Flag of Japan
The national flag of Japan is a rectangular white banner bearing a crimson-red disc at its center. This flag is called Nisshōki, but is more known in Japan as Hinomaru, it embodies the country's sobriquet: Land of the Rising Sun. The Nisshōki flag is designated as the national flag in the Law Regarding the National Flag and National Anthem, promulgated and became effective on August 13, 1999. Although no earlier legislation had specified a national flag, the sun-disc flag had become the de facto national flag of Japan. Two proclamations issued in 1870 by the Daijō-kan, the governmental body of the early Meiji period, each had a provision for a design of the national flag. A sun-disc flag was adopted as the national flag for merchant ships under Proclamation No. 57 of Meiji 3, as the national flag used by the Navy under Proclamation No. 651 of Meiji 3. Use of the Hinomaru was restricted during the early years of the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II; the sun plays an important role in Japanese mythology and religion as the Emperor is said to be the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu and the legitimacy of the ruling house rested on this divine appointment and descent from the chief deity of the predominant Shinto religion.
The name of the country as well as the design of the flag reflect this central importance of the sun. The ancient history Shoku Nihongi says that Emperor Monmu used a flag representing the sun in his court in 701, this is the first recorded use of a sun-motif flag in Japan; the oldest existing flag is preserved in Unpō-ji temple, Kōshū, older than the 16th century, an ancient legend says that the flag was given to the temple by Emperor Go-Reizei in the 11th century. During the Meiji Restoration, both the sun disc and the Rising Sun Ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy became major symbols in the emerging Japanese Empire. Propaganda posters and films depicted the flag as a source of pride and patriotism. In Japanese homes, citizens were required to display the flag during national holidays and other occasions as decreed by the government. Different tokens of devotion to Japan and its Emperor featuring the Hinomaru motif became popular during the Second Sino-Japanese War and other conflicts; these tokens ranged from slogans written on the flag to clothing items and dishes that resembled the flag.
Public perception of the national flag varies. Both Western and Japanese sources claimed the flag was a powerful and enduring symbol to the Japanese. Since the end of World War II, the use of the flag and the national anthem Kimigayo has been a contentious issue for Japan's public schools. Disputes about their use have led to lawsuits; the flag is not displayed in Japan due to its association with ultranationalism. To some Okinawans, the flag represents the events of World War II and the subsequent U. S. military presence there. For some nations that have been occupied by Japan, the flag is a symbol of aggression and imperialism; the Hinomaru was used as a tool against occupied nations for purposes of intimidation, asserting Japan's dominance, or subjugation. Several military banners of Japan are based including the sunrayed naval ensign; the Hinomaru serves as a template for other Japanese flags in public and private use. The exact origin of the Hinomaru is unknown, but the rising sun seems to have had some symbolic meaning since the early 7th century.
In 607, an official correspondence that began with "from the Emperor of the rising sun" was sent to Chinese Emperor Yang of Sui. Japan is referred to as "the land of the rising sun". In the 12th-century work, The Tale of the Heike, it was written that different samurai carried drawings of the sun on their fans. One legend related to the national flag is attributed to the Buddhist priest Nichiren. During a 13th-century Mongolian invasion of Japan, Nichiren gave a sun banner to the shōgun to carry into battle; the sun is closely related to the Imperial family, as legend states the imperial throne was descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu. One of Japan's oldest flags is housed at the Unpo-ji temple in Yamanashi Prefecture. Legend states it was given by Emperor Go-Reizei to Minamoto no Yoshimitsu and has been treated as a family treasure by the Takeda clan for the past 1,000 years, at least it is older than 16th century; the earliest recorded flags in Japan date from the unification period in the late 16th century.
