1.
Province of Girona
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Girona is a province of Spain, in the northeastern part of the autonomous community of Catalonia. It is bordered on the northwest by the province of Lleida, on the southwest by the province of Barcelona, on the north by France,756,810 people live in the province. Its capital and largest city is Girona, with an area representing, with a total population of 144,709. The Girona area acts as an industrial, commercial and service hub for a significant part of the province, the municipality of Llívia, which is an exclave separated from the rest of Spain and surrounded by France, is also officially part of this province. Since the division by provinces in Spain and the division by comarques in Catalonia do not completely match, the term comarques of the province of Girona is not accurate
2.
Catalan language
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Catalan is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and named after the medieval Principality of Catalonia, in northeastern modern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands. It also has status in the commune of Alghero, situated on the northwestern coast of the island of Sardinia. All these territories are often called Catalan Countries. 4% with Catalan and 47. 5% only Spanish, in order to integrate newcomers, the Generalitat de Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories. Catalan evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees, during the Low Middle Ages it saw a golden age as the literary and dominant language of the Crown of Aragon, and was widely used all over the Mediterranean. The union of Aragon with the territories of Spain in 1479 marked the start of the decline of the language. In 1659 Spain ceded Northern Catalonia to France, and Catalan was banned in both states in the early 18th century, 19th-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, which culminated in the 1913 orthographic standardization, and the official status of the language during the Second Spanish Republic. However, the Francoist dictatorship banned the use of Catalan in schools and in the public administration, there is no parallel in Europe for such a large, bilingual, non-state speech community. Catalan dialects are relatively uniform, and are mutually intelligible and they are divided into two blocks, Eastern and Western, differing mostly in pronunciation. The terms Catalan and Valencian are two varieties of the same language, there are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community. Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages, thus, the similarities are naturally most notable with eastern Occitan. Nouns have two genders, and two numbers, pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, in terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages. The word Catalan derives from the territory of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology, in English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain. It is attested a language name since at least 1652, Catalan can be pronounced as /ˈkætəlæn/, /kætəˈlæn/ or /ˈkætələn/. The endonym is pronounced /kə. təˈɫa/ in the Eastern Catalan dialects, in the Valencian Community, the term valencià is frequently used instead. The names Catalan and Valencian are two names for the same language, see also status of Valencian below. By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south
3.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
4.
Municipalities of Catalonia
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Catalonia is divided into 948 municipalities. Each municipality typically represents one significant urban settlement, of any size from village to city and this is not always the case, though. Many municipalities have merged as a result of rural depopulation or simply for greater efficiency, some large urban areas, for example Barcelona, consist of more than one municipality, each of which previously held a separate settlement. Each municipality is run by an elected by the residents at periodic nationwide local elections. The council consists of a number of depending on population. The town hall is located in the settlement, and deals with provision of local services. The main settlement is not always the biggest settlement, as new developments such as tourist resorts can become very big very quickly without achieving any political recognition. Boundaries between municipalities have their origins in ancient landholdings and transfers, and may appear quite arbitrary and illogical. Catalonias municipalities are grouped into 42 comarques and four provinces, occasional revisions of the boundaries of comarcas have resulted in municipalities moving from one comarca to another, see the list at Comarques of Catalonia
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
7.
Autonomous communities of Spain
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Spain is not a federation, but a highly decentralized unitary state. Some scholars have referred to the system as a federal system in all. There are 17 autonomous communities and two cities that are collectively known as autonomies. The two autonomous cities have the right to become autonomous communities, but neither has yet used this right and this unique framework of territorial administration is known as the State of Autonomies. The autonomous communities are governed according to the constitution and their own organic laws known as Statutes of Autonomy, since devolution was intended to be asymmetrical in nature, the scope of competences vary for each community, but all have the same parliamentary structure. Spain is a country made up of different regions with varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages. While the entire Spanish territory was united under one crown by the 16th century, the constituent territories—be it crowns, kingdoms, principalities or dominions—retained much of their former institutional existence, including limited legislative, judicial or fiscal autonomy. These territories also exhibited a variety of customs, laws. From the 18th century onwards, the Bourbon kings and the government tried to establish a more centralized regime, leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment advocated for the building of a Spanish nation beyond the internal territorial boundaries. This culminated in 1833, when Spain was divided into 49 provinces and these were the Basque Country and Catalonia. This gave rise to peripheral nationalisms along with Spanish nationalism, therefore, economic and social changes that had produced a national cultural unification in France had the opposite effect in Spain. In a response to Catalan demands, limited autonomy was granted to Catalonia in 1913 and it was granted again in 1932 during the Second Spanish Republic, when the Generalitat, Catalonias mediaeval institution of government, was restored. During General Francos dictatorial regime, centralism was most forcefully enforced as a way of preserving the unity of the Spanish nation, peripheral nationalism, along with communism and atheism were regarded by his regime as the main threats. When Franco died in 1975, Spain entered into a phase of transition towards democracy, the then Prime Minister of Spain, Adolfo Suárez, met with Josep Tarradellas, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in exile. An agreement was made so that the Generalitat would be restored and limited competencies would be transferred while the constitution was still being written. In the end, the constitution, published and ratified in 1979, found a balance in recognizing the existence of nationalities and regions in Spain, within the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation. The starting point in the organization of Spain was the second article of the constitution. In order to exercise this right, the established a open process whereby the nationalities
8.
Catalonia
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Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, located on the northeastern extremity of the Iberian Peninsula. It is designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy, Catalonia consists of four provinces, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain, Catalonia comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, the official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan. The eastern counties of these marches were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal the Count of Barcelona, in the later Middle Ages Catalan literature flourished. Between 1469 and 1516, the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile married and ruled their kingdoms together, retaining all their distinct institutions, Courts, and constitutions. During the Franco-Spanish War, Catalonia revolted against a large and burdensome presence of the Royal army in its territory, within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia, at a high economic cost for Catalonia, until it was largely reconquered by the Spanish army. In the nineteenth century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic, in the second half of the century Catalonia experienced industrialisation. As wealth from the industrial expansion grew, Catalonia saw a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism while several workers movements appeared. In 1914, the four Catalan provinces formed a Commonwealth, and with the return of democracy during the Second Spanish Republic, after the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan institutions and banning the official use of the Catalan language again. Since the Spanish transition to democracy, Catalonia has regained some political and cultural autonomy and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain, the origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the medley of Goths with Alans. Other less plausible theories suggest, Catalunya derives from the land of castles, having evolved from the term castlà or castlan. This theory therefore suggests that the names Catalunya and Castile have a common root, the source is of Celtic origin, meaning chiefs of battle. Although the area is not known to have been occupied by Celts, the Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved by metathesis to Katelans and then Catalans. In English, Catalonia is pronounced /kætəˈloʊniə/, the native name, Catalunya, is pronounced in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety whose pronunciation is considered standard. The Spanish name is Cataluña, and the Aranese name is Catalonha, the first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic. From the next era, the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic, important remains survive
9.
Provinces of Spain
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Spain and its autonomous communities are divided into fifty provinces. The layout of Spains provinces closely follows the pattern of the division of the country carried out in 1833. The only major change of provincial borders since that time has been the sub-division of the Canary Islands into two rather than one. Historically, the provinces served mainly as transmission belts for policies enacted in Madrid, the importance of the provinces has declined since the adoption of the system of autonomous communities in the period of the Spanish transition to democracy. They nevertheless remain electoral districts for national elections and as references, for instance in postal addresses. A small town would normally be identified as being in, say, Valladolid province rather than the community of Castile. The provinces were the building-blocks from which the communities were created. Consequently, no province is divided more than one of these communities. Only two capitals of autonomous communities—Mérida in Extremadura and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia—are not also the capitals of provinces, seven of the autonomous communities comprise no more than one province each, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, and Navarra. These are sometimes referred to as uniprovincial communities, the table below lists the provinces of Spain. For each, the city is given, together with an indication of the autonomous community to which it belongs. The names of the provinces and their capitals are ordered according to the form in which they appear in the main Wikipedia articles describing them. Unless otherwise indicated, their Spanish-language names are the same, locally valid names in Spains other co-official languages are indicated where they differ
10.
