Balearic Sea
The Balearic Sea is a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea near the Balearic Islands. It is not to be confused with the Iberian shelf waters; the Ebro River flows into this small sea. Baleraic islands are divided into 2 groups: Gimnesias in the North, Pitiusas in the South-West. Menorca Mallorca Cabrera Ibiza Formentera The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Balearic Sea as follows: Between the Islas Baleares and the coast of Spain, bounded: On the Southwest. A line from Cape San Antonio, Spain to Cabo Berberia, the Southwest extreme of Formentera. On the Southeast; the South Coast of Formentera, thence a line from Punta Rotja, its Eastern extreme, to the Southern extreme of Isla Cabrera and to Isla del Aire, off the Southern extreme of Menorca. On the Northeast; the East coast of Menorca up to Cap Favaritx thence a line to Cabo San Sebastian
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun, the rotation of the Earth. Tide tables can be used for any given locale to find the predicted times and amplitude; the predictions are influenced by many factors including the alignment of the Sun and Moon, the phase and amplitude of the tide, the amphidromic systems of the oceans, the shape of the coastline and near-shore bathymetry. They are however only predictions, the actual time and height of the tide is affected by wind and atmospheric pressure. Many shorelines experience low tides each day. Other locations have a diurnal tide -- one low tide each day. A "mixed tide" – two uneven magnitude tides a day – is a third regular category. Tides vary on timescales ranging from hours to years due to a number of factors, which determine the lunitidal interval. To make accurate records, tide gauges at fixed stations measure water level over time. Gauges ignore; these data are compared to the reference level called mean sea level.
While tides are the largest source of short-term sea-level fluctuations, sea levels are subject to forces such as wind and barometric pressure changes, resulting in storm surges in shallow seas and near coasts. Tidal phenomena are not limited to the oceans, but can occur in other systems whenever a gravitational field that varies in time and space is present. For example, the shape of the solid part of the Earth is affected by Earth tide, though this is not as seen as the water tidal movements. Tide changes proceed via the following stages: Sea level rises over several hours, covering the intertidal zone; the water rises to its highest level. Sea level falls over several hours; the water stops reaching low tide. Oscillating currents produced by tides are known as tidal streams; the moment that the tidal current ceases is called slack tide. The tide reverses direction and is said to be turning. Slack water occurs near high water and low water, but there are locations where the moments of slack tide differ from those of high and low water.
Tides are semi-diurnal, or diurnal. The two high waters on a given day are not the same height; the two low waters each day are the higher low water and the lower low water. The daily inequality is not consistent and is small when the Moon is over the Equator. From the highest level to the lowest: Highest astronomical tide – The highest tide which can be predicted to occur. Note that meteorological conditions may add extra height to the HAT. Mean high water springs – The average of the two high tides on the days of spring tides. Mean high water neaps – The average of the two high tides on the days of neap tides. Mean sea level – This is the average sea level; the MSL is constant for any location over a long period. Mean low water neaps – The average of the two low tides on the days of neap tides. Mean low water springs – The average of the two low tides on the days of spring tides. Lowest astronomical tide and Chart Datum – The lowest tide which can be predicted to occur. Modern charts use this as the chart datum.
Note that under certain meteorological conditions the water may fall lower than this meaning that there is less water than shown on charts. Tidal constituents are the net result of multiple influences impacting tidal changes over certain periods of time. Primary constituents include the Earth's rotation, the position of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth, the Moon's altitude above the Earth's Equator, bathymetry. Variations with periods of less than half a day are called harmonic constituents. Conversely, cycles of days, months, or years are referred to as long period constituents. Tidal forces affect the entire earth. In contrast, the atmosphere is much more fluid and compressible so its surface moves by kilometers, in the sense of the contour level of a particular low pressure in the outer atmosphere. In most locations, the largest constituent is the "principal lunar semi-diurnal" known as the M2 tidal constituent, its period is about 12 hours and 25.2 minutes half a tidal lunar day, the average time separating one lunar zenith from the next, thus is the time required for the Earth to rotate once relative to the Moon.