The flags belonged to each daimyō and were used in battle. Most of the flags were long banners charged with the mon of the daimyō lord. Members of the same family, such as a son and brother, had different flags to carry into battle; the flags served as identification, were displayed by soldiers on their backs and horses. Generals had their own flags, most of which differed from soldiers' flags due to their square shape. In 1854, during the Tokugawa shogunate, Japanese ships were ordered to hoist the Hinomaru to distinguish themselves from foreign ships. Before different types of Hinomaru flags were used on vessels that were trading with the U. S. and Russia. The Hinomaru was decreed the merchant flag of Japan in 1870 and was the legal national flag from 1870 to 1885, making it the first national flag Japan adopted. While the idea of national symbols was strange to the Japanese, the Meiji Government needed them to communicate with the outside world; this became important after the landin
National Diet
The National Diet is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house called the House of Representatives, an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under parallel voting systems. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally responsible for selecting the Prime Minister; the Diet was first convened as the Imperial Diet in 1889 as a result of adopting the Meiji Constitution. The Diet took its current form in 1947 upon the adoption of the post-war constitution, which considers it the highest organ of state power; the National Diet Building is in Nagatachō, Tokyo. The houses of the Diet are both elected under parallel voting systems; this means that the seats to be filled in any given election are divided into two groups, each elected by a different method. Voters are asked to cast two votes: one for an individual candidate in a constituency, one for a party list. Any national of Japan at least 18 years of age may vote in these elections.
The age of 18 replaced 20 in 2016. Japan's parallel voting system is not to be confused with the Additional Member System used in many other nations; the Constitution of Japan does not specify the number of members of each house of the Diet, the voting system, or the necessary qualifications of those who may vote or be returned in parliamentary elections, thus allowing all of these things to be determined by law. However it does guarantee universal adult suffrage and a secret ballot, it insists that the electoral law must not discriminate in terms of "race, sex, social status, family origin, property or income". The election of Diet members is controlled by statutes passed by the Diet; this is a source of contention concerning re-apportionment of prefectures' seats in response to changes of population distribution. For example, the Liberal Democratic Party had controlled Japan for most of its post-war history, it gained much of its support from rural areas. During the post-war era, large numbers of people were relocating to the urban centers in the seeking of wealth.
The Supreme Court of Japan began exercising judicial review of apportionment laws following the Kurokawa decision of 1976, invalidating an election in which one district in Hyōgo Prefecture received five times the representation of another district in Osaka Prefecture. The Supreme Court has since indicated that the highest electoral imbalance permissible under Japanese law is 3:1, that any greater imbalance between any two districts is a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. In recent elections the malapportionment ratio amounted to 4.8 in the House of Councillors and 2.3 in the House of Representatives. Candidates for the lower house must be 25 years old or older and 30 years or older for the upper house. All candidates must be Japanese nationals. Under Article 49 of Japan's Constitution, Diet members are paid about ¥1.3 million a month in salary. Each lawmaker is entitled to employ three secretaries with taxpayer funds, free Shinkansen tickets, four round-trip airplane tickets a month to enable them to travel back and forth to their home districts.
Article 41 of the Constitution describes the National Diet as "the highest organ of State power" and "the sole law-making organ of the State". This statement is in forceful contrast to the Meiji Constitution, which described the Emperor as the one who exercised legislative power with the consent of the Diet; the Diet's responsibilities include not only the making of laws but the approval of the annual national budget that the government submits and the ratification of treaties. It can initiate draft constitutional amendments, which, if approved, must be presented to the people in a referendum; the Diet may conduct "investigations in relation to government". The Prime Minister must be designated by Diet resolution, establishing the principle of legislative supremacy over executive government agencies; the government can be dissolved by the Diet if it passes a motion of no confidence introduced by fifty members of the House of Representatives. Government officials, including the Prime Minister and Cabinet members, are required to appear before Diet investigative committees and answer inquiries.
The Diet has the power to impeach judges convicted of criminal or irregular conduct. In most circumstances, in order to become law a bill must be first passed by both houses of the Diet and promulgated by the Emperor; this role of the Emperor is similar to the Royal Assent in some other nations. The House of Representatives is the more powerful chamber of the Diet. While the House of Representatives cannot overrule the House of Councillors on a bill, the House of Councillors can only delay the adoption of a budget or a treaty, approved by the House of Representatives, the House of Councillors has no power at all to prevent the lower house from selecting any Prime Minister it wishes. Furthermore, once appointed it is the confidence of the House of Representatives alone that the Prime Minister must enjoy in order to continue in office; the House of Representatives can overrule the upper house in the following circumstances: If a bill is adopted by the House of Representatives and either rejected, amended or not approved within 60 days by th
Yamagata Aritomo
Prince Yamagata Aritomo known as Yamagata Kyōsuke, was a Japanese field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and twice Prime Minister of Japan. He was one of the main architects of the political foundations of early modern Japan. Yamagata Aritomo can be seen as the father of Japanese militarism. Yamagata was born in a lower-ranked samurai family from Hagi, the capital of the feudal domain of Chōshū, he went to Shokasonjuku, a private school run by Yoshida Shōin, where he devoted his energies to the growing underground movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a commander in the Kiheitai, a paramilitary organization created on semi-western lines by the Chōshū domain. During the Boshin War, the revolution of 1867 and 1868 called the Meiji Restoration, he was a staff officer. After the defeat of the Tokugawa, Yamagata together with Saigō Tsugumichi was selected by the leaders of the new government to go to Europe in 1869 to research European military systems. Yamagata like many Japanese was influenced by the striking success of Prussia in transforming itself from an agricultural state to a leading industrial and military power.
