1.
Great auk
–
The great auk is a flightless bird of the alcid family that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the modern species in the genus Pinguinus. It bred on rocky, isolated islands with easy access to the ocean and a food supply. The great auk was 75 to 85 centimetres tall and weighed around 5 kilograms and it had a black back and a white belly. The black beak was heavy and hooked, with grooves on its surface, during summer, the great auks plumage showed a white patch over each eye. During winter, the auk lost these patches, instead developing a band stretching between the eyes. The wings were only 15 centimetres long, rendering the bird flightless, instead, the auk was a powerful swimmer, a trait that it used in hunting. Its favourite prey were fish, including Atlantic menhaden and capelin, although agile in the water, it was clumsy on land. Great auk pairs mated for life and they nested in extremely dense and social colonies, laying one egg on bare rock. The egg was white with brown marbling. Both parents incubated the egg for about six weeks before the young hatched, the young auk left the nest site after two or three weeks, although the parents continued to care for it. The great auk was an important part of many Native American cultures, many Maritime Archaic people were buried with great auk bones, and one was buried covered in over 200 auk beaks, which are assumed to have been part of a cloak made of their skins. Early European explorers to the Americas used the auk as a convenient food source or as fishing bait, the birds down was in high demand in Europe, a factor which largely eliminated the European populations by the mid-16th century. Scientists soon began to realize that the auk was disappearing and it became the beneficiary of many early environmental laws. Its growing rarity increased interest from European museums and private collectors in obtaining skins, on 3 July 1844, the last two confirmed specimens were killed on Eldey, off the coast of Iceland, which also eliminated the last known breeding attempt. Later reports of roaming individuals being seen or caught are unconfirmed, a record of a bird in 1852 is considered by some to be the last sighting of the species. The great auk is mentioned in novels and the scientific journal of the American Ornithologists Union is named The Auk in honour of this bird. Analysis of mtDNA sequences has confirmed morphological and biogeographical studies suggesting that the razorbill is the great auks closest living relative, the great auk was also closely related to the little auk, which underwent a radically different evolution compared to Pinguinus
Great auk
Great auk
–
Summer (standing) and winter (swimming) plumage. By
John Gerrard Keulemans.
Great auk
–
Stac an Armin,
St Kilda, Scotland, one locality where the great auk used to breed
Great auk
–
Great auks by
John James Audubon, from
The Birds of America
2.
Prefectures of France
–
There are 101 prefectures in France, one for each department. The official in charge is the prefect, the prefect represents the national government at the local level and as such exercises the powers that are constitutionally attributed to the national government. The prefect issues ordinances written for the application of law, to close a building that does not conform to safety codes. In the past, the prefect was head of the department, but since 1982, there is an exception in Paris and its three surrounding departments. These departments are administered by a prefecture for law enforcement and security purposes, called the Prefecture of Police. The power of law enforcement is usually invested in the mayor in other French communes, the departments are divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons. The chef-lieu darrondissement is the subprefecture, the official in charge is the subprefect (French, sous-préfet. Cantons have relatively few competences, the most important one being the local organisation of elections, administrative divisions of France French National Police
Prefectures of France
–
Petite Couronne
3.
Communes of France
–
The commune is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to civil townships incorporated municipalities in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany, the United Kingdom has no exact equivalent, as communes resemble districts in urban areas, but are closer to parishes in rural areas where districts are much larger. Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and have received significant powers of governance to manage the populations, the communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. A French commune may be a city of 2.2 million inhabitants like Paris, communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes, a commune is a town, city, or municipality. Use of commune in English is a habit, and one that might be corrected. There is nothing in commune in French that is different from town in English. The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, as of January 2015, there were 36,681 communes in France,36,552 of them in metropolitan France and 129 of them overseas. This is a higher total than that of any other European country. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes and this is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions, COM of Saint-Martin and it was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007, COM of Wallis and Futuna, which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe region, the commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007.88 square kilometres. The median area of metropolitan Frances communes at the 1999 census was even smaller, the median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune. This median area is smaller than that of most European countries. In Italy, the area of communes is 22 km2, in Belgium it is 40 km2, in Spain it is 35 km2, and in Germany. Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia in Germany were the places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of Frances overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards and they usually group into the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them
Communes of France
–
Road sign marking the end of the village of
Y in the
Somme department of
Picardy
Communes of France
–
Map of the 36,569 communes of metropolitan France
Communes of France
–
Mittelhausbergen in
Alsace
Communes of France
–
Vacqueyras in
Provence, showing double French/
Provençal name
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
5.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
France
–
One of the
Lascaux paintings: a horse –
Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC
France
–
Flag
France
–
The
Maison Carrée was a temple of the
Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day
Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the
Roman Empire.
France
–
With
Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the
Frankish monarchy,
elective and
secular until then, became
hereditary and of
divine right.
6.
