1.
Morskie Oko
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Morskie Oko is the largest and fourth-deepest lake in the Tatra Mountains. It is located deep within the Tatra National Park, Poland, in the Rybi Potok Valley, of the High Tatras mountain range at the base of the Mięguszowiecki Summits, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship. The peaks that surround the lake rise about 1,000 meters above its surface, one of them is Rysy, beside Mięguszowiecki Summits, farther away and slightly to the left, is the distinctive, slender Mnich. Many Swiss Pines also grow around the lake, in the past, Morskie Oko was called Rybie Jezioro due to its natural stock of fish, which are uncommon in Tatra lakes and ponds. In the clear depths of the water, one can easily notice trout - so called famine trout - that live in the lake, the name Morskie Oko is derived from an old legend, according to which the lake was connected to the sea via an underground passage. The hut of the Polish Tourism and Local Lore Society stands on the moraine that closes the lake from the north, the hut is situated 1,405 meters above sea level and belongs to the oldest Tatra chalets. The hut is named after Stanisław Staszic, who explored the lake in 1805 and it is a point of departure for hikes to Rysy and Szpiglasowa Przełęcz. Nearby is the Stare Schronisko, originally a coachhouse, both buildings have been granted historical status. Morskie Oko is one of the most popular destinations in the Tatras and it is reached by foot in about two hours from the nearest road that allows motorized access. Many other tourists opt to take the journey by horse-drawn cart, in winter, a short section of the journey is in an avalanche danger zone, and the area can remain cold and rainy even in summer. In the advent of its popularity, visitors have been forbidden from swimming in the lake or feeding the trout, the earliest documents in which Morskie Oko is mentioned date back to 1575. In 1637, the Polish king Władysław IV granted landowner Wladyslaw Nowobilski the right to use pastures in the area, at the end of the nineteenth century, a boundary dispute arose between Galicia and Hungary over property rights to the lake and adjoining area. The Court of Conciliation in Graz ruled in favor of the Polish side, the decision is credited to Oswald Balzer, who represented the Galicia government. Morskie Oko was rediscovered for tourism by Dr. Tytus Chałubiński in the mid nineteenth century, a second shelter, built in 1874, burned down in 1898. In 1902, a road from Zakopane was completed and named the Oswald Balzer Road, since 1933 following the return of sovereignty, the lake has been owned by the Polish state. The charm of Morskie Oko has provided inspiration to artists, including painters, poets. Media related to Morskie Oko at Wikimedia Commons Panoramic photos of Morskie Oko
2.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
5.
Western Carpathians
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The Western Carpathians are a mountain range and geomorphological province that forms the western part of the Carpathian Mountains. In the south the North Hungarian Mountains cover northern Hungary, the area of the Western Carpathians comprises about 70,000 km². The highest elevation is the Gerlachovský štít, most of the perimeter of the Western Carpathians is quite sharply defined by valleys. To the northwest and north they are separated from the Bohemian Massif by the Forecarpathian Lowland, to the south the mountain chain falls away towards the Pannonian Plain, a large plain situated between the Alps, the Dinaric Alps, and the main mass of the Eastern Carpathians. The boundary between the Western Carpathians and the Eastern Alps is formed by the Vienna Basin, the Hainburg Hills of the Little Carpathians at Devín Gate, and a gap carved by the Danube. To the east and northeast the mountains are bounded by the East Slovak and Sandomierz Basins, the Western Carpathians are part of the northern branch of alpine orogeny, which was formed by the closure of the Tethys Ocean millions of years ago. The Western Carpathians are part of the Alpide belt, to the west they longitudinally join the Alps, but the exact boundary is hidden under the Neogene sedimentary fill of the Vienna Basin. To the east, their boundary with the Eastern Carpathians is the valley of the Hornád or Uzh River, the northern boundary with the East European craton and Bohemian Massif is well marked by the thrust of nappes of the Carpathian flysch belt. The southern boundary is clear, because later postorogenetic evolution caused formation of basins. The Western Carpathians have a geological structure, that has been formed since the Paleozoic era. The oldest Paleozoic rocks experienced the first stage of deformation during the Hercynian orogeny, Alpine orogeny affected the area in several stages from Jurassic to Neogene. During this period, parts of Tethys Ocean were subducted under the African plate, tectonic units of the Western Carpathians are arranged in belt-like order, with the external units in the north and internal units in the south. After a subduction of the Meliata Ocean, the Internal Western Carpathians were formed
6.
NASA World Wind
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World Wind is an open-source virtual globe first developed by NASA in 2003 for use on personal computers and then further developed in concert with the open source community since 2004. As of 2017 a web based version of World Wind is available online, the original version relied on. NET Framework, which ran only on Microsoft Windows. The SDK includes a suite of basic demos, available at goworldwind. org, the World Wind Java version was awarded NASA Software of the Year in November 2009. The program overlays NASA and USGS satellite imagery, aerial photography, topographic maps, Keyhole Markup Language, though widely available since 2003, World Wind was released with the NASA Open Source Agreement license in 2004. The latest Java-based version, was released in December 2016, as of 2015 a web based version of World Wind is under development and available online. An Android version is also available, the previous. NET-based version was an application with an extensive suite of plugins. Apart from the Earth there are worlds, Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Users could interact with the planet by rotating it, tilting the view. Five million place names, political boundaries, latitude/longitude lines, World Wind. NET provided the ability to browse maps and geospatial data on the internet using the OGCs WMS servers, import ESRI shapefiles and kml/kmz files. This is an example of how World Wind allows anyone to deliver their data, other features of World Wind. NET included support for. X models and advanced visual effects such as atmospheric scattering or sun shading. The resolution inside the US is high enough to discern individual buildings, houses, cars. The resolution outside the US is at least 15 meters per pixel, Microsoft has allowed World Wind to incorporate Virtual Earth high resolution data for non-commercial use. World Wind uses digital elevation model data collected by NASAs Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, National Elevation Dataset and this means one can view topographic features such as the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions. In addition, WW has bathymetry data which allows users to see ocean features, such as trenches and ridges, in 3D. Many people using the applications are adding their own data and are making them available through various sources, such as the World Wind Central or blogs mentioned in the link section below. All images and movies created with World Wind using Blue Marble, Landsat, or USGS public domain data can be modified, re-distributed. World Wind can be expanded by using one of many add-ons - small extensions that add new functionality to the program, plug-in developers can add features to World Wind without changing the programs source code. The original recipe for World Wind was restricted to Windows, relying on the. NET libraries, a new SDK version has been developed in Java with JOGL referred to as World Wind Java
7.
Western Tatras
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The Western Tatras are mountains in the Tatras, part of the Carpathian Mountains, located on the Polish-Slovak borders. The mountains border the High Tatras in the east, Podtatranská kotlina in the south, Choč Mountains in the west, the main ridge is 37 kilometers long and the mountain range contains 31 two-thousanders. Western Tatras are the second highest mountain range both in Poland and Slovakia, its highest peak is Bystrá at 2,248 meters, other notable mountains include Jakubiná, Baranec, Baníkov, Tri kopy, Plačlivé, Ostrý Roháč, Volovec, Kasprowy Wierch and Giewont. In Slovakia, they are located in the traditional regions of Liptov. The highest point in Poland is Starorobociański Wierch, all visitors to the Western Tatras area in Slovakia are obliged since July 1,2006 to cover all costs of their rescue by the Mountain Rescue Service. Visitors are prohibited from leaving the marked tourist routes, sleeping in the mountains or setting fire are strictly prohibited, the Western Tatras are subdivided into 6 regions on the Slovak side and 4 on the Polish side. The exact number is difficult to obtain because of lack of a definition and because it is sometimes hard to prove what is a tarn. All other tourist centers lie at the borders of the mountains, including, Oravice, Zuberec, Bobrovecká vápenica, Žiar, Konská, Jakubovany-Studená dolina, Pribylina. Eastern Tatras – mountain range bordering the Western Tatras in the east Mountain Rescue Service Tourism in Slovakia Touristic map 1,25000 Západné Tatry - Podbanské - Zverovka, VKÚ a. s
8.