He accepted Prussian political ideas, which favored military expansion abroad and authoritarian government at home. On returning he was asked to organize a national army for Japan, he became War Minister in 1873. Yamagata energetically modernized the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army, modeled it after the Prussian Army, he began a system of military conscription in 1873. As War Minister, Yamagata pushed through the foundation of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff, the main source of Yamagata's political power and that of other military officers through the end of World War I, he was Chief of the Army General Staff in 1878–1882, 1884–85 and 1904-1905. Yamagata in 1877 led the newly modernized Imperial Army against the Satsuma Rebellion led by his former comrade in revolution, Saigō Takamori of Satsuma. At the end of the war, when Saigo's severed head was brought to Yamagata, he ordered it washed, held the head in his arms as he pronounced a meditation on the fallen hero, he prompted Emperor Meiji to write the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, in 1882.
This document was considered the moral core of the Japanese Army and Naval forces until their dissolution in 1945. Yamagata was awarded the rank of field marshal in 1898, he showed his leadership on military issues as acting War Minister and Commanding General during the First Sino-Japanese War. He was the political and military ideological ancestor of the Hokushin-ron as he traced the first lines of a national defensive strategy against Russia after Russo-Japanese War. Yamagata was one of the group of seven political leaders called the genrō, who came to dominate the government of Japan; the word can be translated senior statesmen. The genrō were a subset of the revolutionary leaders who shared common objectives and who by about 1880 had forced out or isolated the other original leaders; these seven men led Japan for many years, through its great transformation from an agricultural country into a modern military and industrial state. All the genrō served at various times as cabinet ministers, most were at times prime minister.
As a body, the genrō had no official status, they were trusted advisers to the Emperor. Yet the genrō made collectively the most important decisions, such as peace and war and foreign policy, when a cabinet resigned they chose the new prime minister. In the twentieth century their power diminished because of deaths and quarrels among themselves, the growing political power of the Army and Navy, but the genrō clung to the power of naming prime ministers up to the death of the last genrō Prince Saionji in 1940. Yamagata and Itō Hirobumi were long the most prominent of the seven, after the assassination of Itō in 1909, Yamagata dominated the genrō, but Yamagata held a large and devoted power base in the officers of the army and the militarists. He became the towering leader of Japanese conservatives, he profoundly distrusted all democratic institutions, he devoted the part of his life to building and defending the power the political power, of the army. During his long and versatile career, Yamagata held numerous important governmental posts.
In 1882, he became president of the Board of Legislation and as Home Minister he worked vigorously to suppress political parties and repress agitation in the labor and agrarian movements. He organized a system of local administration, based on a prefecture-county-city structure, still in use in Japan today. In 1883 Yamagata was appointed to the post of Lord Chancellor, the highest bureaucratic position in the government system before the Meiji Constitution of 1889. Yamagata became the third Prime Minister of Japan after the creation of the Cabinet of Japan from December 24, 1889 to May 6, 1891, he became the first prime minister who had to share power with a partially-elected Imperial Diet under the Meiji Constitution that took effect in 1890. During his first term, the Imperial Rescript on Education was issued. In order to pass a budget for fiscal 1891, he had to negotiate with a liberal majority in the House of Representatives, the elected lower house of the Diet. Yamagata became Prime Minister for a second term from November 8, 1898 to October 19, 1900.
