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Within the fierce debate among linguists about the word "Bantu", Seidensticker (2024) indicates that there has been a "profound conceptual trend in which a "purely technical [term] without any non-linguistic connotations was transformed into a designation referring indiscriminately to language, culture, society, and race"." Origin. The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa. An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, an area where Bantu peoples now constitute nearly the entire population. Some other sources estimate the Bantu Expansion started closer to 3000 BC. The technical term Bantu, meaning "human beings" or simply "people", was first used by Wilhelm Bleek (1827–1875), as the concept is reflected in many of the languages of this group. A common characteristic of Bantu languages is that they use words such as "muntu" or "mutu" for "human being" or in simplistic terms "person", and the plural prefix for human nouns starting with "mu-" (class 1) in most languages is "ba-" (class 2), thus giving "bantu" for "people". Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof, pursued extensive studies comparing the grammatical structures of Bantu languages.
Classification. The most widely used classification is an alphanumeric coding system developed by Malcolm Guthrie in his 1948 classification of the Bantu languages. It is mainly geographic. The term "narrow Bantu" was coined by the "Benue–Congo Working Group" to distinguish Bantu as recognized by Guthrie, from the Bantoid languages not recognized as Bantu by Guthrie. In recent times, the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid languages has been called into doubt, but the term is still widely used. There is no true genealogical classification of the (Narrow) Bantu languages. Until recently most attempted classifications only considered languages that happen to fall within traditional Narrow Bantu, but there seems to be a continuum with the related languages of South Bantoid. At a broader level, the family is commonly split in two depending on the reflexes of proto-Bantu tone patterns: many Bantuists group together parts of zones A through D (the extent depending on the author) as "Northwest Bantu" or "Forest Bantu", and the remainder as "Central Bantu" or "Savanna Bantu". The two groups have been described as having mirror-image tone systems: where Northwest Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages generally have a low tone, and vice versa.
Northwest Bantu is more divergent internally than Central Bantu, and perhaps less conservative due to contact with non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages; Central Bantu is likely the innovative line cladistically. Northwest Bantu is not a coherent family, but even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, with little evidence that it is a historically valid group. Another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Guthrie system is the 1999 "Tervuren" proposal of Bastin, Coupez, and Mann. However, it relies on lexicostatistics, which, because of its reliance on overall similarity rather than shared innovations, may predict spurious groups of conservative languages that are not closely related. Meanwhile, "Ethnologue" has added languages to the Guthrie classification which Guthrie overlooked, while removing the Mbam languages (much of zone A), and shifting some languages between groups (much of zones D and E to a new zone J, for example, and part of zone L to K, and part of M to F) in an apparent effort at a semi-genetic, or at least semi-areal, classification. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few unambiguous ways to distinguish Bantu languages. Nurse & Philippson (2006) evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, but the result is not a complete portrayal of the family. "Glottolog" has incorporated many of these into their classification.
The languages that share Dahl's law may also form a valid group, Northeast Bantu. The infobox at right lists these together with various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, not just Bantu, is hampered by insufficient data. Computational phylogenetic classifications. Simplified phylogeny of northwestern branches of Bantu by Grollemund (2012): Other computational phylogenetic analyses of Bantu include Currie et al. (2013), Grollemund et al. (2015), Rexova et al. 2006, Holden et al., 2016, and Whiteley et al. 2018. Glottolog classification. Glottolog (2021) does not consider the older geographic classification by Guthrie relevant for its ongoing classification based on more recent linguistic studies, and divides Bantu into four main branches: Bantu A-B10-B20-B30, Central-Western Bantu, East Bantu and Mbam-Bube-Jarawan. Language structure. Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-Bantu.
The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes (see Sotho grammar and Ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes). Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with the noun. Plurality is indicated by a change of class, with a resulting change of prefix. All Bantu languages are agglutinative. The verb has a number of prefixes, though in the western languages these are often treated as independent words. In Swahili, for example, "Kitoto kidogo kimekisoma" (for comparison, "Kamwana kadoko karikuverenga" in Shona language) means 'The small child has read it [a book]'. "kitoto" 'child' governs the adjective prefix "ki-" (representing the diminutive form of the word) and the verb subject prefix "a-". Then comes perfect tense "-me-" and an object marker "-ki-" agreeing with implicit "kitabu" 'book' (from Arabic "kitab"). Pluralizing to 'children' gives "Vitoto vidogo vimekisoma" ("Vana vadoko varikuverenga" in Shona), and pluralizing to 'books' ("vitabu") gives "vitoto vidogo vimevisoma".
Bantu words are typically made up of open syllables of the type CV (consonant-vowel) with most languages having syllables exclusively of this type. The Bushong language recorded by Vansina, however, has final consonants, while slurring of the final syllable (though written) is reported as common among the Tonga of Malawi. The morphological shape of Bantu words is typically CV, VCV, CVCV, VCVCV, etc.; that is, any combination of CV (with possibly a V- syllable at the start). In other words, a strong claim for this language family is that almost all words end in a vowel, precisely because closed syllables (CVC) are not permissible in most of the documented languages, as far as is understood. This tendency to avoid consonant clusters in some positions is important when words are imported from English or other non-Bantu languages. An example from Chewa: the word "school", borrowed from English, and then transformed to fit the sound patterns of this language, is "sukulu". That is, "sk-" has been broken up by inserting an epenthetic "-u-"; "-u" has also been added at the end of the word. Another example is "buledi" for "bread". Similar effects are seen in loanwords for other non-African CV languages like Japanese. However, a clustering of sounds at the beginning of a syllable can be readily observed in such languages as Shona, and the Makua languages.
With few exceptions, such as Kiswahili and Rutooro, Bantu languages are tonal and have two to four register tones. Reduplication. Reduplication is a common morphological phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to indicate frequency or intensity of the action signalled by the (unreduplicated) verb stem. Well-known words and names that have reduplication include: Repetition emphasizes the repeated word in the context that it is used. For instance, "Mwenda pole hajikwai," means "He who goes slowly doesn't trip," while, "Pole pole ndio mwendo," means "A slow but steady pace wins the race." The latter repeats "pole" to emphasize the consistency of slowness of the pace. As another example, "Haraka haraka" would mean "hurrying just for the sake of hurrying" (reckless hurry), as in "Njoo! Haraka haraka" [come here! Hurry, hurry]. In contrast, there are some words in some of the languages in which reduplication has the opposite meaning. It usually denotes short durations, or lower intensity of the action, and also means a few repetitions or a little bit more.
Noun class. The following is a list of nominal classes in Bantu languages: Syntax. Virtually all Bantu languages have a subject–verb–object word order, with some exceptions, such as the Nen language, which has a subject–object–verb word order. By country. Following is an incomplete list of the principal Bantu languages of each country. Included are those languages that constitute at least 1% of the population and have at least 10% the number of speakers of the largest Bantu language in the country. Most languages are referred to in English without the class prefix ("Swahili", "Tswana", "Ndebele"), but are sometimes seen with the (language-specific) prefix ("Kiswahili", "Setswana", "Sindebele"). In a few cases prefixes are used to distinguish languages with the same root in their name, such as Tshiluba and Kiluba (both "Luba"), Umbundu and Kimbundu (both "Mbundu"). The prefixless form typically does not occur in the language itself, but is the basis for other words based on the ethnicity. So, in the country of Botswana the people are the "Batswana", one person is a "Motswana", and the language is "Setswana"; and in Uganda, centred on the kingdom of "Buganda", the dominant ethnicity are the "Baganda" (singular "Muganda"), whose language is "Luganda".
South Africa. According to the South African National Census of 2011: Geographic areas. Map 1 shows Bantu languages in Africa and map 2 a magnification of the Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon area, as of July 2017. Bantu words popularised in western cultures. A case has been made out for borrowings of many place-names and even misremembered rhymes – chiefly from one of the Luba varieties – in the USA. Some words from various Bantu languages have been borrowed into western languages. These include: Writing systems. Along with the Latin script and Arabic script orthographies, there are also some modern indigenous writing systems used for Bantu languages:
Bearing Bearing(s) may refer to:
CIM-10 Bomarc The Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc ("Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center") (IM-99 Weapon System prior to September 1962) was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) used during the Cold War for the air defense of North America. In addition to being the first operational long-range SAM and the first operational pulse doppler aviation radar, it was the only SAM deployed by the United States Air Force. Stored horizontally in a launcher shelter with a movable roof, the missile was erected, fired vertically using rocket boosters to high altitude, and then tipped over into a horizontal Mach 2.5 cruise powered by ramjet engines. This lofted trajectory allowed the missile to operate at a maximum range as great as . Controlled from the ground for most of its flight, when it reached the target area it was commanded to begin a dive, activating an onboard active radar homing seeker for terminal guidance. A radar proximity fuse detonated the warhead, either a large conventional explosive or the W40 nuclear warhead.
The Air Force originally planned for a total of 52 sites covering most of the major cities and industrial regions in the US. The United States Army was deploying their own systems at the same time, and the two services fought constantly both in political circles and in the press. Development dragged on, and by the time it was ready for deployment in the late 1950s, the nuclear threat had moved from manned bombers to the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). By this time the Army had successfully deployed the much shorter range Nike Hercules that they claimed filled any possible need through the 1960s, in spite of Air Force claims to the contrary. As testing continued, the Air Force reduced its plans to sixteen sites, and then again to eight with an additional two sites in Canada. The first US site was declared operational in 1959, but with only a single working missile. Bringing the rest of the missiles into service took years, by which time the system was obsolete. Deactivations began in 1969 and by 1972 all Bomarc sites had been shut down. A small number were used as target drones, and only a few remain on display today.
Design and development. Initial studies. During World War II, the US Army Air Force (USAAF) concluded that existing anti-aircraft guns, only marginally effective against existing generations of propeller-driven aircraft, would not be effective at all against the emerging jet-powered designs. Like the Germans and British before them, they concluded the only successful defence would be to use guided weapons. As early as 1944 the United States Army started exploring anti-aircraft missiles, examining a variety of concepts. At the time, two basic concepts appeared possible; one would use a short-range rocket that flew directly at the target from below following a course close to the line-of-sight, and the other would fly up to the target's altitude and then tip over and fly horizontally towards the target like a fighter aircraft. As both concepts seemed promising, the Army Air Force was given the task of developing the airplane-like design, while the Army Ordnance Department was given the more ballistic collision-course concept. Official requirements were published in 1945.
Official requirements were published in 1945; Bell Laboratories won the Ordnance contract for a short-range line-of-sight weapon under Project Nike, while a team of players led by Boeing won the contract for a long-range design known as Ground-to-Air Pilotless Aircraft, or GAPA. GAPA moved to the United States Air Force when that branch was formed in 1947. In 1946, the USAAF also started two early research projects into anti-missile systems in Project Thumper (MX-795) and Project Wizard (MX-794). Bomarc A. Formally organized in 1946 under USAAF project MX-606, by 1950 Boeing had launched more than 100 test rockets in various configurations, all under the designator XSAM-A-1 GAPA. The tests were very promising, and Boeing received a USAF contract in 1949 to develop a production design under project MX-1599. The MX-1599 missile was to be a ramjet-powered, nuclear-armed long-range surface-to-air missile to defend the Continental United States from high-flying bombers. The Michigan Aerospace Research Center (MARC) was added to the project soon afterward, and this gave the new missile its name Bomarc (for Boeing and MARC). In 1951, the USAF decided to emphasize its point of view that missiles were nothing else than pilotless aircraft by assigning aircraft designators to its missile projects, and anti-aircraft missiles received F-for-Fighter designations. The Bomarc became the F-99.
