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Dynasties of China

For most of its history, China was organized into various dynastic states under the rule of hereditary monarchs. Beginning with the establishment of dynastic rule by Yu the Great c. 2070 BC, and ending with the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor in AD 1912, Chinese historiography came to organize itself around the succession of monarchical dynasties. Besides those established by the dominant Han ethnic group or its spiritual Huaxia predecessors, dynasties throughout Chinese history were also founded by non-Han peoples.

Dividing Chinese history into dynastic epochs is a convenient and conventional method of periodization. Accordingly, a dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, as well as to describe events, trends, personalities, artistic compositions, and artifacts of that period. For example, porcelain made during the Ming dynasty may be referred to as "Ming porcelain".

The longest-reigning orthodox dynasty of China was the Zhou dynasty, ruling for a total length of about 790 years, albeit it is divided into the Western Zhou and the Eastern Zhou in Chinese historiography. The largest orthodox Chinese dynasty in terms of territorial size was either the Yuan dynasty or the Qing dynasty, depending on the historical source.

The term "Tiāncháo" (天朝; "Celestial Dynasty" or "Heavenly Dynasty") was frequently employed as a self-reference by Chinese dynasties. As a form of respect and subordination, Chinese tributary states referred to these dynasties as "Tiāncháo Shàngguó" (天朝上國; "Celestial Dynasty of the Exalted State") or "Tiāncháo Dàguó" (天朝大國; "Celestial Dynasty of the Great State").

Terminology
The Chinese character originally meant "morning" or "today". Subsequently, its scope was extended to refer to the regime of the incumbent ruler. Terms commonly used when discussing historical Chinese dynasties include:

Start of dynastic rule
As the founder of China's first orthodox dynasty, the Xia dynasty, Yu the Great is conventionally regarded as the inaugurator of dynastic rule in China. In the Chinese dynastic system, sovereign rulers theoretically possessed absolute power and private ownership of the realm, even though in practice their actual power was dependent on numerous factors. By tradition, the Chinese throne was inherited exclusively by members of the male line, but there were numerous cases whereby the consort kins came to possess de facto power at the expense of the monarchs. This concept, known as jiā tiānxià (家天下; "All under Heaven belongs to the ruling family"), was in contrast to the pre-Xia notion of gōng tiānxià (公天下; "All under Heaven belongs to the public") whereby leadership succession was non-hereditary and based on the abdication system.

There may also be a predynastic period before a regime managed to overthrow the existing dynasty which led to the official establishment of the new dynasty. For example, the state of Zhou that existed during the Shang dynasty, before its conquest of the Shang which led to the establishment of the Zhou dynasty, is referred to as the Predynastic Zhou or Proto-Zhou. Similarly, the state of Qin that existed during the Zhou dynasty before its wars of unification and the establishment of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC is also referred to as the Predynastic Qin or Proto-Qin.

Dynastic transition
The rise and fall of dynasties is a prominent feature of Chinese history. Some scholars have attempted to explain this phenomenon by attributing the success and failure of dynasties to the morality of the rulers, while others have focused on the tangible aspects of monarchical rule. This method of explanation has come to be known as the dynastic cycle.

Cases of dynastic transition (改朝換代; gǎi cháo huàn dài) in the history of China occurred primarily through two ways: military conquest and usurpation. The supersession of the Liao dynasty by the Jin dynasty was achieved following a series of successful military campaigns, as was the later unification of China proper under the Yuan dynasty; on the other hand, the transition from the Eastern Han to the Cao Wei, as well as from the Southern Qi to the Liang dynasty, were cases of usurpation. Oftentimes, usurpers would seek to portray their predecessors as having relinquished the throne willingly—akin to the abdication system of throne succession—as a means to legitimize their rule.

One might incorrectly infer from viewing historical timelines that transitions between dynasties occurred abruptly and roughly. Rather, new dynasties were often established before the complete overthrow of an existing regime. For example, AD 1644 is frequently cited as the year in which the Qing dynasty succeeded the Ming dynasty in possessing the Mandate of Heaven. However, the Qing dynasty was officially proclaimed in AD 1636 by the Emperor Taizong of Qing through renaming the Later Jin established in AD 1616, while the Ming imperial family would rule the Southern Ming until AD 1662. The Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning based in Taiwan continued to oppose the Qing until AD 1683. Meanwhile, other factions also fought for control over China during the Ming–Qing transition, most notably the Shun and the Xi dynasties proclaimed by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong respectively. This change of ruling houses was a convoluted and prolonged affair, and the Qing took almost two decades to extend their rule over the entirety of China proper.

