1.
Loire Valley
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The Loire Valley, spanning 280 kilometres, is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France, primarily within the administrative region named Centre-Val de Loire. The area of the Loire Valley comprises about 800 square kilometres and it is referred to as the Cradle of the French and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, and asparagus fields, which line the banks of the river. Notable for its towns, architecture, and wines, the valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period. In 2000, UNESCO added the part of the Loire River valley to its list of World Heritage Sites. The valley includes historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Orléans, Saumur, the climate is favorable most of the year, the river often acting as a line of demarcation in Frances weather between the northern climate and the southern. The river has a significant effect on the mesoclimate of the region, the climate can be cool with springtime frost while wine harvest months may have rain. Summers are hot, however, influences from the Atlantic moderate the temperature with breezes, Loire wines tend to exhibit a characteristic fruitiness with fresh, crisp flavors. On December 2,2000, UNESCO added the part of the river valley. When the French kings began constructing their huge châteaux here, the nobility, not wanting or even daring to be far from the seat of power and their presence in the lush, fertile valley began attracting the very best landscape designers. In addition to its many châteaux, the cultural monuments illustrate to a degree the ideals of the Renaissance. Many of the châteaux were designed to be built on the top of hills, many of the châteaux had extremely detailed and expensive churches on the grounds, or within the actual château itself. Loire Valley world heritage site Loire Valley Chateau du Rivau Chinon Fortress Western France Tourist Board
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Helsinki
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Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Helsinki has a population of 629,512, a population of 1,231,595. Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres north of Tallinn, Estonia,400 km east of Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities. The Helsinki metropolitan area includes the core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen. It is the worlds northernmost metro area of one million people. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Nordic countries, Helsinki is Finlands major political, educational, financial, cultural, and research center as well as one of northern Europes major cities. Approximately 75% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region, the nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the city was the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics and the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007. In 2011, the Monocle magazine ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its Liveable Cities Index 2011, in the Economist Intelligence Units August 2015 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in globally, Helsinki placed among the worlds top ten cities. Helsinki is used to refer to the city in most languages, the Swedish name Helsingfors is the original official name of the city. The Finnish name probably comes from Helsinga and similar names used for the river that is known as the Vantaa River. Helsingfors comes from the name of the parish, Helsinge and the rapids, which flowed through the original village. As part of the Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, one suggestion for the origin of the name Helsinge is that it originated with medieval Swedish settlers who came from Hälsingland in Sweden. Others have proposed that the name derives from the Swedish word helsing, other Scandinavian cities located at similar geographic locations were given similar names at the time, for example Helsingør and Helsingborg. The name Helsinki has been used in Finnish official documents and in Finnish language newspapers since 1819, the decrees issued in Helsinki were dated with Helsinki as the place of issue. This is how the form Helsinki came to be used in written Finnish, in Helsinki slang the city is called Stadi. Hesa, is not used by natives to the city, helsset is the Northern Sami name of Helsinki
4.
Bazaar
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A bazaar is a permanently enclosed marketplace or street where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term originates from the Persian word bāzār, from Middle Persian wāzār, from Old Persian vāčar, Souq is another word used in the Middle East for an open-air marketplace or commercial quarter. The term bazaar is also used to refer to the network of merchants, bankers. Although the current meaning of the word is believed to have originated in native Zoroastrian Persia, its use has spread, the rise of large bazaars and stock trading centers in the Muslim World allowed the creation of new capitals and eventually new empires. New and wealthy cities such as Isfahan, Golconda, Samarkand, Cairo, Baghdad, street markets is the European and North American equivalents. The origin of the word Bazaar comes from Persian language, many languages have names for this concept, including Arabic and Urdu, بازار, Kurdish language has the same word bazaar meaning a marketplace. In South Korea, the word 바자회, composed of 바자 + 회 is used to describe the sort of rummage sale described above. Although Turkey contains many famous markets known as bazaars in English, English place names usually translate çarşı as bazaar when they refer to an area with covered streets or passages. For example, the Turkish name for the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is Kapalıçarşı, the Armenian one does not include Bazaar of its own. Covered Market, Oxford, England Gold Souq, a market trading in gold, shopping mall Souq Tabriz Bazaar, Tabriz, Iran, the largest covered bazaar in the world. Wet market, sells fresh meat, fish, and produce, the Persian Bazaar, Veiled Space of Desire by Mehdi Khansari The Morphology of the Persian Bazaar by Azita Rajabi. COMPARATIVE SUSTAINABILITY OF BAZAAR IN IRANIAN TRADITIONAL CITIES, CASE STUDIES IN ISFAHAN AND TABRIZ, international Journal on Technical and Physical Problems of Engineering. Iran Chamber Society on Architecture of the Bazaar at Isfahan 1911 Britannica article Bazaar
5.
