1.
Flag of Ecuador
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The national flag of Ecuador, which consists of horizontal bands of yellow, blue and red, was first adopted by law on 1835 and later on 26 September 1860. The design of the current flag was finalized in 1900 with the addition of the coat of arms in the center of the flag, before using the yellow, blue and red tricolor, Ecuador used white and blue flags that contained stars for each province of the country. The design of the flag is similar to those of Colombia and Venezuela. All three are based on a proposal by Venezuelan General Francisco de Miranda, which was adopted by Venezuela in 1811, there is a variant of the flag that does not contain the coat of arms that is used by the merchant marine. This flag matches Colombias in every aspect, but Colombia uses a different design when her merchant marine ships are at sail. The Ecuadorian National Secretariat of Communication issued regulations describing the applications and proportions of the flag, coat of arms. The national flag has a length of 2.20 meters and a width of 1.47 m, a ratio of 2 to 3. The field is split into three horizontal colored bands, a band of one-half the flags width, a blue band of one-quarter the width. All three bands extend the length of the flag. The flag is charged with the Ecuadorian coat of arms scaled to one-half the width of the flag, the coat of arms itself is constructed in a rectangle with proportions 12,10. The national standard has the design as the national flag. When used by units and organizations, lettering can encircle the coat of arms with a diameter of 55 centimeters. The lettering must be 4 cm in height,3 cm in width, gold-colored Roman font, the only other regulated size is a table flag where the flag is 200 mm wide and 300 mm long. In the background of the shield is the mountain Chimborazo. Chimborazo is also the highest mountain in Ecuador and is part of the Andes Range, the steamboat on the river is named Guayas as well. The ship was built in Guayaquil and was the first seaworthy steamship built in both Ecuador and in all of South America and it was first put into service on 9 October 1841. The ship has the features of a Caduceus representing trade and economy and this kind of mast has two wings surrounding a pole with two snakes encircling it. The condor on top of the shield stretches his wings to symbolize power, greatness, the condor also represents the idea that it will always be ready to attack any enemy
2.
Ecuador
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Ecuador also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres west of the mainland. What is now Ecuador was home to a variety of Amerindian groups that were incorporated into the Inca Empire during the 15th century. The territory was colonized by Spain during the 16th century, achieving independence in 1820 as part of Gran Colombia, Spanish is the official language and is spoken by a majority of the population, though 13 Amerindian languages are also recognized, including Quichua and Shuar. The capital city is Quito, while the largest city is Guayaquil, in reflection of the countrys rich cultural heritage, the historical center of Quito was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Cuenca, the third-largest city, was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 as an outstanding example of a planned. Ecuador has an economy that is highly dependent on commodities, namely petroleum. The country is classified as a medium-income country, Ecuador is a democratic presidential republic. The new constitution of 2008 is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, Ecuador is also known for its rich ecology, hosting many endemic plants and animals, such as those of the Galápagos Islands. It is one of 17 megadiverse countries in the world, various peoples had settled in the area of the future Ecuador before the arrival of the Incas. They developed different languages while emerging as unique ethnic groups, even though their languages were unrelated, these groups developed similar groups of cultures, each based in different environments. Over time these groups began to interact and intermingle with each other so that groups of families in one area became one community or tribe, with a similar language and culture. Many civilizations arose in Ecuador, such as the Valdivia Culture and Machalilla Culture on the coast, the Quitus, each civilization developed its own distinctive architecture, pottery, and religious interests. Eventually, through wars and marriage alliances of their leaders, a group of nations formed confederations, one region consolidated under a confederation called the Shyris, which exercised organized trading and bartering between the different regions. Its political and military came under the rule of the Duchicela blood-line. The native confederations that gave them the most problems were deported to distant areas of Peru, Bolivia, similarly, a number of loyal Inca subjects from Peru and Bolivia were brought to Ecuador to prevent rebellion. Thus, the region of highland Ecuador became part of the Inca Empire in 1463 sharing the same language, in contrast, when the Incas made incursions into coastal Ecuador and the eastern Amazon jungles of Ecuador, they found both the environment and indigenous people more hostile. Moreover, when the Incas tried to subdue them, these indigenous people withdrew to the interior, as a result, Inca expansion into the Amazon basin and the Pacific coast of Ecuador was hampered. The indigenous people of the Amazon jungle and coastal Ecuador remained relatively autonomous until the Spanish soldiers, the Amazonian people and the Cayapas of Coastal Ecuador were the only groups to resist Inca and Spanish domination, maintaining their language and culture well into the 21st century
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
5.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
6.
Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
7.
Colombia
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Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and it shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments, the territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples including the Muisca, the Quimbaya and the Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada, the new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, and then the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Since the 1960s the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, and thereby possesses a rich cultural heritage. Cultural diversity has also influenced by Colombias varied geography. The urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains. Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, ecologically, it is one of the worlds 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer. Colombia is a power and a regional actor with the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is an accessing member to the OECD. Colombia has an economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run. The name Colombia is derived from the last name of Christopher Columbus and it was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but especially to those portions under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819. When Venezuela, Ecuador and Cundinamarca came to exist as independent states, New Granada officially changed its name in 1858 to the Granadine Confederation. In 1863 the name was changed, this time to United States of Colombia. To refer to country, the Colombian government uses the terms Colombia. Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica, the oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period, at Puerto Hormiga and other sites, traces from the Archaic Period have been found
8.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
9.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
10.
Amerindian languages
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Amerind is a hypothetical higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in 1960 and elaborated by his student Merritt Ruhlen. The term Amerind is also used to refer broadly to the various indigenous languages of the Americas without necessarily implying that they are a genealogical group. To avoid ambiguity, the term Amerindian is often used for the latter meaning, among the most prolific and gifted linguists of his times was Edward Sapir, who was among the first to apply the comparative method to native American languages. However, contrary to current practice in linguistics, Sapir also often relied on hunches. Some of these suggestions have been proven correct while others have not and this pattern was first noted by Alfredo Trombetti in 1905. This pattern was noted by Sapir which caused him to suggest that ultimately all native American languages would turn out to be related. This caused her to suggest that they had spread through diffusion and this notion was rejected by Lyle Campbell who argued that in fact the n/m pattern was not statistically significant in either area compared to the rest of the world. At right is a selection of singular Amerind pronouns from various languages, in addition, Greenberg does not normalize the spelling of the data, so it is impossible without knowing the source of each form to know what the notation represents. Greenberg Merritt Ruhlen Non-Amerind American language families Na-Dené Eskimo–Aleut Google. books, Greenberg, ISBN 0-8047-1315-4 The home page of Merritt Ruhlen, one of the advocates of the Amerind hypothesis
11.