In 1900, while in his second term as Prime Minister, he ruled that only an active military officer could serve
Kazoku
The Kazoku was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ancient court nobility of Kyoto, the Kuge, regained some of its lost status. Several members of the kuge, such as Iwakura Tomomi and Nakayama Tadayasu, played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate, the early Meiji government nominated kuge to head all seven of the newly established administrative departments; the Meiji oligarchs, as part of their Westernizing reforms, merged the kuge with the former daimyōs into an expanded aristocratic class on 25 July 1869, to recognize that the kuge and former daimyō were a social class distinct from the other designated social classes of shizoku and heimin. Itō Hirobumi, one of the principal authors of the Meiji constitution, intended the new kazoku peerage to serve as a political and social bulwark for the "restored" emperor and the Japanese imperial institution. At the time, the kuge and former daimyō consisted of a group of 427 families.
All members of the kazoku without an official government appointment in the provinces were obliged to reside in Tokyo. By the end of 1869, a pension system was adopted, which displaced the kazoku from their posts as provincial governors and as government leaders; the stipends promised by the government were replaced by government bonds. Under the Peerage Act of 7 July 1884, pushed through by Home Minister and future first Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi after visiting Europe, the Meiji government expanded the hereditary peerage with the award of kazoku status to persons regarded as having performed outstanding services to the nation; the government divided the kazoku into five ranks explicitly based on the British peerage, but with titles deriving from the ancient Chinese nobility: Prince, the equivalent of a Duke Marquess Count Viscount Baron There were several categories within the kazoku. The initial rank distribution for kazoku houses of kuge descent depended on the highest possible office to which its ancestors had been entitled in the imperial court.
Thus, the heirs of the five regent houses of the Fujiwara dynasty all became princes, the equivalent of a European duke, upon the establishment of the kazoku in 1884. The heads of eight other families all with the rank of seiga, the second rank in the kuge, became marquesses at the same time; those family with the rank of daijin became counts. Other appointments to the two highest ranks in the kazoku - prince and marquess - from amongst the kuge were made to reward certain kuge families for their roles in the Meiji Restoration, for taking a prominent role in national affairs or for their close degree of relationship to the Imperial family, thus the head of the seiga-ranked Sanjo house became a prince in 1884. In recognition of his father's role in the Meiji Restoration, Iwakura Tomosada, the heir of noble Iwakura Tomomi and whose family had been in the fourth tier of kuge nobility with the rank of urin was ennobled as a prince in 1884. Nakayama Tadayasu, the Meiji Emperor's maternal grandfather and from an urin-ranked family, was ennobled as a marquess.
The head of the Shō family, the former royal family of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, was given the title of marquess. When the Korean Empire was annexed in 1910, the House of Yi was mediatized as an incorporated and therefore subordinate kingship. Excluding the Tokugawas, the initial kazoku rank distribution for the former daimyō lords depended on rice revenue: those with 150,000 koku or more became marquesses, those with 50,000 koku or more become counts, those with holdings rated below 50,000 koku became viscounts; the head of the Tokugawa clan, Tokugawa Iesato, became a prince, the heads of primary Tokugawa branch houses became marquesses, the heads of the secondary branches became counts and the heads of more distant branches became viscounts. The head of the Matsudaira branch was raised to the rank of marquess from the rank of count in 1888. In 1902, the former shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu was created a prince, the head of the Mito shinpan house was raised to the same rank, prince, in 1929. Of the other former daimyō clans, the heads of the Mōri and Shimazu clans were both ennobled as princes in 1884 for their role in the Meiji Restoration.
The heads of the main Asano, Kuroda, Nabeshima, Hachisuka and Maeda clans became marquesses in 1884. Notably, the head of the main family line of the Date clan, which had ruled the extensive Sendai Domain, was only ennobled as a count and was thus denied a hereditary seat in the House of Peers. In 1891, the head of the Date-Uwajima family, a cadet branch of the clan which had remained loyal to the Emperor during the conflict, was raised to t
Demography of the Empire of Japan
This article deals with the population of the Empire of Japan. See demographics of Japan and demographics of Japan before Meiji Restoration; the population of Japan at the time of the Meiji Restoration was estimated to be 34,985,000 on January 1, 1873, while the official original family registries and de facto populations on the same day were 33,300,644 and 33,416,939, respectively. These were comparable to the population of the United Kingdom and Austria-Hungary. Meiji government established the uniformed registered system of koseki in 1872, called Jinshin koseki; the first national census based on a full sampling of inhabitants was conducted in Japan in 1920 and was conducted every five years thereafter. Per the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the population distribution of Japan proper from 1920 to 1945 is as follows The total fertility rate is the number of children born per woman, it is based on good data for the entire period. Sources: Our World In Data and Gapminder Foundation.
