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Bonsai

Bonsai (盆栽, ) is the Japanese art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers, developed from the traditional Chinese art form of penjing (盆景). While both penjing and bonsai involve the cultivation of miniature trees, they differ in that penjing overall aims to showcase "wilder," more naturalistic scenes and encompasses a wider range of styles and designs, and may include various elements such as rocks, water features, and figurines, creating a more elaborate and dynamic scene; on the other hand, bonsai is more restrictively focused on a single tree or a group of trees of the same species, with a higher level of aesthetic refinement. Similar versions of the art exist in other cultures, including the miniature living landscapes of Vietnamese Hòn non bộ. During the Tang dynasty, when penjing was at its height, the art was first introduced from China.

The loanword "bonsai" has become an umbrella term in English, attached to many forms of diminutive potted plants, and also on occasion to other living and non-living things. According to Stephen Orr in The New York Times, "the term should be reserved for plants that are grown in shallow containers following the precise tenets of bonsai pruning and training, resulting in an artful miniature replica of a full-grown tree in nature." In the most restrictive sense, "bonsai" refers to miniaturized, container-grown trees adhering to Japanese tradition and principles.

Purposes of bonsai are primarily contemplation for the viewer, and the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity for the grower. In contrast to other plant cultivation practices, bonsai are not grown for the production of food or for medicine.

A bonsai is created beginning with a specimen of source material. This may be a cutting, seedling, a tree from the wild (known as Yamadori) or small tree of a species suitable for bonsai development. Bonsai can be created from nearly any perennial woody-stemmed tree or shrub species that produces true branches and can be cultivated to remain small through pot confinement with crown and root pruning. Some species are popular as bonsai material because they have characteristics, such as small leaves or needles, that make them appropriate for the compact visual scope of bonsai.

The source specimen is shaped to be relatively small and to meet the aesthetic standards of bonsai, which emphasizes not the entirety of grand sceneries but rather, only the tree itself. When the candidate bonsai nears its planned final size, it is planted in a display pot, usually one designed for bonsai display in one of a few accepted shapes and proportions. From that point forward, its growth is restricted by the pot environment. Throughout the year, the bonsai is shaped to limit growth, redistribute foliar vigor to areas requiring further development, and meet the artist's detailed design.

The practice of bonsai is sometimes confused with dwarfing, but dwarfing generally refers to research, discovery, or creation of plants that are permanent, genetic miniatures of existing species. Plant dwarfing often uses selective breeding or genetic engineering to create dwarf cultivars. Bonsai does not require genetically-dwarfed trees but rather, depends on growing small trees from regular stock and seeds. Bonsai uses cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation, and grafting to produce small trees that mimic the shape and style of mature, full-size trees.

Early versions
The Japanese art of bonsai is believed to have originated from bonkei (盆景, penjing in Chinese) introduced from China. In the Tang Dynasty, there was the art of representing natural scenery with plants and stones in a tray.

At that time, the term bonkei (penjing) was not yet used in China or Japan. Instead, the term penchi (盆池, lit. 'pond in a tray') was used in the Tang Dynasty. Penchi is a water tray in which water plants such as lotus and rice are planted.

In Japan, the term kazan (仮山, lit. 'artificial mountain', later bonsan) was used. In Japan's Shōsōin, a kazan, in which beaches and mountains are made of wood and trees are made of silver on top of them, is still extant, albeit in an incomplete state. A miniature lotus pond made of wood and gilt bronze has also been handed down in the Shōsōin. In this way, there were already bonsan-like works in Japan during the Nara period (710-794), in which natural scenery was represented in a reduced scale.

In the Heian period (794-1185), suhama (洲浜, lit. 'Intricate beach'), which expressed a beautiful landscape with plants and trees (often made of artificial materials) and accessories to match the title of a waka poem, were exhibited at poetry contests and competed with each other. Suhama is similar to bonkei, but expresses a uniquely Japanese scene of white sand and green pine trees on a tray with legs that imitate a sandy beach. Later, it came to be called shimadai (島台, lit. 'island tray'), and has been passed down to the present as a wedding ornament.

In the medieval period, recognizable bonsai were portrayed in handscroll paintings like the Ippen Shōnin Eden (一遍上人絵伝, 1299). The 1195 scroll Saigyo Monogatari Emaki (西行物語絵巻 is the earliest known to depict dwarfed potted trees in Japan. Wooden tray and dish-like pots with dwarf landscapes on modern-looking wooden shelves also appear in the 1309 Kasuga Gongen Genki E (春日権現験記絵, Legends of Kasuga Shrine) scroll. Dwarf trees displayed on short poles are portrayed in the 1351 Boki Ekotoba scroll. Several other scrolls and paintings also include depictions of these kinds of trees.

A close relationship between Japan's Zen Buddhism and the potted trees began to shape bonsai reputation and aesthetics, which were introduced to Japan from China. In this period, Chinese Chan (pronounced "Zen" in Japanese) Buddhist monks taught at Japan's monasteries. One of the monks' activities was to introduce political leaders to various arts of miniature landscapes as admirable accomplishments for men of taste and learning. Potted landscape arrangements up to this period included miniature figurines after the Chinese fashion. Japanese artists eventually adopted a simpler style for bonsai, increasing focus on the tree by removing miniatures and other decorations, and using smaller, plainer pots.

Hachi no ki
Around the 14th century, the term for dwarf potted trees was "the bowl's tree" (鉢の木). This indicated use of a fairly deep pot rather than the shallow pot denoted by the eventual term bonsai. The Potted Trees is also the title of a circa 1383 noh play by Zeami Motokiyo, based on a story about an impoverished samurai who burns his last three potted trees as firewood to warm a traveling monk. The monk is a disguised official who later rewards the samurai for his actions. In later centuries, woodblock prints by several artists depicted this popular drama. There was even a fabric design of the same name. Through these and other popular media, bonsai became known to a broad Japanese population.

Bonsai cultivation reached a high level of expertise in this period. Bonsai dating to the 17th century have survived to the present. One of the oldest-known living bonsai trees, considered one of the National Treasures of Japan, can be seen in the Tokyo Imperial Palace collection. A five-needle pine (Pinus pentaphylla var. negishi) known as Sandai Shogun (三代将軍, the third shogun) is documented as having been cared for by Tokugawa Iemitsu. The tree is thought to be at least 500 years old and was trained as a bonsai by 1610.

By the end of the 18th century, bonsai cultivation in Japan was becoming widespread and began to interest the general public. In the Tenmei era (1781–88), an exhibit of traditional dwarf potted pines began to be held every year in Kyoto. Connoisseurs from five provinces and neighboring areas would bring one or two plants each to the show in order to submit them to visitors for ranking.

Classical period

In Japan after 1800, bonsai began to move from being the esoteric practice of a few specialists to becoming a widely popular art form and hobby. In Itami, Hyōgo, Japanese scholars of Chinese arts gathered in the early 19th century to discuss recent styles in the art of miniature trees. Many terms and concepts adopted by this group were derived from the (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden in English; Kai-shi-en Gaden in Japanese). The Japanese version of potted trees, which had been previously called hachiue or other terms, were renamed bonsai. This word connoted a shallow container, not a deeper bowl style. The term "bonsai", however, would not become broadly used in describing Japan's dwarf potted trees for nearly a century.

The popularity of bonsai began to grow outside the limited scope of scholars and the nobility. On October 13, 1868, the Meiji Emperor moved to his new capital in Tokyo. Bonsai were displayed both inside and outside Meiji Palace, and those placed in the grand setting of the Imperial Palace had to be "Giant Bonsai", large enough to fill the grand space. The Meiji Emperor encouraged interest in bonsai, which broadened its importance and appeal to his government's professional staff.

New books, magazines, and public exhibitions made bonsai more accessible to the Japanese populace. An Artistic Bonsai Concours was held in Tokyo in 1892, followed by publication of a three-volume commemorative picture book. This event demonstrated a new tendency to see bonsai as an independent art form. In 1903, the Tokyo association Jurakukai held showings of bonsai and ikebana at two Japanese-style restaurants. In 1906, Bonsai Gaho became the first monthly magazine on the subject. It was followed by Toyo Engei and Hana in 1907. The initial issue of Bonsai magazine was published in 1921, and this influential periodical ran for 518 consecutive issues.

Bonsai shaping aesthetics, techniques, and tools became increasingly sophisticated as bonsai popularity grew in Japan. In 1910, shaping with wire rather than the older string, rope, and burlap techniques, appeared in the Sanyu-en Bonsai-Dan (History of Bonsai in the Sanyu nursery). Zinc-galvanized steel wire was initially used. Expensive copper wire was used only for selected trees that had real potential. In the 1920s and 1930s, toolsmith Masakuni I (1880–1950) helped design and produce the first steel tools specifically made for the developing requirements of bonsai styling. This included the concave cutter, a branch cutter designed to leave a shallow indentation on the trunk when a branch was removed. Properly treated, this indentation would fill over with live tree tissue and bark over time, greatly reducing or eliminating the usual pruning scar.

Prior to World War II, international interest in bonsai was fueled by increased trade in trees and the appearance of books in popular foreign languages. By 1914, the first national annual bonsai show was held (an event repeated annually through 1933) in Tokyo's Hibiya Park. Another great annual public exhibition of trees began in 1927 at the Asahi Newspaper Hall in Tokyo. Beginning in 1934, the prestigious Kokufu-ten annual exhibitions were held in Tokyo's Ueno Park. The first major book on the subject in English was published in the Japanese capital: Dwarf Trees (Bonsai) by Shinobu Nozaki.

