1.
Florida Keys
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The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost portion of the continental United States. The islands lie along the Florida Straits, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, at the nearest point, the southern part of Key West is just 90 miles from Cuba. The Florida Keys are between about 23.5 and 25.5 degrees North latitude, the climate of the Keys is defined as tropical savanna according to Köppen climate classification. More than 95 percent of the area lies in Monroe County. The total land area is 137.3 square miles, the US Census population estimate for 2014 is 77,136. The city of Key West is the county seat of Monroe County, the county consists of a section on the mainland which is almost entirely in Everglades National Park, and the Keys islands from Key Largo to the Dry Tortugas. The Keys were originally inhabited by Calusa and Tequesta Native Americans, de León named the islands Los Martires, as they looked like suffering men from a distance. Key is derived from the Spanish word cayo, meaning small island, for many years, Key West was the largest town in Florida, and it grew prosperous on wrecking revenues. The isolated outpost was located for trade with Cuba and the Bahamas. Improved navigation led to shipwrecks, and Key West went into a decline in the late nineteenth century. The Keys were long accessible only by water and this changed with the completion of Henry Flaglers Overseas Railway in the early 1910s. Flagler, a developer of Floridas Atlantic coast, extended his Florida East Coast Railway down to Key West with an ambitious series of over-sea railroad trestles. Three hurricanes disrupted the project in 1906,1909, and 1910, one of the worst hurricanes to strike the U. S. made landfall near Islamorada in the Upper Keys on Labor Day, Monday, September 2. Winds were estimated to have gusted to 200 mph, raising a storm more than 17.5 feet above sea level that washed over the islands. More than 400 people were killed, though some place the number of deaths at more than 600. The Labor Day Hurricane is one of three hurricanes to make landfall at Category 5 strength on the U. S. coast since reliable weather records began. The other storms were Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Andrew, in 1935, new bridges were under construction to connect a highway through the entire Keys. Hundreds of World War I veterans working on the roadway as part of a government relief program were housed in non-reinforced buildings in three camps in the Upper Keys
2.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
3.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
4.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
5.
Fabales
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The Fabales are an order of flowering plants included in the rosid group of the eudicots in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription, this includes the families Fabaceae or legumes, Quillajaceae, Polygalaceae or milkworts. Under the Cronquist system and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae, in the classification system of Dahlgren the Fabales were in the superorder Fabiflorae with three families corresponding to the subfamilies of Fabaceae in APG II. The Fabaceae, as the third-largest plant family in the world, contain most of the diversity of the Fabales, research in the order is largely focused on the Fabaceae, due in part to its great biological diversity, and to its importance as food plants. The Fabales are a order of plants, except only the subfamily Papilionoideae of the Fabaceae are well dispersed throughout the northern part of the North Temperate Zone
6.
Fabaceae
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The Fabaceae, Leguminosae or Papilionaceae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, are a large and economically important family of flowering plants. It includes trees, shrubs, and perennial or annual herbaceous plants, the five largest of the genera are Astragalus, Acacia, Indigofera, Crotalaria and Mimosa, which constitute about a quarter of all legume species. The ca.19,000 known legume species amount to about 7% of flowering plant species, Fabaceae is the most common family found in tropical rainforests and in dry forests in the Americas and Africa. Recent molecular and morphological evidence supports the fact that the Fabaceae is a monophyletic family. These studies confirm that the Fabaceae are a group that is closely related to the Polygalaceae, Surianaceae and Quillajaceae families. Along with the cereals, some fruits and tropical roots a number of Leguminosae have been a human food for millennia. A number of species are also weedy pests in different parts of the world, including, Cytisus scoparius, Robinia pseudoacacia, Ulex europaeus, Pueraria lobata, the name Fabaceae comes from the defunct genus Faba, now included in Vicia. The term faba comes from Latin, and appears to simply mean bean, Leguminosae is an older name still considered valid, and refers to the fruit of these plants, which are called legumes. Fabaceae range in habit from giant trees to small annual herbs, plants have indeterminate inflorescences, which are sometimes reduced to a single flower. The flowers have a short hypanthium and a single carpel with a short gynophore, the Leguminosae have a wide variety of growth forms including trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants or even vines or lianas. The herbaceous plants can be annuals, biennials or perennials, without basal or terminal leaf aggregations and they are upright plants, epiphytes or vines. The latter support themselves by means of shoots that twist around a support or through cauline or foliar tendrils, plants can be heliophytes, mesophytes or xerophytes. The leaves are alternate and compound. Most often they are even- or odd-pinnately compound, often trifoliate and rarely palmately compound, in the Mimosoideae and they always have stipules, which can be leaf-like, thorn-like or be rather inconspicuous. Leaf margins are entire or, occasionally, serrate, both the leaves and the leaflets often have wrinkled pulvini to permit nastic movements. In some species, leaflets have evolved into tendrils, many species have leaves with structures that attract ants that protect the plant from herbivore insects. Extrafloral nectaries are common among the Mimosoideae and the Caesalpinioideae, and are found in some Faboideae. In some Acacia, the modified hollow stipules are inhabited by ants and are known as domatia, many Fabaceae host bacteria in their roots within structures called root nodules
7.
