse population is among the most urban in western Africa. The capital is Yaoundé, located in the south-central part of the country.
The country’s name is derived from Rio dos Camarões (“River of Prawns”)—the name given to the Wouri River estuary by Portuguese explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries. Camarões was also used to designate the river’s neighbouring mountains. Until the late 19th century, English usage confined the term “the Cameroons” to the mountains, while the estuary was called the Cameroons River or, locally, the Bay. In 1884 the Germans extended the word Kamerun to their entire protectorate, which largely corresponded to the present state.
Cameroon is triangular in shape and is bordered by Nigeria to the northwest, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, the Republic of the Congo to the southeast, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest.
Cameroon can be divided into northern, central, southern, and western geographic regions. North of the Benue (Bénoué) River, the savanna plain that occupies the country’s centre declines in elevation as it approaches the Lake Chad basin. The region contains scattered inselbergs, mounds of erosion-resistant rock that rise above the plains. The Gotel Mountains of the Adamawa Plateau trend from south to north, culminating in the Mandara Mountains of the northwest.
The central region extends east from the western highlands and from the Sanaga River north to the Benue River. The land rises progressively to the north and includes the Adamawa Plateau, with elevations between 2,450 and 4,450 feet (750 and 1,350 metres).
The southern region extends from the Sanaga River to the southern border and from the coast eastward to the Central African Republic and the Republic of the Congo. It consists of coastal plains that are about 25 miles (40 km) wide and a densely forested plateau with an average elevation of a little more than 2,000 feet (600 metres).
The western region extends north and west from the Sanaga River and continues north along the Nigerian border as far as the Benue River. The relief is mostly mountainous, the result of a volcanic rift that extends northward from the island of Bioko. Near the coast, the active volcanic Mount Cameroon rises to the highest elevation in western Africa—13,435 feet (4,095 metres).
The rivers of Cameroon form four large drainage systems. In the south the Sanaga, Wouri, Nyong, and Ntem rivers drain into the Atlantic Ocean. The Benue River and its tributary, the Kébi, flow into the Niger River basin of Nigeria. The Logone and Chari rivers—which form part of the eastern border with Chad—drain into Lake Chad, whereas the Dja River joins the Sangha River and flows into the Congo River basin.
The soils of Cameroon may be roughly divided into three groups. The first soil group, developed primarily in the higher-precipitation south and south-centre, is composed of soils with strong physical makeup but weaker chemical properties. With good depth, high permeability, and stable structure, these soils are less prone to erosion. They rely on the input of organic matter to replenish nutrient levels; interruption of this cycle leads to swift depletion and decrease in fertility.
The second soil group is present mainly in the lower-precipitation northern regions. Weathering by water is not as significant a problem for that soil group as mechanical weathering. A lower iron content dictates the soils’ colouring, which ranges from gray to brown. Though more fertile than their counterparts in the south, these soils are susceptible to nutrient imbalances that can impede productivity.
The third soil group is a general gathering of a number of young soils, including andosols, which are developed from volcanic ash and other matter, and the dark, clay-laden vertisols. Incidence of these soils varies by region.
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c3e1872c9174ad7a6e7e42db071daf8f | https://www.britannica.com/place/Campbell-Island | Campbell Island | Campbell Island
Campbell Island, outlying volcanic island of New Zealand, in the South Pacific Ocean, 400 miles (644 km) south of South Island. It has an area of 41 square miles (106 square km) and is high and rugged, rising to 1,867 feet (569 m) at Mount Honey, and gradually leveling off to the north. Cliffs border the west and south coasts, while the east is deeply indented by Perseverance and North East harbours. The island has a cold, humid, windy climate.
Campbell Island was discovered in 1810 by the sealing ship “Perseverance.” The island’s large herds of fur seals were quickly decimated, but it remained a port of call for whalers until the 1890s. Sheep, unsuccessfully introduced in 1896, destroyed much of the natural vegetation. A meteorological station was established in 1941. The island is administered by the New Zealand commissioner for crown lands.
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de2a336a6b02164eb16b5f265e982ace | https://www.britannica.com/place/Campeche-state-Mexico | Campeche | Campeche
Campeche, estado (state), southeastern Mexico, on the western part of the Yucatán Peninsula. It is bounded to the north and east by the state of Yucatán, to the east by the state of Quintana Roo, to the south by Guatemala, to the southwest by the state of Tabasco, and to the west by the Bay of Campeche, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. Campeche city is the state capital and a major port.
