1.
Central Russia
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Central Russia is, broadly, the various areas in European Russia. Historically, the area of Central Russia varied based on the purpose for which it is being used and it may, for example, refer to European Russia, except the North Caucasus, or to the whole of European Russia. There is also a Central economic region of the Russian Federation, Central Military District - placed in Ural and Siberia, not in Central Russia Federal districts of Russia Subdivisions of Russia Central Russian Upland
2.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
3.
Eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe, also known as East Europe, is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural. There are almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region, a related United Nations paper adds that every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct. One definition describes Eastern Europe as an entity, the region lying in Europe with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc, a similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegating, several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision or are extremely general. These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts, even scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise. The Ural Mountains, Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains are the land border of the eastern edge of Europe. Eurovoc, a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, provides entries for 23 EU languages, of these, those in italics are classified as Eastern Europe in this source. Other official web-pages of the European Union classify some of the countries as strictly Central European. The East–West Schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern and Western churches which began in the 11th century and lasts until this very day and it divided Christianity in Europe, and consequently the world, into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches in the east, due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic, for example, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox, the fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East–West division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media. The Baltic states have seats in the Nordic Council as observer states and they also are members of the Nordic-Baltic Eight whereas Eastern European countries formed their own alliance called the Visegrád Group. Estonia Latvia Lithuania The Caucasus nations may be included in the definitions of Eastern Europe, the extent of their geographic or political affiliation with Europe varies by country and source. All three states are members of the European Unions Eastern Partnership program and the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, on 12 January 2002, the European Parliament noted that Armenia and Georgia may enter the EU in the future. Georgia — in modern geography, Georgia has been classified as part of Eastern Europe. Under the European Union’s geographic criteria, Georgia is viewed as part of Eastern Europe and is the only Caucasus country to be actively seeking EU membership and it is a member of Council of Europe and Eurocontrol
4.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
5.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
6.
Boundaries between the continents of Earth
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The boundaries between the continents of Earth are generally a matter of geographical convention. Several slightly different conventions are in use, the number of continents is most commonly considered six or seven but may range as low as four when the Americas and Afro-Eurasia are each considered a single continent. According to the definition of a continent in the sense, an island cannot be part of any continent. At its nearest point, Spain and Morocco are separated by only 13 kilometres, the Portuguese Atlantic island possession of the Azores is 1,368 km from Europe,1,507 km from Africa, and is usually grouped with Europe if grouped with any continent. By contrast, the Canary and Madeira islands off the Atlantic coast of Morocco are much closer to, the island nation of Malta is approximately 81 km from the coast of Sicily in Europe - much closer than the 288 km distance to the closest African coast. The nearby Italian island of Lampedusa is 207 km from Sicily while just 127 km from the African coast, similarly, Pantelleria is 100 km from Sicily, all of these islands are actually located on the African plate, and may be considered part of the continent of Africa. However, for political and historical reasons, maps generally display them as part of Europe, since there is no significant physical separation between Europe and Asia, the border between the two is merely a “historical and cultural construct that has been defined variously. The Turkish city Istanbul lies on both sides of the Bosporus, making it a transcontinental city, Russia and Turkey are transcontinental countries with territory in both Europe and Asia by any definition except that of Eurasia as a single continent. While Russia is historically a European country with a history of imperial conquests in Asia, Kazakhstan is also a transcontinental country by this definition, its West Kazakhstan and Atyrau provinces extending on either side of the Ural River. This Ural River delineation is the segment not to follow a major mountain range or wide water body. The Ural River bridge in Orenburg is even labeled with permanent monuments carved with the word Europe on one side, the Kuma–Manych Depression remains one less-commonly cited possible natural boundary in contemporary sources. These border demarcations are not definitive and vary from one source to another, for instance, some geographic references place Georgia entirely in Europe, whereas others classify it as a transcontinental state that spans both Europe and Asia. A further complicating factor is that regardless of where one draws the continental border, likewise, although some geographic references place Cyprus in Asia, the country is generally accepted as part of modern Europe and has joined the European Union. According to the EU’s geographic requirements, cultural and geographic definitions of Europe are intertwined, furthermore, the UNSD classification often differs from those of other United Nations organizations. For instance, while UNSD includes Georgia and Cyprus in Western Asia, the threefold division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BC, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus. The boundary between Europe and Asia is very unusual among continental boundaries because of its largely mountain-and-river-based characteristics north, Europe is more of a subcontinent within Eurasia in geological terms, and it has sometimes been referred to as such. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River in the Caucasus, a convention followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC. In the subsequent centuries a new convention emerged, which drew the boundary along Tanais
7.
Ural Mountains
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The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia. Vaygach Island and the islands of Novaya Zemlya form a continuation of the chain to the north into the Arctic Ocean. The mountains lie within the Ural geographical region and significantly overlap with the Ural Federal District and they have rich resources, including metal ores, coal, precious and semi-precious stones. Since the 18th century the mountains have contributed significantly to the sector of the Russian economy. As attested by Sigismund von Herberstein, in the 16th century Russians called the range by a variety of names derived from the Russian words for rock and it might have been a borrowing from either Turkic stone belt, or Ob-Ugric. From the 13th century, in Bashkortostan there has been a legend about a hero named Ural and he sacrificed his life for the sake of his people and they poured a stone pile over his grave, which later turned into the Ural Mountains. Possibilities include Bashkir үр elevation, upland or Mansi ур ала mountain peak, top of the mountain, tatischev believes that this oronym is set to belt and associates it with the Turkic verb oralu- gird. Dobrodomov suggests a transition from Aral to Ural explained on the basis of ancient Bulgar-Chuvash dialects, hawks believes that the name goes back to the Bashkir folklore Ural-Batyr. Shumilov suggested a Mongolian origin, Khural Uul, that is, the Evenk geographical term era mountain has also been theorized. Finno-Ugrist scholars consider Ural deriving from the Mansi word urr meaning a mountain, turkologists, on the other hand, have achieved majority support for their assertion that ural in Tatar means a belt, and recall that an earlier name for the range was stone belt. During the next few centuries Novgorodians engaged in fur trading with the population and collected tribute from Yugra and Great Perm. The rivers Chusovaya and Belaya were first mentioned in the chronicles of 1396 and 1468, in 1430 the town of Solikamsk was founded on the Kama at the foothills of the Ural, where salt was produced in open pans. Ivan III of Moscow captured Perm, Pechora and Yugra from the declining Novgorod Republic in 1472, with the excursions of 1483 and 1499–1500 across the Ural Moscow managed to subjugate Yugra completely. The Middle and Southern Ural were still largely unavailable and unknown to the Russian or Western European geographers, the Stroganovs land provided the staging ground for Yermaks incursion into Siberia. Yermak crossed the Ural from the Chusovaya to the Tagil around 1581, in 1597 Babinovs road was built across the Ural from Solikamsk to the valley of the Tura, where the town of Verkhoturye was founded in 1598. Customs was established in Verkhoturye shortly thereafter and the road was made the legal connection between European Russia and Siberia for a long time. In 1648 the town of Kungur was founded at the foothills of the Middle Ural. During the 17th century the first deposits of iron and copper ores, mica, gemstones, iron and copper smelting works emerged
8.
