1.
County-level city
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A county-level municipality, county-level city, or county city is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions. Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing counties, a county-level city is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is an entity. County-level cities are not cities in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban and this is because the counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing towns, villages, and farmland. To distinguish a city from its actual urban area, the term 市区 shìqū. In France, an equivalent of a city is an agglomeration community. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a city, city of Blue Mountains is made of a number of towns. Another example would be municipal government in the Canadian province of Ontario and this agglomeration includes all of the townships in the county of Kent, with cities and towns like Wallaceberg, Thamesville, Dresden, Wheatley. This amalgamation as it is referred to, was controversial when it was forced upon the constituents through provincial legislation. Today, instead of each city having its own mayor and city councillors, as of January 2017, there are 360 County-level city in total, A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include, Xiantao, Qianjiang, Tianmen and Jiyuan, administrative divisions of China Counties of the Peoples Republic of China Prefecture-level city List of cities in China
2.
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
3.
Provinces of China
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Provinces, formally provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, the Peoples Republic of China claims sovereignty over the territory administered by the Republic of China, claiming most of it as its Taiwan Province. The ROC also administers some offshore islands which form Fujian Province and these were part of an originally unified Fujian province, which since the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 has been divided between the PRC and ROC. Note that every province has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, the committee secretary is in effective charge of the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each province is nominally led by a provincial committee. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province, second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government, the Peoples Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as Taiwan Province. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China, a municipality or direct-controlled municipality is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their status is higher than that of common provinces. The governor of each region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group. A special administrative region is an autonomous and self-governing subnational subject of the Peoples Republic of China that is directly under the Central Peoples Government. Each SAR has an executive as head of the region. The regions government is not fully independent, as policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government. Notes,1, as of 20102, per km23, km24, Abbreviation in the parentheses is informal 5, Since founding in 1949, however, the PRC has never controlled Taiwan. Taiwan currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the subject of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is often debated, with no clear conclusion. The Ming Dynasty kept the system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however. By the time of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 there were 18 provinces, in addition, there was a zongdu, a general military inspector or governor general, for every two to three provinces. Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces, military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet, in 1884 Xinjiang became a province, in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well
4.
Jilin
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Jilin is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, in ancient times, Jilin was inhabited the Xianbei, Sushen, the Mohe, Jurchens, and the Wùjí. The Korean kingdoms of Buyeo, Goguryeo and Balhae, ruled parts of this area, the region then fell successively under the domination of the Xiongnu, Xianbei state, Khitan Liao Dynasty, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, and the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, much of the area was under the control of the General of Jilin, after the Primorsky Krai area was ceded to Russia in 1860, the Qing government began to open the area up to Han Chinese migrants, most of whom came from Shandong. By the beginning of the 20th century, Han Chinese had become the dominant ethnic group of the region, in 1932, the area was incorporated into Manchukuo, a puppet state set up by Japan. Changchun, capital of Jilin today, was made the capital of Manchukuo, after the defeat of Japan in 1945, the Soviet Army captured Jilin after Operation August Storm. The region, with the rest of northeastern China, was ceded to the Communists by the Soviet Union, manchuria was the staging ground from which the communists eventually conquered the rest of China in the Chinese Civil War. In 1949, Jilin province was smaller, encompassing only the environs of Changchun and Jilin City, in the 1950s, Jilin was expanded to its present borders. During the Cultural Revolution, Jilin was expanded again to include a part of Inner Mongolia, giving it a border with the independent state of Mongolia, in recent times Jilin has, with the rest of heavy industry-based Northeast China, been facing economic difficulties with privatization. This prompted the government to undertake a campaign called Revitalize the Northeast. Jilin lies in the part of northeastern China, bordering Russia. Jilin has an area of 190,000 km2 and a population of 27.3 million and its capital is Changchun, which lies 113 km west of Jilin City. Jilin is rich in mineral deposits with 136 types of minerals. Jilin has an abundance of Traditional Chinese medicine resources, with approximately 27,000 kinds of plants and 9,000 kinds of medicinal herbs. Jilin is highest in altitude in the southeast and drops gently towards the northwest, the Changbai Mountains run through its southeastern regions and contains the highest peak of the province, Paektu Mountain at 2744 m. Other ranges include the Jilinhada Mountains, Zhang Guangcai Mountains, Jilin has a northerly continental monsoon climate, with long, cold winters and short, warm summers. Average January temperatures range from -20 to -14°C, rainfall averages at 350 to 1000 mm. Major cities in this province include Changchun, Jilin City, Baishan, Baicheng, Siping, Yanji, Songyuan, Tonghua and these administrative divisions are explained in greater detail at Administrative divisions of the Peoples Republic of China
5.
Prefectures of the People's Republic of China
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Prefectures, formally prefecture-level divisions as a term in the context of China, are used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. There are 333 prefecture-level divisions in China and they include 17 prefectures and 283 prefecture-level cities. Other than provincial level divisions, prefectural level divisions are not mentioned in the Chinese constitution, the prefectural government is an administrative branch office with the rank of a national ministerial department and dispatched by the higher-level provincial government. The leader of the government, titled as prefectural commissioner, is appointed by the provincial government. The prefectures working committee of the committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference is a part of the prefectures committee of the CPPCC. This means that the working committee of CPPCC is a branch of the provincial committee of CPPCC. The same is valid for provincial CPPCC, which are sections of the national CPPCC. Prefectures are administrative subdivisions of provincial-level divisions, the term prefecture was developed from the former Circuit, which was a level between the provincial and the county level during the Qing dynasty. Consequently, in 1932, provinces were subdivided into several prefectures. At one point, prefectures were the most common type of prefecture-level division, today they have been mostly converted into prefecture-level cities, and the trend is still ongoing with only 8 prefectures remaining in China. Prefecture-level cities are municipalities that are given prefecture status and the right to govern surrounding counties, in practice, prefecture-level cities are so large that they are just like any other prefectures, and not cities in the traditional sense of the word at all. Prefecture-level cities are the most common type of division in mainland China today. Leagues are the prefectures of Inner Mongolia, the name comes from a kind of ancient Mongolian administrative unit used during the Qing Dynasty in Mongolia. To preempt any sense of Mongolian unity or solidarity, the Qing Dynasty executed divide, Leagues had no true ruler-ship, they only had conventional assemblies consisting of banners. During the ROC era, the leagues had an equivalent to provinces. Leagues contain banners, equivalent to counties, after the establishment of the provincial-level Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 1947, leagues of Inner Mongolia became equal to prefectures in other provinces and autonomous regions. The governments of the league, is the branch office dispatched by Peoples Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The leader of the government, titled as league leader, is appointed by Peoples Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
6.
Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture
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Yanbian is an Autonomous Prefecture in northeastern Jilin Province, Peoples Republic of China, just north of the border with North Korea. Yanbian is bordered to the north by Heilongjiang, on the west by Baishan City and Jilin City, on the south by North Hamgyong Province of North Korea, Yanbian is designated as an autonomous prefecture due to the large number of ethnic Koreans living in the region. The prefectural capital is Yanji, and the area is 42,700 square kilometres. The Prefecture has an important Balhae archaeological site, the Ancient Tombs at Longtou Mountain, the prefecture is subdivided into eight county-level divisions, six county-level cities and two counties, The above counties and cities are divided into 642 villages. In the Ming Dynasty, Yanbian was governed by the Jianzhou Guard-district, in the 19th century, Korean immigrants migrated en masse from the Korean peninsula to China. After the foundation of the Republic of China, a second wave arrived, of the 2 million ethnic Koreans in Manchuria at the time of the communist takeover,1.2 million remained in the region after the end of World War II. Many participated in the Chinese Civil War, most on the side of the Chinese communists, when the civil war was over, the new Chinese government gave Koreans their own autonomous region in 1952. Yanbian was upgraded to an autonomous prefecture in 1955. Korean migration into northeast China began in any significant numbers in the last quarter of the 19th century and was motivated by economic hardship on the Korean side of the border. After the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910, a small but significant number of migrants came to Manchuria for political reasons. In 1952, the Korean migrants composed some 60% of the local population, the Chinese authorities subsidize Korean language schools and publications, but also take measures to prevent an emergence of Korean irredentism in the area. Geographic coordinates, 41°5947 - 44°3042, 127°2743 - 131°1833 E Total border length,755.2 kilometres With N Korea,522.5 kilometres With Russia,232, average land height is 500 metres above sea level. Main rivers include, Songhua River Mudan River Tumen River Gaya River, the rivers created basins, which are suitable for agricultural uses, like rice paddies and bean farms. Railways include, Chang-Tu Line Mu-Tu Line Chao-Kai Line Yangchuan-Shantun Line Tumen-Hunchun Railway, ethnic compositions,2,271,60064. 55% Han 32. 45% Korean 2. 52% Manchu 0. 28% Hui 0. 13% Mongols Growth rate 0. 4%. Population density,51 people per km², like on the Korean peninsula, Yanbian Koreans most common surname is Kim. Many emigrated from Korea during the 19th century, and again during the Japanese Occupation, colleges and universities, Yanbian University, which uses both Chinese and Korean as instruction mediums. The Museum of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture was planned in 1960 and it contains over 10,000 exhibits, including 11 first-level artifacts. The exhibits labels and explanations are bilingual in Korean and Chinese, There are seven public parks in Yanbians green space, including, Yanji Peoples Park Youth Lake Park Also popular among locals during holidays and festivities
7.
Time in China
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The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08,00, despite China spanning five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called Beijing Time domestically and China Standard Time internationally, daylight saving time has not been observed since 1991. The special administrative regions maintain their own authorities, with standards called Hong Kong Time. These have been equivalent to Beijing time since 1992, in addition, a second time standard is used in Xinjiang, two hours less than the Beijing Time, which is called Ürümqi Time or Xinjiang Time. In 1912, the Republic of China established five standard time zones, namely Kunlun, Sinkiang-Tibet, Kansu-Szechwan, Chungyuan, and Changpai. The unified time zone policy was adopted by the Communist Party of China or the Central People’s Government some time between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, the date is unknown. However, recent research suggests that the policy was most likely adopted on 27 September 1949, daylight saving time was observed from 1986 to 1991. In 1997 and 1999, Hong Kong and Macau were transferred to China from the United Kingdom and Portugal, although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their locations, both are within the UTC+08,00 time zone, which is the same as the national standard — Beijing time. Xinjiang Time, also known as Ürümqi Time, is set due to its location in the westernmost part of the country. The time offset is UTC+06,00, which is two hours behind Beijing, and is shared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time. Some local authorities are now using both time standard side by side, the coexistence of two timezones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occur. Some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+6 Xinjiang Time because of language barrier, regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly opening from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time and this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang. Hong Kong maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong Time is UTC+08,00 all year round, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979. Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis in 1904, before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch Lee Equatorial and a 3-inch Transit Circle. Macau maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1999, the Macau Standard Time is the time in Macau
8.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
9.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
10.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
11.
Hangul
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The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea and as Chosŏngŭl/Chosŏn Muntcha in North Korea is the alphabet that has been used to write the Korean language since the 15th century. It was created during the Joseon Dynasty in 1443 by King Sejong the Great, in South Korea, Hangul is used primarily to write the Korean language as using Hanja in typical Korean writing had fallen out of common usage during the late 1990s. In its classical and modern forms, the alphabet has 19 consonant and 21 vowel letters, however, instead of being written sequentially like the letters of the Latin alphabet, Hangul letters are grouped into blocks, such as 한 han, each of which transcribes a syllable. That is, although the syllable 한 han may look like a single character, each syllabic block consists of two to six letters, including at least one consonant and one vowel. These blocks are arranged horizontally from left to right or vertically from top to bottom. Each Korean word consists of one or more syllables, hence one or more blocks, of the 11,172 possible Hangul syllables, the most frequent 256 have a cumulative frequency of 88. 2%, with the top 512, it reaches 99. 9%. The modern name Hangul was coined by Ju Sigyeong in 1912, han meant great in archaic Korean, and geul is the native Korean word for script. Taken together, then, the meaning is great script, as the word han had also become one way of indicating Korea as a whole the name could also potentially be interpreted as Korean script. Korean 한글 is pronounced, and in English as /ˈhɑːn. ɡʊl/ or /ˈhɑːŋɡʊl/, when used as an English word, it is often rendered without the diacritics, hangul, and it is often capitalized as Hangul, as it appears in many English dictionaries. Hankul in the Yale romanization, a system recommended for technical linguistic studies, North Koreans call it Chosŏngŭl, after Chosŏn, the North Korean name for Korea. Because of objections to the names Hangeul, Chosŏngŭl, and urigeul by Koreans in China, until the early 20th century, Hangul was denigrated as vulgar by the literate elite, who preferred the traditional hanja writing system. They gave it such names as these, Achimgeul, in the original Hanja, it is rendered as 故智者不終朝而會，愚者可浹旬而學。 Gugmun Eonmun Amgeul. Am is a prefix that signifies a noun is feminine Ahaetgeul or Ahaegeul Hangul was promulgated by Sejong the Great, the Hall of Worthies, a group of scholars who worked with Sejong to develop and refine the new alphabet, is often credited for the work. The project was completed in late December 1443 or January 1444, the publication date of the Hunmin Jeong-eum, October 9, became Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North Korean equivalent, Chosongul Day, is on January 15, various speculations about the creation process were put to rest by the discovery in 1940 of the 1446 Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye. This document explains the design of the consonant letters according to articulatory phonetics, to assuage this problem, King Sejong created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people. However, it entered popular culture as Sejong had intended, being used especially by women, the late 16th century, however, saw a revival of Hangul, with gasa literature and later sijo flourishing. In the 17th century, Hangul novels became a major genre, by this point spelling had become quite irregular
12.
