Spain
Spain the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located in Europe. Its continental European territory is situated on the Iberian Peninsula, its territory includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country. Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are part of Spanish territory; the country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar. With an area of 505,990 km2, Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the fifth in the European Union. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Spn or Spania.
At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe, invaded the Iberian peninsula and established independent realms in its western provinces, including the Suebi and Vandals. The Visigoths would forcibly integrate all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces, into the Kingdom of Toledo, which more or less unified politically and all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was documented as Hispania. In the early eighth century the Visigothic Kingdom fell to the Moors of the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate, who arrived to rule most of the peninsula in the year 726, leaving only a handful of small Christian realms in the north and lasting up to seven centuries in the Kingdom of Granada; this led to many wars during a long reconquering period across the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the creation of the Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Navarre as the main Christian kingdoms to face the invasion.
Following the Moorish conquest, Europeans began a gradual process of retaking the region known as the Reconquista, which by the late 15th century culminated in the emergence of Spain as a unified country under the Catholic Monarchs. Until Aragon had been an independent kingdom, which had expanded toward the eastern Mediterranean, incorporating Sicily and Naples, had competed with Genoa and Venice. In the early modern period, Spain became the world's first global empire and the most powerful country in the world, leaving a large cultural and linguistic legacy that includes more than 570 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. During the Golden Age there were many advancements in the arts, with world-famous painters such as Diego Velázquez; the most famous Spanish literary work, Don Quixote, was published during the Golden Age. Spain hosts the world's third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state.
It is a major developed country and a high income country, with the world's fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations, the European Union, the Eurozone, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Schengen Area, the World Trade Organization and many other international organisations. While not an official member, Spain has a "Permanent Invitation" to the G20 summits, participating in every summit, which makes Spain a de facto member of the group; the origins of the Roman name Hispania, from which the modern name España was derived, are uncertain due to inadequate evidence, although it is documented that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians referred to the region as Spania, therefore the most accepted etymology is a Semitic-Phoenician one.
Down the centuries there have been a number of accounts and hypotheses: The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning "city of the western world". Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term span is the Phoenician word spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged", it may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning "island of rabbits", "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean. The word in question means "Hyrax" due to Phoenicians confusing the two animals. Hispania may derive from the poetic use of the term Hesperia, reflecting the Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" (Hesperia
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the most easterly province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it comprises the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador to the northwest, with a combined area of 405,212 square kilometres. In 2018, the province's population was estimated at 525,073. About 92% of the province's population lives on the island of Newfoundland, of whom more than half live on the Avalon Peninsula; the province is Canada's most linguistically homogeneous, with 97.0% of residents reporting English as their mother tongue in the 2016 census. Newfoundland was home to unique varieties of French and Irish, as well as the extinct Beothuk language. In Labrador, the indigenous languages Innu-aimun and Inuktitut are spoken. Newfoundland and Labrador's capital and largest city, St. John's, is Canada's 20th-largest census metropolitan area and is home to 40 percent of the province's population. St. John's is the seat of government, home to the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador and to the highest court in the jurisdiction, the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal.
A former colony and dominion of the United Kingdom, Newfoundland gave up its independence in 1933, following significant economic distress caused by the Great Depression and the aftermath of Newfoundland's participation in World War I. It became the tenth province to enter the Canadian Confederation on March 31, 1949, as "Newfoundland". On December 6, 2001, an amendment was made to the Constitution of Canada to change the province's name to Newfoundland and Labrador; the name "New founde lande" was uttered by King Henry VII in reference to the land explored by the Cabots. In Portuguese it is Terra Nova, which means "new land", the French name for the Province's island region; the name "Terra Nova" is in wide use on the island. The influence of early Portuguese exploration is reflected in the name of Labrador, which derives from the surname of the Portuguese navigator João Fernandes Lavrador. Labrador's name in the Inuttitut language is Nunatsuak, meaning "the big land". Newfoundland's Inuttitut name is Ikkarumikluak meaning "place of many shoals".
Newfoundland and Labrador is the most easterly province in Canada, is at the north-eastern corner of North America. The Strait of Belle Isle separates the province into two geographical parts: Labrador, a large area of mainland Canada, Newfoundland, an island in the Atlantic Ocean; the province includes over 7,000 tiny islands. Newfoundland is triangular; each side is about 400 km long, its area is 108,860 km2. Newfoundland and its neighbouring small islands have an area of 111,390 km2. Newfoundland extends between latitudes 46°36′N and 51°38′N. Labrador is an irregular shape: the western part of its border with Quebec is the drainage divide of the Labrador Peninsula. Lands drained by rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean are part of Labrador, the rest belongs to Quebec. Most of Labrador's southern boundary with Quebec follows the 52nd parallel of latitude. Labrador's extreme northern tip, at 60°22′N, shares a short border with Nunavut. Labrador's area is 294,330 km2. Together and Labrador make up 4.06% of Canada's area, with a total area of 405,720 km2.