Named for the ancient Mayan province of Kimpech, Campeche includes numerous ruined Mayan cities, such as Calakmul, Uxul, and Xicalango. The capital’s fortified colonial-era centre and the ruins of Calakmul were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1999 and 2002, respectively.
The state’s relief consists of a low limestone plain broken only by rivers in the humid south and by the Puuc hills in the arid north, where deep grottoes hold the main water supply for crops and livestock raising. Stands of tropical semi-deciduous forest lie east and south of Campeche city; treetops can reach heights of 65 to 100 feet (20 to 30 metres), notably at Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Most of the rivers in the south, including the Golondrinas-Candelaria system, drain into Términos Lagoon on the Gulf of Mexico. At the lagoon’s entrance is Ciudad del Carmen, the chief port and petroleum depot of the area.
Manufacturing provides one-third of the state’s income, and services (including tourism, trade, and government jobs) account for more than one-fourth. Major manufactures include refined petroleum, extracted from offshore wells; forest products, made mostly from local hardwoods; and processed foods. Shrimp trawling and other commercial fishing are also important. The state is linked to central Mexico by railroad, highway, and air. Although the great majority of its population is urbanized, Campeche is sparsely settled and one of the least-populous Mexican states.
Campeche seceded in 1857 from the state of Yucatán after a civil war. It became a state in 1862 and originally included the region that is now Quintana Roo. The executive branch of state government is led by a governor, who is elected to a single term of six years. Members of the unicameral legislature, the State Congress, are elected to three-year terms. Campeche is divided into local governmental units called municipios (municipalities), each of which is headquartered in a prominent city, town, or village. The capital city is home to most of the state’s cultural institutions, including the Museum of Mayan Archaeology and the Autonomous University of Campeche (1756; refounded 1965). The Autonomous University of Carmen (1967) is in Ciudad del Carmen. Area 19,619 square miles (50,812 square km). Pop. (2010) 822,441.
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73416b8bd40dc1292e1aaf87b71ee6b7 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Campobasso-Italy | Campobasso | Campobasso
Campobasso, city, capital of Molise regione (region), south-central Italy, northeast of Naples. The old town on a hill was abandoned in 1732 by its inhabitants, who built a new town on a lower fertile plain. The Castello Monforte (1459) with six towers of the medieval walls remains in the old town, which also has the Romanesque churches of San Bartolomeo and San Giorgio. The neoclassical cathedral and an archaeological museum with relics of the Samnites, Frentani, and Campani (ancient Italic peoples) are in the new town. Agricultural products include the celebrated pears, which ripen in winter, and scamorze (semihard) cheeses. The making of cutlery, long a specialty, has dwindled, but paving tiles and soap are manufactured. Pop. (2004 est.) 51,629.
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a27470e055380fa418c3976f5d474f5f | https://www.britannica.com/place/Can-Tho | Can Tho | Can Tho
Can Tho, city and province-level municipality, southern Vietnam. Situated on the left bank of the Hau Giang River, 90 miles (145 km) southwest of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), it is an industrial centre and the largest city of the flat delta region of the Mekong River, which includes the Ca Mau Peninsula and the principal rice-growing areas of the country. A large inland port, Can Tho is protected by dikes from the annual flooding of the Mekong and has a canal link to Vi Thanh in the southwestern part of the province. It has a teacher-training and agricultural college founded in 1976. In the 1960s an industrial park for agriculturally related industries was established 6 miles (10 km) north of the city. Older industries include coconut oil extraction and rice milling; new industries include the manufacture of fertilizer, ice, implements, plastic goods, bricks, and fish sauce. Can Tho is served by two airports; the major one, Binh Thuy, is northwest of the city. Can Tho has a hospital and is the seat of Can Tho University (1966). A former Khmer (Cambodian) district, it was occupied in the 18th century by the Vietnamese to become part of southern Vietnam. It is the centre of a significant concentration of Hoa Hao, a militant Buddhist sect. Pop. (1999) 245,364; (2009) 731,545.
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396958cab8c681b03736efe5d9dcdb50 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Agriculture-forestry-and-fishing | Agriculture, forestry, and fishing | Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Less than one-twelfth of Canada’s land area is suitable for crop production. About four-fifths of this cropland is in the Prairie Provinces, where long sunny days in summer and adequate precipitation combine to provide excellent grain yields. However, the widest range of crops and the highest yields occur in southwestern British Columbia and southern Ontario.