Protestantism
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Protestantism is a form of Christianity which originated with the Reformation, a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the three divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The term derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical. Although there were earlier breaks from or attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church—notably by Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Protestants reject the notion of papal supremacy and deny the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but disagree among themselves regarding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Five solae summarize the reformers basic differences in theological beliefs, in the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, and Iceland. Reformed churches were founded in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by such reformers as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, the political separation of the Church of England from Rome under King Henry VIII brought England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement. Protestants developed their own culture, which made major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, some Protestant denominations do have a worldwide scope and distribution of membership, while others are confined to a single country. A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of families, Adventism, Anglicanism, Baptist churches, Reformed churches, Lutheranism, Methodism. Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, independent and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity. Six princes of the Holy Roman Empire and rulers of fourteen Imperial Free Cities, the edict reversed concessions made to the Lutherans with the approval of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V three years earlier. During the Reformation, the term was used outside of the German politics. The word evangelical, which refers to the gospel, was more widely used for those involved in the religious movement. Nowadays, this word is still preferred among some of the historical Protestant denominations in the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions in Europe, above all the term is used by Protestant bodies in the German-speaking area, such as the EKD. In continental Europe, an Evangelical is either a Lutheran or a Calvinist, the German word evangelisch means Protestant, and is different from the German evangelikal, which refers to churches shaped by Evangelicalism. The English word evangelical usually refers to Evangelical Protestant churches, and it traces its roots back to the Puritans in England, where Evangelicalism originated, and then was brought to the United States. Protestantism as a term is now used in contradistinction to the other major Christian traditions, i. e. Roman Catholicism. Initially, Protestant became a term to mean any adherent to the Reformation movement in Germany and was taken up by Lutherans. Even though Martin Luther himself insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ, French and Swiss Protestants preferred the word reformed, which became a popular, neutral and alternative name for Calvinists
12.
Latin Americans
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Latin Americans are the citizens of the Latin American countries and dependencies. Latin American countries are multi-ethnic, home to people of different ethnic, as a result, some Latin Americans dont take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with both their nationality and their ancestral origins. Aside from the indigenous Amerindian population, all Latin Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries, Latin America has the largest diasporas of Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Black Africans, Italians, Lithuanians, Lebanese, and Japanese in the world. Besides the second largest German diaspora after the US, and the Argentine, various Black, Asian, and Zambo minorities are also identified in most countries. White Latin Americans are the largest single group, together with the people of part-European ancestry they combine for approximately 80% of the population, or even more. Latin Americans and their descendants can be found almost everywhere in the world, the most important migratory destinations for Latin Americans are found in the United States, Spain, Canada, and Japan. Latin America is the region of the Americas where Romance languages (i. e. those derived from Latin—particularly Spanish and Portuguese, if we consider this definition strictly, we should consider Canada and in particular Quebec as part of Latin America. Latin America, therefore, can be defined as all parts of the Americas that were once part of the French, Spanish, or Portuguese Empires. The population of Latin America comprises a variety of ancestries, ethnic groups, Black, Asian, and Zambo minorities are also identified regularly. White people are the largest single group, accounting for more than a third, the indigenous population of Latin America, the Native Americans, arrived during the Lithic stage. In post-Columbian times they experienced tremendous population decline, particularly in the decades of colonization. They have since recovered in numbers, surpassing sixty million, though with the growth of the other groups meanwhile, they now compose a majority only in Bolivia, in Guatemala, Native American are a large minority that comprises two-fifths of the population. Mexicos 14% is the next largest ratio, and one of the largest Amerindian population in the Americas in absolute numbers, Most of the remaining countries have Native American minorities, in every case making up less than one-tenth of the respective countrys population. In many countries, people of mixed Native American and European ancestry make up the majority of the population, people of Asian descent number several million in Latin America. The first Asians to settle in the region were Filipino, as a result of Spains trade involving Asia, the majority of Asian Latin Americans are of Japanese or Chinese ancestry and reside mainly in Brazil and Peru, there is also a growing Chinese minority in Panama. Ethnic Koreans also number tens of thousands of individuals in Argentina, Peru, with 1.47 million people of Asian descent, has one of the largest Chinese communities in the world, with nearly one million Peruvians being of Chinese ancestry. There is a strong presence in Peru, where a past president. The Martiniquais population includes an African-White-Indian mixed population, and an East Indian population, the Guadeloupean East Indian population is estimated at 14% of the population
13.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
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The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age
14.
Culture of Ecuador
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The majority of Ecuadors population is mestizo, a mixture of both European and Amerindian ancestry. The other 10% of Ecuadors population is of European descent, predominantly from Spain, Italy, Lebanon, France, around the Esmeraldas and Chota regions, the African influence would be strong among the small population of Afro-Ecuadorians that account for no more than 10%. Close to 95% of Ecuadorians are Roman Catholic, although the indigenous population blend Christian beliefs with ancient indigenous customs, Ecuador can be split up into four parts, geographically, the Costa, the Sierra, and El Oriente. The Galápagos Islands, or Archipiélago de Colón, also belong to Ecuador, there is tension and dislike between the residents of Quito and Guayaquil. Additionally, there is centralism in these two cities, so people from other provinces also tend to dislike its residents. Furthermore, due to the at times extreme cultural difference, between the Coast and the Sierra, there is a general dislike between those two regions that traces back to prehispanic times. Ecuador was inhabited with numerous civilizations which constructed the cultural background of Ecuador years before the Inca Empire. Many civilizations rose throughout Ecuador, such as the Chorre and the Valdivia, the most notable groups that existed in Ecuador before, and during the Inca conquest were the Quitus, the Cañari, and the Las Vegas Cultre. Each civilization developed its own distinguished architecture, pottery, and religious beliefs, after years of fierce resistance, the Cañari succumbed to the Inca expansion, and were assimilated loosely under the Inca Empire. The Inca were a society which originated in Peru. It dominated Peru and extended as far as Bolivia and central Chile, to communicate with each other they developed stone-paved highways spanning thousands of miles used by messengers. These messengers passed each other records of the status, which are sometimes thought to have been encoded in a system of knots called quipu. Remarkably, the Cañari, Quitus, and Caras were able to hold back Tupac-Yupanqui for years, though they proved successful against his son. After conquering Ecuador, Huayna Capac imposed upon the tribes the use of the Quechua language, lingua franca of the Inca and still widely spoken in Ecuador. The Cañaris were the strongest, and fiercest group in Ecuador to fall, and after their collapse and subsequent assimilation, the conquest of lands north became easier. In celebration of his victory, Tupac Yupanqui ordered a great city to be built, Tomebamba, when he died in 1526, Huayna Capac divided the empire between his two sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar. Atahualpa ruled in the north from Quito, while Huáscar ruled in the south from Cuzco, Huáscar and Atuahualpa wanted all the empire, they could not share the territory, so an internal war took place. Francisco Pizarro landed in Ecuador in 1532, accompanied by 180 fully armed men, several years earlier, Pizarro had made a peaceful visit to the coast, where he heard rumors in Colombia of El Dorado of inland cities which had incredible amounts of gold
15.