Regions of France
–
France is divided into 18 administrative regions, including 13 metropolitan regions and 5 overseas regions. The current legal concept of region was adopted in 1982, the term région was officially created by the Law of Decentralisation, which also gave regions their legal status. The first direct elections for representatives took place on 16 March 1986. In 2016, the number of regions was reduced from 27 to 18 through amalgamation, in 2014, the French parliament passed a law reducing the number of metropolitan regions from 22 to 13 with effect from 1 January 2016. However, the region of Upper and Lower Normandy is simply called Normandy. Permanent names were to be proposed by the new regional councils by 1 July 2016, the legislation defining the new regions also allowed the Centre region to officially change its name to Centre-Val de Loire with effect from January 2015. Two regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, opted to retain their interim names, between 1982 and 2015, there were 22 regions in Metropolitan France. Before 2011, there were four regions, in 2011 Mayotte became the fifth. Regions lack separate legislative authority and therefore cannot write their own statutory law and they levy their own taxes and, in return, receive a decreasing part of their budget from the central government, which gives them a portion of the taxes it levies. They also have considerable budgets managed by a council made up of representatives voted into office in regional elections. A regions primary responsibility is to build and furnish high schools, in March 2004, the French central government unveiled a controversial plan to transfer regulation of certain categories of non-teaching school staff to the regional authorities. Critics of this plan contended that tax revenue was insufficient to pay for the costs. In addition, regions have considerable power over infrastructural spending, e. g. education, public transit, universities and research. This has meant that the heads of regions such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes can be high-profile positions. Number of regions controlled by each coalition since 1986, Overseas region is a recent designation, given to the overseas departments that have similar powers to those of the regions of metropolitan France. Radio France Internationale in English Overseas regions Ministère de lOutre-Mer some explanations about the past and current developments of DOMs and TOMs
Regions of France
7.
Occitanie
–
Occitanie is an administrative region of France that was created on 1 January 2016 from former French regions Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. Frances Conseil dÉtat approved Occitanie as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, the new Région Occitanie should not be confused with the wider cultural entity of Occitania, of which the new administrative region is part. The new region covers an area of more than 72,724 km2 with a population of 5,626,858. As the provisional name of the new region, the text of the law specified the hyphenated names of the predecessors, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. As for most of the regions, a permanent name was proposed by the new regional council. Enacted in 2014, the reform of the regions has been subject to debate for many years. The provisional name of the region was withdrawn on 30 September 2016, toulouse Montpellier Nîmes Perpignan Béziers Montauban Languedoc-Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées Regions of France Occitania Merger of the regions - France 3
Occitanie
–
Main Occitan cities, in Occitan
Occitanie
–
Linguistic map of Occitania
Occitanie
–
Gordes, a typical
Provençal village, named by
CNN the most beautiful village of the world.
Occitanie
–
View from a part of the old town of
Toulouse, former capital of
Languedoc.
8.
Departments of France
–
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
Departments of France
–
Geometrical proposition rejected
Departments of France
–
The 101 departments of France
Departments of France
–
The three Algerian departments in 1848
9.
Gers
–
The Gers is a department in the Occitanie region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River. In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of LIsle-Jourdain was nearby, the Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne. In 1808 it lost Lavit on its side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne. The culture is largely agricultural, with emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as, Armagnac brandy, Côtes de Gascogne, Floc de Gascogne, Foie gras. Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers, the Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken. The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south, alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois dArtagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to dArtagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac, a horse race at the Auteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful mayor of Termes-dArmagnac between 1951 and 1976. The President of the General Council is Jean-Pierre Pujol of the Socialist Party, located in southwestern France, the Gers is part of the Occitanie region. It is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Landes, the Gers is often referred to as amongst the least densely populated, or most rural, areas in all of Western Europe. List of the 10 most important cities of the département, The annual rain varies from more than 900 mm in the south-west of the department, to less than 700 mm in the North-East. The winters vary, with only occasional freezing temperatures, but the climate mild and dry. The summers are hot and dry, the temperatures often is exceeding 40°. Auch is together with Toulouse and Millau one of the hottest cities of France, with often more than 300 sunny days in the year
Gers
–
Prefecture building of the Gers department, in Auch
Gers
–
Auch
Gers
–
Montréal, Gers
Gers
–
Larressingle
10.
Daylight saving time
–
Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
Daylight saving time
–
Ancient
water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season.
Daylight saving time
–
G. V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.
Daylight saving time
–
Retailers generally favor DST.
United Cigar Stores hailed a 1918 DST bill.
Daylight saving time
–
William Willett independently proposed DST in 1907 and advocated it tirelessly.
11.
Central European Summer Time
–
It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
Central European Summer Time
–
light blue
12.
Gascon language
–
Gascon is a dialect of Occitan. It is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and it has about 250,000 speakers worldwide. Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia and has greatly influenced recently by Catalan. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France, since the 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia, Aranese is co-official with Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia. See Occitan, Debates concerning linguistic classification, there is a proven Basque substrate in the development of Gascon. This explains some of the differences that exist between Gascon and other Occitan dialects. A typically Gascon feature that may arise from this substrate is the change from f to h, thus we have Gascon hèsta or. A similar change took place in continental Spanish, thus Latin facere gives Spanish hacer. Note that modern Basque has had influence from Gascon in words like beira, polit to mention. One way for the introduction of Gascon influence into Basque came about through language contact in bordering areas of the Northern Basque Country, acting as adstrate. A poll conducted in Béarn in 1982 indicated that 51% of the population could speak Gascon, 70% understood it, the usual term for Gascon is patois, a word designating in France a non-official and usually devaluated dialect or language, regardless of the concerned region. It is mainly in Béarn that the population uses concurrently the term Béarnais to designate its Gascon forms and this is because of the political past of Béarn, which was independent and then part of a sovereign state from 1347 to 1620. In fact, there is no unified Béarnais dialect, as the language differs considerably throughout the province, many of the differences in pronunciation can be divided into east, west, and south. For example, an a at the end of words is pronounced ah in the west, o in the east, because of Béarns specific political past, Béarnais has been distinguished from Gascon since the 16th century, not for linguistic reasons. Gascon comprises three main areas, The Garonnais Gascon used on and next to the river Garonne valley. These regions know the least specific Gascon forms, the Southern Gascon used in the south and in the south-west of the linguistic Gascon zone. The Gascon of these regions is the one with the most distinctive characteristics of Gascon, the Intermediary Gascon in an intermediary zone between the two just mentioned. Occitan conjugation Languages of France Vergonha Darrigrand, Robert
Gascon language
–
Trilingual sign in
Bayonne: French, Basque, and Gascon Occitan ("Mayretat", "Sindicat d'initiatibe")
Gascon language
–
An isard (Pyrenean chamois).