Legume
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A legume is a plant or its fruit or seed in the family Fabaceae. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for their grain seed called pulse, for forage and silage. Well-known legumes include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupin bean, mesquite, carob, soybeans, peanuts, Fabaceae is the most common family found in tropical rainforests and in dry forests in the Americas and Africa. A legume fruit is a dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel. A common name for type of fruit is a pod, although the term pod is also applied to a number of other fruit types, such as that of vanilla. Legumes are notable in that most of them have symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in structures called root nodules, for that reason, they play a key role in crop rotation. The term pulse, as used by the United Nations Food and this excludes green beans and green peas, which are considered vegetable crops. Also excluded are seeds that are grown for oil extraction. However, in usage, these distinctions are not always clearly made. Some Fabaceae, such as Scotch broom and other Genisteae, are leguminous but are not called legumes by farmers. Farmed legumes can belong to many classes, including forage, grain, blooms, pharmaceutical/industrial, fallow/green manure. Most commercially farmed species fill two or more roles simultaneously, depending upon their degree of maturity when harvested, grain legumes are cultivated for their seeds. The seeds are used for human and animal consumption or for the production of oils for industrial uses, grain legumes include beans, lentils, lupins, peas, and peanuts. Like other plant-based foods, pulses contain no cholesterol and little fat or sodium, Legumes are also an excellent source of resistant starch which is broken down by bacteria in the large intestine to produce short-chain fatty acids used by intestinal cells for food energy. Preliminary studies in humans include the potential for regular consumption of legumes in a diet to affect metabolic syndrome. There is evidence that a portion of pulses in a diet may lower blood pressure and reduce LDL cholesterol levels. Some, like alfalfa, clover, vetch, stylo, or Arachis, are sown in pasture, other forage legumes such as Leucaena or Albizia are woody shrub or tree species that are either broken down by livestock or regularly cut by humans to provide livestock feed. Legume species grown for their flowers include lupins, which are farmed commercially for their blooms as well as being popular in gardens worldwide, industrially farmed legumes include Indigofera and Acacia species, which are cultivated for dye and natural gum production, respectively
8.