Comarques of Catalonia
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This is a list of the 42 comarques into which Catalonia is divided. A comarca is a group of municipalities, roughly equivalent to a US county or a UK district. However, in the context of Catalonia, the county can be a bit misleading, because in medieval Catalonia. Comarques have no relation to the counties that were ruled by counts. In some cases, comarques consist of areas and many small villages centering on an important town. This is the case of such as the Pla dEstany, centered on the town of Banyoles, or the Ripollès. In other cases, comarques are larger areas with many important population centers that have traditionally considered part of the same region. The current official division of Catalonia into comarques originates in an order of the semi-autonomous Catalan government under the Spanish Republic in 1936 and it was superseded after the 1939 victory of Francisco Francos forces in the Spanish Civil War, but restored in 1987 by the re-established Generalitat of Catalonia. As a result, some revisions to the division have been made periodically. The comarca exists as a local government area, and has a representative comarcal council, aran, which is included here, is officially not a comarca but a unique territorial entity with additional powers, but unofficially it is generally referred to as a comarca. Its current status was formalised in February 2015, comarcal revisions have taken place in 1988,1990, and May 2015. The other proposed new comarcas are, Vall de Camprodon, Selva Marítima, Alta Segarra, Segre Mitjà, in a non-binding referendum in July 2015, a majority of municipalities of the Lluçanès region of Osona voted to join a proposed new comarca of that name. The partial approval was seen as insufficient and the plan had not been put to parliament by the end of 2015 and it is also our source for which municipalities are in which comarca. Parts of the site are in English and Spanish, although most of it is in Catalan, Catalonia, La Franja and Northern Catalonia
11.
Sea level
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Mean sea level is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earths oceans from which heights such as elevations may be measured. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is the midpoint between a low and mean high tide at a particular location. Sea levels can be affected by factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, the term above sea level generally refers to above mean sea level. Precise determination of a sea level is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level. Sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and this is because the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth. The easiest way this may be calculated is by selecting a location and calculating the mean sea level at that point, for example, a period of 19 years of hourly level observations may be averaged and used to determine the mean sea level at some measurement point. One measures the values of MSL in respect to the land, hence a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates. In the UK, the Ordnance Datum is the sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the datum was MSL at the Victoria Dock, in Hong Kong, mPD is a surveying term meaning metres above Principal Datum and refers to height of 1. 230m below the average sea level. In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and it is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe vertical elevation references are made to the Amsterdam Peil elevation, satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, height above mean sea level is the elevation or altitude of an object, relative to the average sea level datum. It is also used in aviation, where some heights are recorded and reported with respect to sea level, and in the atmospheric sciences. An alternative is to base height measurements on an ellipsoid of the entire Earth, in aviation, the ellipsoid known as World Geodetic System 84 is increasingly used to define heights, however, differences up to 100 metres exist between this ellipsoid height and mean tidal height. The alternative is to use a vertical datum such as NAVD88. When referring to geographic features such as mountains on a topographic map, the elevation of a mountain denotes the highest point or summit and is typically illustrated as a small circle on a topographic map with the AMSL height shown in metres, feet or both. In the rare case that a location is below sea level, for one such case, see Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
12.
Demonym
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A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above
13.
Telephone numbers in Spain
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The Spanish telephone numbering plan is the allocation of telephone numbers in Spain. It is regulated by Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones, Spain changed to a closed telephone numbering plan in 1998. Previously, the prefix was 9x, but this was incorporated into the subscribers number, so that a nine-digit number was used for all calls. Mobile phone numbers begin with 6 or 7, followed by 8 digits, note, numbers starting with 70 are personal numbers which can be re-directed to any other number by the personal owner. Since the blocks of mobile phone numbers are allocated according to demand from the service providers, personal numbers are used as redirection IDs. The owner of a number may request, for example. Personal numbers begin with 5, followed by 8 digits, Numbers starting with 2,3,4,5, and 99 are reserved. Numbers starting with 0 and 1 are used to compose short numbers or for prefixes, Numbers starting with 80 and 90 are used for premium rates, toll free, and internet access numbers. 803,806, and 807 prefixes are used for premium rate calls,905 numbers are supposed to be used for voting systems. Calls have a duration, and are charged a fixed rate per call. They are usually available from landlines but not from mobiles,901 and 902 numbers are Non Geographic Numbers. These have been introduced by the call centres of large multinational European businesses. Unlike other normal Spanish phone numbers beginning 910 onwards,901 and 902 numbers are always excluded from inclusive call bundles on Spanish landlines and mobiles,902 numbers are also extremely expensive to call from Spanish mobiles. 901 and 902 numbers are also premium rated if calling Spain from overseas and low cost international call carriers to Spain normally refuse to connect calls to 901 and 902 numbers
14.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
15.
Barcelona
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Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. Barcelona has a cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre. Particularly renowned are the works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean is located in Barcelona, the city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments. It is a cultural and economic centre in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world. In 2008 it was the fourth most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union, in 2012 Barcelona had a GDP of $170 billion, it is leading Spain in both employment rate and GDP per capita change. In 2009 the city was ranked Europes third and one of the worlds most successful as a city brand, since 2011 Barcelona has been a leading smart city in Europe. During the Middle Ages, the city was known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa. Internationally, Barcelonas name is abbreviated to Barça. However, this refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. The common abbreviated form used by locals is Barna, another common abbreviation is BCN, which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan. The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear, the ruins of an early settlement have been excavated in the El Raval neighbourhood, including different tombs and dwellings dating to earlier than 5000 BC. The founding of Barcelona is the subject of two different legends, the first attributes the founding of the city to the mythological Hercules. In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum centred on the Mons Taber, under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens, the city minted its own coins, some from the era of Galba survive. Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, also known as the Basilica La Seu, is said to have founded in 343
16.
Iberians
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The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, at least from the 6th century BC. The Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians, the term Iberian, as used by the ancient authors, had two distinct meanings. One, more general, referred to all the populations of the Iberian peninsula without regard to ethnic differences and this non-Indo-European cultural group spoke the Iberian language from the 7th to the 1st century BC. Other peoples possibly related to the Iberians are the Vascones, though related to the Aquitani than to the Iberians. The Iberian culture developed from the 6th century BC, and perhaps as early as the fifth to the third millennium BC in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, the Iberians lived in villages and oppida and their communities were based on a tribal organization. The Iberians in the Spanish Levant, were more urbanized than their neighbors in the central, the peoples in the central and northwest regions were mostly Celtic, semi-pastoral and lived in scattered villages, though they also had a few fortified towns like Numantia. They had a knowledge of writing, metalworking, including bronze, in the centuries preceding Carthaginian and Roman conquest, Iberian settlements grew in social complexity, exhibiting evidence of social stratification and urbanization. This process was aided by trading contacts with the Phoenicians, Greeks. The settlement of Castellet de Banyoles in Tivissa was one of the most important ancient Iberian settlements in Catalonia that was discovered in 1912, also, the Treasure of Tivissa, a unique collection of silver Iberian votive offerings was found here in 1927. Lucentum was another ancient Iberian settlement, as well as Castelldefels Castle, mausoleum of Pozo Moro near the town of Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón in Castile-La Mancha seems to mark the location of another big settlement. Sagunto is the location of an ancient Iberian and later Roman city of Saguntum, Greek colonists made the first historical reference to the Iberians in the 6th century BC. They defined Iberians as non-Celtic peoples south of the Ebro river, the Greeks also dubbed as Iberians another people in the Caucasus region, currently known as Caucasian Iberians. It is not known if there had any type of connection between the two peoples. The Iberians traded extensively with other Mediterranean cultures, Iberian pottery and metalwork has been found in France, Italy, and North Africa. The Iberians had extensive contact with Greek colonists in the Spanish colonies of Emporion, Rhode, Zakynthos, the Iberians may have adopted some of the Greeks artistic techniques. Statues such as the Lady of Baza and the Lady of Elx are thought to have made by Iberians relatively well acquainted with Greek art. Thucydides stated that one of the three tribes of Sicily, the Sicani, were of Iberian origin, though Iberian at the time could have included what we think of as Gaul. The Iberians also had contacts with the Phoenicians, who had established colonies in southern Andalucia
17.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
18.