Gascon language
–
According to the testimony of
Bernadette Soubirous, the Virgin Mary spoke to her (
Lourdes, 25 March 1858) in Gascon saying: Que sòi era Immaculada Concepciou ("I am the
Immaculate Conception ", the phrase is reproduced under this statue in the Lourdes grotto in Mistralian/Febusian spelling), confirming the proclamation of this Catholic dogma four years earlier.
13.
Gascony
–
Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the Province of Guyenne and Gascony prior to the French Revolution. The region is defined, and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear, by some they are seen to overlap, while others consider Gascony a part of Guyenne. Most definitions put Gascony east and south of Bordeaux and it is currently divided between the region of Aquitaine and the region of Midi-Pyrénées. Gascony was historically inhabited by Basque-related people who appear to have spoken a language similar to Basque, the name Gascony comes from the same root as the word Basque. From medieval times until today, the Gascon language has been spoken, Gascony is the land of dArtagnan, who inspired Alexandre Dumass character dArtagnan in The Three Musketeers. It is also home to Henry III of Navarre, who became king of France as Henry IV. In pre-Roman times, the inhabitants of Gascony were the Aquitanians, the Aquitanians inhabited a territory limited to the north and east by the Garonne River, to the south by the Pyrenees mountain range, and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. In the 50s BC, Aquitania was conquered by lieutenants of Julius Caesar, later, in 27 BC, during the reign of Emperor Augustus, the province of Gallia Aquitania was created. In 297, as Emperor Diocletian reformed the administrative structures of the Roman Empire, the territory of Novempopulania corresponded quite well to what we call now Gascony. The Aquitania Novempopulana or Novempopulania suffered like the rest of the Western Roman Empire from the invasions of Germanic tribes, the Visigoths were defeated by the Franks in 507, and fled into Spain and Septimania, as well as Albania. Novempopulania then became part of the Frankish Kingdom like the rest of southern France, however, Novempopulania was far away from the home base of the Franks in northern France, and was only very loosely controlled by the Franks. Modern historians reject this hypothesis, which is sustained by no archeological evidence, for Juan José Larrea, and Pierre Bonnassie, a Vascon expansionism in Aquitany is not proved and is not necessary to understand the historical evolution of this region. This Basque-related culture and race is, whatever the origin, attested in Medieval documents, the word Vasconia evolved into Wasconia, and then into Gasconia. The gradual abandonment of the Basque-related Aquitanian language in favor of a local vulgar Latin, was not reversed, the replacing local vulgar Latin evolved into Gascon. It was heavily influenced by the original Aquitanian language, quite paradoxically the Basques from the French side of the Basque Country traditionally call anyone who does not speak Basque a Gascon. Meanwhile, Viking raiders conquered several Gascon towns, among them Bayonne in 842–844 and their attacks in Gascony may have helped the political disintegration of the Duchy until their defeat against William II Sánchez of Gascony in 982. In turn, the weakened ethnic polity known as Duchy of Wasconia/Wascones, unable to get round the general spread of feudalization and his 1152 marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine allowed the future Henry II to gain control of his new wifes possessions of Aquitaine and Gascony. This addition to his already plentiful holdings made Henry the most powerful vassal in France, in 1248, Simon de Montfort was appointed Governor in the unsettled Duchy of Gascony
Gascony
–
Typical view of the hilly countryside of Gascony, with the Pyrenees mountains in the far distance
Gascony
–
A map of Gascony, showing a wide definition of the region. Other maps may define a smaller area as Gascony.
Gascony
–
The Duchy was meant to hold sway over the Basques (Vascones)
Gascony
–
Homage of Edward I (kneeling) to Philip IV (seated)
14.
Gers (river)
–
The Gers is a 178-kilometre long river in southern France, left tributary of the Garonne. Its source is in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Lannemezan and it flows north through the départements Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers and Lot-et-Garonne. It flows into the Garonne in Layrac, near Agen, the city Auch lies along the river Gers. It gives its name to the Gers département, the name of the Gers appears in the sixth century as Ægirtius, de Egircio flumine and Gircius. It is known as in flumine Gersio in 817 and as Iercius in the 13th century. geoportail. fr The Gers at the Sandre database
Gers (river)
–
Gers River in Auch
Gers (river)
–
The Gers river in
Ornézan
15.