Simple tide clocks track this constituent. The lunar day is longer than the Earth day because the Moon orbits in the same direction the Earth spins; this is analogous to the minute hand on a watch crossing the hour hand at 12:00 and again at about 1:05½. The Moon orbits the Earth in the same direction as the Earth rotates on its axis, so it takes more than a day—about 24 hours and 50 minutes—for the Moon to return to the same location in the sky. During this time, it has passed overhead once and underfoot once, so in many places the period of strongest tidal forcing is the above-mentioned, about 12 hours and 25 minutes; the moment of highest tide is not when the Moon is nearest to zenith or nadir, but the period of the forcing still determines the time between high tides. Because the gravitational field created by the Moon weakens
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land, surrounded by water. Small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, such as the Philippines. An island may be described despite the presence of an artificial land bridge; some places may retain "island" in their names for historical reasons after being connected to a larger landmass by a land bridge or landfill, such as Coney Island and Coronado Island, though these are speaking, tied islands. Conversely, when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal or Marble Hill in northern Manhattan during the time between the building of the United States Ship Canal and the filling-in of the Harlem River which surrounded the area, it is not considered an island.
There are two main types of islands in the sea: oceanic. There are artificial islands; the word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland. However, the spelling of the word was modified in the 15th century because of a false etymology caused by an incorrect association with the etymologically unrelated Old French loanword isle, which itself comes from the Latin word insula. Old English ieg is a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, related to Latin aqua. Greenland is the world's largest island, with an area of over 2.1 million km2, while Australia, the world's smallest continent, has an area of 7.6 million km2, but there is no standard of size that distinguishes islands from continents, or from islets. There is a difference between continents in terms of geology. Continents are the largest landmass of a particular continental plate. By contrast, islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust, or belong to a continental plate containing a larger landmass. Continental islands are bodies of land.
Examples are Borneo, Sumatra, Sakhalin and Hainan off Asia. A special type of continental island is the microcontinental island, created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, New Caledonia, New Zealand, some of the Seychelles. Another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity; this includes: barrier islands, which are accumulations of sand deposited by sea currents on the continental shelves fluvial or alluvial islands formed in river deltas or midstream within large rivers. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable and long-lived. Islets are small islands. Oceanic islands are islands; the vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. The few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface.
Examples are Saint Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean and Macquarie Island in the Pacific. One type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc; these islands arise from volcanoes. Examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean; the only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles and the South Sandwich Islands. Another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs. There are two examples: Iceland, the world's second largest volcanic island, Jan Mayen. Both are in the Atlantic. A third type of volcanic oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above it, so a chain of islands results as the plate drifts. Over long periods of time, this type of island is "drowned" by isostatic adjustment and eroded, becoming a seamount. Plate movement across a hot-spot produces a line of islands oriented in the direction of the plate movement. An example is the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawaii to Kure, which continue beneath the sea surface in a more northerly direction as the Emperor Seamounts.
Another chain with similar orientation is the Tuamotu Archipelago. The southernmost chain is the Austral Islands, with its northerly trending part the atolls in the nation of Tuvalu. Tristan da Cunha is an example of a hotspot volcano in the Atlantic Ocean. Another hotspot in the Atlantic is the island of Surtsey, formed in 1963. An atoll is an island formed from a coral reef that has grown on an eroded and submerged volcanic island; the reef forms a new island. Atolls are ring-shaped with a central lagoon. Examples are the Line Islands
Kingdom of Majorca
The Kingdom of Majorca was founded by James I of Aragon known as James The Conqueror. After the death of his firstborn son Alfonso, a will was written in 1262 and created the kingdom to cede it to his son James; the disposition was maintained during successive versions of his will and so when James I died in 1276, the Crown of Aragon passed to his eldest son Peter, known as Peter III of Aragon or Peter the Great. The Kingdom of Majorca passed to James. After 1279, Peter III of Aragon established that the king of Majorca was a vassal to the king of Aragon; the title continued to be employed by the Aragonese and Spanish monarchs until its dissolution by the 1715 Nueva Planta decrees. The kingdom included the Balearic Islands: Majorca, Menorca and Formentera; the king was lord of the mainland counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, the territories James I kept in Occitania: the signory of Montpellier, the viscountcy of Carlat in Auvergne, the barony of Aumelas, contiguous with Montpellier. The legacy of James I included the creation of a strategic Mediterranean enclave, including territories between two large kingdoms, the Capetians of France and the Crown of Aragon, which were in constant conflict at the time.