Citadel
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A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a fortress, castle, or fortified center, the term is a diminutive of city and thus means little city, so called because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. It is positioned to be the last line of defense, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system, a citadel is also a term of the third part of a medieval castle, with higher walls than the rest. It was to be the last line of defense before the keep itself, some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley Civilization, harappan, where the citadel represented a centralised authority. The main citadel in Indus Valley was almost 12 meters tall, the purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters. The most well-known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one – the Acrocorinth famed as a strong fortress. In a much later period, when Greece was ruled by the Latin Empire, rebels who took power in the city but with the citadel still held by the former rulers could by no means regard their tenure of power as secure. One such incident played an important part in the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic garrison of Jerusalem and local supporters of the Seleucids held out for many years in the Acra citadel, making Maccabean rule in the rest of Jerusalem precarious. When finally gaining possession of the place, the Maccabeans pointedly destroyed and razed the Acra, a city where the citadel held out against an invading army was not considered conquered. In the Philippines The Ivatan people of the islands of Batanes often built fortifications to protect themselves during times of war. They built their so-called idjangs on hills and elevated areas. These fortifications were likened to European castles because of their purpose. Usually, the entrance to the castles would be via a rope ladder that would only be lowered for the villagers. In time of war the citadel in many cases afforded retreat to the living in the areas around the town. For example, during the Dutch Wars of 1664-67, King Charles II of England constructed a Royal Citadel at Plymouth, barcelona had a great citadel built in 1714 to intimidate the Catalans against repeating their mid-17th- and early-18th-century rebellions against the Spanish central government. A similar example is the Citadella in Budapest, Hungary, the Citadelle of Québec still survives as the largest citadel still in official military operation in North America. It is home to the Royal 22nd Regiment of Canada, citadels since the mid 20th century, are commonly military command and control centres built to resist attack commonly aerial or nuclear bombardment. The Military citadels under London such as the underground complex beneath the Ministry of Defense called Pindar is one such example
19.
Visigoths
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The Visigoths were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths. These tribes flourished and spread throughout the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, the Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable, alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient, the Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410. The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans – a relationship established in 418, however, they soon fell out with their Roman hosts and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Suebi, in 507, however, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I, who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé. After that, the Visigoth kingdom was limited to Hispania, in or around 589, the Visigoths under Reccared I converted from Arianism to Nicene Christianity, gradually adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects. Their legal code, the Visigothic Code abolished the practice of applying different laws for Romans. Once legal distinctions were no longer being made between Romani and Gothi, they became known collectively as Hispani, in the century that followed, the region was dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy. In 711 or 712, a force of invading African Moors defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete and their king and many members of their governing elite were killed, and their kingdom rapidly collapsed. During their governance of the Kingdom of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches that survive and they also left many artifacts, which have been discovered in increasing numbers by archaeologists in recent times. The Treasure of Guarrazar of votive crowns and crosses is the most spectacular and they founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty. Many Visigothic names are still in use in modern Spanish and Portuguese, contemporaneous references to the Gothic tribes use the terms Vesi, Ostrogothi, Thervingi, and Greuthungi. Most scholars have concluded that the terms Vesi and Tervingi were both used to refer to one particular tribe, while the terms Ostrogothi and Greuthungi were used to refer to another. In addition, the Notitia Dignitatum equates the Vesi with the Tervingi in a reference to the years 388–391, the earliest sources for each of the four names are roughly contemporaneous. The first recorded reference to the Tervingi is in a eulogy of the emperor Maximian, delivered in or shortly after 291 and it says that the Tervingi, another division of the Goths, joined with the Taifali to attack the Vandals and Gepidae. The first known use of the term Ostrogoths is in a document dated September 392 from Milan and this would explain why the latter terms dropped out of use shortly after 400, when the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions. Wolfram believes that the people Zosimus describes were those Tervingi who had remained behind after the Hunnic conquest, for the most part, all of the terms discriminating between different Gothic tribes gradually disappeared after they moved into the Roman Empire. The last indication that the Goths whose king reigned at Toulouse thought of themselves as Vesi is found in a panegyric on Avitus by Sidonius Apollinaris dated 1 January 456, most recent scholars have concluded that Visigothic group identity emerged only within the Roman Empire
20.
Moors
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Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people, and mainstream scholars observed in 1911 that The term Moors has no real ethnological value. Medieval and early modern Europeans variously applied the name to Arabs, Berber North Africans and Muslim Europeans. The term has also used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general, especially those of Arab or Berber descent. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names Ceylon Moors and Indian Moors in Sri Lanka, in 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from North Africa led the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Iberian peninsula then came to be known in classical Arabic as Al-Andalus, in 827, the Moors occupied Mazara on Sicily, developing it as a port. They eventually consolidated the rest of the island and some of southern Italy, in 1224 the Muslims were expelled from Sicily to the settlement of Lucera, which was destroyed by European Christians in 1300. The fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of Muslim rule in Iberia, the Berber tribes of the region were noted in Classical literature as Mauri, which was subsequently rendered as Moors in English and in related variations in other European languages. Mauri is recorded as the name by Strabo in the early 1st century. This appellation was also adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was Maurusii, in medieval Romance languages, variations of the Latin word for the Moors developed different applications and connotations. During the context of the Crusades and the Reconquista, the term Moors included the suggestion of infidels. Apart from these associations and context, Moor and Moorish designate a specific ethnic group speaking Hassaniya Arabic. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger, in Niger and Mali, these peoples are also known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara. Some authors have pointed out that in modern colloquial Spanish use of the term moro is derogatory for Moroccans in particular, however, this designation has gained more acceptance in the south. In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many modern Filipinos call the large, local Muslim minority concentrated in Mindanao, the word is a catch-all term, as Moro may come from several distinct ethno-linguistic groups such as the Maranao people. The term was introduced by Spanish colonisers, and has since been appropriated by Filipino Muslims as an endonym, moreno can mean dark-skinned in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and the Philippines. Also in Spanish, morapio is a name for wine, especially that which has not been baptized or mixed with water. Among Spanish speakers, moro came to have a broader meaning, Moro refers to all things dark, as in Moor, moreno, etc. It was also used as a nickname, for instance, the Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza was called Il Moro because of his dark complexion, in Portugal, mouro may refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted moura, where moor implies alien and non-Christian
21.