Although agriculture employs less than 4 percent of the Canadian labour force, it is vital to the national economy, producing large volumes of food for both the domestic and export markets and providing raw materials for food processing, wholesale, and retail industries. There has been a significant trend away from the family farm (more than one-fourth of Canadians lived on farms in the 1940s) toward larger farm units, mechanized farm operations, specialization in fewer products, and the use of improved varieties, breeds, and farming methods.
There are distinctive types of farming in different areas of the country. The Prairies are known for grain (particularly wheat), oilseeds (especially canola), and cattle grazing. Central and eastern Canada have a wider variety of crops and livestock, and farmers tend to specialize in either a particular cash crop or a livestock type. Southwestern Ontario produces large amounts of grain corn (maize), soybeans, and white beans. Both southern Ontario and southwestern British Columbia produce a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Dairying is important around all the major cities. Because of the challenging climate and soil conditions, many Canadian farmers have embraced genetically modified organisms, though their disfavour in Europe jeopardizes exportability.
Almost half of Canada’s land area is covered with forest, the accessible portions of which provide abundant resources for lumber, pulp, and paper. The most valuable forest region for timber production is the west coast, where the climate is conducive to the growth of giant trees with excellent lumber. Forest products form a larger part of Canada’s export trade than do the combined exports of farm, fish, and mineral products. Canada is the world leader in the export of pulp and paper and also exports large amounts of softwood lumber, mostly to the United States. British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec are the leading provinces in the production of forest products.
Canada’s forest industry has to struggle constantly against the threats of fire, insects, and disease. Some control of insects has been achieved through the aerial spraying of insecticides, but this practice also eradicates insect-eating birds and predator insects. Because forests have significant value in maintaining an ecological balance in the environment and also provide important recreational opportunities, the forest industry is increasingly held to account for environmentally damaging practices. For example, public pressure during the 1990s led to increased governmental supervision of logging methods and the forest industries’ implementation (on a voluntary basis) of sustainable resource-management methods (e.g., eliminating clear-cutting).
Canada has rich fishing grounds off both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. The parts of the continental shelf with the shallowest water are known as fishing banks; there plankton, on which fish feed, thrive because the sunlight penetrates to the seafloor. The most important of these fishing banks is the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Bradelle Bank, Sable Bank, Georges Bank (shared with the United States), and a number of other fishing banks are found off the coasts of the Maritime Provinces. On the Pacific coast the continental shelf is very narrow, but numerous mountain streams are suitable for salmon spawning. In the rivers of the far north and in the Arctic Ocean there are abundant fish on which large numbers of the indigenous people depend for food. Overfishing and pollution depleted the fish resources in southern Canada significantly after the mid-20th century. Indeed, in 1992 the Canadian government imposed a moratorium on cod fishing—with disastrous effects for employment along the east coast. More international regulating agreements controlling catches have improved the situation somewhat. To offset the losses caused by smaller catches, fish prices rose sharply.
Canada catches only a tiny fraction of the fish taken from the world’s oceans, but it ranks among the leaders in volume of fish exports because of Canada’s relatively small population and low per capita fish consumption. Historically, in the Atlantic Provinces the fishing industry contributed significantly to the value of all goods produced in the region. Until the 1990s, small coastal communities throughout the region were wholly or partly dependent on the fishing industry. The most important species caught in eastern waters arehaddock, redfish, flatfish, turbot, pollock, flounder, sole, halibut, herring, mackerel, tuna, and lobster; cod remains an important sport fish. Salmon and herring are the leading catches off the Pacific coast.
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f7aa187c9893b3707d0b06bf708c4404 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Canada-and-the-Commonwealth | Canada and the Commonwealth | Canada and the Commonwealth
If the special ties with the United States waxed during the postwar years, the historic ones with Great Britain waned further. However, the traditional ties between Canada and Great Britain remained: the common crown; the parliamentary system of government; the desire for much the same kind of world; and the same pragmatic, unideological temperament and outlook. Cordial relations between the two governments continued, but the rise of the United States in economic and military affairs meant that the British phase of Canadian history was coming to a close. Canada exported more to Britain and imported more from the United States, while Britain exported less to Canada. Canada’s relations with Britain and the former British Empire during the 1950s and ’60s took place largely in the context of the Commonwealth.