By this time, the Army's Nike project was progressing well and would enter operational service in 1953. This led the Air Force to begin a lengthy series of attacks on the Army in the press, a common occurrence at the time known as "policy by press release". When the Army released its first official information on Ajax to the press, the Air Force responded by leaking information on BOMARC to Aviation Week, and continued to denigrate Nike in the press over the next few years, in one case showing a graphic of Washington being destroyed by nuclear bombs that Ajax failed to stop. Tests of the XF-99 test vehicles began in September 1952 and continued through early 1955. The XF-99 tested only the liquid-fueled booster rocket, which would accelerate the missile to ramjet ignition speed. In February 1955, tests of the XF-99A propulsion test vehicles began. These included live ramjets, but still had no guidance system or warhead. The designation YF-99A had been reserved for the operational test vehicles. In August 1955, the USAF discontinued the use of aircraft-like type designators for missiles, and the XF-99A and YF-99A became XIM-99A and YIM-99A, respectively. Originally the USAF had allocated the designation IM-69, but this was changed (possibly at Boeing's request to keep number 99) to IM-99 in October 1955.
By this time, Ajax was widely deployed around the United States and some overseas locations, and the Army was beginning to develop its much more powerful successor, Nike Hercules. Hercules was an existential threat to BOMARC, as its much greater range and nuclear warhead filled many of the roles that BOMARC was designed for. A new round of fighting in the press broke out, capped by an article in "The New York Times" entitled "Air Force Calls Army Nike Unfit To Guard Nation". In October 1957, the first YIM-99A production-representative prototype flew with full guidance, and succeeded to pass the target within destructive range. In late 1957, Boeing received the production contract for the IM-99A Bomarc A, and in September 1959, the first IM-99A squadron became operational. The IM-99A had an operational radius of and was designed to fly at Mach 2.5–2.8 at a cruising altitude of . It was long and weighed . Its armament was either a conventional warhead or a W40 nuclear warhead (7–10 kiloton yield). A liquid-fuel rocket engine boosted the Bomarc to Mach 2, when its Marquardt RJ43-MA-3 ramjet engines, fueled by 80-octane gasoline, would take over for the remainder of the flight. This was the same model of engine used to power the Lockheed X-7, the Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher drone used to test air defenses, and the Lockheed D-21 launched from the back of an M-21, although the Bomarc and Kingfisher engines used different materials due to the longer duration of their flights.
Operational units. The operational IM-99A missiles were based horizontally in semi-hardened shelters, nicknamed "coffins". After the launch order, the shelter's roof would slide open, and the missile raised to the vertical. After the missile was supplied with fuel for the booster rocket, it would be launched by the Aerojet General LR59-AJ-13 booster. After sufficient speed was reached, the Marquardt RJ43-MA-3 ramjets would ignite and propel the missile to its cruise speed of Mach 2.8 at an altitude of . When the Bomarc was within of the target, its own Westinghouse AN/DPN-34 radar guided the missile to the interception point. The maximum range of the IM-99A was , and it was fitted with either a conventional high-explosive or a 10 kiloton W-40 nuclear fission warhead. The Bomarc relied on the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), an automated control system used by NORAD for detecting, tracking and intercepting enemy bomber aircraft. SAGE allowed for remote launching of the Bomarc missiles, which were housed in a constant combat-ready basis in individual launch shelters in remote areas. At the height of the program, there were 14 Bomarc sites located in the US and two in Canada.
Bomarc B. The liquid-fuel booster of the Bomarc A had several drawbacks. It took two minutes to fuel before launch, which could be a long time in high-speed intercepts, and its hypergolic propellants (hydrazine and nitric acid) were very dangerous to handle, leading to several serious accidents. As soon as high-thrust solid-fuel rockets became a reality in the mid-1950s, the USAF began to develop a new solid-fueled Bomarc variant, the IM-99B Bomarc B. It used a Thiokol XM51 booster, and also had improved Marquardt RJ43-MA-7 (and finally the RJ43-MA-11) ramjets. The first IM-99B was launched in May 1959, but problems with the new propulsion system delayed the first fully successful flight until July 1960, when a supersonic MQM-15A Regulus II drone was intercepted. Because the new booster required less space in the missile, more ramjet fuel could be carried, thus increasing the range to . The terminal homing system was also improved, using the world's first pulse Doppler search radar, the Westinghouse AN/DPN-53. All Bomarc Bs were equipped with the W-40 nuclear warhead. In June 1961, the first IM-99B squadron became operational, and Bomarc B quickly replaced most Bomarc A missiles. On 23 March 1961, a Bomarc B successfully intercepted a Regulus II cruise missile flying at , thus achieving the highest interception in the world up to that date.
Boeing built 570 Bomarc missiles between 1957 and 1964, 269 CIM-10A, 301 CIM-10B. In September 1958 Air Research & Development Command decided to transfer the Bomarc program from its testing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to a new facility on Santa Rosa Island, south of Eglin AFB Hurlburt Field on the Gulf of Mexico. To operate the facility and to provide training and operational evaluation in the missile program, Air Defense Command established the 4751st Air Defense Wing (Missile) (4751st ADW) on 15 January 1958. The first launch from Santa Rosa took place on 15 January 1959. Operational history. In 1955, to support a program which called for 40 squadrons of BOMARC (120 missiles to a squadron for a total of 4,800 missiles), ADC reached a decision on the location of these 40 squadrons and suggested operational dates for each. The sequence was as follows: ... l. McGuire 1/60 2. Suffolk 2/60 3. Otis 3/60 4. Dow 4/60 5. Niagara Falls 1/61 6. Plattsburgh 1/61 7. Kinross 2/61 8. K.I. Sawyer 2/61 9. Langley 2/61 10. Truax 3/61 11. Paine 3/61 12. Portland 3/61 ... At the end of 1958, ADC plans called for construction of the following BOMARC bases in the following order: l. McGuire 2. Suffolk 3. Otis 4. Dow 5. Langley 6. Truax 7. Kinross 8. Duluth 9. Ethan Allen 10. Niagara Falls 11. Paine 12. Adair 13. Travis 14. Vandenberg 15. San Diego 16. Malmstrom 17. Grand Forks 18. Minot 19. Youngstown 20. Seymour-Johnson 21. Bunker Hill 22. Sioux Falls 23. Charleston 24. McConnell 25. Holloman 26. McCoy 27. Amarillo 28. Barksdale 29. Williams.
United States. The first USAF operational Bomarc squadron was the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron (ADMS), organized on 1 January 1959 and activated on 25 March. The 46th ADMS was assigned to the New York Air Defense Sector at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. The training program, under the 4751st Air Defense Wing used technicians acting as instructors and was established for a four-month duration. Training included missile maintenance; SAGE operations and launch procedures, including the launch of an unarmed missile at Eglin. In September 1959 the squadron assembled at their permanent station, the Bomarc site near McGuire AFB, and trained for operational readiness. The first Bomarc-A were used at McGuire on 19 September 1959 with Kincheloe AFB getting the first operational IM-99Bs. While several of the squadrons replicated earlier fighter interceptor unit numbers, they were all new organizations with no previous historical counterpart. ADC's initial plans called for some 52 Bomarc sites around the United States with 120 missiles each but as defense budgets decreased during the 1950s the number of sites dropped substantially. Ongoing development and reliability problems didn't help, nor did Congressional debate over the missile's usefulness and necessity. In June 1959, the Air Force authorized 16 Bomarc sites with 56 missiles each; the initial five would get the IM-99A with the remainder getting the IM-99B. However, in March 1960, HQ USAF cut deployment to eight sites in the United States and two in Canada.
Bomarc incident. Within a year of operations, a Bomarc A with a nuclear warhead caught fire at McGuire AFB on 7 June 1960 after its on-board helium tank exploded. While the missile's explosives did not detonate, the heat melted the warhead and released plutonium, which the fire crews spread. The Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission cleaned up the site and covered it with concrete. This was the only major incident involving the weapon system. The site remained in operation for several years following the fire. Since its closure in 1972, the area has remained off limits, primarily due to low levels of plutonium contamination. Between 2002 and 2004, 21,998 cubic yards of contaminated debris and soils were shipped to what was then known as Envirocare, located in Utah. Modification and deactivation. In 1962, the US Air Force started using modified A-models as drones; following the October 1962 tri-service redesignation of aircraft and weapons systems they became CQM-10As. Otherwise the air defense missile squadrons maintained alert while making regular trips to Santa Rosa Island for training and firing practice. After the inactivation of the 4751st ADW(M) on 1 July 1962 and transfer of Hurlburt to Tactical Air Command for air commando operations the 4751st Air Defense Squadron (Missile) remained at Hurlburt and Santa Rosa Island for training purposes.
In 1964, the liquid-fueled Bomarc-A sites and squadrons began to be deactivated. The sites at Dow and Suffolk County closed first. The remainder continued to be operational for several more years while the government started dismantling the air defense missile network. Niagara Falls was the first BOMARC B installation to close, in December 1969; the others remained on alert through 1972. In April 1972, the last Bomarc B in U.S. Air Force service was retired at McGuire and the 46th ADMS inactivated and the base was deactivated. In the era of the intercontinental ballistic missiles the Bomarc, designed to intercept relatively slow manned bombers, had become a useless asset. The remaining Bomarc missiles were used by all armed services as high-speed target drones for tests of other air-defense missiles. The Bomarc A and Bomarc B targets were designated as CQM-10A and CQM-10B, respectively. Following the accident, the McGuire complex has never been sold or converted to other uses and remains in Air Force ownership, making it the most intact site of the eight in the US. It has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Sites.
Canada. The Bomarc Missile Program was highly controversial in Canada. The Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker initially agreed to deploy the missiles, and shortly thereafter controversially scrapped the Avro Arrow, a supersonic manned interceptor aircraft, arguing that the missile program made the Arrow unnecessary. Initially, it was unclear whether the missiles would be equipped with nuclear warheads. By 1960 it became known that the missiles were to have a nuclear payload, and a debate ensued about whether Canada should accept nuclear weapons. Ultimately, the Diefenbaker government decided that the Bomarcs should not be equipped with nuclear warheads. The dispute split the Diefenbaker Cabinet, and led to the collapse of the government in 1963. The Official Opposition and Liberal Party leader Lester B. Pearson originally was against nuclear missiles, but reversed his personal position and argued in favour of accepting nuclear warheads. He won the 1963 election, largely on the basis of this issue, and his new Liberal government proceeded to accept nuclear-armed Bomarcs, with the first being deployed on 31 December 1963. When the nuclear warheads were deployed, Pearson's wife, Maryon, resigned her honorary membership in the anti-nuclear weapons group, Voice of Women.
Canadian operational deployment of the Bomarc involved the formation of two specialized Surface/Air Missile squadrons. The first to begin operations was No. 446 SAM Squadron at RCAF Station North Bay, which was the command and control center for both squadrons. With construction of the compound and related facilities completed in 1961, the squadron received its Bomarcs in 1961, without nuclear warheads. The squadron became fully operational from 31 December 1963, when the nuclear warheads arrived, until disbanding on 31 March 1972. All the warheads were stored separately and under control of Detachment 1 of the USAF 425th Munitions Maintenance Squadron at Stewart Air Force Base. During operational service, the Bomarcs were maintained on stand-by, on a 24-hour basis, but were never fired, although the squadron test-fired the missiles at Eglin AFB, Florida on annual winter retreats. No. 447 SAM Squadron operating out of RCAF Station La Macaza, Quebec, was activated on 15 September 1962 although warheads were not delivered until late 1963. The squadron followed the same operational procedures as No. 446, its sister squadron. With the passage of time the operational capability of the 1950s-era Bomarc system no longer met modern requirements; the Department of National Defence deemed that the Bomarc missile defense was no longer a viable system, and ordered both squadrons to be stood down in 1972. The bunkers and ancillary facilities remain at both former sites.