Haridwar
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Haridwar pronunciation also spelled Hardwar is an ancient city and municipality in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. Haridwar is regarded as one of the seven holiest places to Hindus and this is manifested in the Kumbha Mela, which is celebrated every 12 years in Haridwar. Brahma Kund, the spot where the Amrit fell, is located at Har ki Pauri and is considered to be the most sacred ghat of Haridwar, Haridwar is the headquarters and the largest city of the district. The name of the town has two spellings, Hardwar and Haridwar, each of these names has its own connotation. So, Haridwar stands for The Gateway to Lord Vishnu, in order to reach Badrinath, one of the four Char Dhams, with a temple of Lord Vishnu, Haridwar is a typical place to start a pilgrims journey. On the other hand, In Sanskrit, Hara means Lord Shiva, hence, Hardwar stands for Gateway to Lord Shiva. Har ki Pauri or footsteps of Lord Shiva is considered the most sacred site in Hardwar, Haridwar is also known as the home of Devi Sati and the palace of her father Daksha. In ancient times, the town was referred to as Gangadwára. Ayodhyā Mathurā Māyā Kāśī Kāñcī Avantikā Purī Dvārāvatī caiva saptaitā mokṣadāyikāḥ– Garuḍa Purāṇa I XVI.14 Lit, ayodhya, Mathura, Haridwar, Kasi, Kanchi, Avantika and Dwaraka are the seven holy places. Note the use of puranic name Maya for Haridwar, as also the inter-change usage of Puri and Dwaraka. The Garuḍa Purāṇa enumerates seven cities as giver of Moksha, Haridwar is said to be one of the seven most holy Hindu places in India, with Varanasi usually considered the holiest. A Kṣetra is a ground, a field of active power. In the scriptures, Haridwar has been mentioned as Kapilasthana, Gangadwara. It is also a point to the Char Dham, hence, Shaivaites and Vaishnavites call this place Hardwar and Haridwar respectively, corresponding to Hara being Shiv. Sage Kapila is said to have an ashram here giving it, its ancient name, Lord Vishnu is said to have left his footprint on the stone that is set in the upper wall of Har Ki Pauri, where the Holy Ganges touches it at all times. Haridwar came under the rule of the Maurya Empire, and later under the Kushan Empire, Archaeological findings have proved that terra cotta culture dating between 1700 BCE and 1200 BCE existed in this region. Among the ruins are a fort and three temples, decorated with stone sculptures, he also mentions the presence of a temple, north of Mo-yu-lo called Gangadwara. The city also fell to the Central Asian conqueror Timur Lang on 13 January 1399, Pandas of the Haridwar have been known to keep genealogy records of most of the Hindu population
9.
Kolkata
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Kolkata /koʊlˈkɑːtɑː/ is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. In 2011, the city had a population of 4.5 million, while the population of the city and its suburbs was 14.1 million, making it the third-most populous metropolitan area in India. Recent estimates of Kolkata Metropolitan Areas economy have ranged from $60 to $150 billion making it third most-productive metropolitan area in India, after Mumbai, in the late 17th century, the three villages that predated Calcutta were ruled by the Nawab of Bengal under Mughal suzerainty. After the Nawab granted the East India Company a trading licence in 1690, Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah occupied Calcutta in 1756, and the East India Company retook it the following year. In 1793 the East India company was enough to abolish Nizamat. Calcutta was the centre for the Indian independence movement, it remains a hotbed of contemporary state politics, following Indian independence in 1947, Kolkata, which was once the centre of modern Indian education, science, culture, and politics, suffered several decades of economic stagnation. Many people from Kolkata—among them several Nobel laureates—have contributed to the arts, the sciences, Kolkata culture features idiosyncrasies that include distinctively close-knit neighbourhoods and freestyle intellectual exchanges. Though home to major cricketing venues and franchises, Kolkata differs from other Indian cities by giving importance to association football, there are several explanations about the etymology of this name, The term Kolikata is thought to be a variation of Kalikkhetrô, meaning Field of Kali. Similarly, it can be a variation of Kalikshetra, alternatively, the name may have been derived from the Bengali term kilkila, or flat area. The name may have its origin in the words khal meaning canal, followed by kaṭa, according to another theory, the area specialised in the production of quicklime or koli chun and coir or kata, hence, it was called Kolikata. The discovery and archaeological study of Chandraketugarh,35 kilometres north of Kolkata, Kolkatas recorded history began in 1690 with the arrival of the English East India Company, which was consolidating its trade business in Bengal. The area occupied by the city encompassed three villages, Kalikata, Gobindapur, and Sutanuti. Kalikata was a village, Sutanuti was a riverside weavers village. They were part of an estate belonging to the Mughal emperor and these rights were transferred to the East India Company in 1698. In 1712, the British completed the construction of Fort William, facing frequent skirmishes with French forces, the British began to upgrade their fortifications in 1756. The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, condemned the militarisation and his warning went unheeded, and the Nawab attacked, he captured Fort William which led to the killings of several East India company officials in the Black Hole of Calcutta. A force of Company soldiers and British troops led by Robert Clive recaptured the city the following year, declared a presidency city, Calcutta became the headquarters of the East India Company by 1772. In 1793, ruling power of the Nawabs were abolished and East India company took control of the city
10.