Ural River
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The Ural or Jayıq/Zhayyq, known as Yaik before 1775, is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in Eurasia. It originates in the southern Ural Mountains and ends at the Caspian Sea, at 2,428 kilometres, it is the third-longest river in Europe after the Volga and the Danube, and the 18th-longest river in Asia. The Ural River is conventionally considered part of the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia, the river begins at the slopes of the Kruglaya Mountain of the Uraltau mountain ridge in South Ural, on the territory of the Uchalinsky District of Bashkortostan. There it has a width of 60 to 80 metres. It then falls into the Yaik Swamp and after exiting it widens up to 5 kilometres, below Verkhneuralsk, its flow is characteristic of a flatland river, there it enters Chelyabinsk and Orenburg Oblasts. From Magnitogorsk to Orsk its banks are steep and rocky and the bottom has many rifts, after Orsk, the river abruptly turns west and flows through a 45-kilometre long canyon in the Guberlinsk Mountains. After Uralsk, it flows north to south, through the territory of West Kazakhstan Province. There, the river widens and has lakes and ducts. Near the mouth, it splits into the Yaik and Zolotoy distributaries, the Yaik distributary is shallow, with almost no trees on the shores, and is rich in fish, whereas Zolotoy is deeper and is navigable. Ural River has a spectacular tree-like shape of the delta and this type of delta forms naturally in the slow rivers which deliver a great deal of sediments and flow into a quiet sea. In the delta,13.5 kilometres from the mouth of the Zolotoy distributary lies Shalyga Island, which is 2.5 kilometres long, with heights of 1 to 2 metres and maximum widths of 0.3 kilometres. The tributaries, in order going upstream, are Kushum, Derkul, Chagan, Irtek, Utva, Ilek, Bolshaya Chobda, Kindel, Sakmara, Salmys, Or, the entire length of the Ural River is considered the Europe-Asia boundary by most authoritative sources. Rarely, the smaller, shorter Emba River is claimed as the continental boundary, the Ural River bridge in Orenburg is even labeled with permanent monuments carved with the word Europe on one side, Asia on the other. During the floods, the river widens to above 10 kilometres near Uralsk, water level is highest in later April upstream and in May downstream. Its fluctuation is 3 to 4 metres in the stream,9 to 10 metres in the middle of the river. The average water discharge is 104 cubic metres per second near Orenburg, and 400 cubic metres per second at the Kushum village, the maximum discharge is 14,000 cubic metres per second and the minimum is 1.62 cubic metres per second. Average turbidity is 280 grams per cubic metre at Orenburg and 290 grams per cubic metre near Kushum, the river freezes at the source in early November and in the middle and lower reaches in late November. It opens in the lower reaches in late March and in early April in the upper reaches, the ice drift is relatively short
9.
Caucasus Mountains
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The Caucasus Mountains are a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region. The Caucasus Mountains include the Greater Caucasus in the north and Lesser Caucasus in the south, the Greater Caucasus runs west-northwest to east-southeast, from the Caucasian Natural Reserve in the vicinity of Sochi on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea nearly to Baku on the Caspian Sea. The Lesser Caucasus runs parallel to the Greater about 100 km south, the Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges are connected by the Likhi Range, and to the west and east of the Likhi Range lie the Colchis Plain and the Kur-Araz Lowland. The Meskheti Range is a part of the Lesser Caucasus system, in the southeast the Aras River separates the Lesser Caucasus from the Talysh Mountains which straddle the border of southeastern Azerbaijan and Iran. The highest peak in the Caucasus range is Mount Elbrus in the Greater Caucasus, Mountains near Sochi hosted part of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Geologically, the Caucasus Mountains belong to a system that extends from southeastern Europe into Asia, the Greater Caucasus Mountains are mainly composed of Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks with the Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks in the higher regions. Some volcanic formations are found throughout the range, on the other hand, the Lesser Caucasus Mountains are formed predominantly of the Paleogene rocks with a much smaller portion of the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks. The Caucasus Mountains formed largely as the result of a plate collision between the Arabian plate moving northwards with respect to the Eurasian plate. As this happened, the rocks that had been deposited in this basin from the Jurassic to the Miocene were folded to form the Greater Caucasus Mountains. This collision also caused the uplift and the Cenozoic volcanic activity in the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, the entire region is regularly subjected to strong earthquakes from this activity. While the Greater Caucasus Mountains have a mainly folded sedimentary structure, the Javakheti Volcanic Plateau in Georgia and the surrounding volcanic ranges which extend well into central Armenia are some of the youngest features of the region. The Kazbek is no active, but the Elbrus erupted in postglacial times. Contemporary seismic activity is a prominent feature of the region, reflecting active faulting, clusters of seismicity occur in Dagestan and in northern Armenia. Many devastating earthquakes have been documented in historical times, including the Spitak earthquake in December 1988 which destroyed the Gyumri-Vanadzor region of Armenia, europes highest mountain is Mount Elbrus 5,642 m in the Caucasus Mountains. Elbrus is 832 m higher than Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps at 4,810 m, the Caucasus Mountains are defined as the continental divide between Asia and Europe for the region between the Black and Caspian Seas. The table below lists some of the highest peaks of the Caucasus, with the exception of Shkhara, the heights are taken from Soviet 1,50,000 mapping. There are higher and more prominent, but nameless, peaks than some of the peaks included below, the climate of the Caucasus varies both vertically and horizontally. Temperature generally decreases as elevation rises, average annual temperature in Sukhumi, Abkhazia at sea level is 15 °C while on the slopes of Mt. Kazbek at an elevation of 3,700 metres, average annual temperature falls to−6.1 °C
10.
Turkish Straits
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The Turkish Straits are a series of internationally-significant waterways in northwestern Turkey that connect the Aegean and Mediterranean seas to the Black Sea. They consist of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and they are conventionally considered the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia, as well as the dividing line between European Turkey and Asian Turkey. As maritime waterways, the Turkish Straits connect various seas along the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Near East, and Western Eurasia. The Turkish Straits are made up of the waterways, The Bosphorus, about 30 kilometers long and only 700 meters wide. It runs through the city of Istanbul, making it a city located on two continents and it is crossed by three suspension bridges and the underwater Marmaray rail tunnel. There is an underwater tunnel currently under construction for road users. There are plans for further crossings being debated at various stages, the Dardanelles,68 km long and 1.2 km wide, connects the Sea of Marmara with the Mediterranean in the southwest, near the city of Çanakkale. In classical antiquity, the Dardanelles strait was known as the Hellespont, the strait and the Gallipoli peninsula on its western shoreline were the scene of the Battle of Gallipoli during the First World War. Currently, there are no crossings across the strait, but plans have been offered in recent years for a bridge project as part of proposed expansions to the national highway network. The Straits have been of urgent maritime strategic importance since the Trojan War was fought near the Aegean entrance, in the declining days of the Ottoman Empire the Straits Question involved the diplomats of Europe and the Ottoman Empire. It thus benefited British naval power at the expense of Russian as the latter lacked direct access for its navy to the Mediterranean, the treaty is one in a series dealing with access to the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles. It evolved from the secret 1833 Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi, in which the Ottoman Empire guaranteed exclusive use of the Straits to Black Sea Powers warships in the case of a general war. The modern treaty controlling relations is the 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits and it gives the Republic of Turkey control over warships entering the straits but guarantees the free passage of civilian vessels in peacetime. International law List of maritime incidents in the Turkish Straits Marmara Region United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
11.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
12.
