Tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that can be played individually against a single opponent or between two teams of two players each. Each player uses a tennis racket, strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court; the object of the game is to maneuver the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player, unable to return the ball will not gain a point, while the opposite player will. Tennis is played at all levels of society and at all ages; the sport can be played by anyone. The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis, it had close connections both to various field games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis. During most of the 19th century, in fact, the term tennis referred to real tennis, not lawn tennis; the rules of modern tennis have changed little since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that from 1908 to 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s.
A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point-challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point, a system known as Hawk-Eye. Tennis is played by millions of recreational players and is a popular worldwide spectator sport; the four Grand Slam tournaments are popular: the Australian Open played on hard courts, the French Open played on red clay courts, Wimbledon played on grass courts, the US Open played on hard courts. Historians believe that the game's ancient origin lay in 12th century northern France, where a ball was struck with the palm of the hand. Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de paume, which evolved into real tennis, became notable as the first person to construct indoor tennis courts in the modern style. Louis was unhappy with playing tennis outdoors and accordingly had indoor, enclosed courts made in Paris "around the end of the 13th century". In due course this design spread across royal palaces all over Europe.
In June 1316 at Vincennes, Val-de-Marne and following a exhausting game, Louis drank a large quantity of cooled wine and subsequently died of either pneumonia or pleurisy, although there was suspicion of poisoning. Because of the contemporary accounts of his death, Louis X is history's first tennis player known by name. Another of the early enthusiasts of the game was King Charles V of France, who had a court set up at the Louvre Palace, it wasn't until the 16th century that rackets came into use, the game began to be called "tennis", from the French term tenez, which can be translated as "hold!", "receive!" or "take!", an interjection used as a call from the server to his opponent. It was popular in England and France, although the game was only played indoors where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, now known as real tennis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, as real tennis declined, new racket sports emerged in England. Further, the patenting of the first lawn mower in 1830, in Britain, is believed to have been the catalyst, for the preparation of modern-style grass courts, sporting ovals, playing fields, greens, etc.
This in turn led to the codification of modern rules for many sports, including lawn tennis, most football codes, lawn bowls and others. Between 1859 and 1865 Harry Gem, a solicitor and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of racquets and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, United Kingdom. In 1872, along with two local doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club on Avenue Road, Leamington Spa; this is. After Leamington, the second club to take up the game of lawn tennis appears to have been the Edgbaston Archery and Croquet Society in Birmingham. In Tennis: A Cultural History, Heiner Gillmeister reveals that on December 8, 1874, British army officer Walter Clopton Wingfield wrote to Harry Gem, commenting that he had been experimenting with his version of lawn tennis “for a year and a half”. In December 1873, Wingfield designed and patented a game which he called sphairistikè, was soon known as "sticky" – for the amusement of guests at a garden party on his friend's estate of Nantclwyd Hall, in Llanelidan, Wales.
According to R. D. C. Evans, turfgrass agronomist, "Sports historians all agree that deserves much of the credit for the development of modern tennis." According to Honor Godfrey, museum curator at Wimbledon, Wingfield "popularized this game enormously. He produced a boxed set which included a net, rackets, balls for playing the game – and most you had his rules, he was terrific at marketing and he sent his game all over the world. He had good connections with the clergy, the law profession, the aristocracy and he sent thousands of sets out in the first year or so, in 1874." The world's oldest annual tennis tournament took place at Leamington Lawn Tennis Club in Birmingham in 1874. This was three years before the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club would hold its first championships at Wimbledon, in 1877; the first Championships culminated a significant debate on. In the U. S. in 1874 Mary Ewing Outerbridge, a young socialite, returned from Bermuda with a sphairistikè set. She became fascin
Golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games and does not utilize a standardized playing area, coping with the varied terrains encountered on different courses is a key part of the game; the game at the usual level is played on a course with an arranged progression of 18 holes, though recreational courses can be smaller having 9 holes. Each hole on the course must contain a tee box to start from, a putting green containing the actual hole or cup 4 1⁄4 inches in diameter. There are other standard forms of terrain in between, such as the fairway, rough and various hazards but each hole on a course is unique in its specific layout and arrangement. Golf is played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes in a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play. Stroke play is the most seen format at all levels, but most at the elite level.