Labrador is the easternmost part of the Canadian Shield, a vast area of ancient metamorphic rock comprising much of northeastern North America. Colliding tectonic plates have shaped much of the geology of Newfoundland. Gros Morne National Park has a reputation as an outstanding example of tectonics at work, as such has been designated a World Heritage Site; the Long Range Mountains on Newfoundland's west coast are the northeasternmost extension of the Appalachian Mountains. The north-south extent of the province, prevalent westerly winds, cold ocean currents and local factors such as mountains and coastline combine to create the various climates of the province. Northern Labrador is classified as a polar tundra climate, southern Labrador has a subarctic climate, while most of Newfoundland has a humid continental climate: cool summer subtype. Newfoundland and Labrador has a wide range of climates and weather, due to its geography; the island of Newfoundland spans 5 degrees of latitude, comparable to the Great Lakes.
The province has been divided into six climate types, but broadly Newfoundland has a cool summer subtype of a humid continental climate, influenced by the sea since no part of the island is more than 100 km from the ocean. Northern Labrador is classified as a polar tundra climate, southern Labrador has a subarctic climate. Monthly average temperatures and snowfall for four places are shown in the attached graphs. St. John's represents the east coast, Gander the interior of the island, Corner Brook the west coast of the island and Wabush the interior of Labrador. Climate data for 56 places in the province is available from Environment Canada; the data for the graphs is the average over thirty years. Error bars on the temperature graph indicate the range of daytime highs and night time lows. Snowfall is the total amount that fell during the month, not the amount accumulated on the ground; this distinction is important for St. John's, where a heavy snowfall can be followed by rain, so no snow remains on the ground.
Surface water
United Nations
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization, tasked to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international co-operation and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and The Hague; the organization is financed by voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development and upholding international law; the UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. In 24 October 1945, at the end of World War II, the organization was established with the aim of preventing future wars. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; the UN is the successor of the ineffective League of Nations.
On 25 April 1945, 50 governments met in San Francisco for a conference and started drafting the UN Charter, adopted on 25 June 1945 in the San Francisco Opera House, signed on 26 June 1945 in the Herbst Theatre auditorium in the Veterans War Memorial Building. This charter took effect on 24 October 1945; the UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies. Its missions have consisted of unarmed military observers and armed troops with monitoring and confidence-building roles; the organization's membership grew following widespread decolonization which started in the 1960s. Since 80 former colonies had gained independence, including 11 trust territories, which were monitored by the Trusteeship Council. By the 1970s its budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN shifted and expanded its field operations, undertaking a wide variety of complex tasks.
The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly. The UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, UNICEF; the UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese politician and diplomat António Guterres since 1 January 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work; the organization, its officers and its agencies have won many Nobel Peace Prizes. Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed; some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, biased, or corrupt. In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross was formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.
In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept, in 1918 he included a sketch of the international body in his 14-point proposal to end the war. In November 1918, the Central Powers agreed to an armistice to halt the killing in World War I. Two months the Allies met with Germany and Austria-Hungary at Versailles to hammer out formal peace terms. President Wilson wanted peace, but the United Kingdom and France disagreed, forcing harsh war reparations on their former enemies; the League of Nations was approved, in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the US Senate for ratification.
On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations formally comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect. However, at some point the League became ineffective when it failed to act against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria as in February 1933, 40 nations voted for Japan to withdraw from Manchuria but Japan voted against it and walked out of the League instead of withdrawing from Manchuria, it failed against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War despite trying to talk to Benito Mussolini as he used the time to send an army to Africa, so the League had a plan for Mussolini to just take a part of Ethiopia, but he ignored the League and invaded Ethiopia, the League tried putting sanctions on Italy, but Italy had conquered Ethiopia and the League had failed. After Italy conquered Ethiopia and other nations left the league, but all of them realised that they began to re-arm as fast as possible. During 1938, Britain and France tried negotiating directly with Hitler but this failed in 1939 when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.
