text:
Talk:National People's Congress

Image
The complex shown in the picture on the top of the page looks more like the Historical Museum across the Tian'anmen Square from the Great Hall of the People. I propose that the picture be removed or replaced by a correct one. -- Tim 14:56 22 May 2006
 * No, this was not a picture of the great hall. I fixed it and used the image from the article of the great hall. --Authentic 08:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

China in the title?
Why is it necessary to have "of China" in the title? The Chinese version has no mention of China. I propose to move this to simply National People's Congress. The Knesset is a precendent. --Jiang 11:13 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * I found it distractingly unnecessary when I first came across it too, since I was pretty sure only China has such a thing called the NPC. I still think so, after Googling for a while just now.

 * I think the intro does a very clear job pointing out this institution is of the PRC anyway. --Menchi 21:50 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Just deleted the National People's Congress redirect, history:

 * 11:34 4 Jan 2003 . . User:Olivier (redirect)
 * content was: '#REDIRECT National People's Congress of China'

 * If somebody disagree strongly, s/he can easily re-make that redirect later. If nobody disagree, anybody can move National People's Congress of China there now. --Menchi 21:57 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Done. How about State Council of China? Are there any other state councils in other countries? --Jiang 23:57 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't know about state councils as national organizations, but there are subnational state councils in the USA, probably one for each US state. --Menchi 00:23 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

List of the RPC CCP meeting (please, can you help me to complete this)
List of the Chinese Communist Parti's Congress (fr:Liste des Congrès du Parti Communiste Chinois)
 * 1) 1921, 30 june, Shanghai Fondation and 1st Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 2) 2th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 3) 1923, may, Canton, 3th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 4) 4th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 5) 5th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 6) 1928, july, in Moscow, 6th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 7) 1945, 7th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 8) 1956, 8th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 9) 1969, 9th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 10) 1973, 10th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 11) 11th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 12) 12th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 13) 1987, 13th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 14) 14th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 15) 1997, 15th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 16) 16th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress
 * 17) 17th Chinese Communist Parti's Congress

National People's Congress fr:Liste des Congrès national du peuple de la République de Chine
 * 1) 1954, 28 september, 1st National People's Congress
 * 2) 2th National People's Congress
 * 3) 3th National People's Congress
 * 4) 2005, march,
 * 1) 2005, march,

Central comity
 * 1) 1927, 7 August, Hankou.
 * 2) 1962, 8th Central comity

Removed
"However, some proposals will be put to the vote even if there is opposition, if the Politburo deems it necessary."

This isn't true. Legislative practice in recent years has been to withdraw or postpone bills if they can't get a near unanimous vote. Roadrunner 16:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Says who? Your hardly a verifiable, reliable source. This article needs citations, not more unfounded claims. (I count 3 citations in the article at the moment…) Int21h (talk) 00:55, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Selection of Overseas Chinese Delegation to the NPC
How is the Overseas Chinese Delegation to the NPC selected? Do Overseas Chinese have the ability to vote for these delegates by ballot at the embassy? mdkarazim (talk) 20:36, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually they are Returned Overseas Chinese /归国华侨. Voting must be conducted personaly, can not be mail or at embassy. --刻意(Kèyì) 22:40, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Party composition of the NPC
Only about 70% of NPC delegates are Party members (see e.g. http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34722&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=3f571ce395). The graphic in the box should be amended to reflect this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.6.90 (talk) 14:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Is there no official/non-official PRC release on this? Wouldn't one of the major PRC, HK, Taiwanese or international media networks have mentioned the membership before? Besides the The Jamestown Foundation? I mean, the Chinese legislature's membership is pretty important is't it? Int21h (talk) 01:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There are now figures for the party composition of the 12th Congress and even a graphic. These figures (2099 CCP members vs 888 "democratic parties and independents") are probably from the Chinese Wikipedia article on the NPC. I believe the ultimate source is actually the NPC website, which now has an online lookup for 12th congress delegate information. I will verify the numbers when I have time to click on their interface 2987 times. Rgr09 (talk) 08:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Citation Needed
In the second paragraph: "For the NPC to formally defeat a proposal put before it is a rare, but it has happened." That assertion needs verification -- most appropriately, an example. BartBee (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:07, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I have removed this statement. This statement is a claim that a session of the NPC has at some point voted on a motion of some kind, any kind, and rejected it, meaning that a majority of the members voting against the motion. Apparently this has never happened. If it has happened, it should be easy to find an example in a reliable source. The burden of finding this example entirely on the editor who claims that this is the case. Without a source, the article cannot incorporate this statement. Rgr09 (talk) 04:07, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The NPC and legislation
The legislative function of the NPC is presented in obscure, vague, and misleading terms throughout the article. The following quotes illustrate this:
 * The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC (1982) and the NPC Procedural Rules (1989).

The phrase "drafting legislation" does not appear in either of these laws.
 * It begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft

What is the source for this statement? What rules govern the selection of the group? Are ANY of the members of this "small group" delegates to the NPC? If not, why attribute the drafting of legislation by this group to the NPC?
 * Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, with an attempt made to maintain consensus at each step of the process.

What is the source of this statement? As a description of legislative procedure, it is so vague as to be meaningless. Some such process may well take place within government departments which want to promulgate various laws and regulations, but what is its relation to the NPC? As presented, it has none.
 * By the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to.

Agreed to by whom? What is the function of the NPC in this process? What is the source for this claim?
 * However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage.

What stage? What does minor mean? Who makes these changes? What is the source for this claim?
 * The process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session.

What determines whether the Standing Committee or a Plenary Session votes on a legislative bill? If there are no restrictions on the type of legislation subject to approval by the Standing Committee, what is the point in even convening a plenary session?

There is more discussion throughout the article which more or less contradicts this description of the legislative process and adds layers of vagueness and evasion:
 * [The NPC] functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts

"Legislative proposals are drafted and debated" could not be phrased in a more vague and evasive manner. Drafted and debated by who, when, where, how? Input in what form? Input to who? What parts of the government? What outside experts?

"Functions as a forum" is also vague to the point of vapidity. A forum is not a legislature. I also question the use of the word forum to describe the NPC. The NPC has no hearings, no debates, no caucuses; not even speeches, except by invitation of the Presidium. It cannot do these things, there are almost 3000 members and they meet at most two weeks every year.
 * In practice, although the final votes on laws of the NPC often return a high affirmative vote, a great deal of legislative activity occurs in determining the content of the legislation to be voted on.

What is the source of this statement? What is meant by "often receive a high affirmative vote"? Has the NPC ever rejected a motion put before it? What is meant by "legislative activity"? With no hearings, debates, or speeches, except from a handful of people, usually not delegates, how is "legislative" business conducted?
 * With respect to proposals by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, the NPC has rejected a bill on maritime safety

Unsourced, the three references at the end of this sentence do not mention a word about a maritime safety bill, and untrue if "rejected" is supposed to mean that a majority of the NPC voted against the bill when it was presented. This has never happened.
 * it is no longer uncommon for the State Council to amend or withdraw a bill on account of NPC opposition as with the case of the fuel tax and the draft food safety law which have been repeatedly blocked by the NPC.

How did the NPC block these bills? On the web-page cited for the fuel tax, it says "Opposition from certain government departments is another key reason China has not yet adopted a national fuel taxation mechanism." This has nothing to do with the NPC. When departments disagree with each other, it is not resolved at the NPC. What do you think, departments lobby NPC delegates to vote for their proposals? Show one reference for such an idea.

In general then, this article presents the false impression that the NPC writes laws. The NPC Organic Law only mentions what it does when it receives proposals or bills. When the Presidium decides to present proposals or bills to the NPC, the NPC votes on them, and in every vote since the NPC was established in 1954 it has approved them. Rgr09 (talk) 03:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Now 2986 delegates
The mayor of Hangzhou, Shao Zhanwei 邵占维, chair of the Zhejiang delegation to the 12th session of the NPC, died of a heart attack on March 6, 2013, on the second day of first meeting of the NPC. Since he has not yet been replaced, there are currently only 2986 delegates. Rgr09 (talk) 15:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

12th Congress party composition
The article originally stated that 70 percent of the delegates were CCP members. This figure is for the 11th Congress, based on the following official estimate: CCP members 2099, non-partisan and other parties 888. Since this information is now out of date, I have removed it. My own count for the 12th Congress, based on the NPC database, is CCP members, 2157, undeclared 452 (the database entry for party is blank), non-partisan (无党派) 4, and the other 8 parties, 374. From these figures it seems that 72 percent of the delegates are CCP members, while the other parties hold only 12.5 percent. However, there is as yet no official announcement of these figures. In addition, it seems that some of the undeclared delegates are CCP members (I've found 2 so far), and some delegates listed as from the other 8 parties include CCP members with dual party membership, or even CCP members who hold an official position in another party but are in fact not members of that party! Rgr09 (talk) 00:06, 10 June 2013 (UTC) (Fixed percentages) Rgr09 (talk) 04:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Rubber-stamp legislature
This article originally included the following sentence:
 * However, for most of its existence, the NPC has acted as a nearly powerless rubber-stamp legislature, ratifying decisions that have already been made by the Communist Party of China and the country's executive organs. This has long been typical of legislatures in Communist countries.

This sentence has now been deleted by an editor who commented: "no evidence, no explanation, no reasoning even. NPOV violation" In fact, the NPC is the epitome of a rubber-stamp organ. In nearly 70 years of existence, it has not once rejected a single measure, motion, law, or candidate presented to it. This is what rubber-stamp means. The NPC closely reflects the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, which also in over 50 years of operation never once rejected a measure, motion, or candidate. The comparison of the NPC to political organs such as the SSSU is thus very apt. The original sentence was in no way NPOV, just a simple statement of fact. However, the sentence that immediately followed it, and was not deleted, reads:
 * Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society.

