1.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
2.
Dutch people
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The Dutch, occasionally referred to as Netherlanders—a term that is cognate to the Dutch word for Dutch people, Nederlanders—are a Germanic ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a culture and speak the Dutch language. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at an early date. During the Republic the first series of large scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place, despite the small size of the Netherlands, the Dutch left behind a legacy in excess of their mere numbers. The traditional art and culture of the Dutch encompasses various forms of music, dances, architectural styles and clothing. Internationally, Dutch painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh are held in high regard, the dominant religion of the Dutch is Christianity, although in modern times the majority is no longer religious. Significant percentages of the Dutch are adherents of humanism, agnosticism, atheism or individual spirituality, as with all ethnic groups the ethnogenesis of the Dutch has been a lengthy and complex process. The text below hence focuses on the history of the Dutch ethnic group, for Dutch national history, for Dutch colonial history, see the article on the Dutch Empire. Following the end of the period in the West around 500, with large federations settling the decaying Roman Empire. In the Low Countries, this began when the Franks, themselves a union of multiple smaller tribes. Eventually, in 358, the Salian Franks, one of the three main subdivisions among the Frankish alliance settled the areas Southern lands as foederati, Roman allies in charge of border defense. On a political level, the Frankish warlords abandoned tribalism and founded a number of kingdoms, however, the population make-up of the Frankish Empire, or even early Frankish kingdoms such as Neustria and Austrasia, was not dominated by Franks. Though the Frankish leaders controlled most of Western Europe, the Franks themselves were confined to the Northwestern part of the Empire, the current Dutch-French language border has remained virtually identical ever since, and could be seen as marking the furthest pale of gallicization among the Franks. The medieval cities of the Low Countries, which experienced major growth during the 11th and 12th century, were instrumental in breaking down the already relatively loose local form of feudalism, as they became increasingly powerful, they used their economical strength to influence the politics of their nobility. While the cities were of political importance, they also formed catalysts for medieval Dutch culture. The various city guilds as well as the necessity of water boards in the Dutch delta and it is also around this time, that ethnonyms such as Diets and Nederlands emerge. This process marked a new episode in the development of the Dutch ethnic group, as now political unity started to emerge, consolidating the strengthened cultural, despite their linguistic and cultural unity, and economic similarities, there was still little sense of political unity among the Dutch people. However, the centralist policies of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries, at first violently opposed by the cities of the Low Countries, had a profound impact and changed this
3.
Cartography
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Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively, the fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to, Set the maps agenda and select traits of the object to be mapped. This is the concern of map editing, traits may be physical, such as roads or land masses, or may be abstract, such as toponyms or political boundaries. Represent the terrain of the object on flat media. This is the concern of map projections, eliminate characteristics of the mapped object that are not relevant to the maps purpose. This is the concern of generalization, reduce the complexity of the characteristics that will be mapped. This is also the concern of generalization, orchestrate the elements of the map to best convey its message to its audience. This is the concern of map design, modern cartography constitutes many theoretical and practical foundations of geographic information systems. The earliest known map is a matter of debate, both because the term map isnt well-defined and because some artifacts that might be maps might actually be something else. A wall painting that might depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE, the oldest surviving world maps are from 9th century BCE Babylonia. One shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by Assyria, Urartu and several cities, all, in turn, another depicts Babylon as being north of the world center. The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps since Anaximander in the 6th century BCE, in the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy wrote his treatise on cartography, Geographia. This contained Ptolemys world map – the world known to Western society. As early as the 8th century, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic, in ancient China, geographical literature dates to the 5th century BCE. The oldest extant Chinese maps come from the State of Qin, dated back to the 4th century BCE, in the book of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection. Early forms of cartography of India included depictions of the pole star and these charts may have been used for navigation. Mappa mundi are the Medieval European maps of the world, approximately 1,100 mappae mundi are known to have survived from the Middle Ages. Of these, some 900 are found illustrating manuscripts and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi produced his medieval atlas Tabula Rogeriana in 1154
4.