When war broke out in 1939, the League closed down and its headquarters in Geneva remained empty throughout the war. The earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the U. S. State Department in 1939; the text of the "Declaration by United Nations" was drafted at the White House on December 29, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south; the kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", it is called the "Land of the Rising Sun". Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands; the four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area and are referred to as home islands. The country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions, with Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one; the population of 127 million is the world's tenth largest. 90.7 % of people live in cities. About 13.8 million people live in the capital of Japan. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with over 38 million people. Archaeological research indicates; the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD.
Influence from other regions China, followed by periods of isolation from Western Europe, has characterized Japan's history. From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shōguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. After nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection, the Imperial Court regained its political power in 1868 through the help of several clans from Chōshū and Satsuma – and the Empire of Japan was established. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism; the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the Japanese surrender. Since adopting its revised constitution on May 3, 1947, during the occupation led by SCAP, the sovereign state of Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Diet.
Japan is a member of the ASEAN Plus mechanism, UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the G20, is considered a great power. Its economy is the world's third-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity, it is the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Japan benefits from a skilled and educated workforce. Although it has renounced its right to declare war, Japan maintains a modern military with the world's eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a developed country with a high standard of living and Human Development Index, its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, but is experiencing issues due to an aging population and low birthrate. Japan is renowned for its historical and extensive cinema, influential music industry, video gaming, rich cuisine and its major contributions to science and modern technology; the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, pronounced Nihon or Nippon and means "the origin of the sun".
The character nichi means "sun" or "day". The compound therefore means "origin of the sun" and is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun"; the earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, the Old Book of Tang. At the end of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan requested that Nihon be used as the name of their country; this name may have its origin in a letter sent in 607 and recorded in the official history of the Sui dynasty. Prince Shōtoku, the Regent of Japan, sent a mission to China with a letter in which he called himself "the Emperor of the Land where the Sun rises"; the message said: "Here, I, the emperor of the country where the sun rises, send a letter to the emperor of the country where the sun sets. How are you". Prior to the adoption of Nihon, other terms such as Yamato and Wakoku were used; the term Wa is a homophone of Wo 倭, used by the Chinese as a designation for the Japanese as early as the third century Three Kingdoms period.
Another form of Wa, Wei in Chinese) was used for an early state in Japan called Nakoku during the Han dynasty. However, the Japanese disliked some connotation of Wa 倭, it was therefore replaced with the substitute character Wa, meaning "togetherness, harmony"; the English word Japan derives from the historical Chinese pronunciation of 日本. The Old Mandarin or early Wu Chinese pronunciation of Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. In modern Shanghainese, a Wu dialect, the pronunciation of characters 日本; the old Malay word for Japan, Japun or Japang, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect Fukienese or Ningpo – and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia in the 16th century. These Early Portuguese traders brought the word
Tango
Tango is a popular partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the River Plate, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. It was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries, where natives mixed with slave and European immigrant populations; the tango is the result of a combination of the German Waltz, Czech Polka, Polish Mazurka, Bohemian Schottische with the Spanish-Cuban Habanera, African Candombe, Argentinian Milonga. The tango was practiced in the brothels and bars of ports, where business owners employed bands to entertain their patrons with music; the tango spread to the rest of the world. Many variations of this dance exist around the world. On August 31, 2009, UNESCO approved a joint proposal by Argentina and Uruguay to include the tango in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. Tango is a dance that has influences from Native American and European culture. Dances from the candombe ceremonies of former slave peoples helped shape the modern day tango.
The dance originated in lower-class districts of Buenos Montevideo. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe; the words "tango" and "tambo" around the River Plate basin were used to refer to musical gatherings of slaves, with written records of colonial authorities attempting to ban such gatherings as early as 1789. It was just one of the many dances, but it soon became popular throughout society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands of European immigrants. Many Buenos Aires city neighbourhoods have their particular tango history like for example La Boca, San Telmo or Boedo. At Boedo Avenue Cátulo Castillo, Homero Manzi and other singers and composers used to meet at the Japanese Cafe with the Boedo Group. In the early years of the 20th century and orchestras from Buenos Aires travelled to Europe, the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London and other capitals.
Towards the end of 1913, it hit New York City in the U. S. and Finland. In the U. S. around 1911, the word "tango" was applied to dances in a 24 or 44 rhythm such as the one-step. The term was fashionable and did not indicate that tango steps would be used in the dance, although they might be. Tango music was sometimes played but at a rather fast tempo. Instructors of the period would sometimes refer to this as a "North American tango", versus the so-called "Argentine Tango"; the Tango was controversial because of its perceived sexual overtones and, by the end of 1913, the dance teachers who had introduced the dance to Paris were banished from the city. By 1914, more authentic tango stylings were soon developed, along with some variations like Albert Newman's "Minuet" tango. In Argentina, the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930, caused tango to decline, its fortunes were reversed as tango became fashionable and a matter of national pride under the government of Juan Perón.
