1.
Stockholm
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The city is spread across 14 islands on the coast in the southeast of Sweden at the mouth of Lake Mälaren, by the Stockholm archipelago and the Baltic Sea. The area has settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC. It is also the capital of Stockholm County, Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the countrys GDP and it is an important global city, and the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region. The city is home to some of Europes top ranking universities, such as the Stockholm School of Economics, Karolinska Institute and it hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the citys most prized museums, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. The Stockholm metro, opened in 1950, is known for its decoration of the stations. Swedens national football arena is located north of the city centre, Ericsson Globe, the national indoor arena, is in the southern part of the city. The city was the host of the 1912 Summer Olympics, and hosted the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics otherwise held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Stockholm is the seat of the Swedish government and most of its agencies, including the highest courts in the judiciary, and the official residencies of the Swedish monarch and the Prime Minister. The government has its seat in the Rosenbad building, the Riksdag is seated in the Parliament House, and the Prime Ministers residence is adjacent at the Sager House. After the Ice Age, around 8,000 BCE, there were already a number of people living in the present-day Stockholm area. Thousands of years later, as the ground thawed, the climate became tolerable, at the intersection of the Baltic Sea and lake Mälaren is an archipelago site where the Old Town of Stockholm was first built from about 1000 CE by Vikings. They had a positive impact on the area because of the trade routes they created. Stockholms location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, and in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne, the earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name means log in Swedish, although it may also be connected to an old German word meaning fortification, the second part of the name means islet, and is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. Stockholms core, the present Old Town was built on the island next to Helgeandsholmen from the mid 13th century onward. The city originally rose to prominence as a result of the Baltic trade of the Hanseatic League, Stockholm developed strong economic and cultural linkages with Lübeck, Hamburg, Gdańsk, Visby, Reval, and Riga during this time
2.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
3.
Million Programme
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The aim was to construct a million new dwellings during the programmes ten-year period. At the time, the Million Programme was the most ambitious building programme in the world to one million new homes in a nation with a population of eight million. At the same time, a proportion of the older unmodernised housing stock was demolished. The housing shortage in Sweden before the start of the programme was a political and social issue in Sweden. Between 1860 and 1960, Sweden had transformed from a nation to a highly industrialized nation. The population in the countryside moved in large numbers to towns after 1945 and this urbanization following World War II was also encouraged by the authorities and governing establishment. After the war, as Swedish industry was unharmed, cities needed workers to produce the amount of goods demanded by the rest of war-destroyed Europe. The major cities of Sweden had in many cases had their last building boom in the century and were, by 1950. The increasing standard of living led to demands to decrease the population density. This was made possible because of the outstanding growth Sweden had during the years in the 1950s and 1960s which led to a flood of income to the national treasury. This money was used to implement social reforms, another new law said that a municipality could build homes outside its border, because rural municipalities near Stockholm could not afford building so much. Over the lifespan of the program,1,006,000 new dwellings were built, for the houses designed for the lowest-income group, the government would bear 66% of the initial costs and this would be repaid by the customers and residents in a 30-year period. For other categories such as students and blue collar workers and immigrants, the net result was an increase in Sweden’s housing stock of 650,000 new apartments and houses, financed through property tax, with a general rise in housing quality. The new Million Programme residential areas were greatly inspired by early suburban neighbourhoods such as Vällingby, one of the main aims behind the planning of these residential areas was to create good democratic citizens. A principal aim was to mix and integrate different groups of households through the mixing of tenures. Most of the apartments were of the three room apartment type of 75 m², planned for a model family of two adults and two children. The second type of apartments were the student blocks or student suburbs that were planned and built in the cities having large universities, like Stockholm, Lund, Uppsala, Linköping and Umeå. Almost 150,000 new student apartments were built in specially designated student suburbs in order to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing university student population and these student apartments were usually 1-bedroom 1-bathroom and common kitchen type dorms that were clustered together in a large suburb or neighborhood
4.
Stockholm metro
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The Stockholm metro is a metro system in Stockholm, Sweden. The first line opened in 1950, and today the system has 100 stations in use, there are three coloured main lines on the tube maps. These do however form seven actual routes, routes number 17,18 and 19,13 and 14 and 10 and 11 all go through Stockholm City Centre in a very centralized metro system. All seven actual lines use The T-Centralen hub station, the metro is like the London Underground and the Paris Métro, but unlike the U-Bahn and S-Bahn in Berlin, in that it is equipped with ticket gates. Single tickets must be bought in advance, or at ticket machines that are available in all underground stations, passengers can also buy tickets at the ticket booth, just by the gates to the metro. In 2013, the metro carried 328 million passengers, which corresponds to approximately 898,630 riders per day, the 105. 7-kilometre-long metro system is owned by the Stockholm County Council through the company Storstockholms Lokaltrafik. The operation is contracted to MTR Corporation, the decision to build a metro was made in 1941. The following years, and in some earlier, some routes were built with near metro standard. These included Kristineberg-Islandstorget, Slussen–Blåsut and Telefonplan–Hägerstensåsen, the first part of the metro was opened on 1 October 1950, from Slussen to Hökarängen, having been converted from tram to metro operation. In 1951 a second line from Slussen to Stureby was opened, in 1952, a second system, from Hötorget to the western suburbs was opened. In 1957, the two parts were connected via the Central station and the Old Town, forming the Green Line, during the period 1950-1960 the Green Line was extended piece by piece. The Red Line was opened in 1964, from T-Centralen over Liljeholmen ending in Fruängen and Örnsberg and it was extended piece by piece until 1978. The third and final system, the Blue Line, was opened in 1975, as the construction requirements have become more strict over the years, newer segments have more tunnels than older, and the Blue Line is almost all in tunnel. The latest addition to the network, Skarpnäck station, was opened in 1994. There are 100 stations in use in the Stockholm metro, one station, Kymlinge, was built but never taken into use. One station has taken out of use and demolished. The Bagarmossen old surface station was demolished and replaced with a new underground station, the Stockholm metro is well known for its decoration of the stations, it has been called the longest art gallery in the world. Several of the stations are left with the exposed, crude and unfinished
5.
Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires. Iraqs modern borders were mostly demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was divided by the Treaty of Sèvres, Iraq was placed under the authority of the United Kingdom as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, in 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party from 1968 until 2003, after an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Husseins Baath Party was removed from power and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The American presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country, the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name, one dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for city, UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is rooted, well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿajamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the south of the Hamrin Mountains. The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ or /ɪˈræk/, the American Heritage Dictionary, the pronunciation /aɪˈræk/ is frequently heard in U. S. media. Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture where agriculture, the following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations
6.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