Human migration
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Human migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intentions of settling, permanently in the new location. The movement is often long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is also possible, indeed. Migration may be individuals, family units or in large groups, nomadic movements are normally not regarded as migrations as there is no intention to settle in the new place and because the movement is generally seasonal. Only a few people have retained this form of lifestyle in modern times. Many estimates of statistics in worldwide migration patterns exist, the World Bank has published its Migration and Remittances Factbook annually since 2008. The International Organisation for Migration has published a yearly World Migration Report since 1999, the United Nations Statistics Division also keeps a database on worldwide migration. Recent advances in research on migration via the Internet promise better understanding of migration patterns, substantial internal migration can also take place within a country, either seasonal human migration, or shifts of population into cities or out of cities. Studies of worldwide migration patterns, however, tend to limit their scope to international migration, the World Banks Migration and Remittances Factbook of 2011 lists the following estimates for the year 2010, total number of immigrants,215.8 million or 3. 2% of world population. In 2013, the percentage of international migrants worldwide increased by 33% with 59% of migrants targeting developed regions, almost half of these migrants are women, which is one of the most significant migrant-pattern changes in the last half century. Women migrate alone or with their members and community. Even though female migration is largely viewed as rather than independent migration, emerging studies argue complex. The World Banks report estimates that, as of 2010,16.3 million or 7. 6% of migrants qualified as refugees. At the end of 2012, approximately 15.4 million people were refugees, structurally, there is substantial South-South and North-North migration, i. e. most emigrants from high-income O. E. C. D. Countries migrate to other countries, and a substantial part of emigrants from developing countries migrate to other developing countries. Between 2000 and 2013 the average rate of change of the migrant population in the developing regions slightly exceeded that of the developed regions. Remittances, i. e. funds transferred by migrant workers to their home country, the top ten remittance recipients in 2010 were 1. China, Mexico, Philippines, France, Germany, Bangladesh, Belgium, Spain, the Global Commission on International Migration, launched in 2003, published a report in 2005. International migration challenges at the level are addressed through the Global Forum on Migration and Development
16.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools
17.
Ethnic groups in Europe
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The ethnic groups in Europe are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. The total number of minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people. There is no precise or universally accepted definition of the ethnic group or nationality. There are eight peoples of Europe with more than 30 million members residing in Europe and these eight groups between themselves account for some 465 million or about 65% of European population, Russians, Germans, French, British, Italians, Spanish, Ukrainians, Poles. About 20–25 million residents are members of diasporas of non-European origin, the population of the European Union, with some five hundred million residents, accounts for two thirds of the European population. Of the total population of Europe of some 730 million, over 80% or some 600 million fall within three large branches of Indo-European languages, viz. Slavic, Italic and Germanic, the largest groups that do not fall within these three are the Greeks and the Albanians. Beside the Indo-European languages there are two major language families on the European continent, Turkic languages and Uralic languages. The Semitic languages that dominate the coast of northern Africa as well as the Near East are preserved in Malta, abkhaz–Adyghean, Basque, Kartvelian, and Nakho-Dagestani are linguistic isolates with no known relation to each other or to any other languages inside or outside of Europe. The Basques are assumed to descend from the populations of the Atlantic Bronze Age directly, the Indo-European groups of Europe are assumed to have developed in situ by admixture of early Indo-European groups arriving in Europe by the Bronze Age. The Finnic peoples are mostly assumed to be descended from populations that had migrated to their homelands by about 3,000 years ago. A group of Tyrrhenian languages appears to have included Etruscan, Rhaetian and perhaps also Eteocretan, a pre-Roman stage of Proto-Basque can only be reconstructed with great uncertainty. Regarding the European Bronze Age, the only secure reconstruction is that of Proto-Greek, a Proto-Italo-Celtic ancestor of both Italic and Celtic, and a Proto-Balto-Slavic language has been postulated with less confidence. Old European hydronymy has been taken as indicating an early Indo-European predecessor of the later centum languages, iron Age populations of Europe known from Greco-Roman historiography, notably Herodotus, Pliny, Ptolemy and Tacitus, Aegean, Greek tribes, Pelasgians/Tyrrhenians, and Anatolians. Armenian Highlands/Anatolia, Armenians Balkans, Illyrians, Dacians, and Thracians, Caucasus, Georgians Italian peninsula, Italic peoples, Etruscans, Adriatic Veneti, Ligurians and Greek colonies. Western/Central Europe, Celts, Rhaetians and Swabians, Vistula Veneti, Lugii, Iberian peninsula, Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula Basques and Phoenicians. Sardinia, ancient Sardinians, comprising the Corsi, Balares and Ilienses tribes, British Isles, Celtic tribes in Britain and Ireland and Picts/Priteni. Northern Europe, Finnic peoples, Germanic peoples, iranian influence, Achaemenid control of Thrace and the Bosporan Kingdom, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Ossetes. The Jewish diaspora reached Europe in the Roman Empire period, the Jewish community in Italy dating to around AD70, the Bulgars, a semi-nomadic people, originally from Central Asia, eventually absorbed by the Slavs
18.
Spaniards
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Within Spain there are a number of nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the countrys complex history and diverse culture. There are several commonly spoken languages, most notably Basque. There are many populations outside Spain with ancestors who emigrated from Spain, the Roman Republic conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. As a result of Roman colonization, the majority of languages, with the exception of Basque. The Germanic Vandals and Suebi, with part of the Iranian Alans under King Respendial conquered the peninsula in 409 AD. The Iberian Peninsula was conquered and brought under the rule of the Arab Umayyads in 711 and by the Berber North African dynasties the Almohads, in the early 16th century the Kingdom of Navarre was also conquered. In parallel, a wave of emigration began to the Americas began with over 16 million people emigrating to the Americas during the colonial period. In the post-colonial period, a further 3.5 million Spanish left for the Americas, particularly Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, as a result, Spanish-descendants in Latin America number in the hundreds of millions. Spain is home to one of the largest communities of Romani people, the Spanish Roma, which belong to the Iberian Kale subgroup, are a formerly-nomadic community, which spread across Western Asia, North Africa, and Europe, first reaching Spain in the 15th century. The population of Spain is became increasingly diverse due to recent immigration, the earliest modern humans inhabiting Spain are believed to have been Neolithic peoples who may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35, 000–40,000 years ago. In more recent times the Iberians are believed to have arrived or developed in the region between the 4th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC, initially settling along the Mediterranean coast, celts settled in Spain during the Iron Age. Some of those tribes in North-central Spain, which had contact with the Iberians, are called Celtiberians. In addition, a known as the Tartessians and later Turdetanians inhabited southwestern Spain. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians successively founded trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries, the Second Punic War between the Carthaginians and Romans was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal. The Roman Republic conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC transformed most of the region into a series of Latin-speaking provinces, hispania emerged as an important part of the Roman Empire and produced notable historical figures such as Trajan, Hadrian, Seneca and Quintilian. The Germanic Vandals and Suebi, with part of the Iranian Alans under King Respendial, the Suebi became the first Germanic kingdom to convert officially to Roman Catholicism in 447 AD. under king Rechiar. After two centuries of domination by the Visigothic Kingdom, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by a Muslim force under Tariq Bin Ziyad in 711 and this army consisted mainly ethnic Berbers from the Ghomara tribe, which were reinforced by Arabs from Syria once the conquest was complete. Muslim Iberia became part of the Umayyad Caliphate and would be known as Al-Andalus, the Berbers of Al Andalus revolted as early as 740 AD, halting Arab expansion across the Pyrenees into France
19.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
20.