As one of the principal creators of the Commonwealth in the early 1930s, Canada had a special interest in it. With most British colonies gaining independence after World War II, a process of which Canadians in general approved, many newly independent countries applied for membership in the Commonwealth. However, some of the newly independent nations, such as India, were republics, which raised the issue of whether a republic could be part of an association bound together by allegiance to a common crown. Suddenly the Commonwealth was seen as an association that might bridge the differences of ethnicity and culture in freedom as the empire had done by power. It was agreed among the members of the Commonwealth that republics could be members if they chose to accept the sovereign as “head” of the Commonwealth. Canadians, as members of a republican hemisphere, readily accepted the new organizing principle, seeing Canada in the role of intermediary between the old members of the Commonwealth and the new, developing countries.
Canada’s potential to play a role as intermediary within the Commonwealth was revealed by the Suez Crisis, a great strain for the Commonwealth as well as for world peace. Australia and New Zealand, for example, were disposed to sympathize with the strategic concern of the United Kingdom, while India was dismayed and angered by what it saw as an act of concerted aggression. Canada, led by Lester Pearson, was able to intervene between the United Kingdom and India, enabling both parties to save face and preserving the integrity of the Commonwealth.
Canada also played the role of disinterested friend in the crisis precipitated by South Africa’s apartheid policy. To a multiethnic association such as the Commonwealth, South Africa was not only an anomaly but a reproach. Yet a basic rule of the Commonwealth was that of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of members. The issue came to a head in the Commonwealth Conference of 1960, when several members sought to have South Africa expelled. The United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand deplored this violation of the rule of nonintervention. Canada again tried to play the role of impartial intermediary but, when that failed, voted for expulsion. Within the Commonwealth, Canada generally supported the aspirations of nonwhite member states (e.g., it endorsed economic sanctions against the white minority regime in Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]), though its policies often provoked tensions with the United Kingdom.
In the early 1960s the United Kingdom began considering entry in the European Common Market. Fearing that it would mean the diminution of the imperial preferences that since 1932 had given the Commonwealth a material as well as a sentimental basis, Canada strongly opposed Britain’s entry. By the time Britain finally entered in 1973, however, Canada, then under a Liberal government, accepted Britain’s decision and focused on boosting Canadian trade with the Common Market as best it could. But Britain’s entry meant that the Commonwealth would be less and less a matter of material ties and more and more one of tradition and sentiment.
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e14eeaca00bc341250c5832c05593208 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Cultural-institutions | Cultural institutions | Cultural institutions
Along with developments in the visual arts came the establishment of art collections and art galleries. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, dating from 1880, includes not only the most extensive and important collection of arts by Canadians but also collections built up along international lines to help trace the origins of Canadian artistic traditions. It also circulates exhibitions to several hundred centres in the country each year. In addition, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver have large public art galleries, and many arts councils and university galleries house important collections. For example, the University of Toronto has an extensive gallery on campus to showcase its expanding collections. The country also has a well-developed public library system, particularly since the beginning of a “free books for all” movement in Ontario in the 1880s. Established in 1953, the National Library of Canada in Ottawa contains copies of every book published in the country.
Many museums in Canada display Canadian historical artifacts. Several national museums on specific themes are located in Ottawa, and many cities and towns have local museums. The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada’s largest museum, is visited by some one million people annually. Other notable institutions include the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia; the Point à Callière (Museum of Archaeology and History) in Montreal; the War Museum, which contains a full-sized reproduction of a World War I trench, in Ottawa; the Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador, which features exhibits on ancient indigenous people and Viking expeditions and has branches in St. John’s, Grand Bank, and Grand Falls–Windsor; the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, which houses an excellent collection of artifacts from the indigenous peoples of Canada; and the Museum of Man and Nature, which has exhibits on the Plains First Nations, in Winnipeg. There are also many historic parks and monuments in Canada, the most ambitious being the 20-square-mile (52-square-km) site around the reconstructed fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
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c67239282335eb1a9dcf59a4bce16027 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Cultural-life | Cultural life | Cultural life
In 1951 the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences issued a report (what became known as the Massey Report) warning that Canadian culture had become invisible, nearly indistinguishable from that of the neighbouring United States, owing to years of “American invasion by film, radio, and periodical.” Henceforth, the government declared that Canada’s mass media would be required to encourage Canadian content—books, television programs, magazines, and other locally made cultural products. By most accounts, the policy has been quite successful, though that success has largely been the result of individual—not federal—efforts.
