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Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and folk heroine who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

Oakley developed hunting skills as a child to provide for her impoverished family in western Ohio. At age 15, she won a shooting contest against an experienced marksman, Frank E. Butler, whom she married in 1876. The pair joined Buffalo Bill in 1885, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state. Audiences were astounded to see her shooting out a cigar from her husband's hand or splitting a playing-card edge-on at 30 paces. She earned more than anyone except Buffalo Bill himself.

After a bad rail accident in 1901, she had to settle for a less taxing routine, and she toured in a play written about her career. She also instructed women in marksmanship, believing strongly in female self-defense. Her stage acts were filmed for one of Thomas Edison's earliest Kinetoscopes in 1894. Since her death, her story has been adapted for stage musicals and films, including Annie Get Your Gun.

Early life
Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann (Annie) Mosey  on August 13, 1860, in a log cabin less than 2 mi northwest of Woodland, now Willowdell, in Darke County, Ohio, a rural county along the state line with Indiana. Her birthplace is about 5 mi east of North Star. There is a stone-mounted plaque in the vicinity of the site, which was placed by the Annie Oakley Committee in 1981, 121 years after her birth.

Annie's parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania: Susan Wise, born 1830, and Jacob Mosey, born 1799, married in 1848. They moved to a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio, sometime around 1855.

Born in 1860, Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan's nine children, and the fifth of the seven surviving. Her siblings were Mary Jane (1851–1867), Lydia (1852–1882), Elizabeth (1855–1881), Sarah Ellen (1857–1939), Catherine (1859–1859), John (1861–1949), Hulda (1864–1934) and a stillborn infant brother in 1865. Annie's father, who had fought in the War of 1812, was 61 years old at the time of Annie's birth and became an invalid from hypothermia during a blizzard in late 1865, dying of pneumonia in early 1866 at age 66. Her mother later married Daniel Brumbaugh, had another daughter, Emily (1868–1937), and was widowed once again.

Because of poverty following her father's death, Annie did not regularly attend school as a child, although she did attend later in childhood and in adulthood. On March 15, 1870, at age nine, she was admitted to the Darke County Infirmary along with her sister Sarah Ellen. According to her autobiography, she was put in the care of the infirmary's superintendent, Samuel Crawford Edington, and his wife Nancy, who taught her to sew and decorate. Beginning in the spring of 1870, she was "bound out" to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents per week and an education. The couple had originally wanted someone who could pump water and cook and who was bigger. She spent about two years in near slavery to them, enduring mental and physical abuse. One time, the wife put Annie out in the freezing cold without shoes, as a punishment because she had fallen asleep over some darning. Annie referred to them as "the wolves". Even in her autobiography, she never revealed the couple's real names.

According to biographer Glenda Riley, "the wolves" could have been the Studabaker family, but the 1870 U.S. Census suggests they were the Abram Boose family of neighboring Preble County. Around the spring of 1872, Annie ran away from "the wolves". According to biographer Shirl Kasper, it was only at this point that Annie met and lived with the Edingtons, returning to her mother's home around the age of 15.

Annie began trapping before age 7, and shooting and hunting by age 8, to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold hunted game to locals in Greenville, such as shopkeepers Charles and G. Anthony Katzenberger, who shipped it to hotels in Cincinnati and other cities. She also sold the game to restaurants and hotels in northern Ohio. Her skill paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm when Annie was 15.

Surname
There are a number of variations given for Oakley's family name, Mosey. Many biographers and other references give the name as "Moses". Although the 1860 U.S. Census shows the family name as "Mauzy", this is considered an error introduced by the census taker. Oakley's name appears as "Ann Mosey" in the 1870 U.S. Census and "Mosey" is engraved on her father's headstone and appears in his military record; "Mosey" is the official spelling by the Annie Oakley Foundation, maintained by her living relatives. The spelling "Mosie" has also appeared.

According to Kasper, Oakley insisted that her family name be spelled "Mozee", leading to arguments with her brother John. Kasper speculates that Oakley may have considered "Mozee" to be a more phonetic spelling. There is also popular speculation that young Oakley had been teased about her name by other children.

Prior to their double wedding in March 1884, both Oakley's brother John and one of her sisters, Hulda, changed their surnames to "Moses".

Marriage and career

Annie soon became well known throughout the region. On Thanksgiving Day 1875, the Baughman & Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati. Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Frank E. Butler (1847–1926), an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet per side with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost that Butler could beat any local fancy shooter. The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the 15-year-old Annie, saying, "The last opponent Butler expected was a 5 ft 15-year-old girl named Annie." After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet. Another account says that Butler hit on his last shot, but the bird fell dead about 2 ft beyond the boundary line. He soon began courting Annie and they married. They never had any children.

According to a modern-day account in The Cincinnati Enquirer, it is possible that the shooting match took place in 1881 and not 1875. It appears the time of the event was never recorded. Biographer Shirl Kasper states the shooting match took place in the spring of 1881 near Greenville, possibly in North Star as mentioned by Butler during interviews in 1903 and 1924. Other sources seem to coincide with the North Fairmount location near Cincinnati if the event occurred in 1881.

The Bevis House hotel was still being operated by Martin Bevis and W. H. Ridenour in 1875. It opened around 1860 after the building was previously used as a pork packaging facility. Jack Frost did not obtain management of the hotel until 1879. The Baughman & Butler shooting act first appeared on the pages of The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1880. They signed with Sells Brothers Circus in 1881 and made an appearance at the Coliseum Opera House later that year.

Oakley and Butler were married a year afterward. A certificate on file with the Archives of Ontario, Registration Number 49594, reports that Butler and Oakley were wed on June 20, 1882, in Windsor, Ontario. Many sources say the marriage took place on August 23, 1876, in Cincinnati, but no recorded certificate validates that date. A possible reason for the contradictory dates is that Butler's divorce from his first wife, Henrietta Saunders, was not yet final in 1876. An 1880 U.S. Federal Census record shows Saunders as married. Sources mentioning Butler's first wife as Elizabeth are inaccurate; Elizabeth was his granddaughter, her father being Edward F. Butler. Throughout Oakley's show-business career, the public was often led to believe that she was five to six years younger than she was. The later marriage date would have better supported her fictional age.

Increase in popularity and touring
Annie and Frank Butler lived in Cincinnati for a time. Oakley, the stage name she adopted when she and Frank began performing together, is believed to have been taken from the city's neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided. Some people believe she took on the name because that was the name of the man who had paid her train fare when she was a child.

They joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885. At five feet tall, Oakley was given the nickname of "Watanya Cicilla" by fellow performer Sitting Bull, rendered "Little Sure Shot" in the public advertisements.

During her first engagement with the Buffalo Bill show, Oakley experienced a tense professional rivalry with rifle sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Smith was eleven years younger than Oakley, age 15 at the time she joined the show in 1886, which may have been a primary reason for Oakley to alter her age as six years younger in later years due to Smith's press coverage becoming as favorable as hers. Oakley temporarily left the Buffalo Bill show but returned two years later, after Smith departed, in time for the Paris Exposition of 1889. This three-year tour only cemented Oakley as America's first female star. She earned more than any other performer in the show, except Buffalo Bill himself. She also performed in many shows on the side for extra income. During her lifetime, the theatre business began referring to complimentary tickets as "Annie Oakleys". Such tickets traditionally have holes punched into them (to prevent them from being resold), reminiscent of the playing cards Oakley shot through during her sharpshooting act.

In Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, King Umberto I of Italy, President Marie François Sadi Carnot of France and other crowned heads of state. Oakley supposedly shot the ashes off a cigarette held by the newly crowned German Kaiser Wilhelm II at his request.

From 1892 to 1904, Oakley and Butler made their home in Nutley, New Jersey.

Oakley promoted the service of women in combat operations for the United States armed forces. She wrote a letter to President William McKinley on April 5, 1898, "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain."

The Spanish–American War did occur, but Oakley's offer was not accepted. Theodore Roosevelt, did, however, name his volunteer cavalry the "Rough Riders" after the "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World" where Oakley was a major star.

In 1901 (the same year as McKinley's assassination), Oakley was badly injured in a train accident but recovered after temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She left the Buffalo Bill show and in 1902 began a less taxing acting career in a stage play written especially for her, The Western Girl. Oakley played the role of Nancy Berry who used a pistol, a rifle and rope to outsmart a group of outlaws.

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught more than 15,000 women how to use a gun. Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun, as not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves. She said: "I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies."

Film appearance

Buffalo Bill was friends with Thomas Edison, and Edison built the world's largest electrical power plant at the time for the Wild West Show. Buffalo Bill and 15 of his show Indians appeared in two Kinetoscopes filmed September 24, 1894.

In 1894, Oakley and Butler performed in Edison's Kinetoscope film Annie Oakley, also known as "Little Sure Shot" of the "Wild West", an exhibition of rifle shooting at stationary and moving objects, which was filmed November 1, 1894, in Edison's Black Maria studio by William Heise. It lasted 21 seconds at 30 frames and 39 feet. It was the eleventh film made after commercial showings began on April 14, 1894.