Operators. Locations under construction but not activated. Each site was programmed for 28 IM-99B missiles: Surviving missiles. Although a number of IM-99/CIM-10 Bomarcs have been placed on public display, because of concerns about the possible environmental hazards of the thoriated magnesium structure of the airframe several have been removed from public view. Russ Sneddon, director of the Air Force Armament Museum, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida provided information about missing CIM-10 exhibit airframe serial 59–2016, one of the museum's original artifacts from its founding in 1975 and donated by the 4751st Air Defense Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Eglin Auxiliary Field 9, Eglin AFB. As of December 2006, the suspect missile was stored in a secure compound behind the Armaments Museum. In December 2010, the airframe was still on premises, but partly dismantled. Below is a list of museums or sites which have a Bomarc missile on display or in storage: Impact on popular music. The Bomarc missile captured the imagination of the American and Canadian popular music industry, giving rise to a pop music group, the Bomarcs (composed mainly of servicemen stationed on a Florida radar site that tracked Bomarcs), a record label, Bomarc Records, and a moderately successful Canadian pop group, The Beau Marks.
Branco River The Branco River (; Engl: "White River") is the principal affluent of the Rio Negro from the north. Basin. The river drains the Guayanan Highlands moist forests ecoregion. It is enriched by many streams from the Tepui highlands which separate Venezuela and Guyana from Brazil. Its two upper main tributaries are the Uraricoera and the Takutu. The latter almost links its sources with those of the Essequibo; during floods headwaters of the Branco and those of the Essequibo are connected, allowing a level of exchange in the aquatic fauna (such as fish) between the two systems. The Branco flows nearly south, and finds its way into the Negro through several channels and a chain of lagoons similar to those of the latter river. It is long, up to its Uraricoera confluence. It has numerous islands, and, above its mouth, it is broken by a bad series of rapids. Discharge. Average, minimum and maximum discharge of the Branco River at near mouth. Period from 1998 to 2022. Water chemistry. As suggested by its name, the Branco (literally "white" in Portuguese) has whitish water that may appear almost milky due to the inorganic sediments it carries. It is traditionally considered a whitewater river, although the major seasonal fluctuations in its physico-chemical characteristics makes a classification difficult and some consider it clearwater. Especially the river's upper parts at the headwaters are clear and flow through rocky country, leading to the suggestion that sediments mainly originate from the lower parts. Furthermore, its chemistry and color may contradict each other compared to the traditional Amazonian river classifications. The Branco River has pH 6–7 and low levels of dissolved organic carbon.
Alfred Russel Wallace mentioned the coloration in "On the Rio Negro", a paper read at the 13 June 1853 meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, in which he said: "[The Rio Branco] is white to a remarkable degree, its waters being actually milky in appearance". Alexander von Humboldt attributed the color to the presence of silicates in the water, principally mica and talc. There is a visible contrast with the waters of the Rio Negro at the confluence of the two rivers. The Rio Negro is a blackwater river with dark tea-colored acidic water (pH 3.5–4.5) that contains high levels of dissolved organic carbon. River capture. Until approximately 20,000 years ago the headwaters of the Branco River flowed not into the Amazon, but via the Takutu Graben in the Rupununi area of Guyana towards the Caribbean. Currently in the rainy season much of the Rupununi area floods, with water draining both to the Amazon (via the Branco River) and the Essequibo River.
Bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for charter purposes, or through private ownership. Although the average bus carries between 30 and 100 passengers, some buses have a capacity of up to 300 passengers. The most common type is the single-deck rigid bus, with double-decker and articulated buses carrying larger loads, and midibuses and minibuses carrying smaller loads. Coaches are used for longer-distance services. Many types of buses, such as city transit buses and inter-city coaches, charge a fare. Other types, such as elementary or secondary school buses or shuttle buses within a post-secondary education campus, are free. In many jurisdictions, bus drivers require a special large vehicle licence above and beyond a regular driving license. Buses may be used for scheduled bus transport, scheduled coach transport, school transport, private hire, or tourism; promotional buses may be used for political campaigns and others are privately operated for a wide range of purposes, including rock and pop band tour vehicles.
Horse-drawn buses were used from the 1820s, followed by steam buses in the 1830s, and electric trolleybuses in 1882. The first internal combustion engine buses, or motor buses, were used in 1895. Recently, interest has been growing in hybrid electric buses, fuel cell buses, and electric buses, as well as buses powered by compressed natural gas or biodiesel. As of the 2010s, bus manufacturing is increasingly globalised, with the same designs appearing around the world. Name. The word "bus" is a shortened form of the Latin adjectival form ("for all"), the dative plural of ("all"). The theoretical full name is in French ("vehicle for all"). The name originates from a mass-transport service started in 1823 by a French corn-mill owner named in Richebourg, a suburb of Nantes. A by-product of his mill was hot water, and thus next to it he established a spa business. In order to encourage customers he started a horse-drawn transport service from the city centre of Nantes to his establishment. The first vehicles stopped in front of the shop of a hatter named Omnés, which displayed a large sign inscribed "Omnes Omnibus", a pun on his Latin-sounding surname, being the male and female nominative, vocative and accusative form of the Latin adjective ("all"), combined with "omnibus", the dative plural form meaning "for all", thus giving his shop the name "Omnés for all", or "everything for everyone".
His transport scheme was a huge success, although not as he had intended as most of his passengers did not visit his spa. He turned the transport service into his principal lucrative business venture and closed the mill and spa. Nantes citizens soon gave the nickname "omnibus" to the vehicle. Having invented the successful concept Baudry moved to Paris and launched the first omnibus service there in April 1828. A similar service was introduced in Manchester in 1824 and in London in 1829. History. Steam buses. Regular intercity bus services by steam-powered buses were pioneered in England in the 1830s by Walter Hancock and by associates of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, among others, running reliable services over road conditions which were too hazardous for horse-drawn transportation. The first mechanically propelled omnibus appeared on the streets of London on 22 April 1833. Steam carriages were much less likely to overturn, they travelled faster than horse-drawn carriages, they were much cheaper to run, and caused much less damage to the road surface due to their wide tyres.
However, the heavy road tolls imposed by the turnpike trusts discouraged steam road vehicles and left the way clear for the horse bus companies, and from 1861 onwards, harsh legislation virtually eliminated mechanically propelled vehicles from the roads of Great Britain for 30 years, the Locomotive Act 1861 imposing restrictive speed limits on "road locomotives" of in towns and cities, and in the country. Trolleybuses. In parallel to the development of the bus was the invention of the electric trolleybus, typically fed through trolley poles by overhead wires. The Siemens brothers, William in England and Ernst Werner in Germany, collaborated on the development of the trolleybus concept. Sir William first proposed the idea in an article to the "Journal of the Society of Arts" in 1881 as an "...arrangement by which an ordinary omnibus...would have a suspender thrown at intervals from one side of the street to the other, and two wires hanging from these suspenders; allowing contact rollers to run on these two wires, the current could be conveyed to the tram-car, and back again to the dynamo machine at the station, without the necessity of running upon rails at all."
The first such vehicle, the Electromote, was made by his brother Ernst Werner von Siemens and presented to the public in 1882 in Halensee, Germany. Although this experimental vehicle fulfilled all the technical criteria of a typical trolleybus, it was dismantled in the same year after the demonstration. Max Schiemann opened a passenger-carrying trolleybus in 1901 near Dresden, in Germany. Although this system operated only until 1904, Schiemann had developed what is now the standard trolleybus current collection system. In the early days, a few other methods of current collection were used. Leeds and Bradford became the first cities to put trolleybuses into service in Great Britain on 20 June 1911. Motor buses. In Siegerland, Germany, two passenger bus lines ran briefly, but unprofitably, in 1895 using a six-passenger motor carriage developed from the 1893 Benz Viktoria. Another commercial bus line using the same model Benz omnibuses ran for a short time in 1898 in the rural area around Llandudno, Wales. Germany's Daimler Motors Corporation also produced one of the earliest motor-bus models in 1898, selling a double-decker bus to the Motor Traction Company which was first used on the streets of London on 23 April 1898. The vehicle had a maximum speed of and accommodated up to 20 passengers, in an enclosed area below and on an open-air platform above. With the success and popularity of this bus, DMG expanded production, selling more buses to companies in London and, in 1899, to Stockholm and Speyer. Daimler Motors Corporation also entered into a partnership with the British company Milnes and developed a new double-decker in 1902 that became the market standard.
The first mass-produced bus model was the B-type double-decker bus, designed by Frank Searle and operated by the London General Omnibus Company—it entered service in 1910, and almost 3,000 had been built by the end of the decade. Hundreds of them saw military service on the Western Front during the First World War. The Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company, which rapidly became a major manufacturer of buses in the US, was founded in Chicago in 1923 by John D. Hertz. General Motors purchased a majority stake in 1925 and changed its name to the Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company. GM purchased the balance of the shares in 1943 to form the GM Truck and Coach Division. Models expanded in the 20th century, leading to the widespread introduction of the contemporary recognizable form of full-sized buses from the 1950s. The AEC Routemaster, developed in the 1950s, was a pioneering design and remains an icon of London to this day. The innovative design used lightweight aluminium and techniques developed in aircraft production during World War II. As well as a novel weight-saving integral design, it also introduced for the first time on a bus independent front suspension, power steering, a fully automatic gearbox, and power-hydraulic braking.
Types. Formats include single-decker bus, double-decker bus (both usually with a rigid chassis) and articulated bus (or 'bendy-bus') the prevalence of which varies from country to country. High-capacity bi-articulated buses are also manufactured, and passenger-carrying trailers—either towed behind a rigid bus (a bus trailer) or hauled as a trailer by a truck (a trailer bus). Smaller midibuses have a lower capacity and open-top buses are typically used for leisure purposes. In many new fleets, particularly in local transit systems, a shift to low-floor buses is occurring, primarily for easier accessibility. Coaches are designed for longer-distance travel and are typically fitted with individual high-backed reclining seats, seat belts, toilets, and audio-visual entertainment systems, and can operate at higher speeds with more capacity for luggage. Coaches may be single- or double-deckers, articulated, and often include a separate luggage compartment under the passenger floor. Guided buses are fitted with technology to allow them to run in designated guideways, allowing the controlled alignment at bus stops and less space taken up by guided lanes than conventional roads or bus lanes.
Bus manufacturing may be by a single company (an integral manufacturer), or by one manufacturer's building a bus body over a chassis produced by another manufacturer. Design. Accessibility. Transit buses used to be mainly high-floor vehicles. However, they are now increasingly of low-floor design and optionally also 'kneel' air suspension and have ramps to provide access for wheelchair users and people with baby carriages, sometimes as electrically or hydraulically extended under-floor constructs for level access. Prior to more general use of such technology, these wheelchair users could only use specialist para-transit mobility buses. Accessible vehicles also have wider entrances and interior gangways and space for wheelchairs. Interior fittings and destination displays may also be designed to be usable by the visually impaired. Coaches generally use wheelchair lifts instead of low-floor designs. In some countries, vehicles are required to have these features by disability discrimination laws. Configuration.
Buses were initially configured with an engine in the front and an entrance at the rear. With the transition to one-man operation, many manufacturers moved to mid- or rear-engined designs, with a single door at the front or multiple doors. The move to the low-floor design has all but eliminated the mid-engined design, although some coaches still have mid-mounted engines. Front-engined buses still persist for niche markets such as American school buses, some minibuses, and buses in less developed countries, which may be derived from truck chassis, rather than purpose-built bus designs. Most buses have two axles, while articulated buses have three. Guidance. Guided buses are fitted with technology to allow them to run in designated guideways, allowing the controlled alignment at bus stops and less space taken up by guided lanes than conventional roads or bus lanes. Guidance can be mechanical, optical, or electromagnetic. Extensions of the guided technology include the Guided Light Transit and Translohr systems, although these are more often termed 'rubber-tyred trams' as they have limited or no mobility away from their guideways.