Leontopodium nivale
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Leontopodium alpinum, commonly called edelweiss, is a well-known mountain flower, belonging to the Asteraceae. The plant prefers rocky places at about 1, 800–3,000 metres altitude. It is non-toxic, and has been used traditionally in medicine as a remedy against abdominal. The dense hair appears to be an adaptation to high altitudes, protecting the plant from cold, aridity, according to folk tradition, giving this flower to a loved one is a promise of dedication. The common name is from the German word Edelweiß as a compound of edel noble, Edelweiß was one of several regional names for the plant, and entered wide usage during the first half of the 19th century, in the context of early Alpine tourism. Alternative names include Chatzen-Talpen, and the older Wullbluomen, the scientific name is a latinisation of the Greek leontopódion, lions paw. Since 1822 Leontopodium has no longer considered part of the Gnaphalium genus. In 2003, Leontopodium alpinum was re-classified as a subspecies of Leontopodium nivale, thus, the alpine edelweiss is currently recognized as being divided into two subspecies, Leontopodium nivale subsp. Alpinum Greuter and Leontopodium nivale subsp, leaves and flowers are covered with white hairs and appear woolly. Flowering stalks of edelweiss can grow to a size of 3–20 centimetres in the wild, or, each bloom consists of five to six small yellow clustered spikelet-florets surrounded by fuzzy white petals in a double-star formation. The flowers bloom between July and September, Leontopodium alpinum is grown in gardens for its interesting inflorescence and silver foliage. The plants are short lived and can be grown from seed, in the 19th century, the edelweiss became a symbol of the rugged purity of the Alpine region and of its native inhabitants. This idea at the time was becoming part of the mythology of early alpinism. It is called by botanists the Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss EDELWEISS and these original 3 Regiments wore their edelweiss on the collar of their uniform. During World War I the edelweiss was granted to the German alpine troops, the 1-10th SFG Soldiers adopted the symbol under the command of Col. The edelweiss is also used in the logotype of the Union of International Mountain Leader Associations
9.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
10.
Slovakia
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Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Slovakias territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres and is mostly mountainous. The population is over 5 million and comprises mostly ethnic Slovaks, the capital and largest city is Bratislava. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries, in the 7th century, they played a significant role in the creation of Samos Empire and in the 9th century established the Principality of Nitra. In the 10th century, the territory was integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary, which became part of the Habsburg Empire. After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a separate Slovak Republic existed in World War II as a client state of Nazi Germany. In 1945, Czechoslovakia was reëstablished under Communist rule as a Soviet satellite, in 1989 the Velvet Revolution ended authoritarian Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The country maintains a combination of economy with universal health care. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the Eurozone on 1 January 2009, Slovakia is also a member of the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the OECD, the WTO, CERN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. The Slovak economy is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and its legal tender, the Euro, is the worlds 2nd most traded currency. Although regional income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes, in 2016, Slovak citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 165 countries and territories, ranking the Slovak passport 11th in the world. Slovakia is the world’s biggest per-capita car producer with a total of 1,040,000 cars manufactured in the country in 2016 alone, the car industry represents 43 percent of Slovakia’s industrial output, and a quarter of its exports. Radiocarbon datingputs the oldest surviving archaeological artefacts from Slovakia – found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom – at 270,000 BC and these ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia. Other stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic era come from the Prévôt cave near Bojnice, the most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium, discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone, the statue was found in the 1940s in Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany. Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of the Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice, Hubina and these findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and Central Europe. The Bronze Age in the territory of modern-day Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BC
11.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
12.
Carpathian Mountains
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The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a mountain range system forming an arc roughly 1,500 km long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe. The Carpathians and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, the Carpathians consist of a chain of mountain ranges that stretch in an arc from the Czech Republic in the northwest through Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine to Romania and Serbia. The highest range within the Carpathians is the Tatras, on the border of Slovakia and Poland, the second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks exceed 2,500 m. The divisions of the Carpathians are usually in three sections, Western Carpathians — Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. Eastern Carpathians — southeastern Poland, eastern Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, the term Outer Carpathians is frequently used to describe the northern rim of the Western and Eastern Carpathians. The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are, Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia, Kraków in Poland, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu and Braşov in Romania, and Uzhhorod in Ukraine. In modern times, the range is called Karpaty in Czech, Polish, Slovak and Карпати in Ukrainian, Carpați in Romanian, Karpaten in German, Kárpátok in Hungarian and Karpati or Карпати in Serbian. Although the toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE, for instance, Havasok was its medieval Hungarian name, Rus and Romanian chronicles referred to it as Hungarian Mountains. The archaic Polish word karpa meant rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, the more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici, the Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemys Geographia. In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which relates ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name Karpates appears in the predictable Germanic form as Harvaða fjöllum, inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia Imperialia in 1211. Thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Hungarian documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal or less frequently Montes Nivium, the northwestern Carpathians begin in Slovakia and southern Poland. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km, the highest altitudes of the Carpathians occur where they are widest. The Carpathians cover an area of 190,000 km2 and, after the Alps, although commonly referred to as a mountain chain, the Carpathians do not actually form an uninterrupted chain of mountains. Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, the Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora. The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube, the two ranges meet at only one point, the Leitha Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Balkan Mountains at Orşova in Romania, the valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe
13.
Low Tatras
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The Low Tatras or Low Tatra is a mountain range of the Inner Western Carpathians in central Slovakia. It is located south of the Tatras proper, from which it is separated by the valleys of the Váh, the valley formed by the Hron River is situated south of the Low Tatras range. The ridge runs west-eastwards and is about 80 km long, the Čertovica pass divides the range into two parts. The highest peaks of the Low Tatras are located in its western part, Ďumbier is the highest mountain at 2,042 m AMSL. Its neighbour Chopok is accessible by a chairlift, and it is the most visited place in the Low Tatras, other peaks in the western part include Dereše and Chabenec. The highest peak in the part is Kráľova hoľa. The best viewpoints in western part are Veľká Chochuľa, Salatín, Chabenec, Skalka, Chopok, Ďumbier, Siná, Poludnica and Baba. Several karst areas are situated in limestone and dolomite formations at the southern and northern edges of the main ridge, among many discovered caves, Bystrianska Cave, Cave of Dead Bats, Demänovská jaskyňa Slobody, Demänová Ice Cave, and Važecká Cave are open to the public. The biggest canyon is Hučiaky under Salatín in Ludrová valley near Ružomberok, the highest waterfall is under Brankov near Ružomberok - Podsuchá, reachable by green marked footpath from Podsuchá. The biggest tarn is Vrbické pleso in the Demänovská dolina Valley, the mountains are densely forested and their rich fauna includes bear, wolf, and lynx. The alpine meadows are the habitat of chamois, most of the Low Tatras is protected by the Low Tatras National Park, established in 1978. The area of the National Park is 728 km² and the buffer zone takes 1,102 km²,1,830 km² together, tourism is very popular in the Tatras. During the winter there are ski resorts in Low Tatras, for example Jasná, Mýto pod Ďumbierom. Not only are these hubs of hiking and cross-country skiing trails, Liptovsky Mikulas also offers a range of summer activities such as rafting, kayaking, boating on the lake, fishing, a hot springs aqua park and hiking. There are many places to stay, restaurants and bars in the town, the steep northern slopes of the range are popular with climbers. Other attractions include an 18-hole golf course near Tále, mountain Rescue Service Official website Basic information about the Low Tatras Low Tatras National Park at Slovakia. Travel Map of eastern part of the Low Tatras
14.