Conscious of the fragility of the Kingdom of Majorca, James I undertook the conquest of Cerdanya to unify the new kingdom. He entered into negotiations to arrange the marriage of his son James to Beatrice of Savoy, daughter to Count Amadeus of Savoy. Neither plan was successful. On the death of James I, the new king of Majorca, James II, decided not to pay tribute to Peter III of Aragon. Preoccupied with diverse problems within the realm, it was not until 1279 when the Majorcan monarch reconciled to have his states recognized as subordinate to the king of Aragon; as a consequence the Kingdom of Majorca could not hold court, the king of Majorca was forced to go to Catalonia to present tribute to the king of Aragon. By means of the Treaty of Perpignan in 1279, an imbalance of power between the Kingdom of Aragon and the Kingdom of Majorca was created; the Aragonese king maintained the political and economic control of Aragon over the Kingdom of Majorca, reestablishing the unified jurisdiction of the Crown of Aragon, broken by the will of James I.
This treaty would condition relations between the Kingdom of Majorca and the Crown of Aragon throughout the former's existence. The lack of courts aggravated the destabilization of a kingdom on the brink of fracture, besides this, lacked any common institution beyond the monarchy. During the Aragonese Crusade, James II of Majorca allied himself with the Pope and the French against Peter of Aragon; as a result, Peter's successor Alfonso conquered the kingdom in 1286. However, by the Treaty of Anagni in 1295, James II of Aragon was required to restore the Balearics to James of Majorca. On the death of James II of Majorca's son Sancho in 1324, James III took the throne at the age of nine, necessitating a regency council headed by his uncle Philip to govern the realm; the situation was difficult since James II of Aragon did not renounce his claim to the Majorcan throne. In 1325, Philip secured the renunciation by the Aragonian king of any claim on the rights of succession of the Majorcan throne after the repayment of a great debt incurred by Sancho during an invasion by Sardinia.
While the act solved the problem of succession, it plunged the kingdom into a serious financial crisis. James was forced to develop policies similar to that of Aragon's. To that end, he was forced to participate in the war against Genoa, which resulted in the loss of various economic markets for the kingdom. Again, it was necessary to impose new taxes and fines on the Jewish community though this was insufficient to resolve the financial crisis; the problems of the kingdom did not appear to have an end since in 1341, Peter IV of Aragon closed relations with the Kingdom of Majorca as a prelude to invasion. In May 1343, Peter IV invaded the Balearic Islands and followed that in 1344 with the invasions of the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya. James III was able to keep only his French possessions. After the sale of these possessions to the king of France in 1349, James III left for Majorca, he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Llucmajor on 25 October 1349. The Kingdom of Majorca was definitively incorporated into the Crown of Aragon.
The extinction of the Kingdom of Majorca was inevitable given the conflicts by which it was affected: the Hundred Years War between France and England. The kingdom of Majorca, which had bonds of vassalage with the crowns of France and Aragon, could not remain neutral during the conflicts. In addition, increased taxes to fund the kingdom's economy during its neutrality managed to unsettle the people of the kingdom. List of monarchs of Majorca A Mediterranean emporium - The Catalan kingdom of Majorca, by David Abulafia, ISBN 0-521-89405-0 Abulafia, David; the Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200-1500. 1997. ISBN 0-582-07820-2 —Genealogía, Reyes y Reinos: Reino de Mallorca —La Conquista de Mallorca en mapas y cuadros
Arabs
Arabs are a population inhabiting the Arab world. They live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and western Indian Ocean islands, they form a significant diaspora, with Arab communities established around the world. The first mention of Arabs is from the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people in eastern and southern Syria and the north of the Arabian Peninsula; the Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the succeeding Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid and Parthian empires. Arab tribes, most notably the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, begin to appear in the southern Syrian Desert from the mid 3rd century CE onward, during the mid to stages of the Roman and Sasanian empires. Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate, "Arab" referred to any of the nomadic and settled Semitic people from the Arabian Peninsula, Syrian Desert, North and Lower Mesopotamia. Today, "Arab" refers to a large number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to the spread of Arabs and the Arabic language throughout the region during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries and the subsequent Arabisation of indigenous populations.