Sochi
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Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the Black Sea coast near the border between Georgia/Abkhazia and Russia. The area of the city proper is 176.77 square kilometers, according to the 2010 Census, the city had a permanent population of 343,334, up from 328,809 recorded in the 2002 Census, making it Russias largest resort city. Being part of the Caucasian Riviera, it is one of the few places in Russia with a subtropical climate, with warm to hot summers. It will also be one of the host cities for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Greater Sochi is elongated along the Black Sea coast for 145 kilometers. Sochi is in the north of Western Asia, falling on the side of the Greater Caucasus. Sochi is approximately 1,603 kilometers from Moscow, from the southwest, it is bordered by the Black Sea. The vast majority of the population of Sochi lives in a strip along the coast and is organized in independent microdistricts. The biggest of these microdistricts, from the northwest to the southeast, are Lazarevskoye, Loo, Dagomys, central Sochi, Khosta, Matsesta, the whole city is located on the slopes of the Western Caucasus which descend to the Black Sea and are cut by the rivers. The biggest rivers in Sochi are the Mzymta, which is in fact the longest Black Sea tributary in Russia, other rivers include the Ashe, the Psezuapse, the Sochi, the Khosta, and the Matsesta. The Psou River makes the border with Abkhazia, the northeastern part of the city belongs to the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve which is a World Heritage Site spanning vast areas in Krasnodar Krai and Adygea. Almost the whole area of the Greater Sochi, with the exception of the coast, Sochi has a humid subtropical climate with mild winters in the period from December to March and warm summers in the period from May to October. From the 6th to the 11th centuries, the area belonged to the kingdom of Lazica. The Christian settlements along the coast were destroyed by the invading Göktürks, Khazars, Mongols, the northern wall of an 11th-century Byzantine basilica still stands in the Loo Microdistrict. Provision of weapons and ammunition from abroad to the Circassians caused a conflict between the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom that occurred in 1836 over the mission of the Vixen. The Russians had no detailed knowledge of the area until Baron Feodor Tornau investigated the route from Gelendzhik to Gagra. At the outbreak of the Crimean War, the garrison was evacuated from Navaginsky in order to prevent its capture by the Turks, who effected a landing on Cape Adler soon after. The last battle of the Caucasian War took place at the Godlikh river on March 18,1864 O. S. where the Ubykhs were defeated by the Dakhovsky regiment of the Russian Army. On March 25,1864, the Dakhovsky fort was established on the site of the Navaginsky fort, the end of Caucasian War was proclaimed at Kbaade tract on June 2,1864, by the manifesto of Emperor Alexander II read aloud by Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia
13.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
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North Asia
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North Asia or Northern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of Siberia, and Russian Far East in the Asian portion of Russia – the area east of the Ural Mountains. A large part of the region is known as Asian Russia. Most estimates are that there are around 38 million Russians living east of the Ural Mountains, the Indigenous Siberians now are a minority in Siberia/North Asia due to the European-oriented Russification process during the last three centuries. Russian census records indicate they make up only an estimated 10% of the population with the Buryats numbering at 445,175. There are 443,852 Yakuts living in Siberia, according to the 2002 census there are 500,000 Tatars in Siberia, but 300,000 of them are Volga Tatars who settled in Siberia during periods of colonization. Other ethnic groups live in the region and make a significant portion are ethnic Germans. In 1875, Chambers reported the population of Northern Asia to be 8 million, between 1801 and 1914 an estimated 7 million settlers moved from European Russia to Siberia, 85% during the quarter-century before World War I. For geographic and statistical reasons, the UN geoscheme and various classification schemes will not subdivide countries. There are no mountain chains in Northern Asia to prevent air currents from the Arctic flowing down over the plains of Siberia, the geomorphology of Asia in general is imperfectly known, although the deposits and mountain ranges are well known. The Eurasian Plate and the North American Plate meet across the neck of Alaska, following the line of the Aleutian Trench, Northern Asia is built around the Angara Shield, which lies between the Yenisey River and the Lena River. It developed from fragments of Laurasia, whose rocks were mainly Precambrian crystalline rocks, gneisses, and schists and these rocks can be found in the Angara Shield, the Inner Mongolian-Korean Shield, the Ordes Shield and the Southeast Asia Shield. The fragments have been subject to orogenesis around their margins, giving a complex of plateaux, one can find outcrops of these rocks in unfolded sections of the Shields. Their presence has been confirmed below Mesozoic and later sediments, there are three main periods of mountain building in Northern Asia, although it has occurred many times. The Alpine orogeny caused extensive folding and faulting of Mesozoic and early Tertiary sediments from the Tethys geosyncline. Northern Asia was glaciated in the Pleistocene, but this played a significant part in the geology of the area compared to the part that it played in North America. The Scandinavian ice sheet extended to the east of the Urals, North Asia itself has permafrost, ranging in depths from 30 to 600 metres and covering an area of 9.6 million km². Several of the regions are volcanic, with both the Koryak Mountains and the Kamchatka Peninsula having active volcanoes. The Anadyr Plateau is formed from igneous rocks, the Mongolian Plateau has an area of basaltic lavas and volcanic cones
15.
Siberia
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Siberia is an extensive geographical region, and by the broadest definition is also known as North Asia. Siberia has historically been a part of Russia since the 17th century, the territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. It stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the borders of Mongolia. With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres, Siberia accounts for 77% of Russias land area and this is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country in area, the origin of the name is unknown. Some sources say that Siberia originates from the Siberian Tatar word for sleeping land, another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sirtya, a folk, which spoke a language that later evolved into the Ugric languages. This ethnic group was assimilated to the Siberian Tatar people. The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Empires conquest of the Siberian Khanate, a further variant claims that the region was named after the Xibe people. The Polish historian Chycliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the word for north. He said that the neighbouring Chinese, Arabs and Mongolians would not have known Russian and he suggests that the name is a combination of two words, su and bir. The region is of significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch. Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs, Yuka and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a rhinoceros from the Kolyma River. The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earths geological history. They continued for a million years and are considered a cause of the Great Dying about 250 million years ago. At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago, H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, the last was determined in 2010, by DNA evidence, to be a new species. Siberia was inhabited by different groups of such as the Enets, the Nenets, the Huns, the Scythians. The Khan of Sibir in the vicinity of modern Tobolsk was known as a prominent figure who endorsed Kubrat as Khagan of Old Great Bulgaria in 630, the Mongols conquered a large part of this area early in the 13th century. With the breakup of the Golden Horde, the autonomous Khanate of Sibir was established in the late 15th century, turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes during the 13th to 15th century
16.