Barter
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Barter is a system of exchange where goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is distinguishable from gift economies in many ways, one of them is that the exchange is immediate. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral and, in most developed countries, usually only exists parallel to monetary systems to a very limited extent. Barter, as a replacement for money as the method of exchange, is used in times of monetary crisis, examples include the Owenite socialists, the Cincinnati Time store, and more recently Ithaca HOURS and the LETS system. Adam Smith, the father of economics, sought to demonstrate that markets pre-existed the state. He argued that money was not the creation of governments, markets emerged, in his view, out of the division of labour, by which individuals began to specialize in specific crafts and hence had to depend on others for subsistence goods. These goods were first exchanged by barter, specialization depended on trade, but was hindered by the double coincidence of wants which barter requires, i. e. for the exchange to occur, each participant must want what the other has. To complete this hypothetical history, craftsmen would stockpile one particular good, be it salt or metal and this is the origin of money according to Smith. Money, as a universally desired medium of exchange, allows each half of the transaction to be separated, Barter is characterized in Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations by a disparaging vocabulary, higgling, haggling, swapping, dickering. It has also characterized as negative reciprocity, or selfish profiteering. Anthropologists have argued, in contrast, that something resembling barter does occur in stateless societies it is almost always between strangers. Barter occurred between strangers, not fellow villagers, and hence cannot be used to explain the origin of money without the state. Since most people engaged in trade knew each other, exchange was fostered through the extension of credit, everyday exchange relations in such societies are characterized by generalized reciprocity, or a non-calculative familial communism where each takes according to their needs, and gives as they have. Barter is an option to those who cannot afford to store their small supply of wealth in money, the limitations of barter are often explained in terms of its inefficiencies in facilitating exchange in comparison to money. It is said that barter is inefficient because, There needs to be a coincidence of wants For barter to occur between two parties, both parties need to have what the other wants. Difficulty in storing wealth If a society relies exclusively on perishable goods, however, some barter economies rely on durable goods like pigs or cattle for this purpose. Other anthropologists have questioned whether barter is typically between total strangers, a form of known as silent trade. Silent trade, also called silent barter, dumb barter, or depot trade, is a method by which traders who cannot speak each language can trade without talking
6.
Used good
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A secondhand or used good is one that is being purchased by or otherwise transferred to a second or later end user. A used good can also simply mean it is no longer in the condition as it was when transferred to the current owner. When used means an item has expended its purpose, it is typically called garbage, as well, for some high-value used goods, such as cars and motorcycles, governments regulate used sales to ensure that the government gets its sales tax revenue from the sale. Secondhand goods can benefit the purchaser as the price paid is lower than the same items bought new, if the reduction in price more than compensates for the possibly shorter remaining lifetime, lack of warranty, and so on, there is a net benefit. Selling unwanted goods secondhand instead of discarding them obviously benefits the seller, recycling goods through the secondhand market both reduces use of resources in manufacturing new goods, and diminishes waste which must be disposed of, both significant environmental benefits. However, manufacturers who profit from sales of new goods lose corresponding sales, often the relative carbon footprint of production, raw material sourcing and the supply chain is unknown. A scientific methodology has been made to analyze how much CO2 emissions are reduced when buying used goods like secondhand hardware versus new hardware, quality secondhand goods can be more durable than equivalent new goods. Secondhand goods may have faults which are not apparent even if examined, purchasing sight unseen, for example, goods may cause problems beyond their value, for example, furniture may have not easily seen bedbugs, which may cause an infestation which is difficult and expensive to eradicate. Faulty electrical and mechanical goods can be hazardous and dangerous and this is especially a big issue if sold to countries that do not have recycling facilities for these devices, which has led to an issue with electronic waste. Underdeveloped countries like Zambia are extremely welcoming to donated secondhand clothing, at a time when the countrys economy was in severe decline the used goods provided jobs by keeping many others busy with repairs and alterations. It has created a type of economy at a time when many Zambians were out of work. The used garments and materials that were donated to the country allowed for the production of a wide range of fabrics whose imports had been previously restricted. The trade is executed by women who operate their small business based on local associations. Not only does this provide self-employment, but it also increases household income, but while many countries would be welcoming of secondhand goods, it is also true that there are countries in need who refuse donated items. Countries like Poland, Philippines and Pakistan have been known to reject secondhand items for fear of venereal disease and risk to personal hygiene. Through the production of shoddy, most of which is produced in Northern India today, the acceptance of secondhand goods goes beyond the need of the people and into the hands of government officials. United States taxpayers can deduct donations of used goods to charitable organizations, both Goodwill Industries and the Salvation Army web sites have lists of items with their estimated range of values. Another way that people transfer used goods is by giving them to friends or relatives, when a person gives an item of some value that they have used to someone else, such as a used car or a winter coat, it is sometimes referred to as a hand-me-down
7.