This vague statement on "forums" and "mediating" has no evidence, no explanation, no reasoning even. More important, it has no source. I suggest therefore that the original sentence be reinstated and the one following it be deleted. Hoping for comments, otherwise I'll just go ahead and edit it. Rgr09 (talk) 03:29, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

"Among the 2,889 deputies attending the closing session, 2,799 voted for it, 52 against it, 37 abstained and one didn't vote"
What's the difference between abstaining and not voting? 68.145.210.83 (talk) 21:38, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Relative size of PLA delegation
I have added a reference for the relative size of the PLA delegation in the NPC. As noted, the PLA has 268 out of 2987 (8.97%) delegates in the 12th NPC. The next biggest delegation is Shandong's 175 delegates (5.86%) In case you don't understand the meaning of this, there are approximately 2.8 million PLA soldiers and officers. The total population of Shandong in 2014 was 97,330,000. If there is a problem with these numbers or with the way they are integrated into the article, please comment here before changing. Do not just delete and write "bullshit" in your edit summary. Rgr09 (talk) 17:45, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on National People's Congress. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110714024016/http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/3073_npcandthesecuritieslaw.pdf to http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/3073_npcandthesecuritieslaw.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110811124144/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-18214265.html to http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-18214265.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 14:04, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

More on the NPC legislative process
The claim that the Food Law and Fuel Tax Law were obstructed by the NPC are not supported in the articles cited. I have deleted these claims. The article's description of legislative procedures in China remains completely unsourced. Rgr09 (talk) 16:26, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Rubber stamp again
For the third or forth time, criticisms of the NPC as a rubber-stamp legislature have been removed. This is not how WP:NPOV is achieved. If you believe there is a better place for the criticisms or better descriptions of the criticisms, please take a shot at it, but deleting all mention of these criticisms is not a reasonable solution. Rgr09 (talk) 13:08, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Deleted unsourced claim that 'NPC has not always endorsed legislation placed before it'
The article originally contained the following paragraph:
 * The NPC has not always endorsed legislation placed before it. In 1993, the NPC refused to consider constitutional amendments proposed by the Chinese Communist Party on the grounds that non-governmental organizations such as the CCP do not have authority to propose legislation. Also in 1994, the Eighth National People's Congress Standing Committee included "Income and Property Law," in the official legislative plan, but was not able to bring it to a vote due to opposition. Also efforts to impose a national gasoline tax to finance construction of the tollways met with opposition and it has been difficult for both the Communist Party of China and the State Council to pass such a tax through the National People's Congress.

The 1993 claim is unsourced, and nonsensical to me. When did the NPC say that the CCP does not have authority to propose legislation? The idea is bizarre. The 1994 claim is backed up with an incomprehensible machine translation of a Chinese article. As far as I can tell, the gasoline tax story is not a problem with the NPC, the problem was that the various State Council departments could not agree on a proposal. If someone has a real article on this, please cite it! In summary, the claim that the NPC rejected a bill that was presented to it seems to have no reliable basis. Rgr09 (talk) 03:20, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Unicameral legislatures and NPC
The NPC is a unicameral body; it is not divided into two parts, unlike the British Parliament or the U.S. Congress. The fact that the full NPC meets only once a year, while its Standing Committee meets monthly does not make it a bicameral assembly. Nor does it make sense to describe the full NPC as a 'temporary' body and the Standing Committee as a 'permanent' body. Infobox edited accordingly. Rgr09 (talk) 19:22, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Relations with State Council
Removed this.

 * The NPC mainly exists to give legal sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government.

The Politburo, State Council (i.e. the government), and the NPC are separate, and the State Council and NPC have often had conflicting relationships.

Recently emerged as an independent and influential force?
In the opening section there is the sentence

'Western media sources commonly describe the NPC as a de facto rubber stamping body while some academic sources have asserted that the NPC has recently emerged as an independent and influential force in Chinese politics.'

Both academic sources cited are from over twenty years ago, is it possible to either find updated sources making the claim or remove references to these claims being 'recent'?

Deleting the middle paragraph in the lead
I am deleting the middle paragraph in the middle because it is copy-pasted from the "Powers and Duties" section. Elishop (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi. The opinion should be trimmed, but there should be no problem with redundancy in MOS:LEAD with regard to content that is WP:DUE. Normchou   💬 04:18, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. Elishop (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Excessive "non-primary source needed" tags
According to WP:PRIMARY, primary sources may be used "to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." I feel some of the tags are therefore unnecessary. For instance, the leading paragraph:

"The National People's Congress (NPC) is the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2,980 members in 2023, it is the largest legislative body in the world. The NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, in the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing."

By simply Googling "China NPC how many members", "China NPC term length", "China NPC when are sessions held", and "China NPC where are sessions held", all claims made in this paragraph can be verified (Al Jazeera and NPC Observer pop up the most for me).

Or, take the final paragraph of the summary: "Under China's Constitution, the NPC is structured as a unicameral legislature, with the power to amend the Constitution, legislate and oversee the operations of the government, and elect the major officers of the National Commission of Supervision, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Central Military Commission, and the state."

Again, Googling "China NPC Powers" turns up two results, one by the University of Michigan and another by Harvard University, confirming this. Besides, if the claim in question is about the powers permitted under the Consitution, and the source is the Constitution itself, it seems redundant and unnecessary to require a non-primary source. ARADPLAUG (talk) 15:56, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Question about Reverted Edit 26 August 2023
Hello Amigao! I noticed that you had recently reverted an edit I had made to this article. Can you please provide some details for the revert? Thank you! Atinoua (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

how could National People's Congress be Preceded by a ROC institution in 1954 when the peoples republic was established in 1949?
it said it was established in 1954, the National Assembly which was the republic of china in mainland was replaced in 1949!, and if you look National Assembly (Republic of China) its succesor is i fact Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1949 to 1954 Gooduserdude (talk) 11:56, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:National People's Congress


text:
George Colley

George Colley (18 October 1925 – 17 September 1983) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Tánaiste from 1977 to 1981, Minister for Energy from 1980 to 1981, Minister for Tourism and Transport from 1979 to 1980, Minister for the Public Service from 1977 to 1979, Minister for Finance from 1970 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1979, Minister for the Gaeltacht from 1969 to 1973, Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1966 to 1970, Minister for Education from 1965 to 1966 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands from 1964 to 1965. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1961 to 1983.

Early life
Colley was born in the Dublin suburb of Fairview, in 1925. He was the son of Harry Colley and Christina Colley (née Nugent). His father was a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising and a former adjutant in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who was elected to Dáil Éireann in 1944, as a Fianna Fáil candidate.

He was educated at St Joseph's Secondary C.B.S. in Fairview, where one of his classmates and closest friends was Charles Haughey, who later became his political arch rival. He studied law at University College Dublin and qualified as a solicitor in the mid-1940s. He remained friends with Haughey after leaving school and, ironically, encouraged him to become a member of Fianna Fáil in 1951. Haughey was elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1957 general election, ousting Colley's father in the process. This put some strain on the relationship between the two young men.

Political career
Colley was elected to the Dáil at the 1961 general election, reclaiming his father's old seat in the Dublin North-East constituency. Furthermore, he was elected in the same constituency as Haughey, thereby accentuating the rivalry. Thereafter, Colley progressed rapidly through the ranks of Fianna Fáil. He became a member of the Dáil at a time when a change from the older to the younger generation was taking place, a change facilitated by the Taoiseach Seán Lemass.

He was active in the Oireachtas as chairman of some of the Joint Labour Committees, which were set up under the Labour Court, to fix legally enforceable wages for groups of workers who had not been effectively organised in trade unions. He was also leader of the Irish parliamentary delegation to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. Colley's work as a backbencher was rewarded by his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands in October 1964.

Minister for Education (1965–1966)
Following the return of Lemass's government at the 1965 general election, Colley joined the cabinet as Minister for Education. He introduced a plan to establish comprehensive schools, set up an advisory council on post-primary school accommodation in Dublin, and introduced a school psychological service.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (1966–1970)
He was promoted as Minister for Industry and Commerce, in a cabinet reshuffle in July 1966, and he continued the government policy of economic expansion that had prevailed since the late 1950s.

In November 1966, Seán Lemass resigned suddenly as party leader. Colley contested the subsequent leadership election. He was the favoured candidate of party elders such as Seán MacEntee and Frank Aiken, the latter managing Colley's campaign and annoyed at Lemass's quick decision to retire before Colley had built up his support. Colley was considered to be in the same mould as the party founders, concerned with issues such as the peaceful re-unification of the country and the cause of the Irish language. Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, also declared their interest in the leadership; however, both withdrew when the Minister for Finance, Jack Lynch, announced his candidacy. Colley did not back down and the leadership issue went to a vote for the first time in the history of the Fianna Fáil party.

The leadership election took place on 9 November 1966, and Lynch beat Colley by 59 votes to 19. When the new Taoiseach announced his cabinet, Colley retained the Industry and Commerce portfolio.

Following Fianna Fáil's success at the 1969 general election, Colley held onto his existing cabinet post and also took charge of the Gaeltacht portfolio, an area where he had a personal interest. He used this dual position to direct industrial investment to Gaeltacht areas. He set about changing the traditional view of the Irish-speaking regions as backward and promoted their equal claim to the more sophisticated industries being established in Ireland by foreign investment.

Minister for Finance (1970–1973)
In the wake of the Arms Crisis in 1970, a major reshuffle of the cabinet took place. Four Ministers, Charles Haughey, Neil Blaney, Kevin Boland and Mícheál Ó Móráin, were either removed, or resigned, or simply retired from the government due to the scandal that was about to unfold. Despite his defeat by Jack Lynch in the leadership contest four years earlier, Colley had remained loyal to the party leader and had become a close political ally. He was rewarded by his appointment as Minister for Finance, the second most important position in government, while retaining the Gaeltacht portfolio.

Colley was regarded as a predictable Minister and the ultimate safe man, as a highly orthodox Keynesian. His decision to introduce budget deficits in his first three budgets was even welcomed by the opposition. He oversaw the decimalisation of the Irish currency in 1971. He also championed the introduction of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and argued the financial case for it in 1972, as the Minister with responsibility for the Gaeltacht.