Libel cases
In 1904, sensational cocaine prohibition stories were selling well. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst published a false story that Oakley had been arrested for stealing to support a cocaine habit. The woman actually arrested was a burlesque performer who told Chicago police that her name was Annie Oakley.

Most of the newspapers that printed the story had relied on the Hearst article, and they immediately retracted it with apologies upon learning of the libelous error. Hearst, however, tried to avoid paying the anticipated court judgments of $20,000 by sending an investigator to Darke County, Ohio, with the intent of collecting reputation-smearing gossip from Oakley's past. The investigator found nothing.

Oakley spent much of the next six years winning all but one of her 55 libel lawsuits against newspapers. She collected less in judgments than the total of her legal expenses.

Later years and death

In 1913, the Butlers built a brick bungalow style home in Cambridge, Maryland. It is known as the Annie Oakley House and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. In 1917, they moved to North Carolina and returned to public life.

After World War 1 broke out, Oakley reflected, "If I shot the kaiser, I might have saved the lives of several millions of soldiers. I didn't know then that he would swing the iron fist and shake the universe Perhaps it was well for both of us that humans lack foresight." According to Butler, he sat down and wrote a letter to the kaiser Wilhelm, saying that Annie Oakley wanted to repeat the shot. The kaiser never replied.

Oakley continued to set records into her sixties and also engaged in extensive philanthropy for women's rights and other causes, including the support of young women she knew. She embarked on a comeback and intended to star in a feature-length silent movie. She hit 100 clay targets in a row from 16 yd at age 62 in a 1922 shooting contest in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

In late 1922, the couple were in a car crash that forced Oakley to wear a steel brace on her right leg. She eventually performed again after more than a year of recovery, and she set records in 1924.

Oakley's health declined in 1925 and she died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of 66 on November 3, 1926. She was cremated and her ashes buried at Brock Cemetery, near Greenville.

According to B. Haugen, Butler was so distraught by her death that he stopped eating and died 18 days later in Michigan; he was buried next to her ashes. Kasper reports that Butler's death certificate gave senility as the cause of death. One rumor claims that Oakley's ashes were placed in one of her trophies and placed with Butler's body in his coffin prior. Both body and ashes were interred in the cemetery on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1926.

After her death, her incomplete autobiography was given to stage comedian Fred Stone, and it was discovered that her entire fortune had been spent on her family and her charities.

Shooting prowess

Biographers, such as Shirl Kasper, repeat Oakley's own story about her first shot at the age of eight. "I saw a squirrel run down over the grass in front of the house, through the orchard and stop on a fence to get a hickory nut." Taking a rifle from the house, she fired at the squirrel, writing later that, "It was a wonderful shot, going right through the head from side to side". The Encyclopædia Britannica notes that: Oakley never failed to delight her audiences, and her feats of marksmanship were truly incredible. At 30 paces she could split a playing card held edge-on, she hit dimes tossed into the air, she shot cigarettes from her husband's lips, and, a playing card being thrown into the air, she riddled it before it touched the ground.

Association with Sitting Bull
R. A. Koestler-Grack reports that, on March 19, 1884, she was being watched by Chief Sitting Bull when:"Oakley playfully skipped on stage, lifted her rifle, and aimed the barrel at a burning candle. In one shot, she snuffed out the flame with a whizzing bullet. Sitting Bull watched her knock corks off of bottles and slice through a cigar Butler held in his teeth."Oakley and Sitting Bull purportedly met and bonded while working together on a Buffalo Bill show in Minnesota. Sitting Bull joined with Buffalo Bill after being paroled, having led the last major Indian uprising against the federal government; his status as a great warrior and leader was legendary worldwide by the time he and Oakley met. The former Indian Chief was so impressed with Oakley's skills that he offered $65 (equal to $ today) for a photograph of him and her together. According to Oakley, the admiration and respect was mutual and only increased as they spent more time together. Sitting Bull felt Oakley must be "gifted" by supernatural means, in order to shoot so accurately with both hands. As a result of his esteem, Sitting Bull symbolically "adopted" Oakley as his daughter in 1884, naming her "Little Sure Shot" – a title that Oakley went on to use throughout her career.

Legacy
Oakley's worldwide stardom as a sharpshooter enabled her to earn more money than most of the other performers in the Buffalo Bill show. She did not forget her roots after gaining financial and economic power. She and Butler together often donated to charitable organizations for orphans.

Oakley also proved to be a great influence on women. She urged that women serve in war, though President William McKinley rejected her offer of woman sharpshooters for service in the Spanish–American War. Beyond this offer to the president, Oakley believed that women should learn to use a gun for the empowering image that it gave. Laura Browder discusses how Oakley's stardom gave hope to women and youth in Her Best Shot: Women and Guns In America. Oakley pressed for women to be independent and educated. She was a key influence in the creation of the image of the American cowgirl. Through this image, she provided substantial evidence that women are as capable as men when offered the opportunity to prove themselves.

A vast collection of Oakley's personal possessions, performance memorabilia, and firearms are on permanent exhibit in the Garst Museum and the National Annie Oakley Center in Greenville, Ohio. She has been inducted into the Trapshooting Hall of Fame, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, the National Women's Hall of Fame, the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, and the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

In popular culture

 * Barbara Stanwyck played Oakley in the film Annie Oakley (1935).
 * The Irving Berlin Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun (1946) is loosely based on her life. The original stage production starred Ethel Merman, who also starred in the 1966 revival.
 * The 1950 film version of the musical starred Betty Hutton and Howard Keel.
 * Several years after headlining the 1948 national tour, Mary Martin returned to the role for a 1957 NBC television special that also featured John Raitt as Frank Butler.
 * Gail Davis played a fictionalized version of Oakley in the television series Annie Oakley (1954 to 1956).
 * Geraldine Chaplin portrayed Oakley in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976).
 * Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Oakley in Tall Tales & Legends (1985).
 * Reba McEntire portrayed Oakley in Buffalo Girls (1996), alongside Anjelica Huston and Melanie Griffith. She later replaced Bernadette Peters in the title role for the 1999 Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun alongside Tom Wopat.
 * Elizabeth Berridge portrayed Oakley in Hidalgo (2004).
 * Alyssa Edwards portrayed Oakley in RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars season 2 (2016), episode 3: "HERstory of the World".
 * The Andy Pratt song "Avenging Annie" tells a story about Annie Oakley meeting Pretty Boy Floyd.
 * Author Kari Bovée published a trilogy of Annie Oakley historical mystery novels in 2020.
 * Oakley appears as the main character in the historical crime fiction story Sureshot, set during the aftermath of the 1901 train crash, published in the collection Crimeucopia 'Say What Now'.
 * Oakley is also the main character in "The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley", set during a European tour through Germany with the traveling Wild West show. This is the 16th novel in the magical alternate history Elemental Masters series by fantasy author Mercedes Lackey.
 * Marvel Comics' predecessors Timely Comics and Atlas Comics published an Annie Oakley comic book for eleven issues from Spring 1948 to June 1956.

title: Annie Oakley


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Kłodzko County

Kłodzko County (powiat kłodzki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on 1 January 1999 as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998.

The county covers an area of 1643 km2; its territory almost exactly corresponds to the former Bohemian, later Prussian, County of Kladsko (Grafschaft Glatz). It is located in a panhandle called Kłodzko Panhandle. The county's administrative seat is the town of Kłodzko; the other towns are: Duszniki-Zdrój, Nowa Ruda, Polanica-Zdrój, Bystrzyca Kłodzka, Kudowa-Zdrój, Lądek-Zdrój, Międzylesie, Radków, Stronie Śląskie and Szczytna. (The suffix Zdrój appearing in several of these names means "spa".)

As of 2019 the total population of the county was 158,600.

Neighbouring counties
Kłodzko County is bordered by Wałbrzych County to the north-west, Dzierżoniów County to the north and Ząbkowice Śląskie County to the north-east. It also borders the Czech Republic to the east, south and west.

Administrative division
The county is subdivided into 14 gminas (five urban, six urban-rural and three rural). These are listed in the following table, in descending order of population.

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

title: Kłodzko County


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Kamienna Góra County

Kamienna Góra County (powiat kamiennogórski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. The county covers an area of 396.1 km2. Its administrative seat is the town of Kamienna Góra; the only other town in the county is Lubawka.

As of 2019 the total population of the county is 43,429, out of which the population of Kamienna Góra is 19,010, the population of Lubawka is 6,028 and the rural population is 18,391.

Neighbouring counties
Kamienna Góra County is bordered by Jelenia Góra County to the west, Jawor County to the north and Wałbrzych County to the east. It also borders the Czech Republic to the south.