Agen
–
The commune of Agen is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne 135 kilometres southeast of Bordeaux, the city of Agen lies in the southern department Lot-et-Garonne in the Aquitaine region. The city centre lies on the east bank of the Garonne river close to the Canal de Garonne, Agen features an oceanic climate, in the Köppen climate classification. Winters are mild and feature cool to cold temperatures while summers are mild, rainfall is spread equally throughout the year, however, most sunshine hours are from March–September. From Occitan Agen, itself from Latin Aginnum, from a Celtic root agin- meaning rock or height, the town has a higher level of unemployment than the national average. Major employers include the pharmaceutical factory UPSA, the old centre of town contains a number of medieval buildings. The Fine Arts museum, Musée des Beaux Arts contains artefacts, furniture, the art gallery contains several hundred works, including several by Goya, and others by Bonnard and Seurat. The collection also contains a number of works by artists who lived locally. The museum is made up of twenty or so rooms, the Canal des Deux Mers, which joins the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, crosses the river Garonne at Agen via the towns famous canal bridge. The municipal theatre Théâtre Ducourneau presents theatre, and occasionally classical concerts, the smaller Théâtre du jour has a resident theatre company presenting a variety of recent or older plays. There are two cinemas, one a commercial multiscreened affair, the other an arts cinema run by a voluntary organization, the latter organizes film festivals every year. Rugby is extremely popular in the town, and the local team, the town also serves as the base for the Team Lot-et-Garonne cycling team. The Gare dAgen connects Agen with Toulouse and Bordeaux as well as Périgueux and it is around an hour from Toulouse and around an hour from Bordeaux. The fast trains to Paris take four hours and ten minutes, Agen is connected, by the A62 autoroute, to both Toulouse and Bordeaux. The Agen Airport is serviced by Airlinair service to Paris Orly 6 days a week and it is also used for business and leisure flying. Agen stands on the voie verte cycle path between the Mediterranean and close to Bordeaux, Agen is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese that comprises the Département of Lot and Garonne. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Bordeaux. S and he was married to a local woman with whom he had two children. Agen is the capital of the prune, a local produce sold as a sweet or as an after-dinner delight, every September, the Prune festival organizes rock concerts, circuses and prune tasting
Agen
–
Cathedral of Saint-Caprais
Agen
16.
Toulouse
–
Toulouse is the capital city of the southwestern French department of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Occitanie region. The city lies on the banks of the River Garonne,150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea,230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and it is the fourth-largest city in France with 466,297 inhabitants in January 2014. The Toulouse Metro area is, with 1312304 inhabitants as of 2014, Frances 4th metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon and Marseille and ahead of Lille and Bordeaux. Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Airbus Group, ATR and the Aerospace Valley. The city also hosts the European headquarters of Intel and CNESs Toulouse Space Centre, thales Alenia Space, and Astrium Satellites, Airbus Groups satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse. The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe and, with more than 103,000 students, is the fourth-largest university campus in France, after the Universities of Paris, Lyon and Lille. The air route between Toulouse Blagnac and Paris Orly is the busiest in Europe, transporting 2.4 million passengers in 2014, according to the rankings of LExpress and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city. It is now the capital of the Occitanie region, the largest region in metropolitan France, sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 because of its significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, the city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort. Toulouse has a subtropical climate which can be qualified as submediterranean due to its proximity to the Mediterranean climate zone. The Garonne Valley was a point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa, it is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian, or from Iberian, Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 5th century, Tolosa fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its cities, in the early 6th century even serving as its capital. From this time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm, in 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse. Odos victory was an obstacle to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe. Charles Martel, a later, won the Battle of Tours. The Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, and a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century
Toulouse
–
Montage of Toulouse Top: Pont Saint Pierre and
Garonne River Middle:
Place du Capitole,
Pont Neuf Bottom:
Capitole de Toulouse, Ariane 5 at
Cité de l'espace,
Médiathèque José Cabanis
Toulouse
–
Vomitorium at the Roman amphitheatre in Toulouse
Toulouse
–
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was a leader of the
First Crusade
Toulouse
–
The
Capitole de Toulouse is an example of the 18th-century architectural projects in the city.
17.
Tarbes
–
Tarbes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and it has been a commune since 1790. It was known as Turba or Tarba in Roman times, Tarbes is part of the historical region of Gascony. Formerly of strong industrial tradition, Tarbes today tries to diversify its activities, particularly in aeronautics, the recent development of Tarbais beans and other regional specialties also shows a willingness to develop the agri-food industry thus justifying its nickname of market town. With 116,056 inhabitants in 2011, it is the second largest metropolitan area in the Occitanie region and its 42,888 inhabitants are called Tarbaises and the Tarbais. It is the seat of the diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes, the 1st Parachute Hussar Regiment and 35th Parachute Artillery Regiment are stationed in Tarbes. Tarbes is 1 hr 30 mins from the Atlantic Ocean,2 hrs 50 mins from the Languedoc coast and 35 minutes from the nearest ski resorts and it is located at an average elevation of 304 metres. To the south of Tarbes, along with the town of Lourdes, is the border with Spain. The Pyrenees mountains, lying along the border between France and Spain, can be seen from the town. Tarbes is crossed to the east by the Adour river and to the west by the Échez and by the Gespe, Tarbes features an oceanic climate, with relatively hot summers, mild winters and abundant rainfall. Tarbes benefits from its location in the area of the Adour, a milder microclimate than at Lourdes, from a higher altitude, and somewhat less rainy than in Pau. Summers are warm and often stormy, while spring is rainy and cool and autumn is mild, winter, meanwhile, is less rigorous but can still hold some surprises. The lowest temperature was recorded in January 1985 with a temperature under shelter of −17.9 °C, conversely, there was a maximum temperature of 39 °C in August 2003. The town was named for the first time in the 5th century as Civitas Turba ubi castrum Bigòrra and it was an important city of the Novempopulania. Gregory of Tours in the 6th century named Talvam vicum, in the Middle Ages it was called Tarbé, Tursa, Tarvia and also Tarbia. Not to be confused with the Tarbelles, whose capital was Dax, legend holds that the Queen of Ethiopia, Tarbis, proposed her love to Moses and that he refused. Inconsolable, she decided to leave her throne and hide her disappointment, after many wanderings, she arrived in Bigorre and built her home on the Adour to found the town of Tarbes, and its sister, on the banks of the Gave de Pau, arose as Lourdes. In the 3rd century BC, the foundations of Tarbes began to emerge, by need for salt trade, merchants who were likely Aquitanians travelled across the Pyrenean foothills
Tarbes
–
The town hall of Tarbes
Tarbes
–
The Pyrenees seen from Tarbes.