Eurasia
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Eurasia /jʊˈreɪʒə/ is a combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia. The term is a portmanteau of its constituent continents, in geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock. However, the rigidity of Eurasia is debated based on the paleomagnet data, Eurasia covers around 55,000,000 square kilometres, or around 36. 2% of the Earths total land area. The landmass contains around 5.0 billion people, equating to approximately 70% of the human population, humans first settled in Eurasia between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago. Physiographically, Eurasia is a single continent, the concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity and their borders are geologically arbitrary. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and Eurasia is sometimes combined with Africa as the largest contiguous landmass on Earth called Afro-Eurasia. Eurasia formed 375 to 325 million years ago with the merging of Siberia, Kazakhstania, and Baltica, chinese cratons collided with Siberias southern coast. Eurasia has been the host of ancient civilizations, including those based in Mesopotamia. In the Axial Age, a belt of civilizations stretched through the Eurasian subtropical zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This belt became the mainstream of world history for two millennia, originally, “Eurasia” is a geographical notion, in this sense, it is simply the biggest continent, the combined landmass of Europe and Asia. However, geopolitically, the word has different meanings, reflecting the specific geopolitical interests of each nation. “Eurasia” is one of the most important geopolitical concepts, as Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, how America manages Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates “Eurasia” would control two of the three most advanced and economically productive regions. About 75 per cent of the people live in “Eurasia”. “Eurasia” accounts for about three-fourths of the known energy resources. ”At the moment one of the most prominent projects of the European Union is the Russia - EU Four Common Spaces Initiative. A political and economic union of former Soviet states named the Eurasian Economic Union was established in 2015, the Russian concept of “Eurasia” corresponded initially more or less to the land area of Imperial Russia in 1914, including parts of Eastern Europe. One of Russias main geopolitical interests lies in ever closer integration with those countries that it considers part of “Eurasia. ”Every two years since 1996 a meeting of most Asian and European countries is organised as the Asia-Europe Meeting. In ancient times, the Greeks classified Europe and Asia as separate lands, where to draw the dividing line between the two regions is still a matter of discussion
17.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
18.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
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East Slavs
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The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the state of Kievan Rus. Researchers know relatively little about the Eastern Slavs prior to approximately 859 AD, zealous Christian missions burned and destroyed all evidences of history of the people before that. The Eastern Slavs of these early times apparently lacked a written language, the few known facts come from archaeological digs, foreign travellers accounts of the Rus land, and linguistic comparative analyses of Slavic languages. Very few native Rus documents dating before the 11th century have survived, the earliest major manuscript with information on Rus history, the Primary Chronicle, dates from the late 11th and early 12th centuries. There is no consensus among scholars as to the urheimat of the Slavs, in the first millennium AD, Slavic settlers are likely to have been in contact with other ethnic groups who moved across the East European Plain during the Migration Period. Between the first and ninth centuries, the Sarmatians, Huns, Alans, Avars, Bulgars, although some of them could have subjugated the regions Slavs, these foreign tribes left little trace in the Slavic lands. The Early Middle Ages also saw Slavic expansion as an agriculturist and beekeeper, hunter, fisher, herder, by the 8th century, the Slavs were the dominant ethnic group on the East European Plain. By 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, the East Slavs practiced slash-and-burn agricultural methods which took advantage of the extensive forests in which they settled. This method of agriculture involved clearing tracts of forest with fire, cultivating it, the East Slavs flooded Eastern Europe in two streams. Another group of East Slavs moved from Pomerania to the northeast, the same Slavic population also settled the present-day Tver Oblast and the region of Beloozero. Having reached the lands of the Merya near Rostov, they linked up with the Dnieper group of Slavic migrants. Roughly in the period, the Ilmen Slavs and Krivichs were dominated by the Varangians of the Rus Khaganate. The earliest tribal centres of the East Slavs included Novgorod, Izborsk, Polotsk, Gnezdovo, archaeology indicates that they appeared at the turn of the tenth century, soon after the Slavs and Finns of Novgorod had rebelled against the Norsemen and forced them to withdraw to Scandinavia. The reign of Oleg of Novgorod in the tenth century witnessed the return of the Varangians to Novgorod. From this base, the mixed Varangian-Slavic population launched several expeditions against Constantinople, at first the ruling elite was primarily Norse, but it was rapidly Slavicized by the mid-century. Sviatoslav I of Kiev was the first Rus ruler with a Slavonic name, the disintegration, or parcelling of the polity of Kievan Rus in the 11th century resulted in considerable population shifts and a political, social, and economic regrouping. This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http, //lcweb2. loc. gov/frd/cs/
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Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
21.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
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Dnieper Ukraine
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The term Dnieper Ukraine, usually refers to territory on either side of the middle course of the Dnieper River. The Ukrainian name derives from nad‑ + Dnipró + ‑shchyna, the term was phased away soon after 1939. Ukrainians sometimes call it Great Ukraine, historically, this region is tightly entwined with the history of Ukraine and is considered as the heart of the country. The Museum of Folk Architecture and Way of Life of Central Naddnipryanshchyna is located in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi and this open-air museum contains thirteen themed museums, one hundred twenty two examples of national architecture, and over thirty thousand historical cultural objects. Geographically, the term refers to territory of Ukraine along Dnieper
23.
Federal districts of Russia
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The federal districts are groupings of the federal subjects of Russia. Plenipotentiary Representatives are appointed by the President and are employees of the Presidential Administration, source, President Vladimir Putin established seven federal districts in May 2000. On January 19,2010 the new North Caucasian Federal District split from the Southern Federal District, on March 2014, after the Russian military intervention in and annexation of Crimea, the Crimean Federal District was established. The legality of this annexation is disputed by most states as well as NATO, on July 28,2016 the Crimean Federal District was abolished and merged into the Southern Federal District in order to improve the governance
24.
Yekaterinburg
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At the 2010 Census, it had a population of 1,349,772. Yekaterinburg is the industrial and cultural centre of the Ural Federal District. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was named Sverdlovsk after the Communist party leader Yakov Sverdlov, Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin founded Yekaterinburg in 1723 and named it after the wife of Tsar Peter the Great, Yekaterina, who later became empress regnant Catherine I. The official date of the foundation is November 18,1723. It was granted town status in 1796, the city was one of Russias first industrial cities, prompted at the start of the eighteenth century by decrees from the Tsar requiring the development in Yekaterinburg of metal-working businesses. The city was built, with use of iron, to a regular square plan with iron works. These were surrounded by fortified walls, so that Yekaterinburg was at the time both a manufacturing centre and a fortress at the frontier between Europe and Asia. It therefore found itself at the heart of Russias strategy for development of the entire Ural region. With the growth in trade and the administrative importance, the ironworks became less critical. Small manufacturing and trading businesses proliferated, following the October Revolution, the family of deposed Tsar Nicholas II were sent to internal exile in Yekaterinburg where they were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House in the city. Other members of the Romanov family were killed at Alapayevsk later the same day, on July 16,1918, the Czechoslovak legions were closing on Yekaterinburg. The Bolsheviks executed the deposed imperial family, believing that the Czechoslovaks were on a mission to rescue them, the Legions arrived less than a week later and captured the city. In 1977, the Ipatiev House was demolished by order of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin later became the first President of Russia and represented the people at the funeral of the former Tsar in 1998. On August 24,2007, the BBC reported that Russian archaeologists had found the remains of two children of Russias last Tsar, the discoveries in 2007 are thought to be those of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria. Archaeologist Sergei Pogorelov said bullets found at the site indicate the children had been shot. He told Russian television the newly unearthed bones belonged to two people, a young male aged roughly 10–13 and a young woman about 18–23. The Tsars remains were given a funeral in July 1998. During the 1930s, Yekaterinburg was one of several developed by the Soviet government as a centre of heavy industry
25.
Central Federal District
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The Central Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. The word Central has a political and historical meaning, being the core of the Russian state and its predecessor, geographically, the district is situated in the extreme west of present-day Russia, although it can be considered as the central region of European Russia. The district covers an area of 650,200 square kilometers, the Presidential Envoy to the Central Federal District is Alexander Beglov
26.
North Caucasian Federal District
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North Caucasian Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. It is located in the extreme southwest of Russia, in the area of the North Caucasus. The federal district was split from Southern Federal District on January 19,2010, the population of the federal subjects comprising the federal district was 9,428,826 according to the 2010 Census, living in an area of 170,400 square kilometers. The current Envoy is Oleg Belaventsev, a diverse assortment of mostly Muslim ethnic and tribal groups form the remainder, and the North Caucasus Federal District is Russias only Muslim-majority district
27.
