1.
Tokyo
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Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
2.
Boston
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Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
3.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
4.
Ingmar Bergman
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Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer, and producer who worked in film, television, theatre and radio. He directed over sixty films and documentaries for cinematic release and for television and he also directed over 170 plays. From 1953 he forged a creative partnership with his full-time cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Among his company of actors were Harriet and Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, most of his films were set in Sweden, and numerous films from Through a Glass Darkly onward were filmed on the island of Fårö. His work often dealt with death, illness, faith, betrayal, bleakness and insanity. Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Erik Bergman, a Lutheran minister and later chaplain to the King of Sweden, and Karin and he grew up with his older brother Dag and sister Margareta surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His father was a parish minister with strict ideas of parenting. Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for infractions, such as wetting the bed, there was everything that ones imagination could desire—angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans. Although raised in a devout Lutheran household, Bergman later stated that he lost his faith at age eight and only came to terms with this fact while making Winter Light in 1962. His interest in theatre and film began early, At the age of nine, he traded a set of tin soldiers for a magic lantern, a possession that altered the course of his life. Within a year, he had created, by playing with this toy and he fashioned his own scenery, marionettes, and lighting effects and gave puppet productions of Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts. Bergman attended Palmgrens School as a teenager and his school years were unhappy, and he remembered them unfavorably in later years. Bergman wrote in a response that he had disliked the emphasis on homework. In 1934, aged 16, he was sent to Germany to spend the vacation with family friends. He attended a Nazi rally in Weimar at which he saw Adolf Hitler, Bergman commented that Hitler was unbelievably charismatic. The Nazism I had seen seemed fun and youthful, Bergman did two five-month stretches of mandatory military service. In 1937 he entered Stockholm University College to study art and literature and he spent most of his time involved in student theatre and became a genuine movie addict. At the same time, a romantic involvement led to a break with his father lasted for years
5.
Swedes
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Swedes are a Germanic ethnic group native to Sweden. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, in particular Finland, with a substantial diaspora in other countries, the English term Swede has been attested in English since the late 16th century and is of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin. The term is believed to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, *se. The word must have meant ones own, the same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, preserved to this day in the name Swabia. Sweden enters proto-history with the Germania of Tacitus in AD98, in Germania 44,45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow in both ends. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. In the 6th century Jordanes named two tribes, which he calls the Suehans and the Suetidi, who lived in Scandza and these two names are both considered to refer to the same tribe. The Suehans, he says, has very fine horses just as the Thyringi tribe, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson wrote of the 6th-century Swedish king Adils that he had the finest horses of his days. The Suehans supplied black fox-skins for the Roman market, then Jordanes names the Suetidi which is considered to be the Latin form of Svitjod. He writes that the Suetidi are the tallest of men - together with the Dani, later he mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height. Originating in semi-legendary Scandza, a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century AD and they reaching Scythia on the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine, where Goths left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture. In the 5th and 6th centuries, they divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Crimean Gothic communities appear to have survived intact in the Crimea until the late 18th century, the Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries. During this period, it is believed that the Swedes expanded from eastern Sweden and it is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gutar mainly travelled east and south, going to Finland, the Baltic countries, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine the Black Sea and further as far as Baghdad. Their routes passed through the Dnieper down south to Constantinople, on which they did numerous raids, the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as the varangian guard. The Swedish Vikings, called Rus are also believed to be the fathers of Kievan Rus. The Arabic traveller Ibn Fadlan described these Vikings as following, I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys, each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort, the adventures of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece Runestones and the Varangian Runestones
6.