Koreans in China
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Chaoxianzu, Joseonjok or Chosŏnjok form one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the Chinese government. Their total population was estimated at 1,923,842 as of 2005 and 1,830,929 according to the 2010 Chinese census. High levels of emigration to South Korea, which has reported a large increase in Chosŏnjok, are the likely cause of the drop. Most of them live in Northeast China, especially in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, the South Korean media of the 1990s referred to Koreans in China as jungguk-in. Government regulations in 2004 forced the use of the term jaeoe dongpo, similarly friendly terms include hanguk gye jungguk-in or jungguk dongpo. Due to the proximity of borders between China and Korean Peninsula, population migration of some kind had occurred throughout history. In the Yuan dynasty, Koreans were included along with Northern Chinese, Khitan and Jurchen in the third class, Korean settlements in the Yuan Dynasty were mostly war-related. In the next years, another ten thousand Goryeo households was brought under his administration, in 1266, Wang Jun, a member of the Goryeo royal family, was sent to the Mongol Empire as a hostage. There were 2000 Goryeo households accompanying him and settled down in current-day Shenyang city in Northeast China.76 The Korean population in China has increased during the Ming Dynasty, per the Chronicles of Liaodong, Koreans and Manchus accounted for 30% of the total local population in Northeast China. In 1386, the Ming government set up the Dongningwei and Guangningwei to manage the increasing Korean population settlement in Northeast China,76. In 1537, Korean population in Dongningwei had decreased by 60%.37 As Jurchens established the Later Jin, each time when Jurchens attacked Korean Peninsula, they plundered large amount of Korean people with them. Most of these Koreans captured by Jurchens were drafted as soldiers in the Eight Banners or sold to rich Jurchens as farm laborers or servants, most of the captured Koreans in the early Qing dynasty were forcefully converted to Manchu or other ethnic, and lost their ethnic identities. The Joseon rulers were forced by the Qing government to implement harsh penalties to prevent Koreans from entering the sealed areas. The Russian Empire meanwhile seized the opportunity to encroach this region, meanwhile, peasant revolts in the south spread to the north. Large numbers of Korean refugees moved to the banks of the Tumen. In 1879, there were 8722 Korean households living in 28 villages in Tonghua, Huairen, Kuandian, Xingjing areas, the Qing government strengthened the management of Korean emigrants during the start of the 20th century. Korean emigrants were able to land ownership if adopting Manchu’s dressing codes including the Queue hairstyle, obtaining the license from. But most of the Korean emigrants considered adopting Manchu’s addressing codes is a policy of assimilation
13.
North Korea
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North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is both the capital as well as its largest city. To the north and northwest the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok, the country is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the two. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed, the communist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north, an invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, and no peace treaty was ever signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant socialist state and formally holds elections, critics regard it as a totalitarian dictatorship. Various outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung, International organizations have assessed human rights violations in North Korea as belonging to a category of their own, with no parallel in the contemporary world. Over time, North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world communist movement, Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a creative application of Marxism–Leninism in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises, most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered from a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 0.24 and 3.5 million people, and the continues to struggle with food production. North Korea follows Songun, or military-first policy and it is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, the name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea, Chosun or Joseon in North Korea, in 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as its new legal name. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan, Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun operated along the Sino-Korean border, some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the leader of North Korea
14.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
15.
China proper
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China proper, Inner China or the Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Manchu Qing dynasty to express a distinction between the core and frontier regions of China. There is no fixed extent for China proper, as administrative, cultural. One definition refers to the area of Chinese civilization, the North China Plain. It is not clear when the concept of China proper in the Western world appeared and this would also apply to Great Britain proper versus the British Empire, which would encompass vast lands overseas. The same would apply to France proper in contrast to the French Empire of the time, according to Harry Harding, the concept can date back to 1827. But as early as in 1795, William Winterbotham adopted this concept in his book, when describing the Chinese Empire under the Qing dynasty, Winterbotham divided it into three parts, China proper, Chinese Tartary, and the States Tributary to China. He adopted the opinions of Du Halde and Grosier and suspected that the name of China came from Qin dynasty and he then said, China, properly so called. Comprehends from north to south eighteen degrees, its extent from east to west being somewhat less, however, to introduce China proper, Winterbotham still used the outdated 15-province system of the Ming dynasty, which the Qing dynasty used until 1662. This 15-province system was replaced by the 18-province system between 1662 and 1667. The concept of China proper also appeared before this 1795 book and it can be found in The Gentlemans Magazine, published in 1790, and The Monthly Review, published in 1749. In the nineteenth century, the term China proper was sometimes used by Chinese officials when they were communicating in foreign languages, for instance, the Qing ambassador to Britain Zeng Jize used it in an English language article, which he published in 1887. Dulimbai Gurun is the Manchu name for China, after conquering the Ming, the Manchu Qing identified their state as China, and referred to it as Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu. When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into China in a Manchu language memorial. Some Han Chinese Ming loyalists refused to use Zhongguo to refer to areas outside the borders of the Ming Empire such as outer Mongolia, in effect refusing to acknowledge the Qing state. Today, China proper is a concept in China itself, since the current official paradigm does not contrast the core. There is no widely used term corresponding to it in the Mandarin language. Also, he asks, if the boundaries of the Qing were considered illegitimate, one way of thinking about China proper is to refer to ancient Han Chinese dynasties. The Ming Dynasty was the last Han Chinese dynasty and second-last imperial dynasty to rule China and it governed fifteen administrative entities, which included thirteen provinces and two directly-governed areas
16.
