1.
Nepal
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Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 provinces and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises,13 sub-metropolises,246 municipal councils and 481 village and it has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between, Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the worlds ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. It is a nation with Nepali as the official language. The territory of Nepal has a history since the Neolithic age. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet, the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal became known as Nepal proper because of its complex urban civilization. It was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala, the Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valleys traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture, by the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, the country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and Colonial India. In the 20th century, Nepal ended its isolation and forged ties with regional powers. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951, but was suspended by Nepalese monarchs in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War resulted in the proclamation of a republic in 2008, modern Nepal is a federal secular parliamentary republic. Nepal is a nation, ranking 144th on the Human Development Index in 2016. The country struggles with the transition from a monarchy to a republic and it also suffers from high levels of hunger and poverty. Despite these challenges, Nepal is making progress, with the government declaring its commitment to elevate the nation from least developed country status by 2022
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Regolith
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Regolith is a layer of loose, heterogeneous superficial material covering solid rock. It includes dust, soil, broken rock, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, the term regolith combines two Greek words, rhegos, blanket, and lithos, rock. Merrill first defined the term in 1897, writing, In places this covering is made up of material originating through rock-weathering or plant growth in situ, in other instances it is of fragmental and more or less decomposed matter drifted by wind, water or ice from other sources. This entire mantle of unconsolidated material, whatever its nature or origin, biota and organic components derived from it. Regolith can vary from being essentially absent to hundreds of metres in thickness and its age can vary from instantaneous to hundreds of millions of years old. Regolith on Earth originates from weathering and biological processes, if it contains a significant proportion of biological compounds it is conventionally referred to as soil. People also call various types of earthly regolith by such names as dirt, dust, gravel, sand, Regolith is also important to engineers constructing buildings, roads and other civil works. The mechanical properties of regolith vary considerably and need to be documented if the construction is to withstand the rigors of use, Regolith may host many mineral deposits, for example mineral sands, calcrete uranium, and lateritic nickel deposits, among others. Elsewhere, understanding regolith properties, especially geochemical composition, is critical to geochemical and geophysical exploration for mineral deposits beneath it, the regolith is also an important source of construction material, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, lime, and gypsum. The regolith is the zone through which aquifers are recharged and through which aquifer discharge occurs, many aquifers, such as alluvial aquifers, occur entirely within regolith. The composition of the regolith can also strongly influence water composition through the presence of salts, Regolith covers almost the entire lunar surface, bedrock protruding only on very steep-sided crater walls and the occasional lava channel. The impact of micrometeoroids, sometimes travelling faster than 96,000 km/h and this melting and refreezing welds particles together into glassy, jagged-edged agglutinates, reminiscent of tektites found on Earth. The regolith is generally from 4 to 5 m thick in mare areas, below this true regolith is a region of blocky and fractured bedrock created by larger impacts, which is often referred to as the megaregolith. The density of regolith at the Apollo 15 landing site averages approximately 1.35 g/cm3 for the top 30 cm, and it is approximately 1. 85g/cm3 at a depth of 60 cm. The term lunar soil is used interchangeably with lunar regolith but typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith. Some have argued that the soil is not correct in reference to the Moon because soil is defined as having organic content. However, standard usage among lunar scientists is to ignore that distinction, lunar dust generally connotes even finer materials than lunar soil, the fraction which is less than 30 micrometers in diameter. The average chemical composition of regolith might be estimated from the concentration of elements in lunar soil
3.