Poprad
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Poprad is a city in northern Slovakia at the foot of the High Tatra Mountains famous for its picturesque historic centre and as a holiday resort. It is the biggest town of the Spiš region and the tenth largest city in Slovakia, the Poprad-Tatry Airport is an international airport located just outside the city. Poprad is also the point of the Tatra Electric Railway. Main line trains link Poprad to other destinations in Slovakia and beyond, in particular, the territory was since the Migration Period inhabited by Slavic settlers. The first written record dates from 16 March 1256 in the deed of donation of the Hungarian King Bela IV and it was colonized in the 13th century by German settlers and became the largely German town Deutschendorf meaning Germans village. From 1412 to 1770, as one of the Szepes towns, Poprad was pawned by the Kingdom of Hungary to the Kingdom of Poland, in the 17th century, the number of Germans began to decline. In January 1919 was this territory taken under the Czechoslovak control, Poprad itself was for 690 years just one of several neighbouring settlements, which currently make up the modern city. The other parts of the current municipality are Matejovce, Spišská Sobota, Veľká, the most significant of these original towns was Georgenberg, which preserved its dominant position in the area until the late 19th century. During World War II, Poprad was liberated on 28 January 1945 by troops of the Soviet 18th Army, after the war, with the development of winter sports, it became the starting point for expeditions to the High Tatras. In 1999, Poprad put in a bid to host the 2006 Winter Olympics, Poprad lies at an altitude of 672 metres above sea level and covers an area of 63 square kilometres. It is located in northeastern Slovakia, about 110 kilometres from Košice and 330 kilometres from Bratislava, Poprad is situated on the Poprad River in the Sub-Tatra Basin, and is a gateway to the High Tatras. Mountain ranges around the city include the Levoča Hills in the east, Kozie chrbty in the south, the drainage divide between the Black Sea and Baltic Sea lies a bit to the west, near the village of Štrba. Poprad lies in the temperate zone and has a humid continental climate with four distinct seasons. It is characterized by a significant variation between warm summers and cold winters, Poprad has a population of 55,158. According to the 2001 census,94. 1% of inhabitants were Slovaks,2. 1% Romani, 1% Czechs,0. 2% Hungarians,0. 2% Germans,0. 1% Rusyns,0. 1% Ukrainians, and 0. 1% Poles. The religious make-up was 65. 9% Roman Catholics,16. 8% people with no religious affiliation, the historical centre is concentrated around the St. Egidius square, which is rimmed with houses predominantly from the 18th and 19th centuries. Churches in the city include the early-Gothic Catholic Church of St. Egidius from the late 13th century, another historical centre near Poprad is in Spišská Sobota, which was declared in 1953 to be a Town Monument Reserve. A significant landmark there is the Church of St. George, with five side altars
15.
Rysy
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Rysy is a mountain in the crest of the High Tatras, lying on the border between Poland and Slovakia. Rysy has three peaks, the middle at 2,503 m, the north-western at 2,499 m, the north-western peak is the highest point of Poland, the other two peaks are on the Slovak side of the border, in the Prešov Region. A folk explanation on the Slovak side says that the name comes from the plural word rysy meaning lynxes, the Hungarian name Tengerszem-csúcs and the German name Meeraugspitze mean eye-of-the-sea peak, from the glacial lake at the northern foot of the mountain, called eye of the sea. The first known ascent was made in 1840, by Ede Blásy and his guide Ján Ruman-Driečny, the first winter ascent was completed in 1884, by Theodor Wundt and Jakob Horvay. In the 20th century, the communist authorities claimed Vladimir Lenin climbed the mountain sometime in the early 1910s, rysy is the highest point in Poland. Rysy is the highest peak in the Tatra Mountains that is accessible to tourists on foot without a mountain guide. It is possible to ascend the peak from the Slovak side, starting at Štrbské pleso and passing Chata pod Rysmi, the mountain can also be ascended from the Polish side coming from the Morskie Oko lake, which is a harder and steeper route. In the period November 1 - June 15, the trail on the Slovak side is closed, since the accession of Poland and Slovakia to the Schengen Agreement in 2007, the border between the two countries may be easily crossed at this point like at any other
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Zakopane
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Zakopane is a town in the extreme south of Poland. It lies in the part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998 it was in Nowy Sącz Province, and it had a population of about 28,000 as of 2005. Zakopane is a center of Góral culture and is known informally as the capital of Poland. It is a destination for mountaineering, skiing, and qualified tourism. Zakopane is located in southernmost Poland near the border with Slovakia and it lies in a valley between the Tatra Mountains and Gubałówka Hill. It can be reached by train or by bus from district capital Kraków, Zakopane has an elevation of 800-1,000 meters above sea level. The town is centered at the junction of Krupówki and Kościuszko Streets, the earliest documents mentioning Zakopane date to the 17th century, describing a glade called Zakopisko. In 1676 it was a village of 43 inhabitants, Zakopane became a center for the regions mining and metallurgy industries, in the 19th century, it was the largest center for metallurgy in Galicia. It expanded during the 19th century as the climate attracted more inhabitants, by 1889 it had developed from a small village into a climatic health resort of 3,000 inhabitants. Rail service to Zakopane began October 1,1899, the ski jump on Wielka Krokiew was opened in 1925. The cable car to Kasprowy Wierch was completed in 1936, the funicular connected Zakopane and the top of Gubałówka in 1938. In March 1940, representatives of the Soviet NKVD and the Nazi Gestapo met for one week in Zakopanes Villa Tadeusz, throughout World War II, Zakopane served as an underground staging point between Poland and Hungary. From 1942 to 1943,1,000 prisoners from the German Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp were set to work in a stone quarry, the Zakopane Style of Architecture is an architectural mode inspired by the regional art of Poland’s highland region known as Podhale. Drawing on the motifs and traditions in the buildings of the Carpathian Mountains, the Tatras are a popular destination among hikers, skiers, ski-tourers and climbers. There is a network of marked hiking trails in the Tatras. Most of these trails are overcrowded, especially in the summer season, the High Tatras offer excellent opportunities for climbing. In summer, lightning and snow are both potential hazards for climbers, and the weather can change quickly, thunderstorms are common in the afternoons
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Tatra National Park, Slovakia
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Tatra National Park is one of the nine national parks in Slovakia. It is situated in North Central Slovakia in the Tatra Mountains, the park is important for protecting a diverse variety of flora and fauna, with many endemic species, including the Tatra chamois. The Tatra National Park protects the Slovak areas of the High Tatras mountain range in the Eastern Tatras ranges, the west part of the Tatra National Park is situated in the Žilina Region and the east part in the Prešov Region. The national park covers an area of 738 km2, and the zone around the park covers an area of 307 km2,1045 km2 together. The park offers 600 km of hiking trails and 16 marked and maintained bike trails, the Western Tatras are divided into Osobitá, Roháče, Sivý vrch, Liptovské Tatry, Liptovské Kopy, Červené vrchy. The Eastern Tatras consist of High Tatras and Belianske Tatras, the highest peak in Slovakia at 2,655 metres in elevation, Gerlachovský štít, is located within the park. It is also the highest point in the Tatra Mountains and the Carpathian Mountains, bystrá is the highest mountain in the Western Tatras at 2,248 metres, and Havran mountain is the highest point in the Belianske Tatras at 2,152 metres. There are more than a hundred tarns, or mountain lakes, veľké Hincovo pleso is the biggest one with an area of 0,2 km2, and the deepest one with 58 metres. The area around the settlement of Štrbské Pleso is a divide for two drainage basins. To the east of this divide, streams are the headwaters of the Poprad River, to the west of the divide streams are tributaries of the Váh, of the Black Sea drainage basin. The most popular waterfalls include Studenovodské vodopády, Kmeťov vodopád, Vajanského vodopád, Roháčsky vodopád, about 300 caves are located within the national park, however Belianska Cave is the only one open to public. It is located near the village of Lendak, the longest cave system discovered to date is the Cave of Javorinka. Tatra National Park was established on 1 January 1949, and it is the oldest national park in Slovakia, in 1987, a section of the Western Tatras was added to the national park. In 1992 the national park became a part of the UNESCO Man, the areas of the park and its buffer zone were adjusted in 2003. Since 2004, the park belongs to the Natura 2000 ecological network. The geological composition, soil properties and climate all contribute to the original flora. Almost two thirds of the park are covered with forests, mainly with spruce and Norway spruce, the most widespread tree is the Norway spruce, followed by the Scots pine, Swiss pine, European larch, and mountain pine. Leafy trees, especially maples, mainly grow in the Belianske Tatras, about 1,300 species of vascular plants grow in the park, of which 37 are endemic to the Tatras,41 are endemic to the Western Carpathians and 57 are endemic to the Carpathians