Charlemagne
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Charlemagne or Charles the Great, numbered Charles I, was the King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774 and Emperor of the Romans from 800. He united much of Europe during the early Middle Ages and he was the first recognised emperor in western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state which Charlemagne founded was called the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne was the oldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. He became king in 768 following his fathers death, initially as co-ruler with his brother Carloman I, carlomans sudden death in 771 in unexplained circumstances left Charlemagne as the undisputed ruler of the Frankish Kingdom. He continued his fathers policy towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and he campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianising them upon penalty of death and leading to events such as the Massacre of Verden. Charlemagne reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Old St. Peters Basilica. Charlemagne has been called the Father of Europe, as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire and his rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. All Holy Roman Emperors considered their kingdoms to be descendants of Charlemagnes empire, up to the last Emperor Francis II and these and other machinations led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054. Charlemagne died in 814, having ruled as emperor for thirteen years and he was laid to rest in his imperial capital of Aachen in what is today Germany. He married at least four times and had three sons, but only his son Louis the Pious survived to succeed him. By the 6th century, the western Germanic Franks had been Christianised, Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. Following the Battle of Tertry the Merovingians declined into powerlessness, for which they have dubbed the rois fainéants. Almost all government powers were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace, in 687, Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry. He became the governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pepin was the grandson of two important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pepin of Landen, Pepin of Herstal was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel. After 737, Charles governed the Franks in lieu of a king, Charles was succeeded in 741 by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. In 743, the brothers placed Childeric III on the throne to curb separatism in the periphery and he was the last Merovingian king. Carloman resigned office in 746, preferring to enter the church as a monk, Pepin brought the question of the kingship before Pope Zachary, asking whether it was logical for a king to have no royal power
22.
County
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A county is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count or a viscount. The modern French is comté, and its equivalents in other languages are contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, Gau, when the Normans conquered England, they brought the term with them. The Saxons had already established the districts became the historic counties of England. The Vikings introduced the term earl to the British Isles, thus, the Anglo-Saxons earl and earldom were taken as equivalent to the continental use of count and county under the conquering Normans, and over time the two blended and became equivalent terms. Further, the term became a synonym for the native English word scir or, in Modern English. Since a shire was a division of the kingdom, the term county evolved to designate an administrative division of states or of a national government in most other modern uses. A county may be subdivided into districts, hundreds, townships or other administrative jurisdictions within the county. A county usually, but not always, contains cities, towns, townships, villages, or other municipal corporations, Provinces in Argentina are divided into departments, except in the Buenos Aires Province, where they are called partidos. The Autonomous City of Buenos Aires is divided into communes, in the eastern states of Australia, counties are used in the administration of land titles. They do not generally correspond to a level of government, but are used in the identification of parcels of land, canadas five oldest provinces – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Prince Edward Island – are divided into counties. In addition to counties, Ontario is also subdivided into districts, district municipalities, metropolitan municipalities. British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, the word county is used to translate the Chinese term xiàn. In Mainland China, governed by the Peoples Republic of China, counties are the level of local government. There are 1,464 counties in the PRC out of a total of 2,862 county-level divisions, the number of counties has remained more or less constant since the Han dynasty. The county remains one of the oldest levels of government in China, the county government was particularly important in imperial China because this was the lowest layer at which the imperial government functioned. The head of a county during imperial times was the magistrate, in older context, prefecture and district are alternative terms to refer to xiàn before the establishment of the Republic of China. The English nomenclature county was adopted following the establishment of the ROC, contrary to the typical rural location of a county in Western countries, a city in China may enclose several counties
23.
Wilfred the Hairy
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Wilfred or Wifred, called the Hairy, was Count of Urgell, Cerdanya, Barcelona, Girona, Besalú and Ausona. On his death in 897, his son, Wilfred Borrell, Wilfred was the Catalan Count of Barcelona who created the tradition of hereditary passage of titles. His son, Wilfred Borrell, inherited the county without any interruption, a number of primitive feudal entities developed in the Marca Hispanica during the 9th century. They were generally self-sufficient and agrarian, but ruled by a military elite. The pattern seen in Catalonia is similar to found in similar border lands or marches elsewhere in Europe. Traditionally the Count of Barcelona was appointed directly by the Carolingian emperor, for example the appointment of Bera in 801, the appointment of heirs could not be taken for granted. However, with the rise of strong counts such as Sunifred and Wilfred, and the weakening of Carolingian royal power and this trend resulted in the counts becoming de facto independent of the Carolingian crown under Borrell II in 985. Wilfred remained obscure until drawn into the net by Sir Richard Southern. Wilfred was of Gothic lineage from the region of Carcassonne, tradition claims he was born near Prades in the County of Conflent, now Rià, in Roussillon, France. According to legend, he was the son of Wilfred of Arriaount and his father was murdered by Salomón and Wilfred became his avenger, killing the assassin. Wilfreds mother may have been named Ermesende, Sunifred may have been the son of Belló, Count of Carcassonne during the reign of Charlemagne, or more probably, his son-in-law. Thus, as a descendant of Sunifred and his brother, Sunyer I, count of Empúries and Roussillon, Wilfred is considered to be a member of a Bellonid dynasty by Ramon dAbadal and other historians. The Bellonid lineage lost its power when Sunifred and Sunyer died in 848, later, at an assembly at Attigny in June 870, Charles the Bald made their cousins, Wilfred the Hairy and his brother Miró, counts of Urgell and Cerdanya, and Conflent, respectively. For in that year, the poorly-chronicled Solomon, count of Urgell, Cerdanya, after becoming Count of Urgell and Cerdanya in 870, Wilfred received the counties of Barcelona, Girona, and Besalú in 878 from the Carolingian king of France, Louis the Stammerer. His reign coincided with the crumbling of Carolingian authority and unity, Wilfred was thus the last count of the Hispanic March appointed by the French king and the first to pass his vast holdings as an inheritance to his sons. Wilfred came into possession of Barcelona through his service to Charles the Bald against the rebel Bernard of Gothia, Count of Barcelona, Roussillon, and numerous other Septimanian counties. Wilfred, Miró, their brother Sunifred, and Lindoí, the Viscount of Narbonne, marched against Bernard on behalf of King Charles and his son, Louis the Stammerer. In March and April 878, they defeated the nobles loyal to Bernard, including Sigebuto, Bishop of Narbonne, on 11 September 878, Bernard was dispossessed of all his titles
24.
County of Barcelona
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The County of Barcelona was originally a frontier region under the rule of the Carolingian dynasty. By the end of the 10th century, the Counts of Barcelona were de facto independent, hereditary rulers in constant warfare with the Islamic caliphate of Córdoba, the counts, through marriage alliances and treaties, acquired the other Catalan counties and extended their influence along Occitania. Barcelona formed the nucleus of the emergent Principality of Catalonia, in 1164, the count of Barcelona, Alfons I, inherited the Kingdom of Aragon. Thenceforward, the history of the county of Barcelona is subsumed within that of the Crown of Aragon and its origins date back to the early 8th century, when Muslims took control of the northern territories of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania and modern-day northeastern Spain and southern France. After turning back deep Muslim incursions, the Frankish Empire under the Carolingian monarchs and these eastern Iberian territories were repopulated with people from the March of Gothia. This resulted in the formation of a buffer zone between the Muslim Iberian peninsula and, the Duchy of Aquitaine and Provence. The county of Barcelona was established there, reporting to the Frankish king, the first Count of Barcelona was Bera. Initially, authority for the county rested on the local aristocracy, however, the policies Bera adopted in an effort to maintain peace with Muslim ruled Al-Andalus, resulted in him being accused of treason before the King. After losing a duel, according to the Visigothic legislation, Bera was deposed and exiled, however, the Visigothic nobility regained the kings confidence with the appointment of Sunifred I of Urgel-Cerdanya as Count of Barcelona in 844. Nevertheless, the ties of the Catalan counties to the Frankish monarchy had weakened, Autonomy was strengthened when the county families began to affirm their inheritance rights. This move was accompanied by a unification process among counties to form larger political entities, Count Wilfred el Velloso, son of Sunifred and the last count appointed by the Frankish king, oversaw this movement. He united a number of counties under his command and passed them on as an inheritance to his children, Wilfred later died at the hands of Muslims. Although he divided his counties among his children, the core formed by the counties of Barcelona, Girona and Osona remained undivided, during the 10th century, the Counts of Barcelona strengthened their political authority and further distanced themselves from Frankish influence. In 985 Barcelona, then ruled by Borrell II, was attacked and burned by Muslims, the count took refuge in the Montserrat mountains, awaiting help from the Frankish king, which never arrived, resulting in resentment. In 988, the reign of the Carolingian dynasty ended and was replaced by the Capetian dynasty. Borrell II was required to swear allegiance to the new Frankish king and this has been interpreted as the starting point of de facto independence of the county. Full independence was obtained by James I, King of Aragon, subsequently, the county of Barcelona grew in importance and expanded its territory with successive counts. It took over other Hispanic counties and expanded slowly towards the south as a result of battles against al-Andalus and the repopulation of areas such as Tarragona, Borrell IIs reign was followed by that of his son Ramon Berenguer I
25.