Southern Federal District
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The Southern Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. Its territory lies mostly on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the Southern Federal District was originally called the North Caucasian Federal District when it was founded in May 2000, but was renamed soon after for political reasons. On January 19,2010, the Southern Federal District was split in two, with its southern territories forming a new North Caucasian Federal District. On July 28,2016 Crimean Federal District was abolished and merged into Southern Federal District in order to improve the governance, Crimean Federal District was established on March 21,2014 after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The federal district includes both the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, both recognized as part of Ukraine by most of the international community. Ukraine considers the area, along with the areas of Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic and its population was 13,854,334 according to the 2010 Census, living in an area of 420,900 square kilometers. Southern Federal District News and events of Russian South
28.
Volga Federal District
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Volga Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. It forms the part of European Russia. Its population was 29,899,699 according to the 2010 Census, Mikhail Babich was appointed the federal districts Presidential Envoy on December 15,2011. The district comprises the Volga, Volga-Vyatka and Urals economic regions and fourteen federal subjects, Sergey Kiriyenko Alexander Konovalov Grigory Rapota Mikhail Babich
29.
Ural Federal District
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Ural Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. Its population was 12,080,523 according to the 2010 Census, the district was established on May 13,2000 by a decree of the President of Russia. It is located at the border of the European and Asian parts of Russia, the administrative center of the district is the city of Yekaterinburg. The district contributes 18% to Russia’s Gross Regional Product, although its population is only 8. 5% of the Russian total, the district covers an area of 1,818,500 square kilometers, about 10% of Russia. According to the 2010 Census, the district had a population of 12,080,526, the remainder comprises various ethnicities of the former Soviet Union. 79. 9% of the population lived in urban areas. In 2006, the district provided 90% of Russian natural gas production, 68% of oil, industrial production per capita in the district is about 2.5 times higher than the average value throughout Russia. The district provides about 42% of Russian tax incomes, mostly from industry and its major branches are fuel mining and production, metallurgy and metal processing and engineering. The latter two are developed in Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk Oblast which, between them, constitute 83% of Russian metallurgy and 73% of metal processing and engineering. Local ore processing plants can provide only 20% of required copper, 28% chromium, 35% iron and 17% coal, meanwhile, the average distance to import them to the Ural is 2,500 km. The district is governed by the Presidential Envoy, and individual envoys are assigned by the President of Russia to all the Oblasts of the district, pyotr Latyshev was envoy to the Urals Federal District until his death on December 2,2008. Nikolay Vinnichenko succeeded him on this post on December 8,2008, on September 6,2011 Vinnichenko was appointed the envoy to the Northwestern Federal District, and Yevgeny Kuyvashev became the Presidential Envoy in the Urals Federal District. On May 18,2012 Vladimir Putin offered the tenure to Igor Kholmanskikh, an engineer without any political experience. The district comprises the Central and West Siberian economic regions and six subjects, Source for names of federal subjects
30.
Republic of Crimea
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The Republic of Crimea is a federal subject of Russia that is located on the Crimean Peninsula. It has a population of 1,891, 465 , Russia then annexed the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol as federal subjects of Russia. Russia disputes this, citing the right of the people of Crimea to self-determination, in 1792, under the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Crimea was ceded to Russia by the Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Jassy, which formally ended the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1792. From 1802, it constituted a part of the Taurida Governorate of the Russian Empire until the collapse thereof in 1917. The Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to Crimea in the mid-1980s under perestroika, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine, which led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised, Crimean Tatars began returning from exile and resettling in Crimea. Ukraine restored Crimeas autonomous status in 1991, the document specifically mentioned Kosovo as a precedent in the lead part. The available choices did not include keeping the status quo of Crimea, on 16 March 2014, according to statements of organizers of Crimean status referendum, a large majority voted in favour of independence of Crimea from Ukraine and joining Russia as a federal subject. The referendum was not recognized by most of the international community, the BBC reported that most of the Crimean Tatars that they interviewed were boycotting the vote. Reports from the UN criticised the circumstances surrounding the referendum, especially the presence of paramilitaries, self-defence groups, the European Union, Canada, Japan and the United States condemned the vote as illegal. After the referendum, Crimean lawmakers formally voted both to secede from Ukraine and applied for their admission into Russia, the Sevastopol City Council, however, requested the ports separate admission as a federal city. On 18 March 2014, the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Crimea signed a treaty of accession to the Russian Federation, the accession was only recognised internationally by a few states with most regarding the action as illegal. Though Ukraine refused to accept the annexation, the Ukrainian military began to withdraw from Crimea on 19 March. On 3 April 2014, Moscow sent a note to Ukraine on terminating the actions of agreements concerning the deployment of the Russian Federations Black Sea Fleet on the territory of Ukraine. As part of the agreements, Russia paid the Ukrainian government $530 million annually for the base, the Kremlin stated that as the base is no longer located in Ukraine, there were no legal grounds for the discount to be continued. On 3 April 2014, Crimea and the city of Sevastopol became part of Russias Southern Military District, on 11 April 2014, the parliament of Crimea approved a new constitution, with 88 out of 100 lawmakers voting in favor of its adoption. The constitution ensures the Republic of Crimea as a state within the Russian Federation and says that its territory is united. The Crimean parliament will become smaller and have 75 members instead of current 100, on 12 April 2014, the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea, adopted at the session of the State Council on 11 April entered into legal force
31.
Sevastopol
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Sevastopol or traditionally Sebastopol is a city located in the southwestern region of the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea. Sevastopol has a population of 393, 304 , concentrated mostly near the Bay of Sevastopol, the location and navigability of the citys harbours have made Sevastopol a strategically important port and naval base throughout history. The city has been a home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, although relatively small at 864 square kilometres, Sevastopols unique naval and maritime features provide the basis for a robust economy. The city enjoys mild winters and moderate summers, characteristics that help make it a popular seaside resort and tourist destination. The city is also an important centre for marine biology, in particular, the name of Sevastopolis was originally chosen in the same etymological trend as other cities in the Crimean peninsula that was intended to reflect its ancient Greek origins. It is a compound of the Greek adjective, σεβαστός and the noun πόλις, Σεβαστός is the traditional Greek equivalent of the Roman honorific Augustus, originally given to the first emperor of the Roman Empire, Augustus and later awarded as a title to his successors. Despite its Greek origin, the name itself is not from Ancient Greek times, the city was probably named after the Empress Catherine II of Russia who founded Sevastopol in 1783. She visited the city in 1787 accompanied by Joseph II, the Emperor of Austria, in the west of the city, there are well-preserved ruins of the ancient Greek port city of Chersonesos, founded in the 5th century BC by settlers from Heraclea Pontica. This name means peninsula, reflecting its location, and is not related to the ancient Greek name for the Crimean Peninsula as a whole. In English the current spelling has the pronunciation /səˈvæstəˌpoʊl/ or /ˌsɛvəˈstoʊpəl/, whilst the spelling has the pronunciation /sᵻˈbæstəpəl, -pɒl/ or /səˈbæstəˌpoʊl. Ukrainian, Севастополь, Russian, Севастополь, pronounced in Ukrainian, in the 6th century BC a Greek colony was established in the area of the modern-day city. The Greek city of Chersonesus existed for almost two years, first as an independent democracy and later as part of the Bosporan Kingdom. In the 13th and 14th centuries it was sacked by the Golden Horde several times and was totally abandoned. The modern day city of Sevastopol has no connection to the ancient and medieval Greek city, five years earlier, Alexander Suvorov ordered that earthworks be erected along the harbour and Russian troops be placed there. In February 1784, Catherine the Great ordered Grigory Potemkin to build a fortress there, the realisation of the initial building plans fell to Captain Fyodor Ushakov who in 1788 was named commander of the port and of the Black Sea squadron. It became an important naval base and later a commercial seaport, in 1797, under an edict issued by Emperor Paul I, the military stronghold was again renamed to Akhtiar. Finally, on 29 April,1826, the Senate returned the name to Sevastopol. One of the most notable involving the city is the Siege of Sevastopol carried out by the British, French, Sardinian, and Turkish troops during the Crimean War
32.
Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world
33.
Russian Far East
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The Russian Far East is the Russian part of the Far East, i. e. the extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. The Far Eastern Federal District, which covers this area, borders with the Siberian Federal District to the west. The Far Eastern Federal District has land borders with the Peoples Republic of China and North Korea to the south west and maritime borders with Japan, although traditionally considered part of Siberia, the Russian Far East is categorized separately from Siberia in Russian regional schemes. In Russia, the region is referred to as just Far East. What is known in English as the Far East is usually referred to as the Asia-Pacific Region, primorskaya Oblast was established as a separate administrative division of the Russian Empire in 1856, with its administrative center at Khabarovsk. Until 2000, the Russian Far East lacked officially defined boundaries, a single term Siberia and the Far East was often used to refer to Russias regions east of the Urals without drawing a clear distinction between Siberia and the Far East. Since 2000, the term Far East has been used in Russia to refer to the federal district. Defined by the boundaries of the district, the Far East has an area of 6.2 million square kilometers—over one-third of Russias total area. Russia in the early 1900s persistently sought a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean for the navy as well as to facilitate maritime trade, the recently established Pacific seaport of Vladivostok was operational only during the summer season, but Port Arthur in Manchuria was operational all year. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the failure of the 1903 negotiations between Japan and the Tsarss government, Japan chose war to protect its domination of Korea and adjacent territories. Russia, meanwhile, saw war as a means of distracting its populace from government repression, Japan issued a declaration of war on 8 February 1904. However, three hours before Japans declaration of war was received by the Russian Government, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the Russian Far East Fleet at Port Arthur, eight days later Russia declared war on Japan. Japan also received the southern half of the Island of Sakhalin from Russia, between 1937 and 1939, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin deported over 200,000 Koreans to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, fearing that the Koreans might act as spies for Japan. Many Koreans died on the way in cattle due to starvation, illness. Many community leaders were purged and executed, Koryo-saram were not allowed to travel outside of Central Asia for the next 15 years, Koreans were also not allowed to use the Korean language and its use began to become lost with the involvement of Koryo-mar and the use of Russian. Development of numerous remote locations relied on GULAG labour camps during Stalins rule, after that, the large-scale use of forced labour waned and was superseded by volunteer employees attracted by relatively high wages. Indeed, Japan turned its interests to Soviet territories. Conflicts between the Japanese and the Soviets frequently happened on the border of Manchuria between 1938 and 1945, the first confrontation occurred in Primorsky Krai, the Battle of Lake Khasan was an attempted military incursion of Manchukuo into the territory claimed by the Soviet Union
34.
United Nations geoscheme
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The United Nations geoscheme is a system which divides the countries of the world into regional and subregional groups. It was devised by the United Nations Statistics Division based on the M49 coding classification, for instance, UNSD includes Georgia and Cyprus in Western Asia, yet the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and UNESCO include them in Europe. The schema was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to continents, within these groupings, smaller, geographical subregions and selected economic and other groupings allow for detailed analysis
35.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
36.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
37.
Central Africa
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Central Africa is the core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda. All of the states in the UN subregion of Middle Africa, plus those otherwise commonly reckoned in Central Africa, since its independence in 2011, South Sudan has also been commonly included in the region. The Central African Federation, also called the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, was made up of what are now the nations of Malawi, Zambia and these states are now typically considered part of Southern Africa. Archeological finds in Central Africa have been discovered dating back over 100,000 years, according to Zangato and Holl, there is evidence of iron-smelting in the Central African Republic and Cameroon that may date back to 3000 to 2500 BCE. Extensive walled settlements have recently found in Northeast Nigeria, approximately 60 km southwest of Lake Chad dating to the first millennium BCE. Trade and improved agricultural techniques supported more sophisticated societies, leading to the civilizations of Sao, Kanem, Bornu, Shilluk, Baguirmi. Around 1000 BCE, Bantu migrants had reached the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa, halfway through the first millennium BCE, the Bantu had also settled as far south as what is now Angola. The Sao civilization flourished from ca. the sixth century BCE to as late as the sixteenth century CE in northern Central Africa, the Sao lived by the Chari River south of Lake Chad in territory that later became part of Cameroon and Chad. They are the earliest people to have clear traces of their presence in the territory of modern Cameroon. Today, several groups of northern Cameroon and southern Chad. Sao artifacts show that they were skilled workers in bronze, copper, finds include bronze sculptures and terra cotta statues of human and animal figures, coins, funerary urns, household utensils, jewelry, highly decorated pottery, and spears. The largest Sao archaeological finds have been south of Lake Chad. The Kanem-Bornu Empire was centered in the Chad Basin and it was known as the Kanem Empire from the 9th century CE onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu until 1900. The history of the Empire is mainly known from the Royal Chronicle or Girgam discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth, Kanem rose in the 8th century in the region to the north and east of Lake Chad. The Kanem empire went into decline, shrank, and in the 14th century was defeated by Bilala invaders from the Lake Fitri region, the Kanuri people led by the Sayfuwa migrated to the west and south of the lake, where they established the Bornu Empire. By the late 16th century the Bornu empire had expanded and recaptured the parts of Kanem that had been conquered by the Bulala, satellite states of Bornu included the Damagaram in the west and Baguirmi to the southeast of Lake Chad. The Shilluk Kingdom was centered in South Sudan from the 15th century from along a strip of land along the bank of White Nile. The capital and royal residence was in the town of Fashoda, the kingdom was founded during the mid-fifteenth century CE by its first ruler, Nyikang
38.
Guinea (region)
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Guinea is a traditional name for the region of the West coast of Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It is a naturally moist tropical forest or savanna that stretches along the coast, the etymology of Guinea is uncertain. The term Guinea is extensively used in the 1453 chronicle of Gomes Eanes de Zurara, king John II of Portugal took up the title of Senhor da Guiné from 1483. It is believed the Portuguese borrowed Guineus from the Berber term Ghinawen meaning the burnt people, the Berber terms aginaw and Akal n-Iguinawen mean black and land of the blacks, respectively. A competing theory, first forwarded by Leo Africanus in 1526, claims that Guinea is derived from Djenné, Djenné dominated the gold and salt trade across West Africa, from the 11th century until the 13th century. It is during the period of Djenné dominance that the term Genewah really comes forward into usage in Arab sources, other theories try to connect Guinea to Ghana, but this is less certain. The Ghana Empire is named after the Medieval trading city of Ghanah mentioned already by 11th-century Arab geographers, conversely, it remains possible that both Ghana and Djenné themselves owe their original city names to the Berber appellation for the blacks that lived there. A possible reconciliation of the theories is that the Berber Ghinawen was the source of the Djenné, which in turn gave rise to the Arabic Genewah, historically, the Guinea region was one of the first parts of sub-Saharan Africa to trade with Europeans. In 1478, a Castilian armada of 35 caravels and a Portuguese fleet fought the battle of Guinea in the waters off Elmina, for the hegemony of the Guinea trade. The war ended both with a Portuguese naval victory and the recognition by the Catholic Monarchs of the Portuguese sovereignty over most of the African territories in dispute. This was the first colonial war among European powers, after the Portuguese and Castilians, came the Dutch, French and British. The extensive trade in ivory, gold, and slaves made the region wealthy and these were much smaller than the large states of the wide-open Sahel, but they had far higher population densities and were more centralized politically. The cohesion of these caused the region to show more resistance to European incursions than other areas of Africa. Such resistance, combined with an environment hostile to Europeans. Guinea is often subdivided into Lower Guinea and Upper Guinea, Lower Guinea is one of the most densely populated regions of Africa, covering southern Nigeria, Benin, Togo and stretching into Ghana. It includes the regions as well as the interior. Upper Guinea is far less populated and stretches from Côte dIvoire to Senegal. Within the Republic of Guinea, Lower Guinea refers to the coastal plain
39.