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Tatra National Park, Poland
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Tatra National Park is a National Park located in the Tatra Mountains in Tatra County, in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship—Małopolska region, in central-southern Poland bordering on northern Slovakia. The Park has its headquarters in the town of Zakopane, There is a similar national park in the adjoining part of Slovakia, also called the Tatra National Park Tatranský národný park. The first calls for protection of the Tatras came at the end of the 19th century, in 1925 the first efforts to create a national park, in cooperation with Slovakia, took place. Formally the park was created in 1937, on an area that belonged to the state forests authority, in 1947, a separate administrative unit, Tatra Park, was created. In 1954, by decision of the Polish Government, Tatra National Park was created and it was established originally with an area of 215.56 km2, but it is currently slightly smaller, at 211.64 km2. Of this,151.91 km2 is forest and the remainder mainly meadows, strictly protected zones account for 115.14 km2, of which 61.49 km2 are forest ecosystems. In 1992, the Polish and Slovakian national parks in the Tatras were jointly designated a biosphere reserve by UNESCO, under its Man. Mountains The National Park covers one of the two Alpine mountain ranges in Poland, the Polish Tatra range, which is a part of the Western Carpathian Mountains, is divided into two sections, the High Tatras and the Western Tatras. The landscape consists of sharp-edged peaks and hollows with numerous rock formations, the highest peak in Poland, Rysy, is located here. Caves There are around 650 caves in the park, of which the Wielka Sniezna cave system is the longest, six caves of this system are open to public. Water There are several streams, the longest stream reaching 20 kilometres, waterfalls, such as Wodogrzmoty Mickiewicza are popular with tourists. The highest waterfall is Wielka Siklawa at 70 metres ), the park has over 30 mountain lakes, called staw. These water bodies are an important part of the High Tatra landscape. The largest lakes are, Morskie Oko with an area of 349,000 m² and maximum depth of 50.8 metres ), up to 1,250 metres there are mainly Silver fir and European beech forests. Higher levels, up to 1,550 metres, are covered with European spruce forests, the highest elevations, above 1,800 metres, have alpine flora habitats. Other typical species include Swiss pine, Edelweiss, and Stemless carline thistle, spring in the Kościeliska Valley is notable for the fields of Giant crocus. The National Park contains several endemic species, and many endangered and protected ones. Animals include, the Tatra chamois and marmot, both protected since the century, brown bear, Eurasian lynx, gray wolf, European otter, lesser spotted eagle
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Man and the Biosphere Programme
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As of March 2016,669 biosphere reserves in 120 countries, including 16 transboundary sites, have been included in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. Biosphere reserves are areas comprising terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems, each reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use. Biosphere reserves are nominated by governments and remain under the sovereign jurisdiction of the states where they are located. Their status is internationally recognized. The buffer zone surrounds or adjoins the core areas, and is used for activities compatible with sound ecological practices that can reinforce scientific research, monitoring, training and education. The transition area is the part of the reserve where the greatest activity is allowed, fostering economic, participating countries establish MAB National Committees that ensure maximum national participation in the international programme, defining and implementing each country’s activities. MAB currently operates through 158 National Committees established among the 195 Members States, the agenda of the MAB Programme is defined by its main governing body, the International Coordinating Council. The MAB Council consists of 34 member states elected by UNESCO’s General Conference, the council elects a chair and five vice-chairpersons from each of UNESCO’s geopolitical regions, one of which functions as a rapporteur. Its staff members draw on expertise in many and varied disciplines, the programme can grant seed funding to assist countries in developing projects and/or to secure appropriate partnership contributions. The latest World Congress of Biosphere Reserves took place in Lima, Peru and this will be the 4th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves and it shall develop a new vision for the decade 2016–2025. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves is supported by different regional, sub-regional or thematic networks and these are as follows, The African Biosphere Reserves Network was created in 1996 and comprises 33 African countries. The ArabMAB Network was officially launched in 1997 and represents 18 Arab countries, the East Asian Biosphere Reserve Network was launched in 1994. Today, it consists of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, euroMAB is the network of biosphere reserves in Europe and North America. Created in 1987, it is the largest MAB Regional Network with 53 countries, the Ibero-American MAB Network was created in 1992. It comprises 22 countries from Latin American and the Caribbean, Spain, the Pacific Man and the Biosphere Network was created in 2006 and comprises the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga. The South and Central Asia MAB Network was created in 2002 and comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, the Southeast Asian Biosphere Reserve Network was created in 1998. Today, it comprises Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, the East Atlantic Biosphere Reserve Network was created in 1994. It comprises the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Madeira and Azores, Mauritania, Morocco, Sao Tomé and Principe, the World Network of Island and Coastal Biosphere Reserves was established in 2012 and comprises 22 countries. Agenda 21 Searchable list of UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves Frequently Asked Questions on Biosphere Reserve A-Z of Areas of Biodiverity Importance, Biosphere Reserves
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UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
21.
Boleslaus II, Duke of Bohemia
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His mother may have been Biagota, a mysterious figure known only known from her coins. According to some historians, she was the wife of Boleslaus I, Boleslaus II took over the rule of the Duchy of Bohemia as kníže on his fathers death in 972. Like his father, Boleslaus II initially quarrelled with the Ottonian kings of Germany, in 974 he and Duke Mieszko I of Poland supported the rebellious Duke Henry II of Bavaria in his civil war against the rule of Emperor Otto II. In 976, Henry was defeated and fled to Boleslaus court at Prague Castle, finally in 978, Boleslaus solemnly pledged allegiance to the emperor at the Easter festivities in Quedlinburg. In turn, the relations with Poland deteriorated from about 980 onwards, moreover, when Boleslaus occupied the Saxon Margravate of Meissen, he thwarted the plans of Mieszkos son Bolesław, who had married a daughter of Margrave Ricdag. In 987 Boleslav had to retire from Meissen, from about 990, he sparked a conflict with Poland around the lands of Silesia. In 992 he approached to King Otto III and participated in a campaign against the Lutici tribes in the wake of the 983 Great Slav Rising. Boleslauss reign is most notable for the foundation of the Diocese of Prague in 973, nevertheless, the Bohemian diocese was placed at that time within the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Mainz and Emperor Otto II enforced the appointment of the Saxon monk Thietmar as first bishop. Meanwhile, the struggle with the rivalling Slavník dynasty flared up again from 981 onwards, upon Bishop Dětmars death in 982, Soběslavs brother Adalbert was appointed his successor until he abandoned his primacy to lead a mission to the Old Prussians in 994. On 28 September 995, Boleslaus forces and the confederate Vršovci clan stormed Libice Castle in southern Bohemia, boleslauss brutal triumph ensured the unity of Bohemia under a single ruler. Boleslauss first wife Adiva may have been a daughter of the English king Edward the Elder and his second wife was Emma of Mělník. The internal struggles of the Přemyslid dynasty shook the Bohemian duchy, joanna A. Sobiesiak, Bolesław II Przemyślida, Dynasta i jego państwo
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Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