Alfonso the Battler
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Alfonso I, called the Battler or the Warrior, was the king of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the Reconquista and he won his greatest military successes in the middle Ebro, where he conquered Zaragoza in 1118 and took Ejea, Tudela, Calatayud, Borja, Tarazona, Daroca, and Monreal del Campo. He died in September 1134 after a battle with the Muslims at the Battle of Fraga. During his brothers reign, he participated in the taking of Huesca, which became the largest city in the kingdom and he also joined El Cids expeditions in Valencia. His father gave him the lordships of Biel, Luna, Ardenes, a series of deaths put Alfonso directly in line for the throne. His brothers children, Isabella and Peter, died in 1103 and 1104 respectively, a passionate fighting-man, he was married in 1109 to the ambitious Queen Urraca of León, widow of Raymond of Burgundy, a passionate woman unsuited for a subordinate role. The marriage had been arranged by her father Alfonso VI of León in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravids, and to them with a capable military leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as queen regnant and had not learnt chastity in the household of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality of the age and came to open war, Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. The marriage of Alfonso and Urraca was declared null by the Pope, as they were cousins, in 1110. He inserted the title of imperator on the basis that he had three kingdoms under his rule, the king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost as violently as with his wife. As he defeated her, so he drove Archbishop Bernard into exile and he was finally compelled to give way in Castile and León to his stepson, Alfonso VII of Castile, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II brought about an arrangement between the old man and his young namesake, in 1122 in Belchite, he founded a confraternity of knights to fight against the Almoravids. It was the start of the orders in Aragon. Years later, he organised a branch of the Militia Christi of the Holy Land at Monreal del Campo, Alfonso spent his first four years in near-constant war with the Muslims. In 1105, he conquered Ejea and Tauste and refortified Castellar, in 1106, he defeated Ahmad II al-Mustain of Zaragoza at Valtierra. In 1107, he took Tamarite de Litera and Esteban de la Litera, then followed a period dominated by his relations with Castile and León through his wife, Urraca
26.
Peter III of Aragon
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Peter the Great was the King of Aragon of Valencia, and Count of Barcelona from 1276 to his death. At the invitation of some rebels, he conquered Sicily and became its king in 1282, pressing the claim of his wife, Constance of Hohenstaufen and he was one of the greatest of medieval Aragonese monarchs. Peter was the eldest son of James I of Aragon and his second wife Violant of Hungary, among betrothals of his youth, he was betrothed to Eudoxia Laskarina, the youngest daughter of Emperor Theodoros II of Nicaea, in or before 1260. This contract was dissolved, however, after Eudoxias brother lost the throne in 1261. On 13 June 1262, Peter married Constance, daughter and heiress of Manfred of Sicily, during his youth and early adulthood, Peter gained a great deal of military experience in his fathers wars of the Reconquista against the Moors. On James Is death in 1276, the lands of the Crown of Aragon were divided amongst his two sons, Peter the Great and Constance of Sicily were crowned in Zaragoza in November 1276 by the archbishop of Tarragona. Peters first act as king was to complete the pacification of his Valencian territory, however, a revolt soon broke out in Catalonia, led by the viscount of Cardona and abetted by Roger-Bernard III of Foix, Arnold Roger I of Pallars Sobirà, and Ermengol X of Urgell. The rebels had developed a hatred for Peter as a result of the severity of his dealings with them during the reign of his father, now they opposed him for not summoning the Catalan corts, and confirming its privileges after his ascension to the throne. At the same time, a succession crisis continued in the County of Urgell, meanwhile, a good portion of the county had been repossessed by Peters father, James I, and was thus inherited by Peter in 1276. In 1278, Ermengol X, Álvaros eldest son, succeeded in recovering most of his lost patrimony, in 1280, Peter defeated the stewing rebellion led by Roger-Bernard III after besieging the rebels in Balaguer for a month. Most of the leaders were imprisoned in Lleida until 1281. When Muhammad I al-Mustansir, the Hafsid Emir of Tunisia who had put himself under James the Conqueror, died in 1277, Peter first sent an expedition to Tunis in 1280 under Conrad de Llansa designed to re-establish his suzerainty. In 1281, he prepared to lead a fleet of 140 ships with 15,000 men to invade Tunisia on behalf of the governor of Constantine. The fleet landed at Alcoyll in 1282 and it was these Aragonese troops that received a Sicilian embassy after the Vespers of 30 March asking Peter to take their throne from Charles of Anjou. This made Peter III the heir of Manfred of Sicily in right of his wife, the Italian physician John of Procida acted on behalf of Peter in Sicily. John had fled to Aragon after Charles success at Tagliacozzo, John travelled to Sicily to stir up the discontents in favour of Peter and thence to Constantinople to procure the support of Michael VIII Palaeologus. Michael refused to aid the Aragonese king without papal approval, and so John voyaged to Rome and there gained the consent of Pope Nicholas III, who feared the ascent of Charles in the Mezzogiorno. John then returned to Barcelona but the pope died, to be replaced by Simon de Brion, a Frenchman and an ally of Charles
27.
Crown of Aragon
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Put in contemporary terms, it has sometimes been considered that the different lands of the Crown of Aragon functioned more as a confederation than as a single kingdom. In this sense, the larger Crown of Aragon must not be confused with one of its constituent parts, formally, the political center of the Crown of Aragon was Zaragoza, where kings were crowned at La Seo Cathedral. The de facto capital and leading cultural, administrative and economic centre of the Crown of Aragon was Barcelona followed by Valencia, finally, Palma was an additional important city and seaport. For brief periods the Crown of Aragon also controlled Montpellier, Provence, Corsica, the countries that are today known as Spain and Portugal spent the Middle Ages after 722 in an intermittent struggle called the Reconquista. This struggle pitted the northern Christian kingdoms against the Islamic taifa petty kingdoms of the South, in the Late Middle Ages, the expansion of the Aragonese Crown southwards met with the Castilian advance eastward in the region of Murcia. Afterward, the Aragonese Crown focused on the Mediterranean, acting as far as Greece and Barbary, whereas Portugal, mercenaries from the territories in the Crown, known as almogàvers participated in the creation of this Mediterranean empire, and later found employment in countries all across southern Europe. The Crown of Aragon has been considered by some as an empire which ruled in the Mediterranean for hundreds of years and it was indeed, at its height, one of the major powers in Europe. However, its different territories were connected through the person of the monarch. A modern historian, Juan de Contreras y Lopez de Ayala, Marqués de Lozoya described the Crown of Aragon as being more like a confederacy than a centralised kingdom, let alone an empire. Nor did official documents refer to it as an empire, instead. This union respected the institutions and parliaments of both territories. This was due to the loss of Catalan influence, the renunciation of the family rights of the counts of Barcelona in Occitania. Petronillas father King Ramiro, The Monk who was raised in the Saint Pons de Thomières Monastery and his brothers Peter I and Alfonso I El Batallador had bravely fought against Castile for hegemony in the Iberian peninsula. After the death of Alfonso I, the Aragonese nobility that campaigned close him feared being overwhelmed by the influence of Castile, and so, Ramiro was forced to leave his monastic life and proclaim himself King of Aragon. He married Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine and betrothed his daughter to Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. The wedding agreement provided Raymond Berengar IV the title of Princeps Aragonum and Dominator Aragonenesis and kept the title, Raymond Berengar IV, the first ruler of the united dynasty, called himself Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon. Alfonso II inherited two realms and with them, two different expansion processes, the House of Jiménez looked south in a battle against Castile for the control of the Mediterranean coast in the Iberian peninsula. The House of Barcelona looked north to its origins, Occitania, soon, Alfonso II of Aragon and Barcelona committed himself to conquer Valencia as the Aragonese nobility demanded
28.