Afro-Ecuadorian
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Afro-Ecuadorians are an ethnic group in Ecuador who are descendants of formerly enslaved Africans brought by the Spanish during their conquest of Ecuador from the Incas. They make up from 4% to 6% of Ecuadors population, Ecuador has a population of about 1,120,000 descendants from African people. The Afro-Ecuadorian culture is primarily in the countrys northwest coastal region. The majority of the Afro-Ecuadorian population are to be found in the province of Esmeraldas and they can be also found in Quito and Guayaquil. Their best known cultural influence known outside of Ecuador is a kind of marimba music. Most Afro-Ecuadorians are the descendants of enslaved Africans who originally arrived in Ecuador from the early 16th century, in 1533, the first enslaved Africans reached Ecuador in Quito when a slave ship heading to Peru was stranded off the Ecuadorian coast. Eventually, they started moving from their homeland and were settling everywhere in Ecuador. Racism deeply ingrained from the Spanish colonial era is found, Afro-Ecuadorians are strongly discriminated against by the mestizo. Many Afro-Ecuadorians have participated in sports, for playing with the Ecuadorian national football team. After slavery was abolished in 1851, Africans became marginalized in Ecuador, Afro-Ecuadorians live all over the country but there are two places of historic presence which are Esmeraldas province and the Chota Valley in Imbabura province. There is a presence in Quito and Guayaquil which have neighborhoods with high Afro-Ecuadorian populations. Afro-Ecuadorian culture may be analysed by considering the two centers of historical presence, the province of Esmeraldas, and the Chota Valley. Marimba music comes from Esmeraldas, and gets its name from the prominent use of marimbas, along with drums and other instruments specific to this such as the bombo, the cununo. Sometimes this music is played in religious ceremonies, as well as in celebrations and it features call and response chanting along with the music. Some of the associated with it are currulao, bambuco. On the other hand, in the Chota Valley there is bomba music and this music is very different from marimba, having a more prominent Spanish, mestizo and indigenous influence. It can vary from mid tempo to a very fast rhythm and it is usually played with guitars, as well as the main local instrument called bomba, which is a drum, along with a guiro, and sometimes bombos and bongos. A variation of it played by la banda mocha, groups who play bomba with a bombo, guiro, religious practice among Afro-Ecuadorians is usually Roman Catholic
21.
New Spain
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New Spain was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, after 1535 the colony was governed by the Viceroy of New Spain, an appointed minister of the King of Spain, who ruled as monarch over the colony. The capital of New Spain was Mexico City and it developed highly regional divisions, which reflect the impact of climate, topography, the presence or absence of dense indigenous populations, and the presence or absence of mineral resources. The areas of central and southern Mexico had dense indigenous populations with complex social, political, silver mining not only became the engine of the economy of New Spain, but vastly enriched Spain, and transformed the global economy. New Spain was the New World terminus of the Philippine trade, although New Spain was a dependency of Spain, it was a kingdom not a colony, subject to the presiding monarch on the Iberian Peninsula. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him and it was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the New World was achieved. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535 in the Kingdom of New Spain and it was the first New World viceroyalty and one of only two in the Spanish empire until the 18th century Bourbon Reforms. The Spanish Empire comprised the territories in the north overseas Septentrion, from North America, to the west of the continent, New Spain also included the Spanish East Indies. To the east of the continent, it included the Spanish West Indies and this was not occupied by many Spanish settlers and were considered more marginal to Spanish interests than the most densely populated and lucrative areas of central Mexico. To shore up its claims in North America starting in the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest explored and claimed the coast of what is now British Columbia and Alaska. The indigenous societies of Mesoamerica brought under Spanish control were of unprecedented complexity, the societies could provide the conquistadors, especially Hernán Cortés, a base from which the conquerors could become autonomous, or even independent, of the Crown. As a result, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, since the time of the Catholic Monarchs, central Iberia was governed through councils appointed by the monarch with particular jurisdictions. Thus, the creation of the Council of the Indies became another, the crown had set up the Casa de Contratación in 1503 to regulate contacts between Spain and its overseas possessions. A key function was to gather information about navigation to make trips less risky and they were accompanied by maps of the area discussed, many of which were drawn by indigenous artists. The Francisco Hernández Expedition, the first scientific expedition to the New World, was sent to gather information medicinal plants, an earlier Audiencia had been established in Santo Domingo in 1526 to deal with the Caribbean settlements. That Audiencia, housed in the Casa Reales in Santo Domingo, was charged with encouraging further exploration, management by the Audiencia, which was expected to make executive decisions as a body, proved unwieldy. Therefore, in 1535, King Charles V named Don Antonio de Mendoza as the first Viceroy of New Spain. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 opened up the vast territories of South America to further conquests, the Crown established an independent Viceroyalty of Peru there in 1540
22.
Slavery
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A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will. Scholars also use the generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour. However – and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word – slaves may have some rights and/or protections, Slavery began to exist before written history, in many cultures. A person could become a slave from the time of their birth, capture, while slavery was institutionally recognized by most societies, it has now been outlawed in all recognized countries, the last being Mauritania in 2007. Nevertheless, there are still more slaves today than at any point in history. The most common form of the trade is now commonly referred to as human trafficking. Chattel slavery is still practiced by the Islamic State of Iraq. An older interpretation connected it to the Greek verb skyleúo to strip a slain enemy, there is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as unfree labourer or enslaved person, rather than slave, should be used when describing the victims of slavery. Chattel slavery, also called traditional slavery, is so named because people are treated as the chattel of the owner and are bought, although it dominated many societies in the past, this form of slavery has been formally abolished and is very rare today. Even when it can be said to survive, it is not upheld by the system of any internationally recognized government. Indenture, otherwise known as bonded labour or debt bondage is a form of labour under which a person pledges himself or herself against a loan. The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents debt. It is the most widespread form of slavery today, debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia. This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription, Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution. And is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil, in 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts. A forced marriage may be regarded as a form of slavery by one or more of the involved in the marriage
23.