Taquito Militar, by Mariano Mores played a monumental part in the rise of the tango and a major effect on Argentinian culture as a whole. This song was premiered in 1952 during a governmental speech of President Juan D. Perón, which generated a strong political and cultural controversy between different views of the concepts of "cultured" music and "popular" music, as well as the links between both "cultures". Tango declined again in the 1950s, as a result of economic depression and the banning of public gatherings by the military dictatorships. That, boosted the popularity of rock and roll because, unlike tango, it did not require such gatherings. In 2009, the tango was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. There are two predominant theories regarding the origin of the word "tango." The African culture is credited by some scholars as the creator of this word. It is theorized that the word evolved from the Yoruba word, "shangó," which refers to the Nigerian God of Thunder; this theory suggests that the word “shangó” was morphed through the dilution of the Nigerian language once it reached South America via slave trade.
This theory is paralleled by another theory which believes that “tango” is derived from the Spanish word for drum, “tambor." This word was mispronounced by Buenos Aires’ impoverished and uneducated inhabitants to become "tambo," ultimately resulting in the common "tango." It is theorized that the word "'tango" is derived from the Portuguese word "tanger," which means "to play a musical instrument." Another Portuguese word, "tangomão," is a possible predecessor of the word "tango." The word is the combination of the verb "tanger" with the noun "mão", resulted in the verb "to play a musical instrument with one's hands.2" The tango consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions and eras of Argentina as well as in other locations around the world. The dance developed in response to many cultural elements, such as the crowding of the venue and the fashions in clothing; the styles are danced in either open embrace, where lead and follow have space between their bodies, or close embrace, where the lead and follow connect either chest-to-chest or in the upper thigh, hip area.
Different styles of tango are: Tango vals Tango argentino Tango canyengue Tango Oriental Uruguayan tango Tango liso Tango salon Tango orillero Tango camacupense Tango milonguero Tango nuevo Contact tango Tango Valparaísino (from Valparaíso
China
China the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering 9,600,000 square kilometers, it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. China emerged as one of the world's earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since China has expanded, re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin established the first Chinese empire; the succeeding Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC until 220 AD, saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements.
The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty and Northern Song completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread in Asia, as the new Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Horn of Africa. Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution; the Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949, when the Communist Party of China established the People's Republic of China, a unitary one-party sovereign state on Mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led government retreated to the island of Taiwan. The political status of Taiwan remains disputed. Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China's economy has been one of the world's fastest-growing with annual growth rates above 6 percent. According to the World Bank, China's GDP grew from $150 billion in 1978 to $12.24 trillion by 2017. Since 2010, China has been the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and since 2014, the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity.
China is the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army and second-largest defense budget; the PRC is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as it replaced the ROC in 1971, as well as an active global partner of ASEAN Plus mechanism. China is a leading member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, WTO, APEC, BRICS, the BCIM, the G20. In recent times, scholars have argued that it will soon be a world superpower, rivaling the United States; the word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century. It is not a word used by the Chinese themselves, it has been traced through Portuguese and Persian back to the Sanskrit word Cīna, used in ancient India."China" appears in Richard Eden's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian Chīn, in turn derived from Sanskrit Cīna.
Cīna was first used including the Mahābhārata and the Laws of Manu. In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived from the name of the Qin dynasty. Although this derivation is still given in various sources, it is complicated by the fact that the Sanskrit word appears in pre-Qin literature; the word may have referred to a state such as Yelang. The meaning transferred to China as a whole; the origin of the Sanskrit word is still a matter of debate, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China"; the shorter form is "China" Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó, a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne. It was applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing, it was used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia people from perceived "barbarians". The name Zhongguo is translated as "Middle Kingdom" in English.
Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited China between 2.24 million and 250,000 years ago. The hominid fossils of Peking Man, a Homo erectus who used fire, were discovered in a cave at Zhoukoudian near Beijing; the fossilized teeth of Homo sapiens have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Hunan. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BCE, Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan from 5800–5400 BCE, Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE; some scholars have suggested. According to Chinese tradition, the first dynasty was the Xia, which emerged around 2100 BCE; the dynasty was considered mythical by historians until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou, Henan in 1959. It remains unclear whether these sites are the remains of the Xia dynasty or of another culture from the same period; the succeeding Shang dynasty is the earliest to be confirmed by contemporary records. The Shang ruled the plain of the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BCE.