Duke
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A duke or duchess can either be a monarch ruling over a duchy or a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch. During the Middle Ages the title signified first among the Germanic monarchies, Dukes were the rulers of the provinces and the superiors of the counts in the cities and later, in the feudal monarchies, the highest-ranking peers of the king. During the 19th century many of the smaller German and Italian states were ruled by Dukes or Grand Dukes, but at present, with the exception of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there are no dukes ruling as monarchs. Duke remains the highest hereditary title in Portugal, Spain, in Sweden, members of the Royal Family are given a personal dukedom at birth. The Pope, as a sovereign, has also, though rarely. In some realms the relative status of duke and prince, as borne by the nobility rather than by members of reigning dynasties, varied—e. g. in Italy. A woman who holds in her own right the title to such duchy or dukedom, Queen Elizabeth II, however, is known by tradition as Duke of Normandy in the Channel Islands and Duke of Lancaster in Lancashire. A duchy is the territory or geopolitical entity ruled by a duke, a dukedom is the title or status of a duke, a rank in the present or past nobility, and is not necessarily attached to a duchy. A few examples exist today, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a independent state and its head. In Scotland the male heir apparent to the British crown is always the Duke of Rothesay as well, the Channel Islands are two of the three remaining Crown Dependencies, the last vestiges of the lands of the Duchy of Normandy. The Islanders in their loyal toast will say La Reine, notre Duc, however, the Channel Islands, part of the lost Duchy, remained a self-governing possession of the English Crown. While the islands today retain autonomy in government, they owe allegiance to The Queen in her role as Duke of Normandy. During the Middle Ages, after Roman power in Western Europe collapsed, in 1332, Robert of Taranto succeeded his father, Philip. John took the style of Duke of Durazzo, in 1368, Durazzo fell to Karl Thopia, who was recognized by Venice as Prince of Albania. The Visigoths retained the Roman divisions of their kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula and they were the most powerful landowners and, along with the bishops, elected the king, usually from their own midst. They were the commanders and in this capacity often acted independently from the king. The army was structured decimally with the highest unit, the thiufa, the cities were commanded by counts, who were in turn answerable to the dukes, who called up the thiufae when necessary. When the Lombards entered Italy, the Latin chroniclers called their war leaders duces in the old fashion and these leaders eventually became the provincial rulers, each with a recognized seat of government
29.
Ferdinand I of Aragon
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He was also regent of Castile. Born at Medina del Campo, he was the son of King John I of Castile. In this capacity he distinguished himself by his prudent administration of domestic affairs, in a war with the Muslim Kingdom of Granada, he conquered the town of Antequera, whence his surname. After Ferdinands maternal uncle, King Martin I of Aragon, died without surviving legitimate issue, the other candidate, Count James II of Urgell, revolted and Ferdinand dissolved the County of Urgell in 1413. Ferdinand created the title of Prince of Girona for the heir of the Crown of Aragon on 19 February 1416 and he is buried in the Aragonese royal pantheon of the monastery of Poblet, in a magnificent tomb ordered by his son Alfonso to Pere Oller in 1417. The Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla wrote a biography of Ferdinand. In 1393 Ferdinand married Eleanor of Alburquerque, very patient to all who wanted to talk to him, even if their speeches were ordinary or not well-reasoned. Crown of Aragon J. N Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, ISBN 0-19-822531-8 T. N. Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon. ISBN 0-19-820236-9 Ferdinand I of Catalonia-Aragon in the Catalan Hyperencyclopaedia H. J. Chaytor, A History of Aragon and Catalonia, la Monarquía Hispánica, Fernando I el de Antequera Article of Francesca Español Bertran on his tomb in Poblet
30.
Prince of Girona
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The title of Prince or Princess of Girona is one of the titles given to the heir apparent or heir presumptive to the Crown of Aragon. The current title-holder is Leonor, Princess of Girona, on 19 February 1416, Ferdinand I of Aragon, considering the title of duke insufficient, raised it to the rank of Principality of Girona. However, these fell into gradual disuse until the 20th century as the heir of the King of Spain became better known by the hereditary title of the Crown of Castile. On 21 January 1977 his son, Felipe, would be the first to use all of these titles in any capacity for over 250 years. Count of Girona Princess of Girona List of titles and honours of the Heir Apparent to the Spanish Throne Catalan Counties History
31.
Alfonso V of Aragon
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Alfonso the Magnanimous KG was the King of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica, Sicily and Count of Barcelona from 1416, and King of Naples from 1442 until his death. He was one of the most prominent figures of the early Renaissance, born at Medina del Campo, he was the son of Ferdinand I of Aragon and Eleanor of Alburquerque. He represented the old line of the counts of Barcelona through the line, and was on his fathers side descended from the House of Trastamara. By hereditary right he was king of Sicily and claimed the island of Sardinia for himself, Alfonso was also in possession of much of Corsica by the 1420s. In 1421 the childless Queen Joanna II of Naples adopted and named him as heir to the Kingdom of Naples, and Alfonso went to Naples. Here he hired the condottiero Braccio da Montone with the task of reducing the resistance of his rival claimant, Louis III of Anjou, with Pope Martin V supporting Sforza, Alfonso switched his religious allegiance to the Aragonese antipope Benedict XIII. After an attempt to arrest the queen herself had failed, Joan called on Sforza who defeated the Aragonese militias near Castel Capuano in Naples, Alfonso fled to Castel Nuovo, but the help of a fleet of 22 galleys led by Giovanni da Cardona improved his situation. Sforza and Joanna ransomed Caracciolo and retreated to the fortress of Aversa, here she repudiated her earlier adoption of Alfonso and, with the backing of Martin V, named Louis III as her heir instead. The Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, joined the anti-Aragonese coalition, on his way towards Barcelona, Alfonso destroyed Marseille, a possession of Louis III. In late 1423 the Genoese fleet of Filippo Maria Visconti moved in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, rapidly conquering Gaeta, Procida, Castellammare and Sorrento. Naples, which was held by Alfonsos brother, Pedro de Aragon, was besieged in 1424 by the Genoese ships and Joannas troops, now led by Francesco Sforza, the city fell in April 1424. Pedro, after a resistance in Castel Nuovo, fled to Sicily in August. Joanna II and Louis III again took possession of the realm, an opportunity for Alfonso to reconquer Naples occurred in 1432, when Caracciolo was killed in a conspiracy. Alfonso tried to regain the favour of the queen, but failed, in her will, she bequeathed her realm to René of Anjou, Louis IIIs younger brother. This solution was opposed by the new pope, Eugene IV, the Neapolitans having called in the French, Alfonso decided to intervene and, with the support of several barons of the kingdom, captured Capua and besieged the important sea fortress of Gaeta. His fleet of 25 galleys was met by the Genoese ships sent by Visconti, in the battle of Ponza that ensued, Alfonso was defeated and taken prisoner. Helped by a Sicilian fleet, Alfonso recaptured Capua and set his base in Gaeta in February 1436, meanwhile, papal troops had invaded the Neapolitan kingdom, but Alfonso bribed their commander, Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi, and their successes waned. In the meantime, René had managed to reach Naples on 19 May 1438, Alfonso tried to besiege the city in the following September, but failed
32.