The above figures include Hokkaidō, the northernmost island, sparsely populated, with area similar to the state of Maine. In Japan proper, the population of major cities was as follows: In 1937 Japanese demographers projected the Japanese population in 1980 to reach 100,000,000, in accordance with observed growth rates. Japan annexed Taiwan after the First Sino-Japanese War, while victory in the Russo-Japanese War gained Japan the Kwantung Leased Territory and Korea; these acquisitions increased the area controlled by Japanese to 262,912 square miles. The total population of the Empire of Japan, including Taiwan and Karafuto was 64,940,034 on Dec 31, 1908, which could be broken down as follows: Japan proper: 51,742,486 Korea: 9,918,566 Taiwan: 3,252,589 Karafuto: 26,393And the population of concessions as of Dec 31, 1908, was as follows: Kwantung: 427,117 Railway Zone: 28,307The census population in 1940 was: Japan proper: 73,114,308 Korea: 24,327,326 Formosa: 5,746,959 Karafuto: 339,357 Kwantung: 1,889,123 South Seas Mandate: 161,792 Total: 105,226,202 In terms of cities, the population of major cities: The population of Manchuria in early 1934 was estimated at 30,880,000.
These numbers included 30,190,000 Chinese, 590,760 Japanese, 98,431 other nationalities. The Chinese numbers included 680,000 ethnic Koreans. In 1937, shortly after the foundation of Manchukuo, the government launched a twenty-year colonization program, with the goal of increasing the population through the immigration of 1,000,000 Japanese families between 1936 and 1956; this was in addition to the Japanese military garrison of 300,000 men in 1937. Between 1938 and 1942 a contingent of young farmers of 200,000 arrived in Manchukuo. In Shinkyō Japanese made up 25% of the population. By 1940, the total population of Manchukuo was estimated at 36,933,000, which included 1 million Japanese civilian and 500,000 Japanese military personnel; these figures exclude that of the Kwantung Leased Territory and Dalian, which were included within that of the Japanese overseas territories. Taeuber Irene B. and Beal, Edwin G. The Demographic Heritage of the Japanese Empire, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 237, World Population in Transition, pp. 64–71 Population of Japan, Statistics Bureau Kindai Digital Library at the National Diet Libray of Japan Imperial Japan Static Population Statistics as of December 31, 1908 Japan Registered Population Tables as of January 1, 1874 DSpace at Waseda University Kokudaka and population Table Boys, Anthony FF, World Population, 2000 Wendell Cox Consultancy New York Times, Mar 2, 1921 Asian Population Statistics
Ho an den
In Imperial Japan, between the 1910s and 1945, a Hō-an-den was a small shrine- or temple-like building that housed a photograph of the incumbent Emperor and Empress together with a copy of the Imperial Rescript on Education. A Hō-an-den was installed at elementary schools, though at a number of other institutions; this served as a place for the veneration of the Emperor of Japan. Dissemination of photographs of the Emperor and Empress of Japan started after the publication of the Imperial Rescript on Education on 30 October 1890; this 315 character document was read aloud at all important school events, pupils were required to study and memorize the text. On ceremonial days, such as National Foundation Day, the Emperor's Birthday and New Year's Day, it was customary to make a deep, respectful bow to the photograph of the Emperor and Empress. In the Taishō era and Shōwa era before the end of World War II, the birthday of Emperor Meiji, November 3, was an additional day of celebration. On these occasions, the school principal read the Imperial Rescript on Education.
All, when passing in front of the Hō-an-den, were required to take a deep bow, correcting their uniforms. Earlier, a Hō-an-sho was established in elementary schools, inside the auditorium or in the teachers' office. However, there were cases of fires. In the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, some photographs burned and principals committed suicide in atonement; as a separate structure, there were various types of Hō-an-den, including a Greek temple-style and Shinto shrine type. In 1933, there was a Hō-an-den competition. In elementary schools, independent small buildings or Hō-an-den were preferred, while in higher schools such as middle schools, a hō-an-ko or safe might be preferred, installed within the existing school buildings; the standard Hō-an-den should be built near the principal's office, staff room or duty room, outside the building. The Ho-an-den should be equipped with a safe-type door, the interior should be resistant to fire and earthquake, with asbestos, covered inside with wood such as Chamaecyparis obtusa or Paulownia tomentosa.