The modern game of golf originated in 15th century Scotland. The 18-hole round was created at the Old Course at St Andrews in 1764. Golf's first major, the world's oldest tournament in existence, is The Open Championship known as the British Open, first played in 1860 in Ayrshire, Scotland; this is one of the four major championships in men's professional golf, the other three being played in the United States: The Masters, the U. S. Open, the PGA Championship. While the modern game of golf originated in 15th-century Scotland, the game's ancient origins are unclear and much debated; some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica, in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. One theory asserts that paganica spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century BC, evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. A Ming Dynasty scroll dating back to 1368 entitled "The Autumn Banquet" shows a member of the Chinese Imperial court swinging what appears to be a golf club at a small ball with the aim of sinking it into a hole.
The game is thought to have been introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages. Another early game that resembled modern golf was known as chambot in France; the Persian game chaugán is another possible ancient origin. In addition, kolven was played annually in Loenen, beginning in 1297, to commemorate the capture of the assassin of Floris V, a year earlier; the modern game originated in Scotland, where the first written record of golf is James II's banning of the game in 1457, as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. James IV lifted the ban in 1502 when he became a golfer himself, with golf clubs first recorded in 1503–1504: "For golf clubbes and balles to the King that he playit with". To many golfers, the Old Course at St Andrews, a links course dating to before 1574, is considered to be a site of pilgrimage. In 1764, the standard 18-hole golf course was created at St Andrews when members modified the course from 22 to 18 holes. Golf is documented as being played on Musselburgh Links, East Lothian, Scotland as early as 2 March 1672, certified as the oldest golf course in the world by Guinness World Records.
The oldest surviving rules of golf were compiled in March 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers renamed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, played at Leith, Scotland. The world's oldest golf tournament in existence, golf's first major, is The Open Championship, first played on 17 October 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club, in Ayrshire, with Scottish golfers winning the earliest majors. Two Scotsmen from Dunfermline, John Reid and Robert Lockhart, first demonstrated golf in the U. S. by setting up a hole in an orchard in 1888, with Reid setting up America's first golf club the same year, Saint Andrew's Golf Club in Yonkers, New York. A golf course consists of either 9 or 18 holes, each with a teeing ground, set off by two markers showing the bounds of the legal tee area, fairway and other hazards, the putting green surrounded by the fringe with the pin and cup; the levels of grass are varied to increase difficulty, or to allow for putting in the case of the green. While many holes are designed with a direct line-of-sight from the teeing area to the green, some holes may bend either to the left or to the right.
This is called a "dogleg", in reference to a dog's knee. The hole is called a "dogleg left" if the hole angles leftwards and "dogleg right" if it bends right. Sometimes, a hole's direction may bend twice. A regular golf course consists of 18 holes, but nine-hole courses are common and can be played twice through for a full round of 18 holes. Early Scottish golf courses were laid out on links land, soil-covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches; this gave rise to the term "golf links" applied to seaside courses and those built on sandy soil inland. The first 18-hole golf course in the United States was on a sheep farm in Downers Grove, Illinois, in 1892; the course is still there today. Every round of golf is based on playing a number of holes in a given order. A "round" consists of 18 holes that are played in the order determined by the course layout; each hole is played once in the round on a standard course of 18 holes. The game can be played by any number of people, although a typ
Texas Education Agency
The Texas Education Agency is a branch of the state government of Texas in the United States responsible for public education. The agency is headquartered in the William B. Travis State Office Building in Downtown Austin. Mike Morath a member of the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees, was appointed commissioner of education by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Dec. 14, 2015 and began serving on Jan. 4, 2016. Prior to the late 1940s, Many school districts in Texas did not operate schools but spent money to send children to schools operated by other districts. In the late 1940s state lawmakers passed a bill abolishing those districts, prompting a wave of mass school district consolidation. TEA is responsible for the oversight of public primary and secondary education in the state of Texas, involving both the over 1,000 individual school districts in the state as well as charter schools, it is responsible for the safety of students. However, it does not have any jurisdiction over parochial schools nor over home schools.