Intaglio (printmaking)
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Intaglio is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print, normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface or matrix, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or mezzotint. Collagraphs may also be printed as intaglio plates, in etching, for example, the plate is covered in a resin ground or an acid-resistant wax material. Using an etching needle, or a tool, the image is engraved into the ground. The plate is dipped into acid. The acid bites into the surface of the plate where it was exposed, biting is a printmaking term to describe the acids etching, or incising, of the image. After the plate is bitten, the plate is removed from the acid bath. To print an intaglio plate, ink is applied to the surface by wiping and/or dabbing the plate to push the ink into the recessed lines, the plate is then rubbed with tarlatan cloth to remove most of the excess ink. The final smooth wipe is often done with newspaper or old public phone book pages, a damp piece of paper is placed on top of the plate, so that when going through the press the damp paper will be able to be squeezed into the plates ink-filled grooves. The paper and plate are covered by a thick blanket to ensure even pressure when going through the rolling press. The rolling press applies very high pressure through the blanket to push the paper into the grooves on the plate, the blanket is then lifted, revealing the paper and printed image. Martin Schongauer was one of the earliest known artists to exploit the copper-engraving technique, italian and Netherlandish engraving began slightly after the Germans, but were well developed by 1500. Drypoint and etching were also German inventions of the century, probably by the Housebook Master. In the nineteenth century, Viennese printer Karel Klíč introduced a combined intaglio, photogravure retained the smooth continuous tones of photography but was printed using a chemically-etched copper plate. This permitted a photographic image to be printed on regular paper, at one time intaglio printing was used for all mass-printed materials including banknotes, stock certificates, newspapers and magazines, fabrics, wallpapers and sheet music. Today intaglio engraving is largely used for paper or plastic currency, banknotes, passports, photogravure, an intaglio photo-printmaking process Rotogravure Line engraving Viscosity printing History of printing Intaglio and other printmaking definitions
5.
Atlas
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An atlas is a collection of maps, it is typically a map of Earth or a region of Earth, but there are atlases of the other planets in the Solar System. Furthermore, atlases of anatomy exist, mapping out the body or other organisms. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats, in addition to presenting geographic features and political boundaries, many atlases often feature geopolitical, social, religious and economic statistics. They also have information about the map and places in it, the use of the word atlas in a geographical context dates from 1595 when the geographer Gerardus Mercator published Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura. This title provides Mercators definition of the word as a description of the creation and form of the whole universe, nonetheless, this distinction is conventionally awarded to the Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius who in 1570 published the collection of maps Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. A travel atlas is made for use during travel. It has maps at a large zoom so the maps can be reviewed easily, a travel atlas may also be referred to as a road map. A desk atlas is made similar to a reference book and it may be in hardback or paperback form. With the coming of the market, publishers in different countries can reprint maps from places made elsewhere. This means that the names on the maps often use the designations or abbreviations of the language of the country in which the feature is located. For example, islands near Russia have the abbreviation O. for ostrov and this practice differs from what is standard for any given language, and it reaches its extremity concerning transliterations from other languages. In particular, German mapmakers use the transliterations from Cyrillic developed by the Czechs, national Geographic MapMachine History of atlases Atlases, at the US Library of Congress site - a discussion of many significant atlases, with some illustrations. Part of Geography and Maps, an Illustrated Guide, Historical atlases online Centennia Historical Atlas required reading at the US Naval Academy for over a decade. Manuscript Atlases held by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries - fully digitized with descriptions, Historical Altas in Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection, Cornell University Library Other links Google Earth, a visual 3D interactive atlas. Wikimapia a wikiproject designed to describe the entire world
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Christmas Island
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Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. Christmas Island is located in the Indian Ocean, around 350 kilometres south of Java and Sumatra and it has an area of 135 square kilometres. Christmas Island has a population of just over 2,000 residents, the main settlement is Flying Fish Cove. Around two-thirds of the population are Malaysian Chinese, with significant numbers of Malays. Several languages are in use, including English, Malay, and various Chinese dialects, while Buddhism is the primary religion, the first European to sight the island was Richard Rowe of the Thomas in 1615. The island was named on Christmas Day 1643 by Captain William Mynors. Its geographic isolation and history of human disturbance has led to a high level of endemism among its flora and fauna. The majority of the island is included in the Christmas Island National Park, Phosphate, deposited originally as guano, has been mined on the island since 1899. Located at 10°30′S 105°40′E, the island is about 19 kilometres in greatest length and 14.5 km in breadth, the total land area is 135 square kilometres, with 138.9 km of coastline. The island is the summit of an underwater mountain more than 4,500 metres high. The mountain was originally a volcano, and some basalt is exposed in places such as The Dales and Dolly Beach, the karst terrain supports numerous anchialine caves. Steep cliffs along much of the coast rise abruptly to a central plateau, elevation ranges from sea level to 361 m at Murray Hill. The island is tropical rainforest, 63% of which is national park land. The narrow fringing reef surrounding the island poses a maritime hazard, Christmas Island lies 2,600 kilometres northwest of Perth, Western Australia,500 km south of Indonesia,975 km ENE of the Cocos Islands, and 2,748 km west of Darwin, Northern Territory. Its closest point to the Australian mainland is 1,560 km from the town of Exmouth, Christmas Island has 80 kilometres of shoreline but only small parts of the shoreline are easily accessible. The islands perimeter is embodied by sharp cliff faces, making many of the beaches difficult to get to. As Christmas Island is located towards the edge of the equatorial region, climate is tropical. The highest temperature is usually around 29 °C in March and April, while the lowest temperature is 23 °C, there is a dry season from July to November with only occasional showers
7.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
8.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
9.