The height of the container for the photograph was to be 50 cm. The maintenance of the photographs of the Emperor and Empress was the utmost duty of the principal of the schools. There were cases of principals committing suicide when the photograph of the Emperor and Empress was burned; because of marked humidity within the Ho-an-den, some photographs became stained, in that case, a written explanation was necessary. In the early part of the 1940s, a Ho-an-den was erected inside Tama Zenshoen Sanatorium, a leprosarium. After the end of World War II, educational reforms were issued by the GHQ, namely the prohibition of the support of National shintoism on November 15 and the return of the photographs of the Emperor and Empress on December 28, the order of the destruction of the Hō-an-den. Many Hō-an-den were destroyed or buried, while a small number of them were left as they were, some of them were designated as local war memorials; because Hō-an-den were so built, Kumamoto city ordered that the roof parts should be destroyed and the feeling of sacred places should not be left, it might be left if it was used for the purpose of warehouses.
There were ceremonies. The copies of the Imperial Rescript on Education, distributed in Kumamoto Prefecture were brought back to the building of the Ministry of Education in September 1948, while the photographs of the Emperor and the Empress were collected and burned in a ceremony on February 2, 1946 at Sekidai Elementary School. In Okinawa, teachers held a burning ceremony of photographs of the Emperor and the Empress. In Miyakojima, Okinawa, it was on August 31, 1945; some Hō-an-den were transferred to other places such as shrines. A number are now used as memorial monuments to the deceased. Preserved Hō-an-den may be found not only within the current territorial boundaries of Japan, but in Sakhalin and Brazil. In Kumamoto Prefecture, five Hō-an-den and one Hō-an-ko have been recorded. Twelve surviving examples have been registered for protection as Tangible Cultural Properties. Education in the Empire of Japan Ningen-sengen Japanization Fumio Uemura, Kumamoto no Senso Iseki, 2010, Soshisha, ISBN 978-4-902227-10-9 National Hansen's disease Museum, Zensei Byoin wo Aruku, 2010, National Hansen's disease Museum, Japan.
Masaji Nakasone, Sakishima no 8 gatsu 15 nichi in Ryukyu Shimpo Aug. 14, 1998. Kumamoto City, Shin-Kumamoto-shi, 2003, Tsū-shi hen Vol. 7, Kinsei 3. Kumamoto City
Rome
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2, it is the country's most populated comune, it is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber; the Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been defined as capital of two states. Rome's history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe; the city's early population originated from a mix of Latins and Sabines.
The city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, is regarded by some as the first metropolis. It was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, the expression was taken up by Ovid and Livy. Rome is called the "Caput Mundi". After the fall of the Western Empire, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome fell under the political control of the Papacy, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance all the popes since Nicholas V pursued over four hundred years a coherent architectural and urban programme aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city.
In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city. In 2016, Rome ranked as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, the most popular tourist attraction in Italy, its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The famous Vatican Museums are among the world's most visited museums while the Colosseum was the most popular tourist attraction in world with 7.4 million visitors in 2018. Host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is the seat of several specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development; the city hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean as well as the headquarters of many international business companies such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p. A. and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL.
Its business district, called EUR, is the base of many companies involved in the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, financial services. Rome is an important fashion and design centre thanks to renowned international brands centered in the city. Rome's Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies. According to the founding myth of the city by the Ancient Romans themselves, the long-held tradition of the origin of the name Roma is believed to have come from the city's founder and first king, Romulus. However, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was derived from Rome itself; as early as the 4th century, there have been alternative theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. Several hypotheses have been advanced focusing on its linguistic roots which however remain uncertain: from Rumon or Rumen, archaic name of the Tiber, which in turn has the same root as the Greek verb ῥέω and the Latin verb ruo, which both mean "flow". There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from 14,000 years ago, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.
Evidence of stone tools and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence. Several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age, each hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village. However, none of them had yet an urban quality. Nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city developed through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine; this aggregation was facilitated by the increase of agricultural productivity above the subsistence level, which allowed the establishment of secondary and tertiary activities. These in turn boosted the development of trade with the Greek colonies of southern Italy; these developments, which according to archaeological ev