In opposition (1973–1977)
In 1973, Fianna Fáil were ousted after sixteen years in government when the national coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party came to power. Colley was appointed opposition Spokesman on Finance, in the new Fianna Fáil front bench. He came to be regarded as a hard-working spokesman and was a constant critic of what he viewed as the coalition government's restrictive economic policy and of the capital taxation which he believed discouraged investment.

As the 1977 general election approached, Colley and Martin O'Donoghue were the main architects of Fianna Fáil's election manifesto. The party's programme for government included a number of inducements, including the abolition of car tax and rates on houses, as it was believed that the coalition government would retain office.

Tánaiste and Minister (1977–1981)
Fianna Fáil swept to power at the 1977 general election, with a 20-seat Dáil majority, contrary to opinion polls and political commentators. Colley was re-appointed as Minister for Finance and Minister for the Public Service, and was also appointed as Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister). The latter appointment established him firmly as the heir apparent to Taoiseach Jack Lynch.

During his second term as Finance Minister, Colley implemented controversial policies from the election manifesto. He immediately set about dismantling the previous government's capital taxation programme while also abolishing the wealth tax and diluting the capital gains and capital acquisitions taxes. His policy of low taxation and continued government investment resulted in massive foreign borrowing and a balance of payments deficit. In 1979, Fianna Fáil's economic policies were derailed due to strikes, higher wage demands, and the 1979 energy crisis. The introduction of a two percent levy on agricultural production angered some rural backbench TDs, and party tensions emerged.

In December 1979, Jack Lynch resigned unexpectedly as Taoiseach and as Fianna Fáil leader. It is said that Colley and his supporters encouraged Lynch to retire one month earlier than planned because he felt he had the support to win a leadership contest and that the quick decision would catch Charles Haughey and his supporters off guard.

Support for both candidates was evenly matched throughout the leadership contest. Colley had the backing of the majority of the Cabinet and the party hierarchy, while Haughey relied on support from the first-time backbenchers. A secret ballot was taken on Friday, 7 December 1979. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael O'Kennedy announced his support for Haughey on the eve of the election. This was believed to have swung the vote, and Haughey beat Colley by 44 votes to 38.

Colley remained as Tánaiste, but demanded and received a veto on Haughey's ministerial appointments to the departments of Justice and Defence. Colley was removed from his position as Minister for Finance and Minister for the Public Service. He declined the position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, preferring instead a domestic portfolio, which resulted in a demotion. He was temporarily appointed Minister for Transport and Tourism, before taking charge of the new Department of Energy. During his brief tenure, he blocked the Nuclear Energy Board's controversial plan to build a nuclear power plant at Carnsore Point in County Wexford.

Later career
Fianna Fáil lost power at the 1981 general election, when a short-lived Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition government took office. Haughey delayed naming a new opposition front bench, but Colley was still a key member of the Fianna Fáil hierarchy.

Fianna Fáil regained office at the February 1982 general election, but there was disquiet about Haughey's leadership and the failure to secure an overall majority. Colley demanded the same veto as before on Haughey's Defence and Justice appointments, but was refused. When it was revealed that Ray MacSharry would be appointed Tánaiste in his stead, he declined another ministerial position. This effectively brought his front bench political career to an end, but he remained a vocal critic of the party leadership from the backbenches.

When the Fianna Fáil government collapsed and were replaced by another coalition government after the November 1982 general election, a number of TDs and Senators expressed lack of confidence in Haughey's leadership once again. Several unsuccessful leadership challenges took place in late 1982 and early 1983, with Colley now supporting Desmond O'Malley and the Gang of 22 who opposed Haughey.

Later life and death
Colley met his future wife, Mary Doolan, on Irish-language courses in the Kerry Gaeltacht. They married on 27 September 1950 and had three sons and four daughters, one of whom, Anne Colley, became a TD as a member of the Progressive Democrats party.

Colley died suddenly on 17 September 1983, aged 57, while receiving treatment for a heart condition at Guy's Hospital, London.

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

title: George Colley


text:
George Saintsbury

George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, FBA (23 October 1845 – 28 January 1933), was an English critic, literary historian, editor, teacher, and wine connoisseur. He is regarded as a highly influential critic of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Biography
Born in Lottery Hall, Southampton, he was educated at King's College School, London, and at Merton College, Oxford, where he achieved a first class BA degree in Classical Mods, (1865), and a second class in literae humaniores (1867).

He left Oxford in 1868 having failed to obtain a fellowship, and briefly became a master at the Manchester Grammar School, before spending six years in Guernsey as senior classical master of Elizabeth College, where he began his literary career by submitting his first reviews to The Academy. From 1874 until he returned to London in 1876, he was headmaster of the Elgin Educational Institute, with a brief period in 1877 on The Manchester Guardian.

From the early 1880s, until 1894 he worked as a writer and subeditor for the Saturday Review. Some of the critical essays contributed to the literary journals were afterwards collected in his Essays in English Literature, Essays on French Novelists (1891), Miscellaneous Essays (1892), and Corrected Impressions (1895). In 1895, Saintsbury became professor of rhetoric and English literature at the University of Edinburgh, a position he held until 1915. During his time in Edinburgh, he was a member of the Scottish Arts Club.

In his retirement, he continued to write, while living at 1A Royal Crescent, Bath, Somerset. He died in 1933, at the age of 87, at Royal Crescent in Bath, Somerset.

Literary criticism
His first book, A Primer of French Literature (1880), and his Short History of French Literature (1882), were followed by a series of editions of French classics and of books and articles on the history of French literature, which made him the most prominent English authority on the subject. His studies in English literature were no less comprehensive, and included the valuable revision of Sir Walter Scott's edition of John Dryden's Works (Edinburgh, 18 vols., 1882–1893), Dryden (1881) in the "English Men of Letters" series, History of Elizabethan Literature (1887), History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1896), A Short History of English Literature (1898, 3rd ed. 1903 – and a book that continued to be reprinted at least into the 1960s), an edition of the Minor Poets of the Caroline Period (1905, 1906, 1921), a collection of rare poems of great value, and editions of English classics. He coined the term "Janeite" for a fan of Jane Austen in his introduction to an 1894 edition of Pride and Prejudice.

He wrote numerous articles on literary subjects (including Pierre Corneille, Daniel Defoe, Clément Marot, Michel de Montaigne, Jean Racine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire) for the ninth edition (1875–89) of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

In 1901 Saintsbury edited and introduced an English edition of Honoré de Balzac's novel series La Comédie humaine, translated by Ellen Marriage and published in 1895–98 by J. M. Dent.

For the publisher William Blackwood and Sons, he edited the series of Periods of European Literature, contributing volumes on The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (1897) and The Earlier Renaissance (1901).

Saintsbury subsequently produced some of his most important works: A History of Criticism (3 vols., 1900–1904), with the companion volume Loci Critici: Passages Illustrative of Critical Theory and Practice (Boston, Mass., and London, 1903), and A History of English Prosody from the 12th Century to the Present Day (i., 1906; ii., 1908; iii., 1910); also The Later Nineteenth Century (1909). These were followed by a History of English Prose Rhythm (1912), The English Novel (1913), A First Book of English Literature (1914), The Peace of the Augustans (1916), A History of the French Novel (2 volumes, 1917–9) and Notes on a Cellarbook (1920).

In 1925 he arranged for the publication of a lost recipe book by Anne Blencoe, which had been rediscovered in Weston Hall 200 years after her death. Saintsbury wrote a short introduction to the reissued book.

Wine
Although Saintsbury was best known during his lifetime as a scholar, he is also remembered today for his Notes on a Cellar-Book (1920), one of the great testimonials to drink and drinking in wine literature. When he was close to death, André Simon arranged a dinner in his honour. Although Saintsbury did not attend, this was the start of the Saintsbury Club, men of letters and members of the wine trade who continue to have dinners to this day.

Political views
Saintsbury espoused deeply conservative views in political and social matters. George Orwell calls him a 'confessed reactionary' in his 1937 book The Road to Wigan Pier and cites various extracts from the Scrapbooks which display Saintsbury's class-based disdain for the welfare state and paupers.

Legacy
T.S. Eliot dedicated the publication of his book Homage to John Dryden: Three Essays on the Poetry of the 17th Century (1924) to Saintsbury.

1A Royal Crescent, where Saintsbury lived from 1915 until his death in 1933, was the subject of a restoration and renovation programme by the Bath Preservation Trust during 2012 to reincorporate it into 1 Royal Crescent, of which it was the original servants' quarters. It opened to visitors for the first time in 2013. An exhibition celebrating Saintsbury's life was mounted in the house in 2014.

A biography of Saintsbury, written by Dorothy Richardson Jones and giving extensive commentary on his works, was published in 1992.

title: George Saintsbury


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Lime (fruit)

A lime is a citrus fruit, which is typically round, green in color, 3 – in diameter, and contains acidic juice vesicles.

There are several species of citrus trees whose fruits are called limes, including the Key lime (Citrus aurantiifolia), Persian lime, Makrut lime, calamansi limes, finger limes, blood limes, limequats, and desert lime. Limes are a rich source of vitamin C, are sour, and are often used to accent the flavours of foods and beverages. They are grown year-round. Plants with fruit called "limes" have diverse genetic origins; limes do not form a monophyletic group. The term lime originated in other languages (from French lime, from Arabic līma, from Persian līmū, "lemon").

