1.
Ferry
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A ferry is a merchant vessel used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate regular return services, a passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi. Ferries form a part of the transport systems of many waterside cities and islands. However, ship connections of much larger distances may also be called ferry services, the profession of the ferryman is embodied in Greek mythology in Charon, the boatman who transported souls across the River Styx to the Underworld. Speculation that a pair of oxen propelled a ship having a wheel can be found in 4th century Roman literature Anonymus De Rebus Bellicis. Though impractical, there is no reason why it could not work and such a ferry, see When Horses Walked on Water, Horse-Powered Ferries in Nineteenth-Century America. The Marine Services Company of Tanzania offers passenger and cargo services in three of the African Great Lakes viz, Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa. It also operates one of the oldest ferries in the region, Ferries from Great Britain also sail to Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Ireland. Some ferries carry mainly tourist traffic, but most also carry freight, in Britain, car-carrying ferries are sometimes referred to as RORO for the ease by which vehicles can board and leave. The busiest single ferry route is across the part of Øresund. Before the Øresund bridge was opened in July 2000, car and car & train ferries departed up to seven times every hour, in 2013, this has been reduced, but a car ferry still departs from each harbor every 15 minutes during daytime. The route is around 2.2 nautical miles and the crossing takes 22 minutes, today, all ferries on this route are constructed so that they do not need to turn around in the harbors. This also means that the ferries lack natural stems and sterns, due to the same circumstances, starboard and port-side are dynamic and depending of in what direction the ferry sails. Despite the short crossing, the ferries are equipped with restaurants, cafeteria, kiosks, large cruiseferries sail in the Baltic Sea between Finland, Åland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Saint Petersburg, Russia and from Italy to Sardinia, Corsica, Spain and Greece. In many ways, these ferries are like cruise ships, also many smaller ferries operate on domestic routes in Finland, Sweden and Estonia. The south-west and southern parts of the Baltic Sea has several routes mainly for heavy traffic, on the longer of these routes, simple cabins are available. In Istanbul, ferries connect the European and Asian shores of Bosphorus, as well as Princes Islands, in 2014 İDO transported 47 million passengers, the largest ferry system in the world. Due to the numbers of freshwater lakes and length of shoreline in Canada
2.
Map
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A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word map comes from the medieval Latin Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant napkin or cloth, thus, map became the shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world. Cartography or map-making is the study and practice of crafting representations of the Earth upon a flat surface, in addition to location information maps may also be used to portray contour lines indicating constant values of elevation, temperature, rainfall, etc. The orientation of a map is the relationship between the directions on the map and the compass directions in reality. The word orient is derived from Latin oriens, meaning East, in the Middle Ages many maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with East at the top. Today, the most common – but far from universal – cartographic convention is that North is at the top of a map, several kinds of maps are often traditionally not oriented with North at the top, Maps from non-Western traditions are oriented a variety of ways. Old maps of Edo show the Japanese imperial palace as the top, labels on the map are oriented in such a way that you cannot read them properly unless you put the imperial palace above your head. Medieval European T and O maps such as the Hereford Mappa Mundi were centred on Jerusalem with East at the top, indeed, prior to the reintroduction of Ptolemys Geography to Europe around 1400, there was no single convention in the West. Portolan charts, for example, are oriented to the shores they describe, Maps of cities bordering a sea are often conventionally oriented with the sea at the top. Route and channel maps have traditionally been oriented to the road or waterway they describe, polar maps of the Arctic or Antarctic regions are conventionally centred on the pole, the direction North would be towards or away from the centre of the map, respectively. Typical maps of the Arctic have 0° meridian towards the bottom of the page, reversed maps, also known as Upside-Down maps or South-Up maps, reverse the North is up convention and have south at the top. Buckminster Fullers Dymaxion maps are based on a projection of the Earths sphere onto an icosahedron, the resulting triangular pieces may be arranged in any order or orientation. Modern digital GIS maps such as ArcMap typically project north at the top of the map, compass decimal degrees can be converted to math degrees by subtracting them from 450, if the answer is greater than 360, subtract 360. The scale statement may be taken as exact when the region mapped is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, over larger regions where the curvature cannot be ignored we must use map projections from the curved surface of the Earth to the plane. Thus for map projections we must introduce the concept of point scale, which is a function of position, although the scale statement is nominal it is usually accurate enough for all but the most precise of measurements. Large scale maps, say 1,10,000, cover relatively small regions in detail and small scale maps, say 1,10,000,000, cover large regions such as nations, continents. The large/small terminology arose from the practice of writing scales as numerical fractions, there is no exact dividing line between large and small but 1/100,000 might well be considered as a medium scale
3.
Body of water
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A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water, generally on a planets surface. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, a body of water does not have to be still or contained, Rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are also considered bodies of water. Most are naturally occurring geographical features, but some are artificial, there are types that can be either. For example, most reservoirs are created by engineering dams, similarly, most harbors are naturally occurring bays, but some harbors have been created through construction. Bodies of water that are navigable are known as waterways, some bodies of water collect and move water, such as rivers and streams, and others primarily hold water, such as lakes and oceans. The term body of water can also refer to a reservoir of water held by a plant, note that there are some geographical features involving water that are not bodies of water, for example waterfalls, geysers and rapids. Arm of the sea - also sea arm, used to describe a sea loch, arroyo - a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills with water after a heavy rain, or seasonally. Artificial lake or artificial pond - see reservoir or impoundment, barachois - a lagoon separated from the ocean by a sand bar. Bay - an area of water bordered by land on three sides, similar to, but smaller than a gulf, bayou - a slow-moving stream or a marshy lake. Bight - a large and often only slightly receding bay, or a bend in any geographical feature, billabong - see Oxbow lake, a pond or still body of water created when a river changes course and some water becomes trapped. Boil - see Seep Brook - a small stream, canal - an artificial waterway, usually connected to existing lakes, rivers, or oceans. Channel - the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean consisting of a bed. See also stream bed and strait, earth scientists generally use the term to describe a circular or round inlet with a narrow entrance, though colloquially the term is sometimes used to describe any sheltered bay. Basin - a region of land where water from rain or snowmelt drains downhill into another body of water, such as a river, lake, creek - an inlet of the sea, narrower than a cove. Delta - the location where a river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, distributary or distributary channel - a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Draw - a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills with water after a heavy rain, fjord - a submergent landform which has occurred due to glacial activity. Glacier - a large collection of ice or a river that moves slowly down a mountain. Glacial Pothole - see Kettle Gulf - a part of a lake or ocean that extends so that it is surrounded by land on three sides, similar to, but larger than a bay, headland - an area of water bordered by land on three sides
4.
Bay
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A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, lake, or another bay. A large bay may be called a gulf, sea, sound, a cove is a type of smaller bay with a circular inlet and narrow entrance. A fjord is a particularly steep bay shaped by glacial activity, bays can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River, which is the largest bay in North America. Bays may also be nested within each other, for example, some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and the Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology. The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds, bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they provided a safe place for fishing. Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports, there are various ways from which bays can be created. The largest bays have developed as a result of plate tectonics, as the super-continent Pangaea broke up along curved and indented fault lines, the continents moved apart and the worlds largest bays formed. These include the Gulf of Guinea, Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Bengal, another way bays form is via glacial and river erosion. A bay formed by a glacier is a fjord, rias are created by rivers and are characterised by more gradual slopes. Currents can make waves more constant, and soft rocks speed erosion, hard rock eroded less quickly, leaving headlands. The Gulf of California is an example of a bay created by plate tectonics as Baja California peninsula moves away from the Mexican mainland, Bay platform Great capes Headlands and bays
5.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
6.