Parking lot
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A parking lot, also known as a car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to an area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most countries where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a feature of every city, shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often feature parking lots of immense area. Parking lots tend to be sources of pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces. Most existing lots have limited or no facilities to control runoff, many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots, which means that their paved surfaces contribute to heat islands. Many municipalities require a number of parking spaces, depending on the floor area in a store or the number of bedrooms in an apartment complex. In the United States, each states Department of Transportation sets the proper ratio for disabled spaces for private business, various forms of technology are used to charge motorists for the use of a parking lot. Modern parking lots use a variety of technologies to help motorists find unoccupied parking spaces, retrieve their vehicles, parking lots tend to be sources of water pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces. Virtually all of the rain that falls becomes urban runoff, to avoid flooding and unsafe driving conditions, the lots are built to effectively channel and collect runoff. Parking lots, along roads, are often the principal source of water pollution in urban areas. Motor vehicles are a constant source of pollutants, the most significant being gasoline, motor oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, many parking lots are also significant sources of trash which ends up in waterways. Treatment of pollution, Traditionally, the runoff has been shunted directly into storm sewers, streams, however, most larger municipalities now require construction of stormwater management facilities for new lots. Typical facilities include retention basins, infiltration basins and percolation trenches, some newer designs include bioretention systems, which use plants more extensively to absorb and filter pollutants. However, most existing lots have limited or no facilities to control runoff, alternative paving materials, An alternative solution today is to use permeable paving surfaces, such as brick, pervious concrete, stone, special paving blocks, or tire-tread woven mats. These materials allow rain to soak into the ground through the spaces inherent in the parking lot surface. The ground then may become contaminated in the surface of the parking lot park, but this tends to stay in a area of ground. This can however create problems if contaminants seep into groundwater, especially there is groundwater abstraction downstream for potable water supply. Many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots and this usually principally means the planting of trees to provide shade
8.
Hawker (trade)
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A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported, the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive items, whether stationary or mobile, hawkers often advertise by loud street cries or chants, and conduct banter with customers, so to attract attention and enhance sales. When accompanied by a demonstration or detailed explanation of the product, most of them are immigrants or laid-off workers, work for an average 10–12 hours a day, and remain impoverished. Though the prevalent license-permit raj in Indian bureaucracy ended for most retailing in the 1990s, in Kolkata, the profession was a cognisable and non-bailable offense. Over the years the street vendors have organized themselves into trade unions and associations, in fact, The National Association of Street Vendors of India based in Delhi, is a federation of 715 street vendor organizations, trade unions and non-governmental organizations. Kolkata has two such unions, namely the Bengal Hawkers Association and the Calcutta Hawkers Men Union, in September,2012, long-awaited Street Vendors Act was introduced in the Lok Sabha aimed at providing social security and livelihood rights, and regulated the prevalent license system. The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 6 September 2013, the bill received the assent of the President of India on 4 March 2014. The commencement of the Act has not been notified, balut is a popular dish sold by hawkers in the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In both China and Hong Kong, hawkers inventories often include fish ball, beef ball, butzaigo, roasted chestnuts, in Singapore and Malaysia, these stands have become so successful that many have chosen to set up shop more permanently in a hawker center. Across Asia, stalls have been set up with little to no government monitoring, due to health concerns and other liability problems, the food culture has been seriously challenged in Indonesia, though without marked success. However, in Hong Kong, the lease versus licensed hawker restrictions have put a burden on this mobile food culture, the term Jau Gwei has been used to describe vendors often running away from local police. The costermongers of London, England were at their peak in the 19th century, organised, yet semi-obvious, they were ubiquitous, and their street cries could be heard everywhere. Street vendors in Latin America are known in local Spanish and Portuguese variously as vendedores ambulantes or simply ambulantes, in Argentina they are known as manteros. In Brazil, they are known as camelôs. Some ambulantes set up in a location while others are mobile. Some ambulantes sell their goods door-to-door, puestos are market stalls or stands. Street vendors face various regulations and fees, there are sometimes disputes between established merchants and ambulantes. In order to avoid overwhelming tourists or shoppers, ambulantes are known to establish territories, thieves stealing their goods can be a problem
9.