Rock (geology)
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Rock or stone is a natural substance, a solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. For example, granite, a rock, is a combination of the minerals quartz, feldspar. The Earths outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock, rock has been used by mankind throughout history. The minerals and metals found in rocks have been essential to human civilization, three major groups of rocks are defined, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, which is a component of geology. At a granular level, rocks are composed of grains of minerals, the aggregate minerals forming the rock are held together by chemical bonds. The types and abundance of minerals in a rock are determined by the manner in which the rock was formed, many rocks contain silica, a compound of silicon and oxygen that forms 74. 3% of the Earths crust. This material forms crystals with other compounds in the rock, the proportion of silica in rocks and minerals is a major factor in determining their name and properties. Rocks are geologically classified according to such as mineral and chemical composition, permeability, the texture of the constituent particles. These physical properties are the end result of the processes that formed the rocks, over the course of time, rocks can transform from one type into another, as described by the geological model called the rock cycle. These events produce three general classes of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic, the three classes of rocks are subdivided into many groups. However, there are no hard and fast boundaries between allied rocks, hence the definitions adopted in establishing rock nomenclature merely correspond to more or less arbitrary selected points in a continuously graduated series. Igneous rock forms through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava and this magma can be derived from partial melts of pre-existing rocks in either a planets mantle or crust. Typically, the melting of rocks is caused by one or more of three processes, an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition, igneous rocks are divided into two main categories, plutonic rock and volcanic. Plutonic or intrusive rocks result when magma cools and crystallizes slowly within the Earths crust, a common example of this type is granite. Volcanic or extrusive rocks result from magma reaching the surface either as lava or fragmental ejecta, the chemical abundance and the rate of cooling of magma typically forms a sequence known as Bowens reaction series. Most major igneous rocks are found along this scale, about 64. 7% of the Earths crust by volume consists of igneous rocks, making it the most plentiful category. Of these, 66% are basalts and gabbros, 16% are granite, only 0. 6% are syenites and 0. 3% peridotites and dunites
4.
Ice age
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An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earths surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed glacial periods, in the terminology of glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. In 1742 Pierre Martel, an engineer and geographer living in Geneva, two years later he published an account of his journey. He reported that the inhabitants of that valley attributed the dispersal of erratic boulders to the glaciers, later similar explanations were reported from other regions of the Alps. In 1815 the carpenter and chamois hunter Jean-Pierre Perraudin explained erratic boulders in the Val de Bagnes in the Swiss canton of Valais as being due to glaciers previously extending further. An unknown woodcutter from Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland advocated a similar idea in a discussion with the Swiss-German geologist Jean de Charpentier in 1834, comparable explanations are also known from the Val de Ferret in the Valais and the Seeland in western Switzerland and in Goethes scientific work. Such explanations could also be found in parts of the world. When the Bavarian naturalist Ernst von Bibra visited the Chilean Andes in 1849–1850, meanwhile, European scholars had begun to wonder what had caused the dispersal of erratic material. From the middle of the 18th century, some discussed ice as a means of transport, the Swedish mining expert Daniel Tilas was, in 1742, the first person to suggest drifting sea ice in order to explain the presence of erratic boulders in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions. In 1795, the Scottish philosopher and gentleman naturalist, James Hutton, two decades later, in 1818, the Swedish botanist Göran Wahlenberg published his theory of a glaciation of the Scandinavian peninsula. He regarded glaciation as a regional phenomenon, only a few years later, the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark argued a sequence of worldwide ice ages. In a paper published in 1824, Esmark proposed changes in climate as the cause of those glaciations and he attempted to show that they originated from changes in Earths orbit. During the following years, Esmarks ideas were discussed and taken over in parts by Swedish, Scottish, at the University of Edinburgh Robert Jameson seemed to be relatively open to Esmarks ideas, as reviewed by Norwegian professor of glaciology Bjørn G. Andersen. Jamesons remarks about ancient glaciers in Scotland were most probably prompted by Esmark, in Germany, Albrecht Reinhard Bernhardi, a geologist and professor of forestry at an academy in Dreissigacker, since incorporated in the southern Thuringian city of Meiningen, adopted Esmarks theory. In a paper published in 1832, Bernhardi speculated about former polar ice caps reaching as far as the zones of the globe. When he read his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft, most scientists remained sceptical, finally, Venetz convinced his friend Jean de Charpentier. De Charpentier transformed Venetzs idea into a theory with a limited to the Alps. In fact, both men shared the same volcanistic, or in de Charpentiers case rather plutonistic assumptions, about the Earths history, in 1834, de Charpentier presented his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft
5.