The Arabs forged the Rashidun, Umayyad and the Fatimid caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, the Sudan in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history. In the early 20th century, the First World War signalled the end of the Ottoman Empire; this resulted in the defeat and dissolution of the empire and the partition of its territories, forming the modern Arab states. Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945; the Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states. Today, Arabs inhabit the 22 Arab states within the Arab League: Algeria, Comoros, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen; the Arab world stretches around 13 million km2, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast.
Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can be found in the global diaspora. The ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, cultural, identical, nationalist and political; the Arabs have their own customs, architecture, literature, dance, cuisine, society and mythology. The total number of Arabs are an estimated 450 million. Arabs are a diverse group in terms of religious practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions; some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism, a few individuals, the hanifs observed monotheism. Today, about 93% of Arabs are adherents of Islam, there are sizable Christian minorities. Arab Muslims belong to the Sunni, Shiite and Alawite denominations. Arab Christians follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as the Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic churches. Other smaller minority religions are followed, such as the Bahá'í Faith and Druze. Arabs have influenced and contributed to diverse fields, notably the arts and architecture, philosophy, ethics, politics, music, cinema, medicine and technology in the ancient and modern history.
The earliest documented use of the word "Arab" to refer to a people appears in the Kurkh Monoliths, an Akkadian language record of the ninth century BCE Assyrian conquest of Aram, which referred to Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula under King Gindibu, who fought as part of a coalition opposed to Assyria. Listed among the booty captured by the army of king Shalmaneser III of Assyria in the Battle of Qarqar are 1000 camels of "Gi-in-di-bu'u the ar-ba-a-a" or " Gindibu belonging to the Arab; the related word ʾaʿrāb is used to refer to Bedouins today, in contrast to ʿarab which refers to Arabs in general. The term Arab and ʾaʿrāb are mentioned around 40 times in pre-Islamic Sabaean inscriptions; the term Arab occurs in the titles of the Himyarite kings from the time of'Abu Karab Asad until MadiKarib Ya'fur. The term ʾaʿrāb is driven from the term Arab according to Sabaean grammar; the term is mentioned in Quranic verses referring to people who were living in Madina and it might be a south Arabian loan-word into Quranic language.
The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of Arabic in 328 using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn'Amr as "King of all the Arabs". Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, the frankincense region. Other ancient Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, southern Jordan, the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia. Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term "Arab"; the most popular Arab account holds that the word "Arab" came from an eponymous father called Ya'rub, the first to speak Arabic. A
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The four largest islands are Mallorca, Menorca and Formentera. Many minor islands and islets are close to the larger islands, including Cabrera, S'Espalmador; the islands have a Mediterranean climate, the four major islands are all popular tourist destinations. Ibiza, in particular, is known as an international party destination, attracting many of the world's most popular DJs to its nightclubs; the islands' culture and cuisine are similar to those of the rest of Spain but have their own distinctive features. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain, with Palma de Mallorca as the capital; the 2007 Statute of Autonomy declares the Balearic Islands as one nationality of Spain. The co-official languages in the Balearic Islands are Spanish; the official name of the Balearic Islands in Catalan is Illes Balears, while in Spanish, they are known as the Islas Baleares.