By 1940, about 300 bonsai dealers worked in Tokyo. Some 150 species of trees were being cultivated, and thousands of specimens were shipped annually to Europe and America. The first bonsai nurseries and clubs in the Americas were started by first and second-generation Japanese immigrants. Though this progress to international markets and enthusiasts was interrupted by the war, by the 1940s bonsai had become an art form of international interest and involvement.

Modern bonsai
Following World War II, several trends made the Japanese tradition of bonsai increasingly accessible to Western and world audiences. One key trend was the increase in the number, scope, and prominence of bonsai exhibitions. For example, the Kokufu-ten bonsai displays reappeared in 1947 after a four-year cancellation and became annual affairs. These displays continue to this day and are by invitation only for eight days in February. In October 1964, a great exhibition was held in Hibya Park by the private Kokufu Bonsai Association, reorganized into the Nippon Bonsai Association, to mark the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

A large display of bonsai and suiseki was held as part of Expo '70, and formal discussion was made of an international association of enthusiasts. In 1975, the first gafu-ten (elegant-style exhibit) of shohin bonsai (13–25 cm or 5–10 in tall) was held. So was the first sakufu-ten (creative bonsai exhibit), the only event in which professional bonsai growers exhibit traditional trees under their own names rather than under the name of the owner.

The first World Bonsai Convention was held in Osaka during the World Bonsai and Suiseki Exhibition in 1980. Nine years later, a series of World Bonsai Conventions was launched by the newly-formed World Bonsai Friendship Federation (WBFF) in Omiya. These conventions attracted several hundreds of participants from dozens of countries and have since been held every four years at different locations around the globe: 1993, Orlando, Florida; 1997, Seoul, Korea; 2001, Munich, Germany; 2005, Washington, D.C.; 2009, San Juan, Puerto Rico; 2013, Jitan, Jiangsu, China; 2017, Saitama, Saitama, Japan; and 2022's virtual convention in Perth, Australia, which replaced the one originally scheduled a year earlier but was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, Japan continues to host regular exhibitions with the world's largest numbers of bonsai specimens and the highest recognized specimen quality.

Another key trend was the increase in books on bonsai and related arts, being published for the first time in English and other languages for audiences outside of Japan. In 1952, Yuji Yoshimura, the son of a Japanese bonsai community leader, collaborated with German diplomat and author Alfred Koehn to give bonsai demonstrations. Koehn had been an enthusiast before the war, and his 1937 book Japanese Tray Landscapes had been published in English in Peking. Yoshimura's 1957 book The Art of Bonsai, written in English with his student Giovanna M. Halford, went on to be called the "classic Japanese bonsai bible for westerners" with over thirty printings.

The related art of saikei was introduced to English-speaking audiences in 1963 in Kawamoto and Kurihara's book Bonsai-Saikei. This book describes tray landscapes made with younger plant material than was traditionally used in bonsai, providing an alternative to the use of large, older plants, few of which had escaped war damage.

A third trend was the increasing availability of expert bonsai training, at first only in Japan, and then more widely. In 1967, the first group of Westerners studied at an Ōmiya nursery. Returning to the U.S., they established the American Bonsai Society. Other groups and individuals from outside Asia then visited and studied at the various Japanese nurseries, occasionally even apprenticing under the masters. These visitors brought back to their local clubs the latest techniques and styles, which were then further disseminated. Japanese teachers also traveled widely, bringing hands-on bonsai expertise to all six continents.

The final trend supporting world involvement in bonsai is the widening availability of specialized bonsai plant stock, soil components, tools, pots, and other accessory items. Bonsai nurseries in Japan advertise and ship specimen bonsai worldwide. Most countries have local nurseries providing plant stock as well. Japanese bonsai soil components, such as Akadama clay, are available worldwide, and suppliers also provide similar local materials in many locations. Specialized bonsai tools are widely available from Japanese and Chinese sources. Potters around the globe provide material to hobbyists and specialists in many countries.

Bonsai has now reached a worldwide audience. There are over fourteen hundred books on bonsai and the related arts in at least twenty-eight languages available in over one-hundred-and-ten countries and territories. A few dozen magazines in over thirteen languages are in print. Several score of club newsletters are available online, and there are at least that many discussion forums and blogs. There are at least a hundred thousand enthusiasts in some fifteen hundred clubs and associations worldwide, as well as over five million unassociated hobbyists. Plant material from every location is being trained into bonsai and displayed at local, regional, national, and international conventions and exhibitions for enthusiasts and the general public.

Material sources
All bonsai start with a specimen of source material, a plant that the grower wishes to train into bonsai form. Bonsai practice is an unusual form of plant cultivation in that growth from seeds is rarely used to obtain source material. To display the characteristic aged appearance of a bonsai within a reasonable time, the source plant is often mature or at least partially grown when the bonsai creator begins work. Sources of bonsai material include:
 * Propagation from a source tree through cuttings or layering.
 * Nursery stock directly from a nursery, or from a garden centre or similar resale establishment.
 * Commercial bonsai growers, which, in general, sell mature specimens that display bonsai aesthetic qualities already.
 * Collecting suitable bonsai material in its original wild situation, successfully moving it, and replanting it in a container for development as bonsai. These trees are called yamadori and are often the most expensive and prized of all bonsai.

Techniques
The practice of bonsai development incorporates a number of techniques either unique to bonsai or, if used in other forms of cultivation, applied in unusual ways that are particularly suitable to the bonsai domain. These techniques include:
 * Leaf trimming, the selective removal of leaves (for most varieties of deciduous tree) or needles (for coniferous trees and some others) from a bonsai's trunk and branches.
 * Pruning the trunk, branches, and roots of the candidate tree.
 * Wiring branches and trunks allows the bonsai designer to create the desired general form and make detailed branch and leaf placements.
 * Clamping using mechanical devices for shaping trunks and branches; bending of branches or trunks may also be achieved by the use of tension cables or guy-wires.
 * Grafting new growing material (typically a bud, branch, or root) into a prepared area on the trunk or under the bark of the tree.
 * Defoliation, which can provide short-term dwarfing of foliage for certain deciduous species.
 * Deadwood bonsai techniques such as jin and shari simulate age and maturity in a bonsai.

Aesthetics
Bonsai aesthetics are the aesthetic goals characterizing the Japanese tradition of growing an artistically shaped miniature tree in a container. Many Japanese cultural characteristics, in particular the influence of Zen Buddhism and the expression of Wabi-sabi, inform the bonsai tradition in Japan. Established art forms that share some aesthetic principles with bonsai include penjing and saikei. A number of other cultures around the globe have adopted the Japanese aesthetic approach to bonsai, and, while some variations have begun to appear, most hew closely to the rules and design philosophies of the Japanese tradition.

Over centuries of practice, the Japanese bonsai aesthetic has encoded some important techniques and design guidelines. Like the aesthetic rules that govern, for example, Western common practice period music, bonsai's guidelines help practitioners work within an established tradition with some assurance of success. Simply following the guidelines alone will not guarantee a successful result. Nevertheless, these design rules can rarely be broken without reducing the impact of the bonsai specimen. Some key principles in bonsai aesthetics include:
 * Miniaturization: By definition, a bonsai is a tree kept small enough to be container-grown while otherwise fostered to have a mature appearance.
 * Proportion among elements: The most prized proportions mimic those of a full-grown tree as closely as possible. Small trees with large leaves or needles are out of proportion and are avoided, as is a thin trunk with thick branches.
 * Asymmetry: Bonsai aesthetics discourage strict radial or bilateral symmetry in branch and root placement.
 * No trace of the artist: The designer's touch must not be apparent to the viewer. If a branch is removed in shaping the tree, the scar will be concealed. Likewise, wiring should be removed or at least concealed when the bonsai is shown, and must leave no permanent marks on the branch or bark.
 * Poignancy: Many of the formal rules of bonsai help the grower create a tree that expresses Wabi-sabi, or portrays an aspect of mono no aware.

Display
A bonsai display presents one or more bonsai specimens in a way that allows a viewer to see all the important features of the bonsai from the most advantageous position. That position emphasizes the bonsai's defined "front", which is designed into all bonsai. It places the bonsai at a height that allows the viewer to imagine the bonsai as a full-size tree seen from a distance, siting the bonsai neither so low that the viewer appears to be hovering in the sky above it nor so high that the viewer appears to be looking up at the tree from beneath the ground. Noted bonsai writer Peter Adams recommends that bonsai be shown as if "in an art gallery: at the right height; in isolation; against a plain background, devoid of all redundancies such as labels and vulgar little accessories."

For outdoor displays, there are few aesthetic rules. Many outdoor displays are semi-permanent, with the bonsai trees in place for weeks or months at a time. To avoid damaging the trees, therefore, an outdoor display must not impede the amount of sunlight needed for the trees on display, must support watering, and may also have to block excessive wind or precipitation. As a result of these practical constraints, outdoor displays are often rustic in style, with simple wood or stone components. A common design is the bench, sometimes with sections at different heights to suit different sizes of bonsai, along which bonsai are placed in a line. Where space allows, outdoor bonsai specimens are spaced far enough apart that the viewer can concentrate on one at a time. When the trees are too close to each other, aesthetic discord between adjacent trees of different sizes or styles can confuse the viewer, a problem addressed by exhibition displays.

Exhibition displays allow many bonsai to be displayed in a temporary exhibition format, typically indoors, as would be seen in a bonsai design competition. To allow many trees to be located close together, exhibition displays often use a sequence of small alcoves, each containing a single bonsai. The walls or dividers between the alcoves make it easier to view only one bonsai at a time. The back of the alcove is a neutral color and pattern to avoid distracting the viewer's eye. The bonsai pot is almost always placed on a formal stand, of a size and design selected to complement the bonsai and its pot.