Mestizo
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The term was used as an ethnic/racial category in the casta system that was in use during the Spanish Empires control of their New World colonies. Mestizos are usually considered to be mixed Spaniards by the crown of Spain, the term mestizaje - taking as its root mestizo or mixed - is the Spanish word for miscegenation, the general process of mixing ancestries. To avoid confusion with the usage of the term mestizo. In colonial Venezuela, pardo was more commonly used instead of mestizo, pardo means being mixed without specifying which mixture, it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Amerindian, and Black African. In colonial Brazil most of the population was mestiço in the original Iberian definition of the word. In the Philippines, which was a colony of Spain, the term came to refer to a Filipino with any foreign ancestry especially whites. In Canada, the Métis people is a community composed of those who possess combined European, in Saint Barthélemy, the term mestizo refers to people of mixed European and East Asian ancestry. The Spanish word mestizo is from Latin mixticius, meaning mixed and its usage has been documented as early as 1275, to refer to the offspring of an Egyptian and a Jew. This term was first documented in English in 1582 and it is related to the particular racial identity of historical non-white Amerindian-descended Hispanic and Latino American communities in an American context. In English-speaking Canada, Canadian Métis, as a loanword from French, refers to persons of mixed French, in the United States, Métis Americans and Mestizo Americans are two distinct racial and ethno-racial identities, as reflected in the use of French and Spanish loanwords, respectively. The latter was listed as a mestizo de sangley in birth records of the 19th century, with sangley as a reference to the Hokkiense word for business. Mestizo, mestiço, métis, mestís, Mischling, meticcio, mestiezen, mestee, in the Spanish colonial period, the Spanish developed an extremely vast complex system of racial hierarchy, which was used for social control and which also determined a persons standing in society. There were three categories of race during the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, White Spaniard, Amerindian. During the Spanish colonial era, a myriad of terms were created to differentiate these racial mixtures, by the end of the colonial period in 1821, over one hundred sub-categories of possible variations of mixture existed, but official church and civil records were maintained with few categories. Church baptismal and marriage registers and civil records used the terms español, castizo, mestizo, mulato, and indio. As time went on, a system of hierarchy, the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas developed where society was divided based on race, wealth. Mestizo – a person of mixed White European and Amerindian ancestry, in theory, and as depicted in eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings, español status could also be attained by people of mixed origin who consistently had intermarried with Europeans. Such cases might include the offspring of a parent and one Peninsular or criollo parent
24.
White people
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White people is a racial classification specifier, used for people of Europid ancestry, with the exact implications dependent on context. The contemporary usage of people or a white race as a large group of populations contrasting with black, American Indian. It is today used as a racial classifier in multiracial societies, such as North Africa, United States. The term white race or white people entered the major European languages in the later 17th century, in the context of racialized slavery, description of populations as white in reference to their skin color predates this notion and is found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient sources. Scholarship on race generally distinguishes the concept from pre-modern descriptions of collective difference. In the literature of the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity and we know that Egyptians were not oblivious to skin color, however, because artists paid attention to it in works of art, to the extent the pigments at the time permitted. Classicist James Dee states the Greeks do not describe themselves as white people—or as anything else because they had no word in their color vocabulary for themselves. Peoples skin color did not carry meaning, what mattered is where they lived. Religious conversion was sometimes described figuratively as a change in skin color, similarly, the Rigveda uses krsna tvac black skin as a metaphor for irreligiosity. The Ancient Egyptian funerary text known as the Book of Gates distinguishes four groups in a procession and these are the Egyptians, the Levantine/Canaanite peoples or Asiatics, the Nubians and the fair-skinned Libyans. The Egyptians are depicted as a reddish brown, the Nubians as black skinned, the Semites from the Levant and Canaan as light skinned. Herodotus described the Scythian Budini as having blue eyes and bright red hair. And the Egyptians – quite like the Colchians – as melánchroes and he also gives the possibly first reference to the common Greek name of the tribes living south of Egypt, otherwise known as Nubians, which was Aithíopes. Later Xenophon described the Aethiopians as black and the Persian troops as white compared to the skin of Greek troops. These color adjectives are found in contrast to the standard set by the own group. According to historian Irene Silverblatt, Race thinking … made social categories into racial truths, Alastair Bonnett argues that white identity, as it is presently conceived, is an American project, reflecting American interpretations of race and history. According to Gregory Jay, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Before the age of exploration, group differences were based on language, religion. … the European had always reacted a bit hysterically to the differences of skin color, in the 16th and 17th centuries, East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as white, never as yellow
25.
Criollo people
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Although Criollos were legally Spaniards, in practice, they ranked below the Iberian-born Peninsulares. Nevertheless, they had preeminence over all the populations, Amerindians, enslaved Africans. According to the Casta system, a criollo could have up to 1/8 Amerindian ancestry without losing social place, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, changes in the Spanish Empires policies towards its colonies led to tensions between Criollos and Peninsulares. Criollos were the supporters of the Spanish American wars of independence. The word criollo and its Portuguese cognate crioulo are believed to come from the Spanish/Portuguese verb criar, in Spanish colonies, an español criollo was an ethnic Spaniard who had been born in the colonies, as opposed to an español peninsular born in Spain. Whites in colonial Brazil, born in the Iberian Peninsula, were known as mazombos, limpieza de sangre or cleanness of blood was a legal concept in use since the Spanish Reconquista, and introduced to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The English word creole was a loan from French créole, which in turn is believed to come from Spanish criollo or Portuguese crioulo, such cases might include the offspring of a Castizo parent and one Peninsular or Criollo parent. This one-eighth rule, also in theory, did not apply to African admixture, in reality, officials assigned various racial categories to mix-raced people depending on their social status, what they were told or due to testimony from friends and neighbors. To preserve the Spanish Crowns power in the colonies, the Spanish colonial society was based on a caste system. The highest-ranking castes were the españoles, Spaniards by birth or descent, people of mixed ancestry were classified in other castes — such as castizos, mestizos, cholos, mulatos, indios, zambos, and enslaved Africans, called blacks. Poole argues that the Virgin Mary, especially as Our Lady of Guadalupe and they used the story to legitimize their own social position and infuse it with an almost messianic sense of mission and identity. Until 1760, the Spanish colonies were ruled under laws designed by the Spanish Habsburgs and that situation changed by the Bourbon Reforms during the reign of Charles III. Spain needed to extract increasing wealth from its colonies to support the European, the Crown expanded the privileges of the Peninsulares, who took over many administrative offices which had been filled by Criollos. At the same time, reforms by the Catholic Church reduced the roles and privileges of the ranks of the clergy. By the 19th century, this policy of the Spanish Crown. With increasing support of the castes, they engaged Spain in a fight for independence. The former Spanish Empire in the Americas separated into a number of independent republics, the word criollo retains its original meaning in most Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas. In some countries, however, the word criollo has over time come to have additional meanings, for instance, comida criolla in Spanish-speaking countries refers to local cuisine, not cuisine of the criollos
26.