Although school districts are independent governmental entities, TEA has the authority to oversee a district's operations if serious issues arise. This can be in the form of requiring the district to submit corrective action plans and regular status reports, assigning monitors to oversee operations, in extreme cases closure of a school campus or the entire school district; the University Interscholastic League, which oversees academic and athletic interscholastic competition in Texas public schools, is a separate entity not under TEA oversight. In addition to primary and secondary education, TEA has oversight duties with respect to driver's education courses and defensive driving courses. On November 7, 2007, Christine Comer resigned as the director of the science curriculum after more than nine years. Comer said that her resignation was a result of pressure from officials who claimed that she had given the appearance of criticizing the teaching of intelligent design. In 2009, the Board received criticism from more than fifty scientific organizations over an attempt to weaken science standards on evolution.
In 2010, a group of historians, including Jean A. Stuntz of West Texas A&M University in Canyon, signed a petition to oppose the revisions in the social studies curricula approved by the state Board, changes which require the inclusion of conservative topics in public school instruction. For instance, Jefferson's name must be restored to a list of Enlightenment thinkers. There must be emphasis on the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in regard to property rights. Students must be taught that new documents, the Venona project, verify U. S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's suspicions of communist infiltration of the U. S. government during the post-World War II era. Stuntz told the Amarillo Globe-News, they don't know what they're doing."In October 2012, The Revisionaries, a documentary film about the re-election of the chairman of the Texas Board of Education Don McLeroy and the curriculum controversy was released. In late January 2013, PBS's Independent Lens aired an abridged version the film.
Texas House Speaker Joe Straus of San Antonio said that the government should "take a look" at the structure of the Board and consider a nonpartisan or appointed board if the elected members are "not getting their job done and they're not pleasing the Legislature or the citizens we ought to take) a thorough look at what they are doing." In 2010, it was said to be "drafting its own version of American history", including altering school textbooks to remove what it said was a "left leaning bias" and making changes that are said to have "religious and racial overtones". For example, the proposed curriculum would downplay Thomas Jefferson's emphasis on the separation of church and state, would include a greater emphasis on the importance of religion to the founding fathers. Other changes include downplaying Abraham Lincoln's role in the civil war and putting more emphasis on the Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, questioning the Civil Rights Movement in addition to downplaying Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, removing such instances and points of history such as downplaying slavery, putting more emphasis on the states rights cause during the Civil War.
Critics of the proposed changes believe that such a focus on the religious elements of the founding period could cause teachers to omit lessons on history more pertinent to national standards. The current Commissioner of Education is Mike Morath. A former member of the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees, he was appointed commissioner of education by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Dec. 14, 2015. The commissioner's role is to manage the Texas Education Agency; the Commissioner co-ordinates efforts between state and federal agencies. TEA is overseen by a 15-member State Board of Education, elected from single-member districts for four years; the board devises policies and sets academic standards for Texas public schools, as well as overseeing the state Permanent School Fund and selecting textbooks to be used in Texas schools. Since 2011, the board can still recommend textbooks, but public school districts can order their own books and materials if their selections are not on the state-approved list.
So far, most districts have continued to follow
Maroon
Maroon is a dark reddish purple or dark brownish red color that takes its name from the French word marron, or chestnut. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "a brownish crimson or claret color." In the RGB model used to create colors on computer screens and televisions, maroon is created by turning down the brightness of pure red to about one half. Maroon is the complement of teal. Maroon is derived from French marron, itself from the Italian marrone that means both chestnut and brown, from the medieval Greek maraon; the first recorded use of maroon as a color name in English was in 1789. Business Maroon is the signature color of the Japanese private rail company, Hankyu Railway, decided by a vote of women customers in 1923. In the 1990s, Hankyu planned an alternative color; that plan was called off following opposition by local residents. Government Maroon was named as the official color of the state of Queensland, Australia, in November 2003. While the declared shade of maroon is RGB 115/24/44, Queenslanders display the spirit of the state by wearing all shades of maroon at sporting and cultural events.