Counterfeit consumer goods
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Counterfeit consumer goods are goods, often of inferior quality, made or sold under anothers brand name without the brand owner’s authorization. Sellers of such goods may infringe on either the trade mark, the term knockoff is often used interchangeably with counterfeit, although their legal meanings are not identical. A knockoff is a term which describes products that copy or imitate the physical appearance of other products. They may, or may not, be illegal under trademark laws, such products are considered illegal when they are intended to confuse consumers. And someone can be a counterfeiter even if he doesn’t make the products, another overlapping term is pirated goods, which generally refers to copying copyrighted products without permission, such as music, movies and software. Exact definitions are determined by the laws of various countries, the same study projected that in 2015 the upper bound of the global value of counterfeit and pirated goods could be $1.77 trillion, a number that is roughly equal to the GDP of Brazil. Counterfeit products make up 5 to 7% of world trade and have cost an estimated 2.5 million jobs worldwide, however, the Government Accountability Office found that many estimated figures were unreliable. According to the OECD, counterfeit products encompass all products made to imitate the appearance of the product of another as to mislead consumers. Those can include the production and distribution of products that are protected by intellectual property rights, such as copyright, trade marks. Counterfeiters illegally copy trademarks, which manufacturers have built up based on marketing investments, in many cases, different types of infringements overlap, unauthorized music copying mostly infringes copyright as well as trade marks, fake toys infringe design protection. The term counterfeiting therefore addresses the issues of copying packaging, labelling. Rayban, Rolex, and Louis Vuitton are the most copied brands worldwide, with Nike being the most counterfeited brand globally according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Others realize that most consumers do not care if the goods they buy are counterfeit, the popularity of designer jeans in 1978, spurred a flood of knockoffs. Factories that manufacture counterfeit designer brand garments and watches are usually located in developing countries, international tourists visiting Beijing, China, may find a wide selection of counterfeit designer brand garments at the Silk Street. Expensive watches are vulnerable to counterfeiting as well, some counterfeiters have began to manufacture their goods in the same factory as the authentic goods. Yuandan goods is a used to describe those fakes that are produced in the same factory as legitimate designer pieces without authorized permission to do so. These goods are made from scraps and leftover materials from the products, produced illegally. Thailand has opened a Museum of Counterfeit Goods displaying over 4,000 different items, in 14 different categories, the oldest museum of this kind is located in Paris and is known as Musée de la Contrefaçon
10.
Nahuatl
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Nahuatl, known historically as Aztec, is a language or group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua peoples, all Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE and it was the language of the Aztecs who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl, today, Nahuan languages are spoken in scattered communities, mostly in rural areas throughout central Mexico and along the coastline. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are mutually unintelligible, Huasteca Nahuatl, with over one million speakers, is the most-spoken variety. They have all been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish, No modern Nahuan languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Nahuan languages exhibit a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination, through a very long period of coexistence with the other indigenous Mesoamerican languages, they have absorbed many influences, coming to form part of the Mesoamerican language area. Many words from Nahuatl have been borrowed into Spanish, and since diffused into hundreds of other languages, most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English words of Nahuatl origin include avocado, chayote, chili, chocolate, atlatl, coyote, peyote, axolotl, as a language label, the term Nahuatl encompasses a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects within the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas recognize 30 different individual varieties within the language group labeled Nahuatl, the Ethnologue recognizes 28 varieties with separate ISO codes. Sometimes the label also is used to include the Pipil language of El Salvador, within Mexico the question of whether to consider individual varieties to be languages or dialects of a single language is highly political. This article focuses on describing the history of the group. For details on individual varieties or subgroups, see the individual articles, in the past, the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs has been called Aztecan. From the 1990s onward, the alternative designation Nahuan has been used as a replacement especially in Spanish-language publications. The Nahuan branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions, General Aztec and Pochutec, General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages. Pochutec is a scantily attested language, which became extinct in the 20th century, other researchers have argued that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery. Nahuatl denotes at least Classical Nahuatl together with related languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil into the group is debated, current subclassification of Nahuatl rests on research by Canger, Canger and Lastra de Suárez
11.