Tarbes
–
Foundations of an old villa in the Ormeau quarter
Tarbes
–
The Gare de Tarbes, around 1900
18.
Route nationale (France)
–
A route nationale, or simply nationale, is a trunk road in France. Trunk roads in France are important roads which cross broad portions of the French territory and their use is free, except when crossing certain structures subjected to toll. They are open to all vehicles, except on certain sections having the status of motorway, France currently has 30,500 km of nationales and publicly owned motorways. By comparison, routes départementales cover a distance of 365,000 km. The main trunk road network reflects the tradition of France. Indeed, trunk roads begin on the parvis of Notre-Dame of Paris at Kilometre Zero, to ensure an effective road network, new roads not serving Paris were created. The system dates back to December 16,1811, when Napoleon designated a number of routes impériales, first class routes were numbered from 1 to 14, all began at Paris, radiating out in a clockwise manner. Route 1 ran from Paris north to Calais, and is still the general path of route nationale 1, second class routes, from 15 to 27, did the same, while third class routes from 28 to 229 provided less major connections. During the Bourbon Restoration, in 1824, these routes were renamed routes royales, route 3, Paris to Hamburg via Soissons, Reims and Liège, was renumbered to 31 and 51, and the subsequent routes were shifted down by one. Routes 19 and 20 were completely outside the post-Napoleon France, in 1830 the highways were renamed routes nationales. In 2006 the French Government downgraded a number of the routes nationales to departmental status
Route nationale (France)
–
"Point zéro" (kilomètre zéro) on the parvis of Notre-Dame of Paris
19.
Precipitation
–
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
Precipitation
–
A thunderstorm with heavy precipitation
Precipitation
–
Long-term mean precipitation by month
Precipitation
–
Late-summer
rainstorm in
Denmark
Precipitation
–
Lenticular cloud forming due to mountains over Wyoming
20.
Sunshine duration
–
It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is usually expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day, the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration, an important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites, especially of health resorts. This also takes account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is often used to promote tourist destinations, if the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth. However, there are physical and astronomical effects that change that picture, namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible even when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime,4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575. Because of elliptic nature of the Earths orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical, the Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, bright sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just visible hours. Visible sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder, newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In 2003, the duration was finally defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². The sky is clear in these regions, and fair weather is virtually perpetual, the descending branch of the Hadley cell and the long-term lack of atmospheric disturbances helps to explain the seemingly endless supply of sunny, cloud-free days in the deserts. Low clouding conditions are associated with rainfall shortage, as seen in these dry regions. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3, 600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually. The largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa, the sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with almost 23 hours of bright sun daily
Sunshine duration
–
Campbell–Stokes recorder measures sunshine
21.
Archdiocese of Auch
–
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Auch, otherwise known in antiquity as Augusta Auscorum, is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Catholic church in France. The archdiocese now comprises the department of Gers in south-west France and it now is officially Auch, Condom, Lectoure and Lombez. The archdiocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Toulouse, and the current bishop, originally erected in the 6th century as the diocese of Auch, the diocese was elevated in 847 to an archdiocese. Up to 1789 the Archbishops of Auch bore the title of Aquitaine, Condom was previously a suffragan of Bordeaux, and Lombez of Toulouse, thenceforth the suffragans of Auch were Aire, Tarbes, and Bayonne. The first Bishop of Auch known to history is the poet, St. Orientius, cardinal Melchior de Polignac, author of the Anti-Lucrèce, was Archbishop of Auch from 1725 to 1741. M. I. † Emile-Christophe Enard † Joseph-François-Ernest Ricard † Virgile-Joseph Béguin † Henri Audrain † Maurice-Mathieu-Louis Rigaud † Gabriel Vanel † Maurice Lucien Fréchard, Maurice Marcel Gardès Catholic Church in France Gams, Pius Bonifatius. Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae, quotquot innotuerunt a beato Petro apostolo, ratisbon, Typis et Sumptibus Georgii Josephi Manz. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi V. Patavii, Messagero di S. Antonio, hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi VI. Le clergé de France, ou tableau historique et chronologique des archevêques, évêques, abbés, abbesses et chefs des chapitres principaux du royaume, les évêques et les archevêques de France depuis 1682 jusquà1801. Lépiscopat français depuis le Concordat jusquà la Séparation, centre national des Archives de lÉglise de France, L’Épiscopat francais depuis 1919, retrieved, 2016-12-24. The Catholic Encyclopedia This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles
Archdiocese of Auch
–
Auch Cathedral
Archdiocese of Auch
–
Map from Gallia Sacra, in Historical Atlas of Modern Europe by
R. Lane Poole.
22.
Roman Republic
–
It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
Roman Republic
–
Route of Pyrrhus of Epirus
Roman Republic
–
Roman consul accompanied by two
lictors
Roman Republic
–
Gaius Gracchus, tribune of the people, presiding over the
Plebeian Council
Roman Republic
–
A Roman
denarius struck in 56 BC showing on one side the bust of the
Goddess Diana, and on the reverse the Roman general
Lucius Cornelius Sulla is offered an olive branch by his ally
Bocchus I as the captive
Jugurtha kneels beside Sulla with his hands bound.
23.