In its broadest sense, Canadian culture is a mixture of British, French, and American influences, all of which blend and sometimes compete in every aspect of cultural life, from filmmaking and writing to cooking and playing sports. Other peoples have added distinctive elements to this mixture: for example, Canada’s large foreign-born population is evident in the splendid and varied restaurants (notably South Asian) that line Toronto’s Yonge Street, Vancouver’s Chinese population has given that city a tradition of folk opera and puppetry that rival those found in China, Italian is widely spoken in the coffeehouses of Montreal, and Canada’s indigenous peoples are finding a growing voice through a broad range of fine and folk arts. In 1971, 20 years after the release of the Massey Report, Canada adopted multiculturalism as official national policy, and the federal government now gives support to various ethnic groups and assistance to help individuals participate fully in Canadian society.
Since the mid-20th century, economic growth has provided Canadians with greater means for practicing and enjoying the arts. Most provincial governments provide some form of financial assistance for the arts and for cultural organizations within their borders, and many have advisory and funding councils for the arts. At the national level, the Canada Council for the Arts (headquartered in Ottawa) was established in 1957. It is funded by an endowment, an annual grant from the federal government, donations, and bequests. The annual Governor General’s Literary Awards are Canada’s preeminent literary prizes; they are granted to books—one in French and one in English—in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, children’s literature (text), and translation.
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0380ca49d5347f4bd46dda4c9f256583 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Early-British-rule-1763-91 | Early British rule, 1763–91 | Early British rule, 1763–91
At first the former New France was to be governed by the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763, which declared the territory between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi to be Indian territory and closed to settlement until the indigenous peoples there could be subdued. What had been New France became known as the Province of Quebec, which was to have a royal governor who had the authority to call an assembly. However, the 70,000 French inhabitants of Quebec could neither vote nor sit in the assembly by virtue of their Roman Catholicism.
Few British Americans moved to Quebec (there were perhaps 500 migrants in all), and those who did were attracted primarily by the prospect of taking control of the fur trade. Their bourgeois mentality and repeated demands for the “rights of Englishmen” tended to alienate the conservative British officers who administered the colony. Among the latter was General James Murray, who was appointed the colony’s first governor in 1763. Murray sympathized with the condition and difficulties of the French and ignored the demands of the recently arrived Protestants for an assembly, with the result that an agitation by the Protestants led to his recall. He was replaced in 1766 by General Guy Carleton (later 1st Baron Dorchester), who was expected in Quebec to carry out the policy of the proclamation. However, Carleton soon came to see that the colony was certain to be permanently French. He decided that Britain’s best course was to forge an alliance with the elites of the former French colony—the seigneurs and the Roman Catholic church.
Carleton returned to England in 1770 to press his new policy for Quebec on the government of Lord North. The trouble the imperial government continued to have with the colonies to the south secured official acceptance of Carleton’s policy. The result was the Quebec Act of 1774, which marked a radical departure from the manner by which British colonies in America were governed. It granted permission for Roman Catholics in Quebec to hold public office; stipulated that an appointed council, rather than an elected assembly, would advise the governor; and legitimized French civil law, though English criminal law was to be in force. The Quebec Act also recognized the legitimacy of the French language and the Roman Catholic faith, gave the church power to enforce the collection of tithes, and formalized the authority of the seigneurs to collect cens et rentes. In addition, Quebec’s territory was greatly expanded, its western border henceforth stretching to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
Carleton had sought to cement French loyalty to Britain. As the American Revolution would demonstrate, however, the Quebec Act did not do that. Instead, it brought about a virtual revolution in Quebec society. The Quebec Act gave the seigneurs, the church, and the clergy a degree of authority and influence they had never enjoyed even under the French regime. Prior to 1763 many of the clergy’s edicts had been ignored by the larger society, while the political power of the bishop had been inconsequential compared with that of the governor and intendant; the latter two officials often circumscribed church authority in matters such as relations with the First Nations. After 1774, however, the bishop and the church reigned supreme in their own sphere, especially since British governing authorities were loath to interfere in religious matters. The Quebec Act also enhanced the status of the seigneurs by giving them unchallenged legal authority to set the terms and conditions of settlement on their lands. Magnifying this important change, some seigneurs sold their holdings to members of the newly arrived English-speaking merchant class. These new seigneurs, with no understanding of the informal habitant-seigneur relationship under French rule, frequently thought of themselves—and acted—as landed gentry in their dealings with the habitants.