Indoors, a formal bonsai display is arranged to represent a landscape, and traditionally consists of the featured bonsai tree in an appropriate pot atop a wooden stand, along with a shitakusa (companion plant) representing the foreground, and a hanging scroll representing the background. These three elements are chosen to complement each other and evoke a particular season, and are composed asymmetrically to mimic nature. When displayed inside a traditional Japanese home, a formal bonsai display will often be placed within the home's tokonoma or formal display alcove. An indoor display is usually very temporary, lasting a day or two, as most bonsai are intolerant of indoor conditions and lose vigor rapidly within the house.

Containers
A variety of informal containers may house the bonsai during its development, and even trees that have been formally planted in a bonsai pot may be returned to growing boxes from time to time. A large growing box can house several bonsai and provide a great volume of soil per tree to encourage root growth. A training box will have a single specimen, and a smaller volume of soil that helps condition the bonsai to the eventual size and shape of the formal bonsai container. There are no aesthetic guidelines for these development containers, and they may be of any material, size, and shape that suit the grower.

Completed trees are grown in formal bonsai containers. These containers are usually ceramic pots, which come in a variety of shapes and colors and may be glazed or unglazed. Unlike many common plant containers, bonsai pots have drainage holes at the bottom surface to complement fast-draining bonsai soil, allowing excess water to escape the pot. Growers cover the holes with a screening to prevent soil from falling out and to hinder pests from entering the pots from below. Pots usually have vertical sides, so that the tree's root mass can easily be removed for inspection, pruning, and replanting, although this is a practical consideration and other container shapes are acceptable.

There are alternatives to the conventional ceramic pot. Multi-tree bonsai may be created atop a fairly flat slab of rock, with the soil mounded above the rock surface and the trees planted within the raised soil. In recent times, bonsai creators have also begun to fabricate rock-like slabs from raw materials including concrete and glass-reinforced plastic. Such constructed surfaces can be made much lighter than solid rock, can include depressions or pockets for additional soil, and can be designed for drainage of water, all characteristics difficult to achieve with solid rock slabs. Other unconventional containers can also be used, but in formal bonsai display and competitions in Japan, the ceramic bonsai pot is the most common container.

For bonsai being shown formally in their completed state, pot shape, color, and size are chosen to complement the tree as a picture frame is chosen to complement a painting. In general, containers with straight sides and sharp corners are used for formally-shaped plants, while oval or round containers are used for plants with informal designs. Many aesthetic guidelines affect the selection of pot finish and color. For example, evergreen bonsai are often placed in unglazed pots, while deciduous trees usually appear in glazed pots. Pots are also distinguished by their size. The overall design of the bonsai tree, the thickness of its trunk, and its height are considered when determining the size of a suitable pot.

Some pots are highly collectible, like ancient Chinese or Japanese pots made in regions with experienced pot makers such as Tokoname, Japan, or Yixing, China. Today, many potters worldwide produce pots for bonsai.

Bonsai styles

The Japanese tradition describes bonsai tree designs using a set of commonly understood, named styles. The most common styles include formal upright, informal upright, slanting, semi-cascade, cascade, raft, literati, and group/forest. Less common forms include windswept, weeping, split-trunk, and driftwood styles. These terms are not mutually exclusive, and a single bonsai specimen can exhibit more than one style characteristic. When a bonsai specimen falls into multiple style categories, the common practice is to describe it by the dominant or most striking characteristic.

A frequently used set of styles describes the orientation of the bonsai tree's main trunk. Different terms are used for a tree with its apex directly over the center of the trunk's entry into the soil, slightly to the side of that center, deeply inclined to one side, and inclined below the point at which the trunk of the bonsai enters the soil.
 * Formal upright (直幹) is a style of trees characterized by a straight, upright, tapering trunk. Branches progress regularly from the thickest and broadest at the bottom to the finest and shortest at the top.
 * Informal upright (模様木) is a style of trees incorporating visible curves in trunk and branches, but the apex of the informal upright is located directly above the trunk's entry into the soil line.
 * Slant (斜幹) is a style of bonsai possessing straight trunks like those of bonsai grown in the formal upright style. However, the slant style trunk emerges from the soil at an angle, and the apex of the bonsai will be located to the left or right of the root base.
 * Cascade (懸崖) is a style of specimens modeled after trees that grow over water or down the sides of mountains. The apex (tip of the tree) in the semi-cascade (半懸崖) style bonsai extend just at or beneath the lip of the bonsai pot; the apex of a full cascade-style falls below the base of the pot.

A number of styles describe the trunk shape and bark finish. For example, the deadwood bonsai styles identify trees with prominent dead branches or trunk scarring.
 * Shari (舎利幹) is a style involving the portrayal of a tree in its struggle to live while a significant part of its trunk is bare of bark.

Although most bonsai trees are planted directly into the soil, there are styles describing trees planted on rock.
 * Root-over-rock (石上樹) is a style in which the roots of the tree are wrapped around a rock, entering the soil at the base of the rock.
 * Growing-in-a-rock (石付 ishizuke or ishitsuki) is a style in which the roots of the tree are growing in soil contained within the cracks and holes of the rock.

While the majority of bonsai specimens feature a single tree, there are well-established style categories for specimens with multiple trunks.
 * Forest or group (寄せ植え) is a style comprising the planting of several or many trees of one species, typically an odd number, in a bonsai pot.
 * Multi-trunk styles like sokan and sankan have all the trunks growing out of one spot with one root system, so the bonsai is actually a single tree.
 * Raft (筏吹き) is a style of bonsai that mimic a natural phenomenon that occurs when a tree topples onto its side from erosion or another natural force. Branches along the top side of the trunk continue to grow as a group of new trunks.

Other styles
A few styles do not fit into the preceding categories. These include:
 * Broom (箒立ち) is a style employed for trees with fine branching, like elms. The trunk is straight and branches out in all directions about 1⁄3 of the way up the entire height of the tree. The branches and leaves form a ball-shaped crown.
 * Windswept (吹き流し) is a style describing a tree that appears to be affected by strong winds blowing continuously from one direction, as might shape a tree atop a mountain ridge or on an exposed shoreline.

Bonsai artists
Below is a list of some notable bonsai artists.

Bonsai exhibitions
There are exhibitions, shows, and competitions dedicated to bonsai all around the world. However, there is a consensus that the best specimens are in Japan. Japan has several private and public museums dedicated to bonsai, such as the Shunka-en Bonsai Garden in Tokyo and the Omiya Bonsai Museum in Saitama.

In the United States, there are two museums dedicated to bonsai, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the National Arboretum in Washington DC, and the Pacific Bonsai Museum close to Tacoma, WA.

Japan also hosts several annual bonsai competitions where trees compete for awards in different categories. The most prestigious bonsai competition for amateur-owned trees, although most trees are prepared for display by professionals, is the Kokufu-ten, held every year in the month of February in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. The Kokufu-ten is the oldest competition in Japan, celebrating in 2023 its 97th edition. Awards are presented in different categories.

For bonsai professionals, the top competition in Japan is the Nippon Bonsai Sakufu-ten organized by the Japan Bonsai Cooperative Association. The competition is held in December of each year and the top prize is the Prime Minister Award, which went to Hiroaki Suzuki in 2022 for a Shimpaku Juniper tree.

Size classifications
Japanese bonsai exhibitions and catalogs frequently refer to the size of individual bonsai specimens by assigning them to size classes (see table below). Not all sources agree on the exact sizes or names for these size ranges, but the concept of the ranges is well-established and useful to both the cultivation and the aesthetic understanding of the trees. A photograph of a bonsai may not give the viewer an accurate impression of the tree's real size, so printed documents may complement a photograph by naming the bonsai's size class. The size class implies the height and weight of the tree in its container.

In the very largest size ranges, a recognized Japanese practice is to name the trees "two-handed", "four-handed", and so on, based on the number of men required to move the tree and pot. These trees will have dozens of branches and can closely simulate a full-size tree. The very largest size, called "imperial", is named after the enormous potted trees of Japan's Imperial Palace.

At the other end of the size spectrum, there are a number of specific techniques and styles associated solely with the smallest common sizes, mame and shito. These techniques take advantage of the bonsai's minute dimensions and compensate for the limited number of branches and leaves that can appear on a tree this small.

Indoor bonsai
The Japanese tradition of bonsai does not include indoor bonsai, and bonsai appearing at Japanese exhibitions or in catalogs have been grown outdoors for their entire lives. In less-traditional settings, including climates more severe than Japan's, indoor bonsai may appear in the form of potted trees cultivated for the indoor environment.

Traditionally, bonsai are temperate climate trees grown outdoors in containers. Kept in the artificial environment of a home, these trees weaken and die. However, a number of tropical and sub-tropical tree species will survive and grow indoors, such as the jade plant and members of the genus Ficus.

In popular culture
is taught in schools. It has also featured in manga, anime, and been shown on television.
 * In the Karate Kid film franchise, Mr. Miyagi practices bonsai and teaches through it, up to even being the central feature of the film in The Karate Kid Part III, and many years later, being part of the plot of the Cobra Kai sequel TV series.
 * In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, a monk, Lu-Tze practices the art of bonsai mountains, a parody of bonsai.

title: Bonsai


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Yrjö Väisälä

Yrjö Väisälä (6 September 1891 – 21 July 1971) was a Finnish astronomer and physicist.

His main contributions were in the field of optics. He was also active in geodetics, astronomy and optical metrology. He had an affectionate nickname of Wizard of Tuorla (Observatory/Optics laboratory), and a book with the same title in Finnish describes his works. His discoveries include 128 minor planets and 3 comets.

His brothers were mathematician Kalle Väisälä (1893–1968) and meteorologist Vilho Väisälä (1889–1969). His daughter Marja Väisälä (1916–2011) was an astronomer and discoverer of minor planets.