North Holland
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North Holland is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, in 2015, it had a population of 2,762,163 and a total area of 2,670 km2. From the 9th to the 16th century, the area was a part of the County of Holland. During this period West Friesland was incorporated, in the 17th and 18th century, the area was part of the province of Holland. At that time, the distinction between the Noorderkwartier and the Zuiderkwartier became common, in 1840, the province of Holland was split into the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland. In 1855, the Haarlemmermeer was drained and turned into land, the capital and seat of the provincial government is Haarlem, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital city, is the provinces largest city. The Kings Commissioner of North Holland is Johan Remkes, there are 51 municipalities and three water boards in the province. For most of its history, the province of North Holland was an integral part of Holland. From the 9th century to the 16th century, Holland was a county ruled by the counts of Holland, during this period an area known as West Friesland was conquered and integrated into Holland. For centuries afterwards Holland would be officially called Holland and West Friesland, the people of West Friesland had a strong sense of identity as a region within Holland. From the 16th century to 1795, Holland was the wealthiest and most important province in the United Provinces in the Dutch Republic, as the richest and most powerful province, Holland dominated the union. During this period a distinction was made between the North Quarter and the South Quarter, areas that roughly correspond to the two modern provinces. The province of North Holland as it is today has its origins in the period of French rule from 1795 to 1813 and this was a time of bewildering changes to the Dutch system of provinces. In 1795 the old order was swept away and the Batavian Republic was established, in the Constitution enacted on 23 April 1798, the old borders were radically changed. The republic was reorganised into eight departments with roughly equal populations, Holland was split up into five departments named Texel, Amstel, Delf, Schelde en Maas, and Rijn. The first three of these lay within the borders of the old Holland, the two were made up of parts of different provinces. In 1801 the old borders were restored when the department of Holland was created and this reorganisation had been short-lived, but it gave birth to the concept of breaking up Holland and making it a less powerful province. This time the two departments were called Amstelland and Maasland and this also did not last long
7.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
8.
Digraph (orthography)
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Digraphs are often used for phonemes that cannot be represented using a single character, like the English sh in ship and fish. In other cases they may be relics from a period of the language when they had a different pronunciation, or represent a distinction which is made only in certain dialects. They may also be used for purely etymological reasons, like rh in English, digraphs are used in some Romanization schemes, like the zh often used to represent the Russian letter ж. As an alternative to digraphs, orthographies and Romanization schemes sometimes use letters with diacritics, like the Czech š, examples are found in Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Albanian and Gajs Latin Alphabet. In Dutch, when the digraph ij is capitalized, both letters are capitalized, digraphs may develop into ligatures, but these are distinct concepts – a ligature involves a graphical combination of two characters, as when a and e are fused into æ. Digraphs may consist of two different characters or two instances of the same character, in the latter case, they are generally called double letters. Doubled vowel letters are used to indicate a long vowel sound. This is the case in Finnish and Estonian, for instance, where represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by ⟨u⟩, ⟨ää⟩ represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by ⟨ä⟩. Doubled consonant letters can also be used to indicate a long or geminated consonant sound, in Italian, for example, consonants written double are pronounced longer than single ones. In modern English, for example, the ⟨pp⟩ of tapping differentiates the first vowel sound from that of taping, in Spanish and Catalan, ⟨rr⟩ is used between vowels for the alveolar trill /r/, since an ⟨r⟩ alone between vowels represents an alveolar flap /ɾ/. In Spanish the digraph ⟨nn⟩ formerly indicated /ɲ/, it developed into the letter ñ, in Basque, double consonant letters generally mark palatalized versions of the single consonant letter, as in ⟨dd⟩, ⟨ll⟩, ⟨tt⟩. However, ⟨rr⟩ is a trill, contrasting with the flap, as in Spanish. In several European writing systems, including the English one, the doubling of the letter ⟨c⟩ or ⟨k⟩ is represented as the heterogeneous digraph ⟨ck⟩ instead of ⟨cc⟩ or ⟨kk⟩ respectively. In native German words, the doubling of ⟨z⟩, which corresponds to /ts/, is replaced by the digraph ⟨tz⟩, some languages have a unified orthography with digraphs that represent distinct pronunciations in different dialects. For example, in Breton there is a digraph ⟨zh⟩ that is pronounced in most dialects, similarly, the Saintongeais dialect of French has a digraph ⟨jh⟩ that is pronounced in words that correspond to in standard French. Similarly, Catalan has a digraph ⟨ix⟩ that is pronounced in Eastern Catalan, the pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English silent e, for example, the sequence a. e has the sound /eɪ/ in English cake. Later still, the vowel /aː/ became /eɪ/, however, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs
9.
IJ (digraph)
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IJ is a digraph of the letters i and j. An ij in written Dutch usually represents the diphthong, in standard Dutch, and most Dutch dialects, there are two possible spellings for the diphthong, ij and ei. This causes confusion for schoolchildren, who need to learn which words to write with ei, to distinguish between the two, the ij is referred to as the lange ij, the ei as korte ei or simply E – I. In certain Dutch dialects, as well as the Dutch Low Saxon dialects of Low German, whether pronounced identically to ei or not, the pronunciation of ij is often perceived as being difficult by people who do not have either sound in their native language. The tendency for native English speakers is to pronounce ij as which does not normally lead to confusion among native listeners, the ij originally represented a long i. This can still be seen in the etymology of some words, nowadays, the pronunciation follows the spelling, and they are pronounced with. The IJ is different from the letter Y and it used to be common, in particular when writing in capitals, to write Y instead of IJ. In fact this was the spelling in the earlier part of the 19th century. That practice has now long been deprecated, but the standard Dutch pronunciation of the letter Y is ij when reading the alphabet, also, in scientific disciplines such as mathematics and physics, the symbol y is usually pronounced ij. To distinguish the Y from IJ in common speech however, Y is often called Griekse IJ, i-grec, or Ypsilon. In Dutch, the letter Y today only occurs in loanwords, proper names, or in old Dutch, while in the related language Afrikaans, IJ probably developed out of ii, representing a long sound. In the Middle Ages, the i was written without a dot in handwriting, and the combination ıı was often confused with u. Therefore, later, the dots were added, albeit not in Afrikaans, a language that has its roots in Dutch. In this language the y is used instead, alternatively, the letter J may have developed as a swash form of i. In Dutch, which had a native ii, the i in a row elongated rule was applied as well. Another theory is that IJ might have arisen from the lowercase y being split into two strokes in handwriting, at some time in the 15th or 16th century, this combination began to be spelled as a ligature ij. An argument against this theory is even in handwriting which does not join letters. Nowadays, ij in most cases represents the diphthong, except in the suffix -lijk, in one special case, the Dutch word bijzonder, the sound is correct standard pronunciation, although is more common and is also allowed. This derives from an old practice of writing y instead of i after another vowel, later, when y and ij came to be seen as interchangeable
10.
IJmuiden
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IJmuiden is a port city in the Dutch province of North Holland and is the main town in the municipality of Velsen. It is located at the mouth of the North Sea Canal to Amsterdam, the internal capitalization in the citys spelling is because IJ is a digraph in Dutch, and is therefore sometimes considered to be a ligature, rendering it a single letter. The port of IJmuiden is a port suited to fully laden Panamax ships. In the Roman era, this Velsen district was already inhabited, present day IJmuiden includes four harbors, the vissershaven, a fishing dock, the haringhaven, the IJmondhaven and the Seaport Marina IJmuiden, a harbour for pleasure craft. IJmuiden became the largest fishing port of the Netherlands after the island of Urk became closed in by the Afsluitdijk, the town suffered heavy damage and demolition during World War II, because of its maritime importance. Before the present IJmuiden was built, the area was known as Breesaap, the first spade hit the ground on 8 April 1865. He dubbed the town IJmuiden after passing the locks from the North Sea into the canal, the workers who dug the canal later settled there, they found work after the canal was finished in the fishing industry, but many also suffered extreme poverty. The IJmuiden name literally means “mouth of the IJ”, which is a hint to the importance the town has for the Amsterdam harbour, the name “IJmuiden” first appeared as IJ-muiden in lines written in 1848 by the professor and journalist Simon Vissering. The present IJmuiden form was adopted in 1876, as the North Sea Canal was being completed in this section. In 1890 it had about 1,500 inhabitants, but boomed when the Koninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens steelworks settled in IJmuiden in 1918, at that time shipping was at a low, because during World War I minesweepers laid many mines off the coast of IJmuiden. The quays at IJmuiden were crowded at that time with people desperate to be transported across the channel, IJmuiden became the site of two separate fortified pens constructed by the German navy to house their Schnellboote and Biber midget submarines. The older structure, codename Schnellbootbunker AY, was protected by a 10-foot thick concrete roof, the newer one, codename Schnellbootbunker BY, had 10–12 feet of concrete, with a further 2–4-foot layer separated by an air–gap. The E-boats laid up in the shelters during the day, safe from air–attack and this included four attacks by No.9 Squadron and No.617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, during which a total of 53 of the five–ton, Tallboy earthquake bombs were dropped. The story of IJmuiden during the war is told in the Bunker Museum IJmuiden, after the war, the town was rebuilt according to a plan by the architect Willem Marinus Dudok. The statistical area IJmuiden, which includes the surrounding countryside, has a population of 30,466, the headquarters of the KNRM, Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution is located in IJmuiden. The IJmuiden harbour coast line remains the point for the equidistantly set UK-Netherlands sea boundary. The places to see on this route are the Hoogovensmuseum, the system of gates at the mouth of the canal. IJmuiden is home to two of the worlds most powerful water pumps capable of pumping 60,000 litres/second
11.