Chuang Guandong
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Previously, this region was outside China proper, but was sometimes under direct control and/or indirect influence, of the ruling Chinese dynasty. The region, now known as Northeast China, has an overwhelmingly Han population, Inner Manchuria, also called Guandong or Guānwài, used to be a land of sparse population, inhabited mainly by the Tungusic peoples. In 1668 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, the Qing government further decreed a prohibition of non-Eight Banner people getting into this area of their origin. Han Chinese farmers were resettled from north China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River to restore the land to cultivation, wasteland was reclaimed by Han Chinese squatters in addition to other Han who rented land from Manchu landlords. The Qianlong Emperor allowed Han Chinese peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740-1776, Chinese tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the imperial estates and Manchu Bannerlands in the area. This gives the total positive migration balance of 8.7 million people over this half a century period. This makes the scale of the migration comparable to the expansion in United States, the advance to Siberia in Russia, or, on a smaller scale. Land Use and Society in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia during the Qing Dynasty, forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History. G.213, ISBN 0-89065-118-3 Edmonds, Richard L, the Willow Palisade, Annals of the Association of American Geographers,69, 599–621, doi,10. 1111/j. 1467-8306.1979. tb01285. Minorities, Majorities and National Expansion, The History and Politics of Population Development in Manchuria 1610-1993, Cologne China Studies Online – Working Papers on Chinese Politics, Economy and Society. Modern China Studies, Chair for Politics, Economy and Society of Modern China, TV Drama Series Chuang Guandong by CCTV
17.
Manchuria
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Manchuria is a modern name, first created by the Japanese, given to a large geographic region in Northeast Asia. Depending on the context, Manchuria can either refer to a region that falls entirely within the Peoples Republic of China, the definition of Manchuria can be any one of several regions of various size. These are, from smallest to largest, Northeast China, consisting of Heilongjiang, Jilin and this is the area referred to as Manchuria in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Inner Manchuria, the above, plus parts of modern Inner Mongolia, The above, plus Outer Manchuria, the area from the Amur and Ussuri rivers to the Stanovoy Mountains, in Russian administrative terms, Ussuri krai, southern Harbin oblast, Primorskiy kray. The above, plus Sakhalin Island, which is included on Qing dynasty maps as part of Outer Manchuria even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The island was included in Manchuria on maps made by the Japanese Shogunate. Despite of lines on maps and empiress political claims, the island was inhabited by Ainu people until the Soviet Union enforced a policy after 1945. Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the act of the Manchu drama. During the ensuing two hundred years the Nü-chêns were scarcely heard of, the House of Ming being busily occupied in other directions and it may be noted here that Manchuria is unknown to the Chinese or to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression. The present extensive home of the Manchus is usually spoken of as the Three Eastern Provinces, namely, Shêngking, or Liao-tung, or Kuan-tung, Kirin, and Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar. — Herbert A. Giles, China and the Manchus,1912 Manchuria is a translation of the Japanese word Manshū, the Manchu and Chinese languages had no such word as Manchuria and the word has imperialist connotations. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using the name Manchuria to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria, the historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial. Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks when referring to Manchuria, in his 2012 dissertation on the Jurchen people to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History from the University of Washington, Professor Chad D. In the 18th-century Europe, the later known as Manchuria was most commonly referred to as Tartary. However, the term Manchuria started appearing by the end of the century, in current Chinese parlance, an inhabitant of the Northeast, or Northeast China, is a Northeasterner. In China, the term Manchuria is rarely used today, and this usage is seen in the expression Chuǎng Guāndōng referring to the mass migration of Han Chinese to Manchuria in the 19th and 20th centuries. The name Guandong later came to be used more narrowly for the area of the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liaodong Peninsula and it is not to be confused with the southern province of Guangdong
18.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
19.
Jiandao
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Jiandao or Chientao, known in Korean as Gando or Kando, refers to a small piece of marsh land between the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Helong in Jilin, Northeast China. The original Chinese name of Jiandao is Jiajiang, another way to define Jiandao was provided by the Imperial Japan in early 20th century. Most of the region defined by Japan in early 20th century as Jiandao is part of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, the area of the prefecture is approximately 42,000 square kilometers in size and home to about 810,000 ethnic Koreans. In China, Yanbian is the used, and Jiandao is not used. These groups claim what happened in Jiandao between 1907–1909 was a transfer of Korean territory between Japan and China. Many different states and tribes succeeded each other in ruling the area during ancient times and these included Buyeo, Goguryeo and Goguryeos successor state Balhae. Goguryeo was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and controlled northern Korea, Balhae was a state that existed in the area during the Tang Dynasty in China and the Unified Silla Period in Korea. China emphasizes Balhaes temporary tributary relationship to the Tang, while Korea emphasizes that Balhae was a successor state, Balhae was destroyed by the Khitan Liao Dynasty in 926, and was formally annexed in 936. Over the next nine to ten centuries the region was administered by the Liao Dynasty, Jin dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and finally, the Qing Dynasty, eventually, the Qing dynasty succeeded in unifying China by replacing the Ming Dynasty. In 1712, the border between Qing and Joseon was formally demarcated, Joseon officials also did not allow its subjects to move to northeast China. Qing officials regularly inspected this region and occasional Korean intruders were detained, however, by the late 19th century, peasants in northern Korea migrated to northeast China to flee famine and poverty. Even more arrived as refugees when Japan invaded Korea in 1894, after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan began the process that led to the formal annexation of Korea. In 1905, the Korean Empire became a protectorate of Imperial Japan, effectively losing diplomatic rights, some local Chinese governments welcomed the Korean immigrants, as they were a source of labor and agricultural skill. In the meantime, Japan began to expand into northeast China, one of the regions the Japanese targeted was Jiandao. Rather than being a piece of marsh land, the Japanese claimed that Jiandao included territory of four counties of Jilin province. The Japanese further claimed ethnic Koreans living in this region should be placed under the influence of Imperial Japan, the Japanese first infiltrated Jiandao in April 1907 to collect information and data. On August 7,1907, Japanese troops invaded Jiandao and claimed that the Jiandao Issue was unsettled, Japan agreed to withdraw its invading troops back to Korea in two months. The treaty also contained provisions for the protection and rights of ethnic Koreans under Chinese rule, nevertheless, there were large Korean settlements and the area remained under significant Japanese influence
20.