Väisälä was a fervent supporter of Esperanto, presiding over the Internacia Scienca Asocio Esperantista ("International Association of Esperanto Scientists") in 1968.

Optician
He developed several methods for measuring the quality of optical elements, as well as a lot of practical methods of manufacturing said elements. This allowed the construction of some of the earliest high-quality Schmidt cameras, in particular a "field-flattened" version known as Schmidt-Väisälä camera. Contemporary to Bernhard Schmidt's design, but unpublished was also Prof. Yrjö Väisälä's identical design which he had mentioned in lecture notes in 1924 with a footnote: "problematic spherical focal surface".

Once he saw Schmidt's publication, he promptly went ahead and "solved" the field flattening problem by placing a doubly convex lens slightly in front of the film holder – back in the 1930s, astronomical films were glass plates (also see photographic plates). The resulting system is known as the Schmidt-Väisälä camera or sometimes as the Väisälä camera. (This solution is not perfect, as images of different colour end up at slightly different places.) Prof. Väisälä made a small test unit of 7 mirrors in a mosaic on stiff background steel frame, however it proved to be impossible to stabilize as "just adjust and forget" structure, and next time anybody tried it, was with active controls on Multiple Mirror Telescope.

Geodesy

In the 1920s and 1930s Finland was doing its first precision triangulation chain measurements, and to create long-distance vertices Prof. Väisälä proposed usage of flash-lights on 5 to 10 km altitude balloons, or on some big fireworks rockets. The idea was to measure the exact position of the flash against background stars, and by precisely knowing one camera location, to derive an accurate location for another camera. This required better wide-field cameras than were available, and was discarded.

Later, Prof. Väisälä developed a method to multiply an optical length reference using white light interferometry to precisely determine lengths of baselines used in triangulation chains. Several such baselines were created in Finland for second high-precision triangulation campaign in 1950s and 1960s.

Later GPS made these methods largely obsolete. The Nummela Standard Baseline established by Väisälä is still maintained by the Finnish Geodetic Institute in Nummela for the calibration of other distance measurement instruments.

Prof. Väisälä also developed excellent tools to measure earth rotational axis position by building so called zenith telescopes, and in the 1960s Tuorla Observatory was in the top rank of North Pole position tracking measurements.

In the 1980s radioastronomy was able to replace Earth rotation tracking by referring things against "non-moving background" of quasars.

For these Zenith Telescopes, Prof. Väisälä made also one of the first experiments at doing mirrors of liquid mercury. (Such mirror needs extremely smooth rotational speeds which were achieved in the late 1990s.)

Astronomer
The big Schmidt-Väisälä telescope he built was used at the University of Turku for searching asteroids and comets. His research group discovered 7 comets and 807 asteroids.

For this rather massive photographic survey work, Prof. Väisälä developed also a protocol of taking two exposures on same plate some 2–3 hours apart and offsetting those images slightly. Any dot-pairs that differed from background were moving, and deserved follow-up photos. This method halved the film consumption compared to method of "blink comparing", where plates get single exposures, and are compared by rapidly showing first and second exposures to human operator. (Blink-comparing was used to find e.g. Pluto.)

Yrjö Väisälä is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 128 asteroids (see below) during 1935–1944. He used to name them with the names of his personal friends that had birthdays. One of them was the professor Matti Herman Palomaa, after whom an asteroid 1548 Palomaa was named. For this reason the Palomar Mountain Observatory in California has never had an asteroid bearing its name – the rules for naming asteroids state that the names have to differ from each other with more than one letter.

Besides minor planets, he has also discovered 3 comets. The parabolic comet C/1944 H1 observed in 1944 and 1945, as well as the two short period comets, 40P/Väisälä, a Jupiter-family comet, and C/1942 EA, a Halley-type and near-Earth comet. Together with Liisi Oterma he co-discovered the Jupiter-family comet 139P/Väisälä–Oterma, which was first classified as asteroid and received the provisional designation "1939 TN".

Honors and awards
The University of Turku Astronomy department is known as VISPA: Väisälä Institute for Space Physics and Astronomy in honour of its founder. The lunar crater Väisälä is named after him, and so are the minor planets 1573 Väisälä and 2804 Yrjö.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Yrjö Väisälä


text:
Ley line

Ley lines are straight alignments drawn between various historic structures, prehistoric sites and prominent landmarks. The idea was developed in early 20th-century Europe, with ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognised by ancient societies that deliberately erected structures along them. Since the 1960s, members of the Earth Mysteries movement and other esoteric traditions have commonly believed that such ley lines demarcate "earth energies" and serve as guides for alien spacecraft. Archaeologists and scientists regard ley lines as an example of pseudoarchaeology and pseudoscience.

The idea of "leys" as straight tracks across the landscape was put forward by the English antiquarian Alfred Watkins in the 1920s, particularly in his book The Old Straight Track. He argued that straight lines could be drawn between various historic structures and that these represented trade routes created by ancient British societies. Although he gained a small following, Watkins' ideas were never accepted by the British archaeological establishment, a fact that frustrated him. His critics noted that his ideas relied on drawing lines between sites established at different periods of the past. They also argued that in prehistory, as in the present, it was impractical to travel in a straight line across hilly or mountainous areas of Britain, rendering his leys unlikely as trade routes. Independently of Watkins' ideas, a similar notion—that of Heilige Linien ('holy lines')—was raised in 1920s Germany.

During the 1960s, Watkins' ideas were revived in altered form by British proponents of the countercultural Earth Mysteries movement. In 1961, Tony Wedd put forward the belief that leys were established by prehistoric communities to guide alien spacecraft. This view was promoted to a wider audience in the books of John Michell, particularly his 1969 work The View Over Atlantis. Michell's publications were accompanied by the launch of the Ley Hunter magazine and the appearance of a ley hunter community keen to identify ley lines across the British landscape. Ley hunters often combined their search for ley lines with other esoteric practices like dowsing and numerology and with a belief in a forthcoming Age of Aquarius that would transform human society. Although often hostile to archaeologists, some ley hunters attempted to ascertain scientific evidence for their belief in earth energies at prehistoric sites, evidence they could not obtain. Following sustained archaeological criticism, the ley hunter community dissipated in the 1990s, with several of its key proponents abandoning the idea and moving into the study of landscape archaeology and folkloristics. Belief in ley lines nevertheless remains common among some esoteric religious groups, such as forms of modern Paganism, in both Europe and North America.

Archaeologists note that there is no evidence that ley lines were a recognised phenomenon among ancient European societies and that attempts to draw them typically rely on linking together structures that were built in different historical periods. Archaeologists and statisticians have demonstrated that a random distribution of a sufficient number of points on a plane will inevitably create alignments of random points purely by chance. Skeptics have also stressed that the esoteric idea of earth energies running through ley lines has not been scientifically verified, remaining an article of faith for its believers.

Early prototypes
The idea that ancient sacred sites might have been constructed in alignment with one another was proposed in 1846 by the Reverend Edward Duke, who observed that some prehistoric monuments and medieval churches aligned with each other. In 1909, the idea was advanced in Germany. There, Wilhelm Teudt had argued for the presence of linear alignments connecting various sites but suggested that they had a religious and astronomical function. In Germany, the idea was referred to as Heilige Linien ('holy lines'), an idea adopted by some proponents of Nazism.

Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track
The idea of "leys" as paths traversing the British landscape was developed by Alfred Watkins, a wealthy businessman and antiquarian who lived in Hereford. According to his account, he was driving across the hills near Blackwardine, Herefordshire, when he looked across the landscape and observed the way that several features lined up together. He subsequently began drawing lines across his Ordnance Survey maps, developing the view that ancient British people had tended to travel in straight lines, using "mark points" along the landscape to guide them.

He put forward his idea of ley lines in the 1922 book Early British Trackways and then again, in greater depth, in the 1925 book The Old Straight Track. He proposed the existence of a network of completely straight roads that cut through a range of prehistoric, Roman, and medieval structures. In his view, these straight tracks were ancient trade routes. Watkins had drawn upon earlier research; he cited the work of the English astronomer Norman Lockyer, who had argued that ancient alignments might be oriented to sunrise and sunset at solstices.

His work referred to G. H. Piper's paper presented to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in 1882, which noted that: "A line drawn from the Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and southernmost point of Hatterall Hill, Oldcastle, Longtown Castle, and Urishay and Snodhill castles."

Watkins referred to these lines as "leys" although had reservations about doing so. The term ley derived from the Old English term for a cleared space, with Watkins adopting it for his lines because he found it to be part of the place-names of various settlements that were along the lines he traced. He also observed the recurrence of "cole" and "dod" in English place-names, thus suggesting that the individuals who established these lines were referred to as a "coleman" or "dodman". He proposed that the Long Man of Wilmington chalk geoglyph in Sussex was a depiction of such an individual with their measuring equipment.

His ideas were rejected by most experts on British prehistory at the time, including both the small number of recognised archaeological scholars and local enthusiasts. His critics noted that the straight lines he proposed would have been highly impractical means of crossing hilly or mountainous terrain, and that many of the sites he selected as evidence for the leys were of disparate historical origins. Some of Watkins' other ideas, such as his belief that widespread forest clearance took place in prehistory rather than later, would nevertheless later be recognised by archaeologists. Part of archaeologists' objections was their belief that prehistoric Britons would not have been sophisticated enough to produce such accurate measurements across the landscape. British archaeologists were then overwhelmingly committed to ideas of cultural diffusionism, and thus unwelcoming to ideas about ley lines being an independent British development.

In 1926, advocates of Watkins' beliefs established the Straight Track Club. To assist this growing body of enthusiasts who were looking for their own ley lines in the landscape, in 1927, Watkins published The Ley Hunter's Manual.