North Sea Canal
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The North Sea Canal is a Dutch ship canal from Amsterdam to the North Sea at IJmuiden, constructed between 1865 and 1876 to enable seafaring vessels to reach the port of Amsterdam. This man-made channel terminates at Amsterdam in the closed-off IJ Bay, the drainage of the canal to the North Sea is done through the Spui Locks at IJmuiden, augmented by the largest pumping station in Europe. This system is vital to the management of the Western Netherlands. To improve the connection between the harbour of Amsterdam and the North Sea, the North Holland Canal was built in 1824, but this long and narrow canal was quickly inadequate to handle the growing boat traffic. A few decades later it was decided to dig a new canal at the narrowest point in Holland, digging began on 8 March 1865, at the dunes of Breesaap and lasted until 1876. Since no Dutch company was willing to take on this task, the North Sea Canal was built by digging a channel through the old IJ Bay and lining it with dikes, after which the remaining portions of the IJ Bay were reclaimed and turned into polders. From this bay to the sea, a new canal was dug through the dunes at Velsen. To accommodate drainage of and shipping on the tributaries of the IJ, such as the Spaarne, the Zaan, a small set of locks were built at the mouth in 1876 where the new town of IJmuiden formed. In 1896 the Middle Locks were built, followed by the North Locks in 1929, at the eastern end of the canal, east of Amsterdam, the IJ Bay was open to the Zuiderzee until 1872 when the Orange Locks were built. With the completion of these locks the North Sea Canal and IJ Bay were no longer open to the sea, the canal was dug using manual labour. The workers lived in conditions, being housed in huts built from twigs, driftwood, sod, and straw, where disease, fights. On 1 November 1876, the North Sea Canal was officially opened by King William III of the Netherlands, over the years the canal has been widened and deepened several times. The North Sea Canal and the IJ have 10 side canals, zijkanaal A - connects the harbour of Beverwijk to the North Sea Canal, also an inundation canal of the Stelling van Amsterdam. Zijkanaal B - connected Spaarndam to the North Sea Canal, but was cut off from it by the construction of the A9 motorway in the 1960s and it is now used for canoeing and mooring of houseboats. Zijkanaal C - connects the Spaarne river at Spaarndam to the North Sea Canal at Buitenhuizen, the A9 motorway has an operable bridge over this side canal. Zijkanaal D - connects the Nauerna Canal to the North Sea Canal, zijkanaal E - a very short canal connecting the south end of Westzaan to the North Sea Canal. Zijkanaal F - connected Halfweg to the North Sea Canal, but is now mostly backfilled, a small portion remains and is used as a drainage canal. Zijkanaal G - connects Zaandam and the Zaan River to the North Sea Canal, zijkanaal H - connects the Barndegat to the North Sea Canal
12.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
13.
IJmeer
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The IJmeer is a bordering lake in the Netherlands. It lies between the polder De Nes, Pampushaven, Hollandse Brug and the mouth of the IJ in IJburg and it is an important habitat for birds such as the tufted duck and scaup. To the north-east is the Markermeer, south-east is the Gooimeer, since 1998 islands were raised for new housing for IJburg. The first houses were ready in 2003, on 24 November 2004 the Council of State ruled that the construction of further new islands was provisionally banned, because the consequences for the environment were insufficiently researched. Partly to this end, Almere has announced plans to residential areas in the IJmeer, in order for Amsterdam. There are plans for a connection between Amsterdam and Almere, straight through the IJmeer, through IJburg, and the planned Almere Pampus, most likely this connection will be a bridge with lanes for public transport and road. The IJmeer has a number of islands including, De Drost Hooft Pampus Vuurtoreneiland Warenar
14.
Markermeer
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The Markermeer is a 700 km2 lake in the central Netherlands in between North Holland, Flevoland and its larger sibling, the IJsselmeer. A shallow lake at some 3 to 5 m in depth, it is named after the former island, now peninsula. The southwest side of the lake that begins where the IJ once emptied into the Zuiderzee is known as the IJmeer, the Markermeer was not originally intended to remain a lake. It used to be part of the Zuiderzee, an inlet of the North Sea. The following years saw the reclamation of extensive tracts of land as large polders in a project known as the Zuiderzee Works. One of these, the Markerwaard, was to occupy the area of the current Markermeer, the Markermeer is used as a freshwater reservoir and a buffer against floodwaters and droughts. In 2003 the Netherlands was hit by drought, and several minor dikes were endangered, water from the Markermeer was used to keep the area surrounding Amsterdam wet, thereby keeping the dikes safe. A recent project, the Marker Wadden aims to create a few islands in the north of the lake, the islands will be a wetland, comparable with the Wadden Sea, but without tides because the Markermeer is not connected with the sea. This new nature reserve will be accessible to tourists. Zuiderzeemuseum Media related to Markermeer at Wikimedia Commons
15.
Lock (water navigation)
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A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. Locks are used to make a more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a direct route to be taken. Since 2016 the largest lock worldwide is the Kieldrecht Lock in the Port of Antwerp, a pound lock is a type of lock that is used almost exclusively nowadays on canals and rivers. A pound lock has a chamber with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound, in contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in medieval China during the Song Dynasty, having been pioneered by the government official and engineer Qiao Weiyue in 984. The gates were hanging gates, when they were closed the water accumulated like a tide until the level was reached. The water level could differ by 4 feet or 5 feet at each lock, in medieval Europe a sort of pound lock was built in 1373 at Vreeswijk, Netherlands. This pound lock serviced many ships at once in a large basin, yet the first true pound lock was built in 1396 at Damme near Bruges, Belgium. A famous civil engineer of pound locks in Europe was the Italian Bertola da Novate, who constructed 18 of them on the Naviglio di Bereguardo between the years 1452 and 1458. When a stretch of river is navigable, a lock is sometimes required to bypass an obstruction such as a rapid, dam. In large scale river navigation improvements, weirs and locks are used together, a river improved by these means is often called a Waterway or River Navigation. Sometimes a river is made entirely non-tidal by constructing a sea lock directly into the estuary, in more advanced river navigations, more locks are required. Where a longer cut bypasses a stretch of river, the upstream end of the cut will often be protected by a flood lock. The longer the cut, the greater the difference in level between start and end of the cut, so that a very long cut will need additional locks along its length. At this point, the cut is, in effect, a canal, Early completely artificial canals, across fairly flat countryside, would get round a small hill or depression by simply detouring around it. However, locks continued to be built to supplement these solutions, all pound locks have three elements, A watertight chamber connecting the upper and lower canals, and large enough to enclose one or more boats. The position of the chamber is fixed, but its level can vary
16.
Castricum
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Castricum is a municipality and a town in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. Castricum is a town in the province of North Holland. It draws in a share of tourists who mainly come to visit the beach. In Castricums vicinity there is also the lake of Alkmaar-Uitgeest which offers sailing and windsurfing opportunities. On 6 October 1799, a Franco-Dutch army under Guillaume Brune defeated an Anglo-Russian army under Ralph Abercromby, the municipality of Castricum is made up of the following towns, villages and/or districts, Castricum, Akersloot, Bakkum, De Woude, Limmen. The town is served by Castricum railway station, from here there are 4 trains an hour to Amsterdam, with a journey time of 28 minutes. Huis van Hilde, provincial archaeology centre in Castricum Media related to Castricum at Wikimedia Commons Official website
17.