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Henry IV ascended to King of the Germans in 1056. From 1084 until his abdication in 1105, he was also referred to as the King of the Romans. He was the emperor of the Salian dynasty and one of the most powerful. His reign was marked by the Investiture Controversy with the Papacy, several civil wars over his throne took place in both Italy and Germany. He died of illness, soon after defeating his sons army near Visé, in Lorraine, in 1056 at Aachen, Henry IV was enthroned as the King of the Germans by Pope Victor II, while his mother, Agnes of Poitou, became regent. In 1062 the young king was kidnapped as a result of the Coup of Kaiserswerth, Agnes retired to a convent, and the government was placed in the hands of Anno. His first action was to back Pope Alexander II against the antipope Honorius II, the education and training of Henry were supervised by Anno, who was called his magister, while Adalbert of Hamburg, archbishop of Bremen, was styled Henrys patronus. Henrys education seems to have been neglected, and his willful, the malleable Adalbert of Hamburg soon became the confidante of the ruthless Henry. Eventually, during an absence of Anno from Germany, Henry managed to control of his civil duties. Henrys entire reign was marked by apparent efforts to consolidate Imperial power, in reality, however, he carefully worked to maintain the loyalty of the nobility and the support of the pope. In 1066, he expelled from the Crown Council Adalbert of Hamburg, Henry also adopted urgent military measures against the Slav pagans, who had recently invaded Germany and besieged Hamburg. In June 1066 Henry married Bertha of Savoy/Turin, daughter of Otto, Count of Savoy, in the same year, at the request of the Pope, he assembled an army to fight the Italo-Normans of southern Italy. Henrys troops had reached Augsburg when he received news that Godfrey of Tuscany, husband of the powerful Matilda of Canossa, in 1068, driven by his impetuous character and his infidelities, Henry attempted to divorce Bertha. Henry obeyed and his wife returned to Court, Henry believed that the Papal opposition was less about his marriage than about overthrowing lay power within the Empire, in favour of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. In the late 1060s, Henry demonstrated his determination to reduce any opposition and he led expeditions against the Lutici and the margrave of a district east of Saxony, soon afterwards he had to quell the rebellions of Rudolf of Swabia and Berthold of Carinthia. Much more serious was Henrys struggle with Otto of Nordheim, duke of Bavaria and it was decided that a trial by combat should take place at Goslar, but when Ottos demand for safe conduct to and from the place of meeting was refused, he declined to appear. He was declared deposed in Bavaria, and his Saxon estates were plundered, however, he obtained sufficient support to carry on a struggle with the king in Saxony and Thuringia until 1071, when he submitted at Halberstadt. Henry aroused the hostility of the Thuringians by supporting Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, in his efforts to exact tithes from them
23.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Prague
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Prague is a Metropolitan Catholic archdiocese of the Latin Rite in Bohemia, in the Czech Republic. The cathedral archiepiscopal see is St. Vitus Cathedral, in the Bohemian and Czech capital Prague, msgr Dominik Duka, O. P. is the current archbishop. As per 2014, it pastorally served 558,000 Catholics on 8,590 km² in 145 parishes and 34 missions with 340 priests,30 deacons,538 lay religious and 8 seminarians. The first official statutes date from 1349 and incorporated the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland and it enjoyed Papal visits from Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in September 2009. The names of the following list of bishops and archbishops of Prague are given in Czech, suffragan Bishops of Prague Dětmar St. Vojtěch (Adalbert of Prague, Benedictine Order (19 January 982 –988 and, died 996 Kristian Thiddag Ekkhard Hyza Šebíř Gebhart Kosmas Heřman Menhart Jan I. Jindřich Berka z Dubé, previously Bishop of Olomouc, Arnošt z Pardubic Metropolitan Archbishops of Prague Arnošt z Pardubic. see above. Jan Očko z Vlašimi, previously Bishop of Olomouc, created Cardinal-Priest of Ss, maria degli Angeli, also Bishop of Trento, transferred Cardinal-Priest of S. S. B. S. B. Croce in Via Flaminia, no previous prelature Auxiliary Bishop, Kajetán Matoušek, Titular Bishop of Serigene Apostolic Administrator František Tomášek, gCatholic. org - data for all sections Catholic Hierarchy
24.
Cosmas of Prague
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Cosmas of Prague was a priest, writer and historian born in a noble family in Bohemia. Between 1075 and 1081, he studied in Liège, after his return to Bohemia, he became a priest and married Božetěcha, with whom he probably had a son. In 1086, Cosmas was appointed prebendary of Prague, a prestigious position, as prebendary he also travelled through Europe on official matters. His magnum opus, written in Latin, is called Chronica Boemorum, the Chronica is divided into three books, The first book, completed in 1119, starts with the creation of the world and ends in the year 1038. The second book describes Bohemian history for the years 1038–1092, the book starts with the heroic deeds of Duke Břetislav, known as the Bohemian Achilles, for example with his victory over Poland. The Chronica also describes the long and great reign of King Vratislav, there is also a reflection on his wars in Italy, this book ends with Vratislavs death. The third book starts with a description of the time of instability, the Chronica ends with the reign of Vladislav between 1109 and 1125. The same year,1125, Cosmas died, media related to Cosmas of Prague at Wikimedia Commons Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Cosmas
25.
Czech language
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Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being intelligible to a very high degree. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, the Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are mostly also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak. The Czech phoneme inventory is moderate in size, comprising five vowels, words may contain uncommon consonant clusters, including one consonant represented by the grapheme ř, or lack vowels altogether. Czech orthography is simple, and has used as a model by phonologists. Czech is classified as a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and this branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is by far the closest genetic neighbor of Czech, the West Slavic languages are spoken in an area classified as part of Central Europe. Around the 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Bohemian language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the early 14th century, the first complete Bible translation also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well, literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century, the publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620 and this emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, the modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. Changes include the shift of í to ej and é to í and the merging of í
26.
Vowel
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In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, with two competing definitions. There is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis and this contrasts with consonants, such as the English sh, which have a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract. In the other, phonological definition, a vowel is defined as syllabic, a phonetically equivalent but non-syllabic sound is a semivowel. In oral languages, phonetic vowels normally form the peak of many to all syllables, whereas consonants form the onset and coda. Some languages allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, the word vowel comes from the Latin word vocalis, meaning vocal. In English, the vowel is commonly used to mean both vowel sounds and the written symbols that represent them. The phonetic definition of vowel does not always match the phonological definition, the approximants and illustrate this, both are produced without much of a constriction in the vocal tract, but they occur at the onset of syllables. A similar debate arises over whether a word like bird in a dialect has an r-colored vowel /ɝ/ or a syllabic consonant /ɹ̩/. The American linguist Kenneth Pike suggested the terms vocoid for a vowel and vowel for a phonological vowel, so using this terminology. Nonetheless, the phonetic and phonemic definitions would still conflict for the syllabic el in table, or the syllabic nasals in button, daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the features of tongue height, tongue backness and roundedness. These three parameters are indicated in the schematic quadrilateral IPA vowel diagram on the right, there are additional features of vowel quality, such as the velum position, type of vocal fold vibration, and tongue root position. This conception of vowel articulation has been known to be inaccurate since 1928, Peter Ladefoged has said that early phoneticians. Thought they were describing the highest point of the tongue, and they were actually describing formant frequencies. The IPA Handbook concedes that the quadrilateral must be regarded as an abstraction. Vowel height is named for the position of the tongue relative to either the roof of the mouth or the aperture of the jaw. However, it refers to the first formant, abbreviated F1. Height is defined by the inverse of the F1 value, The higher the frequency of the first formant, however, if more precision is required, true-mid vowels may be written with a lowering diacritic. Although English contrasts six heights in its vowels, they are interdependent with differences in backness and it appears that some varieties of German have five contrasting vowel heights independently of length or other parameters
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Hungarian language