Proponents of Watkins' ideas sent in letters to the archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford, then editor of the Antiquity journal. Crawford filed these letters under a section of his archive titled "Crankeries" and was annoyed that educated people believed such ideas when they were demonstrably incorrect. He refused to publish an advert for The Old Straight Track in Antiquity, at which Watkins became very bitter towards him.

Watkins' last book, Archaic Tracks Around Cambridge, was published in 1932. Watkins died on 7 April 1935. The Club survived him, although it became largely inactive at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and formally disbanded in 1948. The archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles noted that after the 1920s, "ley lines soon faded into obscurity". The historian Ronald Hutton similarly noted that there had been a "virtual demise" in the idea by the 1950s, in part due to "a natural weariness with a spent enthusiasm".

Earth Mysteries movement

From the 1940s through to the 1960s, the archaeological establishment blossomed in Britain due to the formation of various university courses on the subject. This helped to professionalise the discipline, and meant that it was no longer an amateur-dominated field of research. It was in the latter decade of this period that a belief in ley lines was taken up by members of the counterculture, where—in the words of the archaeologist Matthew Johnson—they were attributed with "sacred significance or mystical power". Ruggles noted that in this period, ley lines came to be conceived as "lines of power, the paths of some form of spiritual force or energy accessible to our ancient ancestors but now lost to narrow-minded twentieth-century scientific thought".

In his 1961 book Skyways and Landmarks, Tony Wedd published his idea that Watkins' leys were both real and served as ancient markers to guide alien spacecraft that were visiting Earth. He came to this conclusion after comparing Watkins' ideas with those of the French ufologist Aimé Michel, who argued for the existence of "orthotenies", lines along which alien spacecraft travelled. Wedd suggested that either spacecraft were following the prehistoric landmarks for guidance or that both the leys and the spacecraft were following a "magnetic current" flowing across the Earth.

Wedd's ideas were taken up by the writer John Michell, who promoted them to a wider audience in his 1967 book The Flying Saucer Vision. In this book, Michell promoted the ancient astronaut belief that extraterrestrials had assisted humanity during prehistory, when humans had worshipped these entities as gods, but that the aliens left when humanity became too materialistic and technology-focused. He also argued that humanity's materialism was driving it to self-destruction, but that this could be prevented by re-activating the ancient centres which would facilitate renewed contact with the aliens.

Michell repeated his beliefs in his 1969 book The View Over Atlantis. Hutton described it as "almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement". Here he interpreted ley lines by reference to the Chinese concept of geomantic energy lines which he transliterated as "", i.e., "dragon veins". He proposed that an advanced ancient society that had once covered much of the world had established ley lines across the landscape to harness this energy. Translating the term "" as "dragon paths", he reinterpreted tales from English mythology and folklore in which heroes killed dragons so that the dragon-slayers became the villains. Hutton later noted that Michell's ideas "embodied a fervent religious feeling, which though not Christian was heavily influenced by Christian models", adopting an "evangelical and apocalyptic tone" that announced the coming of an Age of Aquarius in which ancient wisdom would be restored. Michell invented various claims about archaeological evidence to suit his purpose. He viewed archaeologists as antagonists, seeing them as the personification of the modern materialism he was railing against.

In the mid-1970s Michell then published a detailed case study of the West Penwith district of Cornwall, laying out what he believed to be the ley lines in the area. He presented this as a challenge to archaeologists, urging them to examine his ideas in detail and stating that he would donate a large sum of money to charity if they could disprove them. Hutton noted that it represented "the finest piece of surveying work" then undertaken by a pseudo-archaeologists in Britain. However Michell had included natural rock outcrops as well as medieval crosses in his list of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments.

The ley hunting community
In 1962, a group of ufologists established the Ley Hunter's Club. Michell's publication was followed by an upsurge in ley hunting as enthusiasts travelled around the British landscape seeking to identify what they believed to be ley lines connecting various historic structures. Parish churches were particularly favoured by the ley hunters, who often worked on the assumption that such churches had almost always been built atop pre-Christian sacred sites. The 1970s and 1980s also saw the increase in publications on the topic of ley lines. One ley lines enthusiast, Philip Heselton, established the Ley Hunter magazine, which was launched in 1965. It was later edited by Paul Screeton, who also wrote the book Quicksilver Heritage, in which he argued that the Neolithic period had seen an idyllic society devoted to spirituality but that this was brought to an end through the introduction of metal technologies in the Bronze Age. He argued that this golden age could nevertheless be restored. Another key book produced among the ley hunting community was Mysterious Britain, written by Janet and Colin Bord.

Part of the popularity of ley hunting was that individuals without any form of professional training in archaeology could take part and feel that they could rediscover "the magical landscapes of the past". Ley hunting welcomed those who had "a strong interest in the past but feel excluded from the narrow confines of orthodox academia". The ley hunting movement often blended their activities with other esoteric practices, such as numerology and dowsing. The movement had a diverse base, consisting of individuals from different classes and of different political opinions: it contained adherents of both radical left and radical right ideologies. Ley hunters often differed on how they understood the ley lines; some believed that leys only marked a pre-existing energy current, whereas others thought that the leys helped to control and direct this energy. They were nevertheless generally in agreement that the ley lines were laid out between 5000 BCE and 2600 BCE, after the introduction of agriculture but before the introduction of metal in Britain. For many ley hunters, this Neolithic period was seen as a golden age in which Britons lived in harmony with the natural environment.

Attitudes to the archaeological establishment varied among ley hunters, with some of the latter wanting to convert archaeologists to their beliefs and others believing that that was an impossible task. Ley hunters nevertheless often took an interest in the work of archaeo-astronomers like Alexander Thom and Euan Mackie, being attracted to their arguments about the existence of sophisticated astronomer-priests in British prehistory. In suggesting that prehistoric Britons were far more advanced in mathematics and astronomy than archaeologists had previously accepted, Thom's work was seen as giving additional credibility to the beliefs of ley hunters. Thom lent the idea of leys some support; in 1971 he stated the view that Neolithic British engineers would have been capable of surveying a straight line between two points that were otherwise not visible from each other.

Paul Devereux succeeded Screeton as the editor of the Ley Hunter. He was more concerned than many other ley hunters with finding objective evidence for the idea that unusual forms of energy could be measured at places where prehistoric communities had erected structures. He was one of the founding members of the Dragon Project, launched in London in 1977 with the purpose of conducting radioactivity and ultrasonic tests at prehistoric sites, particularly the stone circles created in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The Dragon Project continued its research throughout the 1980s, finding that certain prehistoric sites did show higher or lower than average rates of radiation but that others did not and that there was no consistent pattern. Professional archaeologists, whose view of the ley hunters was largely negative, took little interest in such research.

It was only in the 1980s that professional archaeologists in Britain began to engage with the ley hunting movement. In 1983, Ley Lines in Question, a book written by the archaeologists Tom Williamson and Liz Bellamy, was published. In this work, Williamson and Bellamy considered and tackled the evidence that ley lines proponents had amassed in support of their beliefs. As part of their book, they examined the example of the West Penwith district that Michell had set out as a challenge to archaeologists during the previous decade. They highlighted that the British landscape was so highly covered in historic monuments that it was statistically unlikely that any straight line could be drawn across the landscape without passing through several such sites. They also demonstrated that ley hunters had often said that certain markers were Neolithic, and thus roughly contemporary with each other, when often they were of widely different dates, such as being Iron Age or medieval. The overall message of Williamson and Bellamy's book was that the idea of leys, as it was being presented by Earth Mysteries proponents, had no basis in empirical reality. Looking back on the book's reception in 2000, Williamson noted that "archaeologists weren't particularly interested, and ley-line people were hostile".

Schism in the community
Williamson and Bellamy's book brought two different responses from the ley hunter community. Some maintained that even if the presence of earth energies running through ley lines could not be demonstrated with empirical evidence and rational argumentation, this did not matter; for them, a belief in ley lines was an act of faith, and in their view archaeologists were too narrow-minded to comprehend this reality. The other approach was to further engage archaeologists by seeking out new data and arguments to bolster their beliefs in ley lines. Hutton noted that this pulled along "a potential fissure between rationalism and mysticism which had always been inherent in the movement".

In 1989, a book that Devereux had co-written with Nigel Pennick, Lines on the Landscape, was published. It laid aside ideas of leys representing channels for earth energy, noting that this was beyond the realm of scientific verification, and instead focused on trying to build a case for ley lines that archaeologists could engage with. In particular, it drew attention to ethnographically recorded beliefs in the importance of lines running through the landscape in various communities around the world, proposing these as ethnographic comparisons for what might have occurred in prehistoric Britain. Hutton called the book "an important development", for it was "by far the most well-researched, intelligently written and beautifully produced work yet published on leys". Devereux pursued this approach in a series of further books.

Reflecting his move towards archaeology, in 1991, Devereux published an article on sightlines from the prehistoric site of Silbury Hill, Wiltshire in Antiquity. By the 1990s, British archaeology had become more open to ideas about language and cognition, topics that Earth Mysteries enthusiasts had long been interested in. A prominent example of this was the work of Christopher Tilley, who devised the idea of phenomenology, or using human senses to experience a landscape as a means of trying to ascertain how past societies would have done the same.

The Ley Hunter magazine ceased publication in 1999. Its last editor, Danny Sullivan, stated that the idea of leys was "dead". Hutton suggested that some of the enthusiasm formerly directed toward leys was instead directed toward archaeo-astronomy. He also noted that the ley hunting community had "functioned as an indispensable training ground for a small but important group of non-academic scholars who have made a genuine contribution to the study of folklore and mythology." Pennick for instance went on to write a range of short books and pamphlets on European folklore. Another prominent ley hunter, Bob Trubshaw, also wrote several books on these subjects and served as a publisher for others. Jeremy Harte, editor of Wessex Earth Mysteries, subsequently produced several books on folklore; his book on British fairy lore later won the Folklore Society's annual prize.