Almere (lake)
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The lake Almere was an inland lake in the place of todays IJsselmeer in the center of the Netherlands. The texts of ancient Romans called it the Lake Flevo, Lake Almere is mentioned among others in a life of saints written by Bishop Anglo-Saxon Saint Boniface in 753, or a deed of gift from the town of Urk. Its etymology may be eels, in Dutch aal or ael, so, ael mere = eel lake Presumably, excavation of peat by the Frisians in West Friesland, near the Vlie a river that connects Almere to the North Sea. The floods such as the All Saints Flood or St. Lucias flood 1287, the name of the new town of Almere in Flevoland was given in 1984 in memory of this body of water
18.
Lake Flevo
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Lake Flevo was a lake in what is now the Netherlands, which existed in Roman times and the early Middle Ages. Some geographers believe that this lake was not really a single lake, from the Indo-European root *plew- flow, the name was transmitted by the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela in describing this region. In his treatise on geography of 44 AD, Pomponius speaks of a Flevo Lacus and he writes, The northern branch of the Rhine widens as Lake Flevo, and encloses an island of the same name, and then as a normal river flows to the sea. Other sources rather speak of Flevum, which could be related to todays Vlie and this last name is grammatically more probable for a geographical indication, which is why it is assumed that Pomponius confused the declension of the word giving the name Flevo. In fact the Vlie formed outfall from the lake into the North Sea, some texts of the middle-ages refer to this lake by the name of Almere. December 14,1287, in what was called St, in the second half of the twentieth century the Flevopolders and a new province, Flevoland, took the name of the lake which stood there long ago
19.
Vecht (Utrecht)
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The Vecht is a Rhine branch in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is sometimes called Utrechtse Vecht to avoid confusion with its Overijssel counterpart, the area along the river is called the Vechtstreek. The Vecht originates in the city of Utrecht, where the Kromme Rijn stream forks into two branches, the Leidse Rijn/Oude Rijn branch to the west and the Vecht to the north. Originally the Vecht branched off south of the city near the Roman fort Fectio, flowing eastwards around the city, the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal was dug in the Vecht basin. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us that in the first century CE and this could have been the IJssel, which the Romans connected to the Rhine themselves, or the river Vecht. In the 17th and 18th centuries, many country estates known as buitenplaats were built on the banks of the Vecht by rich merchants and administrators from Amsterdam
20.
Zuiderzee
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Its name means southern sea in Dutch, indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee. In the 20th century the majority of the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the construction of the Afsluitdijk and this land eventually became the province of Flevoland, with a population of nearly 400,000. In classical times there was already a body of water in this location and it was much smaller than its later forms and its connection to the main sea was much narrower, it may have been a complex of lakes and marshes and channels, rather than one lake. Over time these lakes gradually eroded their soft peat shores and spread, some part of this area of water was later called the Vlie, it probably flowed into the sea through what is now the Vliestroom channel between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. The Marsdiep was once a river which may have been a distributary of the Vlie, during the early Middle Ages this began to change as rising sea levels and storms started to eat away at the coastal areas which consisted mainly of peatlands. The disaster marked the rise of Amsterdam on the end of the bay. The even more massive St. Lucias flood occurred 14 December 1287, the name Zuiderzee came into general usage around this period. For example, on 18 November 1421, a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike broke and this was the Second St. Elizabeths flood. The Netherlands was part of the First French Empire between 1810 and 1813, a département was formed in 1811 and named as Zuyderzée after the Zuiderzee, of which the territory roughly corresponded to the present provinces of North Holland and Utrecht. In 1928, the 6-meter and 8-meter sailing events for the Amsterdam Summer Olympics were held on the Zuiderzee. These towns traded at first with ports on the Baltic Sea, in England, and in the Hanseatic League, when that lucrative trade diminished, most of the towns fell back on fishing and some industry until the 20th century when tourism became the major source of income. Contained within the Zuiderzee were five islands, the remains of what were once larger islands, peninsulas connected to the mainland, or in the case of Pampus. These were Wieringen, Urk, Schokland, Pampus, and Marken, the inhabitants of these islands also subsisted mainly on fishing and related industries and still do in the case of Urk and Wieringen. All of these islands, except for Pampus, are now part of the mainland or connected to it, the construction in the early 20th century of a large enclosing dam tamed the Zuiderzee. The creation of this dam was a response to the flood of January 1916, plans for closing the Zuiderzee had been made over thirty years earlier but had not yet passed in parliament. With the completion of the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the Zuiderzee became the IJsselmeer and these areas, known as polders, were respectively the Wieringermeer, the Noordoostpolder, and Flevoland. This enormous project under the direction of Cornelis Lely, called the Zuiderzee Works, ran from 1919 to 1986, Zuiderzee Museum, dedicated to the history and culture of the former Zuiderzee Zuiderzee Cycle Route, long-distance cycle route around the former Zuiderzee Pathe newsreel of flooding,1916
21.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
22.
Brackish
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Brackish water or briny water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, the word comes from the Middle Dutch root brak. Brackish water is also the primary product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it is damaging to the environment. Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand, thus, brackish covers a range of salinity regimes and is not considered a precisely defined condition. It is characteristic of many brackish surface waters that their salinity can vary considerably over space and/or time, brackish water condition commonly occurs when fresh water meets seawater. In fact, the most extensive brackish water habitats worldwide are estuaries, the River Thames flowing through London is a classic river estuary. A similar pattern of replacement can be observed with the aquatic plants and this type of ecological succession from a freshwater to marine ecosystem is typical of river estuaries. Salmon are anadromous, meaning live in the sea but ascend rivers to spawn, eels are catadromous, living in rivers and streams. Besides the species migrate through estuaries, there are many other fish that use them as nursery grounds for spawning or as places young fish can feed. Herring and plaice are two commercially important species that use the Thames Estuary for this purpose, estuaries are also commonly used as fishing grounds, and as places for fish farming or ranching. Another important brackish water habitat is the swamp or mangal. Many, though not all, mangrove swamps fringe estuaries and lagoons where the salinity changes with each tide, like estuaries, mangrove swamps are extremely important breeding grounds for many fish, with species such as snappers, halfbeaks, and tarpon spawning or maturing among them. Mangroves represent important nesting site for numerous birds groups such as herons, storks, spoonbills, ibises, kingfishers, the Sundarbans and Bhitarkanika Mangroves are two of the large mangrove forests in the world, both on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Some seas and lakes are brackish, the Baltic Sea is a brackish sea adjoining the North Sea. Because the salt water coming in from the sea is denser than freshwater, limited mixing occurs because of the lack of tides and storms, with the result that the fish fauna at the surface is freshwater in composition while that lower down is more marine. Cod are an example of a species found in deep water in the Baltic. The Caspian Sea is the worlds largest lake and contains brackish water with a salinity about one-third that of normal seawater, the Caspian is famous for its peculiar animal fauna, including one of the few non-marine seals and the great sturgeons, a major source of caviar
23.
Velsen
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Velsen is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal, on the north side of the North Sea Canal there is a major steel plant, Tata Steel IJmuiden, formerly known as Koninklijke Hoogovens. The headquarters of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij is located in IJmuiden, the Kennemerstrand beach on the south side of the canal is at the end of the Kennemerboulevard, which runs south of the Seaport Marina. To the south is the beach of Bloemendaal aan Zee, in between is a nude beach. Road tunnels, from north to south, Wijker Tunnel Velser Tunnel next to the railway tunnel, a ferry A road across the lock complex Railway stations, Driehuis, Santpoort Noord, Santpoort Zuid Also there used to be the Fast Flying Ferry to Amsterdam. There used to be a link between IJmuiden and Amsterdam, the IJmondlijn until 1999, when it was closed. Velsen is twinned with the city of Galle in southern Sri Lanka. Media related to Velsen at Wikimedia Commons Official website
24.