Similarly, during the earlier Sui–Tang transition, numerous regimes established by rebel forces vied for control and legitimacy as the power of the ruling Sui dynasty weakened. Autonomous regimes that existed during this period of upheaval included, but not limited to, Wei (魏; by Li Mi), Qin (秦; by Xue Ju), Qi (齊; by Gao Tancheng), Xu (許; by Yuwen Huaji), Liang (梁; by Shen Faxing), Liang (梁; by Liang Shidu), Xia (夏; by Dou Jiande), Zheng (鄭; by Wang Shichong), Chu (楚; by Zhu Can), Chu (楚; by Lin Shihong), Wu (吳; by Li Zitong), Yan (燕; by Gao Kaidao), and Song (宋; by Fu Gongshi). The Tang dynasty that superseded the Sui launched a decade-long military campaign to reunify China proper.

Frequently, remnants and descendants of previous dynasties were either purged or granted noble titles in accordance with the "two crownings, three respects" system. The latter served as a means for the reigning dynasty to claim legitimate succession from earlier dynasties. For example, the Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei was accorded the title "Prince of Zhongshan" by the Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi following the latter's deposition of the former. Similarly, Chai Yong, a nephew of the Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou, was conferred the title "Duke of Chongyi" by the Emperor Renzong of Song; other descendants of the Later Zhou ruling house came to inherit the noble title thereafter.

According to Chinese historiographical tradition, each new dynasty would compose the history of the preceding dynasty, culminating in the Twenty-Four Histories. This tradition was maintained even after the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty in favor of the Republic of China. However, the attempt by the Republicans to draft the history of the Qing was disrupted by the Chinese Civil War, which resulted in the political division of China into the People's Republic of China on mainland China and the Republic of China on Taiwan.

End of dynastic rule
Dynastic rule in China collapsed in AD 1912 when the Republic of China superseded the Qing dynasty following the success of the Xinhai Revolution. While there were attempts after the Xinhai Revolution to reinstate dynastic rule in China, they were unsuccessful at consolidating their rule and gaining political legitimacy.

During the Xinhai Revolution, there were numerous proposals advocating for the replacement of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty by a new dynasty of Han ethnicity. Kong Lingyi (孔令貽), the Duke of Yansheng and a 76th-generation descendant of Confucius, was identified as a potential candidate for Chinese emperorship by Liang Qichao. Meanwhile, gentry in Anhui and Hebei supported a restoration of the Ming dynasty under Zhu Yuxun (朱煜勳), the Marquis of Extended Grace. Both suggestions were ultimately rejected.

The Empire of China (AD 1915–1916) proclaimed by Yuan Shikai sparked the National Protection War, resulting in the premature collapse of the regime 101 days later. The Manchu Restoration (AD 1917) was an unsuccessful attempt at reviving the Qing dynasty, lasting merely 11 days. Similarly, the Manchukuo (AD 1932–1945; monarchy since AD 1934), a puppet state of the Empire of Japan during World War II with limited diplomatic recognition, is not regarded as a legitimate regime. Ergo, historians usually consider the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor on 12 February 1912 as the end of the Chinese dynastic system. Dynastic rule in China lasted almost four millennia.

Political legitimacy
China was politically divided during multiple periods in its history, with different regions ruled by different dynasties. These dynasties effectively functioned as separate states with their own court and political institutions. Political division existed during the Three Kingdoms, the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern and Southern dynasties, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods, among others.

Relations between Chinese dynasties during periods of division often revolved around political legitimacy, which was derived from the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven. Dynasties ruled by ethnic Han would proclaim rival dynasties founded by other ethnicities as illegitimate, usually justified based on the concept of Hua–Yi distinction. On the other hand, many dynasties of non-Han origin saw themselves as the legitimate dynasty of China and often sought to portray themselves as the true inheritor of Chinese culture and history. Traditionally, only regimes deemed as "legitimate" or "orthodox" (正統; zhèngtǒng) are termed cháo (朝; "dynasty"); "illegitimate" or "unorthodox" regimes are referred to as guó (國; usually translated as either "state" or "kingdom"), even if these regimes were dynastic in nature.

Such legitimacy disputes existed during the following periods:

 * Three Kingdoms
 * The Cao Wei, the Shu Han, and the Eastern Wu considered themselves legitimate while simultaneously denounced the rivaling claims of others.
 * The Emperor Xian of Han abdicated in favor of the Emperor Wen of Cao Wei; hence, the Cao Wei directly succeeded the Eastern Han in orthodox historiography.
 * The Western Jin accepted the Cao Wei as the legitimate dynasty of the Three Kingdoms period and claimed succession from it.
 * The Tang dynasty viewed the Cao Wei as the legitimate dynasty during this period, whereas the Southern Song scholar Zhu Xi proposed treating the Shu Han as legitimate.
 * Eastern Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms
 * The Eastern Jin viewed itself as a continuation of the Western Jin, and thus legitimate.
 * Several of the Sixteen Kingdoms such as the Han-Zhao, the Later Zhao, and the Former Qin also claimed legitimacy.
 * Northern and Southern dynasties
 * All dynasties during this period saw themselves as the legitimate representative of China; the Northern dynasties referred to their southern counterparts as "dǎoyí" (島夷; "island dwelling barbarians"), while the Southern dynasties called their northern neighbors "suǒlǔ" (索虜; "barbarians with braids").
 * Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
 * Having directly succeeded the Tang dynasty, the Later Liang considered itself to be a legitimate dynasty.
 * The Later Tang regarded itself as the restorer of the earlier Tang dynasty and rejected the legitimacy of its predecessor, the Later Liang.
 * The Later Jin succeeded the Later Tang and accepted it as a legitimate regime.
 * The Southern Tang was, for a period of time, considered the legitimate dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
 * Since the Song dynasty, Chinese historiography has generally considered the Five Dynasties, as opposed to the contemporary Ten Kingdoms, to be legitimate.
 * Liao dynasty, Song dynasty, and Jin dynasty
 * Following the conquest of the Later Jin, the Liao dynasty claimed legitimacy and succession from it
 * Both the Northern Song and Southern Song considered themselves to be the legitimate Chinese dynasty.
 * The Jin dynasty challenged the Song's claim of legitimacy.
 * The succeeding Yuan dynasty recognized all three in addition to the Western Liao as legitimate Chinese dynasties, culminating in the composition of the History of Liao, the History of Song, and the History of Jin.
 * Ming dynasty and Northern Yuan
 * The Ming dynasty recognized the preceding Yuan dynasty as a legitimate Chinese dynasty, but asserted that it had succeeded the Mandate of Heaven from the Yuan, thus considering the Northern Yuan as illegitimate.
 * Northern Yuan rulers maintained the dynastic name "Great Yuan" and claimed traditional Han-style titles continuously until AD 1388 or AD 1402; Han-style titles were restored on several occasions thereafter for brief periods, notably during the reigns of Taisun Khan, Choros Esen, and Dayan Khan.
 * The historian Rashipunsug argued that the Northern Yuan had succeeded the legitimacy from the Yuan dynasty; the Qing dynasty, which later defeated and annexed the Northern Yuan, inherited this legitimacy, thus rendering the Ming illegitimate.
 * Qing dynasty and Southern Ming
 * The Qing dynasty recognized the preceding Ming dynasty as legitimate, but asserted that it had succeeded the Mandate of Heaven from the Ming, thus refuting the claimed legitimacy of the Southern Ming.
 * The Southern Ming continued to claim legitimacy until its eventual defeat by the Qing.
 * The Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan denounced the Qing dynasty as illegitimate.
 * The Joseon dynasty of Korea and the Later Lê dynasty of Vietnam had at various times considered the Southern Ming, instead of the Qing dynasty, as legitimate.
 * The Tokugawa shogunate of Japan did not accept the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty and instead saw itself as the rightful representative of Huá (華; "China"); this narrative served as the basis of Japanese texts such as Chūchō Jijitsu and Kai Hentai.

Traditionally, periods of disunity often resulted in heated debates among officials and historians over which prior dynasties could and should be considered orthodox, given that it was politically imperative for a dynasty to present itself as being linked in an unbroken lineage of moral and political authority back to ancient times. However, the Northern Song statesman Ouyang Xiu propounded that such orthodoxy existed in a state of limbo during fragmented periods and was restored after political unification was achieved. From this perspective, the Song dynasty possessed legitimacy by virtue of its ability to end the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period despite not having succeeded the orthodoxy from the Later Zhou. Similarly, Ouyang considered the concept of orthodoxy to be in oblivion during the Three Kingdoms, the Sixteen Kingdoms, and the Northern and Southern dynasties periods.

Traditionally, as most Chinese historiographical sources uphold the idea of unilineal dynastic succession, only one dynasty could be considered orthodox at any given time. Most historical sources consider the legitimate line of succession to be as follows:

Xia dynasty → Shang dynasty → Western Zhou → Eastern Zhou → Qin dynasty → Western Han → Eastern Han → Cao Wei → Western Jin → Eastern Jin → Liu Song → Southern Qi → Liang dynasty → Chen dynasty → Sui dynasty → Tang dynasty → Later Liang → Later Tang → Later Jin → Later Han → Later Zhou → Northern Song → Southern Song → Yuan dynasty → Ming dynasty → Qing dynasty

These historical legitimacy disputes are similar to the modern competing claims of legitimacy by the People's Republic of China based in Beijing and the Republic of China based in Taipei. Both regimes formally adhere to the One-China principle and claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the whole of China.