Continuing belief

In 2005, Ruggles noted that "for the most part, ley lines represent an unhappy episode now consigned to history". However belief in ley lines persists among various esoteric groups, having become an "enduring feature of some brands of esotericism". As Hutton observed, beliefs in "ancient earth energies have passed so far into the religious experience of the 'New Age' counter-culture of Europe and America that it is unlikely that any tests of evidence would bring about an end to belief in them." During the 1970s and 1980s, a belief in ley lines fed into the modern Pagan community. Research that took place in 2014 for instance found that various modern Druids and other Pagans believed that there were ley lines focusing on the Early Neolithic site of Coldrum Long Barrow in Kent, southeast England.

In the US city of Seattle a dowsing organisation called the Geo Group plotted what they believed were the ley lines across the city. They stated that their "project made Seattle the first city on Earth to balance and tune its ley-line system". The Seattle Arts Commission contributed $5,000 to the project, bringing criticisms from members of the public who regarded it as a waste of money.

Scientific views
Ley lines have been characterised as a form of pseudoscience. On The Skeptic's Dictionary, the American philosopher and skeptic Robert Todd Carroll noted that none of the statements about magnetic forces underpinning putative ley lines has been scientifically verified.

Williamson and Bellamy characterised ley lines as "one of the biggest red herrings in the history of popular thought". One criticism of Watkins' ley line theory states that given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that "connect" sites is trivial and ascribable to coincidence. Johnson stated that "ley lines do not exist". He cited Williamson and Bellamy's work in demonstrating this, noting that their research showed how "the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites".

Other statistical significance tests have shown that supposed ley-line alignments are no more significant than random occurrences and/or have been generated by selection effects. The paper by statistician Simon Broadbent is one such example and the discussion after the article involving a large number of other statisticians demonstrates the high level of agreement that alignments have no significance compared to the null hypothesis of random locations.

A study by David George Kendall used the techniques of shape analysis to examine the triangles formed by standing stones to deduce if these were often arranged in straight lines. The shape of a triangle can be represented as a point on the sphere, and the distribution of all shapes can be thought of as a distribution over the sphere. The sample distribution from the standing stones was compared with the theoretical distribution to show that the occurrence of straight lines was no more than average.

The archaeologist Richard Atkinson once demonstrated this by taking the positions of telephone booths and pointing out the existence of "telephone box leys". This, he argued, showed that the mere existence of such lines in a set of points does not prove that the lines are deliberate artefacts, especially since it is known that telephone boxes were not laid out in any such manner or with any such intention.

In 2004, John Bruno Hare wrote:

"Watkins never attributed any supernatural significance to leys; he believed that they were simply pathways that had been used for trade or ceremonial purposes, very ancient in origin, possibly dating back to the Neolithic, certainly pre-Roman. His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in landscape photography and love of the British countryside. He was an intensely rational person with an active intellect, and I think he would be a bit disappointed with some of the fringe aspects of ley lines today."

- John Bruno Hare, Early British Trackways Index

title: Ley line


text:
Upper Rhine

The Upper Rhine (Oberrhein ; Rhin Supérieur; kilometres 167 to 529 of the River Rhine) is the section of the Rhine between the Middle Bridge in Basel, Switzerland, and the Rhine knee in Bingen, Germany. It is surrounded by the Upper Rhine Plain (Oberrheinische Tiefebene). Most of its upper section marks the France–Germany border.

The Upper Rhine is one of four sections of the river (the others being the High Rhine, Middle Rhine and Lower Rhine) between Lake Constance and the North Sea. The countries and states along the Upper Rhine are Switzerland, France (Alsace) and the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. The largest cities along the river are Basel, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Mainz.

The Upper Rhine was straightened between 1817 and 1876 by Johann Gottfried Tulla and made navigable between 1928 and 1977. The Treaty of Versailles allows France to use the Upper Rhine for hydroelectricity in the Grand Canal d'Alsace.

On the left bank are the French region of Alsace and the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate; on the right bank are the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. The first few kilometres are in the Swiss city of Basel.

Geology
Around 35 million years ago, a rift valley of about 300 km long and 50 km wide came into being between the present cities of Basel and Frankfurt. This was due to tensile stresses in the Earth's crust and mantle, which resulted in lowering the earth's surface. The moat has been partially filled up again by sedimentation. On the edges we find mountain ridges, the so-called "rift flanks". On the eastern side, they are the Black Forest and Odenwald mountains, in the west the Vosges and Palatinate Forest. During the Tertiary, the High Rhine continued west from Basel and flowed via the Doubs and the Saône, into the Rhône. The rift diverted the Rhine into the newly formed Upper Rhine Valley.

The Rhine knee at Basel marks the transition from the High Rhine to the Upper Rhine with a change of direction from West to North and a change of landscape from the relatively small-chamber high-Rhine cuesta landscape to the wide rift zone of the Upper Rhine Rift Valley. The two largest tributaries come from the right: the Neckar in Mannheim, the Main across from Mainz. In the northwest corner of the Upper Rhine Valley, at Rhine-kilometre 529.1, near Bingen, where the Nahe flows into the Rhine, the Rhine flows into a gorge in the Rhenish Massif and thereby changes into the Middle Rhine.

Tributaries
Tributaries are listed in direction of flow (bottom to top), with the nearest settlement to their confluence given in brackets.

Left tributaties :
 * Nahe (near Bingen am Rhein, Germany)
 * Lauter (near Neuburg am Rhein)
 * Moder (near Neuhäusel)
 * Sauer (near Seltz)
 * Ill (near Offendorf, France)
 * Birsig (in Basel, Switzerland)

Right tributaries :
 * Selz (in Ingelheim, Germany)
 * Main (in Mainz)
 * Neckar (in Mannheim)
 * Queich (near Germersheim)
 * Pfinz (near Germersheim)
 * Murg (near Rastatt)
 * Sauer (in Seltz, France)
 * Acher (near Lichtenau)
 * Rench (near Lichtenau)
 * Kinzig (near Kehl)
 * Elz (near Lahr)
 * Kander (near Weil am Rhein)
 * Wiese (near Basel, Switzerland)

Bordering regions

 * Germany
 * Baden-Württemberg
 * Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Emmendingen, Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe (district), Lörrach, Mannheim, Ortenau, Rastatt, Rhein-Neckar
 * Hesse
 * Bergstraße, Groß-Gerau, Rheingau-Taunus, Wiesbaden
 * Rhineland-Palatine
 * Alzey-Worms, Frankenthal, Germersheim, Ludwigshafen, Mainz, Mainz-Bingen, Rhein-Pfalz, Speyer, Worms

 * France
 * Grand-Est
 * Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin

 * Switzerland
 * Basel-Stadt

Tri-national metropolitan region
The Upper Rhine tri-national region (French: Région Métropolitaine Trinationale du Rhin Supérieur, German: Trinationale Metropolregion Oberrhein) is a Euroregion that covers the border areas of the Upper Rhine (the northern part of the Upper Rhine valley and the Palatinate are not included as they are not border areas) and parts of the High Rhine. As the name suggests, it is a tri-national region comprising parts of France, Germany and Switzerland. The regional Upper Rhine Conference is a framework for future political and administrative cooperation in the area.

The tripoint between France, Germany and Switzerland, called Dreiländereck, lies within the uppermost portion of the Upper Rhine. A monument in Basel, known as the Pylon, is located 160 m southeast of the actual tripoint.

Straightening
In 1685, Louis XIV started a project to move the Upper Rhine, change its course and drain the floodplain, in order to gain land. By 1840, the river had been moved up to 1.5 km to the east, taking territory away from Baden. Around 1790, large parts of the Rhine Valley were deforested, creating arable land, fields and pasture to feed the population. The Upper Rhine was straightened between 1817 and 1876 by Johann Gottfried Tulla and changed from a relatively sluggish meandering river with major and many smaller branches into a fast flowing stream flanked by embankments. The length of the Upper Rhine was reduced by 81 km. Some cut-off river arms and ox-bows remain; they are typically called the 'Old Rhine' (Altrhein) or Gießen (similar to the Old Rhine (Alter Rhein) in the Alpine Rhine Valley, where the Rhine was also straightened).

Canalising and dams
The Rhine between Basel and Iffezheim is almost entirely canalised. On a stretch of 180 km, there are 10 dams, provided with hydropower stations and locks. Between Basel and Breisach, the old river bed carries hardly any water; almost all water is diverted through the Grand Canal d'Alsace on the French side, to ensure safe shipping and hydropower generation around the clock. Only when there is a large supply of water, then the old river bed will receive more water than the canal. France gained the right to do this in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; the right applies to the segment between Basel and Neuburgweier/Lauterbourg, where the Rhine forms the border between France and Germany.

The straightening (1817–76) and channeling (1928–77) reduced the water table by up to 16 m and thus had a negative effect on flora and fauna. Gravel is also missing from the river, due to the dams. This has caused erosion below the dam at Iffezheim. To counter this, 173000 m3 per year of a mixture of sand and gravel with an average grain diameter of 20 mm (corresponding to the local sediment transport capacity) has been dumped into the river, since 1978, using two motorized barges.