Carleton had erred, either misunderstanding or ignoring the underlying realities of the social structure and class relations he found when he arrived in Quebec. He imposed his own vision of what Quebec ought to be, an action that earned the British the support of the church and the seigneurs but the distinct dislike of the habitants, who soon realized just how much their position in society had been eroded. As the years went by, that erosion would have a dramatic impact on their living standards.
To the American colonies, the Quebec Act was menacing—it reestablished to the north and west an area despotically ruled, predominantly French and Roman Catholic, with an alien form of land tenure. Instead of intimidating the American colonies, the act helped push the Americans to open revolt. Indeed, the first act of the American Continental Congress in 1775 was not to declare independence but to invade Canada. The failure of that invasion ensured that the continent north of the Rio Grande would, on the recognition of American independence, be divided between the Americans and the British.
Not all American colonists had supported the cause of independence, and many had resisted it in arms. At the conclusion of hostilities, these loyalists had to make their peace with the new republic, though many went into exile. The refugees, known as United Empire Loyalists, were the object of considerable concern to the British government, which sought to compensate them for their losses and to assist them in establishing new homes. Some went to the United Kingdom, others to the British West Indies, but the majority immigrated to Nova Scotia or Quebec. Nova Scotia, which to a great extent had been recently settled by American colonists, had not, except for an ineffectual rising or two, joined the revolting colonies. Overawed by British sea power and by the fortress of Halifax, Nova Scotians at first kept quiet, and later many of them even made fortunes privateering against American commerce. Easily reached by sea from New York, Nova Scotia became the chief refuge of the loyalists. Some settled on the peninsula itself, some on Cape Breton Island and in the separate colony of Prince Edward Island. A large number, however, settled along the St. John River, north of the Bay of Fundy. Dissatisfied with tardy government from Halifax, they promptly agitated for a government of their own, and equally promptly the new province of New Brunswick was created for them in 1784, with its own governor and assembly.
In Quebec the loyalists simply crossed the new frontier and settled along the St. Lawrence River to the west of the old French settlements. Their impact in Quebec was even greater than in Nova Scotia and led to the creation of the Constitutional Act of 1791. The loyalists who settled in Central Canada were for the most part quite different from those who went to what were soon to be called the Maritime colonies (later the Maritime Provinces). The latter had possessed an elite of government officials and professional men, often loyalist regiments with their officers and men, from the long-settled seaboard areas. The Central Canadian loyalists, however, were largely from upper New York, especially the Mohawk valley country, and from Pennsylvania and were almost wholly simple frontier folk and recent immigrants, driven from their homes by neighbours who often used the Revolution to dispossess them of their lands (thus explaining the bitter fighting along the frontier and the long loyalist hatred in the new province for all things American). Their coming transformed the character of the population of Quebec. That province had been given a government much like that of New France, except for the important office of intendant, and the province was in population almost wholly French, as it was in civil law. Most loyalists had one desire, to hold the land granted them in simple ownership, something the civil law of Quebec did not allow. Some of them—how many is uncertain—also wanted representative government, which was denied by the Quebec Act. Their representations reached London and were listened to with respect.
The appeals of the loyalists caused a great problem for the British government. The measures taken in the Quebec Act to conciliate the French could not in honour or policy be withdrawn. Yet the loyalists could not be required to live under French civil and land law and without the representative assembly to which they were accustomed. One obvious answer was to divide Quebec into separate French and English provinces. The English province would have, of course, English common law and an assembly. The French province might have been left with the forms of government provided by the Quebec Act. But there had already been one revolution in America, and by 1789 another had broken out in France. British statesmen felt that the former had occurred partly because Americans had not been granted the British constitution in its proper forms. From this view, the thing to do was to give both the new province and Quebec the British constitution in its entirety as far as circumstances might permit. The result would be, it was hoped, to assimilate the French population.
After a fiery debate in the British House of Commons, the Constitutional Act of 1791 gave the same constitution to the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec, respectively). Nothing that had been given the French in 1774 was revoked, but the form of government was changed to the familiar one of governor with his executive council, a legislative council, and an assembly elected on what was for the time a wide franchise. The result of this last provision was that the first assembly in 1792 had a majority of French members.