Dune
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In physical geography, a dune is a hill of loose sand built by wind or the flow of water. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, formed by interaction with the flow of air or water, most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter slip face in the lee of the wind. The valley or trough between dunes is called a slack, a dune field is an area covered by extensive sand dunes. Dunes occur, for example, in deserts and along some coasts. Some coastal areas have one or more sets of dunes running parallel to the shoreline directly inland from the beach, in most cases, the dunes are important in protecting the land against potential ravages by storm waves from the sea. Although the most widely distributed dunes are those associated with coastal regions, Dunes can form under the action of water flow, and on sand or gravel beds of rivers, estuaries and the sea-bed. The modern word dune came into English from French c,1790, which in turn came from Middle Dutch dūne. Crescent-shaped mounds are generally wider than they are long, the slipfaces are on the concave sides of the dunes. These dunes form under winds that blow consistently from one direction, some types of crescentic dunes move more quickly over desert surfaces than any other type of dune. A group of dunes moved more than 100 metres per year between 1954 and 1959 in Chinas Ningxia Province, and similar speeds have been recorded in the Western Desert of Egypt. The largest crescentic dunes on Earth, with mean crest-to-crest widths of more than three kilometres, are in Chinas Taklamakan Desert. They may be composed of clay, silt, sand, or gypsum, eroded from the floor or shore, transported up the concave side of the dune. Examples in Australia are up to 6.5 km long,1 km wide and they also occur in southern and West Africa, and in parts of the western United States, especially Texas. Straight or slightly sinuous sand ridges typically much longer than they are wide are known as linear dunes and they may be more than 160 kilometres long. Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes, many form in bidirectional wind regimes. The long axes of these dunes extend in the resultant direction of sand movement, linear loess hills known as pahas are superficially similar. These hills appear to have formed during the last ice age under permafrost conditions dominated by sparse tundra vegetation. Radially symmetrical, star dunes are pyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the center of the mound
25.
Coast
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A coastline or a seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean, or a line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the Coastline paradox, the term coastal zone is a region where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs. Both the terms coast and coastal are often used to describe a location or region, for example, New Zealands West Coast. Edinburgh for example is a city on the coast of Scotland, a pelagic coast refers to a coast which fronts the open ocean, as opposed to a more sheltered coast in a gulf or bay. A shore, on the hand, can refer to parts of the land which adjoin any large body of water, including oceans. Similarly, the related term refers to the land alongside or sloping down to a river or to a body of water smaller than a lake. Bank is also used in parts of the world to refer to an artificial ridge of earth intended to retain the water of a river or pond. According to the UN atlas, 44% of people live within 150 kilometres of the sea, tides often determine the range over which sediment is deposited or eroded. Areas with high tidal ranges allow waves to reach farther up the shore, the tidal range is influenced by the size and shape of the coastline. Tides do not typically cause erosion by themselves, however, tidal bores can erode as the waves surge up river estuaries from the ocean. Waves erode coastline as they break on shore releasing their energy, the larger the wave the more energy it releases and the more sediment it moves. Coastlines with longer shores have more room for the waves to disperse their energy, while coasts with cliffs and short shore faces give little room for the wave energy to be dispersed. In these areas the wave energy breaking against the cliffs is higher, sediment deposited by waves comes from eroded cliff faces and is moved along the coastline by the waves. This forms an abrasion or cliffed coast, sediment deposited by rivers is the dominant influence on the amount of sediment located on a coastline. Today riverine deposition at the coast is often blocked by dams and other human regulatory devices, like the ocean which shapes them, coasts are a dynamic environment with constant change. The coast and its adjacent areas on and off shore are an important part of a local ecosystem, Salt marshes and beaches also support a diversity of plants, animals and insects crucial to the food chain. The high level of biodiversity creates a level of biological activity. More and more of the people live in coastal regions
26.
Peninsula
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A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on the majority of its border, while being connected to a mainland from which it extends out. Examples include the upper and lower peninsulas of the state of Michigan, the surrounding water is usually understood to be continuous, though not necessarily named as a single body of water. Peninsulas are not always named as such, one can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, a point is generally considered a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water that is less prominent than a cape. A river which courses through a very tight meander is also said to form a peninsula within the loop of water. In English, the plural of peninsula is peninsulas or, less commonly, peninsulas can be found on coastlines and in smaller bodies of water throughout the world, ranging in scale from square meters to millions of square kilometers. Theres the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe, and in Southern Europe theres the Iberian Peninsula, the Italian Peninsula, south America has the Brunswick Peninsula, and Antarctica has the Antarctic Peninsula. In Africa, theres the Horn of Africa, and in Australia, asia has the 3 largest peninsulas in the world, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Peninsula, and the Indochinese Peninsula
27.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
28.
Arable land
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Arable land is, according to one definition, land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops. In Britain, it was contrasted with pasturable lands such as heaths which could be used for sheep-rearing. A quite different kind of definition is used by various agencies concerned with agriculture, the abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for ‘Arable land’ are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable, a briefer definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary similarly refers to actual, rather than potential use, land worked regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations the worlds Arable land amounted to 1,407 M ha, out of a total 4,924 M ha land used for agriculture, as for year 2013. Agricultural land that is not arable according to the FAO definition above includes, Permanent crop - land that produces crops from woody vegetation, other non-arable land includes land unsuitable for any agricultural use. Although such limitations may preclude cultivation, and some will in some cases preclude any agricultural use, for example, US NRCS statistics indicate that about 59 percent of US non-federal pasture and unforested rangeland is unsuitable for cultivation, yet such land has value for grazing of livestock. Similar examples can be found in many rangeland areas elsewhere, land incapable of being cultivated for production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food, and can reduce starvation and this outcome also makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. This process is extremely expensive. An alternative is the Seawater Greenhouse which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on land close to the sea. The people covered the islands with a layer of seaweed. Israel, The construction of desalination plants along Israels coast allowed agriculture in areas that were formerly desert. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from water, have created a new source of water for farming, drinking. Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients in wood ash, but these expire within a few years, terra preta, fertile tropical soils created by adding charcoal. Some examples of fertile land being turned into infertile land are. Rainforest deforestation, The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land, for example, Madagascars central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren, as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of shifting cultivation practiced by many natives
29.
Haarlemmermeer
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Haarlemmermeer is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is a polder, consisting of land reclaimed from water, and it is one of the largest towns in the Netherlands whose name is not used as the name of a municipality. This town, together with the growing towns of Nieuw-Vennep and Badhoevedorp. The Netherlands main international airport Schiphol is located in Haarlemmermeer, the original Haarlemmer Lake is said to have been mostly a peat bog, a relic of a northern arm of the Rhine which passed through the district in Roman times. The four lakes were formed one by successive floods, with the Haarlemmermeer name being applied to the combined lake. One of those villages was Vennep, after which the modern Nieuw-Vennep was named, in Dutch, the tendency for lakes to grow over time is called the waterwolf. The waterwolf could be a place during storms. It claimed a victim on 7 January 1629, when Frederick Henry of the Palatinate, son and heir of Frederick V. By 1647 the new Haarlemmermeer had an area of about 150 square kilometres, in 1643, Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater proposed to dike and drain the lake. Similar schemes, among which those of Nicolaus Samuel Cruquius in 1742, first, a canal was dug around the lake, fittingly called Ringvaart, to carry the water drainage and boat and ship traffic which had previously gone across the lake. This canal was 61 kilometres long, and 2.40 metres deep, the area enclosed by the canal was more than 180 square kilometres, and the average depth of the lake 4 metres. As the water had no drainage, it was calculated that probably 1000 million tons would have to be raised by mechanical means. All of the pumping was done by steam mills, an innovation contrasting with the practice of draining polders using windmills. Three Cornish beam engines were imported from Hayle, the Leeghwater, the Cruquius, pumping began in 1848, and the lake was dry by July 1,1852,800 million tons were actually discharged. At the first sale of the highest lands along the banks on 16 August 1853, about 28 per acre was paid, the soil is of various kinds, loam, clay, sand, and peat. Most of it is enough, though in the lower portions there are barren patches where the scanty vegetation is covered with an ochreous deposit. Mineral springs occur containing a high percentage of common salt. In 1854, the city of Leiden laid claim to the possession of the new territory, Haarlemmermeer became incorporated as a municipality in the province of North Holland by law on July 16,1855
30.
