New York City
The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation.
Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
Ireland
Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic.
As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature.
Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
Wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees, and other woody plants. It is a material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers which are strong in tension embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, in a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots, Wood may refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber. In 2005, the stock of forests worldwide was about 434 billion cubic meters. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy, in 1991 approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction, a 2011 discovery in the Canadian province of New Brunswick discovered the earliest known plants to have grown wood, approximately 395 to 400 million years ago.
Wood can be dated by carbon dating and in species by dendrochronology to make inferences about when a wooden object was created. People have used wood for millennia for many purposes, primarily as a fuel or as a material for making houses, weapons, packaging, artworks. Constructions using wood date back ten thousand years, buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood. Recent use of wood has changed by the addition of steel. The year-to-year variation in tree-ring widths and isotopic abundances gives clues to the climate at that time. This process is known as growth, it is the result of cell division in the vascular cambium, a lateral meristem. These cells go on to form thickened secondary cell walls, composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, if the distinctiveness between seasons is annual, these growth rings are referred to as annual rings. Where there is little seasonal difference growth rings are likely to be indistinct or absent, if the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings will likely be deformed as the plant overgrows the scar.
It is usually lighter in color than that near the portion of the ring. The outer portion formed in the season is known as the latewood or summerwood. However, there are differences, depending on the kind of wood
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, an island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, an island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge. Example and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, there are two main types of islands in the sea and oceanic. The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland, Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, and related to Latin aqua. There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology, continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earths mantle. Oceanic crust is part of tectonic plates, but it is denser than continental lithosphere, Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere.
This holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere, continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. A special type of island is the microcontinental island, which is created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable, oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, one type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc.
These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring, examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples, which is the second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the tectonic plate above it
Chinampa
Chinampa is a type of Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. Chinampas were created by the shoreline of the Northern portion of the central lake system of Mexico by the Nahua peoples. Sometimes erroneously referred to as floating gardens, chinampas are artificial islands that were created by building up extensions of soil into bodies of water, evidence from Nahuatl wills from late sixteenth-century Pueblo Culhuacán suggests chinampas were measured in matl, often listed in groups of seven. One scholar has calculated the size of chinampas using Codex Vergara as a source, in Tenochtitlan, the chinampas ranged from 300 ft ×15 ft to 300 ft ×30 ft They were created by staking out the shallow lake bed and fencing in the rectangle with wattle. The fenced-off area was layered with mud, lake sediment, often trees such as āhuexōtl and āhuēhuētl were planted at the corners to secure the chinampa.
In some places, the raised beds had ditches in between them, giving plants continuous access to water and making crops grown there independent of rainfall. Chinampas were separated by channels wide enough for a canoe to pass and these raised, well-watered beds had very high crop yields with up to 7 harvests a year. Chinampas were commonly used in pre-colonial Mexico and Central America, there is evidence that the Nahua settlement of Culhuacan, on the south side of the Ixtapalapa peninsula that divided Lake Texcoco from Lake Xochimilco, constructed the first chinampas in C. E.1100. The earliest fields that have been dated are from the Middle Postclassic period,1150 –1350 CE. Chinampas were used primarily in Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco near the springs that lined the shore of those lakes. The Aztecs not only conducted military campaigns to control over these regions but, according to some researchers. Chinampa farms ringed Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, which was enlarged over time. Smaller-scale farms have identified near the island-city of Xaltocan.
With the destruction of the dams and sluice gates during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, many lakeshore towns retained their chinampas through the end of the colonial era since cultivation was highly labor-intensive and less attractive for Spaniards to acquire. Xochimilco still retains a few chinampas, but in the era is mainly a tourist attraction. The extent to which Tenochtitlan depended on chinampas for its food supply has been the topic of a number of scholarly studies. Among the crops grown on chinampas were maize, squash, tomatoes, chili peppers, maize was planted with digging stick huictli with a wooden blade on one end. Chinampas were fertilized using lake sediments, likely night soil as well, there has been scholarly work on terminology for soils and land formations
Ellis Island
Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the United States as the nations busiest immigrant inspection station for over sixty years from 1892 until 1954. The island was expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson. The island was part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965. Long considered part of New York state, a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey. The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island. Ellis Island is located in Upper New York Bay, east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island, in Jersey City, New Jersey, with a small section that is part of New York City. Largely created through land reclamation, the island has an area of 27.5 acres. The 2. 74-acre natural island and contiguous areas comprise the 3.3 acres that are part of New York, the entire island has been owned and administered by the U. S.
federal government since 1808 and has been operated by the National Park Service since 1965. Since September 11,2001, the island is guarded by patrols of the United States Park Police Marine Patrol Unit, public access is by ferry from either Communipaw Terminal in Liberty State Park or from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. The ferry operator, Hornblower Cruises and Events, service to the nearby Statue of Liberty. A bridge built for transporting materials and personnel during restoration projects connects Ellis Island with Liberty State Park, proposals made in 1995 to use it or replace it with a new bridge for pedestrians were opposed by the city of New York and the private ferry operator at that time. Much of the island, including the south side, has been closed to the general public since 1954. The renovated area on the side was again closed to the public after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The island was re-opened to the public and the museum partially re-opened on October 28,2013, there were several islands which were not completely submerged at high tide.