Manchukuo
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Manchukuo was a puppet state in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia, which was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was designated by Chinas erstwhile Qing Dynasty as the homeland of the familys ethnic group. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a government was installed one year later with Puyi. Manchukuos government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II, Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians, the Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory, Manchuria is a transcription of the Japanese reading of the Chinese word 滿洲 which means Manchuria, which in Japanese is Manshū, which in turn dates from the 19th century. The name Manzhou was invented and given to the Jurchen people by Hong Taiji in 1635 as a new name for their ethnic group. However, the name Manchuria was never used by the Manchus or the Qing dynasty itself to refer to their homeland, the name itself holding imperialistic connotation. According to Mark C. 满洲 then began to appear as a place names in more maps created by Japanese like Kondi Jūzō, Takahashi Kageyasu, Baba Sadayoshi and these maps were brought to Europe by the Dutch Philipp von Siebold. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using Manchuria as a name to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. Ordinary Manchus largely spurned Manchukuo which claimed to be established for their cause, the Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria. The historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial, professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks, when referring to Manchuria. Herbert Giles wrote that Manchuria was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression, the Qing Dynasty, which replaced the Shun and Ming dynasties in China, was founded by Manchus from Manchuria. The Manchu emperors separated their homeland in Jilin and Heilongjiang from the Han Liaoning province with the Willow Palisade and this ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as China, the lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to China in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907, as the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War
21.
Songjiang Province
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Sungkiang or Songjiang was a province of the Republic of China. It was one of nine provinces created in Manchuria by the Chinese Nationalist government after World War II, since the Nationalists never gained effective control of Manchuria, the province existed only on paper. It was bordered on the east by the USSR, and along part of the border ran the Nen. In 1949 Hejiang was incorporated into Songjiang and in 1954, northern Songjiang was merged into Heilongjiang province, map showing the location of Songjiang within the claimed territories of the ROC Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
22.
Counties of the People's Republic of China
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There are 1,464 counties in Mainland China out of a total of 2,862 county-level divisions. Xian have existed since the Warring States period, and were established nationwide during the Qin Dynasty, the term xian is usually translated as districts or prefectures when put in the context of Chinese history. This article, however, will try to keep the terminology consistent with the modern translation, xian have existed since the Warring States period and were set up nationwide by the Qin Dynasty. The number of counties in China proper gradually increased from dynasty to dynasty, as Qin Shi Huang reorganized the counties after his unification, there were about 1,000. Under the Eastern Han Dynasty, the number of counties increased to above 1,000, about 1400 existed when the Sui dynasty abolished the commandery level, which was the level just above counties, and demoted some commanderies to counties. The current number of counties mostly resembled that of the years of Qing Dynasty. Changes of location and names of counties in Chinese history have been a field of research in Chinese historical geography. Government below the county level was often undertaken through informal non-bureaucratic means, the head of a county was the magistrate, who oversaw both the day-to-day operations of the county as well as civil and criminal cases. Autonomous counties are a class of counties in Mainland China reserved for non-Han Chinese ethnic minorities. Autonomous counties are all over China, and are given, by law. There are 117 autonomous counties in Mainland China, as the Communist Party of China is central to directing government policy in Mainland China, every level of administrative division has a local CPC Committee. A countys is called the CPC County Committee and the called the Secretary. Policies are carried out via the Peoples government of the county, the governor is often also one of the deputy secretaries in the CPC Committee. County List of counties in the Peoples Republic of China List of county-level divisions of China History of the divisions of China
23.
2009 North Korean nuclear test
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The 2009 North Korean nuclear test was the underground detonation of a nuclear device conducted on Monday, May 25,2009 by the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. This was its second nuclear test, the first test, a fizzle, following the nuclear test, Pyongyang also conducted several missile tests. A scientific paper later estimated the yield as 2.35 kilotons, the test was nearly universally condemned by the international community. Following the test, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1874 condemning the test and it was widely believed that the test was conducted as a result of a succession crisis in the country. After Kim Jong-Il suffered a stroke in the summer of 2008, arrangements were made for his son, Kim Jong-un. It is believed the North Koreans conducted the nuclear test to show that, even in a time of possible weakness, the launch was condemned by several nations, describing it as an intercontinental ballistic missile test. The state-run Korean Central News Agency released an announcement claiming, in part, South Korea and Japan reported seismic activity at 09,50 KST. The United States Geological Survey reported a magnitude 4, the Japan Meteorological Agency measured the seismic activity at magnitude 5.3. The Korea Institute of Geoscience & Mineral Resources reported seismic activity in the same area, the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed it had detected a nuclear detonation in North Korea and was analysing the data to determine the yield. Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences has registered underground nuclear explosion conducted in North Korea on May 25,2009, registration time of this explosion was 0,54 a. m. In China, tremors were felt in the prefecture of Yanbian, which borders North Korea, the test is believed to have taken place at Mantapsan in the vicinity of Punggyeri, which was the site of the nuclear test held in 2006. Analysts have generally agreed that the nuclear test was successful, despite uncertainty of the exact yield, the U. S. intelligence community assessed that North Korea probably had conducted a nuclear test with a yield of a few kilotons. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Commission assessed the yield at only slightly larger than the 2006 test, russia placed the yield of the test significantly higher at 10 to 20 kilotons. This was approximately the yield of the Fat Man and Trinity bombs developed by the United States during World War II. However, the Russians had also estimated a far higher yield of 5 to 10 kilotons when other sources estimated a yield of 0.5 to 0.9 kilotons in the 2006 test as well. Defense Minister Lee Sang-Hee of South Korea said that data were needed. Analyst Martin Kalinowski at the University of Hamburg estimated the yield at being from 3 to 8 kilotons, hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists cautioned that early news media reports about a Hiroshima-size nuclear explosion seem to be overblown. The group concluded that the failed to detonate correctly
24.