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Hungarian is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary it is spoken by communities of Hungarian people in neighbouring countries. Like Finnish and Estonian, it belongs to the Uralic language family, its closest relatives being Mansi and it is one of several European languages not part of the Indo-European languages, and the most widely-spoken European language that does not belong to the Indo-European family. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar or magyar nyelv, the word Magyar is used as an English and Hungarian word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group. Hungarian is a member of the Uralic language family, the name of Hungary could be a result of regular sound changes of Ungrian/Ugrian, and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to Hungarians as Ǫgry/Ǫgrove seemed to confirm that. Current literature favors the hypothesis that it comes from the name of the Turkic tribe Onogur, there are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian /aː/ corresponds to Khanty /o/ in certain positions, for example, Hungarian ház house vs. Khanty xot house, and Hungarian száz hundred vs. Khanty sot hundred. The distance between the Ugric and Finnic languages is greater, but the correspondences are also regular, during the later half of the 19th century, a competing hypothesis proposed a Turkic affinity of Hungarian. Following an academic debate known as Az ugor-török háború, the Finno-Ugric hypothesis was concluded the sounder of the two, foremost based on work by the German linguist Josef Budenz. The traditional view argues that the Hungarian language separated from its Ugric relatives in the first half of the 1st millennium b. c. e. in western Siberia, east of the southern Urals. The Hungarians gradually changed their lifestyle from settled hunters to nomadic pastoralists, in Hungarian, Iranian loans date back to the time immediately following the breakup of Ugric and probably span well over a millennium. Among these include tehén ‘cow’, tíz ‘ten’, tej ‘milk’, increasing archaeological evidence from present-day southern Bashkortostan found in the previous decades confirms the existence of Hungarian settlements between the Volga River and Ural Mountains. The Onogurs later had a influence on the language, especially between the 5th-9th centuries. This layer of Turkic loans is large and varied, and includes words borrowed from Oghur Turkic, e. g. borjú ‘calf’, dél ‘noon, many words related to agriculture, to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Hungarian syntax and grammar were not influenced in a dramatic way during these 300 years. After the arrival of the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin the language came into contact with different speech communities, Turkic loans from this period come mainly from the Pechenegs and Cumanians who settled in Hungary during the 12th-13th centuries, e. g. koboz ‘cobza’, komondor ‘mop dog’. Hungarian borrowed many words from especially the neighbouring Slavic languages, in exchange, these languages also borrowed words from Hungarian, e. g. Serbo-Croatian ašov from Hung ásó ‘spade’. Approximately 1. 6% of the Romanian lexicon is of Hungarian origin, on the basis of the growing genetic evidence, the accepted origin theory is contested by geneticists too
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Little Russia
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At the same time Kyrylo Rozumovsky was forced to resign as the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host. The Little Russia Governorate was administered by the Collegium of Little Russia headed by Pyotr Rumyantsev, the purpose of the Collegium of Little Russia was to liquidate any remnants of autonomy in Ukraine. With time it developed into a political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the twentieth century, accordingly, derivatives such as Little Russian were commonly applied to the people, language, and culture of the area. Prior to the events of 1917 a large part the regions elite population were followers of Little Russian identity which competed with the local Ukrainian identity. The term retains currency among Russian monarchists and nationalists who deny that Ukraine and Ukrainians are distinct from Russia, by the late 1980s, the term had become an archaic one, and its anachronistic usage was considered strongly offensive by Ukrainians. The toponym translates as Little or Lesser Rus’ and is adapted from the Greek term, the Byzantines called the northern and southern part of the lands of Rus’ as, Μεγάλη Ῥωσσία – Greater Rus’) and Μικρὰ Ῥωσσία, respectively. Later it lost its meaning and became a fully geographic name. In the seventeenth century the term Malorossiya was introduced into Russian, in English the term is often translated Little Russia or Little Rus’, depending on the context. The first recorded usage of the term is attributed to Boleslaus George II of Halych and he styled himself «dux totius Rusiæ Minoris» in a letter to Dietrich von Altenburg, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in 1335. The king Casimir III of Poland, was called the king of Lechia, according to Mykhaylo Hrushevsky Little Rus was the Halych-Volhynian Principality, and after its downfall, the name ceased to be used. The term has been applied to all Orthodox Ruthenian lands of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, vyshensky addressed to the Christians of Little Russia, brotherhoods of Lvov and Vilna and Kopystensky wrote Little Russia, or Kiev and Lithuania. The term was adopted in seventeenth century by Tsardom of Russia to refer to the Cossack Hetmanate of Left-bank Ukraine, when the latter fell under Russian protection after the Treaty of Pereyaslav. From 1654 to 1721, the title of Russian Tsars, gained the wording, The Sovereign of all Rus, the Great, the Little. The term Little Rus has been used in letters of the Cossack Hetmans Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the term Little Russia has been used in Ukrainian chronicle by Samiylo Velychko, in a chronicle of the Hieromonk Leontiy, in Thesaurus by Archimandrite Ioannikiy. In his prominent work Two Russian nationalities Kostomarov uses Southern Russia, mykhailo Drahomanov titled his first fundamental historic work Little Russia in its literature. Different prominent artists, many of whom were natives from the territory of modern-day Ukraine, the term Little Russian language was used by the state authorities in the first Russian Empire Census conducted as late as in 1897. The term Little Russia used to be used as the name for the geographic territory. It was not until the twentieth century when the modern term Ukraine started to prevail while Little Russia gradually fell out of use, such usage is typically perceived as an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people belong to one, indivisible Russia
29.
Slavic languages
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The Slavic languages are the Indo-European languages native to the Slavic peoples, originally from Eastern Europe. The Slavic languages are divided intro three subgroups, East, West, and South, which constitute more than twenty languages. Furthermore, the diasporas of many Slavic peoples have established isolated minorities of speakers of their languages all over the world, the number of speakers of all Slavic languages together is estimated to be 315 million. The Old Novgorod dialect may have reflected some idiosyncrasies of this group, mutual intelligibility also plays a role in determining the West, East, and South branches. Speakers of languages within the branch will in most cases be able to understand each other at least partially. The tripartite division of the Slavic languages does not take account the spoken dialects of each language. For example, Slovak and Ukrainian are bridged by the Rusyn of Eastern Slovakia, similarly, Polish shares transitional features with both western Ukrainian and Belarusian dialects. The Croatian Kajkavian dialect is similar to Slovene than to the standard Croatian language. Within the individual Slavic languages, dialects may vary to a degree, as those of Russian, or to a much greater degree. The secession of the Balto-Slavic dialect ancestral to Proto-Slavic is estimated on archaeological and glottochronological criteria to have occurred sometime in the period 1500–1000 BCE, the imposition of Church Slavonic on Orthodox Slavs was often at the expense of the vernacular. The use of such media hampered the development of the languages for literary purposes. Lockwood also notes that these languages have enriched themselves by drawing on Church Slavonic for the vocabulary of abstract concepts, the situation in the Catholic countries, where Latin was more important, was different. The Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski and the Croatian Baroque writers of the 16th century all wrote in their respective vernaculars, although Church Slavonic hampered vernacular literatures, it fostered Slavonic literary activity and abetted linguistic independence from external influences. Only the Croatian vernacular literary tradition nearly matches Church Slavonic in age, the most important early monument of Croatian literacy is the Baška tablet from the late 11th century. It is a stone tablet found in the small Church of St. Lucy, Jurandvor on the Croatian island of Krk. The independence of Dubrovnik facilitated the continuity of the tradition, more recent foreign influences follow the same general pattern in Slavic languages as elsewhere and are governed by the political relationships of the Slavs. In the 17th century, bourgeois Russian absorbed German words through direct contacts between Russians and communities of German settlers in Russia, in the 19th century, Russian influenced most literary Slavic languages by one means or another. The Proto-Slavic language existed until around AD500, by the 7th century, it had broken apart into large dialectal zones
30.