Three of them were given the name Oyster Islands by the settlers of New Netherland, the oyster beds would remain a major source of food for nearly three centuries. During the colonial period Little Oyster Island was known as Dyres, in the 1760s, after some pirates were hanged from one of the islands scrubby trees, it became known as Gibbet Island. It was acquired by Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker and merchant possibly from Wales, in 1785 he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the island, TO BE SOLD By Samuel Ellis, no
Tenochtitlan
Mexico-Tenochtitlan, commonly known as Tenochtitlan was a Mexica located on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. Founded on June 20,1325, it became the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century, at its peak it was the largest city in the Pre-Columbian Americas. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, today the ruins of Tenochtitlan are located in Mexico Citys downtown. Tenochtitlan was one of two Nahua āltēpetl on the island, the other being Tlatelolco, the name Tenochtitlan was thought to come from Nahuatl tetl and nōchtli and is often thought to mean, Among the prickly pears rocks. However, one attestation in the late 16th-century manuscript known as the Bancroft dialogues suggest the second vowel was short, Tenochtitlan covered an estimated 8 to 13.5 km2, situated on the western side of the shallow Lake Texcoco. At the time of Spanish conquests, Mexico City comprised both Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, the city was connected to the mainland by causeways leading to the north and west.
The causeways were interrupted by bridges that allowed canoes and other traffic to pass freely. The bridges could be pulled away, if necessary, to defend the city, the city was interlaced with a series of canals, so that all sections of the city could be visited either on foot or via canoe. Lake Texcoco was the largest of five interconnected lakes, since it formed in an endorheic basin, Lake Texcoco was brackish. During the reign of Moctezuma I, the levee of Nezahualcoyotl was constructed, estimated to be 12 to 16 km in length, the levee was completed circa 1453. The levee kept fresh spring-fed water in the waters around Tenochtitlan and kept the brackish waters beyond the dike, two double aqueducts, each more than 4 km long and made of terracotta, provided the city with fresh water from the springs at Chapultepec. This was intended mainly for cleaning and washing, for drinking, water from mountain springs was preferred. Most of the population liked to bathe twice a day, Moctezuma was said to take four baths a day.
According to the context of Aztec culture in literature, the soap that they most likely used was the root of a plant called copalxocotl, and to clean their clothes they used the root of metl. Also, the classes and pregnant women washed themselves in a temazcalli, similar to a sauna bath. This was popular in other Mesoamerican cultures, and some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream. I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never heard of or seen before. The city was divided into four zones, or campan, each campan was divided into 20 districts, there were three main streets that crossed the city, each leading to one of the three causeways to the mainland of Tepeyac and Tlacopan
Nan Madol
Nan Madol is a ruined city adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei that was the capital of the Saudeleur Dynasty until about 1628. It is in the present day Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state, the city, constructed in a lagoon, consists of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals. The site core with its stone walls encloses an area approximately 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide and it contains nearly 100 artificial islets—stone, the name Nan Madol means spaces between and is a reference to the canals that crisscross the ruins. The original name was Soun Nan-leng, according to Gene Ashby in his book Pohnpei and it is often called the Venice of the Pacific. Nan Madol was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur Dynasty, set apart between the main island of Pohnpei and Temwen Island, it was a scene of human activity as early as the first or second century AD. By the 8th or 9th century, islet construction had started, little can be verified about the megalithic construction.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that Nan Madol predates Leluh and it is likely that Nan Madol influenced Leluh. According to Pohnpeian legend, Nan Madol was constructed by twin sorcerers Olisihpa and Olosohpa from the mythical Western Katau, the brothers arrived in a large canoe seeking a place to build an altar so that they could worship Nahnisohn Sahpw, the god of agriculture. After several false starts, the two brothers built an altar off Temwen Island, where they performed their rituals. In legend, these brothers levitated the huge stones with the aid of a flying dragon, when Olisihpa died of old age, Olosohpa became the first Saudeleur. Olosohpa married a woman and sired twelve generations, producing sixteen other Saudeleur rulers of the Dipwilap clan. The founders of the dynasty ruled kindly, though their successors placed ever increasing demands on their subjects and their reign ended with the invasion by Isokelekel, who resided at Nan Madol, though his successors abandoned the site. The elite centre was a place of residence for the nobility.