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10a84c203b108a948d74f02bb8ee78ab | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Economy | Economy of Canada | Economy of Canada
The early settlement and growth of Canada depended on exploiting and exporting the country’s vast natural resources. During the 20th century, manufacturing industries and services became increasingly important. By the end of the 20th century, agriculture and mining accounted for less than 5 percent of Canada’s labour force, while manufacturing stood at one-fifth and services, including transportation, trade, finance, and other activities, employed nearly three-fourths of the workforce. For many years Canada supported its manufacturing industries through protective tariffs on imported manufactured goods. As a result, many U.S. firms established branch plants in order to supply the Canadian market. Another cornerstone of Canada’s economic policy was the government’s provision of grants and subsidies to stimulate economic development in areas of slow growth. In the 1980s Canada began moving away from these two basic policies. Compliance with international rules on trade and the establishment of a free trade area with the United States (1989)—which with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 came to include Mexico—reduced protection for Canadian manufacturing plants. Funding for regional economic development programs was also reduced. Some multinational companies have relocated their factories to countries where costs are cheaper, causing job losses and political dissatisfaction within Canada.
Canada’s economy is dominated by the private sector, though some enterprises (e.g., postal services, some electric utilities, and some transportation services) have remained publicly owned. During the 1990s some nationalized industries were privatized. Canadian agriculture is firmly private, but it has come to depend on government subsidies in order to compete with the highly subsidized agricultural sectors of the European Union (EU) and the United States. Several marketing boards for specific farm commodities practice supply management and establish floor prices.
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0e3c19359163294800614744d21d1568 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Foreign-relations | Foreign relations | Foreign relations
Canada’s contacts with the world in 1900 were almost wholly through Great Britain and the United States. Indeed, Canada’s formal relations with other countries were conducted only through the British Foreign Office because Canada, though self-governing, was still a colony and thus had no independent diplomatic status.
In the late 19th century Canada’s dependence on Great Britain raised the question of whether Canada might be expected, on its own decision, to take some part in Britain’s imperial wars. The British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain was anxious that the dominion should at least be committed in principle to supporting the mother country. Laurier, at the colonial conference of 1897, remained silent on the issue; thereafter he claimed that the Canadian Parliament had the power to decide whether or not Canada would take any action. When the South African War broke out in 1899, many English Canadians actively urged participation, but some French Canadians, led by Bourassa, were actively opposed. A compromise was reached, by which Canada sent volunteers to serve under British command and with British pay, but the rift between French and English Canadians had been further exacerbated. Also, Britain’s naval competition with Germany made Britain eager to have colonial help, preferably by contributions in money or by the colonies’ assuming their own naval defense. Again Laurier sought a compromise. In 1910 he established a Canadian navy, though in time of war the navy was to be placed under British command. The measure was bitterly opposed by the nationalists in Quebec, who argued that conscription in Britain’s army would follow. Their clamorous opposition led to the defeat of the government candidate in a Quebec by-election, foreshadowing Laurier’s fall from power in 1911.
Canada’s relations with the United States were close, but there had been a long record of border disputes, the settlements of which frequently were resented, rightly or wrongly, by Canadians. Canada and the United States also clashed over fishing rights in the North Atlantic and, in the 1890s, over the sealing industry in the Pacific. Raids by the Fenians (Irish supporters of an uprising against British rule) in Canada at the time of confederation symbolized another cause of strain: the Irish American hatred of England and suspicion of Canada as a British colony. Relations worsened over the disputed Alaskan panhandle boundary. The line laid down by treaty between Great Britain and Russia had not since 1867 been marked on the ground by the United States and Canada. It became an urgent issue in 1897 with the Klondike gold rush, as the principal access to the goldfields was through the panhandle, and the disputed territory might contain gold. Canada claimed a line that would have put the heads of major inlets in Canadian territory—thereby giving Canada free access to the Yukon Territory (now Yukon). The United States claimed a boundary that would have excluded Canada from the sea. A joint commission of Americans, British, and Canadians found in favour of almost the whole of the American claim, the one British jurist voting with the three Americans. The decision was bitterly resented in Canada, though Canada’s case had in fact been weak. The episode forced Canada to recognize that it must be prepared to look out for itself, prompting the rise of a new sense of Canadian nationalism.