Gulf of Guinea
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The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean between Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian is in the gulf, among the many rivers that drain into the Gulf of Guinea are the Niger and the Volta. The coastline on the gulf includes the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Bonny, the Niger River in particular deposited organic sediments out to sea over millions of years which became crude oil. The origin of the name Guinea is thought to be an area in the region, bovill gives a thorough description, The name Guinea is usually said to have been a corrupt form of the name Ghana, picked up by the Portuguese in the Maghrib. The present writer finds this unacceptable, the name Guinea has been in use both in the Maghrib and in Europe long before Prince Henrys time. A passage in Leo points to Guinea having been a form of Jenne, less famous than Ghana but nevertheless for many centuries famed in the Maghrib as a great market. The relevant passage reads, The Kingdom of Ghinea. called by the merchants of our nation Gheneoa, by the inhabitants thereof Genni and by the Portugals. But it seems probable that Guinea derives from aguinaou, the Berber for Negro. Marrakech has a gate, built in the century, called the Bab Aguinaou. The modern application of the name Guinea to the coast dates only from 1481, the name Guinea is still attached to the names of three countries in Africa, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea, as well as New Guinea in Melanesia. The main river shedding its waters in the gulf is the Niger River, the Gulf of Guinea contains a number of islands, the largest of which are in a southwest-northeast chain, forming part of the Cameroon line of volcanoes. Annobón, also known as Pagalu or Pigalu, is an island that is part of Equatorial Guinea, bobowasi Island is an island off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea that is part of Western region Ghana. Bioko is an island off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea that is part of Equatorial Guinea, corisco is an island belonging to Equatorial Guinea. Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico are two small islands belonging to Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea that became independent from Portugal in 1975. It is located off the western equatorial coast of Africa and consists of two islands, São Tomé and Príncipe and they are located about 140 kilometres apart and about 250 and 225 kilometres, respectively, off the northwestern coast of Gabon. Both islands are part of a volcanic mountain range. São Tomé, the southern island, is situated just north of the Equator. Media related to Gulf of Guinea at Wikimedia Commons The Gulf of Guinea Commission - CGG - GGC
40.
Cape Lopez
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Cape Lopez is a 55 km-long peninsula on the coast of west central Africa, in the country of Gabon. It separates the Gulf of Guinea from the South Atlantic Ocean, lying in the delta of the Ogooué River, it shelters the seaport of Port-Gentil. A lighthouse has existed on the Cape since 1897, the current tower was built in 1911 and it is named after the Portuguese explorer Lopes Gonçalves, who reached it about 1474
41.
Mayombe
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Mayombe is a geographic area on the western coast of Africa occupied by low mountains extending from the mouth of the Congo River in the south to the Kouilou-Niari River to the north. The area includes parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Mayumbe is located in the west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It lies on the bank of the Congo River just before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Banana. It extends north from Boma into the Angolan enclave of Cabinda to the west and extends north to the Republic of Congo, Mayumbe is watered by many rivers with swift currents in its hilly and mountainous regions. The three largest are the Shiloango River and two of its tributaries, the Lukula River and the Lubuzi River. The long dry season from June to September in the Mayumbe is not as intense as in the rest of the Lower Congo because of the altitude, temperatures range from 17 to 22, but can drop to 8 ° at night. The long rainy season lasts from October to May, with temperatures of 28-33°, the climate is hot and humid, especially during the rainy season when the humidity is near to 100%. This feeling of constant humidity is increased by the condensation of the vapors of the trade winds that cool the cliffs of the Coastal Range. Flora vary from dense forest to savannah dotted with forest trees, the forests of Mayumbe are old. Some of the trees are valuable, especially the Limba, palm trees are plentiful in the Elais Mayumbe and are found in forests and in the savanna. They form one of the resources of this region for its inhabitants. The areas forests were estimated in 1950 to cover 500,000 hectares, more recently they have declined to 80,000 hectares, of which Limba account for over 40%. Among the ethnic groups that inhabit this region the Yombe, a subset of the Kongo people, are the most numerous, the Mayombe Railway linked Boma to Tshela, with a planned extension to the Republic of Congo. It was dismantled under President Mobutu Sese Seko and the tracks were reused near Gbadolite, the Mayombe in Congo is covered by the Congo-Ocean Railway. Mayombe is famous in Senegal because it is an important stage in the exile of the founder of mouridism, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, during the French colonial administration
42.
Igboland
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Igboland, also known as Southeastern Nigeria, is the indigenous homeland of the Igbo people. It is a cultural and common linguistic region in southern Nigeria. Geographically, it is divided by the lower Niger River into two unequal sections – an eastern and a western section and it is characterised by the diverse Igbo culture and the equally diverse Igbo language. Politically, Igboland is divided into several southern Nigerian states, culturally, it is divided into several subgroupings, including the Anioma, Ngwa, Edda Egbebu, Ezaa, Ibeku, Ohuhu, Omuma and the Ekpeye. William Balfour Baikie remarked that in Igbo each person hails, as a sailor would say, from the district where he was born. And yet considerable differences exist between different parts of this country, and the dialects spoken also vary greatly. Igboland is surrounded on all sides by a host of large rivers, in the words of William B. On the north it borders on Igara, Igala and Akpoto, the earliest found settlements in Igboland date back to 4500 BC in the central area, from where the majority of the Igbo-speaking population is believed to have migrated. The northern Igbo Kingdom of Nri, which rose around the 10th century AD, is credited with the foundation of much of Igbolands culture, customs and it is the oldest existing monarchy in present-day Nigeria. In southern Igboland several groups developed, of which the most notable was the Aro confederacy, Igboland was part of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate of the British Empire and was amalgamated into modern-day Nigeria in 1914, the nation gained independence in 1960. Shortly afterwards Igboland was involved in its biggest war during Biafras movement for secession, balkie when signing a trade agreement with Igbo chief, Ezebogo in Asaba on August 30,1885. Early settlement of Igboland dates back to 6000 BC based on early pottery work found in the Okigwe, Oka Igwe, some local Villagers retains the Original name, like Umuzuoka, The Blacksmiths Ezioka, Okigwe, Imoka, etc. Oka, igwe-Nsukka axis. There is, however, evidence of Palaeolithic man settling in southern Nigeria from at least 10,000 years ago, anthropologists at the University of Benin discovered fossils and use of monoliths dating back to 6000 BC at Ugwelle-Uturu in the Okigwe area. Further evidence of ancient settlements were uncovered at a hypothesised Nsukka metal cultural area from 3000 BC, the Nsukka-Okigwe axis forms as a basis for a proposed Proto-Igbo cultural heartland antecedent to contemporary Igbo culture. It is unclear what cultural links there are between these pre-historic artefacts and today, much of the Igbo population is believed to have migrated from a smaller area in this region, starting several independent Igbo-speaking tribes, village-groups, kingdoms and states. The works were based in Igbo Ukwu and further finds were found by archaeology teams led by Thurstan Shaw in 1959-60, the works have been attributed to an isolated bronze industry which had developed without outside influence over time to reach such sophistication. Igbo trade routes of the second millennium reached the cities of Mecca, Medina. There was evidence of beads that originated in India in the 9th century Igbo Ukwu burial sites, the burial site was associated with the Nri Kingdom which began around the same century according to indigenous history
43.