Geomorphology
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Geomorphology is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near the Earths surface. Geomorphologists work within disciplines such as geography, geology, geodesy, engineering geology, archaeology. This broad base of interests contributes to many styles and interests within the field. Earths surface is modified by a combination of processes that sculpt landscapes, and geologic processes that cause tectonic uplift and subsidence. Many of these factors are strongly mediated by climate, the broad-scale topographies of the Earth illustrate this intersection of surface and subsurface action. Mountain belts are uplifted due to geologic processes, denudation of these high uplifted regions produces sediment that is transported and deposited elsewhere within the landscape or off the coast. On progressively smaller scales, similar ideas apply, where individual landforms evolve in response to the balance of additive processes, often, these processes directly affect each other, ice sheets, water, and sediment are all loads that change topography through flexural isostasy. Topography can modify the climate, for example through orographic precipitation. Many geomorphologists are particularly interested in the potential for feedbacks between climate and tectonics, mediated by geomorphic processes, in addition to these broad-scale questions, geomorphologists address issues that are more specific and/or more local. Fluvial geomorphologists focus on rivers, how they transport sediment, migrate across the landscape, cut into bedrock, respond to environmental and tectonic changes, and interact with humans. Soils geomorphologists investigate soil profiles and chemistry to learn about the history of a landscape and understand how climate, biota. Other geomorphologists study how hillslopes form and change, still others investigate the relationships between ecology and geomorphology. Because geomorphology is defined to comprise everything related to the surface of the Earth and its modification, geomorphologists use a wide range of techniques in their work. These may include fieldwork and field data collection, the interpretation of remotely sensed data, geochemical analyses, geomorphologists may rely on geochronology, using dating methods to measure the rate of changes to the surface. Practical applications of geomorphology include hazard assessment, river control and stream restoration, planetary geomorphology studies landforms on other terrestrial planets such as Mars. Indications of effects of wind, fluvial, glacial, mass wasting, meteor impact, tectonics and this effort not only helps better understand the geologic and atmospheric history of those planets but also extends geomorphological study of the Earth. Planetary geomorphologists often use Earth analogues to aid in their study of surfaces of other planets, other than some notable exceptions in antiquity, geomorphology is a relatively young science, growing along with interest in other aspects of the earth sciences in the mid-19th century. This section provides a brief outline of some of the major figures
6.
Rocky Mountain National Park
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The park is situated between the towns of Estes Park to the east and Grand Lake to the west. The eastern and westerns slopes of the Continental Divide run directly through the center of the park with the headwaters of the Colorado River located in the northwestern region. The main features of the park include mountains, alpine lakes, the Rocky Mountain National Park Act was signed by then–President Woodrow Wilson on January 26,1915, establishing the park boundaries and protecting the area for future generations. The Civilian Conservation Corps built the main route, named Trail Ridge Road. In 1976, UNESCO designated the park as one of the first World Biosphere Reserves, in 2016, more than four and a half million recreational visitors entered the park, which is an increase of about nine percent from the prior year. The history of Rocky Mountain National Park began when Paleo-Indians traveled along what is now Trail Ridge Road to hunt, Ute and Arapaho people subsequently hunted and camped in the area. In 1820, the Long Expedition, led by Stephen H. Long for whom Longs Peak was named, approached the Rockies via the Platte River. Settlers began arriving in the mid-1800s, displacing the Native Americans who mostly left the area voluntarily by 1860, lulu City, Dutchtown, and Gaskill in the Never Summer Mountains were established in the 1870s when prospectors came in search of gold and silver. The boom ended by 1883 with miners deserting their claims, the railroad reached Lyons, Colorado in 1881 and the Big Thompson Canyon Road—a section of U. S. Route 34 from Loveland to Estes Park—was completed in 1904. The 1920s saw a boom in building lodges and roads in the park, prominent individuals in the effort to create a national park included Enos Mills from the Estes Park area, James Grafton Rogers from Denver, and J. Horace McFarland of Pennsylvania. The national park was established on January 26,1915, Precambrian metamorphic rock formed the core of the North American continent during the Precambrian eon 4. 5–1 billion years ago. During the Paleozoic era, western North America was submerged beneath a sea, with a seabed composed of limestone. Concurrently, in the period from 500–300 million years ago, the region began to sink while lime, eroded granite produced sand particles that formed strata—layers of sediment—in the sinking basin. About 300 million years ago, the land was uplifted creating the ancestral Rocky Mountains, fountain Formation was deposited during the Pennsylvanian period of the Paleozoic era, 290–296 million years ago. Over the next 150 million years, the uplifted, continued to erode. Wind, gravity, rainwater, snow, and glacial ice eroded the mountains over geologic time scales. The Ancestral Rockies were eventually buried under subsequent strata, the Pierre Shale formation was deposited during the Paleogene and Cretaceous periods about 70 million years ago. The region was covered by a deep sea—the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway—which deposited massive amounts of shale on the seabed