Military The distinctive maroon beret has been worn by many airborne forces around the world since 1942. It is sometimes referred to as the "red beret." Maroon was the distinguishing colour of the Caçadores regiments of the Portuguese Army. Music The Famous Maroon Band Maroon 5Religion Vajrayana Buddhist monks, such as the Dalai Lama, wear maroon robes. Maroon, along with golden yellow, is worn in the Philippines by Catholic devotees of the Black Nazarene during its procession on 9 January. School colors Many universities, high schools and other educational institutions have maroon as one of their school colors. Popular combinations include maroon and white and grey, maroon and gold. Maroon and White are the official school colors of Texas A&M University. Maroon and Gold are the official school colors of the University of Minnesota. Maroon and Gold are the official school colors of the Central Michigan University. Maroon and Gold are the official school colors of Shimer College, representing Mount Carroll Seminary.
Maroon and White are the official school colors of the University of Chicago. The school employs light and dark gray in its official primary color palette. Maroon and White are the official school colors of Lower Merion High School. Maroon and White are the official school colors of Mississippi State University and the name of the university's alma mater. Maroon and White are the official school colors of Colgate University. Maroon and White are the official school colors of Missouri State University. Maroon and Gold are the official school colors of Arizona State University and the name of the university's fight song. Maroon and Orange are the official school colors of Virginia Tech. Sports Sports teams use maroon as one of their identifying colors, as a result many have received the nickname "Maroons"; the University of Chicago Maroons have used the nickname since a vote came at a meeting of students and faculty on May 5, 1894. Maroons was the official nickname of the athletic teams representing Mississippi State College, now Mississippi State University from 1932 until 1961 when it was changed to the Bulldogs.
Bulldogs had been used as an unofficial nickname as far back as 1905. Maroons is the common nickname for the Queensland Rugby League team when it plays against the Blues in an annual competition of three games known as the State of Origin series in Australia. Vexillology Maroon and white are the colors of the Flag of Qatar; the Flag of Latvia is sometimes called maroon and white, but the legal colors were red and white, but in 2009 the colors were changed to carmine and white. Displayed on the right is the bright tone of maroon, designated as maroon in Crayola crayons beginning in 1949, it rose. The color halfway between brown and rose is crimson, so this color is a tone of crimson. Displayed on the right is the color rich maroon, i.e. maroon as defined in the X11 color names, much brighter and more toned toward rose than the HTML/CSS maroon shown above. See the chart Color name clashes in the X11 color names article to see those colors that are different in HTML/CSS and X11. Displayed on the right is the web color dark red.
List of colors Media related to Maroon at Wikimedia Commons
Softball
Softball is a variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a field that has base lengths of 60 feet, a pitcher's mound that ranges from 35-43 feet away from home plate, a homerun fence, 220 feet away from home plate. It was invented in 1887 in Chicago, United States as an indoor game; the game moves at a faster pace than traditional baseball. There is less time for the base runner to get to first; the name softball was given to the game in 1926, because the ball used to be soft, however in modern day usage, the balls are hard. A tournament held in 1933 at the Chicago World's Fair spurred interest in the game; the Amateur Softball Association of America governs the game in the United States and sponsors annual sectional and World Series championships. The World Baseball Softball Confederation regulates rules of play in more than 110 countries, including the United States and Canada. Women's fast pitch softball became a Summer Olympic sport in 1996, but it and baseball were dropped from the 2012 Games.