The term "Balearic" derives from Greek. In Latin, it is Baleares. Of the various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands—Gymnasiae and Baleares—classical sources provide two. According to the Lycophron's Alexandra verses, the islands were called Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiae because its inhabitants were nude because of the year-round benevolent climate; the Greek and Roman writers derive the name of the people from their skill as slingers, although Strabo regards the name as of Phoenician origin. He observed it was the Phoenician equivalent for armoured soldiers the Greeks would have called γυμνῆτας/gymnetas; the root bal does point to a Phoenician origin. Indeed, it was usual Greek practice to assimilate local names into their own language, but the common Greek name of the islands is not Γυμνησίαι/Gymnesiai. The former was the name used by the natives, as well as by the Carthaginians and Romans, while the latter derives from the light equipment of the Balearic troops γυμνῆται/gymnetae.
The Balearic Islands are on a raised platform called the Balearic Promontory, were formed by uplift. They are cut by a network of northwest to southeast faults; the main islands of the autonomous community are Majorca, Menorca/Minorca and Formentera, all popular tourist destinations. Amongst the minor islands is Cabrera, the location of the Cabrera Archipelago Maritime-Terrestrial National Park; the islands can be further grouped, with Majorca and Cabrera as the Gymnesian Islands, Ibiza and Formentera as the Pityusic Islands referred to as the Pityuses. Many minor islands or islets are close to the biggest islands, such as Es Conills, Es Vedrà, Sa Conillera, Dragonera, S'Espalmador, S'Espardell, Ses Bledes, Santa Eulària, Foradada, Tagomago, Na Redona, Colom, L'Aire, etc; the Balearic Front is a sea density regime north of the Balearic Islands on the shelf slope of the Balearic Islands, responsible for some of the surface-flow characteristics of the Balearic Sea. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, the Balearic Islands unsurprisingly have typical Mediterranean climates.
The below-listed climatic data of the capital Palma are typical for the archipelago, with minor differences to other stations in Majorca and Menorca. Little is recorded on the earliest inhabitants of the islands; the story, preserved by Lycophron, that certain shipwrecked Greek Boeotians were cast nude on the islands, was evidently invented to account for the name Gymnesiae. A tradition holds that the islands were colonised by Rhodes after the Trojan War; the islands had a mixed population, of whose habits several strange stories are told. In some stories, the people were said to go naked or were clad only in sheepskins—whence the name of the islands —until the Phoenicians clothed them with broad-bordered tunics. In other stories, they were naked only in the heat of summer. Other legends allow that the inhabitants lived in hollow rocks and artificial caves, that they were remarkable for their love of women and would give three or four men as the ransom for one woman, that they had no gold or silver coin, forbade the importation of the precious metals, so that those of them who served as mercenaries took their pay in wine and women instead of money.
Their marriage and funeral customs, peculiar to Roman observers, are related by Diodorus Siculus. In ancient times, the islanders of the Gymnesian Islands constructed talayots, were famous for their skill with the sling; as slingers, they served as mercenaries, first under the Carthaginians, afterwards under the Romans. They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler, a javelin burnt at the end, in some cases tipped with a small iron point; the three slings were for stones of different sizes.
Isthmus
An isthmus is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus. Canals are built across isthmuses, where they may be a advantageous shortcut for marine transport. For example, the Panama Canal crosses the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Another example is the Welland Canal in the Niagara Peninsula, it connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. The city of Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand is situated on an isthmus. Isthmus and land bridge are related terms with isthmus having a broader meaning. A land bridge is an isthmus connecting the Earth's major landmasses; the term land bridge is used in biogeology to describe land connections that used to exist between continents at various times and were important for migration of people, various species of animals and plants, e.g. Bering Land Bridge.
An isthmus is a land connection between two bigger landmasses, while a peninsula is rather a land protrusion, connected to a bigger landmass on one side only and surrounded by water on all other sides. Technically, an isthmus can have canals running from coast to coast, thus resemble two peninsulas. Major isthmuses include the Isthmus of Panama and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the Americas, the Isthmus of Kra in South-East Asia, the Isthmus of Suez between Africa and Asia, the Karelian Isthmus in Europe. Of historic importance was the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece. Land bridge List of isthmuses List of straits
.svg)
Formentera travel guide from Wikivoyage