Administrative division
The county is subdivided into four gminas (one urban, one urban-rural and two rural). These are listed in the following table, in descending order of population.

title: Kamienna Góra County


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Emmett Dalton

Emmett Dalton (May 3, 1871 – July 13, 1937) was an American outlaw, train robber and member of the Dalton Gang in the American Old West. Part of a gang that attempted to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, on October 5, 1892, he was the only member of five to survive, despite receiving 23 gunshot wounds. Two of his brothers were killed. After serving 14 years in prison for the crime, Dalton was pardoned. He later capitalized on his notoriety, both as a writer and as an actor. His 1918 serial story Beyond the Law was adapted as a like-named silent film in which he played himself. His 1931 book When the Daltons Rode was adapted after his death as a 1940 film of the same name.

Early life
Dalton was born in 1871 in Missouri to Lewis (1826–1890) and Adeline (née Younger) Dalton (1835–1925). Adeline Younger was a half-sibling of Henry Washington Younger, father of four brothers with the James–Younger Gang.

Emmett was the eighth born of nine brothers; they had three sisters. His siblings were:

 * Charles Benjamin "Ben" Dalton (1852–1936)
 * Henry Coleman Dalton (1853–1920)
 * Littleton "Lit" Lee Dalton (1857–1942)
 * Franklin "Frank" Dalton (1859–1887)
 * Gratton Hanley "Grat" Dalton (1861–1892)
 * William Marion "Bill" Dalton (1863–1894)

 * Eva May Dalton (1867–1939)
 * Robert Rennick "Bob" Dalton (1869–1892)
 * Leona Randolph Dalton (1875–1964)
 * Nancy May Dalton (1876–1901)
 * Simon Noel "Si" Dalton (1878–1928)

Outlaw years
Emmett's older brothers Bob and Grat briefly worked as US deputy marshals in Indian Territory, sharing a position held by their older brother Frank Dalton after he was killed in the line of duty. They hired Emmett to serve as a guard at the jail at Fort Smith, in present-day Arkansas. The elder two started working for the Osage Nation to help them set up a police force, but fled after being pursued for stealing horses.

They began to conduct robberies of banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Emmett joined them, along with two other men. Their venture ended on October 5, 1892, when they attempted to rob two banks the same day in Coffeyville, Kansas. They had hoped to make enough money to flee the country. Four of the gang were killed in a gun fight with law enforcement and townsmen. Emmett Dalton was severely wounded, receiving 23 gunshot wounds, but survived. He later asserted that he never fired a shot during the Coffeyville bank robbery.

Prison
In March 1893, Dalton pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in the penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas. In June 1907, he was paroled in order to receive treatment to his right arm, which had been injured in Coffeyville. He returned to prison after treatment, then was pardoned in November 1907 by Edward W. Hoch, the Governor of Kansas.

After prison
Dalton moved to Southern California after leaving prison, and married Julia Johnson the following year, 1908. Later, he sold real estate, as Southern California was developing rapidly with migrants from across the country.

Dalton's account of his exploits with his brothers, titled Beyond the Law, was published in 1918 as serial story in The Wide World Magazine, a London monthly. The serial was made into a like-named movie in which Dalton portrayed himself. In 1931, he published When the Daltons Rode, co-written with Jack Jungmeyer Sr., a Los Angeles journalist. It was adapted as a 1940 movie of the same name, starring Randolph Scott, Kay Francis and Brian Donlevy—Emmett Dalton was portrayed by Frank Albertson. He also appeared in The Man on the Desert.

Dalton died in July 1937 at the age of 66. His widow died in 1943, aged 73. They are buried in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.

title: Emmett Dalton


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Peter Dunne

Peter Francis Dunne (born 17 March 1954) is a retired New Zealand politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ōhāriu. He held the seat and its predecessors from 1984 to 2017 – representing the Labour Party in Parliament from 1984 to 1994, and a succession of minor centrist parties from 1994. He was the Leader of Future New Zealand from 1994 to 1995, United New Zealand from 1996 to 2000, and United Future from 2000 to 2017.

He served as a Cabinet minister while in the Labour Party and later in governments dominated by the centre-right National Party and by the Labour Party. From 2005 to 2008 he held the posts of Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health as a minister outside of Cabinet with the Labour-led government. After Labour suffered an election defeat in 2008 to the National Party, United Future was reduced to having Dunne as its sole MP. However, in a deal between United Future and National, Dunne retained his two portfolios outside Cabinet. On 7 June 2013 he resigned his warrant as a minister due to a purported leak from his office. He effectively was an independent MP between 25 June 2013 and 13 August 2013 when United Future was temporarily deregistered. On 28 January 2014 Dunne was reinstated as a minister holding the Internal Affairs, Associate Health, and Associate Conservation portfolios.

On 21 August 2017, Dunne announced that he would retire from politics and pulled out of campaigning for re-election at the 2017 New Zealand general election. United Future lost its sole seat in Parliament and attained only 0.1% of the party vote. He is retired as a politician, and is now a political commentator.

Early life and family
Dunne was born in Christchurch on 17 March 1954, the son of Ralph and Joan Dunne. He attended St Bede's College and gained an MA in political science from Canterbury University before studying business administration at Massey University.

In 1976, he married high school chemistry teacher Jennifer Mackrell, and they have two sons. His brother, John Dunne, is a radio broadcaster. A grandfather, Frank Smyth, played for the All Blacks. He worked for the Department of Trade and Industry from 1977 to 1978 and then for the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council until 1984. He served as Deputy Chief Executive of the council from 1980 to 1984.

Labour MP
In the 1984 election, Dunne successfully stood for Parliament as a candidate of the Labour Party, winning the seat of Ohariu, defeating sitting National MP Hugh Templeton. Bob Jones, leader of the New Zealand Party (not to be confused with New Zealand First), also stood in the seat, splitting the former National vote and enabling the Labour victory in the seat. Dunne retained the seat in the 1987 election, after which he became a Parliamentary Undersecretary. In 1990, he became Minister of Regional Development, Associate Minister for the Environment, and Associate Minister of Justice. He won his seat again in the 1990 election, but the Labour Party suffered defeat, and Dunne thus lost his ministerial posts. In November 1990 he was appointed as Labour's spokesperson for Revenue, Regional Development and the Environment by Labour leader Mike Moore.

In the 1993 election, Dunne won the seat of Onslow, which covered much the same area as his former Ohariu seat. He found himself, however, increasingly at odds with the majority of the Labour Party – Dunne tended to support Labour's right-leaning faction rather than the party's more unionist wing. With the departure of leading right-wingers like Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble and David Caygill he found himself isolated. In October 1994 Dunne resigned from the Labour Party, becoming an independent MP. Soon after he rebuffed an approach by National MP Christine Fletcher to join the National Party. A short time later, he established the Future New Zealand party (not to be confused with a later party of the same name).

United New Zealand party
In 1995, a group of MPs from both Labour and National decided to band together and form a new centrist party. Dunne, who had already quit his party in a similar way, decided to join the larger group. Together, the defectors and Dunne established the United New Zealand party, with a total of seven MPs, led by Clive Matthewson. United eventually established a coalition with the National Party, with the deal seeing Dunne return to Cabinet as Minister of Internal Affairs and Revenue.

United New Zealand hoped to take advantage of the new mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, which took effect for the 1996 election. However, that election saw United New Zealand almost completely wiped out. Dunne, by virtue of his personal support, won the newly formed seat of Ohariu-Belmont, but all other United MPs suffered defeat. As the sole surviving United member in the House, Dunne became the party's leader. Towards the end of the parliamentary term, Dunne became part of a varied assortment of minor parties and independents who kept the National Party government in office after its coalition with New Zealand First collapsed in August 1998. Dunne retained his seat in the 1999 election. In this contest, the National Party put up no candidate in his electorate.

United Future New Zealand party
In 2000, Dunne's United merged with the Future New Zealand party (not to be confused with Dunne's own earlier party of the same name). Dunne remained leader of the new group, called United Future New Zealand. In the 2002 election, Dunne retained his seat despite challenges from both major parties. Mostly as a result of a strong performance by Dunne in a televised political debate, United Future surged unexpectedly in support, winning 6.69% of the nationwide party vote. In Parliament, United Future came to an agreement to support the governing Labour Party, although the two parties did not enter into a formal coalition arrangement. Dunne remained United Future's leader.

United Future New Zealand working with Outdoor Recreation
United Future, like other minor political parties working in coalition, suffered in the polls. The United Future entered an agreement to work formally with the Outdoor Recreation Party, a registered political party formed to represent the views of hunters, fishers, trampers and recreational users of the marine and natural environment.

Dunne retained his seat in the 2005 general election but his party's proportion of the nationwide vote diminished considerably, with a corresponding loss of seats in Parliament.

Fifth Labour Government
On 17 October 2005 Dunne gave his support to a Labour-led Government, along with Winston Peters' New Zealand First Party and Jim Anderton's Progressive Party. Dunne's decision to support a Labour-led Government disappointed some. During the election campaign Dunne and National Party leader Don Brash publicly sat outside an Epsom café over a cup of tea as a demonstration to the electorate that Dunne could co-operate with National. This demonstration saw the majority of National supporters in Ohariu-Belmont combine with United Future and other Dunne supporters to return Dunne with a comfortable majority. National won the party vote in his seat by 3.57% over Labour. Dunne's party received 5.55%, while the Green Party, which Dunne had criticised heavily in the campaign, received 5.84%.