Peninsulares
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In the colonial caste system of Spanish America and Spanish Philippines, a peninsular was a Spanish-born Spaniard residing in the New World or the Spanish East Indies. The word peninsular makes reference to Peninsular Spain, on much of the Iberian Peninsula, in the Portuguese Colonial Brazil, white people born in the Iberian Peninsula were known as reinóis, while whites born in Brazil with both parents being reinóis were known as mazombos. Higher offices in the Americas and Philippines were held by peninsulares, apart from the distinction of peninsulares from criollos, the castas system distinguished also mestizos, mulatos, indios, zambos and finally negros. In some places and times, such as during the wars of independence, peninsulares were called deprecatively godos or, in Mexico, Colonial officials at the highest levels arrived from Spain to fulfill their duty to govern Spanish colonies in Latin America and the Philippines. Often, the peninsulares possessed large quantities of land and they worked to preserve Spanish power and sometimes acted as agents of patrol. In a colonial social hierarchy, the peninsulares were nominally at the top, followed by criollos, who developed a fully entrenched powerful local aristocracy in the 17th, during the French Revolution, the peninsulares were generally conservative. Burkholder, Mark A. and Johnson, Lyman L
27.
Iberian Peninsula
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The Iberian Peninsula /aɪˈbɪəriən pəˈnɪnsjᵿlə/, also known as Iberia /aɪˈbɪəriə/, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is divided between Portugal and Spain, comprising most of their territory. With an area of approximately 582,000 km2, it is the second largest European peninsula, at that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabos Iberia was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the land mass southwest of there. The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with. According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country side of the Ἶβηρος as far north as the river Rhône in France. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, elsewhere he says that Saguntum is on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia. Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people of the Iberian stock living in the Pyrenees, according to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia as synonyms. The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in political, the Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia, literally translates to land of the Hiberians. This word was derived from the river Ebro, which the Romans called Hiberus, hiber was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BC. Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos in his Georgics, the Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania. As they became interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica, Hispania Tarraconensis, and Lusitania, Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. Whatever language may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, the Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so known it was hardly necessary to state, for example. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called the whole of Spain Hiberia because of the Hiberus River, the river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus, with reference to this border, Polybius states that the native name is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination
28.
Mulatto
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Mulatto is a term used to refer to persons born of one white parent and one black parent or to persons born of a mulatto parent or parents. In English, the term is generally confined to historical contexts. English speakers of mixed white and black ancestry seldom choose to identify themselves as mulatto. Some residents of Latin America, Spain America, the Caribbean, in Latin America, most mulattoes have descended from multi-ethnic relationships dating to the slavery period, rather than from recent ethnic mixing. This is especially true in Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, Cape Verde, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. The etymology of the term is believed to derive from the Spanish and Portuguese mulato, which comes from mula, meaning mule, the hybrid offspring of a horse. Some dictionaries and scholarly works trace the origins to the Arabic term muwallad. Muwallad literally means born, begotten, produced, generated, brought up, with the implication of being born and raised among Arabs, Muwallad is derived from the root word WaLaD, and colloquial Arabic pronunciation can vary greatly. Walad means, descendant, offspring, scion, child, son, boy, young animal, in al-Andalus, Muwallad referred to the offspring of non-Arab/Muslim people who adopted the Islamic religion and manners. Notable examples of this include the famous Muslim scholar Ibn Hazm. Thus, in context, the term Muwalad has a meaning close to the adopted. According to the source, the term does not denote being of mixed-race but rather being of foreign-blood. In English, printed usage of mulatto dates to at least the 16th century and this earliest usage regarded black and white as discrete species, with the mulatto constituting a third separate species. According to Julio Izquierdo Labrado, the 19th-century linguist Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas, as well as some Arabic sources muwallad is the origin of mulato. The Real Academia Española casts doubt on the muwallad theory, Scholars such as Werner Sollors cast doubt on the mule etymology for mulatto. In the 18th and 19th centuries, racialists such as Edward Long and they projected this belief back onto the etymology of the word mulatto. Sollers points out that this etymology is anachronistic, The Mulatto sterility hypothesis that has much to do with the rejection of the term by some writers is only half as old as the word Mulatto. Of São Tomé and Príncipes 193,413 inhabitants, the largest segment is classified as mestiço. or mixed race, 71% of the population of Cape Verde is also classified as such
29.
Zambo
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Zambo and cafuzo are racial terms used in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires and occasionally today to identify individuals in the Americas who are of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry. Historically, the cross between African slaves and Amerindians was referred to as a zambaggoa, then zambo, then sambo. In the United States, the word sambo is thought to refer to the cross between a black slave and a white person. The meaning of the term however is contested in North America. The word most likely originated from one of the Romance languages, or Latin, under the casta system of Spanish colonial America, the term originally applied to the children of one African and one Amerindian parent, or the children of two zambo parents. During this period, many other terms denoted individuals of African-Amerindian ancestry in ratios smaller or greater than the 50,50 of zambos, today, zambo refers to all people with significant amounts of both African and Amerindian ancestry, though it is frequently considered pejorative. The term zambo was not formally used in Spanish writing until the seventeenth century, African slaves began mixing with indigenous people from the beginning of their importation into Hispaniola in the early sixteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the Spanish began producing systematic racial classifications, some famous zambo groups were created by runaway or rebel Africans who mixed with or took over indigenous communities. They united with the indigenous Miskito people, and by the eighteenth century came to dominate the kingdom. Their alliance with and protection of English merchants and settlers in the area helped England found the colony of British Honduras, officially, zambos represent small minorities in the northwestern South American countries Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Ecuador. A small but noticeable number of resulting from recent unions of Amerindian women to Afro-Ecuadorian men are not uncommon in major coastal cities of Ecuador. In Central America, there are two indigenous-African mixed groups, the Miskito and the garifunas, the Garifuna originated from the combination of Africans who were either shipwrecked or fled from neighboring islands to St. Vincent, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1797 they were deported by the English for their role in supporting France during the French Revolutionary Wars to the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras, from there they spread up and down the coast of Central America, communities being found from Nicaragua to Belize. In Mexico, where zambos were sometimes known as lobos, they form a sizeable minority, according to the 2015 Intercensus Estimate,896,829 people identified as both Afro-Mexican and Indigenous Mexican. The great majority of the countrys Afro-descended population has been absorbed into the mestizo population. Culturally, Mexican lobos followed more Amerindian traditions rather than African influences and this acculturation also took place in Bolivia, where the Afro-Bolivian community absorbed and retained many aspects of Amerindian cultural influences, such as dress and use of the Aymara language. These communities of Afro-Bolivians reside in the Yungas region of the Bolivian department of La Paz
30.