Integrated Rhine Programme (IRP)
The Upper Rhine plays a key role in flood control on the Middle and Lower Rhine. As a result of the straightening of the Upper Rhine, floods from the Alps now reach the Middle Rhine much faster than in the past. Thus, the risk of such a peak coinciding with a flood peak of Neckar, Moselle or Main has increased. About 123 km2 of floodplain have been lost. Authorities in riparian states of France, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate have launched the Integrated Rhine Programme, a framework for designating water retention areas. to combat downstream flooding. A French-German treaty was concluded in 1982, in which the parties agreed to restore the retention capacity on the stretch below Iffezheim to the level it had before the area was developed.

This means: For the stretch between Iffezheim and the mouth of the Neckar, attenuation of the apex of a 200-year flood (i.e. a flood that statistically occurs once in 200 years) of the Rhine to a discharge of 5000 m3/s at the Maxau gauge station, that is, a reduction from 5700 m3/s to 5000 m3/s.
 * for the stretch below the mouth of the Neckar, attenuation of the apex of a 220-year flood to a discharge of 6000 m3/s at the Worms gauge station, that is, a reduction from 6800 m3/s to 6000 m3/s.

For this purpose the following measures are planned and partially implemented:
 * By France: Special operations power stations on the Rhine and construction of two polders Erstein and Moder
 * By Baden-Württemberg: construction of about 13 polders
 * By Rhineland-Palatinate: construction of polders and relocating levees

The effectiveness of the flood protection measures was verified using a computer model. The State Institute for the Environment, Nature Protection and Measurements in Baden-Württemberg carried out forecast calculations with the help of a mathematical "synoptic flood progression model". The analysis of the calculations and the evaluation of the results were made on the basis of the requirements and methods set by the international Flood Study Commission for the Rhine. The implementation of the proposed flood control measures on the Upper Rhine can prevent the occurrence of a 200-year-flood between Iffezheim and Bingen, with an overall economic loss estimated at around 6.2 billion euros.

Conservation
The floodplains between Mainz and Bingen are important for nature conservation. In this section, the so-called Island Rhine, there are many nature reserves and bird sanctuaries.

title: Upper Rhine


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Autobahn (album)

Autobahn is the fourth studio album by German electronic music band Kraftwerk, released in November 1974 by Philips Records. The album marked several personnel changes in the band, which was initially a duo consisting of Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter; later, the group added Klaus Röder on guitar and flute, and Wolfgang Flür on percussion. The album also completed the group's transition from the experimental krautrock style of their earlier work to an electronic pop sound consisting mostly of synthesizers and drum machines. Recording started at the group's own Kling Klang facility, but was predominantly made at Conny Plank's studio. Autobahn also includes lyrics and a new look for the group that was suggested by Emil Schult, an associate of Schneider and Hütter.

Most of the album is taken up by the 22-minute "Autobahn", featuring lyrics by Schneider, Hütter, and Schult. The song was inspired by the group's joy of driving on Germany's autobahns, and recorded music that reflected a trip emulating the sounds of a vehicle. The album's release in West Germany saw little press attention. "Autobahn" was released as a single and received airplay at a Chicago radio station, leading it to spread across the United States. In 1975, the song became an international hit and Kraftwerk's first release of their music in the US. "Autobahn" success led to the band touring the United States with new member Karl Bartos, who replaced Röder, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom.

Initial reception to Autobahn was mixed; it received negative reviews from Rolling Stone and Village Voice's critic Robert Christgau who felt the music was inferior to earlier electronic music from Wendy Carlos and Mike Oldfield. Other critics found the track "Autobahn" hypnotic and arresting for its imagery of driving on the autobahn. Critics from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Newsday included the album in their "Honorable Mentions" sections of their year-end lists. Later reception was unanimously enthusiastic; Simon Witter wrote in NME the album is of "enormous historical significance" and Simon Reynolds said the album is where Kraftwerk's music really starts to matter. Musicians of the 1970s and 1980s, including David Bowie, cited the album as a major influence.

Background and production
Prior to the release of Autobahn, Kraftwerk consisted of Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter, who had released an album titled Ralf und Florian in October 1973. Prior to Autobahn, electronic music did not develop a popular following in the United States with a few exceptions such as Michael Oldfield's Tubular Bells and the works of fellow German band Tangerine Dream. According to critic Lynn Van Matre of the Chicago Tribune in 1975, "far too often much of what has been profferred has been either boring, painfully self-indulgent, or just plain painful". In comparison, Van Matre found "Autobahn" to be "what you might call middle-of-the-road electronics". Comparing the albums sounds to the group's earlier work, Michael Hooker of the Los Angeles Times noted the music of Ralf und Florian is more traditional compared to that of Autobahn, noting its resemblance to the works of composers Morton Subotnik and Edgar Froese rather than the "monotonous pulse" of Autobahn. Kraftwerk became more conscious of their visual image and, under the guidance of their associate Emil Schult, they began redesigning their look. Schult, who had studied under Joseph Beuys, consulted the band on their themes and image. This led to Kraftwerk having small, carefully staged promotional images for the rest of their career. In a 1975 interview published in Melody Maker, Karl Dallas noted Kraftwerk's music and look were "as far as you get from the Gothic romanticism of Tangerine Dream" and that "visually they also present a completely different image", comparing Tangerine Dream's Froese's "untidy red locks", and bandmates Peter Baumann's and Christopher Franke's "long, lank tresses".

In early 1974, like their German contemporaries, Kraftwerk purchased a Minimoog synthesizer, which they used alongside customized versions of the Farfisa Rhythm Unit 10 and Vox Percussion King drum machines on the album. Autobahn was recorded at the group's home studio Kling Klang and at Conny Plank's new studio in a farmhouse outside Cologne. The majority of Autobahn was made on Plank's equipment. Accompanying Schneider and Hütter on the album are Klaus Roeder on violin and guitar, and Wolfgang Flür on percussion. Roeder, who was a member of Düsseldorf's music scene, had built an electronic violin that intrigued Schneider. Flür was an interior design student who had drummed for a Düsseldorf band called The Beathovens. Flür stated he found initial jam sessions with the group somewhat strange but soon developed a rapport with his bandmates. Conny Plank is credited as the engineer on the album but he had a key contribution to its sound. Roeder later stated; "Plank played a decisive role. He mixed everything and assembled individual sounds into a whole. That was, I believe the last time that Conny did that. He then told me he did know what Kraftwerk would sound like when he was no longer there."

Music
In the book Kraftwerk: Music Non-Stop, Carsten Brocker said with Autobahn, Kraftwerk completed the transition from their earlier style of experimental krautrock to electronic pop music. The album was recorded primarily on synthesizer and drum machine, with occasional flute and guitar. Brocker commented on the group's simple melodies and harmonies suggest pop music. According to Bartos, the group's change in style occurred because Hütter and Schneider came from a classical music background and they moved to pop music by adding lyrics because "There is no pop music without lyrics apparently". The change in musical direction was influenced by Schult, who was not trained as a musician but has an ear for melody and chose effective parts of improvised sessions, and led Hütter and Schneider to explore by simplifying their own musical sessions. There are very few vocals on Autobahn; critic Van Matre described the album as "simply an impression of the sounds and sensory perceptions of the road".

Hütter repeatedly described Kraftwerk's music as Industrielle Volksmusik (lit. 'industrial folk music'), specifically referencing a modern version of German regional musical traditions rather than the industrial music sound of groups like Throbbing Gristle. In Britain, electronic music was popularly known as "Doctor Who music", referencing the pioneering electronic soundtrack to the television series. Hütter stated in 1975 Kraftwerk got the idea for the album by driving on the autobahn, stating it was an "exciting experience that makes you run through a huge variety of feelings. We tried to convey through music what it felt like." Flür later described "Autobahn" as a journey from Düsseldorf to Hamburg, and said the route included musical pieces such as the industrial sounds of the Ruhr valley, the conveyor belts of the mining towns such as Bottrop and Castrop-Rauxel, and the rural Münster region, which is symbolized by the flute in the song. Other sounds of road travel are heard throughout the song; according to Hütter, the group included "car sounds, horns, basic melodies and tuning motors. Adjusting the suspension and tyre pressure, rolling on the asphalt, that gliding sound—phhhwwtphhhwwt—when the wheels go onto those painted stripes. It's sound poetry, and also very dynamic."

"Autobahn" was co-written by Schult, whom Hütter asked to write some lyrics. The song's lyrics are in German; Schneider reflected on this, stating; "Part of our music is derived from the feeling of our language ... our method of speaking is interrupted, hard-edged if you want; a lot of consonants and noises". According to Hütter, their language was used like a musical instrument; he said; "we are not singers in the sense of Rod Stewart, we use our voices as another instrument. Language is just another pattern of rhythm, it is one part of our unified sound." In a 1991 interview, Hütter stated there was no expectations for the release of Autobahn, and that "We played it to our friends, and a few of them said 'Fahren auf der Autobahn!? You've gone crazy!'. We just put records out and see what happens, otherwise we'd end up over-calculating this or that." The album's four other tracks are shorter electro-acoustic pieces. "Kometenmelodie" ("Comet Melody") was inspired by Comet Kohoutek, which passed by Earth in 1973. Hütter said "Morgenspaziergang" ("Morning Walk") was influenced by the group's early morning walk when leaving their studio after late-night sessions, when they observed the silence of their surroundings. The two part "Kometenmelodie" were described as "post-psychedelic kosmische" by Chris Power in Drowned in Sound.

Release
Autobahn was released in Germany in November 1974 by Philips Records as the third of the group's three-album deal with the label. The album was released in the United States in January 1975, and the group's first album to be released in the US. Autobahn charted in the US for 22 weeks on Billboard's Top LPs and Tapes chart and peaked at number 5 on 3 May 1975. In the UK, the album was released by Phonogram with a blue-and-white motorway logo rather than Schult's painted cover. The UK cover became the default sleeve on later reissues. Autobahn was digitally remastered for released on CD, LP and cassette in 1985. In 2009, Kraftwerk remastered and released eight of their albums, including Autobahn, as part of a compilation called The Catalogue.