Don Brash expressed a lack of amusement with Dunne's decision to support a Labour-led coalition government. Brash expressed astonishment at Dunne accepting the ministerial portfolio of Revenue while remaining outside Cabinet. Asked if he considered Dunne guilty of dirty dealing, Brash said he would not use those words. Representatives of business, however, welcomed the appointment.

After the 2005 New Zealand general election, United Future retained only two list Members of Parliament, Judy Turner and Gordon Copeland. Copeland left the party in May 2007 to re-form the Future New Zealand Party, after opposing Dunne over Sue Bradford's private members bill against parental corporal punishment of children. After Copeland's departure, Judy Turner remained the only United Future List MP in Parliament. Dunne supported Bradford's Child Discipline Act.

Fifth National Government
United Future's share of the party vote declined further in the 2008 election, to less than one percent. However, Dunne retained his electorate seat. The National Party won most seats overall and formed a minority government with support from Dunne, the Māori Party and Act New Zealand. Dunne retained his positions of Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health. However, like ministers from the other support parties, he remained outside Cabinet.

Between December 2008 and August 2009, Dunne served as the chairman of the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee. Dunne described the committee's report, which consisted of four minority reports, as a "middle road" through "complex and contentious" material.

In 2010, as Minister of Revenue, Dunne introduced the Taxation (Income-sharing Tax Credit) Bill to Parliament in September 2010, to give effect to United Future's policy of allowing couples raising dependent children up to the age of 18 years to share their incomes for tax purposes. The Bill was referred to a select committee and was reported back to Parliament in March 2011, but never had a second reading. In April 2011, the government announced the establishment of a statutory Game Animal Council, another United Future initiative agreed to as part of the 2008 confidence and supply agreement.

Dunne has long argued for reform of the superannuation system, proposing a flexible system where people could retire earlier and receive less, or later and receive more.

During the fifth National government's second term (2011–14), Dunne was reappointed Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health, and gained an additional appointment as Associate Minister of Conservation. With the Government majority reduced, Dunne held the balance of power for more than ten pieces of legislation in that term, including the Government's asset-sales plan.

As Associate Minister of Health, Dunne had responsibility for drugs, mental health and suicide prevention. He was responsible for the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013, which established a regulated market for psychoactive substances, and New Zealand's National Drug Policy released in 2015. In 2015–17 he made moves to make cannabis-based medicines more available to New Zealanders.

As Minister of Internal Affairs between 2014 and 2017 Dunne extended the term of the New Zealand passport from 5 years to 10 years and led the development of an integrated national fire and emergency service, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, to replace the New Zealand Fire Service and the separate Rural Fire Service. He also oversaw the He Tohu project which saw three of New Zealand's most precious constitutional documents – the 1835 Declaration of Independence, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, and the 1893 Women's Suffrage petition – rehoused in a purpose-built facility at the National Library.

Resignation and reinstatement
In mid-2013 Dunne refused to hand over all 86 emails between himself and Fairfax journalist Andrea Vance relating to the inquiry into the leaking of Rebecca Kitteridge's GCSB report following its illegal spying on Kim Dotcom. Prime Minister John Key told Dunne that if he would not co-operate with the inquiry he would have to resign his ministerial positions – which he did on 7 June. However, in December 2013 Parliament's powerful Privileges Committee found that Dunne was entirely within his rights to decline the Henry Inquiry access to his emails. It further described the actions of the Henry Inquiry as "unacceptable", "mystifying" and "unprecedented". The committee found "failure at many levels", particularly as to why the Speaker of the House was not consulted, or at least informed, about the requests and information releases. In December 2014 the Chief Ombudsman ruled that the emails did not contain official information and were therefore not required to be released.

On 28 January 2014, Dunne was reinstated to the Executive as Minister of Internal Affairs, Associate Minister of Health, and Associate Minister of Conservation. He retained his portfolios on 29 September 2014, after the 2014 general election, in the third term of the National Party-led government.

Party registration status
On 31 May 2013 the New Zealand Electoral Commission de-registered the United Future Party at their request, following concerns the party no longer had the requisite 500 members. This meant Dunne was no longer the leader of a political party and was denied more than $180,000 in funding he had previously been allocated as a party leader. The Electoral Commission re-registered United Future as a political party on 13 August 2013. The Speaker of the House, David Carter, restored Dunne's position as leader of a recognised Parliamentary party and re-allocated party funding in late August 2013.

Honours and awards
In 1990, Dunne was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. In the 2018 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services as a member of Parliament.

Political philosophy
Dunne supported Homosexual Law Reform when it became an issue in the mid-1980s. He has consistently favoured more liberal drinking laws. In a 2008 interview, Dunne suggested it may be time to review New Zealand's abortion laws and leave the decision to a woman and her doctor, based on informed consent.

From 2007, Dunne rebranded United Future as a centrist party, based on promoting strong families and vibrant communities. Dunne has summarised his political views in two books, Home is Where My Heart Is (2002) and In the Centre of Things (2005).

Dunne supports a New Zealand republic, and holding an early referendum on the future of New Zealand's head of state has become part of United Future's policy programme. In 2004 he chaired the Constitutional Arrangements Committee. Dunne also supports the declaration of a 'New Zealand Day' (renaming Waitangi Day) and has sponsored a member's bill on the issue.

title: Peter Dunne


text:
Karkonosze County

Karkonosze County (powiat karkonoski; Riesengebirgslandkreis) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998.

The county covers an area of 628.2 km2. Its administrative seat is the city of Jelenia Góra, although this city is not part of the county (it forms a separate city county, which is an enclave within Karkonosze County). There are four towns within the county: Karpacz, Szklarska Poręba, Kowary and Piechowice. The first two of these are major ski resorts.

As at 2019 the total population of the county is 63,639, out of which the population of the towns totals 28,213 and the rural population is 35,426.

Until July 2020 it was named Jelenia Góra County (powiat jeleniogórski). The change formally took effect on January 1, 2021. The current name references the Karkonosze Mountains.

Neighbouring counties
Apart from the city of Jelenia Góra, Karkonosze County is bordered by Lwówek Śląski County and Złotoryja County to the north, and Jawor County and Kamienna Góra County to the east. It also borders the Czech Republic to the south and west.

Administrative division
The county is subdivided into nine gminas (four urban and five rural). These are listed in the following table, in descending order of population.

title: Karkonosze County


text:
Battle of Port Arthur

The Battle of Port Arthur (旅順口海戦) of 8–9 February 1904 marked the commencement of the Russo-Japanese War. It began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Japanese destroyers on the neutral Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur, Manchuria, and continued with an engagement the following morning; further skirmishing off Port Arthur would continue until May 1904. The attack ended inconclusively, though the war resulted in a decisive Japanese victory.

Background
The opening stage of the Russo-Japanese War began with pre-emptive strikes by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) against the Russian Pacific Fleet based at Port Arthur and at Chemulpo. Admiral Tōgō's initial plan was to swoop down upon Port Arthur with the 1st Division of the Combined Fleet, consisting of the six pre-dreadnought battleships JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Hatsuse, JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Shikishima, JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Asahi, JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Fuji, and JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Yashima, led by the flagship JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Mikasa, and the 2nd Division, consisting of the armored cruisers JAPANESE CRUISER Iwate, JAPANESE CRUISER Azuma, JAPANESE CRUISER Izumo, JAPANESE CRUISER Yakumo, and JAPANESE CRUISER Tokiwa. These capital ships and cruisers were accompanied by some 15 destroyers and around 20 smaller torpedo boats. In reserve were the cruisers JAPANESE CRUISER Kasagi, JAPANESE CRUISER Chitose, JAPANESE CRUISER Takasago, and JAPANESE CRUISER Yoshino. With this large, well-trained and well-armed force, and surprise on his side, Admiral Tōgō hoped to deliver a crushing blow to the Russian fleet soon after the severance of diplomatic relations between the Japanese and Russian governments.

On the Russian side, Admiral Starck had the pre-dreadnought battleships RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Petropavlovsk, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Sevastopol, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Peresvet, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Pobeda, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Poltava, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Tsesarevich, and RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Retvizan, supported by the armored cruiser RUSSIAN CRUISER Bayan and the protected cruisers RUSSIAN CRUISER Pallada, RUSSIAN CRUISER Diana, RUSSIAN CRUISER Askold, RUSSIAN CRUISER Novik, and RUSSIAN CRUISER Boyarin, all based within the protection of the fortified naval base of Port Arthur. However, the defenses of Port Arthur were not as strong as they could have been, as few of the shore artillery batteries were operational, funds for improving the defenses had been diverted to nearby Dalny, and most of the officer corps was celebrating at a party being hosted by Admiral Starck on the night of 9 February 1904.