Liveries. Transit buses are normally painted to identify the operator or a route, function, or to demarcate low-cost or premium service buses. Liveries may be painted onto the vehicle, applied using adhesive vinyl technologies, or using decals. Vehicles often also carry bus advertising or part or all of their visible surfaces (as mobile billboard). Campaign buses may be decorated with key campaign messages; these can be to promote an event or initiative. Propulsion. The most common power source since the 1920s has been the diesel engine. Early buses, known as trolleybuses, were powered by electricity supplied from overhead lines. Nowadays, electric buses often carry their own battery, which is sometimes recharged on stops/stations to keep the size of the battery small/lightweight. Currently, interest exists in hybrid electric buses, fuel cell buses, electric buses, and ones powered by compressed natural gas or biodiesel. Gyrobuses, which are powered by the momentum stored by a flywheel, were tried in the 1940s.
Dimensions. United Kingdom and European Union: United States, Canada and Mexico: Manufacture. Early bus manufacturing grew out of carriage coach building, and later out of automobile or truck manufacturers. Early buses were merely a bus body fitted to a truck chassis. This body+chassis approach has continued with modern specialist manufacturers, although there also exist integral designs such as the Leyland National where the two are practically inseparable. Specialist builders also exist and concentrate on building buses for special uses or modifying standard buses into specialised products. Integral designs have the advantages that they have been well-tested for strength and stability, and also are off-the-shelf. However, two incentives cause use of the chassis+body model. First, it allows the buyer and manufacturer both to shop for the best deal for their needs, rather than having to settle on one fixed design—the buyer can choose the body and the chassis separately. Second, over the lifetime of a vehicle (in constant service and heavy traffic), it will likely get minor damage now and again, and being able easily to replace a body panel or window etc. can vastly increase its service life and save the cost and inconvenience of removing it from service.
As with the rest of the automotive industry, into the 20th century, bus manufacturing increasingly became globalized, with manufacturers producing buses far from their intended market to exploit labour and material cost advantages. A typical city bus costs almost US$450,000. Uses. Public transport. Transit buses, used on public transport bus services, have utilitarian fittings designed for efficient movement of large numbers of people, and often have multiple doors. Coaches are used for longer-distance routes. High-capacity bus rapid transit services may use the bi-articulated bus or tram-style buses such as the Wright StreetCar and the Irisbus Civis. Buses and coach services often operate to a predetermined published public transport timetable defining the route and the timing, but smaller vehicles may be used on more flexible demand responsive transport services. Tourism. Buses play a major part in the tourism industry. Tour buses around the world allow tourists to view local attractions or scenery. These are often open-top buses, but can also be regular buses or coaches.
In local sightseeing, City Sightseeing is the largest operator of local tour buses, operating on a franchised basis all over the world. Specialist tour buses are also often owned and operated by safari parks and other theme parks or resorts. Longer-distance tours are also carried out by bus, either on a turn up and go basis or through a tour operator, and usually allow disembarkation from the bus to allow touring of sites of interest on foot. These may be day trips or longer excursions incorporating hotel stays. Tour buses often carry a tour guide, although the driver or a recorded audio commentary may also perform this function. The tour operator may be a subsidiary of a company that operates buses and coaches for other uses or an independent company that charters buses or coaches. Commuter transport operators may also use their coaches to conduct tours within the target city between the morning and evening commuter transport journey. Buses and coaches are also a common component of the wider package holiday industry, providing private airport transfers (in addition to general airport buses) and organised tours and day trips for holidaymakers on the package.
Tour buses can also be hired as chartered buses by groups for sightseeing at popular holiday destinations. These private tour buses may offer specific stops, such as all the historical sights, or allow the customers to choose their own itineraries. Tour buses come with professional and informed staff and insurance, and maintain state governed safety standards. Some provide other facilities like entertainment units, luxurious reclining seats, large scenic windows, and even lavatories. Public long-distance coach networks are also often used as a low-cost method of travel by students or young people travelling the world. Some companies such as Topdeck Travel were set up specifically to use buses to drive the hippie trail or travel to places such as North Africa. In many tourist or travel destinations, a bus is part of the tourist attraction, such as the North American tourist trolleys, London's AEC Routemaster heritage routes, or the customised buses of Malta, Asia, and the Americas. Another example of tourist stops is the homes of celebrities, such as tours based near Hollywood. There are several such services between 6000 and 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Student transport. In some countries, particularly the US and Canada, buses used to transport schoolchildren have evolved into a specific design with specified mandatory features. American states have also adopted laws regarding motorist conduct around school buses, including large fines and possibly prison for passing a stopped school bus in the process of loading or offloading children passengers. These school buses may have school bus yellow livery and crossing guards. Other countries may mandate the use of seat belts. As a minimum, many countries require a bus carrying students to display a , and may also adopt yellow liveries. Student transport often uses older buses cascaded from service use, retrofitted with more seats or seatbelts. Student transport may be operated by local authorities or private contractors. Schools may also own and operate their own buses for other transport needs, such as class field trips or transport to associated sports, music, or other school events. Private charter. Due to the costs involved in owning, operating, and driving buses and coaches, much bus and coach use comes from the private hire of vehicles from charter bus companies, either for a day or two or on a longer contract basis, where the charter company provides the vehicles and qualified drivers.
Charter bus operators may be completely independent businesses, or charter hire may be a subsidiary business of a public transport operator that might maintain a separate fleet or use surplus buses, coaches, and dual-purpose coach-seated buses. Many private taxicab companies also operate larger minibus vehicles to cater for group fares. Companies, private groups, and social clubs may hire buses or coaches as a cost-effective method of transporting a group to an event or site, such as a group meeting, racing event, or organised recreational activity such as a summer camp. Schools often hire charter bus services on a regular basis for transportation of children to and from their homes. Chartered buses are also used by education institutes for transport to conventions, exhibitions, and field trips. Entertainment or event companies may also hire temporary shuttles buses for transport at events such as festivals or conferences. Party buses are used by companies in a similar manner to limousine hire, for luxury private transport to social events or as a touring experience.
Party buses are used by companies in a similar manner to limousine hire, for luxury private transport to social events or as a touring experience. Sleeper buses are used by bands or other organisations that tour between entertainment venues and require mobile rest and recreation facilities. Some couples hire preserved buses for their wedding transport, instead of the traditional car. Buses are often hired for parades or processions. Victory parades are often held for triumphant sports teams, who often tour their home town or city in an open-top bus. Sports teams may also contract out their transport to a team bus, for travel to away games, to a competition or to a final event. These buses are often specially decorated in a livery matching the team colours. Private companies often contract out private shuttle bus services, for transport of their customers or patrons, such as hotels, amusement parks, university campuses, or private airport transfer services. This shuttle usage can be as transport between locations, or to and from parking lots.
Private companies often contract out private shuttle bus services, for transport of their customers or patrons, such as hotels, amusement parks, university campuses, or private airport transfer services. This shuttle usage can be as transport between locations, or to and from parking lots. High specification luxury coaches are often chartered by companies for executive or VIP transport. Charter buses may also be used in tourism and for promotion (See Tourism and Promotion sections). Private ownership. Many organisations, including the police, not for profit, social or charitable groups with a regular need for group transport may find it practical or cost-effective to own and operate a bus for their own needs. These are often minibuses for practical, tax and driver licensing reasons, although they can also be full-size buses. Cadet or scout groups or other youth organizations may also own buses. Companies such as railroads, construction contractors, and agricultural firms may own buses to transport employees to and from remote job sites. Specific charities may exist to fund and operate bus transport, usually using specially modified mobility buses or otherwise accessible buses (See Accessibility section). Some use their contributions to buy vehicles and provide volunteer drivers.
Airport operators make use of special airside airport buses for crew and passenger transport in the secure airside parts of an airport. Some public authorities, police forces, and military forces make use of armoured buses where there is a special need to provide increased passenger protection. The United States Secret Service acquired two in 2010 for transporting dignitaries needing special protection. Police departments make use of police buses for a variety of reasons, such as prisoner transport, officer transport, temporary detention facilities, and as command and control vehicles. Some fire departments also use a converted bus as a command post while those in cold climates might retain a bus as a heated shelter at fire scenes. Many are drawn from retired school or service buses. Promotion. Buses are often used for advertising, political campaigning, , public relations, or promotional purposes. These may take the form of temporary charter hire of service buses, or the temporary or permanent conversion and operation of buses, usually of second-hand buses. Extreme examples include converting the bus with displays and decorations or awnings and fittings. Interiors may be fitted out for exhibition or information purposes with special equipment or audio visual devices.
Bus advertising takes many forms, often as interior and exterior adverts and all-over advertising liveries. The practice often extends into the exclusive private hire and use of a bus to promote a brand or product, appearing at large public events, or touring busy streets. The bus is sometimes staffed by promotions personnel, giving out free gifts. Campaign buses are often specially decorated for a political campaign or other social awareness information campaign, designed to bring a specific message to different areas, or used to transport campaign personnel to local areas/meetings. Exhibition buses are often sent to public events such as fairs and festivals for purposes such as recruitment campaigns, for example by private companies or the armed forces. Complex urban planning proposals may be organised into a mobile exhibition bus for the purposes of public consultation. Goods transport. In some sparsely populated areas, it is common to use brucks, buses with a cargo area to transport both passengers and cargo at the same time. They are especially common in the Nordic countries.
Around the world. Historically, the types and features of buses have developed according to local needs. Buses were fitted with technology appropriate to the local climate or passenger needs, such as air conditioning in Asia, or cycle mounts on North American buses. The bus types in use around the world where there was little mass production were often sourced secondhand from other countries, such as the Malta bus, and buses in use in Africa. Other countries such as Cuba required novel solutions to import restrictions, with the creation of the "camellos" (camel bus), a specially manufactured trailer bus. After the Second World War, manufacturers in Europe and the Far East, such as Mercedes-Benz buses and Mitsubishi Fuso expanded into other continents influencing the use of buses previously served by local types. Use of buses around the world has also been influenced by colonial associations or political alliances between countries. Several of the Commonwealth nations followed the British lead and sourced buses from British manufacturers, leading to a prevalence of double-decker buses. Several Eastern Bloc countries adopted trolleybus systems, and their manufacturers such as Trolza exported trolleybuses to other friendly states. In the 1930s, Italy designed the world's only triple decker bus for the busy route between Rome and Tivoli that could carry eighty-eight passengers. It was unique not only in being a triple decker but having a separate smoking compartment on the third level.
The buses to be found in countries around the world often reflect the quality of the local road network, with high-floor resilient truck-based designs prevalent in several less developed countries where buses are subject to tough operating conditions. Population density also has a major impact, where dense urbanisation such as in Japan and the far east has led to the adoption of high capacity long multi-axle buses, often double-deckers while South America and China are implementing large numbers of articulated buses for bus rapid transit schemes. Bus expositions. Euro Bus Expo is a trade show, which is held biennially at the UK's National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. As the official show of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, the UK's trade association for the bus, coach and light rail industry, the three-day event offers visitors from Europe and beyond the chance to see and experience the very latest vehicles and product and service innovations right across the industry. Busworld Kortrijk in Kortrijk, Belgium, is the leading bus trade fair in Europe. It is also held biennially.
Use of retired buses. Most public or private buses and coaches, once they have reached the end of their service with one or more operators, are sent to the wrecking yard for breaking up for scrap and spare parts. Some buses which are not economical to keep running as service buses are often converted for use other than revenue-earning transport. Much like old cars and trucks, buses often pass through a dealership where they can be bought privately or at auction. Bus operators often find it economical to convert retired buses to use as permanent training buses for driver training, rather than taking a regular service bus out of use. Some large operators have also converted retired buses into tow bus vehicles, to act as tow trucks. With the outsourcing of maintenance staff and facilities, the increase in company health and safety regulations, and the increasing curb weights of buses, many operators now contract their towing needs to a professional vehicle recovery company. Some buses that have reached the end of their service that are still in good condition are sent for export to other countries.