Pyongyang
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Pyongyang is the capital and largest city of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The city was split from the South Pyongan province in 1946 and it is administered as a directly governed city on the same level as provincial governments, as opposed to a special city as Seoul is in South Korea. Pyongyang literally means Flat Land in Korean, one of Pyongyangs many historic names is Ryugyong, or capital of willows, as willow trees have always been numerous throughout the citys history, this served as an inspiration for many poems. Even today, the city has numerous trees, with many buildings. The most notable of these is the impressive Ryugyong Hotel, started in 1987, the citys other historic names include Kisong, Hwangsong, Rakrang, Sŏgyong, Sodo, Hogyong, Changan, and Heijō. During the early 20th century, Pyongyang came to be known among missionaries as being the Jerusalem of the East, due to its status as a stronghold of Christianity. In 1955, archaeologists excavated evidence of occupation in a large ancient village in the Pyongyang area, called Kŭmtan-ni. North Koreans associate Pyongyang with Asadal, or Wanggomsŏng, the first second millennium BC capital of the Gojoseon kingdom according to Korean history books, notably Samguk Yusa. Many South Korean historians deny this claim because other Chinese history books such as the Guanzi, Shanhaijing, Shiji, the connection between the two therefore may have been asserted by North Korea for the use of propaganda. Nevertheless, Pyongyang became a city under Gojoseon. Pyongyang was founded in 1122 BC on the site of the Tangun Dynastys capital and it is likely that the area of Pyongyang belonged to Wiman Joseon, the shortest-lasting part of Gojoseon if both Dangun and Gija Joseon were real, which fell in the Gojoseon–Han War in 108 BC. Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty ordered four commanderies be set up, with Lelang Commandery in the center, several archaeological findings from the later, Eastern Han period in the Pyongyang area seems to suggest that Han forces later launched brief incursions around these parts. The area around the city was called Nanglang during the early Three Kingdoms period, as the capital of Nanglang kingdom, Pyongyang remained an important commercial and cultural outpost after Lelang Commandery was destroyed by an expanding Goguryeo in 313. Goguryeo moved its capital there in 427, according to Christopher Beckwith, Pyongyang is the Sino-Korean reading of the name they gave it in their language, Piarna, or level land. In 668, Pyongyang became the capital of the Protectorate General to Pacify the East established by the Tang dynasty of China, however, by 676, it was taken by Silla, but left on the border between Silla and Balhae. This lasted until the time of the Goryeo dynasty, when the city was revived as Sŏgyŏng although it was never actually a capital of the kingdom and it was the provincial capital of the Pyeongan Province during the Joseon dynasty. During the Japanese invasions of Korea, Pyongyang was captured by the Japanese until the Japanese were defeated in the Siege of Pyongyang, later in the 17th century, it became temporarily occupied during Second Manchu invasion of Korea until peace arrangements were made between Korea and the Manchus. While the invasions made Koreans suspicious of foreigners, the influence of Christianity began to grow after the country opened itself up to foreigners in the 16th century
25.
Bill Clinton
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William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the Presidency he was the 40th Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, before that, he served as Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideogically a New Democrat, Clinton is married to Hillary Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and U. S. Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and served the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham both earned degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the states education system, Clinton was elected President of the United States in 1992, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush. At age 46, he was the third-youngest president and the first from the Baby Boomer generation, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. After failing to pass health care reform, the Democratic House was ousted when the Republican Party won control of the Congress in 1994. Two years later, in 1996, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term, Clinton passed welfare reform and the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children. Clinton was acquitted by the U. S. Senate in 1999, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clintons presidency. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U. S. Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U. S. President since World War II, since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes, such as the prevention of AIDS, in 2004, Clinton published his autobiography, My Life. In 2009, Clinton was named the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U. S. Presidents. Clinton was born on August 19,1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas and he was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy. His parents had married on September 4,1943, but this later proved to be bigamous. Soon after their son was born, his mother traveled to New Orleans to study nursing, leaving her son in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially, in 1950, Bills mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr. who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950, although he immediately assumed use of his stepfathers surname, it was not until Clinton turned fifteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather. In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. Johns Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School—where he was a student leader, avid reader
26.
Methamphetamine
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Methamphetamine is a strong central nervous system stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamphetamine was discovered in 1893 and exists as two enantiomers, levo-methamphetamine and dextro-methamphetamine, Methamphetamine properly refers to a specific chemical, the racemic free base, which is an equal mixture of levomethamphetamine and dextromethamphetamine in their pure amine forms. Dextromethamphetamine is a much stronger CNS stimulant than levomethamphetamine, both methamphetamine and dextromethamphetamine are illicitly trafficked and sold owing to their potential for recreational use. Levomethamphetamine is available as a drug for use as an inhaled nasal decongestant in the United States. While dextromethamphetamine is a potent drug, racemic methamphetamine is sometimes illicitly produced due to the relative ease of synthesis. In low doses, methamphetamine can elevate mood, increase alertness, concentration and energy in fatigued individuals, at higher doses, it can induce psychosis, breakdown of skeletal muscle, seizures and bleeding in the brain. Chronic high-dose use can precipitate unpredictable and rapid mood swings, prominent delusions, Methamphetamine is known to have a high addiction liability and dependence liability. Heavy recreational use of methamphetamine may lead to a post-acute-withdrawal syndrome, unlike amphetamine, methamphetamine is neurotoxic to human midbrain dopaminergic neurons. It has also shown to damage serotonin neurons in the CNS. This damage includes adverse changes in structure and function, such as reductions in grey matter volume in several brain regions. Methamphetamine belongs to the phenethylamine and substituted amphetamine chemical classes. It is related to the other dimethylphenethylamines as an isomer of these compounds. Methamphetamine is sometimes prescribed off label for narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia, in the United States, methamphetamines levorotary form is available in some over-the-counter nasal decongestant products. As methamphetamine is associated with a potential for misuse, the drug is regulated under the Controlled Substances Act and is listed under schedule II in the United States. Methamphetamine hydrochloride dispensed in the United States is required to include a warning regarding its potential for recreational misuse. Methamphetamine is often used recreationally for its effects as a potent euphoriant and stimulant as well as aphrodisiac qualities, according to a National Geographic TV documentary on methamphetamine, an entire subculture known as party and play is based around methamphetamine use. Members of this San Francisco sub-culture, which consists almost entirely of gay male methamphetamine users, due to its strong stimulant and aphrodisiac effects and inhibitory effect on ejaculation, with repeated use, these sexual encounters will sometimes occur continuously for several days on end. The crash following the use of methamphetamine in this manner is often severe
27.