As Admiral Tōgō had received false information from local spies in and around Port Arthur that the garrisons of the forts guarding the port were on full alert, he was unwilling to risk his precious capital ships to the Russian shore artillery and therefore held back his main battle fleet. Instead, the destroyer force was split into two attack squadrons, one squadron with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd flotillas to attack Port Arthur, and the other squadron, with the 4th and 5th flotillas, to attack the Russian base at Dalny.

Night attack of 8–9 February 1904

At about 22:30 on Monday 8 February 1904, the Port Arthur attack squadron of 10 destroyers encountered patrolling Russian destroyers. The Russians were under orders not to initiate combat, and turned to report the contact to headquarters. However, as a result of the encounter, two Japanese destroyers collided and fell behind and the remainder became scattered. At circa 00:28 on 9 February, the first four Japanese destroyers approached the port of Port Arthur without being observed, and launched a torpedo attack against the Pallada (which was hit amidship, caught fire, and sank in shallow water) and the Retvizan (which was holed in her bow). The other Japanese destroyers were less successful; many of the torpedoes became caught in the extended torpedo nets which effectively prevented most of the torpedoes from striking the vitals of the Russian battleships. Other destroyers had arrived too late to benefit from surprise, and made their attacks individually rather than in a group. However, they were able to disable the most powerful ship of the Russian fleet, the battleship Tsesarevich. The Japanese destroyer Oboro made the last attack, around 02:00, by which time the Russians were fully awake, and their searchlights and gunfire made accurate and close range torpedo attacks impossible.

Despite ideal conditions for a surprise attack, the results were relatively poor. Of the sixteen torpedoes fired, all but three either missed or failed to explode. But luck was against the Russians insofar as two of the three torpedoes hit their best battleships: the Retvizan and the Tsesarevich were put out of action for weeks, as was the protected cruiser Pallada.

Surface engagement of 9 February 1904

Following the night attack, Admiral Tōgō sent his subordinate, Vice Admiral Dewa Shigetō, with four cruisers on a reconnaissance mission at 08:00 to look into the Port Arthur anchorage and to assess the damage. By 09:00 Admiral Dewa was close enough to make out the Russian fleet through the morning mist. He observed 12 battleships and cruisers, three or four of which seemed to be badly listing or to be aground. The smaller vessels outside the harbor entrance were in apparent disarray. Dewa approached to about 7500 yd of the harbor, but as no notice was taken of the Japanese ships, he was convinced that the night attack had successfully paralyzed the Russian fleet, and sped off to report to Admiral Tōgō.

Unaware that the Russian fleet was getting ready for battle, Dewa urged Admiral Tōgō that the moment was extremely advantageous for the main fleet to quickly attack. Although Tōgō would have preferred luring the Russian fleet away from the protection of the shore batteries, Dewa's mistakenly optimistic conclusions meant that the risk was justified. Admiral Tōgō ordered the First Division to attack the harbor, with the Third Division in reserve in the rear.

Upon approaching Port Arthur the Japanese came upon the Russian cruiser Boyarin, which was on patrol. Boyarin fired on the Mikasa at extreme range, then turned and retreated. At around 12:00, at a range of about 5 miles, combat commenced between the Japanese and Russian fleets. The Japanese concentrated the fire of their 12" guns on the shore batteries while using their 8" and 6" against the Russian ships. Shooting was poor on both sides, but the Japanese severely damaged the Novik, Petropavlovsk, Poltava, Diana and Askold. However, it soon became evident that Admiral Dewa had made a critical error; the Russians had recovered from the initial destroyer attack, and their battleships had steam up. In the first five minutes of the battle Mikasa was hit by a ricocheting shell, which burst over her, wounding the chief engineer, the flag lieutenant, and five other officers and men, wrecking the aft bridge.

At 12:20, Admiral Tōgō decided to run away and flee. It was a risky maneuver that exposed the fleet to the full brunt of the Russian shore batteries. Despite the heavy firing, the Japanese battleships completed the maneuver and rapidly fled out of range. The Shikishima, Mikasa, Fuji, and Hatsuse all took damage, receiving 7 hits amongst them. Several hits were also made on Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō's cruisers as they reached the turning point. The Russians in return had received about 5 hits, distributed amongst the battleships Petropavlovsk, Pobeda, Poltava, and the Sevastopol. During this same time, the cruiser Novik had closed to within 3300 yd of the Japanese cruisers and launched a torpedo salvo. All missed although the Novik had received a severe shell hit below the waterline.

Outcome
Although the naval Battle of Port Arthur had resulted in no major warship losses, the IJN had been driven from the battlefield by the combined fire of the Russian battleships and shore batteries, thus attributing to them a minor victory. The Russians took 150 casualties to around 90 for the Japanese. Although no ship was sunk on either side, several took damage. However, the Japanese had ship repair and drydock facilities in Sasebo with which to make repairs, whereas the Russian fleet had only very limited repair capability at Port Arthur.

It was obvious that Admiral Dewa had failed to press his reconnaissance closely enough, and that once the true situation was apparent, Admiral Tōgō's objection to engage the Russians under their shore batteries was justified.

The formal declaration of war between Japan and Russia was issued on 10 February 1904, a day after the battle. The attack, conducted against a largely unassuming and unprepared neutral power in peacetime, has been widely compared to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1907, the Second Hague Conference adopted provisions regarding the rights and duties of neutral powers on land and sea, prohibiting nations from committing any acts of hostility against neutral countries or persons as well as requiring that a declaration of war be given before commencing the attack on a targeted party.

Subsequent naval actions at Port Arthur, February–December 1904
On Thursday 11 February 1904, the Russian minelayer RUSSIAN MINELAYER Yenisei started to mine the entrance to Port Arthur. One of the mines washed up against the ship's rudder, exploded and caused the ship to sink, with loss of 120 of the ship's complement of 200. Yenisei also sank with the only map indicating the position of the mines. The RUSSIAN CRUISER Boyarin, sent to investigate the accident, also struck a mine and was abandoned, although staying afloat. She sank two days later after hitting a second mine.

Admiral Togo set sail from Sasebo again on Sunday 14 February 1904, with all ships except for Fuji. On the morning of Wednesday 24 February 1904, an attempt was made to scuttle five old transport vessels to block the entry to Port Arthur, sealing the Russian fleet inside. The plan was foiled by Retvizan, which was still grounded outside the harbor. In the poor light, the Russians mistook the old transports for battleships, and an exultant Viceroy Yevgeni Alekseyev telegraphed the Tsar of his great naval victory. After daylight revealed the truth, a second telegram needed to be sent. On Tuesday 8 March 1904, Russian Admiral Stepan Makarov arrived in Port Arthur to assume command from the unfortunate Admiral Stark, thus raising Russian morale. He raised his flag on the newly repaired Askold. On the morning of Thursday 10 March 1904, the Russian fleet took to the offensive, and attacked the blockading Japanese squadron, but to little effect. In the evening of 10 March 1904, the Japanese attempted a ruse by sending four destroyers close to the harbor. The Russians took the bait, and sent out six destroyers in pursuit; whereupon the Japanese mined the entrance to the harbor and moved into position to block the destroyers' return. Two of the Russian destroyers were sunk, despite efforts by Admiral Makarov to come to their rescue.

On Tuesday 22 March 1904, Fuji and Yashima were attacked by the Russian fleet under Admiral Makarov, and Fuji was forced to withdraw to Sasebo for repairs. Under Makarov, the Russian fleet was growing more confident and better trained. In response, on Sunday 27 March 1904, Tōgō again attempted to block Port Arthur, this time using four more old transports filled with stones and concrete. The attack again failed as the transports were sunk too far away from the entrance to the harbor.

On 13 April 1904, Makarov (who had now transferred his flag to Petropavlovsk) left port to go to the assistance of a destroyer squadron he had sent on reconnaissance north to Dalny. He was accompanied by the Russian cruisers RUSSIAN CRUISER Askold, RUSSIAN CRUISER Diana, and RUSSIAN CRUISER Novik, along with the battleships Poltava, Sevastopol, Pobeda, and Peresvet. The Japanese fleet was waiting, and Makarov withdrew towards the protection of the shore batteries at Port Arthur. However, the area had been recently mined by the Japanese. At 09:43, Petropavlovsk struck three mines, exploded and sank within two minutes. The disaster killed 635 officers and men, along with Admiral Makarov. At 10:15, Pobeda was also crippled by a mine. The following day, Admiral Togo ordered all flags to be flown at half mast, and that a day's mourning be observed for his fallen adversary. Makarov was officially replaced by Admiral Nikolai Skrydlov on 1 April 1904; however, Skrydlov was unable to reach his command due to the Japanese blockade, and remained at Vladivostok overseeing command of the Vladivostok cruiser squadron until recalled to St Petersburg on 20 December.

On 3 May 1904, Admiral Togo made his third and final attempt at blocking the entrance to Port Arthur, this time with eight old transports. This attempt also failed, but Togo proclaimed it to be a success, thus clearing the way for the Japanese Second Army to land in Manchuria. Although Port Arthur was as good as blocked, due to the lack of initiative by Makarov's successors, Japanese naval losses began to mount, largely due to Russian mines. On 15 May, two Japanese battleships, the 12,320-ton JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Yashima and the 15,300-ton JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Hatsuse, sank in a Russian minefield off Port Arthur after they both struck at least two mines each, eliminating one-third of Japan's battleship force, the worst day for the Japanese Navy during the war.