Aquitani
–
They were an ancient non-Indo-European population that lived in the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. They spoke the Aquitanian language, related to Old Basque, Classical authors such as Julius Caesar and Strabo clearly distinguish them from the other peoples of Gaul and Hispania. With the process of Romanization, in the centuries of Roman Empire, they adopted the Latin Language and their old language, the Aquitanian language, was the substrate for the Gascon language spoken in Gascony. All these differ from other in language, customs and laws. uchicago. edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home. html -51 complete works of authors from Classical Antiquity. Http, //penelope. uchicago. edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/home. html - Julius Caesar text of De Bello Gallico, http, //penelope. uchicago. edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/home. html - Pliny the Elder text of Naturalis Historia - books 3-6. Http, //penelope. uchicago. edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home. html - Strabos text of De Geographica, Aquitanian language Novempopulania Gallia Aquitania Duchy of Vasconia Vascones Iberians Gascony Late Basquisation Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula
Aquitani
–
The tribes confederated as the Aquitani and other
pre-Indo-European tribes are in black
24.
Iberian language
–
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC, the Iberian language, like all the other Paleohispanic languages except Basque, became extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, after being gradually replaced by Latin. Iberian is unclassified, while the used to write it have been deciphered to various extents. Links with other languages have been claimed, especially the Basque language, the Iberian language was widely spoken along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. In the north, the Iberian language inscriptions reached the south of France up to the Hérault river, important written remains have been found in Ensérune, between Narbonne and Béziers in France, in an oppidum with mixed Iberian and Celtic elements. The southern limit would be Porcuna, in Jaén, where splendid sculptures of Iberian riders have been found, towards inland the exact distribution of the Iberian language inscriptions is uncertain. It seems that the culture reached the interior through the Ebro river as far as Salduie, turduli and Turdetani are believed to be of Tartessian language. The origin of the language is unknown, although Iberian ceased to be written in the 1st century AD, it may have survived in some areas until the Visigothic period, according to Menéndez Pidal. The oldest Iberian inscriptions date to the 4th century BC or maybe the 5th century BC, more than two thousand Iberian inscriptions are currently known. Most are short texts on ceramic with personal names, which are interpreted as ownership marks. Many coins minted by Iberian communities during the Roman Republic have legends in Iberian, the longest Iberian texts were made on lead plaques, the most extensive is from Yátova with more than six hundred signs. Three different scripts have remained for the Iberian language, Northeastern Iberian script Dual variant Non-dual variant Southeastern Iberian script Greco-Iberian alphabet, the northeastern Iberian script is also known as the Iberian script, because it is the Iberian script most frequently used. This script is almost completely deciphered, from a writing systems point of view they are neither alphabets nor syllabaries, rather, they are mixed scripts that are normally identified as semi-syllabaries. Regarding their origin there is no agreement among researchers, for some they are linked only to the Phoenician alphabet, the southeastern Iberian script is a semi-syllabary too, but it is more similar to the Tartessian script than to the northeastern Iberian script. The southeastern Iberian inscriptions have been mainly in the southeastern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, eastern Andalusia, Murcia, Albacete, Alicante. This script is not completely deciphered, the Greco-Iberian alphabet is a direct adaptation of an Ionic variant of a Greek alphabet to the specificities of the Iberian language. The inscriptions that use the Greco-Iberian alphabet have been mainly in Alicante. Very little is known for certain about Iberian, the investigation of the language is past its initial phase of transcription and compiling of material, and is currently in the phase of identifying grammatical elements in the texts
Iberian language
–
Iberian language in the context of
paleohispanic languages
Iberian language
–
Iberian scripts in the context of
paleohispanic scripts
Iberian language
–
Lead plaque from
Ullastret using the dual variant of the
northeastern Iberian script.
Iberian language
–
Lead plaque from La Bastida de les Alcuses (
Mogente) using the
southeastern Iberian script.
25.
Oppidum
–
An oppidum is a large fortified Iron Age settlement. They continued in use until the Romans began conquering Europe, north of the River Danube, where the population remained independent from Rome, oppida continued to be used into the 1st century AD. Oppidum is a Latin word meaning the settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome. The word is derived from the earlier Latin ob-pedum, enclosed space, possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *pedóm-, in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age settlements he encountered in Gaul during the Gallic Wars in 58 to 52 BC as oppida. Although he did not explicitly define what features qualified a settlement to be called an oppidum and they were important economic sites, places where goods were produced, stored and traded, and sometimes Roman merchants had settled and the Roman legions could obtain supplies. They were also political centres, the seat of authorities taking decisions that affected large numbers of people, Most of the places that Caesar called oppida were city-sized fortified settlements. However, Geneva, for example, was referred to as an oppidum, Caesar also refers to 20 oppida of the Bituriges and 12 of the Helvetii, twice the number of fortified settlements of these groups known today. That implies that Caesar likely counted some unfortified settlements as oppida, a similar ambiguity is in evidence in writing by the Roman historian Livy, who also used the word for both fortified and unfortified settlements. In his work Geographia, Ptolemy listed the coordinates of many Celtic settlements, however, research has shown many of the localisations of Ptolemy to be erroneous, making the identification of any modern location with the names he listed highly uncertain and speculative. An exception to that is the oppidum of Brenodurum at Bern, in particular, Dehn suggested defining an oppidum by four criteria, Size, The settlement has to have a minimum size, defined by Dehn as 30 hectares. Topography, Most oppida are situated on heights, but some are located on areas of land. Fortification, The settlement is surrounded by a wall, usually consisting of three elements, a facade of stone, a construction and an earthen rampart at the back. Chronology, The settlement dates from the late Iron Age, the last two centuries BC and they could be referred to as the first cities north of the Alps. The period of 2nd and 1st centuries BC places them in the known as La Tène. A notional minimum size of 15 to 25 hectares has often been suggested, however, the term is not always rigorously used, and it has been used to refer to any hill fort or circular rampart dating from the La Tène period. One of the effects of the inconsistency in definitions is that it is uncertain how many oppida were built, in European archaeology, the term oppida is also used more widely to characterize any fortified prehistoric settlement. For example, significantly older hill-top structures like the one at Glauberg have been called oppida, the Spanish word castro, also used in English, means a walled settlement or hill fort, and this word is often used interchangeably with oppidum by archaeologists. According to prehistorian John Collis oppida extend as far east as the Hungarian plain where other settlement types take over, central Spain has sites similar to oppida, but while they share features such as size and defensive ramparts the interior was arranged differently
Oppidum
–
Celtic Oppidum, Central Europe 1st century BC
Oppidum
–
Bibracte France, seen from above, 1st century BC
Oppidum
–
A museum model of a typical Zangentor at the
Oppidum of Manching in Germany
Oppidum
–
The reconstructed walls of
Bibracte, France
26.