Haarlem
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Haarlem is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland and is situated at the edge of the Randstad. Haarlem had a population of 155,758 in 2014 and it is a 15-minute train ride from Amsterdam, and many residents commute to the countrys capital for work. Haarlem was granted city status or stadsrechten in 1245, although the first city walls were not built until 1270, the modern city encompasses the former municipality of Schoten as well as parts that previously belonged to Bloemendaal and Heemstede. Apart from the city, the municipality of Haarlem also includes the part of the village of Spaarndam. Newer sections of Spaarndam lie within the municipality of Haarlemmerliede en Spaarnwoude. The city is located on the river Spaarne, about 20 km west of Amsterdam and it has been the historical centre of the tulip bulb-growing district for centuries and bears the nickname Bloemenstad, for this reason. Haarlem has a history dating back to pre-medieval times, as it lies on a thin strip of land above sea level known as the strandwal. The people on this strip of land struggled against the waters of the North Sea from the west, and the waters of the IJ. Haarlem became wealthy with toll revenues that it collected from ships, however, as shipping became increasingly important economically, the city of Amsterdam became the main Dutch city of North Holland during the Dutch Golden Age. The town of Halfweg became a suburb, and Haarlem became a bedroom community. Nowadays many of them are on the Dutch Heritage register known as Rijksmonuments, the list of Rijksmonuments in Haarlem gives an overview of these per neighbourhood, with the majority in the old city centre. The oldest mentioning of Haarlem dates from the 10th century, the name probably comes from Haarlo-heim. This name is composed of three elements, haar, lo and heim, there is not much dispute about the meaning of lo and heim, in Old Dutch toponyms lo always refers to forest and heim to home or house. Haar, however, has several meanings, one of them corresponding with the location of Haarlem on a sand dune, the name Haarlem or Haarloheim would therefore mean home on a forested dune. There was a stream called De Beek, dug from the peat grounds west of the river Spaarne as a drainage canal, over the centuries the Beek was turned into an underground canal, as the city grew larger and the space was needed for construction. Over time it began to silt up and in the 19th century it was filled in, the location of the village was a good one, by the river Spaarne, and by a major road going south to north. By the 12th century it was a town, and Haarlem became the residence of the Counts of Holland
31.
Land reclamation
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Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill, is the process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds, or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as ground or land fill. In a number of jurisdictions, including parts of the United States. In Alberta, Canada, for example, reclamation is defined by the government as The process of reconverting disturbed land to its former or other productive uses. In Oceania it is referred to as land rehabilitation. Land reclamation can be achieved with a number of different methods, the most simple method involves simply filling the area with large amounts of heavy rock and/or cement, then filling with clay and dirt until the desired height is reached. The process is called infilling and the used to fill the space is generically called infill. Draining of submerged wetlands is often used to land for agricultural use. Deep cement mixing is used typically in situations in which the material displaced by either dredging or draining may be contaminated, the creation of new land was for the need of human activities. Notable examples include, Much of the coastlines of Mumbai, India and it took over 150 years to join the original seven islands of Mumbai. Much of the coastlines of Mainland China, Hong Kong, North Korea and it is estimated that nearly 65% of tidal flats around the Yellow Sea have been reclaimed. Inland lowlands in the Yangtze valley, China, including the areas of important cities like Shanghai, Much of the coastline of Karachi, Pakistan. A part of the Hamad International Airport in Qatar, around 36 square kilometres, the entire island of The Pearl-Qatar situated in West Bay, Qatar. The city-state of Singapore, where land is in supply, is also famous for its efforts on land reclamation. The Palm Islands, The World and hotel Burj al-Arab off Dubai in the United Arab Emirates The Yas Island in Abu Dhabi and it is one of the six divisions of Malé City. The Eko Atlantic in Lagos, Nigeria, mexico City, the chinampas are a famous example. Parts of Panama City urban and street development are based on reclaimed land, aeroparque Jorge Newbery, in Buenos Aires, Argentina One of the earliest large scale projects was the Beemster Polder in the Netherlands, realized in 1612 adding 70 square kilometres of land. In Hong Kong the Praya Reclamation Scheme added 20 to 24 hectares of land in 1890 during the phase of construction
32.
Port of Amsterdam
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The port of Amsterdam is a seaport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is the 4th busiest port in Europe by metric tonnes of cargo, the port is located on the bank of a former bay named the IJ and the North Sea Canal, with which it is connected to the North Sea. The port was first used in the 13th century and was one of the ports of the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. Today, the port of Amsterdam is the second largest port in the Netherlands, in 2014, the port of Amsterdam had a cargo throughput of 97.4 million tons, most of which was bulk cargo. The first port activities in Amsterdam date back to the 13th century, the port was first mentioned in the year 1342, when the city of Amsterdam received city rights. In the Dutch Golden Age the port was one of the harbours of the Dutch East India Company. The North Holland Canal, that connects Amsterdam to Den Helder was dug between 1819 and 1824, the North Sea Canal, that connects Amsterdam to IJmuiden, was dug between 1865 and 1876. The port of Amsterdam is located on the banks of the North Sea Canal, in total, the port comprises 620 ha of waterways and 1,995 ha of land area, including port estates, quays, roads, railway tracks, ditches and green space. The port comprises several areas, which are part of the boroughs Westpoort, Westerpark, Centrum. In 2008,6,029 sea vessels visited the port of Amsterdam, with a throughput of 75.8 million tons. That same year, the container volume was 435,129 TEU. Both the number of vessels and the cargo and container throughput increased compared to 2007. In 2008, the revenue was €125.3 million. This is a decrease compared to the revenue and income in 2007. In 2008, the port itself had 361 employees, but the number of employees is circa 55,000. On 7 July 2009, Mrs. Dertje Meijer was appointed as the director of the port by the government of Amsterdam, the Port of Amsterdam is the 3rd biggest Cruiseport in Europe with 140 sea cruise ships and 1500 river cruise ships. Almost 700,000 cruise passengers per year visit Amsterdam, in September 2015, the MSC Splendida visited Amsterdam, at 333.33 meters long and 38 meters wide, it was the biggest cruise ship ever in Amsterdam. It also has won the prize for the International Cruise Port of the Year in 2015, Amsterdam has 2 cruise terminals, the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam in the city center, and one after the locks in IJmuiden
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Port
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A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land. Port locations are selected to optimize access to land and navigable water, for commercial demand, Ports with deeper water are rarer, but can handle larger ships. Since ports throughout history handled every kind of traffic, support and storage facilities vary widely, may extend for miles, some ports have an important military role. One of the worlds oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea, along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have also been found. Guangzhou was an important port during the ancient times as far back as the Qin Dynasty, canopus was the principal port in Egypt for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. Athens port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet, lothal is one of the most prominent cities of the ancient Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt and dating from 3700 BCE. Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius, Ports often have cargo-handling equipment, such as cranes and forklifts for use in loading ships, which may be provided by private interests or public bodies. Often, canneries or other processing facilities will be located nearby, some ports feature canals, which allow ships further movement inland. Access to intermodal transportation, such as railroads and highways, is critical to a port, so that passengers, Ports with international traffic have customs facilities. Harbor pilots and tugboats may maneuver large ships in tight quarters when near docks, the terms port and seaport are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels. An inland port is a port on a lake, river, or canal with access to a sea or ocean. An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Duluth-Superior, a fishing port is a port or harbor for landing and distributing fish. It may be a facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the port that depends on an ocean product. In recent decades, regulations to save fishing stock may limit the use of a fishing port, a dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations. A warm-water port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime, because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest. A seaport is further categorized as a port or a cargo port. Additionally, cruise ports are known as a home port or a port of call
34.