Further naval operations from Port Arthur resulted in two break-out attempts by the Russians. The first was on 23 June 1904, and the second on 10 August, the latter of which resulted in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, which was tactically inconclusive. Afterwards, the Russian fleet did not make any more attempts to break out from their port, while the Japanese fleet dominated the waters for the duration of the war. But mines laid by Russian minelayers were a continuing problem for the IJN and resulted in more losses. On 18 September 1904, the 2,150-ton gunboat JAPANESE GUNBOAT Heien struck a Russian mine west of Port Arthur and sank. The same fate befell the 2,440-ton cruiser JAPANESE CRUISER Saien on 30 November in the same minefield, and on 13 December, the 4,160-ton cruiser JAPANESE CRUISER Takasago sank in another Russian minefield a few miles south of Port Arthur while giving naval gunfire support to the Japanese armies now besieging the port.

title: Battle of Port Arthur


text:
Talk:Greater Poland

Old talk
There are names in a given language that should never be translated into the other language as this creates an unncecessary confusion. Term "Wielkopolska" is one of them in my opinion. There is a difference between explanation to what such a name means (thus "great Poland" in quotates is fine) and actually creating an English version to the name. It just does not work that way. Majchers, Canada

In English, I've more often seen Great Poland than Greater Poland (similarly, I tend to say Little Poland rather than Lesser Poland). Should the page be moved? john 03:18, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think that Greater Poland has been used more, but feel it is an ackward or archaic literal translation, and would favor that Great Poland be used, with liberal reference to the alternate term. (Anonymous)

THE PAGE SHOULD BE ENTITLED WIELKOPOLSKA! It is useless to translate this geographic name as "Great Poland" (literally "Wielka Polska") or "Greater Poland" (literally "Większa Polska"). S.Ufnalska, Poznań, 19:31, 21 Mar 2007 (Sylwianka)
 * I agree. Possibly with time a consensus to this effect will develop among English-users.  (There does seem to be a growing trend favoring authentic names.)  logologist|Talk 22:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't Bydgoszcz / Bromberg be added to the list of major cities? Bwood

Bydgoszcz is an important city of Kujawy, that sometimes was added to Great Poland. In 1772 Bydgoszcz went to Prussia, 1806 Grand Duchy de Varsovie, and since 1815 it shared Great Poland history. In 1938 it was moved to Pomerania. After the war it was separate Voivodship, now called Pomernian-Kujawian and nobody calls Bydgoszcz Great Poland any more. Cautious 09:48, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

About Reichsgau Posen: It was only about 40 days, let's leave it off and continue as a mention with Rg Wartheland. Bwood 04:40, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Diring Partitions
Where was this territory diring Polish Partitions? mikka (t) 17:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Look at table on the bottom :) in Prussia/Germany:
 * 1793-1806 as South Prussia
 * (1806-1815 in Duchy of Warsaw)
 * 1815-1846 as semiauthonomic Grand Duchy of Poznań
 * 1846-1918 as Province of Posen (but name of Grand Duchy was still in use)
 * Radomil talk 22:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Map
The map is not very helpful: none of the rivers are labelled, and the captions are not in English. -- Beland (talk) 10:44, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

 * I agree, and would like to see an English translation of the map captions. Eugene Craig Campbell (talk) 11:42, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Pictures
Wielkopolska is modern and the pictures show mostly old buildings.Xx236 (talk) 12:21, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Fantasy
Another Polish propaganda page, the majority of which cannot be found in any history books outside Poland. The Kashubians, for instance, never ever regarded themselves as "Polish" and preceded the Poles in the region. It is therefore an insult to describe them as just speaking a Polish dialect - as though they were some kind of sub group. Even the German archives give them as a separate entity. Ethnically, until the 19th century deliberate migrations, West Prussia was not Polish. This can be found in countless books including the historical summaries lodged by non-Poles at the Versailles conferences in 1919. Wikipedia continues to permit itself to be a vehicle for the most blatant Polish nationalist propaganda. 'History' as they would like it to be seen. 2A00:23C4:B617:7D01:94D:4C84:81F3:FE7A (talk) 09:14, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

History of Greater Poland
I suggest starting this article by copying the content we have here, which then could be shortened here. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:43, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

 * Support per reasonable nom Marcelus (talk) 08:38, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose The section is not so long. There are several articles on historical regions with similarly long or even longer history sections. Marcin 303 (talk) 18:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Greater Poland


text:
Sinclair BASIC

Sinclair BASIC is a dialect of the programming language BASIC used in the 8-bit home computers from Sinclair Research, Timex Sinclair and Amstrad. The Sinclair BASIC interpreter was written by Nine Tiles Networks Ltd.

Designed to run in only 1 kB of RAM, the system makes a number of decisions to lower memory usage. This led to one of Sinclair BASIC's most notable features, that the keywords were entered using single keystrokes; each of the possible keywords was mapped to a key on the keyboard, when pressed, the token would be placed into memory while the entire keyword was printed out on-screen. This made code entry easier whilst simplifying the parser.

The original ZX80 version supported only integer mathematics, which partially made up for some of the memory-saving design notes which had negative impact on performance. When the system was ported to the ZX81 in 1981, a full floating point implementation was added. This version was very slow, among the slowest BASICs on the market at the time, but given the limited capabilities of the machine, this was not a serious concern.

Performance became a more serious issue with the release of the ZX Spectrum in 1983, which ran too slowly to make full use of the machine's new features. This led to an entirely new BASIC for the following Sinclair QL, as well as a number of 3rd-party BASICs for the Spectrum and its various clones. The original version continued to be modified and ported in the post-Sinclair era.

History
Clive Sinclair initially met with John Grant, the owner of Nine Tiles, in April 1979 to discuss a BASIC for Sinclair's new computer concept. Sinclair was inspired to make a new machine after watching his son enjoy their TRS-80, but that machine's £500 price tag appeared to be a serious limit on its popularity. He wanted a new kit that would expand on their previous MK14 and feature a built-in BASIC at the target price of £79.95. To meet this price point, the machine would ship with only 1 kB of RAM and 4 kB of ROM. Grant suggested using the Forth language instead, but the budget precluded this. Grant wrote the BASIC interpreter between June and July 1979, but the code initially came in at 5 kB and he spent the next month trimming it down. It was initially an incomplete implementation of the 1978 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Minimal BASIC standard with integer arithmetic only, termed 4K BASIC.

Even before the ZX80 was introduced in February 1980, the constant downward price-pressure in the industry was allowing the already inexpensive design to be further reduced in complexity and cost. In particular, many of the separate circuits in the ZX80 were re-implemented in a single uncommitted logic array from Ferranti, which allowed the price to be reduced to only £49.95 while increasing the size of the ROM to 8 kB. This work was assigned to Steve Vickers, who joined Nine Tiles in January 1980. Whilst Grant worked on the code interfacing with hardware, Vickers used the larger space to introduce floating-point arithmetic and a suite of trig functions, which were expected of any BASIC from that era, producing 8K BASIC. The initial version did not support the ZX Printer and had a bug in its square root function. Nine Tiles provided a new version to address these, but Sinclair was slow to include the new version in the ROMs. The new ROMs were eventually offered to owners of the earlier ZX80 as well.

When Sinclair lost the contest to build the BBC Computer, he moved ahead with plans to produce a low-cost colour-capable machine that emerged as the ZX Spectrum of April 1982. ROM space would once again be increased, this time to 16 kB. In keeping with his philosophy of making systems for the lowest possible expenditure, Sinclair wanted the absolute minimum changes to the existing 8K BASIC. Although Nine Tiles felt that something much better would be needed for the new machine, the schedule would not allow it, and yet another expansion of the original code was produced. Due to the RAM also being increased, to 48 kB, this version was known as 48K BASIC and eventually 48 BASIC with the introduction of the ZX Spectrum 128 at which time the 16 KB Spectrum was no longer sold and most existing ones in use had been upgraded to 48 KB. The new version was available near the end of 1981, but it was "depressingly slow" and "snail like". Additionally, as no prototypes were available until the end of the year, it lacked support for the new line of peripherals Sinclair was planning.

In February 1982, Nine Tiles began to have disagreements with Sinclair over owed royalties for the various manuals that Nine Tiles had produced. Around the same time, Vickers and his Sinclair counterpart, Richard Altwasser, left their respective companies to start the Jupiter Ace project. When the Spectrum was launched the ROM was still not complete, and although Nine Tiles continued working on it until April 1982, by that point 75,000 Spectrums had already been sold and the project was cancelled. The missing functionality was later added by additional code in the ZX Interface 1. After Nine Tiles and Sinclair went their own ways, several new versions of 48 BASIC were created.