Basque language
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Basque is the language spoken by the Basques. Linguistically, Basque is unrelated to the languages of Europe and indeed, as a language isolate. The Basques are indigenous to, and primarily inhabit, the Basque Country, the Basque language is spoken by 27% of Basques in all territories. Of these, 93% are in the Spanish area of the Basque Country, native speakers live in a contiguous area that includes parts of four Spanish territories and the three ancient provinces in France. However, in those Basque-speaking regions that supported the uprising the Basque language was more than merely tolerated, overall, in the 1960s and later, the trend reversed and education and publishing in Basque began to flourish. As a part of process, a standardized form of the Basque language. Besides its standardised version, the five historic Basque dialects are Biscayan, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese in Spain and they take their names from the historic Basque provinces, but the dialect boundaries are not congruent with province boundaries. Euskara Batua was created so that Basque language could be easily understood by all Basque speakers—in formal situations. In both Spain and France, the use of Basque for education varies from region to region, a language isolate, Basque is believed to be one of the few surviving pre-Indo-European languages in Europe, and the only one in Western Europe. Basque has adopted a good deal of its vocabulary from the Romance languages, the Basque alphabet uses the Latin script. In Basque, the name of the language is officially Euskara, three etymological theories of the name Euskara are taken seriously by linguists and Vasconists. In French, the language is normally called basque, though in recent times euskara has become common, Spanish has a greater variety of names for the language. Today, it is most commonly referred to as el vasco, la lengua vasca, both terms, vasco and basque, are inherited from Latin ethnonym Vascones, which in turn goes back to the Greek term οὐασκώνους, an ethnonym used by Strabo in his Geographica. The Spanish term Vascuence, derived from Latin vasconĭce, has acquired negative connotations over the centuries and is not well-liked amongst Basque speakers generally, Basque is geographically surrounded by Romance languages but is a language isolate unrelated to them. It is the last remaining descendant of one of the languages of Western Europe. Consequently, its prehistory may not be reconstructible by means of the comparative method except by applying it to differences between dialects within the language. Little is known of its origins, but a form of the Basque language likely was present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages to the area. Others find this unlikely, see the aizkora controversy, Latin inscriptions in Gallia Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in the reconstructed proto-Basque language, for instance, the personal names Nescato and Cison
Basque language
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Family transmission of Basque language (Basque as initial language)
Basque language
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Schematic dialect areas of Basque. Light-colored dialects are extinct. See dialects below for details.
Basque language
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An example of Basque lettering in a funerary stela.
Basque language
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An example of the number system employed by millers.
27.
Granada
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Granada is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of four rivers, the Beiro, the Darro, the Genil and the Monachil. It sits at an elevation of 738 m above sea level, yet is only one hour by car from the Mediterranean coast. Nearby is the Sierra Nevada Ski Station, where the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996 were held, about 3. 3% of the population did not hold Spanish citizenship, the largest number of these people coming from South America. Its nearest airport is Federico García Lorca Granada-Jaén Airport, the Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is the most renowned building of the Andalusian Islamic historical legacy with its cultural attractions that make Granada a popular destination among the touristic cities of Spain. The Almohad influence on architecture is preserved in the Granada neighborhood called the Albaicín with its fine examples of Moorish. Granada is also well-known within Spain for the University of Granada which has about 80,000 students spread over five different campuses in the city, the pomegranate is the heraldic device of Granada. The region surrounding what today is Granada has been populated since at least 5500 BC and experienced Roman, the most ancient ruins found in the city belongs to an Iberian oppidum called Ilturir, in the region known as Bastetania. This oppidum eventually changed its name to Iliberri, and after the Roman conquest of Iberia, the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, starting in AD711, brought large parts of the Iberian Peninsula under Moorish control and established Al-Andalus. In the early 11th century, after a war that ended the Caliphate, the Berber, Zawi ben Ziri, established an independent kingdom for himself. Jewish people were established in another close to Illiberis, called Gárnata or Gárnata al-Yahūd. Granadas historical name in the Arabic language was غرناطة, the word Gárnata possibly means hill of strangers. Because the city was situated on a low plain and, as a result, difficult to protect from attacks, in a short time this town was transformed into one of the most important cities of Al-Andalus. By the end of the 11th century, the city had spread across the Darro to reach the hill of the future Alhambra, the Almoravids ruled Granada from 1090 and the Almohad dynasty from 1166. With the Reconquista in full swing after the conquest of Córdoba in 1236, according to some historians, Granada was a tributary state to the Kingdom of Castile since that year. It provided connections with Muslim and Arab trade centers, particularly for gold from sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb, the Nasrids also supplied troops from the Emirate and mercenaries from North Africa for service to Castile. Ibn Battuta, a traveler and an authentic historian, visited the Kingdom of Granada in 1350
Granada
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From top left: The
Alhambra,
Generalife, Patio de los Leones in Alhambra, Royal Hall in Alhambra,
Albaicín and
Sacromonte, Huerto del Carlos, in Albaicín, Plaza Nueva, house in Albaicín, façade of the
cathedral, bell tower of the cathedral,
Royal Chapel
Granada
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Arco/puerta de Elvira in Granada
Granada
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Historic map of Granada by
Piri Reis
28.