7.
Ansel Adams
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Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist. His black and white photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books. Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure, the resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs. He primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images, Adams founded the photography group known as Group f/64, along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston. Adams was born in the Western Addition of San Francisco, California and he was named after his uncle, Ansel Easton. His mothers family came from Baltimore, where his grandfather had a successful freight-hauling business but lost his wealth investing in failed mining. The Adams family came from New England, having migrated from Northern Ireland in the early 18th century and his paternal grandfather founded and built a prosperous lumber business which his father later ran, though his fathers natural talents lay more with sciences than with business. Later in life, Adams condemned that very same industry for cutting many of the great redwood forests. In 1907, his family moved 2 miles west to a new home near the Seacliff neighbourhood, the home had a splendid view of the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands. San Francisco was devastated by the April 18,1906 San Francisco earthquake, the four year-old Ansel Adams was uninjured in the initial shaking but was tossed face-first into a garden wall during an aftershock three hours later, breaking and scarring his nose. Among his earliest memories was watching the smoke from the fire that destroyed much of the city a few miles to the east. A doctor recommended that his nose be reset once he reached maturity, Adams was a hyperactive child and prone to frequent sickness and hypochondria. He had few friends, but his home and surroundings on the heights facing the Golden Gate provided ample childhood activities. His father bought a telescope, and they enthusiastically shared the hobby of amateur astronomy. His father went on to serve as the paid secretary-treasurer of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1925 to 1950, Ansels fathers business suffered great financial losses after the death of Ansels grandfather and the aftermath of the Panic of 1907. By 1912, the standard of living had dropped sharply. Ansel was dismissed from several schools for being restless and inattentive. Adams was then educated by tutors, his aunt Mary
8.
Glacier
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A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight, it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs and they also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice, between 35°N and 35°S, glaciers occur only in the Himalayas, Andes, Rocky Mountains, a few high mountains in East Africa, Mexico, New Guinea and on Zard Kuh in Iran. Glaciers cover about 10 percent of Earths land surface, continental glaciers cover nearly 13,000,000 km2 or about 98 percent of Antarcticas 13,200,000 km2, with an average thickness of 2,100 m. Greenland and Patagonia also have huge expanses of continental glaciers, Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. Within high altitude and Antarctic environments, the temperature difference is often not sufficient to release meltwater. A large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, appears blue as large quantities of water appear blue and this is because water molecules absorb other colors more efficiently than blue. The other reason for the color of glaciers is the lack of air bubbles. Air bubbles, which give a color to ice, are squeezed out by pressure increasing the density of the created ice. The word Glaceon is a loanword from French and goes back, via Franco-Provençal, to the Vulgar Latin glaciārium, derived from the Late Latin glacia, the processes and features caused by or related to glaciers are referred to as glacial. The process of establishment, growth and flow is called glaciation. The corresponding area of study is called glaciology, Glaciers are important components of the global cryosphere. Glaciers are categorized by their morphology, thermal characteristics, and behavior, cirque glaciers form on the crests and slopes of mountains. A glacier that fills a valley is called a valley glacier, a large body of glacial ice astride a mountain, mountain range, or volcano is termed an ice cap or ice field. Ice caps have a less than 50,000 km2 by definition. Glacial bodies larger than 50,000 km2 are called ice sheets or continental glaciers, several kilometers deep, they obscure the underlying topography. Only nunataks protrude from their surfaces, the only extant ice sheets are the two that cover most of Antarctica and Greenland. They contain vast quantities of water, enough that if both melted, global sea levels would rise by over 70 m
9.