In 1983, as part of introducing the Spectrum to the US market as the TS2068, Timex modified it as T/S 2000 BASIC. The new version was incapable of running many Spectrum programs due to the memory location of machine's functions moving. A similar, but somewhat more compatible version, was introduced as part of the Spanish Spectrum 128 of 1985, 128 BASIC.

Amstrad purchased Sinclair Research in 1986. As Sinclair had never owned the copyright to the language, Amstrad had to arrange a new license with Nine Tiles. Several other versions also appeared in this period as various extensions and clones of the Spectrum were introduced. These included +3 BASIC, BASIC64 and Timex Extended Basic.

As of 2015, interpreters exist for modern operating systems, and older systems, that allow Sinclair Basic to be used easily.

Program editing
Like most home-computer BASICs, Sinclair BASIC is anchored around its line editor. When the machine is booted, it runs BASIC and displays an inverse video "K" at the bottom of the screen to indicate the entry point. When a line is entered and the key is pressed, it either runs immediately if it does not have a line number prefix, or clears the screen and performs the equivalent of a LIST command, placing a ">" cursor after the line number in the most recently entered line.

In contrast to most machines of the era, the editor does not allow freeform editing at any point on the screen. Instead, when the user presses EDIT, the current line of code is copied back to the bottom of the screen. The user can move horizontally through this line using the cursor keys and commits their changes by pressing NEW LINE again. In contrast, on machines like the Commodore 64 or Atari 8-bit computers, the up and down keys can be used to move among the lines in the program and edit them in-place.

The most notable feature of the editor is that keywords are entered using single keystrokes. For instance, on the ZX81, the P key on the keyboard would cause the entire keyword PRINT to be entered into the currently editing line. Once a keyword has been entered, the cursor changes to an "L" to indicate what follows will be interpreted as normal text. For instance, pressing P again at this point would enter a single letter "P".

Keys generally had two separate keywords assigned to them – one above it and one below. Pressing the key in "K" mode would enter the keyword above the key, like PRINT for. If the system was in "L" mode, one could return to "K" by pressing the shift key – the systems did not initially support lowercase text, so the shift was not otherwise needed. The keywords below the keys required a second keystroke, SHIFT, which put the editor into "function mode", changing the cursor to an "F". Entering common code often resulted in a significant number of keystrokes.

The system has the advantage of representing all multi-character keywords as a single character in memory, which was a significant savings in the early machines that shipped with only 1 kB of RAM. This single-character representation included multi-character items like <>. This has the added advantages of simplifying the runtime, as it can immediately determine whether a character in the source code is a keyword or text, and also means that keywords are never entered directly, meaning that one can, for instance, have a variable named "PRINT", as the system can determine that it is not the same as the keyword.

As the systems evolved and added new keywords, the entry system became increasingly difficult to use. 48 BASIC in the Spectrum required every key to host up to four keywords. Entering keywords was a time-consuming process of looking over the relatively small type on the keyboard for the appropriate key, and then correctly entering the multiple keystrokes needed to enter it properly. For instance, entering BEEP required one to type to access extended mode (later models include a separate  key), keeping  held down, and then and pressing. To improve the complex entry on the Spectrum, the keywords were colour-coded to indicate the required mode:
 * White: key only
 * Red on the key itself: plus the key
 * Green above the key: followed by the key
 * Red below the key: followed by  plus the key

This concept had run its course, and later machines running 128 BASIC (ZX Spectrum 128, +2, +3, +2A, and +2B) featured a more traditional editor where the user typed-in the keyword as individual characters, similar to other home computers of the era. This required a new tokenizer to convert the line into a similar internal format.

The resulting in-memory storage of the program was otherwise similar to Microsoft BASIC, in that only the keywords are presented as tokens, while non-keywords – like string and numeric constants and variable names –  are left in their original typed-in format. However, that typed-in format was not ASCII, but an internal character code that contains both printable characters and the keyword tokens. Although portions of the table, the capital letters A to Z, for instance, are in the same order as in ASCII, their characters correspond to different numeric values, i.e. their code points' offset from zero is different from ASCII's offset of 65. Other characters, like punctuation, may have been moved about even more. The ZX Spectrum character set is the most prominent example of such a character code. Related computers running Sinclair BASIC used similar variants, e.g. the ZX80 or ZX81 character sets. All of these different but related character sets included Sinclair BASIC tokens.

Data types
One uncommon feature of Sinclair BASIC is the way it stores variables in memory. Typically, interpreters use a fixed-size entry to hold data, making it easy to scan the variable table. Due to the extremely limited memory of the ZX series, any wasted space had to be avoided, and this led to the use of a variable-length format. The data types included numbers stored in a 5-byte values, strings with a length and then the characters, and arrays of both of those types. The data was stored in the table itself, which contrasts with most BASICs of the era, where strings and array entries were stored in a separate heap.

The first byte for a variable entry always held the type in the first three bits, and the first character of the name in the next five bits. As was the case in most microcomputer dialects,,  ,   and   were all different variables and could store different values. Most variables could only have a single-character name; the exception are numeric variables (not arrays), where an alternate format held the first character of the name in those same five bits, but was then followed by additional characters ending with one with its high-bit set. Long variable names were whitespace-independent, and case-insensitive in later versions, so  is the same as   referred to the same variable.

The downside to this approach is that scanning the table to look up the value of a variable reference is more complex. In addition to testing whether the name matches using the subset of the first byte, if the entry is not the one that is being looked for, the type has to be read from the upper three bits and then the next location of a variable in storage calculated using the type. For instance, if the program encounters the variable "A" and the table starts with the entry for "B$", it fails to match A with B, then reads the type to see it is a string, and then has to read the following length byte and skip forward by that amount of bytes to find the next entry in the table. To make this somewhat easier, arrays also stored a two-byte length, so the entire structure could be skipped over more easily.

A unique feature was the "short float", or integer type. Any numeric variable could store either type, the storage itself did not change and used 5 bytes in either case. Integers were indicated by setting the exponent byte to zero, while floating-point values were stored with an excess-128 format exponent. This meant that it could not store zero as a float and lost one possible exponent magnitude. It also did not use any less memory, as the values were still 5-byte in memory. The advantage to this format is performance; the math library included tests to look for the zero exponent, and if it was seen, it would not attempt to perform various operations on the remaining 3 bytes under certain conditions.

Keyword details
The ZX81 8K BASIC used the shorter forms,  ,   and  , whereas the Spectrum 48 BASIC used the longer forms  ,  ,   and. The ZX80 4K BASIC also used these longer forms but differed by using the spelling. The ZX81 8K BASIC was the only version to use,  ,   and. The ZX80 4K BASIC had the exclusive function ; it was equivalent to the string operator  in later versions.

Unique code points are assigned in the ZX80 character set, ZX81 character set and ZX Spectrum character set for each keyword or multi-character operator, i.e.,  ,  ,   (tokenized on the ZX81 only),   (replaced with   on the Spectrum). These are expanded by referencing a token table in ROM. Thus, a keyword uses one byte of memory only, a significant saving over traditional letter-by-letter storage. This also meant that the BASIC interpreter could quickly determine any command or function by evaluating one byte, and that the keywords need not be reserved words like in other BASIC dialects or other programming languages, e.g., it is allowed to define a variable named  and output its value with. This is also related to the syntax requirement that every line start with a command keyword, and pressing the one keypress for that command at the start of a line changes the editor from command mode to letter mode. Thus, variable assignment requires  (i.e.,   not only  ). This practice is also different from other BASIC dialects. Further, it meant that unlike other BASIC dialects, the interpreter needed no parentheses to identify functions;  was sufficient, no   needed (though the latter was allowed). The 4K BASIC ROM of the ZX80 had a short list of exceptions to this: the functions,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,   and   did not have one-byte tokens but were typed in letter-by-letter and required the parentheses. They were listed as the INTEGRAL FUNCTIONS on a label above and to the right of the keyboard.

128 BASIC, present on ZX Spectrum 128, +2, +3, +2A, and +2B, stored keywords internally in one-byte code points, but used a conventional letter-by-letter BASIC input system. It also introduced two new commands:

 * , which operated the 128k models' General Instrument AY-3-8910 music chip
 * , which switched the 128k Spectrum into a 48k Spectrum compatibility mode

The original Spanish ZX Spectrum 128 included four additional BASIC editor commands in Spanish, one of which was undocumented:

 * (to edit a line number or invoke the full screen string editor)
 * (to renumber the program lines)
 * (to delete program lines)
 * (to set the column width of the RS-232 device, but undocumented as the code was broken)

Unlike the,   and   functions used in the ubiquitous Microsoft BASIC dialects for home computers, parts of strings in Sinclair BASIC are accessed by numeric range. For example, gives a substring starting with the 5th and ending with the 10th character of the variable. Thus, it is possible to replace the  and   commands by simply omitting the left or right array position respectively; for example  is equivalent to. Further,  alone is enough to replace.