Plants known as "lime"
The difficulty in identifying exactly which species of fruit are called lime in different parts of the English-speaking world (and the same problem applies to synonyms in other European languages) is increased by the botanical complexity of the citrus genus itself, to which the majority of limes belong. Species of this genus hybridise readily; only recently have genetic studies started to shed light on the structure of the genus. The majority of cultivated species are in reality hybrids, produced from the citron (Citrus medica), the mandarin orange (Citrus reticulata), the pomelo (Citrus maxima) and in particular with many lime varieties, the micrantha (Citrus hystrix var. micrantha).
 * Australian limes (former Microcitrus and Eremocitrus)
 * Australian desert lime (Citrus glauca)
 * Australian finger lime (Citrus australasica)
 * Australian lime (Citrus australis)
 * Blood lime (red finger lime × (sweet orange × mandarin))
 * Makrut lime (Citrus hystrix); a papeda relative, is one of the three most widely produced limes globally.
 * Key lime (Citrus × aurantiifolia=Citrus micrantha × Citrus medica ) is also one of the three most widely produced limes globally.
 * Philippine lime (Citrus × microcarpa), a kumquat × mandarin hybrid
 * Persian lime (Citrus × latifolia) a key lime × lemon hybrid, is the single most widely produced lime globally, with Mexico being the largest producer.
 * Rangpur lime (Mandarin lime, lemandarin, Citrus limonia), a mandarin orange × citron hybrid
 * Spanish lime (Melicoccus bijugatus); not a citrus
 * Sweet lime etc. (Citrus limetta, etc.); several distinct citrus hybrids
 * Wild lime (Adelia ricinella); not a citrus
 * Wild lime (Zanthoxylum fagara); not a citrus
 * Limequat (lime × kumquat)

Note that the tree species known in Britain as lime trees (Tilia sp.), called linden or basswood in other dialects of English, are broadleaf temperate plants unrelated to the citrus fruits.

History
Most species and hybrids of citrus plants called "limes" have varying origins within tropical Southeast Asia and South Asia. They were spread throughout the world via migration and trade. The makrut lime, in particular, was one of the earliest citrus fruits introduced to other parts of the world by humans. They were spread into Micronesia and Polynesia via the Austronesian expansion (c. 3000–1500 BCE). They were also later spread into Middle East, and the Mediterranean region via the spice trade and the incense trade routes from as early as ~1200 BCE.

To prevent scurvy during the 19th century, British sailors were issued a daily allowance of citrus, such as lemon, and later switched to lime. The use of citrus was initially a closely guarded military secret, as scurvy was a common scourge of various national navies, and the ability to remain at sea for lengthy periods without contracting the disorder was a huge benefit for the military. British sailors thus acquired the nickname "Limey" because of their use of limes.

Production
In 2022, world production of limes (combined with lemons for reporting) was 21.5 million tonnes, led by India, Mexico, and China as the major producers (table).

Culinary
Limes have higher contents of sugars and acids than lemons do. Lime juice may be squeezed from fresh limes, or purchased in bottles in both unsweetened and sweetened varieties. Lime juice is used to make limeade, and as an ingredient (typically as sour mix) in many cocktails.

Lime pickles are an integral part of Indian cuisine, especially in South India. In Kerala, the Onam Sadhya usually includes either lemon pickle or lime pickle. Other Indian preparations of limes include sweetened lime pickle, salted pickle, and lime chutney.

In cooking, lime is valued both for the acidity of its juice and the floral aroma of its zest. It is a common ingredient in authentic Mexican, Vietnamese and Thai dishes. Lime soup is a traditional dish from the Mexican state of Yucatan. It is also used for its pickling properties in ceviche. Some guacamole recipes call for lime juice.

The use of dried limes (called black lime or limoo) as a flavouring is typical of Persian cuisine, Iraqi cuisine, as well as in Eastern Arabian cuisine baharat (a spice mixture that is also called kabsa or kebsa).

Key lime gives the character flavoring to the American dessert known as Key lime pie. In Australia, desert lime is used for making marmalade.

Lime is an ingredient in several highball cocktails, often based on gin, such as gin and tonic, the gimlet and the Rickey. Freshly squeezed lime juice is also considered a key ingredient in margaritas, although sometimes lemon juice is substituted. It is also found in many rum cocktails such as the daiquiri, and other tropical drinks.

Lime extracts and lime essential oils are frequently used in perfumes, cleaning products, and aromatherapy.

Nutrition and phytochemicals
Raw limes are 88% water, 10% carbohydrates and less than 1% each of fat and protein (table). Only vitamin C content at 35% of the Daily Value (DV) per 100 g serving is significant for nutrition, with other nutrients present in low DV amounts (table). Lime juice contains slightly less citric acid than lemon juice (about 47 g/L), nearly twice the citric acid of grapefruit juice, and about five times the amount of citric acid found in orange juice.

Lime pulp and peel contain diverse phytochemicals, including polyphenols and terpenes.

Toxicity
Contact with lime peel or lime juice followed by exposure to ultraviolet light may lead to phytophotodermatitis,  which is sometimes called margarita photodermatitis  or lime disease (not to be confused with Lyme disease). Bartenders handling limes and other citrus fruits while preparing cocktails may develop phytophotodermatitis.

A class of organic chemical compounds called furanocoumarins are reported to cause phytophotodermatitis in humans. Limes contain numerous furanocoumarin compounds, including limettin (also called citropten), bergapten, isopimpinellin, xanthotoxin (also called methoxsalen), and psoralen. Bergapten appears to be the primary furanocoumarin compound responsible for lime-induced phytophotodermatitis.

Lime peel contains higher concentrations of furanocoumarins than lime pulp (by one or two orders of magnitude). Thus lime peels are considerably more phototoxic than lime pulp.

title: Lime (fruit)


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Talk:Kauniainen

Untitled
I am not sure I agree with Ruhrjung's edit changing description of Kauniainen from a "city" to a "small town". Yes, at ~8k inhabitants probably doesn't fit with what is usually understood as a city, but there is a strong historical background for appropriately terming Kauniainen a city. In Finland we have a distinction between standard municipalities and those that have earned the right to use the title city. My understanding is that this is mostly symbolic with no legal differentiation. Thus Kauniainen was founded in 1906, in 1920 it acquired the title of a "kauppala" (would translate as a "small market town") and then in 1972 the title city. I would prefer to reverse the edit to "small town" as the ~8k inhabitants is sufficient to bring out the small town flavour. - Tuomas Toivonen 11:49 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * This is a good point (even in 2012 since the article still says 'small town'). In many countries the distinction between 'city' and 'town' is not related to their size, even though cities are usually bigger. There are towns bigger than cities in many other countries too, like Britain. Kauniainen is officially a city regardless of its size.85.157.155.247 (talk) 08:32, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Although this discussion is several years old, I would like to state that the Finnish word "kaupunki" makes no difference between town and city. "Kauppala" is indeed translated as "market town", but that is not the same as "town" or even "a small town". According to my understanding "city" is generally thought to mean a relatively large and densely populated urban centre, whereas "town" refers to smaller places, like for example Kauniainen. Niera (talk) 18:47, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Kauniainen is awesome! I lived there for several years, it's a great place to reside in the Helsinki area. Go Grani! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.252.4.21 (talk) 05:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The name Kanninen
Is there any relation between this city and the name Kanninen? Mathiastck 22:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * LOL --Vuo 19:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No. –Mysid(t) 09:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Drat. Well can you tell me anything about said name? :) Mathiastck 01:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, to me it's just an ordinary surname. Add dots on top of the a, Känninen, and it means "drunken". –Mysid(t) 06:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Some background info:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/world/europe/finland-happiness-social-services.html "It’s Cold, Dark and Lacks Parking. But Is This Finnish Town the World’s Happiest?"

"Finland was named the world’s happiest country by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in April, based on polling results from 156 nations. And a second survey found that Kauniainen’s 9,600 residents were the most satisfied in Finland, leading the local mayor, Christoffer Masar, to joke that theirs was the happiest town on earth."

http://www.unz.com/isteve/worlds-happiest-town-lacks-diversity "How Can World's Happiest Town Lack Diversity?"

"Kauniainen is not an ordinary town, it is a private community for the super wealthy that pretends to be a small town (it still has some legacy ordinary residents like farmer families who have owned land for generations there). It is the richest town in Finland by a large margin. Here’s a list of all municipalities in Finland by per capita income (it’s in Finnish but you can just look at the list, note that they bolded and separated Kauniainen at the top for whatever reason):"

https://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/a/2015121920856681 --tickle me 00:49, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

 * The Iltalehti link doesn't work for me. The best average income about €70,000 in 2010 was at Espoo Westend area code FI-02160. Kauniainen is 'rich' (houses there are slightly on the large / expensive side) but the average income is not huge though. Average, median and other such statistics are needed to qualify this. Note that the least making area code (student-rich Otaniemi, also in Espoo) made less than 25% of what Westend did per capita. https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/tiesitko-tama-postinumero-on-suomen-koyhin/3199264 --91.153.156.132 (talk) 12:37, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kauniainen


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Human Development Index

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, which is used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher level of HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.

The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for this inequality), while the HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development (or the maximum level of HDI) that could be achieved if there was no inequality."

The index is based on the human development approach, developed by Mahbub ul-Haq, anchored in Amartya Sen's work on human capabilities, and often framed in terms of whether people are able to "be" and "do" desirable things in life. Examples include — being: well fed, sheltered, and healthy; doing: work, education, voting, participating in community life. The freedom of choice is considered central — someone choosing to be hungry (e.g. when fasting for religious reasons) is considered different from someone who is hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or because the country is going through a famine.

The index does not take into account several factors, such as the net wealth per capita or the relative quality of goods in a country. This situation tends to lower the ranking of some of the most developed countries, such as the G7 members and others.

Origins
The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). These annual reports were devised and launched by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq in 1990, and had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies". He believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed to convince the public, academics and politicians that they can, and should, evaluate development not only by economic advances but also improvements in human well-being.

New method (2010 HDI onwards)
[[File:Human Development Index regions evolution 1990-2021-fr.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|HDI trends between 1990 and 2021

]]

Published on 4 November 2010 (and updated on 10 June 2011), the 2010 Human Development Report calculated the HDI combining three dimensions:

In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI. The following three indices are used:
 * A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth
 * Education: Mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling
 * A decent standard of living: GNI per capita (PPP international dollars)

1. Life Expectancy Index (LEI) $$= \frac{\textrm{LE} - 20}{85-20}$$$$= \frac{\textrm{LE} - 20}{65}$$
 * LEI is equal to 1 when life expectancy at birth is 85 years, and 0 when life expectancy at birth is 20 years.