A Chicago radio station was the first to play the single release of "Autobahn", which it had received as an import. Jem Records in New Jersey imported a large quantity of the studio album, leading Vertigo Records to release both the single and the album in the US. The single cut of "Autobahn" became an international hit song in early 1975; only a small portion of the song was played on top-40 radio. The single version of "Autobahn" is three-and-a-half minutes long; Hütter stated cutting down the track was simple because it was "loosely constructed, so making a short version was easy because you don't have to worry so much about boundaries and continuity". Following the popularity of Autobahn in the US, Vertigo also released Kraftwerk's earlier album  Ralf and Florian (1973). Philips released "Kometenmelodie 2" as the album's second single.

Tour
At the end of 1974, Kraftwerk had a short tour in West Germany; where the group remained a quartet, retaining Wolfgang Flür and hiring Karl Bartos, who replaced Roeder in the group. Bartos was a 22-year old music student at Robert Schumann Hochschule, Düsseldorf, who was hoping to become a percussionist with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. Bartos had played percussion at concerts in Germany with works by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel. Kraftwerk toured the US for three months, starting in April 1975. The US tour was followed by a seventeen-date tour of the UK in September. Bartos noted poor ticket sales for the British shows, recalling the group played to mostly empty halls in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, London, Bournemouth, Bath, Cardiff, Birmingham, and Liverpool.

During the tour, the material consisted mostly of music from Autobahn and some of their earlier material. The group had difficulties with their initial road crew, who were fired and replaced during the American tour. Issues also arose with the group's equipment; synthesizers had to be turned on in the afternoon to be tuned for the evening, and lighting from rigs was strong enough to put the instruments out of tune. They also experienced problems with the differences in mains voltages between countries.

Contemporaneous reviews
According to Kraftwerk biographer Uwe Schütte, on its initial release in Germany, Autobahn was generally ignored by the mainstream German music press. The group invited members of the German rock press to drive with them and played "Autobahn" from the car's speakers. Schult recalled the general response from these journalists was an emphatic "So what!" The only major publication that covered the album was the November 1974 issue of German magazine Sounds, in which reviewer Hans-Joachim Krüger called the album "varied, and above all entertaining jaunt which particularly impresses listeners wearing headphones". In a review of a later Kraftwerk album, a reviewer credited as "N.N." said of Autobahn, "[S]omething like that doesn't even deserve to be released". Flür said of the album's initial critical reception; "In Germany, artists are often not well regarded unless they've scored great achievements abroad" and "Our success in the US finally brought good headlines in the German newspapers".

In 2013, Jude Rogers of The Observer called some English-language responses to the album xenophobic. Rogers cited examples such as Barry Miles' live review of the band that was titled "This is what your fathers fought to save you from", and an interview between Hütter and Lester Bangs in which Bangs asked if Kraftwerk were "the final solution" for music. When the NME printed Bangs' interview, a photograph of the group was superimposed over an image of a Nuremberg rally. Among contemporaneous reviews, John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone gave the album a negative review, finding it not as good as the music of Wendy Carlos, who "hasn't been in the Top Ten in months and months". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau gave the album a C+ rating, comparing it with the music of Mike Oldfield but said it was made "for unmitigated simpletons, sort of, and yet in my mitigated way I don't entirely disapprove".

Bill Provick of the Ottawa Citizen was initially hesitant about the group, stating he mocked Autobahn at first, but upon listening to it and Ralf and Florian, he called his initial reaction "a bad mistake, a grave injustice and a sad example of the rock snobbery I always bemoan in others". Provick said the album "works on two levels – as pleasing background atmosphere" and "upon closer listening as lovely escape route for the mind", finding "Kraftwerk opting for calm competence rather than spectacular gimmickry – a nice change in the world of electronic music". Gary Deane of The Leader-Post said Autobahn was Kraftwerk's "most ambitious and coherent [album] to date", and that the track "Autobahn" is repetitive due to its running time but added; "the effect is deliberate and the periodic familiarly of the Autobahn's scenery keeps the work together as a whole. It's really quite fascinating and offers a new dimension to most our musical lives." Van Matre described the title track as "an impression of the sounds and sensory perceptions of the road, at times nerve-wracking, at times as repetitious as the center dividing strip, but chiefly hypnotic"; and called the track "by far the finest and most accessible thing on the album". Van Matre also said the remaining tracks on the album are "more experimental, less catchy – but it makes the whole thing worthwhile". Some critics such as Gerry Baker of Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Wayne Robins of Newsday included the album in their honorable mentions on their lists of the best albums of 1975.

Retrospective reviews
In 1985, Simon Witter wrote in the NME Autobahn is not as strong as Kraftwerk's four subsequent albums but that it has "enormous historical significance". Witter said; "In the glam era of glitter and guitars, Kraftwerk were four besuited squares playing keyboards", and that the group was "Mentally and sonically decades ahead of their contemporaries", noting their unique rhythms, textures and melodies. Simon Reynolds wrote in the Spin Alternative Record Guide (1995); "Esoterics will claim they prefer the first three albums: they're excellent, but truthfully Autobahn is when Kraftwerk's muzak-of-the-sphere starts to matter". Reynolds said the title track "sounds like a pastoral symphony, even as it hymns the exhilaration of cruising down the freeway".

David Cavanagh gave the 2009 remaster of Autobahn a five-star rating in Uncut, saying the title track is its main attraction and called the tracks "freckled with warmth: sunny vocal harmonies ("...mit Glitzerstrahl"), a carefree flute solo (Schneider) and clever modulations (denoting gear-changes) to break the tension", Cavanagh called the remastering of the album a fiasco, and said it is worse than the compact discs previously released by EMI. Mat Snow wrote in Mojo the album is a "pop landmark" and a "blueprint for their entire enterprise". Tom Ewing of Pitchfork commented positively on the album in their review of The Catalogue, noting tracks on the album are a showcase for Kraftwerk's "gift for simple, wistful melodies" but said the themes explored on the album were done better on Trans-Europe Express. Other later album reviews, such as a four-star rating from The Irish Times and a three-and-a-half star rating in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, were generally positive with no specific details on Autobahn  Christgau upgraded his initial ranking of C+ for Autobahn to a B−. In the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Stephen Dalton called Autobahn "...a landmark in avant-garde pop minimalism".

Legacy
Kraftwerk later signed with EMI to establish the Kling Klang company. This worldwide licensing deal placed them with Electrola for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, EMI in the United Kingdom, Vertigo in the United States and Pathé-Marconi in France. Kraftwerk followed-up Autobahn with Radio-Activity, which was released in 1975. Kraftwerk did not repeat the high sales of Autobahn on any subsequent album in the 1970s but were one of the most commercially successful groups in their style, selling well throughout Europe. Hütter and Schneider later dismissed Kraftwerk's earlier music; according to Hütter, Autobahn was "really the first", and Schneider called the earlier music "history, archaeology". Autobahn was Conny Plank's final work with Kraftwerk. At the home studio where he worked on Autobahn, Plank later worked with groups and artists such as Killing Joke, Clannad, Brian Eno, The Eurythmics and Devo, as well as German groups such as Neu! and DAF.

In his review of Sequencer (1976) by Synergy, critic Michael Hooker noted the increasing interest in synthesizer composition since the release of Autobahn. Other artists, such as David Bowie, began noting Autobahn as an influence. Bowie said; "the preponderance of electronic instruments convinced me that this was an area that I had to investigate a little further". Michael Rother stated Autobahn had an impact on his band Harmonia, and led him to starting thinking about adding voices on tracks; he said; "on Harmonia's Deluxe you can hear an echo of that". Producer Arthur Baker first heard Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" when working at record store in high school; he later used the melody of the group's songs for "Planet Rock" for Afrika Bambaataa.

According to Patrick Codenys of the band Front 242, in the early 1970s most "creative groups, were virtuosos like King Crimson and Yes whose music was based around sophisticated jam sessions. When I bought Autobahn I had the feeling that it was changing. For the first time, it was music that was impossible to touch – not being made up with the usual components of rock." Codenys said the music was made by only one person, which helped encourage him to make music on his own. Music critic Simon Frith stated disco heralded the future of music, and said "Autobahn" was the bridge between five minutes of unchanging rhythms of AM radio and the 24-hour concerts by avant-garde musicians like Terry Riley. Author Thomas Jerome Seabrook named the album among the "finest kosmische records." In 2014, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, a diverse collection to represent historically significant recordings that reflect the changing climate of music through the decades.

Re-issue
A remastered edition of Autobahn was released on CD, digital download and heavyweight vinyl in October–November 2009. The beginning of Kometenmelodie 2 was moved to the end of Kometenmelodie 1.

Credits
Credits adapted from the original album label.

Kraftwerk

 * Ralf Hütter – vocals, electronics, music, concept, production
 * Florian Schneider – vocals, electronics, music, concept, production
 * Wolfgang Flür – percussion
 * Klaus Röder – violin, guitar

Additional personal

 * Konrad Plank – engineer
 * Emil Schult – Cover painting
 * Barbara Niemoller – photography

The 1985 re-release added:
 * Klaus Röder – electric violin on "Mitternacht"

The 2009 remaster contained further changes and additions:
 * Ralf Hütter – voice, electronics, synthesizer, organ, piano, guitar, electronic drums, artwork reconstruction.
 * Florian Schneider – voice, vocoder, electronics, synthesizer, flute, electronic drums
 * Wolfgang Flür – electronic drums on "Kometenmelodie 1–2"
 * Klaus Röder – electric violin on "Mitternacht"
 * Johann Zambryski – artwork reconstruction

title: Autobahn (album)