Keywords
On the 16K/48K ZX Spectrum (48 BASIC), there are 88 keywords in Sinclair BASIC, denoting commands (of which there are 50), functions and logical operators (31), and other keywords (16, including 9 which are also commands or functions):

4K BASIC

 * 4K BASIC for ZX80 (so named for residing in 4 KiB read-only memory (ROM)), was developed by John Grant of Nine Tiles for the ZX80. It has integer-only arithmetic.
 * System Commands:
 * Control Statements:
 * Input/Output Statements:
 * Assignment Statement:
 * Other Statements:
 * Functions:

8K BASIC

 * 8K BASIC is the ZX81 BASIC (also available as an upgrade for the ZX80 ), updated with floating-point arithmetic by Steve Vickers, so named for residing in 8 KiB ROM.
 * Statements:
 * Functions:

48 BASIC

 * 48 BASIC is the BASIC for the original 16/48 KB RAM ZX Spectrum (and clones), with colour and more peripherals added by Steve Vickers and John Grant. It resides in 16 KB ROM and began to be called 48 BASIC with the introduction of the ZX Spectrum 128 at which time the 16 KB Spectrum was no longer sold and most existing ones in use had been upgraded to 48 KB.

128 BASIC

 * 128 BASIC is the BASIC for the ZX Spectrum 128. It offers extra commands and uses letter-by-letter input.
 * New commands:

+3 BASIC

 * +3 BASIC is the BASIC with disk support for the ZX Spectrum +3 and +2A.
 * New commands:

T/S 2000 BASIC

 * T/S 2000 BASIC is used on the Spectrum-compatible Timex Sinclair 2068 (T/S 2068) and adds the following six new keywords:
 * deletes BASIC program line ranges.
 * is a function that gives the amount of free RAM.  will show how much RAM is free.
 * is an error-handling function mostly used as  or.
 * can be used to reset the behaviour of . It was also intended to reset peripherals.
 * controls the AY-3-8192 sound chip.
 * is a function that gives the position of the internal joystick (Timex Sinclair 2090).

BASIC64

 * BASIC64 by Timex of Portugal, is a software extension to allow better Basic programming with the 512×192 and dual display areas graphic modes available only on Timex Sinclair computers. This extension adds commands and does a complete memory remap to avoid the system overwriting the extended screen memory area. Two versions exist due to different memory maps - a version for TC 2048 and a version for T/S 2068 and TC 2068.
 * Prints to a specific output channel.
 * Lists the program to a specific output channel.
 * Clears both display areas.
 * Sets ink colour for both display areas
 * Sets paper colour both display areas
 * Selects the high / normal resolution modes.
 * Plots a pixel and updates the drawing position.
 * Draws a line from the previous PLOT position, supporting arc drawing
 * Draws a circle or oval, depending on screen mode.

Timex Extended Basic

 * Timex Extended Basic by Timex of Portugal is used on the Timex Computer 3256, adding TEC - Timex Extended Commands commands supporting the AY-3-8912 sound chip, RS-232 network and the 512x192 pixel high resolution graphic mode.
 * RAM drive commands:
 * RS-232 commands:
 * AY-3-8912 commands:
 * 512x192 resolution commands:

Interpreters for the ZX Spectrum family
Several ZX Spectrum interpreters exist.
 * Beta BASIC by Dr. Andy Wright, was originally a BASIC extension, but became a full interpreter.
 * YS MegaBasic by Mike Leaman.
 * ZebraOS by Zebra Systems in New York, a cartridge version of T/S 2000 BASIC that used the 512×192 screen mode.
 * Sea Change ROM by Steve Vickers and Ian Logan, modified by Geoff Wearmouth, a replacement ROM with an enhanced Sinclair BASIC.
 * Gosh Wonderful by Geoff Wearmouth, a replacement ROM that fixes bugs and adds a tokenizer, stream lister, delete and renumber commands.
 * OpenSE BASIC (formerly SE BASIC) by Andrew Owen, a replacement ROM with bug fixes and many enhancements including ULAplus support, published as open source in 2011

Compilers for the ZX Spectrum family
Several ZX Spectrum compilers exist.
 * HiSoft COLT Compiler (a.k.a. HiSoft COLT Integer Compiler)
 * HiSoft BASIC (a.k.a. HiSoft BASIC Compiler), an integer and floating-point capable compiler
 * Laser Compiler
 * Softek 'IS' Integer Compiler (successor to Softek Integer Compiler )
 * Softek 'FP' Full Compiler
 * ZIP Compiler

Derivatives and successors for other computers

 * SuperBASIC, a much more advanced BASIC dialect introduced with the Sinclair QL personal computer, with some similarities to the earlier Sinclair BASICs
 * SAM Basic, the BASIC on the SAM Coupé, generally considered a ZX Spectrum clone
 * ROMU6 by Cesar and Juan Hernandez - MSX
 * Spectrum 48 by Whitby Computers - Commodore 64
 * Sparky eSinclair BASIC by Richard Kelsh, an operating system loosely based on ZX Spectrum BASIC - Zilog eZ80
 * Sinbas by Pavel Napravnik - DOS
 * Basic (and CheckBasic ) by Philip Kendall - Unix
 * BINSIC by Adrian McMenamin, a reimplementation in Groovy closely modelled on ZX81 BASIC - Java
 * BASin by Paul Dunn, a complete Sinclair BASIC integrated development environment (IDE) based on a ZX Spectrum emulator - Windows
 * SpecBAS (a.k.a. SpecOS) by Paul Dunn, an integrated development environment (IDE) providing an enhanced superset of Sinclair BASIC - Windows, Linux, Pandora, and Raspberry Pi
 * ZX-Basic Backwardly compatible, but enhanced compiler of Sinclair BASIC programs the ZX Spectrum, written in Python, freely available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS
 * ZX-Basicus by Juan-Antonio Fernández-Madrigal, a synthesizer, analyzer, optimizer, interpreter and debugger of Sinclair BASIC 48K for PCs, freely downloadable for Linux and Windows.

title: Sinclair BASIC


text:
Hiiu County

Hiiu County (Hiiu maakond or Hiiumaa) is one of 15 counties of Estonia, being the smallest county both in terms of area and population. It consists of Hiiumaa (German and Dagö), the second largest island of Estonia, and several smaller islands near it. The county borders Lääne County to the east and Saare County to the south.

History
Human habitation of Hiiumaa can be traced back to the fifth millennium BC. Mesolithic sites in Kõpu peninsula are exemplified by the seal-hunters' settlements. There are several well-preserved grave fields of the Iron Age. The island was first mentioned in 1228, in annals written under the name Dageida. In 1254, Hiiumaa was divided between the Livonian Order and the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek. In 1563 Hiiumaa was annexed into Sweden. In 1710, as a result of the Great Northern War the island went under the control of the Russian Empire. During World War I, the German military forces occupied Hiiumaa in 1917. In 1918–1940 Hiiumaa was part of the Republic of Estonia, then until 1991 occupied by the Soviet Union.

On demands of the Hanseatic League a lighthouse was built in Kõpu (previously known as Dagerort) at the beginning of the 16th century. It is considered the third-oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the world, still showing its light to 35 mi of the sea.

Most of the farm architecture comes from the 19th century. Prominent examples include the Mihkli farming complex and Soera farm-museum with historical national artifacts, respectively.

Sights
Most important sights:
 * Suuremõisa manor
 * Kõpu Lighthouse and ancient graves
 * Suursadam port
 * Tahkuna Lighthouse and associated coastal defenses
 * Ristna Lighthouse
 * Sääretirp
 * Saarnaki laid and other isles
 * Kärdla town
 * Käina church ruins
 * Ristimägi
 * Reigi church
 * Kärdla meteorite crater
 * Kassari chapel, Kassari

County government
The County Government (Maavalitsus) was led by Governor (maavanem), who is appointed by the Government of Estonia for a term of five years. The last Governor was Riho Rahuoja 2012−2017.

Municipalities
The county consists of one municipality after the administrative reform of 2017. Between 2013 and 2017 the county was subdivided into 4 municipalities (vallad – parishes). The only urban settlement Kärdla is part of Hiiumaa Parish since 2017.

Rural municipalities:
 * Hiiumaa Parish (includes the town of Kärdla)

Geography
The county includes the islands of Hiiumaa (980 km2) and Kassari (19 km2) and a number of surrounding islets. The highest point is Tornimägi hill (68 m), the longest river is Luguse (21 km), and the biggest lake is Tihu Suurjärv (85 ha).

In the landscapes there can be found pine forests, mixed spruce and deciduous forests, swampy thickets and juniper shrubs, coastal meadows and bogs. The most frequent tree is pine which makes about a half of forests. Pine is followed by birch, spruce and alder. In total, there are about 1,000 species of vascular plants, of which about 100 are under protection. The wildlife of Hiiumaa is remarkable. Out of 30 species of mammals, big game as elk, deer, fox, wild boar and lynx roam the island. There are about 250 species of birds on the island, 195 of them nesting.

Among the Estonian counties Hiiumaa is the richest in forest – nearly 60% of the island are wooded areas. There are large marsh areas in the middle of the island. The marshes cover about 7% of its area. Cultivated land and settlements take about 23% of the area of the county.

title: Hiiu County