Leonor, Princess of Asturias
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Leonor, Princess of Asturias, is the elder daughter of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain. Leonor is first in the line of succession to the throne and her sister, Infanta Sofía, follows her in the line of succession. Leonor was born on 31 October 2005 at 1,47 am in the Ruber International Hospital in Madrid by means of a caesarean section necessitated by non-progression of labour and her birth was announced by the Royal Family to the press via SMS. Leonor left the Ruber Clinic with her parents on 7 November 2005 and she was baptised in the Zarzuela Palace by the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Antonio Rouco Varela, on 14 January 2006. Like her father in 1968, Leonor was christened with water from the Jordan River and she was also given the additional names of de Todos los Santos, a Bourbon tradition. Her godparents were her grandparents, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía. Leonors education began at the daycare for the children of the Spanish Royal Guard and she began her first year of elementary school on 15 September 2008 at the Santa María de los Rosales School in Aravaca, just outside Madrid. Her father is an alumnus of the school and her younger sister Sofía is also enrolled there. Leonor is fluent in both Spanish and English and has studied Mandarin, in May 2014, Leonor made her first official visit to the San Javier airforce base in Murcia. On 18 June 2014, King Juan Carlos signed the instrument of abdication, at this time, Leonors father became the King of Spain as Felipe VI, and Leonor herself became the heir presumptive and the new Princess of Asturias. Spains monarchy operates under a system of cognatic primogeniture, meaning that Leonor. Under the current law, however, if her parents have a son, Leonor would be displaced in the line of succession and again become an infanta. Despite a recent change from male-preference to absolute primogeniture for Spanish titles of nobility, if Leonor ascends the throne, she will be Spains first queen regnant since Isabella II, who reigned from 1833 to 1868. In October 2014, a wax figure of Leonor was unveiled at the Museo de Cera in Madrid, on 20 May 2015, Leonor had her first communion. A day before her 10th birthday, she was granted the Order of the Golden Fleece by her father and she also holds the historical titles of Duchess of Montblanc, Countess of Cervera and Lady of Balaguer. Coat of arms of the Princess of Asturias List of honours of the Spanish Royal Family by country Princess of Asturias Awards Official website Infanta Leonor - Genealogy of Infanta Leonor
33.
Asturias
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Asturias, officially the Principality of Asturias, is an autonomous community in north-west Spain. It is coextensive with the province of Asturias, and contains some of the territory that was part of the larger Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages. The most important cities are the capital, Oviedo, the seaport and largest city Gijón. Other municipalities in Asturias include Cangas de Onís, Cangas del Narcea, Gozón, Grado, Langreo, Llanera, Laviana, Lena, Llanes, Mieres, Siero, Valdés, Vegadeo, Asturias is also home to the Princess of Asturias Awards. In the Mesolithic period, a culture developed, that of the Asturiense. Today the Astur Celtic influence persists in place names, such as those of rivers, with the conquest of Asturias by the Romans under Augustus, the region entered into the annals of history. The Astures were subdued by the Romans but were never fully conquered, however, as it had been for the Romans and Visigoths, the Moors did not find mountainous territory easy to conquer, and the lands along Spains northern coast never fully became part of Islamic Spain. In the 10th century, the Kingdom of Asturias gave way to the Kingdom of León, through the rebellion of Henry II of Castile in the 14th century, the Principality of Asturias was established. The most famous proponents of independence were Gonzalo Peláez and Queen Urraca, after its integration into the Kingdom of Spain, Asturias provided the Spanish court with high-ranking aristocrats and played an important role in the colonization of America. Since 1388, the heir to the Castilian throne has been styled Prince of Asturias, in the 16th century, the population reached 100,000 for the first time, and within another century that number would double due to the arrival of American corn. During the 18th century, Asturias was one of the centres of the Spanish Enlightenment, the renowned Galician thinker Benito de Feijóo settled in the Benedictine Monastery of San Vicente de Oviedo. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, a polymath and prominent reformer and politician of the late 18th century, was born in the town of Gijón. At the same time, there was significant migration to America and these entrepreneurs were known collectively as Indianos, for having visited and made their fortunes in the West Indies and beyond. Asturias played an important part in the events led up to the Spanish Civil War. For a month, a Popular Front Committee exercised control in southern Asturias, a war committee dominated by anarcho-syndicalist supporters took power in Oviedo. Troops under the command of a then unknown general named Francisco Franco Bahamonde were brought from Spanish Morocco to suppress the revolt, Franco applied tactics normally reserved for overseas colonies, using troops of the Spanish Legion and Moroccan troops, ferocious oppression followed. As a result, Asturias remained loyal to the government during the Spanish Civil War, and was the scene of an extraordinary defence in extreme terrain. With Franco eventually gaining control of all Spain, Asturias — traditionally linked to the Spanish Crown — was known merely as the Province of Oviedo from 1939 until Francos death in 1975, the provinces name was restored fully after the return of democracy to Spain, in 1977
34.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
35.
Kabbalah
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Kabbalah is an esoteric method, discipline, and school of thought that originated in Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist in Judaism is called a Mekubbal, Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof and the mortal and finite universe. While it is used by some denominations, it is not a religious denomination in itself. It forms the foundations of religious interpretation. Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence and it also presents methods to aid understanding of the concepts and thereby attain spiritual realisation. Kabbalah originally developed within the realm of Jewish tradition, and kabbalists often use classical Jewish sources to explain, traditional practitioners believe its earliest origins pre-date world religions, forming the primordial blueprint for Creations philosophies, religions, sciences, arts, and political systems. Safed Rabbi Isaac Luria is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah and it was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards. According to the Zohar, a text for kabbalistic thought. These four levels are called pardes from their initial letters, peshat, the direct interpretations of meaning. Derash, midrashic meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses, sod, the inner, esoteric meanings, expressed in kabbalah. Kabbalah is considered by its followers as a part of the study of Torah – the study of Torah being an inherent duty of observant Jews. A third tradition, related but more shunned, involves the magical aims of Practical Kabbalah and they can be readily distinguished by their basic intent with respect to God, The Theosophical tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah seeks to understand and describe the divine realm. Consequently, it formed a minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah. According to traditional belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was transmitted orally by the Patriarchs, prophets, According to this view, early kabbalah was, in around the 10th century BC, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel. Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time to hide the knowledge and make it secret and it is hard to clarify with any degree of certainty the exact concepts within kabbalah. There are several different schools of thought with different outlooks, however. From the Renaissance onwards Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists, syncretic traditions of Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah developed independently of Jewish Kabbalah, reading the Jewish texts as universal ancient wisdom. Both adapted the Jewish concepts freely from their Judaic understanding, to merge with other theologies, religious traditions, with the decline of Christian Cabala in the Age of Reason, Hermetic Qabalah continued as a central underground tradition in Western esotericism
36.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
37.
Rabbi
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In Judaism, a rabbi /ˈræbaɪ/ is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רַבִּי rabi, meaning My Master, the word master רב rav literally means great one. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic era, the first sage for whom the Mishnah uses the title of rabbi was Yohanan ben Zakkai, active in the early to mid first century CE. Within the various Jewish denominations there are different requirements for rabbinic ordination, for example, Orthodox Judaism does not ordain women as rabbis, but other movements have chosen to do so for halakhic reasons as well as ethical reasons. Although the usage rabbim many the majority, the multitude occurs for the assembly of the community in the Dead Sea scrolls there is no evidence to support an association with the later title Rabbi, the root is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning lord. As a sign of respect, some great rabbis are simply called The Rav. The titles Rabban and Rabbi are first mentioned in the Mishnah, the term was first used for Rabban Gamaliel the elder, Rabban Simeon his son, and Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai, all of whom were patriarchs or presidents of the Sanhedrin. The title Rabbi occurs in the books of Matthew, Mark, and John in the New Testament, other variants are rəvī and, in Yiddish, rebbə. The word could be compared to the Syriac word ܪܒܝ rabi, in ancient Hebrew, rabbi was a proper term of address while speaking to a superior, in the second person, similar to a vocative case. While speaking about a superior, in the person one could say ha-rav or rabbo. Later, the term evolved into a title for members of the Patriarchate. Thus, the title gained an irregular form, רַבָּנִים rabbanim. Rabbi as a title does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. All of the above personalities would have expected to be steeped in the wisdom of the Torah and the commandments. And honor is due only for Torah, as it is said, The wise shall inherit honor, and only Torah is truly good, as it is said, I have given you a good teaching, do not forsake My Torah. This was eventually encoded and codified within the Mishnah and Talmud and subsequent rabbinical scholarship, the title Rabbi was borne by the sages of ancient Israel, who were ordained by the Sanhedrin in accordance with the custom handed down by the elders. They were titled Ribbi and received authority to judge penal cases, Rab was the title of the Babylonian sages who taught in the Babylonian academies. After the suppression of the Patriarchate and Sanhedrin by Theodosius II in 425, a recognised scholar could be called Rab or Hacham, like the Babylonian sages
38.