Engadin
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The Engadin or Engadine is a long high Alpine valley region in the eastern Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in most southeastern Switzerland with about 25,000 inhabitants. It follows the route of the Inn from its headwaters at Maloja Pass in the southwest running roughly northeast until the Inn flows into Austria, the En/Inn subsequently flows at Passau into the Donau, as the only Swiss river. The Engadine is protected by mountain ranges on all sides and is famous for its sunny climate, beautiful landscapes. The Romansh toponym Engiadina was first attested as Latin vallis Eniatina in AD930, a derivation from the reconstructed ethnonym *Eniates has been suggested, with the first part of the ethnonym in turn containing the name of the En. The Engadine is separated by the Julier, Albula, Flüela Passes and the Vereina Tunnel to the part of Switzerland. It is reachable from northern Italy by the Maloja Pass to the west, via the Pass dal Fuorn it connects to the southern Val Müstair and further south over the border to the Val Venosta in Italy. The highest mountains of the area of the Engadine is the Bernina Range in the southwestern part. Its major center is St. Moritz and very bustling during touristic peak seasons, the traditionally spoken Romansh idiom in the Upper Engadine is called Putèr. The traditionally spoken Romansh idiom in the Lower Engadine is called Vallader, to the southwestern side, the Maloja Pass drops precipitously down to the Italian spoken Val Bregaglia and then over the Swiss-Italian border further down to Chiavenna, and thence southwards to Como. The resort of St. Moritz at around 1,800 metres sits on Lej da San Murezzan and it was the host city for the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics. There are numerous ski resorts in the served by the ski areas of Piz Corvatsch. Northeast of St. Moritz lies the village of Samedan, which is the capital of the Upper Engadine, near Samedan, the river Flaz joins the Inn from the south and the valley opens into a wide meadow framed with mountains. The Flaz is a tributary which flows north, down the Val Bernina starting in Pontresina at the confluence of the Ova da Roseg. Here, on the flat between two rivers one also finds the Engadin Airport. The highest mountain in the area of the Engadine – and in the Eastern Alps – is Piz Bernina. Further down from Samedan to the northeast are a number of lying on the banks of the Inn. One of it is Zuoz, which is a village of typical Engadine houses, with large, thick stone and masonry walls, funnel-shaped windows, and wall paintings called sgraffito. These houses are large and are shared by two or more families, and they may have what used to be a stable or livestock area underneath
10.