2. Education Index (EI) $$= \frac {2}$$
 * 2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI) $$= \frac{\textrm{MYS}}{15}$$
 * Fifteen is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025.
 * 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) $$= \frac{\textrm{EYS}}{18}$$
 * Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a master's degree in most countries.

3. Income Index (II) $$= \frac{\ln(\textrm{GNIpc}) - \ln(100)}{\ln(75,000) - \ln(100)}$$$$= \frac{\ln(\textrm{GNIpc}) - \ln(100)}{\ln(750)}$$
 * II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100.

Finally, the HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices:

$$\textrm{HDI} = \sqrt[3]{\textrm{LEI}\cdot \textrm{EI} \cdot \textrm{II}}.$$

LE: Life expectancy at birth

MYS: Mean years of schooling (i.e. years that a person aged 25 or older has spent in formal education)

EYS: Expected years of schooling (i.e. total expected years of schooling for children under 18 years of age, incl. young men and women aged 13–17)

GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita

Old method (HDI before 2010)
The HDI combined three dimensions last used in its 2009 report:

 * Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity to HDI
 * Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
 * Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.

[[File:Human Development Index trends.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|HDI trends between 1975 and 2004

]]

This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report.

The formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In general, to transform a raw variable, say $$x$$, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used:

 * $$x\text{ index} = \frac{x - a}{b - a}$$

where $$a$$ and $$b$$ are the lowest and highest values the variable $$x$$ can attain, respectively.

The Human Development Index (HDI) then represents the uniformly weighted sum with $1/3$ contributed by each of the following factor indices:

 * Life Expectancy Index $$= \frac{LE - 25} {85-25}$$$$= \frac{LE - 25} {60}$$
 * Education Index = $$\frac{2} {3} \times ALI + \frac{1} {3} \times GEI$$
 * Adult Literacy Index (ALI)$$\frac{ALR - 0} {100 - 0}$$$$= \frac{ALR} {100}$$
 * Gross Enrollment Index (GEI) $$\frac{CGER - 0} {100 - 0}$$$$=\frac{CGER} {100}$$
 * GDP $$= \frac{\log\left(GDPpc\right) - \log\left(100\right)} {\log\left(40000\right) - \log\left(100\right)}$$$$= \frac{\log\left(GDPpc\right) - \log\left(100\right)} {\log\left(400\right)}$$

2022 Human Development Index (2024 report)
The Human Development Report 2023/24 by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 13 March 2024; the report calculates HDI values based on data collected in 2022.

Ranked from 1 to 69 in the year 2022, the following countries are considered to be of "very high human development":

Past top countries
The list below displays the top-ranked country from each year of the Human Development Index. Norway has been ranked the highest sixteen times, Canada eight times, and Switzerland, Japan, and Iceland have each ranked twice.

In each original HDI
The year represents the time period from which the statistics for the index were derived. In parentheses is the year when the report was published. • 2022 (2024): 🇨🇭 switzerland

• 2021 (2022): 🇨🇭 switzerland

• 2019 (2020): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2018 (2019): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2017 (2018): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2015 (2016): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2014 (2015): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2013 (2014): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2012 (2013): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2011 (2011): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2010 (2010): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2007 (2009): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2006 (2008): 🇮🇸 iceland

• 2005 (2007): 🇮🇸 iceland

• 2004 (2006): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2003 (2005): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2002 (2004): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2001 (2003): 🇳🇴 norway

• 2000 (2002): 🇳🇴 norway

• 1999 (2001): 🇳🇴 norway

• 1998 (2000): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1997 (1999): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1995 (1998): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1994 (1997): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1993 (1996): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1992 (1995): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1994 (1994): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1993 (1993): 🇯🇵 japan

• 1990 (1992): 🇨🇦 canada

• 1990 (1991): 🇯🇵 japan

Geographical coverage
The HDI has extended its geographical coverage: David Hastings, of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, published a report geographically extending the HDI to 230+ economies, whereas the UNDP HDI for 2009 enumerates 182 economies and coverage for the 2010 HDI dropped to 169 countries.

Country/region specific HDI lists

 * Afghan Regions
 * Angolan Provinces
 * African countries
 * Albanian Counties
 * Algerian Regions
 * Argentine provinces
 * Armenian provinces
 * Australian states
 * Austrian states
 * Azerbaijani regions
 * Baltic Regions
 * Bangladeshi districts and divisions
 * Belgian provinces
 * Bolivian departments
 * Bosnia and Herzegovina regions
 * Brazilian states
 * Canadian provinces and territories
 * Chilean regions
 * Chinese administrative divisions
 * Colombian departments
 * Croatian counties
 * Danish regions
 * Dutch provinces
 * Egyptian governorates
 * Ethiopian regions
 * European countries
 * French regions
 * German states
 * Georgian regions
 * Greek regions
 * Indian states
 * Tamil Nadu districts (India)
 * Indonesian provinces
 * Iranian provinces
 * Iraqi governorates
 * Italian regions
 * Kazakhstan regions
 * Japanese prefectures
 * Latin American countries
 * Malaysian states
 * Mexican states
 * Nepalese provinces
 * New Zealand regions
 * Nigerian states
 * Norwegian regions
 * Pakistani administrative units
 * Philippine provinces
 * Palestinian regions
 * Polish voivodeships
 * Romanian regions
 * Russian federal subjects
 * Serbian Regions
 * South African provinces
 * South Korean regions
 * Spanish communities
 * Swedish regions
 * Syrian governorates
 * Swiss regions
 * Thai regions
 * Turkish regions
 * UK regions
 * Ukrainian regions
 * U.S. states (American Human Development Report (AHDR))
 * Venezuelan states
 * Vietnamese regions

Criticism
The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including alleged lack of consideration of technological development or contributions to human civilization, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, lack of attention to development from a global perspective, measurement error of the underlying statistics, and on the UNDP's changes in formula which can lead to severe misclassification of "low", "medium", "high" or "very high" human development countries.

There have also been various criticism towards the lack of consideration regarding sustainability (which later got addressed by the planetary pressures-adjusted HDI), and towards social inequality (which got addressed by the inequality-adjusted HDI)

Sources of data error
Economists Hendrik Wolff, Howard Chong and Maximilian Auffhammer discuss the HDI from the perspective of data error in the underlying health, education and income statistics used to construct the HDI. They have identified three sources of data error which are: (i) data updating, (ii) formula revisions and (iii) thresholds to classify a country's development status. They conclude that 11%, 21% and 34% of all countries can be interpreted as currently misclassified in the development bins due to the three sources of data error, respectively. Wolff, Chong and Auffhammer suggest that the United Nations should discontinue the practice of classifying countries into development bins because the cut-off values seem arbitrary, and the classifications can provide incentives for strategic behavior in reporting official statistics, as well as having the potential to misguide politicians, investors, charity donors and the public who use the HDI at large.

In 2010, the UNDP reacted to the criticism by updating the thresholds to classify nations as low, medium, and high human development countries. In a comment to The Economist in early January 2011, the Human Development Report Office responded to an article published in the magazine on 6 January 2011 which discusses the Wolff et al. paper. The Human Development Report Office states that they undertook a systematic revision of the methods used for the calculation of the HDI, and that the new methodology directly addresses the critique by Wolff et al. in that it generates a system for continuously updating the human-development categories whenever formula or data revisions take place.

In 2013, Salvatore Monni and Alessandro Spaventa emphasized that in the debate of GDP versus HDI, it is often forgotten that these are both external indicators that prioritize different benchmarks upon which the quantification of societal welfare can be predicated. The larger question is whether it is possible to shift the focus of policy from a battle between competing paradigms to a mechanism for eliciting information on well-being directly from the population.

Indices

 * Gross National Happiness
 * Broad measures of economic progress
 * Corruption Perceptions Index
 * Democracy indices
 * Fragile States Index
 * Gender Inequality Index
 * Gender Development Index
 * Genuine progress indicator (GPI)
 * Global Peace Index (GPI)
 * Green gross domestic product (Green GDP)
 * Green national product
 * Gross National Well-being (GNW)
 * Happy Planet Index (HPI)
 * Human Poverty Index
 * Legatum Prosperity Index
 * Living Planet Index
 * Multidimensional Poverty Index
 * OECD Better Life Index (BLI)
 * List of countries by planetary pressures–adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI)
 * World Press Freedom Index
 * Rule of Law Index
 * Social Progress Index
 * Where-to-be-born Index
 * World Happiness Report

Other

 * Developing country
 * Economic development
 * Ethics of care
 * Happiness economics
 * Human Development and Capability Association
 * Humanistic economics
 * International development
 * List of sovereign states by percentage of population living in poverty
 * List of countries by share of income of the richest one percent
 * Right to an adequate standard of living
 * Life satisfaction
 * Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

title: Human Development Index


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User talk:Fantasy/Wiki-homepage

This is more of a prtoal than a main page -- Tarquin 11:56 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Fantasy/Wiki-homepage


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Australian lime

Australian limes are species of the plant genus Citrus that are native to Australia and Papua New Guinea.

These species were formerly included in the genera Microcitrus and Eremocitrus. They have been used as a food source by indigenous Australians and Indigenous New Guineans as well as early settlers and are used in modern Australian cuisine, including marmalade and sauces.

Species include:

Natural species

 * Citrus australasica (Finger lime), a species from rainforest regions of northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland with elongated yellow-green to purple fruits. Citrus australasica green fruit1.JPG]]
 * Citrus australis (Round lime or Dooja), a species from south-eastern Australia with round, green fruits
 * Citrus glauca (Desert lime), from arid areas of inland Australia. Small round fruits are produced in summer. Citrus glauca fruit.jpg]]
 * Citrus garrawayi, (Mount White lime) is rare and endemic to the Cook District of Cape York Peninsula.
 * Citrus gracilis (Kakadu lime or Humpty Doo lime) grows in eucalypt woodland in the Northern Territory and was first described in the scientific literature in 1998.
 * Citrus inodora (Russell River lime or large-leaf Australian wild lime) is rare, and endemic to northern Queensland.
 * Citrus maideniana (Maiden's Australian wild lime) may be a subspecies of C. inodora.