Illyrian languages
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The Illyrian languages are part of the Indo-European language family. The relation of the Illyrian languages to other Indo-European languages—ancient and modern—is poorly understood due to the paucity of data and is still being examined, a grouping of Illyrian with the Messapian language has been proposed for about a century, but remains an unproven hypothesis. The theory is based on sources, archaeology and onomastics. Messapian material culture bears a number of similarities to Illyrian material culture, Some Messapian anthroponyms have close Illyrian equivalents. A grouping of Illyrian with the Venetic language and Liburnian language, once spoken in northeastern Italy, the consensus now is that Illyrian was quite distinct from Venetic and Liburnian. The relation between Venetic and Illyrian was later discredited and they are no longer considered closely related and they also point to other toponyms including Osseriates derived from /*eghero/ or Birziminium from PIE /*bherǵh/ or Asamum from PIE /*aḱ-mo/. For example, Vescleves has been explained as PIE *wesu-ḱlewes, also, the name Acrabanus as a compound name has been compared with Ancient Greek /akros/ with no signs of palatalization, or Clausal has been related to /*klew/. However, it has shown that even in Albanian and Balto-Slavic. Even the name Gentius or Genthius does not help to solve the problem since we have two Illyrian forms Genthius and Zanatis. If Gentius or Genthius derives from *ǵen- this is proof of a Centum language, another problem related to the name Gentius is that nowadays it cannot be stated surely if the initial /g/ of the sources was a palatovelar or a labiovelar. However, the insufficiency of this theory is that so far there is no certainty as to the historical or etymological development of either ardhja/hardhi or Ardiaioi, as with many other words. Bindo/Bindus, an Illyrian deity from Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina, cf. Alb. bind to convince or to make believe, bilia daughter, cf. Alb. bijë, dial. I madh big, great mantía bramblebush, Old and dial, Alb. mandë berry, mulberry Ragusa-Ragusium grape, cf. Proto-Alb. Ragusha rhinos fog, mist, cf. Old Alb. ren cloud Vendum place, wen-ta The Greeks were the first literate people to come into frequent contact with the speakers of Illyrian languages. Their conception of Illyrioi, however, differed from what the Romans would later call Illyricum, the Greek term encompassed only the peoples who lived on the borders of Macedonia and Epirus. Pliny the Elder, in his work Natural History, applies a stricter usage of the term Illyrii when speaking of Illyrii proprie dicti among the communities in the south of Roman Dalmatia. For a couple of centuries before and after the Roman conquest in the late 1st century BC, finally it encompassed all native peoples from the Adriatic to the Danube, inhabiting the Roman provinces of Dalmatia, Pannonia and Moesia, regardless of their ethnic and cultural differences. An extensive study of Illyrian names and territory was undertaken by Hans Krahe in the first decades of the twentieth century
31.
Herzegovina
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Herzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Measurements of the range from 11,419 km2, or around 22% of the total area of the present-day country, to 12,276 km2. The name Herzegovina means dukes land, referring to the duchy of Stjepan Vukčić Kosača who took the title Herceg of Saint Sava. Herceg is derived from the German title Herzog, the terrain of Herzegovina is mostly hilly karst with high mountains in the north such as Čvrsnica and Prenj, except for the central valley of the river Neretva River. The largest city is Mostar, in the center of the region, other larger towns include Trebinje, Stolac, Široki Brijeg, Posusje, Ljubuski, Grude, Konjic, and Čapljina. Borders between Bosnia and Herzegovina are unclear and often disputed, the upper flow of the Neretva River lies in the northern parts of Herzegovina, a heavily forested area with fast flowing rivers and high mountains. Towns like Konjic and Jablanica lie in this area, considered by many the most beautiful part of Bosnia, the Neretva rises on Lebršnik Mountain, close to the border to Montenegro, and as the river flows towards west, it enters Herzegovina. The entire upper catchment of Neretva constitutes a precious ecoregion with many endemic, the Rakitnica River flows into Neretva upstream from Konjic. The Neretva then flows towards northwest, through the town of Konjic, the river enters the Jablanica Reservoir, one of the largest in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The lake ends near the town of Jablanica, from here on, the Neretva turns southward continuing its course towards the Adriatic Sea. With mountains lining its shores gradually receding, the Neretva enters a valley where the city of Mostar lies and it flows under the well-known old bridge and continues now more widely flowing towards the town of Čapljina and the Neretva Delta in Croatia before emptying into the Adriatic Sea. Mostar is the best known and the unofficial capital and it is also the only city with over 100,000 citizens. There are no large cities in Herzegovina, though some have illustrious histories. Stolac, for example, is perhaps the oldest city in Herzegovina, there have been settlements dating from the Paleolithic period. An Illyrian tribe lived in the city of Daorson, there were several Roman settlements alongside the Bregava River and medieval inhabitants left large and beautiful stone grave monuments called stećak in Radimlja. Trebinje, on the Trebišnjica River, is the southernmost city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Čapljina and Ljubuški are known for their history and their rivers, the village of Međugorje has religious importance for many Croats and Catholics. In the modern Bosnian-Herzegovinian state, Herzegovina is divided between two entities, Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the population of Herzegovina throughout history has been ethnically mixed, the Bosnian War in the 1990s resulted in mass ethnic cleansing and large-scale displacement of people. The last pre-war census in 1991 recorded a population of 437,095 inhabitants, Serbs are the majority in eastern Herzegovina, including the municipalities of Berkovići, Bileća, Gacko, Istočni Mostar, Ljubinje, Nevesinje, Foča and Trebinje
32.
Ukrainian language
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Ukrainian /juːˈkreɪniən/ is an East Slavic language. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script, historical linguists trace the origin of the Ukrainian language to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus. After the fall of the Kievan Rus as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the Modern Ukrainian language has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian language was banned from schools in the Russian Empire and it has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine, where the language was never banned, in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors. The Ukrainian language retains a degree of intelligibility with Belarusian and Russian. The first theory of the origin of Ukrainian language was suggested in Imperial Russia in the middle of the 18th century by Mikhail Lomonosov and this theory posits the existence of a common language spoken by all East Slavic people in the time of the Rus. Another point of view developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by linguists of Imperial Russia, like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. This general point of view is the most accepted amongst academics worldwide, the supporters of this theory disagree, however, about the time when the different languages were formed. Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at time periods. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and this point of view is, however, at variance with some historical data. In fact, several East Slavic tribes, such as Polans, Drevlyans, Severians, Dulebes, White Croats, Tiverians, notably, some Ukrainian features were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented. In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Alexei Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times. According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century, Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky went even further, denying the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past. Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko, according to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to a migration of the population within the territory of todays Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was supported by George Shevelovs phonological studies. During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of Galicia-Vollhynia and their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts, examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh, rura, rynok, kushnir, and majster
33.
Landscape
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A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms and how they integrate with natural or man-made features. The character of a landscape helps define the self-image of the people who inhabit it and it is the dynamic backdrop to people’s lives. Landscape can be as varied as farmland, a landscape park, the activity of modifying the visible features of an area of land is referred to as landscaping. There are several definitions of what constitutes a landscape, depending on context, the term landscape emerged around the turn of the sixteenth century to denote a painting whose primary subject matter was natural scenery. Land may be taken in its sense of something to people belong. The suffix ‑scape is equivalent to the more common English suffix ‑ship, the roots of ‑ship are etymologically akin to Old English sceppan or scyppan, meaning to shape. The suffix ‑schaft is related to the verb schaffen, so that ‑ship, the word landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed from a Dutch painters term. An example of this usage can be found as early as 1662 in the Book of Common Prayer, Could we but climb where Moses stood. Setting, In works of narrative, it includes the moment in time and geographic location in which a story takes place. Picturesque, The word literally means in the manner of a picture, fit to be made into a picture, and used as early as 1703, gilpin’s Essay on Prints defined picturesque as a term expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture. A view, A sight or prospect of some landscape or extended scene, wilderness, An uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region. Cityscape, The urban equivalent of a landscape, in the visual arts a cityscape is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. Seascape, A photograph, painting, or other work of art depicts the sea. Geomorphology is the study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical or chemical processes operating at or near Earths surface. Geomorphology is practiced within physical geography, geology, geodesy, engineering geology, archaeology and this broad base of interests contributes to many research styles and interests within the field. The surface of Earth 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 Earth surface and its topography therefore are an intersection of climatic, hydrologic, and biologic action with geologic processes. Desert, Plain, Taiga, Tundra, Wetland, Mountain, Mountain range, Cliff, Coast, Littoral zone, Glacier, Polar regions of Earth, Shrubland, Forest, Rainforest, Woodland, Jungle, Moors
34.