There are three types of softball. In the most common type, slow-pitch softball, the ball, which can measure either 11 or 12 inches in circumference depending on gender and league, must arch on its path to the batter, there are 10 players on the field at once. In fastpitch softball, the pitch is fast, there are nine players on the field at one time, bunting and stealing bases are permitted. Modified softball restricts the "windmill" wind-up used by fastpitch pitchers, although the pitcher is allowed to throw as hard as possible with the restricted back swing. Softball rules vary somewhat from those of baseball. Two major differences are that the ball must be pitched underhand—from 46 ft for men or 43 ft for women as compared with 60.5 ft in baseball—and that seven innings instead of nine constitute a regulation game. Despite the name, the ball used in softball is not soft, it is about 12 in in circumference, 3 in larger than a baseball. Softball recreational leagues for children use 11-inch balls until they participate in travel ball around age 12 and adjust to a 12-inch sized ball.
The infield in softball is smaller than on an adult or high school baseball diamond but identical to that used by Little League Baseball. In fast pitch softball the entire infield is dirt, whereas the infield in baseball is grass except at the bases and on the pitcher's mound which are dirt. Softball mounds are flat, while baseball mounds are a small hill. Softballs are pitched underhand; this changes the arc of the ball. For example, depending if the pitcher pitches a fastball, in softball the ball would most rise while in baseball because the pitcher is on a hill, the ball would drop; the earliest known softball game was played in Chicago, Illinois on Thanksgiving Day, 1887. It took place at the Farragut Boat Club at a gathering to hear the outcome of the Yale University and Harvard University football game; when the score was announced and bets were settled, a Yale alumnus threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The Harvard fan swung at the rolled up glove. George Hancock, a reporter there, called out "Play ball!" and the game began, with the boxing glove tightened into a ball, a broom handle serving as a bat.
This first contest ended with a score of 41–40. The ball, being soft, was fielded barehanded. George Hancock is credited as the game's inventor for his development of a 17" ball and an undersized bat in the next week; the Farragut Club soon set rules for the game, which spread to outsiders. Envisioned as a way for baseball players to maintain their skills during the winter, the sport was called "Indoor Baseball". Under the name of "Indoor-Outdoor", the game moved outside in the next year, the first rules were published in 1889. In 1895 Lewis Rober, Sr. of Minneapolis organized outdoor games as exercise for firefighters. Rober's version of the game used a ball 12 inches in circumference, rather than the 16-inch ball used by the Farragut club, the Minneapolis ball prevailed, although the dimensions of the Minneapolis diamond were passed over in favor of the dimensions of the Chicago one. Rober may not have been familiar with the Farragut Club rules. Fire Station No. 19 in Minneapolis, Rober's post from 1896 to 1906, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in part for its association with the sport's development.
The first softball league outside the United States was organized in Toronto in 1897. The name "softball" dates back to 1926; the name was coined by Walter Hakanson of the YMCA at a meeting of the National Recreation Congress. The name softball had spread across the United States by 1930. By the 1930s, similar sports with different rules and names were being played all over the United States and Canada. By 1936, the Joint Rules Committee on Softball had standardized the rules and naming throughout the United States. Sixteen-inch softball sometimes referred to as "mush ball" or "super-slow pitch", is a direct descendant of Hancock's original game. Defensive players are not allowed to wear fi
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two opposing teams who take turns batting and fielding. The game proceeds when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball which a player on the batting team tries to hit with a bat; the objectives of the offensive team are to hit the ball into the field of play, to run the bases—having its runners advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner advances around the bases in order and touches home plate; the team that scores the most runs by the end of the game is the winner. The first objective of the batting team is to have a player reach first base safely. A player on the batting team who reaches first base without being called "out" can attempt to advance to subsequent bases as a runner, either or during teammates' turns batting; the fielding team tries to prevent runs by getting batters or runners "out", which forces them out of the field of play.