Sailing at the 1928 Summer Olympics
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Sailing/Yachting is an Olympic sport starting from the Games of the 1st Olympiad. With the exception of 1904 and possible 1916 sailing was always a part of the Olympic program, the Sailing program of 1928 consisted of a total of three sailing classes. For each class races were scheduled from 2–9 August 1928 on the Buiten Y near Amsterdam, the sailing was done on the triangular type Olympic courses. Source, As venue for the Amsterdam Olympics the Zuiderzee near Amsterdam was chosen, the organizing committee of the sailing event was the Koninklijk Verbond Nederlandsche Watersport Vereniging. The Olympic harbor Six Harbor was on the North shore of the Y just opposite of the Amsterdam Centraal railway station, the boats were moured in the so-called kinderkamer of the harbor. The Six Harbor was in time the location of the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Zeil- & Roeivereeniging. This resulted that al competing yachts had to go through the locks to enter the Buiten Y, some of the former buildings of the Six Harbor were demolished during the construction of the Amsterdam Metro North-South line. A total of two areas were used for sailing at the Amsterdam Olympics, The courses of the 12 Dinghy were just outside the locks on the buiten Y in front of Durgerdam. For the 6 and 8 Metre the used courses were about 5 nm out of the locks, at that time the Zuiderzee had an open connection with the North Sea. The sea water was salt or at best brackish, waves could be steep and short due to the shallow waters. In 1932 a dam was built between the North Sea and the Zuiderzee and the Zuiderzee was renamed IJsselmeer, as result of this the lake now contains fresh water. Inside the lake new land was reclaimed, at this moment the center of the 19286 and 8 Metre course is located in the city of Almere. Also the city of Amsterdam reclaimed land from the sea and moved towards the lake, when the sailors from the 1928 Summer Olympics could return to their venue they would hardly recognize it. The contestants must be members of a recognized Yacht Club, Officers and Reserve Officers of the Navy or the Mercantile Marine are regarded as amateurs. Wilhelmsen, Norway, Wilhelm Wilhelmsen Jr. in the 8 Metre Netherlands, Yacht designer and boat builder, Netherlands, Willem de Vries Lentsch in the 12 Dinghy Digital Library Collection
35.
1928 Summer Olympics
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The 1928 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the IX Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1928 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Amsterdam had bid for the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games, but had to give way to wartorn Antwerp, Belgium, the only other candidate city for the 1928 Games was Los Angeles, which would host the Olympics four years later. The United States Olympic Committee measured the costs and revenue of the 1928 Games in preparation for the 1932 Summer Olympics. The committee reported a total cost of US$1.183 million with receipts of US$1.165 million for a loss of US$18 and these Olympics were the first to be organised under the IOC presidency of Henri de Baillet-Latour. For the first time, the Olympic Flame was lit during the Olympics, the torch relay, however, would not occur until the 1936 Summer Olympics. For the first time, the parade of nations started with Greece, which holds the origins of the Olympics, and ended with the host country, the Games were officially opened by Prince Hendrik, consort of Queen Wilhelmina, who had authorized him to deputise for her. This was the time a head of state had not personally officiated at an Olympic opening ceremony. The first at the games of 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, in opposition he had refused offers by heads of state to do this, whereas the Queen refused as she was on holiday in Norway and did not want to disrupt her trip. The Queen was furious at the committee for not consulting with her about the opening date. Athletics events were held on a 400-meter track, later becoming the standard for athletics tracks and these games were the first to feature a standard schedule of 16 days, which is still followed. Previously, competition had been stretched out several months. Johnny Weissmuller, who appeared in several Tarzan movies, won two gold medals in swimming. Paavo Nurmi of Finland won his ninth and final medal in the 10,000 m race. Canadas Percy Williams surprised everyone by winning both the 100 m and 200 m sprint events, south American football made a definite breakthrough, as Uruguay retained its title by defeating Argentina. India took its first ever gold in the sport of field hockey, mikio Oda of Japan won the triple jump event with a result of 15.21 meters, becoming the first gold medalist from an Asian country. The then Crown Prince Olav, later King of Norway, was amongst the participants and he won a gold medal in sailing. Pat OCallaghan won newly independent Irelands first ever medal, taking gold in the hammer throw, the first appearance of the sponsor Coca-Cola at the Olympic Games. These games were the first to bear the name Summer Olympic Games, germany returned to the Olympic Games for the first time since 1912, after being banned from the 1920 and 1924 Games
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Sailing at the 1920 Summer Olympics
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Sailing/Yachting is an Olympic sport starting from the Games of the 1st Olympiad. With the exception of 1904 and possible 1916 sailing was always a part of the Olympic program, for each class three races were scheduled from 7 July 1920 to 10 July 1920 off the coast of Ostend at the North Sea. Ostend offers a fair condition for sailing on the North Sea, however, there are tidal conditions the current is reasonable predictable. Local knowledge does not have too much influence of the races, the wind conditions are also good for sailing. However, in the case of the 1920 Summer Olympic regattas the prevailing breeze did not show, most races had to be sailed under light air conditions. An unprecedented and unique Olympic situation happened with the races in the 12 Dinghy, when in the second race one of the marks was taken hostage by the tidal current and went drifting the race had to be nullified. As a result, the first Olympic event held in the Netherlands was not in 1928, as venue of this final the Buiten IJ in Amsterdam was chosen. A maximum of 2 boats per country per class was allowed, Source, Source, The Olympic Sailing event of 1920 was without any doubt the most strangest in history so far. With a program of no less than 16 classes and an entry list that consists of 7 out of 14 classes with just competitor, after World War I the International Sailing Authority had obvious no clue in what direction sailing had developed since 1912. The Nordic countries had developed the Skerry Cruiser classes and the International rule classes had adopted in 1919 a new edition of the rule which was not yet implemented in the countries. Therefore, the entries were open for the old, as well the new rule, besides that, an advice from 1908 was followed by putting two one design classes on the program. By doing this the 1920 Olympics acted as a test laboratory from which the IYRU could draw conclusion for the development of the sport. These lessons learned, not too many different classes and moving towards one design classes, Source, As a result of the First World War, AUT, GER, HUN and TUR were not invited. The agony athletes develop after finishing fourth at the Olympics must have started at the Olympic Sailing event of 1920. The Belgium 6 Metre team of Louis Depiere, Raymond Bauwens and Willy Valcke finished 4th, in the Sailing regattas, Norway took 7 gold medals. This boost put them in the regions of the medal table. They still profit from this boost, during the Sailing regattas at the 1920 Summer Olympics among others the following persons were competing in the various classes, Digital Library Collection
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1920 Summer Olympics
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The 1920 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium. No fixed host city was proposed at the time, the 1916 Summer Olympics, to be held in Berlin, capital of the German Empire, were cancelled due to World War I. Hungary, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were banned from competing in the Games, Germany did not return to Olympic competition until 1928 and instead hosted a series of games called Deutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the Winter edition of 1922. The Sailing events were held in Ostend, Belgium, and two in Amsterdam, Netherlands, no fixed host city was proposed at the time. The organising committee was created on 9 August 1913, Beerschot V. A. C. and Nicolaas Jan Cupérus, president of the Belgian Gymnastics Federation. The first action of the committee was to send a letter to the IOC in Paris. On 13 September 1913, Pierre de Coubertin, president of the IOC, in 1914, a 109-page brochure was created to promote the idea of Antwerp as a host city for the Olympics, Aurons-nous la VIIème Olympiade à Anvers. It was sent to all IOC members and was used during the 6th Olympic Congress in Paris in 1914, where the candidacies of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Budapest, and Rome were discussed. Despite a slight preference at the time for Budapest, no choice was made. In 1915, Lyon made a bid for the 1920 games, the support for Belgium by cousin country France, then the leading country of the IOC, also meant that Amsterdam, and Budapest, in an enemy state, made no chance for the 1920 games against Antwerp. New candidacies from American cities did not have that disadvantage and bids were received from Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, but shortly after the armistice in November 1918, the IOC decided to give Antwerp the first choice, if they still wanted to host the 1920 Games. An executive committee was established on 17 April 1919, with Henri de Baillet-Latour as chairman and Alfred Verdyck, seven commissions were created, to deal with finances, accommodation, press relations, propaganda, schedules, transport, and festivities. Finances and scheduling proved to be the two hardest parts to tackle, the program of events only was published in February 1920, between 23 and 30 April 1920, an ice hockey tournament marked the early start of the Games. Held in the Palais de Glace or Ice Palace in Antwerp, it was the first time that ice hockey was an Olympic sport. The first stone of the new Olympic Stadium at Beerschot was laid on 4 July 1919 by Jan De Vos, mayor of Antwerp, and inaugurated less than a year later on 23 May 1920 with a gymnastics demonstration. The nautical stadium or Stade Nautique dAntwerp was built at the end of the Jan Van Rijswijcklaan, other events, like shooting, boxing, and equestrian sports, were held at pre-existing locations in and around Antwerp and as far away as Ostend. These Olympics were the first in which the Olympic Oath was voiced, the first in which doves were released to symbolize peace, the USA won 41 gold,27 silver, and 27 bronze medals, the most won by any of the 29 nations attending. Sweden, Great Britain, Finland, and Belgium rounded out the five most successful medal-winning nations, the Games also featured a week of winter sports, with figure skating appearing for the first time since the 1908 Olympics, and ice hockey making its Olympic debut
38.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
39.