Nachmanides
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Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, commonly known as Nachmanides /nækˈmænᵻ. He was raised, studied, and lived for most of his life in Girona and he is also considered to be an important figure in the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Jerusalem following its decimation at the hands of the Crusaders in 1099. Nachmanides is a Greek-influenced formation meaning son of Nahman and he is also commonly known by the Hebrew acronym רמב״ן. His Catalan name was Bonastruc ça Porta, literally Mazel Tov near the Gate, Ramban was born in Girona in 1194, where he grew up and studied, and died in the Land of Israel about 1270. He was a descendant of Isaac ben Reuben of Barcelona and cousin of Jonah Gerondi, according to the responsa of Solomon b. During his teens he began to get a reputation as a learned Jewish scholar, at age 16 he began his writings on Jewish law. In his Milhamot Hashem he defended Alfasis decisions against the criticisms of Zerachiah ha-Levi of Girona and these writings reveal a conservative tendency that distinguished his later works — an unbounded respect for the earlier authorities. In the view of Nachmanides, the wisdom of the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud and their words were to be neither doubted nor criticized. We bow, he says, before them, and even when the reason for their words is not quite evident to us, Nachmanides adherence to the words of the earlier authorities may be due to piety, or the influence of the northern French Jewish school of thought. This work gave rise to a tendency to allegorize Biblical narratives, against this tendency Nachmanides strove, and went to the other extreme, not even allowing the utterances of the immediate disciples of the Geonim to be questioned. If, he says, you were of the opinion that it was duty to denounce the Guide as heretical. Is it right in important matters to act capriciously, to applaud the one to-day. This compromise, which might have ended the struggle, was rejected by both parties in spite of Nachmanides authority, Nachmanides allegedly wrote a book on marriage, holiness, and sexual relations for his son as a wedding gift, the Iggeret ha-Kodesh. In it Nachmanides criticizes Maimonides for stigmatizing mans sexual nature as a disgrace to man. In the view of the author, the body with all its functions being the work of God, is holy, in Nachmanidess Torat ha-Adam, which deals with mourning rites, burial customs, etc. Nachmanides sharply criticizes writers who strove to render man indifferent to both pleasure and pain and this, he declares, is against the Law, which commands man to rejoice on the day of joy and weep on the day of mourning. The last chapter, entitled Shaar ha-Gemul, discusses reward and punishment, resurrection and it derides the presumption of the philosophers who pretend to a knowledge of the essence of God and the angels, while even the composition of their own bodies is a mystery to them. For Nachmanides, divine revelation is the best guide in all these questions and he holds that as God is eminently just, there must be reward and punishment
39.
Catholic Monarchs
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The Catholic Monarchs is the joint title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They married on October 19,1469, in the city of Valladolid, Isabella was eighteen years old and it is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella was constantly on the move, the title of Catholic King and Queen was bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their defence of the Catholic faith within their realms. Catholic monarchs or kings can also be used in a generic sense, Isabella was named heir to the throne of Castile by her half brother Henry IV of Castile in the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando. She became Queen of Castile in 1474 and her niece, Joanna of Castile, attempted to gain the throne by bringing in the foreign help of Afonso V of Portugal, leading to the War of Castilian Succession. More recently, some speculate that Joanna was the legitimate successor, Isabellas supporters came out ahead in good part due to Aragons support through Ferdinand, and she officially won in 1479 via the Treaty of Alcáçovas. Ferdinand became the King of Aragon in 1479, the Catholic Monarchs set out to restore royal authority in Spain. To accomplish their goal, they first created a group named the Holy Brotherhood and these men were used as a judicial police force for Castile, as well as to attempt to keep Castilian nobles in check. To establish a more uniform system, the Catholic Monarchs created the Royal Council. This establishment of authority is known as the Pacification of Castile. Even after his death and the union of the crowns under one monarch, the Aragonese, Catalan, further, the monarchs continued ruling through a form of medieval contractualism, which made their rule pre-modern in a few ways. One of those is that they traveled from town to town throughout the kingdom in order to promote loyalty, another is that each community and region was connected to them via loyalty to the crown, rather than bureaucratic ties. Ferdinand and Isabella were noted for being the monarchs of the newly united Spain at the dawn of the modern era and they had a goal of conquering the Muslim kingdom of Granada and completing the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The beginnings of a series of known as the Granada War began with the attack on Alhama de Granada. The attack was led by two Andalusian nobles, Rodrigo Ponce de León and Diego de Merlo, the city fell to Andalusian forces in 1482. The Granada War was aided by Pope Sixtus IV by granting a tithe, after 10 years of fighting the Granada War ended in 1492 when Emir Boabdil surrendered the keys of the Alhambra Palace in Granada to the Castilian soldiers. After a number of revolts, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion from Spain of all Jews, the Inquisition had been created in the twelfth century by Pope Lucius III to fight heresy in the south of what is now France and was constituted in a number of European kingdoms. The Catholic Monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile, the bull gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors
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Tourism
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Tourism is travel for pleasure or business, also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international, or within the travellers country, Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a countrys balance of payments. Today, tourism is a source of income for many countries. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.03 trillion in 2011, the ITB Berlin is the worlds leading tourism trade fair. The word tourist was used by 1772 and tourism by 1811. It is formed from the tour, which is derived from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare, to turn on a lathe. Tourism is an important, even vital, source of income for many regions and it also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism. This is in addition to goods bought by tourists, including souvenirs, in 1936, the League of Nations defined a foreign tourist as someone traveling abroad for at least twenty-four hours. Its successor, the United Nations, amended this definition in 1945 and it includes movements for all purposes. In 1981, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined tourism in terms of particular activities chosen and undertaken outside the home, in this context, travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms tourism and tourist are sometimes used pejoratively, to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited, by contrast, traveler is often used as a sign of distinction. The sociology of tourism has studied the values underpinning these distinctions. International tourist arrivals reached 1.035 billion in 2012, up from over 996 million in 2011, the World Tourism Organization reports the following ten destinations as the most visited in terms of the number of international travellers in 2016. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.2 trillion in 2014, based upon air traffic, the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index reports the following cities as the top ten most popular destinations of international tourism worldwide. MasterCard reports the following cities as the top ten biggest earners on international tourism worldwide in 2015, as early as Shulgi, however, kings praised themselves for protecting roads and building waystations for travelers. During the Roman Republic, spas and coastal resorts such as Baiae were popular among the rich, pausanias wrote his Description of Greece in the 2nd century AD. In ancient China, nobles sometimes made a point of visiting Mount Tai and, on occasion, the Islamic hajj is still central to its faith and Chaucers Canterbury Tales and Wu Chengens Journey to the West remain classics of English and Chinese literature. The 10th- to 13th-century Song dynasty also saw secular travel writers such as Su Shi, under the Ming, Xu Xiake continued the practice
Spain
Catalonia
Girona travel guide from Wikivoyage
Girona