Tianguis
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A tianguis is an open-air market or bazaar that is traditionally held on certain market days in a town or city neighborhood in Mexico and Central America. This bazaar tradition has its roots well into the pre-Hispanic period, the word tianguis comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire. In rural areas, many types of merchandise are still sold, such as agriculture supplies and products as well as modern. In the cities, mass-produced goods are sold, but the organization of tianguis events is mostly the same. There are also specialty tianguis events for such as Christmas as well as for particular types of items such as cars or art. It was the most important form of commerce in the era, and after the Spanish Conquest. The word “tianguis” derives from the Nahuatl word tiyānquiztli “open air-market”, from tiyāmiqui “to trade, the most important markets, such as the one in Tlatelolco, were set up and taken down every day of the week. This market served about one-fifth of the population of Tenochtitlan before the Conquest and had its own governing system, today, one of the most visited exhibits in the National Museum of Anthropology is the model of the pre-Hispanic market such as the one in Tenochtitlan. In the cities, especially Mexico City, the history of these markets is filled with examples of attempts to regulate them and push them away to other places, with mixed success. In all these cases, vendors eventually retook the plaza This problem was tackled in the 1990s as part of an effort to revitalize the historic center of Mexico City. Despite much initial resistance, this area has free of street peddlers since that time. Much of the business that used to be done in the Zocalo has now moved to other places such as the Tepito neighborhood. In the 20th century, local governments in Mexico have promoted municipal or public markets or “mercados” in order to regulate the selling of goods traditionally available in tianguis. In Mexico City, some of the better known of these markets are La Merced, Abelardo L. Rodriguez Market, La Merced is located in an area that had been a huge tianguis for most of the colonial period as it was located at the edge of a lake. The Abelardo L. Rodriguez Market was specifically built by the government in the 1930s in order to try and “modernize” the sale of produce and it went as far as having a day care center and a theater and commissioning Diego Rivera to supervise the painting of murals inside. These murals can still be seen today, however, these efforts have not eliminated the tianguis tradition, in fact, the number of these informal markets far surpasses the number of mercados. In Mexico City alone, there are 317 mercados versus 1,357 tianguis, one reason for this is that many of these mercados are not well-maintained and few new ones have been built since the 1970s. The tianguis is part of the so-called “informal economy, ” even though many of these vendors are well enough known
12.
Pune
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Pune is the second largest city in the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ninth most populous city in the country. In the 18th century, Pune was the centre of the Indian subcontinent. Considered to be the capital of Maharashtra, Pune is known as Oxford of the East due to the presence of several well-known educational institutions in the city. The city has emerged as an educational hub in recent decades. Since the 1950s and 1960s, Pune has had a traditional old-economic base as most of the old industries continue to grow, a few college in the Europe have also actively engaged in Student-exchange programs with several colleges in Pune. Pune is also one of the fastest growing cities in the Asia-Pacific region, the ‘Mercer 2015 Quality of Living rankings’ evaluated local living conditions in more than 440 cities around the world where Pune ranked at 145, second in India after Hyderabad. It also highlights Pune among evolving business centres and emerging nine cities around the world with citation Hosts IT, the oldest reference to the place is found inscribed on a Rashtrakuta Dynasty copper plate dated AD937, which refers to the town as Punya-Vishaya meaning Sacred News. By the 13th century, it had come to be known as Punawadi, copper plates dated 858 AD and 868 AD show that by the 8th century an agricultural settlement known as Punnaka existed where Pune is today. The plates indicate that this region was ruled by the Rashtrakuta dynasty, the Pataleshwar rock-cut temple complex was built during this era. Pune was part of the territory ruled by Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri from the 9th century to 1327, in 1595, Maloji Raje Bhosale was granted the jagirdari of Pune by the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Pune was ruled by the Ahmadnagar Sultanate until it was annexed by the Mughals in the 17th century, Pune was part of the Jagir granted to Maloji Bhosale in 1599 for his services to the Nizamshahi of Ahmadnagar. His grandson, Shivaji, the founder of Maratha Empire, was born in Shivneri fort not far from Pune, Shivaji was brought up by his mother in Pune. Pune changed hands several times between the Mughals and the Marathas in the period between 1660 and 1705 and he stabilised the revenue collection and administrative systems of areas around Pune and in neighbouring area of the Maval region. In addition, he developed methods to manage disputes and to enforce law. Construction on the Lal Mahal began in 1631 AD, the Lal Mahal was completed in 1640 AD. Jijabai is said to have commissioned the building of the Kasba Ganapati temple, the Ganesha idol consecrated at this temple has been regarded as the presiding deity of the city. Shivaji encouraged the development of dams in the Parvati and Kondhwa regions of Pune for agricultural purposes, Pune and its surrounding villages were the major recruitment areas for Shivajis army between 1645 AD and 1680 AD. Between 1660 AD and 1670 AD the town was captured by Mughal General Shahista Khan, Shivaji often used Pune as his transit base during his major campaigns such as Varhad-Karanja, AhemadaNagar District, Karnataka, and Jalna