Two results followed. In preparation for Canadians handling their own foreign affairs, the Department of External Affairs was created in 1909. In addition, to settle long-standing disagreements with the United States, the Permanent Joint Commission on Boundary Waters was also established in 1909, and the following year the long-vexed Atlantic fisheries issues were finally settled. As the United States was beginning to turn to Canada as an outlet for investment and as a source of raw materials, particularly minerals and newsprint, relations between Canada and the United States assumed a new guise. An exchange of ideas began on a new scale, particularly in the ideas of the Progressive movement, which advocated a wide range of reforms to combat the growing social evils caused by industrialism. These ideas were influential on both sides of the border, in Canada sometimes more than in the United States, as when the publicly owned and operated Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission was created in 1906. To some degree these developments were upset by the Canadian election of 1911, when the Conservative Party under Robert Laird Borden defeated Laurier’s Liberals. The campaign was dominated by two issues: Laurier’s naval policy, which was stimulated by Britain’s defense needs in Europe, and a proposed reciprocal trade agreement with the United States. In Quebec the naval policy was denounced as imperialistic. Borden, backed by the business community and renegade Liberals, attacked the reciprocal trade agreement as a sellout of Canada’s British birthright and won a convincing victory. However, Borden’s victory did not interrupt the growth of the Canadian-American relationship.
Although burdened by demands for the distribution of patronage, Borden tried to institute more progressive policies after taking office, but foreign policy issues and defense questions dominated the first years of his government. He struggled to establish a policy of direct cash aid for Britain’s naval building program, in return for a voice in imperial policies that affected Canada. However, he was defeated by the Liberal-dominated Senate and rebuffed by the British. When World War I broke out in August 1914, Canada was almost totally unprepared.
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f35d14f4dcdf9cfcf7aedb23d849a5d0 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Health-and-welfare | Health and welfare | Health and welfare
Canadians are proud of their Medicare system, which was built on the idea that sophisticated health and medical treatment should be available to everyone. Although the system is publicly financed, services are delivered by the private sector. The federal government determines national standards, but provincial governments are responsible for providing, financing, and managing most health-related services. Health care benefits account for about one-third of all provincial expenditures. As Canadians have been living longer, the costs of the system have increased dramatically, leading many provincial governments to curtail benefits or increase social insurance taxes. During the 1990s, for example, many hospitals were closed, and user fees were increased or introduced for some services (e.g., drug prescriptions) as part of cost-cutting measures.
The federal government has responsibilities for the administration of food and drug legislation (including narcotics control), quarantine, immigration and sick-mariners services, and the health and welfare of Canada’s aboriginal population and past and present members of the Canadian armed forces. There are a number of social security and social assistance programs. The Family Allowance Act has been a unique feature of the Canadian social security system since its inception in 1945. The Canada Pension Plan provides retirement, disability, and survivors’ benefits. The Old Age Security Act provides a monthly pension to all persons at least 65 years of age, while the guaranteed-income supplement provides additional income for pensioners. Financial aid is available under provincial or municipal auspices to persons in need and their dependents, though, as with medical care, provincial governments began cutting benefits in the 1990s. The unemployment insurance system is financed by premiums paid by employers and employees, along with federal government contributions.
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a43f1937789caed530b0be92811437b4 | https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Land | Land of Canada | Land of Canada
Canada’s total land area includes thousands of adjacent islands, notably Newfoundland in the east and those of the Arctic Archipelago in the north. Canada is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, Greenland (a self-governing part of the Danish kingdom) to the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, 12 states of the United States to the south, and the Pacific Ocean and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west; in addition, tiny Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (an archipelagic territory of France) lies off Newfoundland.
In longitude Canada extends from approximately 52° to 141° W, a distance that spans six time zones. In latitude it extends from approximately 42° to 83° N. With its vast Arctic and subarctic territories, Canada is often considered a country only of the far north; however, the peninsula of southern Ontario juts deeply south into the heartland of the United States, and its southernmost point, Middle Island in Lake Erie, is at the same latitude as northern California. Canada occupies a strategic global location, lying on great circle routes (the shortest line joining any two places on the globe) between the United States and Europe and, to a lesser degree, Asia. As a result, many international commercial flights track across Canada.
The combination of physical geography and discontinuous settlement has led to a strong sense of regionalism in Canada, and popular regional terms often overlap. The Atlantic Provinces include all of the Appalachian region except the Quebec portion. If the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is excluded, the three remaining east-coast provinces are called the Maritime Provinces or the Maritimes. Quebec and Ontario are usually referred to separately but sometimes together, as Central Canada. The West usually means all four provinces west of Ontario, but British Columbia may be referred to alone and the other three collectively as the Prairie Provinces or the Prairies. Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are referred to as the North.
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