Their oracle bone script
Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine began about 9,000 years ago, when agricultural communities such as the Maya formed, domesticating maize, creating the standard process of corn nixtamalization, establishing their foodways. Successive waves of other Mesoamerican groups brought with them their own cooking methods; these included the Olmec, Toltec, Zapotec, Otomi, Purépecha, Totonac and Mazahua. The Mexica establishment of the Aztec Empire created a multi-ethnic society where many different foodways became infused; the staples are native foods, such as corn, squash, chia, tomatoes, cacao, agave, spirulina, sweet potato and chili pepper. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century, Europeans introduced a number of other foods, the most important of which were meats from domesticated animals, dairy products, rice. While the Spanish tried to impose their own diet on the country, this was not possible. African and Asian influences were introduced into the indigenous cuisine during this era as a result of African slavery in New Spain and the Manila-Acapulco Galleons.
Over the centuries, this resulted in regional cuisines based on local conditions, such as those in Oaxaca and the Yucatán Peninsula. Mexican cuisine is an important aspect of the culture, social structure and popular traditions of Mexico; the most important example of this connection is the use of mole for special occasions and holidays in the South and Central regions of the country. For this reason and others, traditional Mexican cuisine was inscribed in 2010 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Mexican cuisine is as complex as other ancient cuisines, such as those of Indian Cuisine and Japan, with techniques and skills developed over thousands of years of history, it is created with ingredients native to Mexico, as well as those brought over by the Spanish conquistadors, with some new influences since then. In addition to staples, such as corn and chile peppers, native ingredients include tomatoes, avocados and vanilla, as well as ingredients not used in other cuisines, such as edible flowers, vegetables like huauzontle and papaloquelite, or small criollo avocados, whose skin is edible.
Vegetables play an important role in Mexican cuisine. Common vegetables include zucchini, corn, spinach, Swiss chard, jitomate, green tomato, etc. Other traditional vegetable ingredients include chiles, huitlacoche and nopal to name a few. European contributions include pork, beef, cheese and spices, as well as some fruits. Tropical fruits, many of which are indigenous to Mexico and the Americas, such as guava, prickly pear, mangoes, bananas and cherimoya are popular in the center and south of the country. Despite the introduction of wheat and rice to Mexico, the basic starch remains corn in all areas of the country and is the base of many recipes. While it is eaten fresh, most corn is dried and ground into a dough called masa; this dough is used both fresh and fermented to make a wide variety of dishes from drinks to tamales and much more. However, the most common way to eat corn in Mexico is in the form of a tortilla, which accompanies every dish. Tortillas are made of corn in most of the country, but other versions exist, such as wheat in the north or plantain and wild greens in Oaxaca.
The other basic ingredient in all parts of Mexico is the chile pepper. Mexican food has a reputation for being spicy, but it has a wide range of flavors and while many spices are used for cooking, not all are spicy. Many dishes have subtle flavors. Chiles are indigenous to Mexico and their use dates back thousands of years, they are used with Mexico using the widest variety. If a savory dish or snack does not contain chile pepper, hot sauce is added, chile pepper is added to fresh fruit and sweets; the importance of the chile goes back to the Mesoamerican period, where it was considered to be as much of a staple as corn and beans. In the 16th century, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote that without chiles, the indigenous people did not think they were eating. Today, most Mexicans believe that their national identity would be at a loss without chiles and the many varieties of sauces and salsas created using chiles as their base. Many dishes in Mexico are defined by their sauces which are very spicy; these dishes include entomatada, adobo or adobados and moles.
A hominy soup called pozole is defined as white, green or red depending on the chile sauce used or omitted. Tamales are differentiated by the filling, again defined by the sauce. Dishes without a sauce are eaten without a salsa or without fresh or pickled chiles; this includes street foods, such as tacos, soup, tlacoyos, tlayudas and sincronizadas. For most dishes, it is the type of chile used; some of the main contributions of the Spanish were several kind of meat, dairy products and wheat to name few, as the Mesoamerican diet contained little meat besides domesticated turkey, dairy products were absent. The Spanish introduced the technique of frying in pork fat. Today, the main meats found in Mexico are pork, chicken
China
Japan
South Korea
Spain
Croatia, 
France, 
Turkey
Mongolia
Azerbaijan, 
Belgium, 
India, 
Iran
Vietnam
Peru
Colombia, 
Kazakhstan
Indonesia, 
Italy, 
Mexico
Brazil, 
Oman, 
United Arab Emirates
Morocco, 
Portugal, 
Romania
Saudi Arabia