West Bengal
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West Bengal is an Indian state, located in East India on the Bay of Bengal. It is Indias fourth-most populous state, with over 91 million inhabitants and it has a total area of 34,267 sq mi, making it similar in size to Serbia. A part of the ethno-linguistic Bengal region, it borders Bangladesh in the east and Nepal and it also has borders five Indian states, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata, the seventh-largest city in India, the geography of West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in its extreme north, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region and the coastal Sundarbans. The main ethnic group are the Bengali people, with Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority, Ancient Bengal was the site of several major janapadas, including Vanga, Radha, Pundra and Suhma. In the 2nd century BC, the region was conquered by the emperor Ashoka, in the 4th century AD, it was absorbed into the Gupta Empire. From the 13th century onward, the region was ruled by sultans, powerful Hindu states and Baro-Bhuyan landlords. The British East India Company cemented their hold on the following the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Between 1977 and 2011, the state was administered by the worlds longest elected Communist government, a major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to Indias net domestic product. It is noted for its activities and the presence of cultural and educational institutions. The states cultural heritage, besides varied folk traditions, ranges from stalwarts in literature including Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore to scores of musicians, film-makers and artists. West Bengal is also distinct from most other Indian states in its appreciation and practice of playing football besides cricket. The origin of the name Bengal is unknown, one theory suggests that the word derives from Bang, a Dravidian tribe that settled the region around 1000 BC. The word might have derived from the ancient kingdom of Vanga. Although some early Sanskrit literature mentions the name, the early history is obscure. At the end of British Rule over the Indian subcontinent, the Bengal region was partitioned in 1947 along religious lines into east and west, the east came to be known as East Bengal and the west came to known as West Bengal, which continued as an Indian state. In 2011, the Government of West Bengal proposed a change in the name of the state to Poschimbongo. This is the name of the state, literally meaning western Bengal in the native Bengali language
11.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
12.
Mauritius
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Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 kilometres off the southeast coast of the African continent. The country includes the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, and the outer islands, the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues form part of the Mascarene Islands, along with nearby Réunion, a French overseas department. The area of the country is 2,040 km², the capital and largest city is Port Louis. Mauritius was a British colonial possession from 1810 to 1968, the year of its independence, the government uses English as the main language. The sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is disputed between Mauritius and the United Kingdom, the UK excised the archipelago from Mauritian territory in 1965, three years prior to Mauritian independence. The UK gradually depopulated the archipelagos indigenous population and leased its biggest island, Diego Garcia, access to the archipelago is prohibited to casual tourists, the media, and its former inhabitants. Mauritius also claims sovereignty over Tromelin Island from France, the people of Mauritius are multiethnic, multi-religious, multicultural and multilingual. The islands government is modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system. Along with the other Mascarene Islands, Mauritius is known for its flora and fauna. The island is known as the only known home of the dodo. Mauritius is the country in Africa where Hinduism is the largest religion. The first historical evidence of the existence of an island now known as Mauritius is on a map produced by the Italian cartographer Alberto Cantino in 1502. From this, it appears that Mauritius was first named Dina Arobi around 975 by Arab sailors, in 1507 Portuguese sailors visited the uninhabited island. The island appears with a Portuguese name Cirne on early Portuguese maps, another Portuguese sailor, Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, gave the name Mascarenes to the Archipelago. In 1598 a Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and named the island Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice van Nassau, later the island became a French colony and was renamed Isle de France. On 3 December 1810 the French surrendered the island to Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, under British rule, the islands name reverted to Mauritius /məˈrɪʃəs/. Mauritius is also known as Maurice and Île Maurice in French. The island of Mauritius was uninhabited before its first recorded visit during the Middle Ages by Arab sailors, in 1507 Portuguese sailors came to the uninhabited island and established a visiting base
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