Jodocus Hondius
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Jodocus Hondius was a Flemish/Dutch/Netherlandish engraver and cartographer. He is sometimes called Jodocus Hondius the Elder to distinguish him from his son Jodocus Hondius II, Hondius is best known for his early maps of the New World and Europe, for re-establishing the reputation of the work of Gerard Mercator, and for his portraits of Francis Drake. One of the representatives in the Golden Age of Dutch/Netherlandish cartography. Hondius was born in Wakken and grew up in Ghent, in his early years he established himself as an engraver, instrument maker and globe maker. In 1584 he moved to London to escape religious difficulties in Flanders, while in England, Hondius was instrumental in publicizing the work of Francis Drake, who had made a circumnavigation of the world in the late 1570s. In particular, in 1589 Hondius produced a now famous map of the bay of New Albion, Hondius is also thought to be the artist of several well-known portraits of Drake that are now in the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 1593 he moved to Amsterdam, where he remained until the end of his life, in co-operation with the Amsterdam publisher Cornelis Claesz. in 1604 he purchased the plates of Gerard Mercators Atlas from Mercators grandson. Mercators work had languished in comparison to the rival Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Ortelius, Hondius republished Mercators work with 36 additional maps, including several which he himself had produced. Despite the addition of his own contributions, Hondius gave Mercator full credit as the author of the work, hondiuss new edition of Mercators work was a great success, selling out after a year. Hondius later published an edition, as well as a pocket version Atlas Minor. The maps have become known as the Mercator/Hondius series. In the French edition of the Atlas Minor we find one of the first instances of a map using map symbols. This is a map entitled Designatio orbis christiani showing the dispersion of major religions, between 1605 and 1610 he was employed by John Speed to engrave the plates for Speeds The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. Hondius died, aged 48, in Amsterdam, eventually, starting with the first 1606 edition in Latin, about 50 editions of the Atlas were released in the main European languages. In the Islamic world, the atlas was partially translated by the Turkish scholar Kâtip Çelebi, the series is sometimes called the Mercator/Hondius/Janssonius series because of Janssoniuss later contributions. Hondiuss Mappa Aestivarum Insularum, alias Barmudas dictarum. is a map of Bermuda. Shortly afterwards the Bermudas were granted to the Virginia Company, hence references to the Company on the map including the distance to the Roanoke Colony in Virginia. The miniature map with its own scale, top left, shows the position relative to the Virginian coast
10.
Jan Janssonius
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Johannes Janssonius was a Dutch cartographer and publisher who lived and worked in Amsterdam in the 17th century. Janssonius was born in Arnhem, the son of Jan Janszoon the Elder, in 1612 he married Elisabeth de Hondt, the daughter of Jodocus Hondius. He produced his first maps in 1616 of France and Italy, in 1623 Janssonius owned a bookstore in Frankfurt am Main, later also in Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Königsberg, Geneva and Lyon. Elisabeth Hondius died in 1627 and he remarried one Elisabeth Carlier in 1629, in the 1630s he formed a partnership with his brother in law Henricus Hondius, and together they published atlases as Mercator/Hondius/Janssonius. Under the leadership of Janssonius the Hondius Atlas was steadily enlarged, renamed Atlas Novus, it had three volumes in 1638, one fully dedicated to Italy. 1646 a fourth volume came out with English County Maps, a year after an issue by Willem Blaeu. Janssonius maps are similar to those of Blaeu, and he is accused of copying from his rival. By 1660, at point the atlas bore the appropriate name Atlas Major, there were 11 volumes. It included a description of most of the cities of the world, of the waterworld, the eleventh volume was the Atlas of the Heavens by Andreas Cellarius. Editions were printed in Dutch, Latin, French, and a few times in German, after Janssoniuss death, the publishing company was continued by his son-in law, Johannes van Waesbergen. The London bookseller Moses Pitt attempted publication of the Atlas Major in English, Sueciæ, Norvegiæ et Daniæ Nova Tabula, Amsterdam c. Tabula exactissima Regnorum Sueciæ et Norvegiæ, which replaced Hondius II1613 Episcopatum Stavangriensis, Bergensis et Asloiensis Amsterdam 1636–1642, the first map to show the Oslo Fjord by name. This map shows Southern Norway with the Stavanger bishopric and the area of the Bergen. Peter van der Krogt, Koemans atlantes Neerlandici, Vol