Scenes from a Marriage
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Scenes from a Marriage is a 1973 Swedish Television miniseries written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. The story explores the disintegration of the marriage between Marianne, a lawyer specializing in divorce, and Johan, spanning a period of 10 years. Bergmans teleplay draws on his own experiences, including his relationship with Ullmann and it was shot on a small budget in Stockholm and Fårö in 1972. After initially airing on Swedish TV in six parts, the miniseries was condensed into a version and received positive reviews in Sweden. Scenes from a Marriage was also the subject of controversy for its influence on rising divorce rates in Europe. The film was ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the miniseries and film version influenced filmmakers such as Woody Allen and Richard Linklater. It was followed by a sequel, Saraband, in 2003, the TV miniseries six episodes ran between 11 April and 16 May 1973. At about 50 minutes per episode, the miniseries totals 282 minutes, Scenes from each episode appear in the film version, which is 168 minutes long. The episode titles appear in the version as chapter titles. As a boy, he had witnessed his parents violently wrestling, Ingmar also found his mother could be manipulative. The budget was approximately one-third that of Bergmans previous film, Cries and Whispers, with half covered by Swedish Television and it was filmed in Stockholm and Fårö between July and October 1972. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist emphasized close-ups and employed small indoor film sets, Nykvist later regretted not using more tracking shots when he learned the miniseries would have a theatrical release. The filming schedule was one week per episode, Ullmann compared performing in Scenes From a Marriage to appearing in a documentary, saying she felt very connected to the role. She said she was becoming involved in the feminist movement while making the film. Due to Ullmann and Erland Josephsons comfort with their parts, the saved time by not having rehearsals. The miniseries was broadcast in Sweden by SVT2 beginning on 11 April 1973, polls indicated most of the viewers were women. In the United States, a 167-minute version of the miniseries was released in cinemas and it opened in New York City on 21 September 1974. The full miniseries was aired in the U. S. by PBS in March and April 1977
7.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
8.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. 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 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
9.
Dachau concentration camp
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Dachau concentration camp was the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany, intended to hold political prisoners. It is located on the grounds of a munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were work camps or Arbeitskommandos. The camps were liberated by U. S. forces on 29 April 1945, There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented. Approximately 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners were sick at the time of liberation, in the postwar years the Dachau facility served to hold SS soldiers awaiting trial. After 1948, it held ethnic Germans who had expelled from eastern Europe and were awaiting resettlement. It was finally closed in 1960, There are several religious memorials within the Memorial Site, which is open to the public. After the takeover of Bavaria on 9 March 1933, Heinrich Himmler, then Chief of Police in Munich, began to speak with the administration of an unused gunpowder and he toured the site to see if it could be used for quartering protective-custody prisoners. The Concentration Camp at Dachau was opened 22 March 1933, with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and it became the first regular concentration camp established by the coalition government of the National Socialist German Workers Party and the German National Peoples Party. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and emigrants were sent to Dachau after the 1935 passage of the Nuremberg Laws which institutionalized racial discrimination, in early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex capable of holding 6,000 prisoners. The construction was completed in mid-August 1938. More political opponents, and over 11,000 German and Austrian Jews were sent to the camp after the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938. Sinti and Roma in the hundreds were sent to the camp in 1939, the prisoners of Dachau concentration camp originally were to serve as forced labor for a munition factory, and to expand the camp. It was used as a center for SS guards and was a model for other concentration camps. The camp was about 300 m ×600 m in rectangular shape, the prisoners entrance was secured by an iron gate with the motto “Arbeit macht frei”. This reflected Nazi propaganda, which trivialized concentration camps as labor and re-education camps, as of 1938, the procedure for new arrivals occurred at the Schubraum, where prisoners were to hand over their clothing and possessions. One former Luxembourgian prisoner, Albert Theis, reflected about the room, everything had to be handed over, money, rings, watches. The camp included a building that contained offices for the Gestapo trial commissioner, SS authorities
10.