Its population almost certainly did not exceed 1,000, although many of the residents were chiefs, the majority were commoners. Madol Powe, the sector, contains 58 islets in the northeastern area of Nan Madol. Most islets were once occupied by the dwellings of priests, some islets served a special purpose, food preparation, canoe construction on Dapahu, and coconut oil preparation on Peinering. This was built for the first Saudeleur, on Nan Madol there is no fresh water or food, water must be collected and food grown inland. During Saudeleur rule, Pohnpeians brought essential food and water by boat, the Saudeleur received food at a particular islet — first Peiniot, and the closer Usennamw
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries.
The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes.
In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
United States
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power.
The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations.
In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is a large, deep lake in the Andes on the border of Bolivia and Peru. By volume of water and by area, it is the largest lake in South America. Lake Maracaibo has a surface area, but it is a tidal bay. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world, although this refers to navigation by large boats, it is generally considered to mean commercial craft. For many years the largest vessel afloat on the lake was the 2, 200-ton, today the largest vessel is most likely the similarly sized, but broader, train barge/float Manco Capac, operated by PeruRail. Numerous smaller bodies of water around the world are at higher elevations, the lake is located at the northern end of the endorheic Altiplano basin high in the Andes on the border of Peru and Bolivia. The western part of the lies within the Puno Region of Peru. The lake is composed of two nearly separate sub-basins connected by the Strait of Tiquina, which is 800 m across at the narrowest point, the larger sub-basin, Lago Grande, has a mean depth of 135 m and a maximum depth of 284 m.
The smaller sub-basin, Wiñaymarka, has a depth of 9 m. The overall average depth of the lake is 107 m, five major river systems feed into Lake Titicaca. In order of their flow volumes these are Ramis, Ilave, Huancané. More than twenty other smaller streams empty into Titicaca, the lake has 41 islands, some of which are densely populated. This only accounts for about 10% of the water balance. Evapotranspiration, caused by winds and intense sunlight at high altitude. It is nearly a closed lake, since 2000 Lake Titicaca has experienced constantly receding water levels. Between April and November 2009 alone the water level dropped by 81 cm and this drop is caused by shortened rainy seasons and the melting of glaciers feeding the tributaries of the lake. Water pollution is a concern because cities in the Titicaca watershed grow, sometimes outpacing solid waste. According to the Global Nature Fund, Titicacas biodiversity is threatened by water pollution, already in 2012, the GNF nominated the lake Threatened Lake of the Year
Nagasaki
Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Part of Nagasaki was home to a major Imperial Japanese Navy base during the First Sino-Japanese War, during World War II, the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Nagasaki the second and, to date, last city in the world to experience a nuclear attack. As of 1 January 2009, the city has an population of 446,007. The total area is 406.35 km², a small fishing village set in a secluded harbor, Nagasaki had little historical significance until contact with Portuguese explorers in 1543. An early visitor was Fernão Mendes Pinto, who came on a Portuguese ship which landed nearby in Tanegashima and his followers who remained behind converted a number of daimyōs. The most notable among them was Ōmura Sumitada, the little harbor village quickly grew into a diverse port city, and Portuguese products imported through Nagasaki were assimilated into popular Japanese culture. The Portuguese brought them many goods from China.
Thus, for a period after 1580, the city of Nagasaki was a Jesuit colony, under their administrative. It was administered by the captain of the Portuguese black ship, the highest representative of the Portuguese Crown and it became a refuge for Christians escaping maltreatment in other regions of Japan. In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshis campaign to unify the country arrived in Kyūshū, the expulsion order went largely unenforced, and the fact remained that most of Nagasakis population remained openly practicing Catholic. In 1596, the Spanish ship San Felipe was wrecked off the coast of Shikoku, in response, Hideyoshi ordered the crucifixions of twenty-six Catholics in Nagasaki on February 5 of that year. Portuguese traders were not ostracized, and so the city continued to thrive, in 1602, Augustinian missionaries arrived in Japan, and when Tokugawa Ieyasu took power in 1603, Catholicism was still tolerated. Many Catholic daimyōs had been allies at the Battle of Sekigahara. Once Osaka Castle had been taken and Toyotomi Hideyoshis offspring killed, though, in addition, the Dutch and English presence allowed trade without religious strings attached.
Thus, in 1614, Catholicism was officially banned and all missionaries ordered to leave, most Catholic daimyo apostatized, and forced their subjects to do so, although a few would not renounce the religion and left the country for Macau and Japantowns in Southeast Asia. A brutal campaign of persecution followed, with thousands of converts across Kyūshū and other parts of Japan killed, catholicisms last gasp as an open religion and the last major military action in Japan until the Meiji Restoration was the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637. Consequently, in Tokugawa society the word Shimabara solidified the connection between Christianity and disloyalty, constantly used again and again in Tokugawa propaganda, the Shimabara Rebellion convinced many policy-makers that foreign influences were more trouble than they were worth, leading to the national isolation policy. The Great Fire of Nagasaki destroyed much of the city in 1663, including the Mazu shrine at the Kofukuji Temple patronized by the Chinese sailors, in 1720 the ban on Dutch books was lifted, causing hundreds of scholars to flood into Nagasaki to study European science and art
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