Cultivars
A number of cultivars have been developed in recent years. These can be grafted on to standard citrus rootstocks. They may be grown as ornamental trees in the garden or in containers. Grafted standards are available for some varieties. The cultivars include:
 * 'Australian Outback' (or 'Australian Desert'), developed from several desert lime varieties
 * 'Australian Red Centre' (or 'Australian Blood' or Blood Lime), a cross of finger lime and a mandarin-lemon or mandarin-sweet orange hybrid
 * 'Australian Sunrise', a hybrid cross of finger lime and a calomondin which is pear shaped and orange inside
 * 'Rainforest Pearl', a pink-fruited form of finger lime from Bangalow, New South Wales
 * 'Sunrise Lime ', parentage unknown
 * 'Outback Lime', a desert lime cultivar

Species from Papua New Guinea

 * Citrus warburgiana (Kakamadu or New Guinea wild lime) grows on the south coast of the Papuan Peninsula near Alotau (pictures).
 * Citrus wakonai (also locally called kakamadu) has been reported from Goodenough Island.
 * Citrus wintersii, also known as Citrus papuana (Brown River finger lime) has, as the name suggests, a small, thin fruit, pointed at both ends (pictures, more pictures). It grows near Port Moresby.
 * Clymenia sp. are native to the Bismarck Archipelago but are cultivated in other areas. Clymenia is now often considered to belong within the citrus genus.
 * Clymenia platypoda
 * Clymenia polyandra has a lemon-sized round fruit, pointed at one end (pictures).

Citrus species in Papua New Guinea have not been extensively studied, so the true number of species is unknown.

Identification
An identification key (p. 6 or 338) exists for the known Australian limes (not including species from Papua New Guinea). The leaves of some species broaden dramatically with age.

title: Australian lime


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Tilia

Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they are commonly called lime trees, although they are not related to the citrus lime. The genus occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but the greatest species diversity is found in Asia. Under the Cronquist classification system, this genus was placed in the family Tiliaceae, but genetic research summarised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has resulted in the incorporation of this genus, and of most of the previous family, into the Malvaceae.

Tilia species are mostly large, deciduous trees, reaching typically 20 to 40 m tall, with oblique-cordate (heart-shaped) leaves 6 to 20 cm across. As with elms, the exact number of species is uncertain, as many of the species can hybridise readily, both in the wild and in cultivation. They are hermaphroditic, having perfect flowers with both male and female parts, pollinated by insects.

Tilia is the only known ectomycorrhizal genus in the family Malvaceae. Studies of ectomycorrhizal relations of Tilia species indicate a wide range of fungal symbionts and a preference toward Ascomycota fungal partners.

Name
The genus is generally called "lime" or "linden" in Britain and "linden", "lime", or "basswood" in North America.

"Lime" is an altered form of Middle English lind, in the 16th century also line, from Old English feminine lind or linde, Proto-Germanic *lindō (cf. Dutch /German Linde, plural Linden), cognate to Latin lentus "flexible" and Sanskrit latā "liana". Within Germanic languages, English "lithe" and Dutch /German lind for "lenient, yielding" are from the same root.

"Linden" was originally the adjective, "made from linwood or lime-wood" (equivalent to "wooden" or "oaken"); from the late 16th century, "linden" was also used as a noun, probably influenced by translations of German romance, as an adoption of Linden, the plural of Linde in Dutch and German. Neither the name nor the tree is related to Citrus genus species and hybrids that go by the same name, such as Key limes (Citrus × aurantifolia). Another common name used in North America is basswood, derived from bast, the name for the inner bark (see Uses, below). Teil is an old name for the lime tree.

Latin tilia is cognate to Greek πτελέᾱ, ptelea, "elm tree", τιλίαι, tiliai, "black poplar" (Hes.), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European word *ptel-ei̯ā with a meaning of "broad" (feminine); perhaps "broad-leaved" or similar.

Description

The Tilia sturdy trunk stands like a pillar and the branches divide and subdivide into numerous ramifications on which the twigs are fine and thick. In summer, these are profusely clothed with large leaves and the result is a dense head of abundant foliage.

The leaves of all the Tilia species are heart-shaped, and most are asymmetrical. The tiny, pea-like fruit hangs attached to a ribbon-like, greenish-yellow bract whose apparent purpose is to launch the ripened seed clusters just a little beyond the parent tree. The flowers of the European and American Tilia species are similar, except the American ones bear a petal-like scale among their stamens and the European varieties are devoid of these appendages. All of the Tilia species may be propagated by cuttings and grafting, as well as by seed. They grow rapidly in rich soil, but are subject to the attack of many insects. Tilia is notoriously difficult to propagate from seed unless collected fresh in fall. If allowed to dry, the seeds go into a deep dormancy and take 18 months to germinate.

In particular, aphids are attracted by the rich supply of sap, and are in turn often "farmed" by ants for the production of the sap, which the ants collect for their own use, and the result can often be a dripping of excess sap onto the lower branches and leaves, and anything else below. Cars left under the trees can quickly become coated with a film of the syrup ("honeydew") thus dropped from higher up. The ant/aphid "farming" process does not appear to cause any serious damage to the trees.

History

In Europe, some linden trees reached considerable ages. A coppice of T. cordata in Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire is estimated to be 2,000 years old. In the courtyard of the Imperial Castle at Nuremberg is a Tilia, which by tradition recounted in 1900, was planted by the Empress Cunigunde, the wife of Henry II of Germany circa 1000. The Tilia of Neuenstadt am Kocher in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, was estimated at 1000 years old when it fell. The Alte Linde tree of Naters, Switzerland, is mentioned in a document in 1357 and described by the writer at that time as already magnam (large). A plaque at its foot mentions that in 1155, a linden tree was already on this spot. The Najevnik linden tree (Najevska lipa), a 700-year-old T. cordata, is the thickest tree in Slovenia. Next to the 英華殿/Yinghua Temple in the Forbidden City in Beijing, there are two Tilia trees planted by Empress Dowager Li, the biological mother of Wanli Emperor about five hundred years ago.

 * The excellence of the honey of the far-famed Hyblaean Mountains was due to the linden trees that covered its sides and crowned its summit.
 * Lime fossils have been found in the Tertiary formations of Grinnell Land, Canada, at 82°N latitude, and in Svalbard, Norway. Sapporta believed he had found there the common ancestor of the Tilia species of Europe and America.

Uses

The linden is recommended as an ornamental tree when a mass of foliage or a deep shade is desired. It produces fragrant and nectar-producing flowers and is an important honey plant for beekeepers, giving rise to a pale but richly flavoured monofloral honey. In European and North American herbal medicine, the flowers are also used for herbal teas and tinctures. The flowers are used for herbal tea in the winter in the Balkans. In China, dried Tilia flowers are also used to make tea.

In English landscape gardens, avenues of linden trees were fashionable, especially during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Many country houses have a surviving "lime avenue" or "lime walk", the example at Hatfield House was planted between 1700 and 1730. The fashion was derived from the earlier practice of planting lindens in lines as shade trees in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France. Most of the trees used in British gardens were cultivars propagated by layering in the Netherlands.

Wood

Linden trees produce soft and easily worked timber, which has very little grain and a density of 560 kg/m3. It was often used by Germanic tribes for constructing shields. It is a popular wood for model building and for intricate carving. Especially in Germany, it was the classic wood for sculpture from the Middle Ages onwards and is the material for the elaborate altarpieces of Veit Stoss, Tilman Riemenschneider, and many others. In England, it was the favoured medium of the sculptor Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721). The wood is used in marionette- and puppet-making and -carving. Having a fine, light grain and being comparatively light in weight, it has been used for centuries for this purpose; despite the availability of modern alternatives, it remains one of the main materials used. In China, it was also widely used in carving or furniture, interior decorating, handicrafts, etc.

Ease of working and good acoustic properties also make limewood popular for electric and bass guitar bodies and for wind instruments such as recorders. Percussion manufacturers sometimes use Tilia as a material for drum shells, both to enhance their sound and for their aesthetics.

Linden wood is also the material of choice for window blinds and shutters. Real-wood blinds are often made from this lightweight but strong and stable wood, which is well suited to natural and stained finishes.

In China, 冻蘑/"dongmo" grows well on decomposing logs of Tilia trees in the old-growth forest; therefore, people use logs of Tilia trees to cultivate S. edulis and even Black fungus or shiitake mushrooms with excellent results. Currently, "椴木黑木耳/Tilia-logs-black fungus" or "椴木香菇/Tilia-logs-shiitake mushrooms" has become a term for a method of cultivating black fungus and shiitake mushrooms and "椴木/Tilia-logs" no longer exclusively refers to Tilia tree wood but also to other woods suitable for black fungus or shiitake mushrooms cultivation.

In Russian, "linden-made" (липовый, lipoviy) is a term for forgery, due to the popularity of the material for making forged seals in the past centuries.

Bark
Known in the trade as basswood, particularly in North America, its name originates from the inner fibrous bark of the tree, known as bast. A strong fibre is obtained from the tree by peeling off the bark and soaking it in water for a month, after which the inner fibres can be easily separated. Bast obtained from the inside of the bark of the Tilia japonica tree has been used by the Ainu people of Japan to weave their traditional clothing, the attus. Excavations in Britain have shown that lime tree fibre was preferred for clothing there during the Bronze Age. The Manchu people in the mountains of Northeast China made ropes, baskets, raincoats, large fishing nets, and guide lines for gunpowder from the bast. Similar fibres obtained from other plants are also called bast: see Bast fibre.

Nectar
Tilia is a high-quality wild honey plant. In China, "椴树蜜/Tilia honey" is produced in the northeast region. White in color, it is called "white honey" or "snow honey". Heilongjiang is well-known throughout the country for producing high-quality "Tilia honey": Heilongjiang not only has lush Tilia trees, but also a rare and excellent bee species - "东北黑蜂/Northeast Black Bee" to collect honey（Raohe County is the location of the national "东北黑蜂自然保护区/Northeast Black Bee Nature Reserve". It is the only nature reserve for bees in Asia. ). "Tilia honey" mainly comes from Tilia amurensis and Tilia mandshurica. "Tilia honey" and southern "longan honey" and "lychee honey" are called "China's three famous honeys". "Tilia honey", "rape honey" and "black acacia honey" are the three most productive honeys in China.

Phytochemicals
The dried flowers are mildly sweet and sticky, and the fruit is somewhat sweet and mucilaginous. Linden flower tea has a pleasing taste, due to the aromatic volatile oil found in the flowers. Phytochemicals in the Tilia flowers include flavonoids and tannins with astringent properties.

The nectar contains a major secondary metabolite with the trivial name tiliaside (1-[4-(1-hydroxy-1-methylethyl)-1,3-cyclohexadiene-1-carboxylate]-6-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-β-D-glucopyranose) which is transformed in the gut of bumblebees to the aglycone (i.e., the gentiobiose group is cleaved) which is bioactive against a common and debilitating gut parasite of bumblebees, Crithidia bombi. This naturally occurring compound may support bees to manage the burden of disease - one of the major contributors to pollinator decline.

Other uses
A beverage made from dried linden leaves and flowers is brewed and consumed as a folk medicine and relaxant in many Balkan countries, including Serbia and Greece. Usually, the double-flowered species are used to make perfumes. The leaf buds and young leaves are also edible raw.

Tilia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on Tilia.

Classification

This list comprises the most widely accepted species, hybrids, and cultivars".

Species

 * Tilia americana L. – American basswood, American linden
 * Tilia amurensis – Amur lime, Amur linden
 * Tilia caroliniana – Carolina basswood
 * Tilia chinensis – Chinese linden
 * Tilia chingiana Hu & W.C.Cheng
 * Tilia cordata Mill. – Small-leaved lime, little-leaf linden or greenspire linden
 * Tilia dasystyla Steven
 * Tilia henryana Szyszyl. – Henry's lime, Henry's linden
 * Tilia hupehensis – Hubei lime
 * Tilia insularis
 * Tilia intonsa
 * Tilia japonica – Japanese lime, shina (when used as a laminate)
 * †Tilia johnsoni Wolfe & Wehr Eocene; Washington and British Columbia
 * Tilia kiusiana
 * Tilia mandshurica – Manchurian lime
 * Tilia maximowicziana
 * Tilia miqueliana
 * Tilia mongolica Maxim. – Mongolian lime, Mongolian linden
 * Tilia nasczokinii – Nasczokin's lime, Nasczokin's linden
 * Tilia nobilis – noble lime
 * Tilia officinarum
 * Tilia oliveri – Oliver's lime
 * Tilia paucicostata
 * Tilia platyphyllos Scop. – large-leaved lime
 * Tilia rubra – Red stem lime (syn. T. platyphyllos var. rubra)
 * Tilia tomentosa Moench – silver lime, silver linden
 * Tilia tuan Szyszyl.

Hybrids and cultivars

 * Tilia × euchlora (T. dasystyla × T. cordata)
 * Tilia × europaea – Common lime (T. cordata × T. platyphyllos; syn. T. × vulgaris)
 * Tilia × petiolaris (T. tomentosa × T. ?)
 * Tilia 'Flavescens' – Glenleven linden (T. americana × T. cordata)
 * Tilia 'Moltkei' (T. americana × T. petiolaris)
 * Tilia 'Orbicularis' (hybrid, unknown origin)
 * Tilia 'Spectabilis' (hybrid, unknown origin)

title: Tilia


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Giant Robot

Giant Robot may refer to:

 * Giant Robot (magazine), magazine of Asian American popular culture
 * Mecha, a piloted or remote-controlled limbed vehicle in science fiction, particularly Japanese anime and manga
 * Giant Robot Week, week-long event that aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami in 2003

Music

 * Giant Robot (Buckethead album), 1994 solo album by Buckethead
 * Giant Robot, 1996 album by Buckethead with the band Giant Robot

title: Giant Robot


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List of companies of the Netherlands

The Netherlands is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three island territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing maritime borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. The port of Rotterdam is the world's largest port outside East-Asia, and by far the largest port in Europe.

The Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund.

For further information on the types of business entities in this country and their abbreviations, see "Business entities in Netherlands".

Largest firms
This list shows firms in the Fortune Global 500, which ranks firms by total revenues reported before March 31, 2017. Only the top five firms (if available) are included as a sample.

Notable firms
This list includes notable companies with primary headquarters located in the country. The industry and sector follow the Industry Classification Benchmark taxonomy. Organizations which have ceased operations are included and noted as defunct.

title: List of companies of the Netherlands


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Hector Hodler Library

The Hector Hodler Library is one of the largest Esperanto libraries, with approximately 30,000 books in addition to periodicals, manuscripts, photos, music, and other collections. It occupies three rooms in the central office of the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

The Swiss Esperanto Society opened the library in Switzerland in 1908. In 1912, the library came into the possession of Hector Hodler, the founder of UEA, and after Hodler's death in 1920 the library remained under the management of UEA in Switzerland. In 1947, the library was renamed the Hector Hodler Library, and when UEA headquarters relocated to Rotterdam, the library was moved there in 1960.

By 2004, the library held over 15,000 volumes.

Other major collections of Esperanto books are at the International Esperanto Museum, the Montagu C. Butler Library, the Center for Documentation and Study about the International Language in Switzerland, and the German Esperanto Library.

title: Hector Hodler Library


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İskenderun

İskenderun (إسكندرونة), historically known as Alexandretta (Αλεξανδρέττα, lit. 'little Alexandria') and Scanderoon,  is a municipality and district of Hatay Province, Turkey. Its area is 247 km2, and its population is 251,682 (2022). It is on the Mediterranean coast. Located on an alluvial plain, the city was heavily damaged by powerful earthquakes in February 2023 and subsequent aftershocks, floods and fires.

The city's history dates back to 333 BC, when it was founded by Alexander the Great as Alexandretta. It subsequently fell under Seleucid rule before being conquered by the Romans. After defeating the Byzantines in the 8th century, the Abbasid Caliphate gained control of the city. During the First Crusade, it came under the control of the Principality of Antioch before being captured by the Mamluk Sultanate.

By the 15th century, the Ottomans had conquered the city, maintaining control over it until the partition of the Ottoman Empire after the Allied victory in World War I. It subsequently became a sanjak in the French mandate of Syria until 1938, when France granted the region independence. The city became part of the Hatay State which in turn united with Turkey in 1939.

Name
The city was founded as Alexandria (Ἀλεξάνδρεια) to commemorate Alexander the Great's victory over the Persian Darius III at Issus (Cilicia) in (333 BC). Starting in the Middle Ages, Western pilgrims used the diminutive Romance form Alexandretta.

Antiquity
İskenderun preserves the name, but probably not the exact site, of Alexandria ad Issum. The settlement was so called having been founded by Alexander the Great in 333 BC to supersede Myriandus as the key to the Syrian Gates, about 37 km (23 miles) south of the scene of his victory at the Battle of Issus against the Persian King Darius III. Alexander camped in the highlands of İskenderun, around Esentepe, and then ordered the city to be established and named Alexandria. İskenderun is one of many cities founded on Alexander's orders, including Alexandria, Egypt. A memorial, a monument and a bronze statue for the victory were raised at the city, and Herodian writes that they were there even during his time, c. 200 AD.

The importance of the place comes from its relation to the aforesaid Syrian Gates, the easiest approach to the open ground of Hatay Province and Aleppo. Because of its hilly, rough surroundings, the city also went by the name of Alexandria Scabiosa ('Alexandria the Mountainous').

Ecclesiastical history
The bishopric of Alexandria Minor was a suffragan of Anazarbus, the capital and so also the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Roman province of Cilicia Secunda. Greek menologia speak of Saint Helenus, and the martyr saints Aristio and Theodore as early bishops of the See. But the first documented one is Hesychius, who took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and in a synod at Antioch in 341. Philomusus participated in the First Council of Constantinople in 381. Baranes is mentioned in connection with a synod at Antioch in 445. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Julianus was represented by his metropolitan, Cyrus of Anazarbus. Basilius was at the synod in Constantinople in 459 that condemned simoniacs. In 518, Paulus was deposed by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian for supporting the Jacobite Severus of Antioch.

No longer a residential diocese, Alexandria Minor is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. In that list it was long named Cambysopolis, but the Annuario Pontificio now gives the correct ancient name.

Ottoman era
There was fighting here under the Ottoman Empire: in 1606 the army of General Kuyucu Murat Pasha suppressed the Jelali revolts. The Ottomans continued to fortify the city, and the remains of the early 17th-century Ottoman castle walls can still be seen where the Güzün stream crosses the Varyant road. The city was well described in 1675 by the English naval chaplain Henry Teonge in his diary. The next army to cross the Belen Pass and attack Anatolia through here were the Egyptians of Muhammad Ali in 1832.

However, in the later Ottoman period the city developed as the main port on the Mediterranean for the overland trade from Baghdad and India, which had great importance until the establishment of the Egyptian overland route. Alexandretta served as a base, first for Genoese and Venetian merchants, then Western and Northern European merchants. The British Levant Company maintained an agency and factory here for 200 years, until 1825, in spite of high mortality among its employees because of regional disease, some due to lack of sanitation systems. During the 19th century the port grew, and the road to Aleppo was improved. Sanitation was also improved, and the railway was built in 1912.

At the outset of World War I, when Britain was contemplating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, Lord Kitchener considered the conquest of Alexandretta to be essential in providing Britain with a port and railhead from which to access Iraq. He proposed a new railway be built to the east from Alexandretta, which would greatly reduce the time for reaching India from the UK. The De Bunsen Committee (8 April – 30 June 1915), a British inter-departmental group which was set up to discuss the issue in greater detail, preferred Haifa for this purpose.

Ultimately the British decided not to attack the Ottoman Empire via Alexandretta. On 8 February 1915 the French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, protested to Britain's Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey about such an attack, citing a commitment that Britain made in 1912 that it had no designs on Syria. The German field marshal, Hindenburg, later said that "Perhaps not the whole course of the war, but certainly the fate of our Ottoman Ally, could have been settled out of hand, if England had secured a decision in that region, or even seriously attempted it. Possession of the country south of the Tauras [mountains] would have been lost to Turkey at a blow if the English had succeeded in landing at Alexandretta." Armenians, who have maintained a cultural and economic presence in Iskenderun for centuries, most notably due to trade, were wiped out in the Hamidian Massacres, Adana Massacres, and the Armenian genocide, after centuries of discrimination.

Republic of Hatay
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, most of Hatay including İskenderun was occupied by French troops.

In July 1920 the San Remo conference did not assign Alexandretta sanjak to Turkey. Between 1921 and 1937, the city was part of the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta within French-controlled Syria, under the League of Nations French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon.

The Republic of Hatay was founded in 1938 and, in 1939, it joined the Republic of Turkey after a referendum. The referendum was, and still is, regarded as illegitimate, as the Turkish government moved supporters into the city and the Turkish Army "expelled most of the province's Alawite Arabs, Greek and Armenian majority" to decide the referendum result.

In the 2010s Syria still claimed against Turkey its sovereignty on the Alexandretta region.

Modern era
At the 2013 reorganisation, İskenderun district lost a large part of its territory to the new district Arsuz.

In February 2023, the city was heavily damaged by powerful earthquakes and subsequent floods and fires. On 8 February 2023, the fire at the Port of Iskenderun was extinguished but broke out again the next day.

Geography
İskenderun is located on the eastern Mediterranean coast on the Gulf of İskenderun, at the foot of the Nur Mountains (Amanos Mountains).

Composition
There are 45 neighbourhoods in İskenderun District:

 * Akarca
 * Akçay
 * Aşkarbeyli
 * Azganlık
 * Barbaros
 * Barıştepe
 * Bekbele
 * Bitişik
 * Buluttepe
 * Büyükdere
 * Çay
 * Cebike
 * Çınarlı
 * Cırtıman
 * Cumhuriyet
 * Denizciler
 * Dumlupınar
 * Esentepe
 * Fatihsultan
 * Gültepe
 * Gürsel
 * Güzelçay
 * Hürriyet
 * İsmet İnönü
 * Kaledibi
 * Karayılan
 * Kavaklıoluk
 * Kocatepe
 * Kurtuluş
 * Meydan
 * Modernevler
 * Muradiye
 * Mustafa Kemal
 * Numune
 * Orhangazi
 * Pınarbaşı
 * Pirireis
 * Sakarya
 * Sarıseki
 * Savaş
 * Suçıkağı
 * Süleymaniye
 * Yenişehir
 * Yıldırımtepe
 * Yunusemre

Climate
İskenderun has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers, and mild, moderately rainy winters (Köppen: Csa, Trewartha: Cs). At certain times of the year the town is swept by a strong wind called 'Yarıkkaya'. The countryside contains large areas of fruit groves. It is an important producer of oranges, tangerines and lemons, and even tropical fruits such as mangoes.

Demographics
19th-century traveler Martin Hartmann put the population of Iskenderun at roughly 500 households with no entry on ethnicity. Out of the 29 other settlements he listed in the Ottoman nahiyah of Iskenderun, 19 were Turkish (366 houses), 2 were Alawite (100 houses), 2 were Turkish-Alawite mixed (28 houses), and no information was listed for the remaining 6. He did not list any Sunni Arab households.

Main sights

 * The Cathedral of the Annunciation is the seat of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia.
 * Bakras (Bagras) Castle, which was built in antiquity and restored many times in later centuries (particularly during the Crusades, when it was a stronghold of the Knights Templar), served as a watchtower on the 27 km mountain road from İskenderun to Antakya (Antioch).

Cuisine
Distinctive İskenderun dishes include Künefe, a hot dessert with cheese. The main dishes include the Turkish staples such as döner and other kebabs served in the flat dürüm bread, lahmacun and also Antakya influenced cuisine including kibbeh, and sour pomegranate syrup used as a salad dressing. İskenderun in particular offers good quality fish and prawns.

Media
İskenderun is served by the Güney Gazetesi newspaper.

Sports
The city has two association football clubs. One of them is Körfez İskenderunspor. The more successful İskenderunspor folded in 2006, although a phoenix club İskenderunspor 1967 was then founded in 2009.

The city's basketball team is called İskenderun Belediyesi Spor Kulübü.

In popular culture
İskenderun is featured in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as an important starting point for the Grail map. The State of Hatay is depicted as being ruled by a Sultan, although it was technically a transitional republic.

Notable natives

 * Helenus of Alexandria (Cilicia), local bishop in the 2nd or 3rd century.
 * Sarkis Soghanalian (1929–2011), aka Merchant of Death, a Syrian-Lebanese-Armenian private arms dealer
 * Yalçın Küçük (born 1938), a Turkish socialist writer, economist, historian and media pundit
 * Erol Erdinç (born 1945), a Turkish conductor of classical music, composer, pianist and educator.
 * Cem Erman (1947–2011), a Turkish film actor.
 * Yasin Özdenak (born 1948), a Turkish former football goalkeeper
 * Nilüfer Çınar Çorlulu (born 1962), a Turkish Woman Chess International Master.
 * Uğur Şahin (born 1965), a German oncologist and immunologist.
 * Jehan Barbur (born 1980), a Turkish singer-songwriter
 * Selçuk İnan (born 1985), a football coach and former player with 488 club caps and 61 for Turkey

title: İskenderun


text:
States of the German Confederation

The states of the German Confederation were member states of the German Confederation, from 20 June 1815 until 24 August 1866.

On the whole, its territory nearly coincided with that remaining in the Holy Roman Empire at the outbreak of the French Revolution, with the notable exception of Belgium. Except for the two rival major powers, Austria and Prussia, and the western left bank of the Rhine (which France had annexed, with tiny Katzenelnbogen), the other member states (or their precursors) had been within Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine.

Empires
1. The Austrian Empire, excluding the Kingdom of Hungary, the Principality of Transylvania, and the Kingdom of Croatia (all of which became parts of the apostolic kingdom of Hungary within the Danubian Dual Monarchy), the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia (constituting parts lost to Italy in 1859- viz. 1866), the Duchy of Bukovina, and the kingdoms of Dalmatia and Galicia (but including, from 1818 till 1850, Duchy of Oświęcim and Duchy of Zator)
 * 1) Archduchy of Austria (split into Upper Austria and Lower Austria in 1849)
 * 2) Kingdom of Bohemia
 * 3) Margraviate of Moravia
 * 4) Grand Duchy of Salzburg
 * 5) Duchy of Carinthia
 * 6) Duchy of Carniola
 * 7) Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia
 * 8) Duchy of Styria
 * 9) Littoral (consisting of Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria and Trieste)
 * 10) County of Tyrol
 * 11) Vorarlberg

Kingdoms
2. The Kingdom of Prussia (excluding Posen, East Prussia and West Prussia) 3. The Kingdom of Bavaria 4. The Kingdom of Hanover (in personal union with the United Kingdom until 1837)
 * 1) Brandenburg
 * 2) Pomerania
 * 3) Rhine Province (until 1822 the Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine and the Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg)
 * 4) Saxony
 * 5) Silesia
 * 6) Westphalia
 * 1) Upper Bavaria
 * 2) Upper Franconia
 * 3) Swabia
 * 4) Upper Palatinate
 * 5) Middle Franconia
 * 6) Lower Bavaria
 * 7) Lower Franconia
 * 8) Palatinate

5. The Kingdom of Saxony

6. The Kingdom of Württemberg

Electorates
7. The Electorate of Hesse (also known as Hesse-Kassel)

Grand Duchies
8. The Grand Duchy of Baden

9. The Grand Duchy of Hesse (also known as Hesse-Darmstadt)

10. The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg (in personal union with the United Kingdom of the Netherlands; lost over half of its territory in the west to Belgium in the breakup of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1839, thereby resulting in the Duchy of Limburg becoming a member.)

11. The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

12. The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

13. The Grand Duchy of Oldenburg

14. The Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Duchies
15. The Duchy of Brunswick (prior Brunswick-Lunenburgian Principality of Wolfenbüttel)

16. The Duchy of Holstein (in personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark; not a former member of the Confederation of the Rhine)

17. The Duchy of Limburg (became a member in 1839 in personal union with the Netherlands as compensation for territorial losses in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg that were caused by the breakup of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.)

18. The Duchy of Nassau

19. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1826)

20. The Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (Saxe-Altenburg from 1826)

21. The Duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen (dissolved in 1826; territory merged with Saxe-Meiningen)

22. The Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg (in personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark)

23. The Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen

24. The Duchy of Anhalt-Bernburg (merged with Anhalt-Dessau in 1863)

25. The Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau (Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau-Köthen from 1853; Duchy of Anhalt from 1863)

26. The Duchy of Anhalt-Köthen (merged with Anhalt-Dessau in 1853)

The Duchy of Schleswig was never a member state. But Schleswig was traditionally connected to the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg, which were member states. In 1848-51 (during the First Schleswig War), it was treated by the German states and the short-lived German Empire as a kind of member. In 1864, the Danish king transferred the three duchies to Austria and Prussia (after the Second Schleswig War).

Principalities
27. The Principality of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (merged with Kingdom of Prussia in 1850)

28. The Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (merged with Kingdom of Prussia in 1850)

29. The Principality of Liechtenstein

30. The Principality of Lippe

31. The Principality of Reuss Junior Line

32. The Principality of Reuss Senior Line

33. The Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe

34. The Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt

35. The Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen

36. The Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont

Landgraviates
37. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg (became a member in 1817; merged with Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1866)

Free and Hanseatic Cities
38. The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (still a constitutive state of Germany)

39. The Free City of Frankfurt upon Main

40. The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (still a constitutive state of Germany)

41. The Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck

The four free cities were republics by constitution, while all the others were monarchies, some constitutional and some absolutist.

Sources and references

 * Westermann, Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte (in German, detailed maps)
 * WorldStatesmen

title: States of the German Confederation