Toronto
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Toronto is the most populous city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. With a population of 2,731,571, it is the fourth most populous city in North America after Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture. Aboriginal peoples have inhabited the area now known as Toronto for thousands of years, the city itself is situated on the southern terminus of an ancient Aboriginal trail leading north to Lake Simcoe, used by the Wyandot, Iroquois, and the Mississauga. Permanent European settlement began in the 1790s, after the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase of 1787, the British established the town of York, and later designated it as the capital of Upper Canada. During the War of 1812, the town was the site of the Battle of York, York was renamed and incorporated as the city of Toronto in 1834, and became the capital of the province of Ontario during the Canadian Confederation in 1867. The city proper has since expanded past its original borders through amalgamation with surrounding municipalities at various times in its history to its current area of 630.2 km2. While the majority of Torontonians speak English as their primary language, Toronto is a prominent centre for music, theatre, motion picture production, and television production, and is home to the headquarters of Canadas major national broadcast networks and media outlets. Toronto is known for its skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, in particular the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere. The name Toronto is likely derived from the Iroquois word tkaronto and this refers to the northern end of what is now Lake Simcoe, where the Huron had planted tree saplings to corral fish. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, in the 1660s, the Iroquois established two villages within what is today Toronto, Ganatsekwyagon on the banks of the Rouge River and Teiaiagonon the banks of the Humber River. By 1701, the Mississauga had displaced the Iroquois, who abandoned the Toronto area at the end of the Beaver Wars, French traders founded Fort Rouillé on the current Exhibition grounds in 1750, but abandoned it in 1759. During the American Revolutionary War, the region saw an influx of British settlers as United Empire Loyalists fled for the British-controlled lands north of Lake Ontario, the new province of Upper Canada was in the process of creation and needed a capital. Dorchester intended the location to be named Toronto, in 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe established the town of York on the Toronto Purchase lands, instead naming it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Simcoe decided to move the Upper Canada capital from Newark to York, the York garrison was constructed at the entrance of the towns natural harbour, sheltered by a long sandbar peninsula. The towns settlement formed at the end of the harbour behind the peninsula, near the present-day intersection of Parliament Street. In 1813, as part of the War of 1812, the Battle of York ended in the towns capture, the surrender of the town was negotiated by John Strachan. US soldiers destroyed much of the garrison and set fire to the parliament buildings during their five-day occupation, the sacking of York was a primary motivation for the Burning of Washington by British troops later in the war
11.
Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
12.
Toronto Islands
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The Toronto Islands are a chain of small islands in Lake Ontario, south of mainland Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the only group of islands in the part of Lake Ontario, the Toronto Islands are located just offshore from the city centre. The islands are home to parkland, the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, several clubs, Centreville Amusement Park. The island community is considered to be the largest urban community in North America. Access to the Islands is by ferry, including the City of Toronto ferries operating from Jack Layton Ferry Terminal at the foot of Bay Street, the island is a popular recreation destination. Recreational bicyclists are accommodated on the ferries, there is a public bicycle sharing station operated by Bike Share Toronto at Jack Layton Ferry Terminal and bicycles and quadracycles can be rented at Centre Island. Canoes, kayaks and paddle boats can also be rented on the island, a frisbee golf course exists on the island. The main beach is along the shore and the beach on the west shore is clothing-optional. There is ample park land suitable for picnicking which is popular, several playgrounds, the area of the islands is about 820 acres. The largest, outermost island, called Centre Island, is crescent-shaped, Algonquin and Olympic are two of the other major islands. The former is mostly an area and the latter is parkland. Centre Island is home to the citys Island Public/Natural Science School, what is commonly called Wards Island is actually the eastern end of Centre Island and like Algonquin is a residential area. The Centre Island dock and Centreville amusement park are located on Middle Island, Centre Island is sometimes referred to as Toronto Island to prevent this type of confusion. The islands are composed of deposits from the erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs. In 1852, a storm flooded sand pits on the peninsula, the channel was widened and made permanent by a violent storm in 1858. The channel became known as the Eastern Gap, the peninsula to the west became known as the Toronto Islands. To the east of the Gap, the area of todays Cherry Beach was known as Fishermans Island, sediment deposition was halted in the 1960s when the Leslie Street Spit was extended beyond the southern edge of the islands. Left to nature, the islands would diminish over time, over the years land reclamation has contributed to an increase in the size of the islands
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