Maputaland
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Maputaland is a natural region of Southern Africa. It is located in the part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal. In a wider sense it may include the southernmost region of Mozambique. The bird routes and coral reefs off the coast are major tourist attractions, Maputaland is bordered by the Ubombo Mountains in the west and the Indian Ocean in the east. The South African section of Maputaland was also known as Tongaland after the Tonga people who live there. The usually flat region feeds the Phongolo and Mkhuze River, on 11 June 1895, Tongaland was annexed by Great Britain. Tongaland, the name of the region of the Tsonga, has now largely fallen into disuse. It is still found in scientific works though, as well as in the naming of species. Maputaland-Pondoland bushland and thickets Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot Elephant Coast Visitor Guide, the Complete Field Guide to Trees of Natal, Zululand and Transkei. ISBN 0-620-17697-0 Maputaland-Pondoland bushland and thickets
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Pool Malebo
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The Pool Malebo – formerly Stanley Pool, also known as Malebo Pool, or Lake Nkunda by local indigenous people in pre-colonial times – is a lake-like widening in the lower reaches of the Congo River. The former name Stanley Pool was named after early European explorer, the Pool Malebo is about 35 km long,23 km wide and 500 km2 in surface area. Its central part is occupied by MBamou or Bamu Island, which is Republic of the Congo territory. The pool is shallow with depths of 3–10 m, while water levels vary by as much as 3 m over the course of a year at an altitude of 272 m. The capitals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo—Kinshasa and Brazzaville and these are the two closest capital cities in the world. The Pool is the beginning of the part of the Congo River upstream to the cities of Mbandaka, Kisangani. Downstream, the river descends hundreds of meters in a series of known as the Livingstone Falls to reach sea level at the port of Boma after a trajectory of 300 km. There are many palm and papyrus swamps along the edges of the river and pool, most fish endemic to the area are catfishes, including the mountain catfish, L. brieni, Leptoglanis mandevillei, L. bouilloni and Atopochilus chabanaudi, an upside-down catfish. The area has over 200 fish species documented, with Mormyrids as the most common with over 40 species, and with the highest diversification
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Congo Basin
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The Congo Basin is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River, located in west equatorial Africa. The broad region is known simply as the Congo. The basin is a total of 3.7 million square kilometers and is home to some of the largest undisturbed stands of tropical rainforest on the planet, the basin ends where the river empties its load in the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The climate is tropical, with two rainy seasons including very high rainfalls, and high temperature year round. The basin is home to the western lowland gorilla. The basin was the watershed of the Congo River populated by pygmy peoples, belgium, France, and Portugal later established colonial control over the entire region by the late 19th century. Congo is a name for the equatorial Middle Africa that lies between the Gulf of Guinea and the African Great Lakes. It contains some of the largest tropical rainforests in the world and it is home to okapi, bonobo and the Congo peafowl, but is also an important source of African teak, used for building furniture and flooring. An estimated 40 million people depend on woodlands, surviving on traditional livelihoods. At a global level, Congos forests act as the planets second lung and they are a huge carbon sink, trapping carbon that could otherwise become carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. The Congo Basin holds roughly 8 percent of the worlds forest-based carbon and these forests also affect rainfall across the North Atlantic. In other words, these distant forests are crucial to the future of climate stability, a moratorium on logging in the Congo forest was agreed with the World Bank and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 2002. The World Bank agreed to provide $90 million of development aid to RDC with the proviso that the government did not issue any new concessions granting logging companies rights to exploit the forest, the deal also prohibited the renewal of existing concessions. Greenpeace is calling on the World Bank to think outside the box, if these woodlands are deforested, the carbon they trap will be released into the atmosphere. It says that 8% of the Earths forest-based carbon is stored in the RDCs forests, the government has written a new forestry code that requires companies to invest in local development and follow a sustainable, twenty-five-year cycle of rotational logging. In its current form, the Kyoto protocol does not reward so-called avoided deforestation - initiatives that protect forest from being cut down, but many climate scientists and policymakers hope that negotiations for Kyotos successor will include such measures. If this were the case, there could be an incentive for protecting forests. L’Île Mbiye in Kisangani is part of the Sustainable Forest Management in Africa Symposium project of forest ecosystem conservation conducted by Stellenbosch University, RDC is also looking to expand the area of forest under protection, for which it hopes to secure compensation through emerging markets for forest carbon
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Chad Basin
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The Chad Basin is the largest endorheic drainage basin in Africa, centered on Lake Chad. It has no outlet to the sea and contains areas of desert or semi-arid savanna. The drainage basin is roughly coterminous with the basin of the same name. The basin spans seven countries, including most of Chad and a part of Niger. It has a diverse population of about 30 million people as of 2011. A combination of dams, increased irrigation, and reduced rainfall are causing shortages of water, the geological basin, which is smaller than the drainage basin, is a Phanerozoic sedimentary basin formed during the plate divergence that opened the South Atlantic Ocean. The basin lies between the West African Craton and Congo Craton, and formed around the time as the Benue Trough. It covers an area of about 2,335,000 square kilometres and it merges into the Iullemmeden Basin to the west at the Damergou gap between the Aïr and Zinder massifs. The floor of the basin is made of Precambrian bedrock covered by more than 3,600 metres of sedimentary deposits, the basin may have resulted from the intersection of an Aïr-Chad Trough running NW-SE and a Tibesti-Cameroon Trough running NE-SW. The southern part of the basin is underlain by another elongated depression and this runs in an ENE direction and extends from the Yola arm of the Benue trough. At times, parts of the basin were below the sea, in the northeastern part of the Benue Trough where it enters the Chad Basin there are marine sediments from the Late Cretaceous. These sediments seem to be considerably thicker towards the northeast, boreholes under Maiduguri have found marine sediments 400 metres deep, lying over continental sediments 600 metres deep. The sea seems to have retreated from the part of the basin in the Turonian. In the Maastrichtian the west was non-marine, but the southeast probably was still marine, no marine sediments have been found from the Paleocene. Towards the end of this period the climate became drier, around 20, 000-40,000 years ago eolianite sand dunes began to form in the north of the basin. During the Holocene, from 11,000 years ago until recently and it would have drained to the Atlantic Ocean via the Benue River. Stratigraphic records show that Mega-Chad varied in size as the climate changed, the remains of fish and molluscs from this period are found in what are now desert regions. The Chad Basin covers almost 8% of the African continent, with an area of about 2,434,000 square kilometres, the Aïr Mountains and the Termit Massif in Niger form the western boundary
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