Some retired buses have been converted to static or mobile cafés, often using historic buses as a tourist attraction. There are also catering buses: buses converted into a mobile canteen and break room. These are commonly seen at external filming locations to feed the cast and crew, and at other large events to feed staff. Another use is as an emergency vehicle, such as high-capacity ambulance bus or mobile command centre. Some organisations adapt and operate playbuses or learning buses to provide a playground or learning environments to children who might not have access to proper play areas. An ex-London AEC Routemaster bus has been converted to a mobile theatre and catwalk fashion show. Some buses meet a destructive end by being entered in banger races or at demolition derbies. A larger number of old retired buses have also been converted into mobile holiday homes and campers. Bus preservation.
Bali Bali (; Balinese: ) is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller offshore islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan to the southeast. The provincial capital, Denpasar, is the most populous city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the second-largest, after Makassar, in Eastern Indonesia. Denpasar metropolitan area is the extended metropolitan area around Denpasar. The upland town of Ubud in Greater Denpasar is considered Bali's cultural centre. The province is Indonesia's main tourist destination, with a significant rise in tourism since the 1980s, and becoming an Indonesian area of overtourism. Tourism-related business makes up 80% of the Bali economy. Bali is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 86.9% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism. It is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. The Indonesian International Film Festival is held every year in Bali. Other international events that have been held in Bali include Miss World 2013, the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group and the 2022 G20 summit. In March 2017, TripAdvisor named Bali as the world's top destination in its Traveller's Choice award, which it also earned in January 2021.
Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, the area with the highest biodiversity of marine species, in Coral Triangle, especially fish and turtles. In this area alone, over 500 reef-building coral species can be found. For comparison, this is about seven times as many as in the entire Caribbean. Bali is the home of the Subak irrigation system, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also home to a unified confederation of kingdoms composed of 10 traditional royal Balinese houses, each house ruling a specific geographic area. The confederation is the successor of the Bali Kingdom. The royal houses, which originated before Dutch colonisation, are not recognised by the government of Indonesia. History. Ancient. Bali was inhabited around 2000 BC by Austronesian people who migrated originally from the island of Taiwan to Southeast Asia and Oceania through Maritime Southeast Asia. Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are closely related to the people of the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Oceania. Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west.
In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, the Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Vaishnava, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora and Ganapatya. Each sect revered a specific deity as its personal Godhead. Inscriptions from 896 and 911 do not mention a king, until 914, when Sri Kesarivarma is mentioned. They also reveal an independent Bali, with a distinct dialect, where Buddhism and Shaivism were practised simultaneously. Mpu Sindok's great-granddaughter, Mahendradatta (Gunapriyadharmapatni), married the Bali king Udayana Warmadewa (Dharmodayanavarmadeva) around 989, giving birth to Airlangga around 1001. This marriage also brought more Hinduism and Javanese culture to Bali. Princess Sakalendukirana appeared in 1098. Suradhipa reigned from 1115 to 1119, and Jayasakti from 1146 until 1150. Jayapangus appears on inscriptions between 1178 and 1181, while Adikuntiketana and his son Paramesvara in 1204. Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian, Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture, beginning around the 1st century AD. The name "Bali dwipa" ("Bali island") has been discovered from various inscriptions, including the Blanjong pillar inscription written by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 914 AD and mentioning Walidwipa. It was during this time that the people developed their complex irrigation system "subak" to grow rice in wet-field cultivation. Some religious and cultural traditions still practised today can be traced to this period.
The Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. The uncle of Hayam Wuruk is mentioned in the charters of 1384–86. Mass Javanese immigration to Bali occurred in the next century when the Majapahit Empire fell in 1520. Bali's government then became an independent collection of Hindu kingdoms which led to a Balinese national identity and major enhancements in culture, arts, and economy. The nation with various kingdoms became independent for up to 386 years until 1906 when the Dutch subjugated and repulsed the natives for economic control and took it over. Portuguese contacts. The first known European contact with Bali is thought to have been made in 1512, when a Portuguese expedition led by Antonio Abreu and Francisco Serrão sighted its northern shores. It was the first expedition of a series of bi-annual fleets to the Moluccas, that throughout the 16th century travelled along the coasts of the Sunda Islands. Bali was also mapped in 1512, in the chart of Francisco Rodrigues, aboard the expedition. In 1585, a ship foundered off the Bukit Peninsula and left a few Portuguese in the service of Dewa Agung.
Dutch East Indies. In 1597, the Dutch merchant-explorer Cornelis de Houtman arrived at Bali, and the Dutch East India Company was established in 1602. The Dutch government expanded its control across the Indonesian archipelago during the second half of the 19th century. Dutch political and economic control over Bali began in the 1840s on the island's north coast when the Dutch pitted various competing Balinese realms against each other. In the late 1890s, struggles between Balinese kingdoms on the island's south were exploited by the Dutch to increase their control. In June 1860, the famous Welsh naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, travelled to Bali from Singapore, landing at Buleleng on the north coast of the island. Wallace's trip to Bali was instrumental in helping him devise his Wallace Line theory. The Wallace Line is a faunal boundary that runs through the strait between Bali and Lombok. It is a boundary between species. In his travel memoir "The Malay Archipelago," Wallace wrote of his experience in Bali, which has a strong mention of the unique Balinese irrigation methods:
I was astonished and delighted; as my visit to Java was some years later, I had never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about inland, where it is bounded by a fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages, marked out by dense clumps of coconut palms, tamarind and other fruit trees, are dotted about in every direction; while between them extend luxurious rice grounds, watered by an elaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the best-cultivated parts of Europe. The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults at the Sanur region in 1906 and were met by the thousands of members of the royal family and their followers who rather than yield to the superior Dutch force committed ritual suicide ("puputan") to avoid the humiliation of surrender. Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 200 Balinese killed themselves rather than surrender. In the Dutch intervention in Bali, a similar mass suicide occurred in the face of a Dutch assault in Klungkung. Afterwards, the Dutch governours exercised administrative control over the island, but local control over religion and culture generally remained intact. Dutch rule over Bali came later and was never as well established as in other parts of Indonesia such as Java and Maluku.
In the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee all spent time here. Their accounts of the island and its peoples created a western image of Bali as "an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature". Western tourists began to visit the island. The sensuous image of Bali was enhanced in the West by a quasi-pornographic 1932 documentary "Virgins of Bali" about a day in the lives of two teenage Balinese girls whom the film's narrator Deane Dickason notes in the first scene "bathe their shamelessly nude bronze bodies". Under the looser version of the Hays code that existed up to 1934, nudity involving "civilised" (i.e. white) women was banned, but permitted with "uncivilised" (i.e. all non-white women), a loophole that was exploited by the producers of "Virgins of Bali". The film, which mostly consisted of scenes of topless Balinese women was a great success in 1932, and almost single-handedly made Bali into a popular spot for tourists.
Imperial Japan occupied Bali during World War II. It was not originally a target in their Netherlands East Indies Campaign, but as the airfields on Borneo were inoperative due to heavy rains, the Imperial Japanese Army decided to occupy Bali, which did not suffer from comparable weather. The island had no regular Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) troops. There was only a Native Auxiliary Corps "Prajoda" (Korps Prajoda) consisting of about 600 native soldiers and several Dutch KNIL officers under the command of KNIL Lieutenant Colonel W.P. Roodenburg. On 19 February 1942, the Japanese forces landed near the town of Sanoer (Sanur). The island was quickly captured. During the Japanese occupation, a Balinese military officer, I Gusti Ngurah Rai, formed a Balinese 'freedom army'. The harshness of Japanese occupation forces made them more resented than the Dutch colonial rulers. Independence from the Dutch. In 1945, Bali was liberated by the British 5th infantry Division under the command of Major-General Robert Mansergh who took the Japanese surrender. Once Japanese forces had been repatriated the island was handed over to the Dutch the following year.
In 1946, the Dutch constituted Bali as one of the 13 administrative districts of the newly proclaimed State of East Indonesia, a rival state to the Republic of Indonesia, which was proclaimed and headed by Sukarno and Hatta. Bali was included in the "Republic of the United States of Indonesia" when the Netherlands recognised Indonesian independence on 29 December 1949. The first governor of Bali, Anak Agung Bagus Suteja, was appointed by President Sukarno in 1958, when Bali became a province. Contemporary. The 1963 eruption of Mount Agung killed thousands, created economic havoc, and forced many displaced Balinese to be transmigrated to other parts of Indonesia. Mirroring the widening of social divisions across Indonesia in the 1950s and early 1960s, Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional caste system, and those rejecting this system. Politically, the opposition was represented by supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), with tensions and ill-feeling further increased by the PKI's land reform programmes. A purported coup attempt in Jakarta was averted by forces led by General Suharto.
The army became the dominant power as it instigated a violent anti-communist purge, in which the army blamed the PKI for the coup. Most estimates suggest that at least 500,000 people were killed across Indonesia, with an estimated 80,000 killed in Bali, equivalent to 5% of the island's population. With no Islamic forces involved as in Java and Sumatra, upper-caste PNI landlords led the extermination of PKI members. As a result of the 1965–66 upheavals, Suharto was able to manoeuvre Sukarno out of the presidency. His "New Order" government re-established relations with Western countries. The pre-War Bali as "paradise" was revived in a modern form. The resulting large growth in tourism has led to a dramatic increase in Balinese standards of living and significant foreign exchange earned for the country. A bombing in 2002 by militant Islamists in the tourist area of Kuta killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. This attack, and another in 2005, severely reduced tourism, producing much economic hardship on the island.
On 9 July 2008 for the first time in Bali's history the Governor of Bali election was directly elected by the people. On 27 November 2017, Mount Agung erupted five times, causing the evacuation of thousands, disrupting air travel and causing much environmental damage. Further eruptions also occurred between 2018 and 2019. On 15–16 November 2022, with the 2022 G20 Bali summit, the seventeenth meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20) was held in Nusa Dua. Geography. The island of Bali lies east of Java, and is approximately 8 degrees south of the equator. Bali and Java are separated by the Bali Strait. East to west, the island is approximately wide and spans approximately north to south; administratively it covers , or excluding offshore Nusa Penida District, which comprises three small islands off the southeast coast of Bali. Its population density was roughly in mid 2024. Bali's central mountains include several peaks over in elevation and active volcanoes such as Mount Batur. The highest is Mount Agung (), known as the "mother mountain", which is an active volcano rated as one of the world's most likely sites for a massive eruption within the next 100 years. In late 2017 Mount Agung started erupting and large numbers of people were evacuated, temporarily closing the island's airport. Mountains range from centre to the eastern side, with Mount Agung the easternmost peak. Bali's volcanic nature has contributed to its exceptional fertility and its tall mountain ranges provide the high rainfall that supports the highly productive agriculture sector. South of the mountains is a broad, steadily descending area where most of Bali's large rice crop is grown. The northern side of the mountains slopes more steeply to the sea and is the main coffee-producing area of the island, along with rice, vegetables, and cattle. The longest river, Ayung River, flows approximately (see List of rivers of Bali).
The island is surrounded by coral reefs. Beaches in the south tend to have white sand while those in the north and west have black sand. Bali has no major waterways, although the Ho River is navigable by small "sampan" boats. Black sand beaches between Pasut and Klatingdukuh are being developed for tourism, but apart from the seaside temple of Tanah Lot, they are not yet used for significant tourism. The largest city is the provincial capital, Denpasar, near the southern coast. Its population is around 755,600 (in mid 2024). Bali's second-largest city is the old colonial capital, Singaraja, which is located on the north coast and whose urban area is home to around 150,000 people in 2024. Other important cities include the beach resort, Kuta, which is practically part of Denpasar's urban area, and Ubud, situated at the north of Denpasar, is the island's cultural centre. Three small islands lie to the immediate south-east and all are administratively part of the Klungkung regency of Bali: Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan. These islands are separated from Bali by the Badung Strait.