Alps
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The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc, Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,810 m is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains about a hundred peaks higher than 4000 metres, the altitude and size of the range affects the climate in Europe, in the mountains precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m. Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era, a mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991. By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established, Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800 Napoleon crossed one of the passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, in World War II, Adolf Hitler kept a base of operation in the Bavarian Alps throughout the war. The Alpine region has a cultural identity. The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, at present, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors. The English word Alps derives from the Latin Alpes, maurus Servius Honoratus, an ancient commentator of Virgil, says in his commentary that all high mountains are called Alpes by Celts. The term may be common to Italo-Celtic, because the Celtic languages have terms for high mountains derived from alp and this may be consistent with the theory that in Greek Alpes is a name of non-Indo-European origin. According to the Old English Dictionary, the Latin Alpes might possibly derive from a pre-Indo-European word *alb hill, Albania, a name not native to the region known as the country of Albania, has been used as a name for a number of mountainous areas across Europe. In Roman times, Albania was a name for the eastern Caucasus, in modern languages the term alp, alm, albe or alpe refers to a grazing pastures in the alpine regions below the glaciers, not the peaks. An alp refers to a mountain pasture where cows are taken to be grazed during the summer months and where hay barns can be found. The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in a 800 km arc from east to west and is 200 km in width, the mean height of the mountain peaks is 2.5 km. The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po basin, extending through France from Grenoble, the range continues onward toward Vienna, Austria, and east to the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia. To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the border of Bavaria in Germany
35.
High Tatras
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The High Tatras or High Tatra Mountains, are a mountain range along the border of northern Slovakia in the Prešov Region, and southern Poland in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. They are a range of the Tatra Mountains chain, the mountain range borders Belianske Tatras to the east, Podtatranská kotlina to the south and Western Tatras to the west. The major part and all the highest peaks of the mountains are situated in Slovakia, the highest peak is Gerlachovský štít, at 2,655 metres. The first European cross-border national park was founded here—Tatra National Park—with Tatra National Park in Slovakia in 1948, the adjacent parks protect UNESCOs trans-border Tatra Biosphere Reserve. Fauna Many rare and endemic animals and plant species are native to the High Tatras and they include the Tatras endemic goat-antelope and critically endangered species, the Tatra chamois. Predators include Eurasian brown bear, Eurasian lynx, marten, wolf, the Alpine marmot is common in the range. Flora Flora of the High Tatras includes, the endemic Tatra scurvy-grass, yellow saxifrage, ground covering net-leaved willow, Norway spruce, Swiss pine. The 15 highest peaks of the High Tatras—all located in Slovakia—are, Kriváň,2494 meters, also called Slovakias most beautiful mountain Rysy, the popular Polish−Slovak summit border crossing. Rysy has three peaks, the middle at 2,503 meters, the north-western at 2,499 meters, the north-western peak is the highest point of Poland. Slavkovský štít,2452 meters tall, within the Tatra National Park, czarny Staw pod Rysami -1,583 m,76 m deep. Wielki Staw Polski -1,664 m,79 m deep, Štrbské pleso -1,347 m,20 m deep. Veľké Hincovo pleso -1,945 m,54 m deep, popradské pleso -1,494 m,17 m deep. Zmrzlé pleso Ťažké pleso Ľadové pleso Batizovské pleso Veľké Spišské pleso -2,019 m,10 m deep, Veľké Žabie pleso -1,921 m,7 m deep Vysne Bielovoeske Zabie pleso -1,699 m,25 m deep. Nizne Bielovodske Zabie pleso -1,675 m,21 m deep, czarny Staw Gąsienicowy -1,624 m,51 m deep. The area is known for winter sports. Ski resorts include Štrbské pleso, Starý Smokovec and Tatranská Lomnica in Slovakia, the town of Poprad is the gateway to the Slovak Tatra resorts. People The Górale people, a group of people with a distinctive traditional culture, are of the High Tatras and other mountain ranges. Ludwig Greiner identified Gerlachovský štít as the highest summit of the Tatra Mountains, and it is also the highest point of Slovakia
36.
Belianske Tatras
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Belianske Tatras is a mountain range in the Eastern Tatras in North Central Slovakia. The Eastern Tatras are part of the Tatra Mountains, which are part of the Inner Western Carpathians, the highest point is Havran at 2,151.5 metres. Like most of the area, the peak is not accessible for tourists to protect the rare animals, the first inhabitants were shepherds in the 14th century. The main 14 km long ridge contains mountains built of limestone, the only cave in the Tatras open to public – Belianska Cave – is located here. The whole area is a nature reserve covering 54.08 km². Many endemic, rare and endangered species live or grow here, the northern parts of the Belianske Tatras are home to the largest population of the Tatra chamois, which is endemic to the Tatras. The typical flower of the mountains is Edelweiss, slovak Caves Administration — Belianske Tatras and Belianska Cave BelianskeTatry. sk, Photos
37.
Winter sport
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A winter sport or winter activity is a recreational activity or sport which is played on snow or ice. Most such sports are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding, traditionally such sports were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and artificial ice allow more flexibility. Artificial ice can be used to provide ice rinks for ice skating, ice hockey, common individual sports include cross-country skiing, Alpine skiing, snowboarding, ski jumping, speed skating, figure skating, luge, skeleton, bobsleigh and snowmobiling. Common team sports include ice hockey, curling and bandy, based on the number of participants, ice hockey is the worlds most popular winter sport, followed by bandy. Winter sports often have their own tournaments, such as the Winter Olympic Games. Snow and ice during the wintertime has led to other means of transportation, such as sledges, skis and this also led to different pastimes and sports being developed in the winter season as compared to other times of the year. Naturally, winter sports are popular in countries with longer winter seasons. While most winter sports are played outside, ice hockey, speed skating, indoor ice rinks with artificial ice allow ice skating and hockey to be played in hot climates. Note, the Olympic rings next to a sport indicates that particular sport is included in the Winter Olympic Games. The Paralympic logo indicates the same for a sport not in the Olympics but in the Winter Paralympic Games
38.
Resort
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A resort is a self-contained commercial establishment that endeavors to provide most of a vacationers wants, such as food, drink, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term resort may be used for a property that provides an array of amenities, typically including entertainment. A hotel is frequently a central feature of a resort, such as the Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island, some resorts are also timeshare or fractionally owned, or wholly owned condominium complexes. A resort is not always a commercial establishment operated by a single company, commonly these facilities are of higher quality than would be expected if one were to stay at a hotel or eat in a towns restaurants. Closely related to these resorts are convention and large meeting sites, generally these occur in cities where special meeting halls, together with ample accommodations as well as varied dining and entertainment, are provided. An all-inclusive resort charges a price that includes most or all items. At a minimum, most inclusive resorts include lodging, unlimited food, drink, sports activities, all-inclusive resorts are found in the Caribbean, particularly in Dominican Republic, Egypt, and elsewhere. Many also offer sports and other included in the price as well. They are often located in warmer regions, the all-inclusive model originated in the Club Med resorts, which were founded by the Belgian Gérard Blitz. Some all-inclusive resorts are designed for specific vacation interests, for example, certain resorts cater to adults, while even more specialized properties accept couples only. Other all-inclusive resorts are geared toward families, with facilities like craft centers, game rooms, all-inclusive resorts are also very popular locations for destination weddings. A spa resort is a short term residential/lodging facility with the purpose of providing individual services for spa-goers to develop healthy habits. Historically many such spas were developed at the location of natural hot springs or sources of mineral waters, golf resorts are resorts that cater specifically to the sport of golf, and include access to one or more golf course and or clubhouse. Golf resorts typically provide golf packages that provide visitors with all greens and cart fees, range balls, accommodations, in North America a ski resort is generally a destination resort in a ski area. Ski resort is less likely to refer to a town or village, a megaresort is a type of destination resort which is of an exceptionally large size, such as those along the Las Vegas Strip. In Singapore integrated resort is a euphemism for a destination resort. A holiday village is a type of self-contained resort in Europe, a holiday camp in the United Kingdom refers to a resort where the accommodation is in chalets. The term holiday park is used for a resort where the accommodation includes static caravans, there are 1500+ timeshare resorts in the U. S. that are operated by major hospitality, timeshare-specific, or independent companies