Civitates
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In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas, according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law. It is the law that binds together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand. The agreement has a life of its own, creating a res publica or public entity, into which individuals are born or accepted, and from which they die or are ejected. The civitas is not just the body of all the citizens, it is the contract binding them all together. Civitas is a formed from civis. Claude Nicolet traces the first word and concept for the citizen at Rome to the first known instance resulting from the synoecism of Romans, according to Livy the two peoples participated in a ceremony of union after which they were named Quirites after the Sabine town of Cures. The two groups became the first curiae, subordinate assemblies, from co-viria, the two peoples had acquired one status. The Latin for the Sabine Quirites was cives, which in one analysis came from the Indo-European *kei-, lie down in the sense of incumbent, city, civic, civil all come from this root. Two peoples were now under the roof, so to speak. Civitas was a popular and widely used word in ancient Rome, under that last meaning some places took on the name, civitas, or incorporated it into their name, with the later civita or civida as reflexes. Prestigious and economically important settlements such as Massilia and Messana are examples of occupied regions granted semi-autonomy during the Roman Republic, the island of Malta was granted this status as a reward for loyalty to Rome during the Second Punic War. The new Romanised urban settlements of these client tribes were also called civitates and were usually re-founded close to the site of an old, at Cirencester, for example, the Romans made use of the army base that originally oversaw the nearby tribal oppidum to create a civitas. During the later empire, the term was applied not only to native tribes and their towns. Land destined to become a civitas was officially divided up, some being granted to the locals, a basic street grid would be surveyed in but the development of the civitas from there was left to the inhabitants although occasional imperial grants for new public buildings would be made. The civitates were regional market towns complete with a basilica and forum complex providing an administrative, civitates had a primary purpose of stimulating the local economy in order to raise taxes and produce raw materials. All this activity was administered by an ordo or curia, a council consisting of men of sufficient social rank to be able to stand for public office. Defensive measures were limited at the civitates, rarely more than palisaded earthworks in times of trouble, towards the end of the empire, the civitates own local militias, led by a decurion, likely served as the only defensive force in outlying Romanised areas threatened by barbarians. There is evidence that some civitates maintained some degree of Romanisation and served as population centres beyond the official Roman withdrawal, certain civitates groups survived as distinct tribal groupings even beyond the fall of the Roman Empire, particularly in Britain and northern Spain
Civitates
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A military diploma, or certificate of successful military service, granting citizenship to a retiring soldier and the dependents he had with him at the time. The key phrase is "est civitas eis data" where civitas means citizenship.
29.
Roman province
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In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy, largest territorial and administrative unit of the empires territorial possessions outside of Italy. The word province in modern English has its origins in the used by the Romans. Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors and this exception was unique, but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt was considered Augustus personal property, following the tradition of earlier, Hellenistic kings. The territory of a people who were defeated in war might be brought under various forms of treaty, the formal annexation of a territory created a province in the modern sense of an administrative unit geographically defined. Republican provinces were administered in one-year terms by the consuls and praetors who had held office the previous year, Rome started expanding beyond Italy during the First Punic War. The first permanent provinces to be annexed were Sicily in 241 BC, militarized expansionism kept increasing the number of these administrative provinces, until there were no longer enough qualified individuals to fill the posts. The terms of provincial governors often had to be extended for multiple years,241 BC – Sicilia taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed at the end of the First Punic War. 237 BC – Corsica et Sardinia, these two islands were taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed soon after the Mercenary War, in 238 BC and 237 BC respectively. 197 BC – Hispania Citerior, along the east coast of the,197 BC - Hispania Ulterior, along the southern coast of the, part of the territories taken over from the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. 147 BC – Macedonia, mainland Greece and it was annexed after a rebellion by the Achaean League. 146 BC – Africa, modern day Tunisia and western Libya, home territory of Carthage and it was annexed following attacks on the allied Greek city of Massalia. 67 BC – Creta et Cyrenae, Cyrenaica was bequeathed to Rome in 78 BC, however, it was not organised as a province. 58 BC – Cilicia et Cyprus, Cilicia was created as a province in the sense of area of command in 102 BC in a campaign against piracy. The Romans controlled only a small area, in 74 BC Lycia and Pamphylia were added to the smal Roman possessions in Cilicia. Cilicia came fully under Roman control towards the end of the Third Mithridatic War - 73-63 BC, the province was reorganised by Pompey in 63 BC. Gallia Cisalpina was a province in the sense of an area of military command, during Romes expansion in Italy the Romans assigned some areas as provinces in the sense of areas of military command assigned to consuls or praetors due to risks of rebellions or invasions. This was applied to Liguria because there was a series of rebellions, Bruttium, in the early days of Roman presence in Gallia Cisalpina the issue was rebellion. Later the issue was risk of invasions by warlike peoples east of Italy, the city of Aquileia was founded to protect northern Italy form invasions
Roman province
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Roman Empire under
Augustus (31 BC – AD 14). Yellow: 31BC. Dark Green 31–19 BC, Light Green 19–9 BC, Pale Green 9–6 BC. Mauve: Client states
Baynes, T.S., ed. (1878). "Auch". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 67.
Baynes, T.S., ed. (1878). "