Politics of Ecuador
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The Politics of Ecuador are multi-party. The central government polity is a four-yearly elected presidential, unicameral representative democracy, the President of Ecuador is head of state and head of government on a multi-party system, leading a cabinet with further executive power. Legislative power is not limited to the National Assembly as it may to a lesser degree be exercised by the executive consists of the President convening an appointed executive cabinet. Subsequent acts of the National Assembly are supreme over Executive Orders where sufficient votes have been cast by the legislators, the judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The constitution of Ecuador provides for a term of office for the President, Vice President. Presidents and legislators may be re-elected immediately, citizens must be at least 16 years of age to vote, suffrage is universal and compulsory for literate persons aged 18 to 65 and optional for 16 and 17 years of age and other eligible voters. Ecuadors political parties have historically been small, loose organizations that depended more on populist, often charismatic, frequent internal splits have produced extreme factionalism. However, a pattern has emerged in which administrations from the center-left alternate with those from the center-right, although Ecuadors political elite is highly factionalized along regional, ideological, and personal lines, a strong desire for consensus on major issues often leads to compromise. Opposition forces in Congress are loosely organized, but historically they often unite to block the administrations initiatives, Constitutional changes enacted by a specially elected National Constitutional Assembly in 1998 took effect on August 10,1998. The new constitution strengthens the executive branch by eliminating mid-term congressional elections, party discipline is traditionally weak, and routinely many deputies switch allegiance during each Congress. However, after the new Constitution took effect, the Congress passed a Code of Ethics which imposes penalties on members who defy their party leadership on key votes. Beginning with the 1996 election, the indigenous, less Spanish-rooted, ethnic groups abandoned their traditional policy of shunning the official political system. A presidential election was held on October 15 and November 26,2006, Rafael Correa defeated Alvaro Noboa in a run-off election, or second and final round. Correa won with 56. 8% of the vote, there was an attempted coup against President Rafael Correa in 2010. New justices of the Supreme Court are elected by the members of the court. Earlier, in November 2004, Congress replaced the majority of judges on the countrys Electoral Court, after the adoption of a new Constitution in 2008, the judicial branch of the country was completely renewed. Now it has a cooperative leadership having a judicial and an administrative head, first you have the National Court of Justice, which seats 21 judges elected for a period of 9 years. They are elected by the Judiciary Council based on a merits contest held by that office and they are the final stage of any judicial process serving as a Court of Cassation and create binding precedent based on Triple Reiterative Rulings from the Chambers of the Court
31.
The World Factbook
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The World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available from the National Technical Information Service, Other companies—such as Skyhorse Publishing—also print a paper edition. The Factbook is available in the form of a website that is updated every week. It is also available for download for use off-line, the World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U. S. Government officials, and its style, format, coverage, and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements. However, it is used as a resource for academic research papers. As a work of the U. S. Government, it is in the domain in the United States. In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below, Other public and private sources are also consulted. However, the CIA requests that it be cited when the Factbook is used, copying the official seal of the CIA without permission is prohibited by U. S. federal law—specifically, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. Before November 2001 The World Factbook website was updated yearly, from 2004 to 2010 it was updated every two weeks, since 2010 it has been updated weekly, generally, information currently available as of January 1 of the current year is used in preparing the Factbook. The first, classified, edition of Factbook was published in August 1962, the World Factbook was first available to the public in print in 1975. In 2008 the CIA discontinued printing the Factbook themselves, instead turning printing responsibilities over to the Government Printing Office and this happened due to a CIA decision to focus Factbook resources on the online edition. The Factbook has been on the World Wide Web since October 1994, the web version gets an average of 6 million visits per month, it can also be downloaded. The official printed version is sold by the Government Printing Office, in past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM, microfiche, magnetic tape, and floppy disk. Many Internet sites use information and images from the CIA World Factbook, several publishers, including Grand River Books, Potomac Books, and Skyhorse Publishing have re-published the Factbook in recent years. As of July 2011, The World Factbook consists of 267 entities and these entities can be divided into categories. They are, Independent countries This category has independent countries, which the CIA defines as people politically organized into a state with a definite territory. In this category, there are 195 entities, others The Other category is a list of other places set apart from the list of independent countries. Currently there are two, Taiwan and the European Union, dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty This category is a list of places affiliated with another country
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Emigration from Ecuador
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Emigration from Ecuador is a relatively recent phenomenon, but one that has had a huge impact on the countrys demographics and economy. Eleven percent of Ecuadorians live outside Ecuador, primarily in Spain, between 400,000 and 500,000 Ecuadorians were estimated to live in the United States in 2003, nearly 500,000 were estimated to live in Spain in 2005. Ecuadorians have also settled in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Ecuadorians living abroad remit $1.7 billion to family in Ecuador each year, an estimated one million Ecuadorians rely on these remittances for income. Only petroleum exports are a contribution to Ecuadors economy than remittances. Ecuadorian nationals are residents in more than 60 countries, early emigration from Ecuador was triggered by the collapse of Ecuadors Panama hat industry in the 1950s. Emigrants at this time traveled to New York City, where many had connections with hat importers. In the United States, Ecuadorians are most concentrated in New York City and New Jersey, approximately 90,000 Ecuadorians live in Queens, particularly in Corona, alternately, some Ecuadorians arrived with forged visas or on passports with legitimate visas but substituted photos. Ecuadorians typically paid for the journey by borrowing from usurious moneylenders, during the late 1990s financial crisis in Ecuador, a mass migration to Spain occurred. The number of Ecuadorians in Spain climbed from less than 10,000 in 1998 to 200,000 in 2002 to over 500,000 in 2005 and this migration was initially led by women. Ecuadorians flew to Spain on tourist visas and stayed to look for work, Spain offered amnesty to undocumented migrants in 2004 and 2005,140,000 Ecuadorians legalized their status. Nearly all Ecuadorians who emigrate intend to return to Ecuador, even though many have settled permanently
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Roman Catholic
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
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Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
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Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
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Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
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Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
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Animism
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Animism is the worlds oldest religion. Animism teaches that objects, places, and creatures all possess distinctive spiritual qualities, potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even words—as animate and alive. Animism is the oldest known type of system in the world that even predates paganism. It is still practiced in a variety of forms in traditional societies. Although each culture has its own different mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples spiritual or supernatural perspectives. The currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the late 19th century by Sir Edward Tylor, Animism may further attribute souls to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the world also consider themselves animists. Earlier anthropological perspectives – since termed the old animism – were concerned with knowledge surrounding what is alive, the old animism assumed that animists were individuals who were unable to understand the difference between persons and things. Critics of the old animism have accused it of preserving colonialist and dualist worldviews, according to Tylor, animism often includes an idea of pervading life and will in nature, i. e. a belief that natural objects other than humans have souls. This formulation was little different from that proposed by Auguste Comte as fetishism, thus, for Tylor, animism was fundamentally seen as a mistake, a basic error from which all religion grew. The earliest known usage in English appeared in 1819, Tylors definition of animism was a part of a growing international debate on the nature of primitive society by lawyers, theologians, and philologists. The debate defined the field of research of a new science – anthropology and their religion was animism – the belief that natural species and objects had souls. With the development of property, these descent groups were displaced by the emergence of the territorial state. These rituals and beliefs eventually evolved over time into the vast array of developed religions, in 1869, the Edinburgh lawyer, John Ferguson McLellan, argued that the animistic thinking evident in fetishism gave rise to a religion he named Totemism. Primitive people believed, he argued, that they were descended of the species as their totemic animal. Subsequent debate by the armchair anthropologists remained focused on totemism rather than animism, indeed, anthropologists have commonly avoided the issue of Animism and even the term itself rather than revisit this prevalent notion in light of their new and rich ethnographies. Certain indigenous religious groups such as the Australian Aboriginals are more typically totemic, stewart Guthrie saw animism – or attribution as he preferred it – as an evolutionary strategy to aid survival. He argued that humans and other animal species view inanimate objects as potentially alive as a means of being constantly on guard against potential threats
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Atheist
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Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist, in an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists, the etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek ἄθεος, meaning without god. The term denoted a social category created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed, the actual term atheism emerged first in the 16th century. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope, the first individuals to identify themselves using the word atheist lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, noted for its unprecedented atheism, witnessed the first major movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason. Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to social and historical approaches, although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult, an older survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 2004 recorded atheists as comprising 8% of the worlds population. Other older estimates have indicated that atheists comprise 2% of the worlds population, according to these polls, Europe and East Asia are the regions with the highest rates of atheism. In 2015, 61% of people in China reported that they were atheists, the figures for a 2010 Eurobarometer survey in the European Union reported that 20% of the EU population claimed not to believe in any sort of spirit, God or life force. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism, and has also been contrasted with it, a variety of categories have been used to distinguish the different forms of atheism. Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity, the plurality of wildly different conceptions of God and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheisms applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities, gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist, Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas, as far back as 1772, Baron dHolbach said that All children are born Atheists, they have no idea of God. Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that, The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist, ernest Nagel contradicts Smiths definition of atheism as merely absence of theism, acknowledging only explicit atheism as true atheism
40.