To the east, the Lombok Strait separates Bali from Lombok and marks the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan realm and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia. The transition is known as the Wallace Line, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who first proposed a transition zone between these two major biomes. When sea levels dropped during the Pleistocene ice age, Bali was connected to Java and Sumatra and to the mainland of Asia and shared the Asian fauna, but the deep water of the Lombok Strait continued to keep Lombok Island and the Lesser Sunda archipelago isolated. Climate. Being just 8 degrees south of the equator, Bali has a fairly even climate all year round. Average year-round temperature stands at around with a humidity level of about 85%. Daytime temperatures at low elevations vary between , but the temperatures decrease significantly with increasing elevation. The west monsoon is in place from approximately October to April, and this can bring significant rain, particularly from December to March. During the rainy season, there are comparatively fewer tourists seen in Bali. During the Easter and Christmas holidays, the weather is very unpredictable. Outside of the monsoon period, humidity is relatively low and any rain is unlikely in lowland areas.
Flora and Fauna. Bali lies just to the west of the Wallace Line, and thus has a fauna that is Asian in character, with very little Australasian influence, and has more in common with Java than with Lombok. An exception is the yellow-crested cockatoo, a member of a primarily Australasian family. There are around 280 species of birds, including the critically endangered Bali myna, which is endemic. Others include barn swallow, black-naped oriole, black racket-tailed treepie, crested serpent-eagle, crested treeswift, dollarbird, Java sparrow, lesser adjutant, long-tailed shrike, milky stork, Pacific swallow, red-rumped swallow, sacred kingfisher, sea eagle, woodswallow, savanna nightjar, stork-billed kingfisher, yellow-vented bulbul and great egret. Until the early 20th century, Bali was possibly home to several large mammals: banteng, leopard and the endemic Bali tiger. The banteng still occurs in its domestic form, whereas leopards are found only in neighbouring Java, and the Bali tiger is extinct. The last definite record of a tiger on Bali dates from 1937 when one was shot, though the subspecies may have survived until the 1940s or 1950s. Pleistocene and Holocene megafaunas include banteng and giant tapir (based on speculations that they might have reached up to the Wallace Line), and rhinoceros.
Squirrels are quite commonly encountered, less often is the Asian palm civet, which is also kept in coffee farms to produce kopi luwak. Bats are well represented, perhaps the most famous place to encounter them remaining is the Goa Lawah (Temple of the Bats) where they are worshipped by the locals and also constitute a tourist attraction. They also occur in other cave temples, for instance at Gangga Beach. Two species of monkey occur. The crab-eating macaque, known locally as "kera", is quite common around human settlements and temples, where it becomes accustomed to being fed by humans, particularly in any of the three "monkey forest" temples, such as the popular one in the Ubud area. They are also quite often kept as pets by locals. The second monkey, endemic to Java and some surrounding islands such as Bali, is far rarer and more elusive and is the Javan langur, locally known as "lutung". They occur in a few places apart from the West Bali National Park. They are born an orange colour, though they would have already changed to a more blackish colouration by their first year. In Java, however, there is more of a tendency for this species to retain its juvenile orange colour into adulthood, and a mixture of black and orange monkeys can be seen together as a family. Other rarer mammals include the Sunda leopard cat, Sunda pangolin and black giant squirrel. Snakes include the king cobra and reticulated python. The water monitor can grow to at least in length and and can move quickly.
The rich coral reefs around the coast, particularly around popular diving spots such as Tulamben, Amed, Menjangan or neighbouring Nusa Penida, host a wide range of marine life, for instance hawksbill turtle, giant sunfish, giant manta ray, giant moray eel, bumphead parrotfish, hammerhead shark, reef shark, barracuda, and sea snakes. Dolphins are commonly encountered on the north coast near Singaraja and Lovina. A team of scientists surveyed from 29 April 2011, to 11 May 2011, at 33 sea sites around Bali. They discovered 952 species of reef fish of which 8 were new discoveries at Pemuteran, Gilimanuk, Nusa Dua, Tulamben and Candidasa, and 393 coral species, including two new ones at Padangbai and between Padangbai and Amed. The average coverage level of healthy coral was 36% (better than in Raja Ampat and Halmahera by 29% or in Fakfak and Kaimana by 25%) with the highest coverage found in Gili Selang and Gili Mimpang in Candidasa, Karangasem Regency. Among the larger trees the most common are: banyan trees, jackfruit, coconuts, bamboo species, acacia trees and also endless rows of coconuts and banana species. Numerous flowers can be seen: hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea, poinsettia, oleander, jasmine, water lily, lotus, roses, begonias, orchids and hydrangeas exist. On higher grounds that receive more moisture, for instance, around Kintamani, certain species of fern trees, mushrooms and even pine trees thrive well. Rice comes in many varieties. Other plants with agricultural value include: salak, mangosteen, corn, Kintamani orange, coffee and water spinach.
Environment. Over-exploitation by the tourist industry has led to 200 out of 400 rivers on the island drying up. Research suggests that the southern part of Bali would face a water shortage. To ease the shortage, the central government plans to build a water catchment and processing facility at Petanu River in Gianyar. The 300 litres capacity of water per second will be channelled to Denpasar, Badung and Gianyar in 2013. A 2010 Environment Ministry report on its environmental quality index gave Bali a score of 99.65, which was the highest score of Indonesia's 33 provinces. The score considers the level of total suspended solids, dissolved oxygen, and chemical oxygen demand in water. Erosion at Lebih Beach has seen of land lost every year. Decades ago, this beach was used for holy pilgrimages with more than 10,000 people, but they have now moved to Masceti Beach. In 2017, a year when Bali received nearly 5.7 million tourists, government officials declared a "garbage emergency" in response to the covering of 3.6-mile stretch of coastline in plastic waste brought in by the tide, amid concerns that the pollution could dissuade visitors from returning. Indonesia is one of the world's worst plastic polluters, with some estimates suggesting the country is the source of around 10 per cent of the world's plastic waste.
Government. Politics. In the national legislature, Bali is represented by nine members, with a single electoral district covering the whole province. The Bali Regional House of Representatives, the provincial legislature, has 55 members. The province's politics has historically been dominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which has won by far the most votes in every election in Bali since the first free elections in 1999. Administrative divisions. The province is divided into eight regencies ("kabupaten") and one city ("kota"); all the regencies were originally inaugurated on 9 August 1958, while the city of Denpasar were created from part of Badung Regency on 15 January 1992. They are tabulated below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 census and the 2020 census, together with the official estimates as at mid 2024 and the Human Development Index for each regency and city. The province forms one of Indonesia's 84 national electoral districts to elect members to the People's Representative Council. The Bali Electoral District consists of all of the 8 regencies in the province, together with the city of Denpasar, and elects 9 members to the People's Representative Council.
Economy. In the 1970s, the Balinese economy was largely agriculture-based in terms of both output and employment. Tourism is now the largest single industry in terms of income, and as a result, Bali is one of Indonesia's wealthiest regions. In 2003, around 80% of Bali's economy was tourism related. By the end of June 2011, the rate of non-performing loans of all banks in Bali were 2.23%, lower than the average of Indonesian banking industry non-performing loan rates (about 5%). The economy, however, suffered significantly as a result of the terrorist bombings in 2002 and 2005. The tourism industry has since recovered from these events. Agriculture. Although tourism produces the GDP's largest output, agriculture is still the island's biggest employer. Fishing also provides a significant number of jobs. Bali is also famous for its artisans who produce a vast array of handicrafts, including batik and ikat cloth and clothing, wooden carvings, stone carvings, painted art and silverware. Notably, individual villages typically adopt a single product, such as wind chimes or wooden furniture.
The Arabica coffee production region is the highland region of Kintamani near Mount Batur. Generally, Balinese coffee is processed using the wet method. This results in a sweet, soft coffee with good consistency. Typical flavours include lemon and other citrus notes. Many coffee farmers in Kintamani are members of a traditional farming system called Subak Abian, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of "Tri Hita Karana". According to this philosophy, the three causes of happiness are good relations with God, other people, and the environment. The Subak Abian system is ideally suited to the production of fair trade and organic coffee production. Arabica coffee from Kintamani is the first product in Indonesia to request a geographical indication. Tourism. In 1963 the Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur was built by Sukarno and boosted tourism in Bali. Before the Bali Beach Hotel construction, there were only three significant tourist-class hotels on the island. Construction of hotels and restaurants began to spread throughout Bali. Tourism further increased in Bali after the Ngurah Rai International Airport opened in 1970. The Buleleng regency government encouraged the tourism sector as one of the mainstays for economic progress and social welfare.
The tourism industry is primarily focused in the south, while also significant in the other parts of the island. The prominent tourist locations are the town of Kuta (with its beach), and its outer suburbs of Legian and Seminyak (which were once independent townships), the east coast town of Sanur (once the only tourist hub), Ubud towards the centre of the island, to the south of the Ngurah Rai International Airport, Jimbaran and the newer developments of Nusa Dua and Pecatu. The United States government lifted its travel warnings in 2008. The Australian government issued an advisory on Friday, 4 May 2012, with the overall level of this advisory lowered to 'Exercise a high degree of caution'. The Swedish government issued a new warning on Sunday, 10 June 2012, because of one tourist who died from methanol poisoning. Australia last issued an advisory on Monday, 5 January 2015, due to new terrorist threats. An offshoot of tourism is the growing real estate industry. Bali's real estate has been rapidly developing in the main tourist areas of Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, and Oberoi. Most recently, high-end 5-star projects are under development on the Bukit peninsula, on the island's south side. Expensive villas are being developed along the cliff sides of south Bali, with commanding panoramic ocean views. Foreign and domestic, many Jakarta individuals and companies are fairly active, and investment into other areas of the island also continues to grow. Land prices, despite the worldwide economic crisis, have remained stable.
In the last half of 2008, Indonesia's currency had dropped approximately 30% against the US dollar, providing many overseas visitors with improved value for their currencies. Bali's tourism economy survived the terrorist bombings of 2002 and 2005, and the tourism industry has slowly recovered and surpassed its pre-terrorist bombing levels; the long-term trend has been a steady increase in visitor arrivals. In 2010, Bali received 2.57 million foreign tourists, which surpassed the target of 2.0–2.3 million tourists. The average occupancy of starred hotels achieved 65%, so the island still should be able to accommodate tourists for some years without any addition of new rooms/hotels, although at the peak season some of them are fully booked. Bali received the Best Island award from Travel and Leisure in 2010. Bali won because of its attractive surroundings (both mountain and coastal areas), diverse tourist attractions, excellent international and local restaurants, and the friendliness of the local people. The Balinese culture and its religion are also considered the main factor of the award. One of the most prestigious events that symbolize a strong relationship between a god and its followers is Kecak dance. According to BBC Travel released in 2011, Bali is one of the World's Best Islands, ranking second after Santorini, Greece.
In 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir "Eat, Pray, Love" was published, and in August 2010 it was adapted into the film "Eat Pray Love". It took place at Ubud and Padang-Padang Beach in Bali. Both the book and the film fuelled a boom in tourism in Ubud, the hill town and cultural and tourist centre that was the focus of Gilbert's quest for balance and love through traditional spirituality and healing. In January 2016, after musician David Bowie died, it was revealed that in his will, Bowie asked for his ashes to be scattered in Bali, conforming to Buddhist rituals. He had visited and performed in several Southeast Asian cities early in his career, including Bangkok and Singapore. Since 2011, China has displaced Japan as the second-largest supplier of tourists to Bali, while Australia still tops the list while India has also emerged as a greater supply of tourists. Chinese tourists increased by 17% in 2011 from 2010 due to the impact of ACFTA and new direct flights to Bali. In January 2012, Chinese tourists increased by 222.18% compared to January 2011, while Japanese tourists declined by 23.54% year on year.