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
40.
Antwerp Zoo
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Antwerp Zoo is a zoo in the centre of Antwerp, Belgium, located next to the Antwerpen-Centraal railway station. It is the oldest animal park in the country, and one of the oldest in the world, since its foundation, the park has been controlled by De Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Dierkunde van Antwerpen, a society originally called Société Royale de Zoologie dAnvers. This also became the nickname for the zoo, De Zoologie. The initial objective was to encourage zoological and botanical sciences and its first director was renowned zoologist and botanist Jacques Kets. He accepted this position on one condition, a museum had to be built to house his nature-historical collections and this building was inaugurated in 1844 by H. M. King Léopold I. The predicate Royal was added to the name of the society on that occasion, throughout the years, it has encouraged wildlife preservation through activities and exhibits on a recreational, educational, scientific, and cultural level. In its early years, the size of the park grew from less than 1.59 hectares to more than 10.5 hectares, notable buildings from that period are the Egyptian temple and the antelope building in Oriental style, which now houses the okapis. The zoo has also a cultural function, originally, concerts were held in the garden. The museum building was demolished to build a concert hall, the museum collections were moved to the second floor. For the 1920 Summer Olympics, the hosted the boxing and wrestling events. After World War II, the park was turned into a model zoo which conformed to new and modern scientific, educational, cultural. The animal compounds were enlarged and admitted more light, the jubileum complex houses birds of prey and the sea lions. In 1973 a new compound for reptilians was built, and in 1978 a new building for smaller species of monkeys, the older primate building was renovated in 1989. To support its mission, the zoo started with group tours. Around the same time, planetarium exhibits were installed, on 1 January 1983, the animal park was classified as a monument. Ten years later, its 150th anniversary was celebrated and it houses subantarctic penguins and Alaskan sea otters. In spring 1999, the elephant compound was expanded, in 2003, many animals, including hippos, Malayan tapirs, and a number of swamp birds received a new home in Hippotopia. Together with its sister park Planckendael, Antwerp Zoo houses over 7,000 animals of about 950 species, over 1.6 million people visit the zoo and Planckendael each year, and the zoo has around 200,000 supporting members
41.
Beverloo Camp
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Beverloo Camp was a military installation at Leopoldsburg, Belgium,75 km northeast of Antwerp. During World War I, it hosted Belgian and German troops, in 1920 the facilities hosted the pistol and rifle shooting events for the 1920 Summer Olympics. While those events took place, combat engineers detonated grenades four kilometres from the shooting stands, for World War II during the German occupation following the Battle of France,10,000 members of the Hitler Youth forming the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend were trained at the camp. During the war, it was used as a transit camp for the Holocaust. Josef Nassy was imprisoned here during World War II, archived from the original on 2011-11-11. Sports-reference. com Shooting overview of the 1920 Summer Olympics, US Holocaust Museum profile of Josef Nassy. A visit to the camp of Beverloo
42.
IJ (Amsterdam)
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The IJ is a body of water, formerly a bay, in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is known for being Amsterdams waterfront and it is considered a river by Rijkswaterstaat, though some contest this qualification, calling the IJ a lake. Its name is an obsolete Dutch word meaning water, derived from the West Frisian word ie stream, the name consists of the digraph ij, which behaves like a single letter. Therefore, both letters are capitalized, cf. IJmuiden. Today, the IJ is divided into two parts, To the west, the Binnen-IJ, or Afgesloten-IJ, is connected to the North Sea Canal, where the port of IJmuiden. To the east, the Buiten-IJ is an extension of the IJmeer and Markermeer and these two lakes are separated by a set of locks. There are several theories about the origins of the IJ, perhaps it began as a stream, following a breakthrough in the dunes of Castricum. More likely, the IJ is a remnant of an arm of the Rhine delta. Finally, the IJ could also come from the lake Almere or Flevo, during the Roman period the IJ communicated on one side with the lake Flevo and the Vecht and the other with the North Sea. Connection with the North Sea has subsequently disappeared, while the IJ in the Middle Ages has expanded and this is due to the emergence of the Zuiderzee, itself a bay of the North Sea resulting from a number of storms. At the end of the Middle Ages, the IJ was a long and narrow brackish bay that connected to the Zuiderzee, at the same time, the bay gnawed away at the surrounding farmlands, almost connecting with the Haarlemmermeer and seriously threatening the cities of Haarlem and Amsterdam. Plans were put forth to reclaim both the Haarlemmermeer and the IJ and turn them into polders, at the same time, the North Sea Canal was constructed in the former IJ basin to provide Amsterdam with access to the sea again and revive its ailing port. It cut through the isthmus to connect to the North Sea near the town of Velsen, the east end of the IJ polders near Amsterdam was given over to industry, and a large new seaport area was constructed. The Buiten-IJ hosted the mixed dinghy sailing events for the 1928 Summer Olympics in neighboring Amsterdam and it also hosted two events for the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. 1928 Summer Olympics official report, featuring map of the Buiten IJ. pp. 271–2,274, website Historical ferries Sports-Reference. com 1920 Summer Olympics sailing mixed 12-foot results. Sports-Reference. com 1928 Summer Olympics sailing mixed dinghy results
43.
Egmont Palace
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The Egmont Palace is a large mansion at the Rue aux Laines and the Petit Sablon Square in Brussels, Belgium. Today it houses the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egmont Palace is situated at an elevation of 69 meters. It was built between 1548 and 1560 by Françoise of Luxembourg and her son, Lamoral, Count of Egmont, first in Flemish Gothic style, later Renaissance. The fabric was dramatically transformed in the 18th century, when the building was clothed in Neoclassical style, while the property passed onto the Arenberg family, the plans for this stage are attributed to the early advocate of neoclassicism, Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni. After a fire demolished the oldest part of the building in 1891, the venue hosted the fencing events for the 1920 Summer Olympics in the garden. After World War I, the owner, the German Arenberg family, was forced to sell the building to the city of Brussels, in 1964 it was sold to the Belgian state. In 1977, the Egmont pact on the Belgian state reform was signed in the Egmont Palace during the administration of Leo Tindemans. Today, it is being used for receptions and meetings by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations Egmont Conference Centre
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Brussels
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Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the region of Flanders or Wallonia. The region has a population of 1.2 million and an area with a population of over 1.8 million. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, the secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are also located in Brussels. Today, it is considered an Alpha global city, historically a Dutch-speaking city, Brussels has seen a language shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today, the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages, Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. The most common theory of the origin of Brussels name is that it derives from the Old Dutch Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning marsh, Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695 when it was still a hamlet. The origin of the settlement that was to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580. The official founding of Brussels is usually situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to the Saint Gaugericus chapel, Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven gained the County of Brussels around 1000 by marrying Charles daughter, as it grew to a population of around 30,000, the surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion. The Counts of Leuven became Dukes of Brabant at about this time, in the 13th century, the city got its first walls. After the construction of the city walls in the early 13th century, to let the city expand, a second set of walls was erected between 1356 and 1383. Today, traces of it can still be seen, mostly because the small ring, Brabant had lost its independence, but Brussels became the Princely Capital of the prosperous Low Countries, and flourished. In 1516 Charles V, who had been heir of the Low Countries since 1506, was declared King of Spain in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. Upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and it was in the Palace complex at Coudenberg that Charles V abdicated in 1555. This impressive palace, famous all over Europe, had expanded since it had first become the seat of the Dukes of Brabant. In 1695, during the Nine Years War, King Louis XIV of France sent troops to bombard Brussels with artillery, together with the resulting fire, it was the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels
