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Albert Viljam Hagelin

Albert Viljam Hagelin (24 April 1881 – 25 May 1946) was a Norwegian businessman and opera singer who became the Minister of Domestic Affairs in the Quisling regime, the puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling during Germany's World War II occupation of Norway.

Early life
Albert Viljam Hagelin's father, Harald Joachim Hagelin (1852–1889), was a goldsmith who died when his son was nine years old. He was part of a Swedish family that immigrated to Norway in the early 18th century. Hagelin's mother, Gerd Anna Hedvig Eleonore Meyer (1857–1926), was of Danish-Jewish descent, and her father was also a goldsmith; as a widow, she ran a private hotel in Bergen after the family's jewelry business was closed down. Albert Hagelin was the brother-in-law of Kjeld Stub Irgens and the brother of the Conservative politician and factory owner, Robert Hagelin.

Career in Germany
Hagelin left Norway around 1900 to study as an architect at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. Later, Nina Grieg encouraged him to study music. According to family tradition, he sang operatic roles in both Berlin and Dresden. In total, Hagelin lived abroad for over 40 years until the end of the 1930s, mostly in Dresden. Hagelin married the owner of an import company in Bremen and increased his fortune through successful stock market speculation, coffee business, art trade and hotel business. In the 1930s, the couple lived in Loschwitz outside Dresden. After his wife's death in January 1935, Hagelin also became very ill, to the extent that he had to be hospitalized the day after his wife's funeral. Hagelin went on a longer tour of Norway. While visiting Oslo, he sought out Vidkun Quisling. Details from the two conversations are not known, but Hagelin shortly afterwards joined Nasjonal Samling (NS).

In the spring of 1939, Hagelin tried to obtain German money for the NS newspaper Fritt Folk. Through his tennis club in Dresden, he knew Hermann Göring's nephew Herbert Göring and thus came into contact with the country's top management. The funding attempts failed. However, Hagelin managed to establish ties with other German leaders and came into contact with Grand Admiral Erich Raeder and the NSDAP's chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg. Quisling visited Hagelin in Germany in the summer of 1939, and the two became well acquainted.

World War II
When World War II broke out, Hagelin blamed the war on a "Judeo-Masonic Clique". With Quisling's coup on 9 April 1940, Hagelin was appointed Minister of Trade and Supply, and thus gained a place in the innermost NS circles. Later that year, he became county leader for Oslo and Akershus, and the party's deputy leader. He thus became Quisling's deputy and in practice party leader in the summer of 1940 when Quisling stayed in Germany for a longer period of time.

In the autumn of 1940, Hagelin was appointed head of the newly established Ministry of the Interior, as part of Josef Terboven's commissary cabinet. He was thus responsible for the nazification of the municipalities through the Municipal Ordinance and for the NS takeover of organizational life and public administration in general. He had the jurist Thorleif Dahl with him as a ministerial adviser. Among other things, they had to defend "Norwegian" interests vis-à-vis Terboven, and among other things were coached on a German initiative on a tax reform that would finance the occupation. Hagelin also pressured Quisling to reach a final peace agreement with Germany.

His cooperation with the Germans worsened throughout the war. Among other things, he was against the arrest and deportation of the Norwegian Jews and was in favor of the administration of Jewish affairs being placed under the Ministry of the Interior. Terboven eventually made it clear that Norway's position would be stronger if Hagelin disappeared.

Rumors gradually circulated within NS that Hagelin was of Jewish blood, and that he was corrupt. The rumors became so strong that Quisling had to launch an investigation. While this was going on, Hagelin was stripped of his post as county manager in Greater Oslo. The investigation cleared Hagelin. Nevertheless, he was later forced to resign in the autumn of 1944, when he refused to go to Finnmark to lead the forced evacuation. For the rest of the occupation, he lived in seclusion on Bygdøy.

Death
Hagelin was sentenced to death during the Norwegian post-war trials. He was executed by firing squad at Oslo's Akershus Fortress, where many of the 37 individuals condemned for treason and war crimes were executed.

title: Albert Viljam Hagelin


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British Columbia Highway 19A

Highway 19A, known locally as the Oceanside Route or the Old Island Highway, is a provincial highway in British Columbia, Canada. It runs along two former sections of Highway 19 on Vancouver Island, within Nanaimo and between Craig's Crossing and Campbell River. The section of Highway 19A between Craig's Crossing and Campbell River is 136.89 km long, and the Nanaimo alignment covers 10.64 km. The highway was established after Highway 19 was realigned to a new road between 1996 and 2001.

Nanaimo
Highway 19A's Nanaimo alignment begins at Stewart Avenue (Trans-Canada Highway / Highway 1) at the entrance to the Departure Bay ferry terminal and proceeds up Brechin Road to Terminal Avenue. The highway then turns north and proceeds through the northern business district of the city to northern end of the Nanaimo Parkway (Highway 19).

Terminal Avenue between Stewart Avenue and Brechin Road is signed as an alternate connection between Highways 1 and 19A and a bypass of the Departure Bay ferry terminal.

Oceanside section
Highway 19A's northern alignment begins at the junction of Highway 19 at Craig's Crossing and hugs the coastline for 14 km through Parksville and the town of Qualicum Beach. The highway continues northwest for 37 km through the settlements Bowser, Deep Bay, and Fanny Bay before it meets a junction with Highway 19 at the Buckley Bay B.C. Ferry terminal.

From Buckley Bay, Highway 19A once again hugs the coastline as it proceeds northwest through the hamlets of Union Bay and Royston for 20 km before entering the city of Courtenay. Highway 19A proceeds through the southern part of the city of Courtenay on Cliffe Avenue, then crosses the Courtenay River on one of only two road drawbridges on Vancouver Island (also known as the 17th street bridge), intersects with the main road into Comox, and travels along a bypass around the city centre. Highway 19A then intersects Ryan Road, which provides access to the Comox ferry terminal in Little River and CFB Comox, and leaves Courtenay at the intersection with Headquarters Road. This stretch of highway 19A through the main city of Courtenay is heavily congested. The highway continues inland for 26 km, through the communities of Grantham, Merville, Black Creek, and Oyster River before rejoining the coastline at the intersection with Oyster Garden Road. From there, the highway hugs the coastline for 18 km, entering the city of Campbell River, passing by the B.C. Ferry terminal at Discovery Pier, and going north and west around the City Centre before terminating at the junction of Highways 19 and 28.

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

title: British Columbia Highway 19A


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Baldwin VII, Count of Flanders

Baldwin VII of Flanders (1093 – 17 July 1119) was Count of Flanders from 1111 to 1119.

Baldwin was the son of Count Robert II of Flanders and Clementia of Burgundy. He succeeded his father as count when he died on 5 October 1111.

Reign
Baldwin succeeded his father as count when he died on 5 October 1111. He was under the influence of his powerful mother Clementia of Burgundy. He tried to assert independence from her, but she still remained influential behind the scenes. Baldwin was an impetuous and impulsive young man, extremely hostile towards Henry I of England. The inexperienced new count solicited the advice of his cousin, Charles the Good, who was several years older. It was Baldwin who arranged the marriage of Charles to the heiress of the County of Amiens, Margaret of Clermont, in 1118. Baldwin invaded Normandy in 1118 and raided many towns.

In 1105, Baldwin married Hawise of Brittany (also called Havide), daughter of Duke Alan IV of Brittany. The groom was twelve and the bride nine. The union, in all probability, was never consummated. They were divorced in 1110. Baldwin did not remarry. Baldwin and Hawise had no known issue.

Death
He died after being wounded in 1118, hit on the head by a lance at the Battle of Bures-en-Bray, where he was fighting Henry I of England, on behalf of Louis VI of France. When he was dying in 1119 at Eu, Baldwin declared his cousin Charles his heir. he died on 17 June 1119. Charles became the new count of Flanders after his death.

title: Baldwin VII, Count of Flanders


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User:Morwen/streets

Streets with one-word names (excluding articles)

Leicester

 * Applegate
 * Eastgates
 * Southgates

London

 * Bishopsgate
 * Broadway
 * Cheapside
 * Churchway
 * Creekside
 * Cornhill
 * Eastcheap
 * Gateway
 * Lothbury
 * The Mall
 * Neckinger
 * Poultry
 * The Strand
 * Whitehall

title: User:Morwen/streets


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Medan (disambiguation)

Medan is the capital city of North Sumatra province, Indonesia

Medan may also refer to:

People

 * Medan (son of Abraham), 3rd son of Abraham
 * Yaaqov Medan (born 1950), Israeli rabbi
 * Anton Medan (1957–2021), Indonesian criminal
 * Saint Medan, early Christian saint in Britain

Others

 * Médan, Yvelines, France
 * SS Ourang Medan, a wrecked merchant ship
 * The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, a video game inspired by the ship

title: Medan (disambiguation)


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Frederick Catherwood

Frederick Catherwood (27 February 1799 – 27 September 1854) was an English artist, architect and explorer, best remembered for his meticulously detailed drawings of the ruins of the Maya civilization. He explored Mesoamerica in the mid 19th century with writer John Lloyd Stephens. Their books, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán and Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, were best sellers and introduced to the Western world the civilization of the ancient Maya. In 1837, Catherwood was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary member.

Mediterranean travels
Catherwood, having made many trips to the Mediterranean between 1824 and 1832 to draw the monuments made by the Egyptians, Carthaginians, and Phoenicians, stated that the monuments in the Americas bear no architectural similarity to those in the Old World. Thus, they must have been made by the native people of the area. Catherwood made visits to Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine and with Joseph Bonomi the Younger made drawings and watercolors of the ancient remains there. During a six-week period in 1833, Catherwood was probably the first Westerner to make a detailed survey of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Catherwood developed a reputation as a topographical artist. He perfected a drawing technique which used the camera lucida and supplied the drawings for the panoramas of Jerusalem and Thebes shown by Robert Burford in Leicester Square.

Central America
In 1836 he met travel writer John Lloyd Stephens in London. They read the account of the ruins of Copán published by Juan Galindo, and decided to try to visit Central America for themselves and produce a more detailed and better illustrated account. The expedition came together in 1839 and continued through the following year, visiting dozens of ruins and resulting in the detailed description of 44 sites, many for the first time. Stephens and Catherwood are credited for the rediscovery of the Maya civilization, and through their publications brought the Maya back into the minds of the Western World.

The expedition resulted in the book Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, published in 1841, with text by Stephens and engravings based on the drawings of Catherwood.

Stephens and Catherwood returned to Yucatan to make further explorations, resulting in Incidents of Travel in Yucatan in 1843.

The following year Catherwood published Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, with 25 colour lithographs from watercolours he made at various ruins. This folio was published in May 1844 simultaneously in London and New York in an edition of 300. Some 282 copies are known to survive, mostly held in private collections or libraries.

A large number of his original drawings and paintings were destroyed when the building where he was exhibiting them in New York City caught fire, but a number survive in museums and private collections, often showing more detail than the published engravings.

Last years
With the California Gold Rush Catherwood moved to San Francisco, California to open up a store to supply miners and prospectors, which he considered a more likely way to make money than chasing after the gold himself.

In 1854, Frederick Catherwood was a passenger aboard the steamship Arctic, making a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool to New York. On 27 September in conditions of poor visibility, the Arctic collided with the French steamer Vesta, and sank with much loss of life, including Catherwood. Mysteriously Catherwood's name was left off the official casualty lists for weeks until a concerted effort by his friends and colleagues resulted in a belated inclusion of a single line in the New York Herald Tribune, under the listing of "The Saved and the Lost: Mr Catherwood Also is Missing". He was 55 years old.

The question of his portrait

Traditionally, it is thought that the only portrait of Catherwood is in the famous Table XXIV of Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, with a view of the temple of Tulum. The scholar Fabio Bourbon, after studies and a long reflection, has formulated a different hypothesis. It is well known that during the second expedition in Central America, Stephens and Catherwood were accompanied by a young surgeon (and ornithologist) from Boston, Samuel Cabot III, born in Boston on 20 September 1815. The Cabot family was part of the upper class in Boston. At the time of the trip, he was almost 27 years old. Years later he would become an eminent surgeon and a well known personality in Boston. Samuel III was described as a person rather slender, tall, with light hair and light eyes. There is an image taken by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) with members of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, around 1853. Samuel is seated, third from left. Eleven years had passed since the adventure in Yucatan, but he could very well be the person depicted by Catherwood in the table, holding a measuring tape. Catherwood, in fact, was a pragmatic man, used to documenting the reality with his pencil. Frederick presumably had no interest in representing himself, indeed he never painted his self-portrait.

title: Frederick Catherwood


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Charles the Good

Charles the Good (1084 – 2 March 1127) was Count of Flanders from 1119 to 1127. His murder and its aftermath were chronicled by Galbert of Bruges. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1882 through cultus confirmation.

Early life
Charles was born in Denmark, only son of the three children of King Canute IV (Saint Canute) and Adela of Flanders. His father was assassinated in Odense Cathedral in 1086, and Adela fled back to Flanders, taking the very young Charles with her but leaving her twin daughters Ingeborg and Cecilia in Denmark. Charles grew up at the comital court of his grandfather Robert I of Flanders and uncle Robert II of Flanders. In 1092 Adela went to southern Italy to marry Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia, leaving Charles in Flanders.

Charles travelled to the Holy Land in 1107 or 1108 with a fleet of English, Danes and Flemings. This is possibly the fleet of Guynemer of Boulogne, described similarly. He was offered the crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem but refused for reasons unknown.

Countship of Flanders
In 1111 Robert II died, and Charles's cousin Baldwin VII of Flanders became count. Charles was a close adviser to the new count (who was several years younger), who around 1118 arranged Charles's marriage to the heiress of the count of Amiens, Margaret of Clermont, daughter of Renaud II, Count of Clermont. The childless count Baldwin VII was wounded fighting at the Battle of Bures-en-Brai in September 1118, and he designated Charles as his successor before he died on 17 July 1119.

In 1125 Charles expelled Jews from Flanders, attributing their price gouging as a cause of additional suffering during the famine which afflicted his domains in that year. During the famine, Charles distributed bread to the poor, and took action to prevent grain from being hoarded and sold at excessively high prices. Prodded by his advisers, he also began proceedings to reduce the influential Erembald family, which was heavily engaged in this activity, to the status of serfs. As a result, Fr. Bertulf FitzErembald, provost of the Church of St. Donatian, masterminded a conspiracy to assassinate Charles and his advisors. He was also considered a candidate for the election of King of the Romans after the death of Henry V, but rejected the offer.

Death
On the morning of 2 March 1127, as Charles knelt in prayer in the church of St. Donatian, a group of knights answering to the Erembald family entered the church and hacked him to death with broadswords. The brutal and sacrilegious murder of the popular count provoked widespread public outrage, and he was almost immediately regarded popularly as a martyr and saint, although not formally beatified until 1882. The Erembalds, who had planned and carried out the murder of Charles, were besieged inside the castle of Bruges by the enraged nobles and commoners of Bruges and Ghent. All the conspirators were defeated, captured, and tortured to death. King Louis VI of France, who had supported the uprising against the Erembalds, used his influence to select William Clito as the next count of Flanders.

title: Charles the Good


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Reichskommissariat Ostland

The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO; lit. 'Reich Commissariat of Eastland') was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.

Germany's main political objectives for the Reichskommissariat, as laid out by the Ministry within the framework of Nazism's policies for the east established by Adolf Hitler, included the genocide of the Jewish population, as well as the Lebensraum settlement of ethnic Germans along with the expulsion of some of the native population and the Germanization of the rest of the populace. These policies applied not only to the Reichskommissariat Ostland but also to other German-occupied Soviet territories. Through the use of the Order Police battalions and Einsatzgruppen A and B, with active participation of local auxiliary forces, over a million Jews were killed in the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The Germanization policies, built on the foundations of the Generalplan Ost, would later be carried through by a series of special edicts and guiding principles for the general settlement plans for Ostland.

In the course of 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Red Army gradually recaptured most of the Ostland territory in their advance westwards, but Wehrmacht forces held out in the Courland Pocket until May 1945. With the end of World War II in Europe and the defeat of Germany in 1945, the Reichskommissariat ceased to exist.

Planning before the attack on the Soviet Union
Originally the Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsminister fur die besetzten Ostgebiete), Alfred Rosenberg envisioned usage of the term Baltenland ("Baltic Land") before the summer of 1941 for the area that would eventually be known as Ostland. Otto Bräutigam, a major colleague of Rosenberg at the time, opposed this idea. In a later declaration he alleged that Rosenberg (himself a Baltic German), was influenced by his "Baltic friends" in forwarding this initiative, in which a "Baltic Reichskommissariat" with the addition of Belarus would be formed, "and with this the White Ruthenians would also be regarded as Balts". A more important additional colleague of Rosenberg, Georg Leibbrandt, spoke out against this. He argued that the sympathy of the Baltic peoples, who would naturally want the use of their own terminology, could be lost entirely. They would therefore not be won over either as supporters of the German war effort, nor as racially valuable settlers for the region.

After Operation Barbarossa
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, vast areas were conquered to Germany's east. At first these areas would remain under military occupation by Wehrmacht authorities (Army Group Rear Areas), but as soon as the military situation allowed it, a more permanent form of administration under German rule for these territories would be instituted.

Führer Decree of 17 July 1941 provided for this move. It established "Reichskommissariats" in the east, as administrative units of the Greater German Reich. The structure of each Reichskommissariat was defined by the same decree. Each of these territories would be led by a German civil governor known as a Reichskommissar appointed by Hitler and answerable only to him. The official appointed for Ostland was Hinrich Lohse, the Oberpräsident and Gauleiter of Schleswig-Holstein. Local government in the Reichskommissariat was to be organized under a "National Director" (Reichskomissar) in Estonia, a "General Director" in Latvia, and a "General Adviser" in Lithuania.

Rosenberg's ministerial authority was, in practice, severely limited. The first reason was that many of the practicalities were determined elsewhere: the Wehrmacht and the SS managed the military and security aspects, Fritz Sauckel as Reich Director of Labour had control over manpower and working areas, Hermann Göring and Albert Speer had total management of economic aspects in the territories and the Reich Postal Service administered the Eastern territories' postal services. These German central government interventions in the affairs of Ostland overriding the appropriate ministries were known as "special administrations" (Sonderverwaltungen). Later, from September 1941, the civil administration that had been decreed in the previous July was actually set up. Lohse and Erich Koch objected to these breaches of their supposed responsibilities, seeking to administer their territories with the independence and authority of Gauleiters. On 1 April 1942, an arbeitsbereich (lit. "working sphere", a name for the party cadre organisation outside the Reich proper) was established in the civilian-administered parts of the occupied Soviet territories, whereupon Koch and Lohse gradually ceased communication with Rosenberg, preferring to deal directly with Adolf Hitler through Martin Bormann and the Party Chancellery. In the process they also displaced all other actors including notably the SS, except in Central Belarus where HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski had a special command encompassing both military and civil administration territories and engaged in Nazi security warfare.

In July 1941, the civil administration was declared in much of the occupied Soviet territories before one had materialised in the field. A power vacuum emerged which the SS filled with its SS and Police Leadership Structure, exercising unlimited power over security and policing which it gave up only grudgingly in the autumn when civil administration came into being; indeed Heinrich Himmler would use various tactics until as late as 1943 in unsuccessful efforts to regain this power. This partly explains the strained relations between the SS and the civil administration. In Ostland, matters were further complicated by the personality of the local superior SS officer Friedrich Jeckeln, attacked by the SS's opponents for his alleged corruption, brutality and mindless foolhardiness.

German plans
The short-term political objectives for Ostland differed from those for the Ukraine, the Caucasus or the Moscow regions. The Baltic lands, which were to be joined together with Belarus (to serve as a spacious hinterland of the coastal areas), would be organised as one Germanized protectorate prior to union with Germany itself in the near future. Rosenberg said that these lands had a fundamentally "European" character, resulting from 700 years of history under Swedish, Danish, and German rule, and should therefore provide Germany with "Lebensraum", an opinion shared by Hitler and other leading Nazis. The Belarusians, however, were considered by the scholars of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories as "little and weak peasant people" dwelling in "folkish indifference", but also "the most harmless and because of this the least dangerous for us of all the peoples in the Eastern Space" and an ideal object of exploitation. Rosenberg suggested that Belarus would be in the future an appropriate reception area of various undesirable population elements from the Baltic part of Ostland and German-occupied Poland. He also toyed with the idea of turning the country into a huge nature reserve.

The regime planned to encourage the post-war settlement of Germans to the region, seeing it as a region traditionally inhabited by Germans (see the Teutonic Order and the Northern Crusades) that had been overrun by Slavs. A similar tactic was used in Pskov province during World War II, when ethnic Germans and Dutch were resettled from Romania. This settlement of Dutch settlers was encouraged by the Nederlandsche Oost-Compagnie, a Dutch-German organisation.

Historical German and Germanic-sounding placenames were also retained (or introduced) for many Baltic cities, such as Reval (Tallinn), Kauen (Kaunas), and Dünaburg (Daugavpils), among many others. To underscore the region's planned incorporation into Germany some Nazi ideologists further suggested the future use of the names Peipusland for Estonia and Dünaland for Latvia once they had become part of Germany. The ancient Russian city of Novgorod, the easternmost foreign trading post of the Hanseatic League, was to be renamed Holmgard. During the occupation, the Germans also published a "local" German-language newspaper, the Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland.

Administrative and territorial organization
The Reichskommissariat Ostland was sub-divided into four "General Regions" (Generalbezirke), namely Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and White Ruthenia (Belarus), headed by a Generalkommissar. The regions were further divided into "Districts" (Kreisgebiete). In the three Baltic states their previous counties (Es:Maakonad, Lv:Aprinka, Lt:Apskritys) were also retained as a further sub-division (Kreise). The conquered territories further to the east were under military control for the entirety of the war. The intention was to include these territories in the anticipated future extension of Ostland. This would have incorporated Ingria (Ingermannland), as well as the Smolensk, Pskov, and Novgorod areas into the Reichskommissariat. Estonia's new eastern border was planned to be extent to the Leningrad-Novgorod line, with Lake Ilmen and Volkhov River forming the new eastern border of the Baltic country, while Latvia was to reach the Velikiye Luki region. Belarus was to extend east to include the Smolensk region. The local administration of the Reichskommissariat Ostland was headed by Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse. Below him there was an administrative hierarchy: a Generalkomissar led each Generalbezirk, while Gebietskommissars administered Kreisgebieten, respectively. The German administrative center for the entire region, as well as the seat of the Reichskommissar, was in Riga, Latvia.

Generalbezirk Estland (Estonia)
District seat: Reval (Tallinn)

Generalkommissar: Karl-Siegmund Litzmann

SS and Police Leader: (1941–1944); Walther Schröder (1944)

Subdivided into seven Kreisgebiete:
 * Arensburg (Kuressaare)
 * Narwa (Narva)
 * Dorpat (Tartu)
 * Pernau (Pärnu)
 * Petschur (Petseri)
 * Reval-Land (Tallinn-Rural)
 * Reval-Stadt (Tallinn-Urban)

Generalbezirk Lettland (Latvia)
District seat: Riga

Generalkommissar: Otto-Heinrich Drechsler

SS and Police Leader: Walther Schröder

Subdivided into six Kreisgebiete:
 * Dünaburg (Daugavpils)
 * Libau (Liepāja)
 * Mitau (Jelgava)
 * Riga-Land (Riga-Rural)
 * Riga-Stadt (Riga-Urban)
 * Wolmar (Valmiera)

Generalbezirk Litauen (Lithuania)
District seat: Kauen (Kaunas).

Generalkommissar: Theodor Adrian von Renteln

SS and Police Leader: Lucian Wysocki (1941–1943); Hermann Harm (1943–1944); Kurt Hintze (1944)

Subdivided into six Kreisgebiete:
 * Kauen-Land (Kaunas-Rural).
 * Kauen-Stadt (Kaunas-Urban).
 * Ponewesch (Panevėžys).
 * Schaulen (Šiauliai).
 * Wilna-Land (Vilnius-Rural).
 * Wilna-Stadt (Vilnius-Urban).

Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (White Ruthenia or Belarus)
Set up across the territory of the Byelorussian SSR (including West Belarus, previously Wilno and Nowogródek regions of the eastern territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union). On 1 April 1944, Generalbezirk Weissruthenien was detached from Reichskommissariat Ostland and was placed directly under the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. District seat: Minsk.

Generalkommissar: Wilhelm Kube (1941–1943); Curt von Gottberg (1943–1944)

SS and Police Leader: Jakob Sporrenberg (1941); Carl Zenner (1941–1942); Karl Schäfer (1942); Curt von Gottberg (1942–1943); Erich Ehrlinger (1943–1944)

Subdivided into eleven Kreisgebiete:

 * Baranowitsche (Baranovichi)
 * Barisau (Barysau)
 * Hanzewitschy (Hantsavichy)
 * Lida
 * Glubokoye (Hlybokaye)
 * Minsk-Land (Minsk-Rural)
 * Minsk-Stadt (Minsk-Urban)
 * Nowogródek (Navahrudak)
 * Slonim
 * Sluzk (Sluck)
 * Wilejka (Vileyka)

Other authorities
In March 1943, Wilhelm Kube succeeded in installing the Belarusian Central Council (a collaborationist puppet regime), which existed concurrently with the German civil administration.

The military command was controlled by the Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ostland ("Military Commander Ostland"). He was responsible for security within the occupied territories, to protect traffic connections and to record the harvest. These commanders were :
 * Generalleutnant Walter Braemer (24 June 1941 - 18 April 1944)
 * General der Panzertruppe Werner Kempf (1 May 1944 - 10 August 1944)

Policies
Upon taking control, Hinrich Lohse proclaimed the official decree ("Verkündungsblatt für das Ostland") on November 15, 1941, whereby all Soviet state and party properties in the Baltic area and Belarus were confiscated and transferred to the German administration.

In Ostland, the administration returned lands nationalised by the Soviets to the former peasant owners. In towns and cities, small workshops, industries and businesses were returned to their former owners, subject to promises to pay taxes and quotas to the authorities. Jewish properties were confiscated. In Belarus, a state enterprise was established to manage all former Soviet government properties. One of the German administrators was General commissar Wilhelm Kube.

Ostgesellschaften (state monopolies) and so-called Patenfirmen, private industrial companies linked to the German government, were quickly appointed to manage confiscated enterprises. The Hermann Göring Workshops, Mannesmann, IG Farben and Siemens assumed control of all former Soviet state enterprises in Ostland and Ukraine. An example of this was the takeover, by Daimler-Benz and Vomag, of heavy repair workshops, in Riga and Kiev, for the maintenance of all captured Russian T-34 and KV-1 tanks, linked with their repair workshops in Germany.

In Belarus, the German authorities lamented the "Jewish-Bolshevik" policies that had allegedly denied the people knowledge of the basic concepts of private property, ownership, or personal initiative. Unlike the Baltic area, where the authorities saw that "during the war and the occupation's first stages, the population gave examples of sincere collaboration, a way for possibly giving some liberty to autonomous administration".

Economic exploitation
The Germans viewed the Slavs as a pool of slave work labor for use by the German Reich; if necessary they could be worked to death.

Extermination of the Jews in Ostland
At the time of the German invasion in June 1941 there were significant Jewish minorities in Ostland — nearly 480,000 people. To these were added deportees from Austria, Germany, and elsewhere.

Jews were confined to Nazi ghettos in Riga and Kauen, which rapidly became overcrowded and squalid. From these they were taken to execution sites.

The Soviet Red Army reported the discovery of Vilna and Kauen extermination centres as apparently part of the Nazi "Final Solution". The extermination of the resident Jews began almost immediately after the invasion and was later extended to the deportees.

In autumn 1943, the ghettos were "liquidated", and the remaining occupants were moved to camps at Kaiserwald and Stutthof near Danzig or, if not capable of work, killed.

Government figures
Aside from the German political leaders mentioned above, including Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg, General Commissar Karl-Siegmund Litzmann and General Commissar Wilhelm Kube, the regional collaborationist structures across Reichskommissariat Ostland included Estonian political leaders such as Hjalmar Mäe, Oskar Angelus, Alfred Wendt (or Vendt), Otto Leesment, Hans Saar, Oskar Öpik, Arnold Radik, Johannes Soodla; Latvian political leaders with Oskars Dankers, and Rūdolfs Bangerskis; Lithuanian political leaders: Juozas Ambrazevičius, and Petras Kubiliūnas; as well as the Belarusian nationalist leaders from the Belarusian Central Council.

Partisan movement
German and local security authorities were kept busy by Soviet partisan activities in Belarus. They noted that "infected zones" of partisan action included an area of 500 or 600 km2, around Minsk, Pinsk, Gomel, Briansk, Smolensk and Vitebsk, including the principal roads and railways in these areas.

title: Reichskommissariat Ostland


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Eiichiro Oda

Eiichiro Oda (尾田 栄一郎) is a Japanese manga artist and the creator of the series One Piece. With more than 523.2 million tankōbon copies in circulation worldwide, One Piece is both the best-selling manga in history and the best-selling comic series printed in volume, in turn making Oda one of the best-selling fiction authors. The series' popularity resulted in Oda being named one of the manga artists that changed the history of manga.

Since November 7, 2004, Eiichiro Oda has been married to Chiaki Inaba (稲葉ちあき, Inaba Chiaki), a former model and actress whom he met in late 2003 during Jump Festa festival 2004. Oda and Inaba have had two daughters; the eldest was born in mid-2006 and the youngest in 2009.

Early life
Eiichiro Oda was born on January 1, 1975, in Kumamoto, Japan. At the age of four he resolved to become a manga artist in order to avoid having to get a "real job". His biggest influence is Akira Toriyama and his series Dragon Ball. He recalls that his interest in pirates was probably sparked by the popular TV animation series titled Vicky the Viking. He submitted a character named Pandaman for Yudetamago's classic wrestling manga Kinnikuman. Pandaman was not only used in a chapter of the manga but would later return as a recurring cameo character in Oda's own works.

Career
At the age of 17, Oda submitted his work Wanted! and won several awards, including second place in the coveted Tezuka Award. That got him into a job at the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine, where he originally worked as assistant manga artist/assistant to Shinobu Kaitani's series Suizan Police Gang before moving to Masaya Tokuhiro on Jungle King Tar-chan and Mizu no Tomodachi Kappaman, which gave him an unexpected influence on his artistic style. At the age of 19, he began working as an assistant to Nobuhiro Watsuki on Rurouni Kenshin, before winning the Hop Step Award for new manga artists. Watsuki credits Oda for helping create the character Honjō Kamatari who appears in Rurouni Kenshin.

During this time, Oda drew two pirate-themed one-shot stories called "Romance Dawn", which were published in Akamaru Jump and Weekly Shōnen Jump respectively in late 1996. "Romance Dawn" featured Monkey D. Luffy as the protagonist, who then became the protagonist of One Piece.

In 1997, One Piece began serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump and has become not only one of the most popular manga in Japan, but the best-selling manga series of all time. It sold 100 million collected tankōbon volumes by February 2005, over 200 million by February 2011, had 320,866,000 copies printed worldwide by December 2014, 430 million volumes in circulation worldwide as of October 2017, 440million copies sold as of May 2018 and 450million in print as of March 2019.

Additionally, individual volumes of One Piece have broken publishing records in Japan. Volume 56 received the highest initial print run of any manga, 2.85 million copies, in 2009. Volume 57's print of 3 million in 2010 was the highest first print for any book in Japan, not just manga. A record that was broken several times by subsequent volumes and currently held by 67's 4.05 million initial printing in 2012. In 2013, the series won the 41st Japan Cartoonists Association Award Grand Prize, alongside Kimuchi Yokoyama's Nekodarake Nice.

In a 2008 poll, conducted by marketing research firm Oricon, Oda was elected fifth most favorite manga artists of Japan. He shared the place with Yoshihiro Togashi, creator of YuYu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter. In their 2010 poll on the Mangaka that Changed the History of Manga, Oda came in fourth.

For the tenth One Piece animated theatrical film, Strong World, Oda created the film's story, drew over 120 drawings for guidance and insisted Mr. Children provide the theme song. Additionally, a special chapter of the manga was created and included in tankōbon volume 0, which was given free to attendees of the film and also contained his drawings for the film. Following the particular success of this film, Oda also provided the character design for and executive produced the subsequent movies Z (2012), Gold (2016), Stampede (2019), and Red (2022).

Oda and Akira Toriyama created a 2007 crossover one-shot called Cross Epoch, that contains characters from Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Oda's One Piece. In 2013, they each designed a Gaist character for the video game Gaist Crusher. In 2011, Oda and Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro created the One Piece and Toriko crossover one-shot Taste of the Devil Fruit. Shimabukuro stated that he came up with the bulk of the story while Oda gave suggestions.

Personal life
Eiichiro Oda's wife is Chiaki Inaba (稲葉ちあき, Inaba Chiaki) (born Kanagawa prefecture, Kantō, Japan, January 4, 1978). Inaba is a former model, actress, "Campaign Girl", "Race Queen", "Gravure Idol" and also a "Tarento" in japanese TV shows.

At 28 years old, Oda met her during a live action stage show musical about ONE PIECE at Jump Festa festival 2004, in December 2003, where Inaba, 25, costumed and acted as Nami. Chiaki was a stage actress for the Jump Festa stage show "ONE PIECE Spectacle Stage" (ワンピーススペクタクルステージ) held since 2001 through 2003 in the Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall. After this first meeting in 2003 during the Jump Festa musical stage "Operation Luffy Pirates Destruction" (ルフィ海賊団壊滅作戦, Rufi kaizoku-dan kaimetsu sakusen), they had a courtship for one year before they married.

Eiichiro Oda married Chiaki Inaba on November 7, 2004. They are parents of two daughters. Chiaki Inaba gave birth to a daughter in mid-2006, making Eiichiro Oda a father for the first time. Three years later, Oda and Inaba aged 34 and 31 respectively, welcomed a second daughter born sometime in 2009.

Due to his rigorous work schedule, Oda lives apart from his wife and daughters, receiving visits from them roughly once per week. He usually visits their home during holiday breaks, an opulent mansion located in Jiyugaoka (自由が丘, Jiyūgaoka), a neighborhood in southern Meguro in the Tokyo metropolis where his wife and daughters reside. Oda bought this house in 2006, after the birth of his eldest daughter. Oda, Inaba and their daughters go on vacation abroad approximately once a year.

Oda regarded many mangaka both as his friends and rivals. Among these were his fellow assistants under Nobuhiro Watsuki; Hiroyuki Takei, and Mikio Itō. Still many years later, they remained good friends. For the title page illustration of One Piece chapter 766, which ran in 2014's 50th issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump alongside the final two chapters of Kishimoto's Naruto, Oda included a hidden message and other tributes in the art. Kishimoto himself also gave tribute in the ending of Naruto where the character Boruto Uzumaki makes a drawing of the Straw Hat Jolly Roger on a mountain. Upon the release of Chapter 1,000 of One Piece, several of Oda's fellow mangaka rivals paid tribute in the author's comment section of Weekly Shōnen Jump by congratulating Oda for achieving this milestone.

According to Oda himself and his manga editors, he is an ardent worker and perfectionist, sleeping only three hours per day during a typical work week.

He was hospitalized for a peritonsillar abscess in 2013 and later discharged from the hospital after two weeks. After a year, he underwent a tonsillectomy to completely cure his condition.

Oda gifted Kumamoto Prefecture ¥800 million (US$8M/£4.9M) in 2018 after it suffered a damaging earthquake in 2016 that had affected its iconic Kumamoto Castle. Oda's ¥800M donation was offered in two separate gifts, one for ¥500M under Luffy's name (Luffy's current bounty at the time) and a second donation of ¥300M. Eiichiro Oda has long been a supporter of earthquake-stricken areas, writing supportive messages, contributing art for local products, and participating in the ONE PIECE Kumamoto Revival Project.

Awards
Eiichiro Oda has received several awards and titles. His Awards lists:
 * Second half of 1992: second place Tezuka Award for Wanted!
 * 1993: Hop☆Step Award for Ikki Yakō
 * 2000: Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize finalist for One Piece
 * 2001: Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize finalist for One Piece
 * 2002: Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize finalist for One Piece
 * 2005: Sondermann Award in the International Manga category for One Piece
 * 2006: Japanese Media Arts Festival 100 Manga Selection for One Piece
 * 2008: Sondermann Award in the International Manga category for Volume 44 of One Piece
 * 2009: Sondermann Award in the International Manga category for Volume 48 of One Piece
 * 2012: Received Grand Prize at 41st Japan Cartoonists Association Award for One Piece
 * 2015: Guinness World Record for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author" with 320,866,000 copies printed worldwide up until December 2014.
 * 2018: Kumamoto Prefecture Honorary Prize
 * 2019: Most Searched Author at The Yahoo! Japan Search Awards
 * 2019: Included in the list of Newsweek Japan's "100 Globally respected Japanese people."
 * 2022: Special Lifetime Achievement Award at Napoli Comicon 2022 in Italy.
 * 2022: Guinness World Record for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author" with 516,566,000 copies in printed worldwide up until July 2022.
 * 2023: 18th Shin Watanabe Award, an award for a producer or creator who has created a major movement in the entertainment business and made a significant contribution to the development of popular entertainment culture.

Manga

 * Wanted! (1992)
 * God's Present for the Future (神から未来のプレゼント)
 * Ikki Yakō (一鬼夜行)
 * Wanted! Eiichiro Oda Short Stories (WANTED! 尾田栄一郎短編集)
 * Wanted!
 * God's Present for the Future
 * Ikki Yakō
 * Monsters
 * Romance Dawn (second version)

One Piece

 * Monsters (1994)
 * Romance Dawn (first version, 1996)
 * Romance Dawn (second version, 1996)
 * One Piece (1997–present)
 * Cross Epoch (2007) – crossover between Dragon Ball and One Piece with Akira Toriyama
 * Taste of the Devil Fruit (実食! 悪魔の実!!) – crossover between Toriko and One Piece with Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro

Art books

 * One Piece Color Walk 1
 * One Piece Color Walk 2
 * One Piece Color Walk 3 Lion
 * One Piece Color Walk 4 Eagle
 * One Piece Color Walk 5 Shark
 * One Piece Color Walk 6 Gorilla
 * One Piece Color Walk 7 Tyrannosaurus
 * One Piece Color Walk 8 Wolf
 * One Piece Color Walk 9 Tiger
 * One Piece Color Walk 10 Dragon

Films

 * One Piece Film: Strong World (2009) – costume design, creature design, story and executive producer
 * One Piece Film: Z (2012) – character design, costume design and executive producer
 * One Piece Film: Gold (2016) – character design (Straw Hat costume design, Carina, Tesoro, Dice and Baccarat character design) and executive producer
 * One Piece: Stampede (2019) – character design, costume design, creative supervisor and executive producer
 * One Piece Film: Red (2022) – executive producer, character design, and script reviewer

Other

 * Drew an illustration for Chibi Maruko-chan manga creator Momoko Sakura after her death. The illustration showed Luffy sharing barbecue with Maruko-chan with accompanying message that the two authors got along well in both their professional and personal lives and that he is praying for Sakura.
 * Collaborated with fashion brand, Gucci and created a Lookbook featured both Monkey D. Luffy and Roronoa Zoro sporting poses with a series of images of the two rocking the latest Gucci line.
 * Drew Original Illustration for the President and all One Piece fans in France.
 * Drew Original Illustration for sport "Karate" for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Official Programme book which highlights the defining traits, history, rules, top athletes, venue, schedule, and the major tournament records for each of the 33 featured sports.
 * One of the executive producers for the 2023 One Piece live-action series by Netflix and Tomorrow Studios.
 * Designed a new character and monsters for the 2022 role-playing video game One Piece Odyssey.

title: Eiichiro Oda


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Medan

Medan is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra. The nearby Strait of Malacca, Port of Belawan, and Kualanamu International Airport make Medan a regional hub and multicultural metropolis, acting as a financial centre for Sumatra and a gateway to the western part of Indonesia. About 60% of the economy in North Sumatra is backed by trading, agriculture, and processing industries, including exports from its 4 million acres of palm oil plantations. The National Development Planning Agency listed Medan as one of the four main central cities in Indonesia, alongside Jakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar. In terms of population, it is the most populous city in Indonesia outside of the island of Java. Its population as of 2023 is approximately equal to the country of Moldova.

As of the 2020 Census, Medan had a population of 2,435,252 within its city limits; the official population estimate as of mid 2023 was 2,474,166 - comprising 1,231,673 males and 1,242,493 females. When the surrounding urban area is included, the population is over 3.4 million, making it the fourth largest urban area in Indonesia. The Medan metropolitan area—which includes neighbouring Binjai, Deli Serdang Regency, and a part of Karo Regency—is the largest metropolitan area outside of Java, with 4,744,323 residents counted in the 2020 Census.

The city was founded at the confluence of the Deli River and the Babura river by a Karonese man named Guru Patimpus. Then called Kampung Medan Putri, it became part of the Deli Sultanate, established in 1632. In the late 19th century, colonial Dutch seeking new plantation areas chose Medan and Deli as plantation hubs to found the Deli Company. Within a few years, the Dutch tobacco trade transformed Medan into an economic hub, earning it the nickname Het Land Dollar ("the land of the money"). The Deli Railway, established to ship tobacco, rubber, tea, timber, palm oil, and sugar from Medan to the Port of Belawan for worldwide export, brought further rapid development to Medan. The city became first the capital of the State of East Sumatra, and then the provincial capital of North Sumatra.

Nomenclature
The term medan might be derived from a Batak Karo word madan (ᯔᯑᯉ᯳), which literally means 'healed', 'blessed', or 'recovered'. The term is associated with the historical Karo Batak figure and founder of the city, Guru Patimpus, who was well-known as a "healer" or traditional doctor. The oldest evidence of this term used to refer to the city dates back to c. 13th-15th century during the reign of Aru, the Karo monarch.

There is also a popular theory that medan is of Malay origin, literally meaning 'field'. The term medan (مدان) in Malay might be derived from Malayalam maitānam (മൈതാനം, 'field'), which is cognate to the Tamil word maitāṉ-am (மைதானம், 'ground').

History
Medan is located in what was once the Kingdom of Aru, founded by the Karo people and flourishing between the 13th and 16th centuries. A number of archaeological sites survive near Medan, including Kota Rentang, a port settlement in the Hamparan Perak area; Kota Cina, an ancient trading site in Medan Marelan; and Benteng Putri Hijau, a fort ruin in Deli Tua.

In the sixteenth century, Guru Patimpus Sembiring Pelawi, a Karonese man from the Karo Regency, converted from Pemena to Islam. While traveling to study under Datuk Kota Bangun, Guru Patimpus met and married the Princess of. Accompanied by their two sons, Kolok and Kecik, the couple founded Medan village between the Deli and Babura Rivers.

In 1632, the Aceh Sultanate under Gocah Pahlawan expanded to include Medan. Perunggit succeeded his father in 1669, and declared the Deli Sultanate, including Medan, independent of the Aceh Sultanate.

Starting in the 1860s, Dutch authorities began to release new land for tobacco plantations. Said Abdullah Bilsagih, brother-in-law of the Deli Sultan Mahmud Perkasa Alam, persuaded Dutch tobacco merchant Jacob Nienhuys to move his business from Java to Deli. Dutch merchants Van der Falk and Elliot, and Chinese brothers Tjong Yong Hian and Tjong A Fie, were also pioneers of Deli's tobacco industry. In 1867, Nienhuys, Jannsen, P.W. Clemen, and Cremer founded De Deli Maatschappij; in 1869, they moved its head office from Labuhan Deli to Medan. This made Medan a centre of the tobacco trade, which continued to grow with the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal.

Sultan Ma'mun Al Rashid Perkasa Alamyah, who ruled from 1873 to 1924, moved the kingdom's capital to Medan. He became known as the builder of early Medan, finishing the construction of the Maimun Palace in 1888 and building the Great Mosque of Medan in 1907. In 1898, a Dutch businessman named Aeint Herman de Boer built Hotel de Boer to accommodate the cruise ships of European tourists which had begun to visit Medan.

During the 1942 Dutch East Indies campaign, the Japanese entered Medan on bicycles and occupied the city. The handover of power was chaotic, but through the use of the Kempetai. Locals of Medan were subjected to enforced Japanese language and worship. The Japanese were able to hold the city until their surrender in 1945. Following that, Medan came under the authority of the South East Asia Command led by British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. With the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence on 17 August, Medan became part of the newly-independent Republic of Indonesia, news announced in Medan on 30 September.

In October, Allied troops landed in Belawan and marched on Medan. The subsequent conflicts between the Allies and the Indonesian Army became known as the Battle of Medan. The Allies regained control of Medan in April 1946, and in December 1947 the Dutch established the State of East Sumatra with Medan as its capital. This became part of the United States of Indonesia in 1949, and was dissolved into the Republic of Indonesia in 1950.

Medan continued to grow as a centre of commerce during the reign of. Developments of the 1970s, especially palm oil and rubber plantations, made Medan the busiest city outside Java, with the transmigration program bringing many Javanese and Batak migrants.

In May 1998, months of student demonstrations in Medan over the 1997 Asian financial crisis turned into riots when a student was killed in a clash with security forces. The next day, the mobs became bigger, and many shops and vehicles in the business district (mostly owned by Chinese residents) were burned and looted. As a result, a curfew was imposed for more than two weeks until peace returned.

On 5 September 2005, Mandala Airlines Flight 091 stalled a minute after taking off from Medan's old Polonia International Airport for a flight to Jakarta. The aircraft crashed into a heavily populated residential area along Djamin Ginting road in Padang Bulan. Of the 117 passengers and crews on board, only 17 survived, and an additional 49 civilians on the ground were killed. As a result, Kualanamu International Airport was built in Deli Serdang to replace the old airport, with construction finished in 2012. After the move to the new airport, height restriction laws in Medan were relaxed.

Geography
Medan is in the northeastern part of Sumatra island, in the province of North Sumatra. The city is a semi-enclave within Deli Serdang Regency, bordered by that regency on three sides and by the Strait of Malacca to the north. The natural harbor formed where the Deli and Babura rivers feed into the straits has contributed to Medan's growth as a trading port.

Medan's elevation varies between 2.5 and 37.5 m above sea level, with the Barisan Mountains to the south, and volcanoes such as Sibayak Mountain and Sinabung Mountain 50 to 70 km from the city.

Climate
Under the Köppen climate classification, Medan features a tropical rainforest climate (Af) with no real dry season. Its driest month (January) on average sees about one-third the precipitation of its wettest month (October), with a total annual precipitation of about 2,200 mm. Autumn (September - November) is the rainiest season, and the temperature is still coolest in winter (December and January). Temperatures in the city average approximately 27 C throughout the year.

Mayor
Medan was governed by Abdillah from 2000 until 2008, when he and his vice mayor were caught by the Corruption Eradication Commission. Syamsul Arifin, the governor of North Sumatra Province, appointed as acting mayor, followed by Rahudman Harahap after Lubis's 2009 resignation. Harahap resigned in order to run for office in the 2010 mayoral election, leaving Arifin himself to become acting mayor. In 2013, Harahap was also arrested for corruption, and his deputy Dzulmi Eldin became acting mayor.

Dzulmi Eldin was elected mayor in 2016, and served until his arrest for corruption in 2019. He was replaced by his vice mayor, Akhyar Nasution, who served until the end of his term in 2021.

The current mayor of Medan is Bobby Nasution, with vice mayor.

Administrative divisions
Medan is divided into 21 districts (kecamatan), tabulated below with their areas and populations at the 2010 Census, and the 2020 Census, together with the official estimates as of mid-2023. The table also includes the number of urban villages/neighbourhoods (kelurahan) in each district, and their postal codes.

The city centre consists of Medan Petisah, Medan Baru, Medan Polonia, Medan Maimun, Medan Kota, and Medan Barat (West Medan). Medan Labuhan is one of the largest districts by area (together with Medan Belawan and Medan Marelan) and lies in the northern part of the city. Medan Tuntungan serves as the gateway to Karo Regency, Medan Helvetia to Binjai City and Langkat, and Medan Amplas to Tebing Tinggi and Pematang Siantar.

Demographics
Medan is Indonesia's largest city outside Java, and its fourth largest altogether (after Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung). The population more than quadrupled in less than fifty years, growing from 568,000 in 1968 to 2.1 million in 2010. As of 2020, Medan had a population of 2,435,252 and the larger metropolitan area had a population of 4,756,863.

Ethnicities and languages
The dominant ethnic groups in Medan are Batak and Javanese, with smaller Malays, Acehnese, Indian, Nias, and Sundanese populations.

The Bataks in Medan are of three subethnicities. The native Karo mostly live in the southern parts of Medan, including Padang Bulan, Medan Johor and Tuntungan. The Toba, whom the Dutch employed on their oil palm plantations, live in Marindal and Amplas, or in nearby city centres such as the Medan Perjuangan district. Finally, the Mandailing, who migrated to Medan after Indonesian independence in search of job opportunities, mainly live in Medan Tembung. The primary languages spoken by Bataks in Medan are Batak and Karo.

The large Javanese community in Medan is primarily composed of the descendants of people transported from Java in the 19th century to be employed as contract workers at various plantations in North Sumatra. For the most part, they speak the local dialect of Javanese.

The Malays are also natives of Medan, having lived as fishermen in the outskirts of the city since the Aru era. Starting in the 18th century, they began to spread throughout the city, with large numbers living in Medan Maimun, Kota Matsum, Labuhan and Belawan and speaking Malay.

Immigration from southern China to Deli began in the 16th century, and accelerated in the 19th and early 20th centuries as immigrants sought employment as planters and coolies. Medan is home to the largest Chinese population in Sumatra, mostly concentrated around the city centre. Most Chinese people in Medan speak Medan Hokkien, a local dialect, but many also speak Mandarin, Teochew, or Cantonese.

Minangkabau came to Medan since the late of the 19th century. Minangs migration surged from the 1960s to the 1980s, becoming 10.9% of the population and founding Padang restaurants throughout the city. Most Minangkabau people in Medan speak Minangkabau. They are mostly concentrated around the city centre, near Central Market (Pajak Sentral), Kota Matsum and Sukaramai.

Many Acehnese sought sanctuary in Medan after the insurgency in Aceh in the late 1970s. They now own a number of Mie Aceh restaurants around the Setia Budi and Sunggal areas. Most speak Acehnese, and Gayonese is also common.

Medan also has a substantial Tamil Indonesian community. Kampung Madras, a busy area in the city centre, is well-known as a Tamil neighbourhood.

The different linguistic communities in Medan communicate in a slang called Bahasa Medan or Dialek Medan (Medanese slang). This dialect of Indonesian includes loanwords from the various local languages, especially Malay.

Religion
Most of Medan's inhabitants are Muslim, accounting for approximately 65 percent of the population. The substantial Christian demographic (about 25 percent of the total population) includes Catholics, Methodists, and Lutherans, such as the Batak Christian Protestant Church. Buddhists make up about 9 percent of the population, and there are smaller Hindu, Confucian, and Sikh communities. Some Bataknese follow traditional religions such as Pemena and Parmalim.

Gunung Timur Temple, on Jalan Hang Tuah, is Medan's oldest Taoist temple. Maha Vihara Maitreya, on Jalan Cemara Asri, is the largest Buddhist temple in southeast Asia. The city's oldest church, Medan Cathedral, on Jalan Pemuda, was originally built as Indische Kerk by the Dutch and Indian community. Sri Mariamman Temple, on Jalan Zainul Arifin in Kampung Madras, is the city's oldest Hindu temple, built around 1881; it is surrounded by over a hundred statues of various deities. Graha Maria Annai Velangkanni, a Catholic church in an Indo-Mogul style, was built on Jalan Sakura III in 2005, dedicated to a Marian apparition in 17th century Tamil Nadu. At one point before and during the Japanese occupation of the city, Japanese migrants created a Shinto shrine, Hirohara Shrine, to accommodate the increasing worshipers of Japanese residents. It was later rebuilt during the Japanese occupation of the city in 1944 to accommodate the mandatory worship by locals. The former shrine still stands as the last Shinto shrine in Southeast Asia.

Economy

The Medan metropolitan area was recognized as an Indonesian National Strategic Region (Kawasan Strategis Nasional) by Government Regulation No 28/2008. As a major commercial and economic hub of Indonesia, Medan is a centre for the production and trade of commodities including cinnamon, tobacco, tea, coffee, rubber, and palm oil. It also has a growing manufacturing sector, producing goods such as cars, machinery, tile, and paper and pulp.

Medan's location makes it the main hub of international trade in western Indonesia, with exports going to Europe, North America, and the Middle East. Its trade and tourism businesses have also become essential to the Indonesia–Malaysia–Thailand Growth Triangle. Many multinational companies maintain offices in the city, such as Asian Agri, London Sumatra, Musim Mas, Philips Lighting, Toba Pulp Lestari, Marriott, Wilmar, ABB Group and DBS Bank. Rapid development in Medan has resulted in an upward trend in residential property prices.

Medan is one of the major shopping centres of Indonesia, along with Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya. Shopping malls in Medan include:

• Cambridge City Square

• Centre Point

• DeliPark Mall

• Focal Point

• Lippo Plaza Mall

• Manhattan Times Square

• Medan Mall

• Plaza Medan Fair

• Ringroad City Walks

• Sun Plaza

• Thamrin Plaza

Cuisine

Medan is known as "the culinary heaven of Indonesia" for its variety of ethnic cuisines and prominent street hawkers. Prominent restaurants in Medan include Nelayan (halal-Chinese seafood and dim sum), Garuda and Uda Sayang (nasi padang and gulai), Sate Afrizal Amir (sate padang), Cahaya Baru (chapati and tandoori), OnDo Batak grill and Tesalonika (babi panggang (grilled pork) and saksang), Jalan Selat Panjang and Jalan Semarang (Chinese food), Jalan Pagaruyung (Indian and Malay food), and Jalan Padan Bulan (Batak food). Other major culinary destinations in Medan include Merdeka Walk, an outdoor area with a number of restaurants, and Pasar Rame, a daily outdoor market.

The local cuisine in Medan comes from a variety of culinary traditions. Soto Medan is a savoury stew of mixed meats and coconut milk, usually served with rice and perkedel. Bika ambon, a popular local cake, is traditionally flavoured with pandanus, but can also be found in banana, durian, cheese, and chocolate flavours. Babi Panggang Karo, grilled pork dipped in blood curd, may be served with sambal andaliman made from local peppers. (豆干虾炸) is a local Chinese variant of rojak, made with fried prawn, vegetables, tofu, and chili sauce. Medanese swiss rolls (Bolu Meranti) and dried anchovies are popular souvenirs.

Landmarks

Many examples of colonial Dutch architecture survive in Medan. Prominent instances include the old City Hall, the Medan Post Office, Inna Dharma Deli Hotel, Titi Gantung bridge, the building, the Tjong A Fie Mansion, the A.V.R.O.S. building, the Warenhuis building, and the Tirtanadi Water Tower.

The Sultan of Deli (whose position is now purely ceremonial) still lives in Maimoon Palace, built 1887-1891. The Great Mosque of Medan, built in 1906, was designed in a Moroccan style by the Dutch architect A.J. Dingemans.

Theme parks
Among Medan's tourist attractions are several theme parks and water parks.

 * HillPark GreenHill City
 * A relatively new theme park an hour from Medan.

 * Pantai Cermin Themepark
 * A water theme park located in Cermin Beach, Serdang Bedagai.

 * Wonder Water World
 * A water park in Medan itself, located in Central Business District Polonia.

 * Hairos Water Park
 * A water park located near Medan in Deli Serdang.

Museums

The North Sumatra Museum, located south of the city's centre, was formally opened in April 1982 by, Minister of Education and Culture. The museum's collection centres around artefacts of North Sumatran ethnic groups.

The Bukit Barisan Museum is a military museum opened by Brigade General on 21 June 1971. Located at 8 Jalan H. Zainul Arifin, the museum houses a number of historic weapons used in the 1958 revolt in North Sumatra, and displays paintings of the rebellion against the Netherlands.

The Rahmat International Wildlife Museum & Gallery, which opened in 1999, is considered the city's outstanding taxidermy collection. It is located on Jalan Letjen S. Parman No.309.

Airport

The Kualanamu International Airport (KNO) opened on 25 July 2013 as a replacement for the Polonia Airport. Located 39 km from downtown Medan, it is Indonesia's first airport with a direct rail link to the city. The airport has a 224298 m2 passenger terminal, and serves as a hub for Garuda Indonesia, Indonesia AirAsia, Lion Air, Susi Air and Wings Air, with direct domestic flights to many major cities in Sumatra, as well as Java-international flights to locations abroad including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka.

Seaport

The Port of Belawan is on the northeast coast of Sumatra, 19 km north of Medan and accessible by a railway across the channel south of the island. Originally built in 1890 for European tobacco exports, the harbour was expanded in 1907 with a new section for Chinese and indigenous traders.

The growth of northern Sumatra's rubber and palm oil plantations in the early twentieth century brought new developments to the port. Several major berthing facilities were built in the 1920s, and by 1938 the port handled the greatest cargo value of any in the Dutch East Indies. Trade volumes dropped substantially after Indonesian independence, but reached pre-independence levels again in the mid-1960s. A major restructuring in 1985 saw the construction of a container terminal; it almost immediately captured about one-fifth of Indonesia's containerized exports. Major products exported include rubber, palm oil, tea, and coffee.

The current port has two terminals. The first, which handles passengers, offers ferry services to cities including Penang, Langkawi, Batam, Jakarta, and Surabaya. The second, Belawan International Container Terminal (BICT), is used for export and import services, and is one of the largest shipping industry ports in Indonesia.

Roads
Major roads through Medan include the Trans-Sumatran Highway and the Belmera Toll Road. Other toll roads link the city to the airport, Binjai, and Tebing Tinggi.

Railway

The largest train station in Medan is Medan Station. The city also has a number of smaller stations, including Medan Pasar, Pulu Brayan, Titi Papan, Labuhan, and Belawan. Of these, Titi Papan and Pulu Brayan serve exclusively freight trains, while the others also serve passenger trains.

Express trains run between Medan and cities including Tebing Tinggi, Pematang Siantar, Tanjungbalai, and Rantau Prapat, and the Kualanamu Airport Railink Services express train runs between Medan Station and Kualanamu International Airport Station. Other rail lines connect Medan to cities such as Binjai and Belawan.

An elevated railway over several rail lines around Medan avoids level crossings and reduces traffic congestion.

Public transport

Both auto rickshaws and cycle rickshaws are widely available in Medan, for a cheap pre-negotiated fare. Ride-sharing services Gojek and Grab are also in widespread use.

While taxis exist, most locals use sudako, Medan's share taxi system. These minibuses follow routes indicated by numbers displayed on the vehicle; route maps are not published, instead typically being spread by word-of-mouth.

Medan and its nearby urban areas have two bus rapid transit systems, Trans Mebidang and Trans Metro Deli, each with several active corridors.

Television
Medan's television stations include public and private national networks, as well as local channels. TVRI Sumatera Utara, a public station serving North Sumatra, is headquartered in the city. Channels currently available in Medan include:

• CNN Indonesia

• TVRI Sumatera Utara

• Indosiar

• MNCTV

• Trans TV

• ANtv

• GTV

• RCTI

• SCTV

• tvOne

• Magna TV HD

• Metro TV

• Trans7

• NET. – 43 UHF

• iNews – 45 UHF

• DAAI TV – 49 UHF

• RTV 53 UHF

• MYTV – 55 UHF

• Kompas TV – 59 UHF

• CTV Network – 61 UHF

Radio
RRI Medan is the only public radio in Medan. Several local languages are also served on the radio, such as Kardopa Radio (in the Batak language), CityRadio FM and A-Radio FM (in the Chinese language) and Symphony FM (in the Malay language). Other popular stations in Medan include Prambors FM, MNC Trijaya FM, I-Radio, KISS FM, VISI FM, and Delta FM.

Newspapers
Mimbar Umum is Medan's oldest newspaper. Other major newspapers based in Medan include Waspada, Analisa, Jurnal Medan, Berita Sore, Harian Global, Harian Medan Bisnis, Sumut Pos, Posmetro Medan, Sinar Indonesia Baru, and Tribun Medan, as well as national Mandarin language newspapers such as Harian Indonesia (印尼星洲日报), Guo Ji Ri Bao (国际日报) and Shangbao (印尼商报) and English newspapers like The Jakarta Post.

Literature
From the 1930s through the 1960s, Medan was the source of a major body of Indonesian literature, known as "Roman Medan". These books usually depicted local life in Medan and surrounding areas of Deli.

Several romance novel writers grew up in Medan, including Hamka, Joesoef Sou'yb, Tamar Djaja, Matu Mona, and A. Damhoeri.

Sport
Football is one of the most popular sports in Medan, with five local clubs: Persatuan Sepakbola Medan dan Sekitarnya (known as PSMS Medan), Medan Jaya, Medan Chiefs, Bintang PSMS and Medan United. Teladan Stadium, Medan's multi-purpose stadium, is used primarily for football matches.

Medan also has a Wushu training centre, Jalan Plaju, and a basketball club, Angsapura Sania.

Healthcare

Medan has more than 30 registered hospitals, three public and the rest private. • Pirngadi General Hospital

• Adam Malik General Hospital

• Haji General Hospital

• St. Elisabeth Hospital

• Martha Friska Hospital

• Columbia Asia Hospital

• Permata Bunda Hospital

• Murni Teguh Hospital

• Advent Hospital

• Siloam-Dhirga Surya Hospital

• Imelda Hospital

• Vina Estetica Hospital

• Stella Maris Hospital

• Putri Hijau Military Hospital

• Mitra Sejati General Hospital

• Bunda Thamrin Hospital

• Royal Prima Hospital

• Methodist Hospital

• Sumatra Eye Center

• Eshmun Hospital

Elementary, middle, and high schools
Medan has more than 827 registered elementary schools, 337 middle schools and 288 high schools, including state-owned, private, religious, and international schools. • Chandra Kumala School

• Cinta Budaya School (Chong Wen) (中文学校)

• Medan Independent School

• Methodist High School (2–3) Medan

• Nanyang Zhi Hui School (南洋之晖学校)

• Perguruan Santo Thomas Medan

• Prime One School

• Singapore Intercultural Schools Medan

• SMA Negeri 1 Medan (state-owned high school)

• SMA Negeri 2 Medan (state-owned high school)

• SMA Negeri 3 Medan (state-owned high school)

• SMA Negeri 4 Medan (state-owned high school)

• SMP Negeri 18 Medan (state-owned middle school)

• Sutomo School (1–2) (蘇東中學)

• Telkom Vocational School (Medan)

• Yayasan Pendidikan Shafiatul Amaliyah

• Yayasan Pendidikan Harapan

• SMK Tritech Informatika Medan

Universities and Colleges
Medan's 72 registered universities, academies, polytechnics, and colleges include: • Dharmawangsa University

• HKBP Nommensen University

• IT&B Campus

• Medan State Polytechnic

• Medan Tourism Academy

• Mikroskil University

• Muhammadiyah University of North Sumatra

• Pelita Harapan University

• Prima University

• State University of Medan

• STBA-PIA (亚洲-国际友好学院)

• STIE Eka Prasetya

• Universitas Darma Agung (UDA)

• Universitas Methodist Indonesia

• University of North Sumatra

• University of Pembangunan Panca Budi

• Technology Institute of Medan

Consulates
Medan hosts several consulates and general consulates from foreign countries, such as:

 * 🇦🇺 Australia
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium
 * 🇨🇳 China
 * 🇩🇰 Denmark
 * 🇩🇪 Germany
 * 🇮🇳 India
 * 🇯🇵 Japan
 * 🇲🇾 Malaysia
 * 🇳🇱 Netherlands
 * 🇳🇴 Norway
 * 🇵🇱 Poland
 * 🇸🇬 Singapore
 * 🇹🇭 Thailand
 * 🇹🇷 Turkey
 * 🇺🇸 United States

Twin towns – sister cities
Medan is twinned with:
 * 🇲🇾 George Town, Penang Island, Malaysia (10 October 1984)
 * 🇯🇵 Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan (4 November 1989)
 * 🇰🇷 Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, South Korea (24 September 1997)
 * 🇨🇳 Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China (17 December 2002)
 * 🇺🇸 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States (30 October 2014)

title: Medan