Bali authorities reported the island had 2.88 million foreign tourists and 5 million domestic tourists in 2012, marginally surpassing the expectations of 2.8 million foreign tourists. Based on a Bank Indonesia survey in May 2013, 34.39 per cent of tourists are upper-middle class, spending between $1,286 and $5,592, and are dominated by Australia, India, France, China, Germany and the UK. Some Chinese tourists have increased their levels of spending from previous years. 30.26 per cent of tourists are middle class, spending between $662 and $1,285. In 2017 it was expected that Chinese tourists would outnumber Australian tourists. In January 2020, 10,000 Chinese tourists cancelled trips to Bali due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions, Bali welcomed 1.07 million international travelers in 2020, most of them between January and March, which is -87% compared to 2019. In the first half of 2021, they welcomed 43 international travelers. The pandemic presented a major blow on Bali's tourism-dependent economy. On 3 February 2022, Bali reopened again for the first foreign tourists after 2 years of being closed due to the pandemic.
In 2022 Indonesia's Minister of Health, Budi Sadikin, stated that the tourism industry in Bali will be complemented by the medical industry. At the beginning of 2023, the governor of Bali demanded a ban on the use of motorcycles by tourists. This happened after a series of accidents. Wayan Koster proposed to cancel the violators' visas. The move sparked widespread outrage on social media. Transportation. The Ngurah Rai International Airport is located near Jimbaran, on the isthmus at the southernmost part of the island. Lt. Col. Wisnu Airfield is in northwest Bali. A coastal road circles the island, and three major two-lane arteries cross the central mountains at passes reaching 1,750 m in height (at Penelokan). The Ngurah Rai Bypass is a four-lane expressway that partly encircles Denpasar. Bali has no railway lines. There is a car ferry between Gilimanuk on the west coast of Bali to Ketapang on Java. In December 2010 the Government of Indonesia invited investors to build a new Tanah Ampo Cruise Terminal at Karangasem, Bali with a projected worth of $30 million. On 17 July 2011, the first cruise ship (Sun Princess) anchored about away from the wharf of Tanah Ampo harbour. The current pier is only but will eventually be extended to to accommodate international cruise ships. The harbour is safer than the existing facility at Benoa and has a scenic backdrop of east Bali mountains and green rice fields. The tender for improvement was subject to delays, and as of July 2013 the situation was unclear with cruise line operators complaining and even refusing to use the existing facility at Tanah Ampo.
A memorandum of understanding was signed by two ministers, Bali's governor and Indonesian Train Company to build of railway along the coast around the island. As of July 2015, no details of these proposed railways have been released. In 2019 it was reported in "Gapura Bali" that Wayan Koster, governor of Bali, "is keen to improve Bali's transportation infrastructure and is considering plans to build an electric rail network across the island". On 16 March 2011 (Tanjung) Benoa port received the "Best Port Welcome 2010" award from London's "Dream World Cruise Destination" magazine. Government plans to expand the role of Benoa port as export-import port to boost Bali's trade and industry sector. In 2013, The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry advised that 306 cruise liners were scheduled to visit Indonesia, an increase of 43 per cent compared to the previous year. In May 2011, an integrated Area Traffic Control System (ATCS) was implemented to reduce traffic jams at four crossing points: Ngurah Rai statue, Dewa Ruci Kuta crossing, Jimbaran crossing and Sanur crossing. ATCS is an integrated system connecting all traffic lights, CCTVs and other traffic signals with a monitoring office at the police headquarters. It has successfully been implemented in other ASEAN countries and will be implemented at other crossings in Bali.
On 21 December 2011, construction started on the Nusa Dua-Benoa-Ngurah Rai International Airport toll road, which will also provide a special lane for motorcycles. This has been done by seven state-owned enterprises led by PT Jasa Marga with 60% of the shares. PT Jasa Marga Bali Tol will construct the toll road (totally with access road). The construction is estimated to cost Rp.2.49 trillion ($273.9 million). The project goes through of mangrove forest and through of beach, both within area. The elevated toll road is built over the mangrove forest on 18,000 concrete pillars that occupied two hectares of mangrove forest. This was compensated by the planting of 300,000 mangrove trees along the road. On 21 December 2011, the Dewa Ruci underpass has also started on the busy Dewa Ruci junction near Bali Kuta Galeria with an estimated cost of Rp136 billion ($14.9 million) from the state budget. On 23 September 2013, the Bali Mandara Toll Road was opened, with the Dewa Ruci Junction underpass being opened previously.
To solve chronic traffic problems, the province will also build a toll road connecting Serangan with Tohpati, a toll road connecting Kuta, Denpasar, and Tohpati, and a flyover connecting Kuta and Ngurah Rai Airport. Demographics. The population of Bali was 3,890,757 as of the 2010 census, and 4,317,404 at the 2020 census; the official estimate as at mid 2024 was 4,461,260 (comprising 2,222,440 males and 2,210,820 females). In 2021, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism estimated that there were 109,801 foreigners living on Bali, with most originating from Russia, the US, Australia, the UK, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Ethnic origins. A DNA study in 2005 by Karafet et al. found that 12% of Balinese Y-chromosomes are of likely Austroasiasic origin, while 84% are of likely Austronesian origin, and 2% of likely Melanesian origin. Caste system. Pre-modern Bali had four castes, as Jeff Lewis and Belinda Lewis state, but with a "very strong tradition of communal decision-making and interdependence". The four castes have been classified as Sudra (Shudra), Wesia (Vaishyas), Satria (Kshatriyas) and Brahmana (Brahmin).
The 19th-century scholars such as Crawfurd and Friederich suggested that the Balinese caste system had Indian origins, but Helen Creese states that scholars such as Brumund who had visited and stayed on the island of Bali suggested that his field observations conflicted with the "received understandings concerning its Indian origins". In Bali, the Shudra (locally spelt "Soedra") has typically been the temple priests, though depending on the demographics, a temple priest may also be from the other three castes. In most regions, it has been the Shudra who typically make offerings to the gods on behalf of the Hindu devotees, chant prayers, recite "meweda" (Vedas), and set the course of Balinese temple festivals. Religion. About 87.91% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. Minority religions include Islam (8.10%), Christianity (3.30%), and Buddhism (0.68%) as for 2022.
Balinese Hinduism has roots in Indian Hinduism and Buddhism, which arrived through Java. Hindu influences reached the Indonesian Archipelago as early as the first century. Historical evidence is unclear about the diffusion process of cultural and spiritual ideas from India. Java legends refer to Saka-era, traced to 78 AD. Stories from the Mahabharata Epic have been traced in Indonesian islands to the 1st century; however, the versions mirror those found in the southeast Indian peninsular region (now Tamil Nadu and southern Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh). The Bali tradition adopted the pre-existing animistic traditions of the indigenous people. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual. Ritualising states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behaviour.
Apart from the majority of Balinese Hindus, there also exist Chinese immigrants whose traditions have melded with that of the locals. As a result, these Sino-Balinese embrace their original religion, which is a mixture of Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, and Confucianism, and find a way to harmonise it with the local traditions. Hence, it is not uncommon to find local Sino-Balinese during the local temple's "odalan". Moreover, Balinese Hindu priests are invited to perform rites alongside a Chinese priest in the event of the death of a Sino-Balinese. Nevertheless, the Sino-Balinese claim to embrace Buddhism for administrative purposes, such as their Identity Cards. The Roman Catholic community has a diocese, the Diocese of Denpasar that encompasses the province of Bali and West Nusa Tenggara and has its cathedral located in Denpasar. Language. Balinese and Indonesian are the most widely spoken languages in Bali, and the vast majority of Balinese people are bilingual or trilingual. The most common spoken language around the tourist areas is Indonesian, as many people in the tourist sector are not solely Balinese, but migrants from Java, Lombok, Sumatra, and other parts of Indonesia. The Balinese language is heavily stratified due to the Balinese caste system. Kawi and Sanskrit are also commonly used by some Hindu priests in Bali, as Hindu literature was mostly written in Sanskrit.
English and Chinese are the next most common languages (and the primary foreign languages) of many Balinese, owing to the requirements of the tourism industry, as well as the English-speaking community and huge Chinese-Indonesian population. Other foreign languages, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Russian or German are often used in multilingual signs for foreign tourists. Culture. Bali is renowned for its diverse and sophisticated art forms, such as painting, sculpture, woodcarving, handcrafts, and performing arts. Balinese cuisine is also distinctive, and unlike the rest of Indonesia, pork is commonly found in Balinese dishes such as Babi Guling. Balinese percussion orchestra music, known as "gamelan", is highly developed and varied. Balinese performing arts often portray stories from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana but with heavy Balinese influence. Famous Balinese dances include "pendet", "legong", "baris", "topeng", "barong", "gong kebyar", and "kecak" (the monkey dance). Bali boasts one of the most diverse and innovative performing arts cultures in the world, with paid performances at thousands of temple festivals, private ceremonies, and public shows.
In 2018 Governor I Wayan Koster issued Bali Governor's Regulation No. 79 of 2018 which mandated that city officials wear traditional Balinese dress, such as that made of "songket". This was followed by Circular No. 4 of 2021 which specified the use of Endek fabrics, and was expanded to high-ranking individuals in the private sector and other institutions. Architecture. "Kaja" and "kelod" are the Balinese equivalents of North and South, which refer to one's orientation between the island's largest mountain Gunung Agung ("kaja"), and the sea ("kelod"). In addition to spatial orientation, "kaja" and "kelod" have the connotation of good and evil; gods and ancestors are believed to live on the mountain whereas demons live in the sea. Buildings such as temples and residential homes are spatially oriented by having the most sacred spaces closest to the mountain and the unclean places nearest to the sea. Most temples have an inner courtyard and an outer courtyard which are arranged with the inner courtyard furthest "kaja". These spaces serve as performance venues since most Balinese rituals are accompanied by any combination of music, dance, and drama. The performances that take place in the inner courtyard are classified as "wali", the most sacred rituals which are offerings exclusively for the gods, while the outer courtyard is where "bebali" ceremonies are held, which are intended for gods and people. Lastly, performances meant solely for the entertainment of humans take place outside the temple's walls and are called "bali-balihan". This three-tiered system of classification was standardised in 1971 by a committee of Balinese officials and artists to better protect the sanctity of the oldest and most sacred Balinese rituals from being performed for a paying audience.
Dances. Tourism, Bali's chief industry, has provided the island with a foreign audience that is eager to pay for entertainment, thus creating new performance opportunities and more demand for performers. The impact of tourism is controversial since before it became integrated into the economy, the Balinese performing arts did not exist as a capitalist venture, and were not performed for entertainment outside of their respective ritual context. Since the 1930s sacred rituals such as the "barong" dance have been performed both in their original contexts, as well as exclusively for paying tourists. This has led to new versions of many of these performances that have developed according to the preferences of foreign audiences; some villages have a "barong" mask specifically for non-ritual performances and an older mask that is only used for sacred performances. Festivals. Throughout the year, there are many festivals celebrated locally or island-wide according to the traditional calendars. The Hindu New Year, "Nyepi", is celebrated in the spring by a day of silence. On this day everyone stays at home and tourists are encouraged (or required) to remain in their hotels. On the day before New Year, large and colourful sculptures of "Ogoh-ogoh" monsters are paraded and burned in the evening to drive away evil spirits. Other festivals throughout the year are specified by the Balinese "pawukon" calendrical system.
Celebrations are held for many occasions such as a tooth-filing (coming-of-age ritual), cremation or "odalan" (temple festival). One of the most important concepts that Balinese ceremonies have in common is that of "désa kala patra", which refers to how ritual performances must be appropriate in both the specific and general social context. Many ceremonial art forms such as "wayang kulit" and "topeng" are highly improvisatory, providing flexibility for the performer to adapt the performance to the current situation. Many celebrations call for a loud, boisterous atmosphere with much activity, and the resulting aesthetic, "ramé", is distinctively Balinese. Often two or more "gamelan" ensembles will be performing well within earshot, and sometimes compete with each other to be heard. Likewise, the audience members talk amongst themselves, get up and walk around, or even cheer on the performance, which adds to the many layers of activity and the liveliness typical of "ramé". Tradition. Balinese society continues to revolve around each family's ancestral village, to which the cycle of life and religion is closely tied. Coercive aspects of traditional society, such as customary law sanctions imposed by traditional authorities such as village councils (including "kasepekang", or shunning) have risen in importance as a consequence of the democratisation and decentralisation of Indonesia since 1998.