Brookings Institution
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The Brookings Institution is a century-old American research group on Think Tank Row in Washington, D. C. It conducts research and education in the sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy. Brookings has five research programs at its Washington, D. C. campus and three international centers based in Doha, Qatar, Beijing, China, and New Delhi, India. In the University of Pennsylvanias 2015 Global Go To Think Tanks Report, Brookings states that its staff represent diverse points of view and describes itself as non-partisan, while the media sometimes describes Brookings as liberal. The same study found Brookings to be the most frequently cited think tank by the US media, as a 501 non-profit organization, Brookings describes itself as independent and non-partisan. The New York Times has referred to the organization as liberal, liberal-centrist, centrist, the Washington Post has described Brookings as centrist and liberal. The Los Angeles Times has described Brookings as liberal-leaning and centrist before opining that it did not believe such labels mattered, in 1977, Time Magazine described it as the nations pre-eminent liberal think tank. Newsweek has described Brookings as centrist while Politico has used the term center-left, the left-wing, media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting describes it as conservative. Some liberals argue, however, that despite its left-of-center reputation, similarly, Brookings fellow and research director Benjamin Wittes is a member of the conservative Hoover Institutions Task Force on National Security and Law. Brookings scholars have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, including Mark McClellan, Ron Haskins, aside from political figures, the board of trustees includes leaders in business and industry, including Philip H. Knight, Chairman of Nike, Inc. Brookings was founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research, the Institutions founder, philanthropist Robert S. Louis. The three were merged into the Brookings Institution on December 8,1927, during the Great Depression economists at Brookings embarked on a large scale study commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to understand the underlying causes of the depression. With the entry into World War II in 1941, Brookings researchers turned their attention to aiding the administration with a series of studies on mobilization, in 1948, Brookings was asked to submit a plan for the administration of the European Recovery Program. The resulting organization scheme assured that the Marshall Plan was run carefully, in 1952, Robert Calkins succeeded Moulton as president of the Brookings Institution. He secured grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation that put the Institution on a financial basis. He reorganized the Institution around the Economic Studies, Government Studies, in 1957, the Institution moved from Jackson Avenue to a new research center near Dupont Circle in Washington, D. C. Kermit Gordon assumed the presidency of Brookings in 1967 and he began a series of studies of program choices for the federal budget in 1969 entitled Setting National Priorities. He also expanded the Foreign Policy Studies Program to include research in national security, yet throughout the 1970s, Brookings was offered more federal research contracts than it could handle
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Metropolitan area
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As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
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Monsoon
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Usually, the term monsoon is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally changing pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase. The term is sometimes used for locally heavy but short-term rains. The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African and Asia-Australian monsoons, the inclusion of the North and South American monsoons with incomplete wind reversal has been debated. The south-west monsoon winds are called Nairutya Maarut in India, the English monsoon came from Portuguese monção, ultimately from Arabic mawsim and/or Hindi mausam, perhaps partly via early modern Dutch monsun. Strengthening of the Asian monsoon has been linked to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau after the collision of the Indian sub-continent and Asia around 50 million years ago. Because of studies of records from the Arabian Sea and that of the wind-blown dust in the Loess Plateau of China, testing of this hypothesis awaits deep ocean sampling by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. The monsoon has varied significantly in strength since this time, largely linked to climate change. A study of marine plankton suggested that the Indian Monsoon strengthened around 5 million years ago, then, during ice periods, the sea level fell and the Indonesian Seaway closed. When this happened, cold waters in the Pacific were impeded from flowing into the Indian Ocean and it is believed that the resulting increase in sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean increased the intensity of monsoons. Five episodes during the Quaternary at 2.22 Ma,1.83 Ma,0.68 Ma,0.45 Ma and 0.04 Ma were identified which showed a weakening of Leeuwin Current. The weakening of the LC would have an effect on the sea surface temperature field in the Indian Ocean, thus these five intervals could probably be those of considerable lowering of SST in the Indian Ocean and would have influenced Indian monsoon intensity. The impact of monsoon on the weather is different from place to place. In some places there is just a likelihood of having a more or less rain. In other places, quasi semi-deserts are turned into green grasslands where all sorts of plants. The Indian Monsoon turns large parts of India from a kind of semi-desert into green lands, see photos only taken 3 months apart in the Western Ghats. In places like this it is crucial for farmers to have the right timing for putting the seeds on the fields, Monsoons are large-scale sea breezes which occur when the temperature on land is significantly warmer or cooler than the temperature of the ocean. These temperature imbalances happen because oceans and land absorb heat in different ways, in contrast, dirt, sand, and rocks have lower heat capacities, and they can only transmit heat into the earth by conduction and not by convection. Therefore, bodies of water stay at an even temperature
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Humid continental climate
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Precipitation is usually well distributed through the year. Some climatologists prefer to use the 0 °C isotherm as it is commonly used. In addition, the location in question must not be semi-arid or arid, humid continental climates tend to be found between latitudes 40° N and 60° N, within the central and northeastern portions of North America, Europe, and Asia. They are much less commonly found in the Southern Hemisphere due to the ocean area at that latitude. More extreme humid continental climates found in southern Siberia and the American Midwest combine hotter summer maxima, climatological averages are used to determine which locations are within a certain climate regime. The World Meteorological Organization has defined this average as through a 30 year period, the version from 1936 utilized a mean temperature of the coldest month of below −3 °C and there must be at least four months whose mean temperatures are at or above 10 °C. In Europe, the −3 °C average temperature isotherm was near the extent of winter snowpack. Many climatologists in the U. S. prefer to use 0 °C as the standard because they feel it better reflects consistency in regional landscapes, the 10 °C average temperature was found to be the minimum temperature necessary for the tree growth. Large temperature ranges are common within this climate zone, in addition, the location in question must not be semi-arid or arid. This is from an update to the climate regime definition introduced by Trewartha & Horn in 1980, despite the 1980 update, climate regimes are essentially the same within the Southern Hemisphere. The largest changes are seen in North America, Europe, under Köppen, the following variants of this climate are possible. The climate regime uses a three letter code, beginning with the letter D. Otherwise, The second letter f , s , A dry summer — the driest summer month has at most 30 millimetres of rainfall and has at most 1⁄3 the precipitation of the wettest winter month. W , A dry winter — the driest winter month has at most one‑tenth of the found in the wettest summer month. The third letter a , Warmest month averages above 22 °C b , Does not meet the requirements for a, within North America, moisture within this climate regime is supplied by the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent western subtropical Atlantic. Snowfall occurs in all areas with a continental climate and in many such places is more common than rain during the height of winter. In places with sufficient wintertime precipitation, the cover is often deep. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms, and in North America, though humidity levels are often high in locations with humid continental climates, the humid designation means that the climate is not dry enough to be classified as semi-arid or arid. By definition, forests thrive within this climate, biomes within this climate regime include temperate woodlands, temperate grasslands, temperate deciduous, temperature evergreen forests, and coniferous forests
31.
Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
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Relative humidity
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Relative humidity is the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor to the equilibrium vapor pressure of water at a given temperature. Relative humidity depends on temperature and the pressure of the system of interest and it requires less water vapor to attain high relative humidity at low temperatures, more water vapour is required to attain high relative humidity in warm or hot air. Humans are sensitive to high humidity because the body uses evaporative cooling, enabled by perspiration. Perspiration evaporates from the more slowly under humid conditions than under arid. For example, if the air temperature is 24 °C and the humidity is zero percent. If the relative humidity is 100 percent at the air temperature. In other words, if the air is 24 °C and contains saturated water vapor, then the human body cools itself at the rate as it would if it were 27 °C. The heat index and the humidex are indices that reflect the effect of temperature. In cold climates, the temperature causes lower capacity for water vapour to flow about. Dry cracked skin can result from dry air, low humidity causes tissue lining nasal passages to dry, crack and become more susceptible to penetration of Rhinovirus cold viruses. Low humidity is a cause of nosebleeds. The use of a humidifier in homes, especially bedrooms, can help with these symptoms, indoor relative humidities should be kept above 30% to reduce the likelihood of the occupants nasal passages drying out. Humans can be comfortable within a range of humidities depending on the temperature—from thirty to seventy percent—but ideally between 50% and 60%. Very low humidity can create discomfort, respiratory problems, and aggravate allergies in some individuals, in the winter, it is advisable to maintain relative humidity at 30 percent or above. Extremely low relative humidities may also cause eye irritation, wooden furniture can shrink, causing the paint that covers these surfaces to fracture. When the temperature is low and the humidity is high. When relative humidity approaches 100 percent, condensation can occur on surfaces, leading to problems with mold, corrosion, decay, condensation can pose a safety risk as it can promote the growth of mold and wood rot as well as possibly freezing emergency exits shut. The basic principles for buildings, above, also apply to vehicles, in addition, there may be safety considerations
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Sunshine duration
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It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is usually expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day, the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration, an important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites, especially of health resorts. This also takes account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is often used to promote tourist destinations, if the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth. However, there are physical and astronomical effects that change that picture, namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible even when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime,4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575. Because of elliptic nature of the Earths orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical, the Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, bright sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just visible hours. Visible sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder, newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In 2003, the duration was finally defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². The sky is clear in these regions, and fair weather is virtually perpetual, the descending branch of the Hadley cell and the long-term lack of atmospheric disturbances helps to explain the seemingly endless supply of sunny, cloud-free days in the deserts. Low clouding conditions are associated with rainfall shortage, as seen in these dry regions. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3, 600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually. The largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa, the sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with almost 23 hours of bright sun daily
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Towns of the People's Republic of China
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When referring to political divisions of China, town is the standard English translation of the Chinese 镇. It is an administrative unit, i. e. one of the units into which counties. Another common fourth-level unit is the township, a township is typically smaller in population, similarly to a higher-level administrative units, the borders of a town would typically include an urban core, as well as rural area with some villages. For example, the county government of Tongshan County, Hubei is located in Tongyang Town, road signs would also normally show distance to Tongshan rather than Tongyang
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Korean diaspora
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The Korean diaspora consists of roughly seven million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korean Peninsula, as well as more recent emigres from Korea. Nearly four-fifths of expatriate Koreans live in just three countries, China, the United States, and Japan, other countries with greater than 0. 5% Korean minorities include Canada, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Australia, and Vietnam. All these figures include both permanent migrants and sojourners, thus, there is no single name for the Korean diaspora. Historically used term gyopo has come to have negative connotations as referring to people who, as a result, others prefer to use the term dongpo. Dongpo has a more transnational implication, emphasising links among various overseas Korean groups, official appellation used by North Korea for Korean citizens living outside the Korean Peninsula is haeoe gugmin whereas South Korea uses the term jaeoe gungmin to refer to entire Korean diaspora. Both terms translate as overseas nation or overseas people, prior to the modern era, Korea had been a territorially stable polity for centuries, as Jaeeun Kim described it, The congruence of territory, polity, and population was taken for granted. Koreans amount to 40. 4% of the population of the country. Three-quarters of the Koreans living in Japan are Japanese-born, and most are legal aliens, however, the latter would find themselves deported to Central Asia in 1938. Korea gained its independence after the Surrender of Japan in 1945 after World War II but was divided into North and South. After the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 and they are considered to be one of the major minorities. Their population grew to about 2 million, they stayed mostly in northeastern China and their largest population was concentrated in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, where they numbered 854,000 in 1997. Between 1.5 and 2 million Koreans now live in the United States, a handful are descended from laborers who migrated to Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A significant number are descended from orphans of the Korean War, in which the United States was an ally of South Korea. Thousands were adopted by American families in the following the war. The vast majority, however, immigrated or are descended from those who immigrated after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 abolished national immigration quotas, europe and Latin America were also minor destinations for post-war Korean emigration. Korean immigration to Latin America was documented as early as the 1950s, North Korean prisoners of war choose to emigrate to Chile in 1953, however, the majority of Korean settlement occurred in the late 1960s. As the South Korean economy continued to expand in the 1980s, investors from South Korea came to Latin America and established small businesses in the textiles industry. Brazil has Latin Americas largest Koreatown in São Paulo, there are also Koreatowns in cities such as Buenos Aires, Argentina, Guatemala City, Guatemala, Lima, Peru, mexico Citys Korean population is estimated to be around 30,000
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Korean language
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It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the Peoples Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean and this implies that Korean is not an isolate, but a member of a small family. There is still debate on whether Korean and Japanese are related with each other, the Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. A relation of Korean with Japonic languages has been proposed by linguists like William George Aston, Chinese characters arrived in Korea together with Buddhism during the pre-Three Kingdoms period. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in hanja, however, today, the hanja are largely unused in everyday life, but in South Korea they experience revivals on artistic works and are important in historic and/or linguistic studies of Korean. Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separation, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation, verb inflection, the Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North Korea and South Korea. In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by names including hanguk-eo Korean language, hanguk-mal, Korean speech and uri-mal. In hanguk-eo and hanguk-mal, the first part of the word, hanguk, refers to the Korean nation while -eo and -mal mean language and speech, Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally national language. This name is based on the same Chinese characters meaning nation + language that are used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Chosŏn-mal, or more formally, the English word Korean is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and Goryeo In, the majority of historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolians exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a relationship with Altaic is unlikely. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list, a good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning hemp. Also, the doublet wo meaning hemp is attested in Western Old Japanese and it is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Among ancient languages, various relatives of Korean have been proposed. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language, Other famous theories are the Dravido-Korean languages theory and the mostly unknown southern-theory which suggest an Austronesian relation. Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in countries including the Peoples Republic of China, the United States, Japan. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
38.
South Korea
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South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
39.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
Yanji travel guide from Wikivoyage
Media related to Yanji at Wikimedia Commons