Quechua languages
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Quechua /ˈkɛtʃwə/, also known as runa simi, is an indigenous language family, with variations spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Andes and highlands of South America. Derived from an ancestral language, it is the most widely spoken language family of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Approximately 13% of Peruvians speak Quechua and it is perhaps most widely known for being the main language of the Inca Empire, and was disseminated by the colonizers throughout their reign. Quechua had already expanded across wide ranges of the central Andes long before the expansion of the Inca Empire, the Inca were one among many peoples in present-day Peru who already spoke forms of Quechua. In the Cusco region, Quechua was influenced by languages such as Aymara. The Cuzco variety of Quechua developed as quite distinct, in similar ways, diverse dialects developed in different areas, related to existing local languages, when the Inca Empire ruled and imposed Quechua as the official language. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 16th century and it was officially recognized by the Spanish administration and many Spanish learned it in order to communicate with the local peoples. Clergy of the Catholic Church adopted Quechua to use as the language of evangelization, given its use by the Catholic missionaries, the range of Quechua continued to expand in some areas. In the late 18th century, colonial officials ended administrative and religious use of Quechua, the Crown banned even loyal pro-Catholic texts in Quechua, such as Garcilaso de la Vegas Comentarios Reales. Despite a brief revival of the immediately after the Latin American nations achieved independence in the 19th century. Gradually its use declined so that it was mostly by indigenous people in the more isolated. Nevertheless in the 21st century, those speaking Quechua language speakers number 8 to 10 million people across South America, the oldest written records of the language are by missionary Domingo de Santo Tomás, who arrived in Peru in 1538 and learned the language from 1540. He published his Grammatica o arte de la lengua de los indios de los reynos del Perú in 1560. In 1975 Peru became the first country to recognize Quechua as one of its official languages, the major obstacle to the usage and teaching of Quechua is the lack of written materials in that language, such as books, newspapers, software, and magazines. The Bible has been translated into Quechua and is distributed by certain missionary groups, Quechua, along with Aymara and the minor indigenous languages, remains essentially a spoken language. In recent years, Quechua has been introduced in intercultural education in Bolivia, Ecuador. Even in these areas, the governments are reaching only a part of the Quechua-speaking populations, some indigenous people in each of the countries are having their children study in Spanish for the purposes of social advancement. Radio Nacional del Perú broadcasts news and agrarian programs in Quechua for periods in the mornings, Quechua and Spanish are now heavily intermixed in much of the Andean region, with many hundreds of Spanish loanwords in Quechua
41.
Quechua language
–
Quechua /ˈkɛtʃwə/, also known as runa simi, is an indigenous language family, with variations spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Andes and highlands of South America. Derived from an ancestral language, it is the most widely spoken language family of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Approximately 13% of Peruvians speak Quechua and it is perhaps most widely known for being the main language of the Inca Empire, and was disseminated by the colonizers throughout their reign. Quechua had already expanded across wide ranges of the central Andes long before the expansion of the Inca Empire, the Inca were one among many peoples in present-day Peru who already spoke forms of Quechua. In the Cusco region, Quechua was influenced by languages such as Aymara. The Cuzco variety of Quechua developed as quite distinct, in similar ways, diverse dialects developed in different areas, related to existing local languages, when the Inca Empire ruled and imposed Quechua as the official language. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 16th century and it was officially recognized by the Spanish administration and many Spanish learned it in order to communicate with the local peoples. Clergy of the Catholic Church adopted Quechua to use as the language of evangelization, given its use by the Catholic missionaries, the range of Quechua continued to expand in some areas. In the late 18th century, colonial officials ended administrative and religious use of Quechua, the Crown banned even loyal pro-Catholic texts in Quechua, such as Garcilaso de la Vegas Comentarios Reales. Despite a brief revival of the immediately after the Latin American nations achieved independence in the 19th century. Gradually its use declined so that it was mostly by indigenous people in the more isolated. Nevertheless in the 21st century, those speaking Quechua language speakers number 8 to 10 million people across South America, the oldest written records of the language are by missionary Domingo de Santo Tomás, who arrived in Peru in 1538 and learned the language from 1540. He published his Grammatica o arte de la lengua de los indios de los reynos del Perú in 1560. In 1975 Peru became the first country to recognize Quechua as one of its official languages, the major obstacle to the usage and teaching of Quechua is the lack of written materials in that language, such as books, newspapers, software, and magazines. The Bible has been translated into Quechua and is distributed by certain missionary groups, Quechua, along with Aymara and the minor indigenous languages, remains essentially a spoken language. In recent years, Quechua has been introduced in intercultural education in Bolivia, Ecuador. Even in these areas, the governments are reaching only a part of the Quechua-speaking populations, some indigenous people in each of the countries are having their children study in Spanish for the purposes of social advancement. Radio Nacional del Perú broadcasts news and agrarian programs in Quechua for periods in the mornings, Quechua and Spanish are now heavily intermixed in much of the Andean region, with many hundreds of Spanish loanwords in Quechua
Ecuador 16.39 million (2016 est.)[1]
United States
Spain
Canada
Chile
Colombia
United Kingdom
Germany
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the 