Other than Balinese sacred rituals and festivals, the government presents Bali Arts Festival to showcase Bali's performing arts and various artworks produced by the local talents that they have. It is held once a year, from the second week of June until the end of July. Southeast Asia's biggest annual festival of words and ideas Ubud Writers and Readers Festival is held at Ubud in October, which is participated by the world's most celebrated writers, artists, thinkers, and performers. One unusual tradition is the naming of children in Bali. In general, Balinese people name their children depending on the order they are born, and the names are the same for both males and females. Beauty pageant. Bali was the host of Miss World 2013 (63rd edition of the Miss World pageant). It was the first time Indonesia hosted an international beauty pageant. In 2022, Bali also co-hosted Miss Grand International 2022 along with Jakarta, West Java, and Banten. Sports. Bali is a major world surfing destination with popular breaks dotted across the southern coastline and around the offshore island of Nusa Lembongan.
As part of the Coral Triangle, Bali, including Nusa Penida, offers a wide range of dive sites with varying types of reefs, and tropical aquatic life. Bali was the host of 2008 Asian Beach Games. It was the second time Indonesia hosted an Asia-level multi-sport event, after Jakarta held the 1962 Asian Games. In 2023, Bali was the location for a major eSports event, the Dota 2 Bali Major, the third and final Major of the Dota Pro Circuit season. The event was held at the Ayana Estate and the Champa Garden, and it was the first time that a Dota Pro Circuit Major was held in Indonesia. In football, Bali is home to Bali United football club, which plays in Liga 1. The team was relocated from Samarinda, East Kalimantan to Gianyar, Bali. Harbiansyah Hanafiah, the main commissioner of Bali United explained that he changed the name and moved the home base because there was no representative from Bali in the highest football tier in Indonesia. Another reason was due to local fans in Samarinda preferring to support Pusamania Borneo F.C. rather than Persisam. Heritage sites. In June 2012, Subak, the irrigation system for paddy fields in Jatiluwih, central Bali was listed as a Natural UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Bulgarian language Bulgarian (, ; , ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeast Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians. Along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund and South Slavic dialect continuum of the Indo-European language family. The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages, including the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article, and the lack of a verb infinitive. They retain and have further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system (albeit analytically). One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported. It is the official language of Bulgaria, and since 2007 has been among the official languages of the European Union. It is also spoken by the Bulgarian historical communities in North Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Albania and Greece.
History. One can divide the development of the Bulgarian language into several periods. "Bulgarian" was the first Slavic language attested in writing. As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, the oldest manuscripts initially referred to this language as ѧзꙑкъ словѣньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name ѧзꙑкъ блъгарьскъ, the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, this name was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism is the Service of Saint Cyril from Skopje (Скопски миней), a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern Macedonia according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. The first mention of the language as the "Bulgarian language" instead of the "Slavonic language" comes in the work of the Greek clergy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for example in the Greek hagiography of Clement of Ohrid by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 11th century).
During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, but preserving the rich verb system (while the development was exactly the opposite in other Slavic languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in the Balkan language area (mostly grammatically) and later also by Turkish, which was the official language of the Ottoman Empire, in the form of the Ottoman Turkish language, mostly lexically. The damaskin texts mark the transition from Middle Bulgarian to New Bulgarian, which was standardized in the 19th century. As a national revival occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during the 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian (and to some extent on literary Russian, which had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic) and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот (turnover, rev), непонятен (incomprehensible), ядро (nucleus) and others. Many other loans from French, English and the classical languages have subsequently entered the language as well.
Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, but its pronunciation is in many respects a compromise between East and West Bulgarian (see especially the phonetic sections below). Following the efforts of some figures of the National awakening of Bulgaria (most notably Neofit Rilski and Ivan Bogorov), there had been many attempts to codify a standard Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835 and 1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued. Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography. Geographic distribution. Bulgarian is the official language of Bulgaria, where it is used in all spheres of public life. As of 2011, it is spoken as a first language by about 6million people in the country, or about four out of every five Bulgarian citizens. There is also a significant Bulgarian diaspora abroad. One of the main historically established communities are the Bessarabian Bulgarians, whose settlement in the Bessarabia region of nowadays Moldova and Ukraine dates mostly to the early 19th century. There were Bulgarian speakers in Ukraine at the 2001 census, in Moldova as of the 2014 census (of which were habitual users of the language), and presumably a significant proportion of the 13,200 ethnic Bulgarians residing in neighbouring Transnistria in 2016.
Another community abroad are the Banat Bulgarians, who migrated in the 17th century to the Banat region now split between Romania, Serbia and Hungary. They speak the Banat Bulgarian dialect, which has had its own written standard and a historically important literary tradition. There are Bulgarian speakers in neighbouring countries as well. The regional dialects of Bulgarian and Macedonian form a dialect continuum, and there is no well-defined boundary where one language ends and the other begins. Within the limits of the Republic of North Macedonia a strong separate Macedonian identity has emerged since the Second World War, even though there still are a small number of citizens who identify their language as Bulgarian. Beyond the borders of North Macedonia, the situation is more fluid, and the pockets of speakers of the related regional dialects in Albania and in Greece variously identify their language as Macedonian or as Bulgarian. In Serbia, there were speakers as of 2011, mainly concentrated in the so-called Western Outlands along the border with Bulgaria. Bulgarian is also spoken in Turkey: natively by Pomaks, and as a second language by many Bulgarian Turks who emigrated from Bulgaria, mostly during the "Big Excursion" of 1989.
The language is also represented among the diaspora in Western Europe and North America, which has been steadily growing since the 1990s. Countries with significant numbers of speakers include Germany, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom ( speakers in England and Wales as of 2011), France, the United States, and Canada ( in 2011). Dialects. The language is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Proto-Slavic yat vowel (Ѣ). This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgaria's: The literary language norm, which is generally based on the Eastern dialects, also has the Eastern alternating reflex of "yat". However, it has not incorporated the general Eastern umlaut of "all" synchronic or even historic "ya" sounds into "e" before front vowels – e.g. поляна ("polyana") vs. полени ("poleni") "meadow – meadows" or even жаба ("zhaba") vs. жеби ("zhebi") "frog – frogs", even though it co-occurs with the yat alternation in almost all Eastern dialects that have it (except a few dialects along the yat border, e.g. in the Pleven region).
More examples of the "yat" umlaut in the literary language are: Until 1945, Bulgarian orthography did not reveal this alternation and used the original Old Slavic Cyrillic letter "yat" (Ѣ), which was commonly called двойно е ("dvoyno e") at the time, to express the historical "yat" vowel or at least root vowels displaying the "ya – e" alternation. The letter was used in each occurrence of such a root, regardless of the actual pronunciation of the vowel: thus, both "mlyako" and "mlekar" were spelled with (Ѣ). Among other things, this was seen as a way to "reconcile" the Western and the Eastern dialects and maintain language unity at a time when much of Bulgaria's Western dialect area was controlled by Serbia and Greece, but there were still hopes and occasional attempts to recover it. With the 1945 orthographic reform, this letter was abolished and the present spelling was introduced, reflecting the alternation in pronunciation. This had implications for some grammatical constructions: Sometimes, with the changes, words began to be spelled as other words with different meanings, e.g.:
In spite of the literary norm regarding the yat vowel, many people living in Western Bulgaria, including the capital Sofia, will fail to observe its rules. While the norm requires the realizations "vidyal" vs. "videli" (he has seen; they have seen), some natives of Western Bulgaria will preserve their local dialect pronunciation with "e" for all instances of "yat" (e.g. "videl", "videli"). Others, attempting to adhere to the norm, will actually use the "ya" sound even in cases where the standard language has "e" (e.g. "vidyal", "vidyali"). The latter hypercorrection is called свръхякане ("svrah-yakane" ≈"over-"ya"-ing"). Bulgarian is the only Slavic language whose literary standard does not naturally contain the iotated "e" (or its variant, "e" after a palatalized consonant , except in non-Slavic foreign-loaned words). This sound combination is common in all modern Slavic languages (e.g. Czech "medvěd" "bear", Polish "pięć" "five", Serbo-Croatian jelen" "deer", Ukrainian "немає "there is not...", Macedonian "пишување" "writing", etc.), as well as some Western Bulgarian dialectal forms – e.g. "ора̀н'е" (standard Bulgarian: "оране" , "ploughing"), however it is not represented in standard Bulgarian speech or writing. Even where occurs in other Slavic words, in Standard Bulgarian it is usually transcribed and pronounced as pure – e.g. Boris Yeltsin is "Eltsin" (), Yekaterinburg is "Ekaterinburg" () and Sarajevo is "Saraevo" (), although – because of the stress and the beginning of the word – Jelena Janković is "Yelena Yankovich" ().
Relationship to Macedonian. Until the period immediately following the Second World War, all Bulgarian and the majority of foreign linguists referred to the South Slavic dialect continuum spanning the area of modern Bulgaria, North Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece as a group of Bulgarian dialects. In contrast, Serbian sources tended to label them "south Serbian" dialects. Some local naming conventions included "bolgárski", "bugárski" and so forth. The codifiers of the standard Bulgarian language, however, did not wish to make any allowances for a pluricentric "Bulgaro-Macedonian" compromise. In 1870 Marin Drinov, who played a decisive role in the standardization of the Bulgarian language, rejected the proposal of Parteniy Zografski and Kuzman Shapkarev for a mixed eastern and western Bulgarian/Macedonian foundation of the standard Bulgarian language, stating in his article in the newspaper "Makedoniya": "Such an artificial assembly of written language is something impossible, unattainable and never heard of."
After 1944 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia into the connecting link for the establishment of a new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Macedonian consciousness. With the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as part of the Yugoslav federation, the new authorities also started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified. After 1958, when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia reverted to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language. Nowadays, Bulgarian and Greek linguists, as well as some linguists from other countries, still consider the various Macedonian dialects as part of the broader Bulgarian pluricentric dialectal continuum. Outside Bulgaria and Greece, Macedonian is generally considered an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum. Sociolinguists agree that the question whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, because dialect continua do not allow for either/or judgements.
Phonology. Bulgarian possesses a phonology similar to that of the rest of the South Slavic languages, notably lacking Serbo-Croatian's phonemic vowel length and tones and alveo-palatal affricates. There is a general dichotomy between Eastern and Western dialects, with Eastern ones featuring consonant palatalization before front vowels ( and ) and substantial vowel reduction of the low vowels , and in unstressed position, sometimes leading to neutralisation between and , and , and and . Both patterns have partial parallels in Russian, leading to partially similar sounds. In turn, the Western dialects generally do not have any allophonic palatalization and exhibit minor, if any, vowel reduction. Standard Bulgarian keeps a middle ground between the macrodialects. It allows palatalizaton only before central and back vowels and only partial reduction of and . Reduction of , consonant palatalisation before front vowels and depalatalization of palatalized consonants before central and back vowels is strongly discouraged and labelled as provincial.
Bulgarian has six vowel phonemes, but at least eight distinct phones can be distinguished when reduced allophones are taken into consideration. There is currently no consensus on the number of Bulgarian consonants, with one school of thought advocating for the existence of only 22 consonant phonemes and another one claiming that there are not fewer than 39 consonant phonemes. The main bone of contention is how to treat palatalized consonants: as separate phonemes or as allophones of their respective plain counterparts. The 22-consonant model is based on a general consensus reached by all major Bulgarian linguists in the 1930s and 1940s. In turn, the 39-consonant model was launched in the beginning of the 1950s under the influence of the ideas of Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy. Despite frequent objections, the support of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has ensured Trubetzkoy's model virtual monopoly in state-issued phonologies and grammars since the 1960s. However, its reception abroad has been lukewarm, with a number of authors either calling the model into question or outright rejecting it. Thus, the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association only lists 22 consonants in Bulgarian's consonant inventory.