Gorner Glacier
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The Gorner Glacier is a valley glacier found on the west side of the Monte Rosa massif close to Zermatt in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It is about 12.4 km long and 1 to 1.5 km wide, the entire glacial area of the glacier related to Gorner Glacier is 57 km2, which makes it the second largest glacial system in the Alps after the Aletsch Glacier system. Numerous smaller glaciers connect with the Gorner Glacier and its tributaries are, Gornergletscher, Monte Rosa Gletscher, Grenzgletscher, Zwillingsgletscher, Schwärzegletscher, Breithorngletscher, Triftjigletscher, and Unterer Theodulgletscher. The Grenzgletscher between the central Monte Rosa massif and the Liskamm to the south is nowadays by far the lower Gorner Glaciers main tributary, the Gorner Glaciers upper part is almost already disconnected from its lower part. Also the former tributaries Breithorngletscher, Triftjigletscher, and Unterer Theodulgletscher left their connections to the Gorner Glacier during the last century, the Lower Theodul Glacier in the 1980s. An interesting feature of this glacier is the Gornersee, an ice marginal lake at the area of the Gorner-. This lake fills every year and drains in summer, usually as a Glacial lake outburst flood and this is one of few glacial lakes in the Alps exhibiting this kind of behaviour. There are also several interesting features including crevasses and table top forms where large surface boulders have been left stranded above the glaciers surface. Supported by ice that the boulder has sheltered from melting that has effected the more exposed surrounding ice, due to the immense information about the glacier, it is perfect for a glacier project. It is the source of the river Gornera which flows down through Zermatt itself, however, most of its water gets captured by a water catchment station of the Grande Dixence hydroelectric power plant. This water then ends up in the Lac des Dix, the reservoir of Grande Dixence. The glacier as well as the mountains can be seen from the Gornergrat. Like almost all glaciers in the Alps, and most glaciers on the globe as well. And in a dramatic way. Nowadays, Gorner Glacier retreats with about 30 metres every year, since its last major expansion in 1859 it lost more than 2,500 metres in distance. However, the upper Gorner Glacier traditionally is to be found on the north side, the reason is that the upper part of the Gorner Glacier is currently losing contact with its lower part and now the Grenzgletscher has become its much larger tributary. So it is easy to mismatch the Border Glacier as the upper Gorner Glacier, but this was not the case in earlier times, as the following comparison impressively shows, List of glaciers in Switzerland Gorner Glacier glaciology. ethz. ch Gorner Glacier swisseduc. ch
11.
Zermatt
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Zermatt is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of about 5,800 inhabitants, the town lies at the upper end of Mattertal at an elevation of 1,620 m, at the foot of Switzerlands highest peaks. It lies about 10 km from the over 10,800 ft high Theodul Pass bordering Italy, Zermatt is famed as a mountaineering and ski resort of the Swiss Alps. The year round population is 5,759, though there may be several times as many tourists in Zermatt at any one time. Much of the economy is based on tourism, with about half of the jobs in town in hotels or restaurants. Just over one-third of the permanent population was born in the town, the name of Zermatt, as well as that of the Matterhorn itself, derives from the alpine meadows, or matten, in the valley. The name appeared first as Zur Matte and became later Zermatt and it does not appear until 1495 on a map or 1546 in a text, but may have been employed long before. Praborno or Prato Borno are the names of Zermatt, they appear in the ancient maps as early as the thirteenth century. The Romand-speaking people from the Aosta Valley and from the Romand-speaking part of canton Wallis used this name until about 1860 in the form of Praborne, the reason of this change from Praborno to Zermatt is attributed to the gradual replacement of the Romance-speaking people by German-speaking colony. The town of Zermatt lies at the end of the Matter Valley. Zermatt is almost completely surrounded by the mountains of the Pennine Alps among which Monte Rosa. It is followed by the Dom, Lyskamm, Weisshorn and the Matterhorn, most of the Alpine four-thousanders are located around Zermatt or in the neighbouring valleys. The town of Zermatt, while dense, is geographically small, there are three main streets which run along the banks of the river Matter Vispa, and numerous cross-streets, especially around the station and the church which forms the centre of Zermatt. In general anything is at most a thirty-minute walk away, there are several suburbs within Zermatt. Winkelmatten, which was once a hamlet, lies on a hill on the southern side. Steinmatten is located on the bank of the main river. Many hamlets are located in the valleys above Zermatt, however they are not usually inhabited all year round, zum See lies south of Zermatt on the west bank of the Gorner gorge, near Furi where a cable car station is located. On the side of Zmutt valley lies the hamlet of Zmutt, findeln is located in the eastern valley above the Findelbach river
12.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
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