Both the pitcher and fielders have methods of getting the batting team's players out. The opposing teams switch forth between batting and fielding. One turn batting for each team constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. If scores are tied at the end of nine innings, extra innings are played. Baseball has no game clock. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games being played in England by the mid-18th century; this game was brought by immigrants to North America. By the late 19th century, baseball was recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, East Asia in Japan and South Korea. In the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions: East and Central; the MLB champion is determined by playoffs. The top level of play is split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League.
The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world. A baseball game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense and defense. A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings. One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning; the other team -- customarily the home team -- bats in second half, of every inning. The goal of the game is to score more points than the other team; the players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by circling or completing a tour of the four bases set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must proceed counterclockwise to first base, second base, third base, back home to score a run; the team in the field attempts to prevent runs from scoring and record outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action until their turn in their team's batting order comes up again.
When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings; the game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate at its center; the outer boundary of the outfield is demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height. The fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well. There are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, the glove or mitt: The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches in circumference.
It wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching. The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a solid piece of wood. Other materials are now used for nonprofessional games, it is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are around 34 inches long, not longer than 42 inches; the glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of differ
Suburb
A suburb is a mixed-use or residential area, existing either as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner-city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in other countries and the term extends to inner-city areas. In some areas, such as Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, a few U. S. states, new suburbs are annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as Saudi Arabia, Canada and much of the United States, many suburbs remain separate municipalities or are governed as part of a larger local government area such as a county. Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. In general, they have lower population densities than inner city neighborhoods within a metropolitan area, most residents commute to central cities or other business districts.
Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land. The English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub and urbs; the first recorded usage of the term in English, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, where the form subarbis was used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalised as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas in both countries, their equivalents are called localities; the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density areas in proximity to the city center, the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. The term'middle suburbs' is used. Inner suburbs, such as Te Aro in Wellington, Eden Terrace in Auckland, Prahran in Melbourne and Ultimo in Sydney, are characterised by higher density apartment housing and greater integration between commercial and residential areas.
In New Zealand, most suburbs are not defined which can lead to confusion as to where they may begin and end. Although there is a geospatial file defining suburbs for use by emergency services developed and maintained by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, in collaboration with other government agencies, to date this file has not been released publicly. New Zealand company Koordinates Limited requested access to the geospatial file under the Official Information Act 1982 but this request was rejected by the New Zealand Fire Service on the basis that it would prejudice the health & safety of, or cause material loss, to the public. In September 2014 a decision was made by the Ombudsman of New Zealand ruling that the New Zealand Fire Service refusal to release the geospatial file without agreeing to terms which included, among other restrictions, a prohibition on redistribution of the geospatial file, was reasonable. In the United Kingdom and in Ireland, suburb refers to a residential area outside the city centre, regardless of administrative boundaries.
Suburbs, in this sense, can range from areas that seem more like residential areas of a city proper to areas separated by open countryside from the city centre. In large cities such as London and Leeds, suburbs include separate towns and villages that have been absorbed during a city's growth and expansion, such as Ealing and Guiseley. In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an outlying residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city; the earliest appearance of suburbs coincided with the spread of the first urban settlements. Large walled towns tended to be the focus around which smaller villages grew up in a symbiotic relationship with the market town; the word'suburbani' was first used by the Roman statesman Cicero in reference to the large villas and estates built by the wealthy patricians of Rome on the city's outskirts. Towards the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the capital, was occupied by the emperor and important officials.
As populations grew during the Early Modern Period in Europe, urban towns swelled with a steady influx of people from the countryside. In some places, nearby settlements were swallowed up as the main city expanded; the peripheral areas on the outskirts of the city were inhabited by the poorest. Due to the rapid migration of the rural poor to the industrialising cities of England in the late 18th century, a trend in the opposite direction began to develop; this trend accelerated through the 19th century in cities like London and Manchester that were growing and the first suburban districts sprung up around the city centres to accommodate those who wanted to escape the squalid conditions of the industrial towns. Toward the end of the century, with the development of public transit systems such as the underground railways and buses, it became possible for the majority of the city's population to reside outside the city and to commute into the