Agnatic lineages
There were several groups of Chinese dynasties that were ruled by families with patrilineal relations, yet due to various reasons these regimes are considered to be separate dynasties and given distinct retroactive names for historiographical purpose. Such conditions as differences in their official dynastic title and fundamental changes having occurred to their rule would necessitate nomenclatural distinction in academia, despite these ruling clans having shared common ancestral origins.

Additionally, numerous other dynasties claimed descent from earlier dynasties as a calculated political move to obtain or enhance their legitimacy, even if such claims were unfounded.

The agnatic relations of the following groups of Chinese dynasties are typically recognized by historians:

 * Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou
 * The Western Zhou and the Eastern Zhou were ruled by the House of Ji; they are collectively known as the Zhou dynasty
 * The founder of the Eastern Zhou, the King Ping of Zhou, was a son of the last Western Zhou ruler, the King You of Zhou
 * Western Han, Eastern Han, Shu Han, and Liu Song
 * The Western Han, the Eastern Han, the Shu Han, and the Liu Song were ruled by the House of Liu; the first two of which are collectively known as the Han dynasty
 * The first emperor of the Eastern Han, the Emperor Guangwu of Han, was a ninth-generation descendant of the Western Han founder, the Emperor Gao of Han; he was also a seventh-generation descendant of the sixth Western Han monarch, the Emperor Jing of Han
 * The founder of the Shu Han, the Emperor Zhaolie of Shu Han, was also descended from the Emperor Jing of Han
 * The Book of Song states that the first Liu Song ruler, the Emperor Wu of Liu Song, was a male-line descendant of a younger brother of the Emperor Gao of Han, the Prince Yuan of Chu
 * Western Jin and Eastern Jin
 * The Western Jin and the Eastern Jin were ruled by the House of Sima; they are collectively known as the Jin dynasty
 * The Eastern Jin founder, the Emperor Yuan of Jin, was a great-grandson of the Emperor Xuan of Jin; he was also a grandson of the Prince Wu of Langya and a son of the Prince Gong of Langya
 * Han-Zhao and Hu Xia
 * The Han-Zhao and the Hu Xia were ruled by the House of Luandi (later renamed the House of Liu and the House of Helian respectively)
 * The Han-Zhao founder, the Emperor Guangwen of Han-Zhao, and the Hu Xia founder, the Emperor Wulie of Hu Xia, were descended from Liu Qiangqu and Liu Qubei respectively; according to the History of the Northern Dynasties, Liu Qiangqu and Liu Qubei were brothers
 * Former Yan, Later Yan, and Southern Yan
 * The Former Yan, the Later Yan, and the Southern Yan were ruled by the House of Murong
 * The founder of the Later Yan, the Emperor Chengwu of Later Yan, was a son of the Former Yan founder, the Emperor Wenming of Former Yan
 * The first monarch of the Southern Yan, the Emperor Xianwu of Southern Yan, was also a son of the Emperor Wenming of Former Yan
 * Northern Wei, Southern Liang, Eastern Wei, and Western Wei
 * The Northern Wei, the Southern Liang, the Eastern Wei, and the Western Wei were ruled by the House of Tuoba (later renamed the House of Yuan and the House of Tufa respectively)
 * The Northern Wei founder, the Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei, and the Southern Liang founder, the Prince Wu of Southern Liang, were respectively descended from the sons of the Emperor Shengwu of Northern Wei, the Emperor Shenyuan of Northern Wei and Tufa Pigu
 * The only ruler of the Eastern Wei, the Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei, was a great-grandson of the seventh emperor of the Northern Wei, the Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei
 * The Western Wei founder, the Emperor Wen of Western Wei, was a grandson of the Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei
 * Southern Qi and Liang dynasty
 * The Southern Qi and the Liang dynasty were ruled by the House of Xiao
 * The founder of the Liang dynasty, the Emperor Wu of Liang, was a son of the Emperor Wen of Liang who was a distant cousin of the Southern Qi founder, the Emperor Gao of Southern Qi
 * Western Liang and Tang dynasty
 * The Western Liang and the Tang dynasty were ruled by the House of Li
 * The founder of the Tang dynasty, the Emperor Gaozu of Tang, was a seventh-generation descendant of the Western Liang founder, the Prince Wuzhao of Western Liang
 * Later Han and Northern Han
 * The Later Han and the Northern Han were ruled by the House of Liu
 * The first ruler of the Northern Han, the Emperor Shizu of Northern Han, was a younger brother of the Later Han founder, the Emperor Gaozu of Later Han
 * Liao dynasty and Western Liao
 * The Liao dynasty and the Western Liao were ruled by the House of Yelü
 * The Western Liao founder, the Emperor Dezong of Western Liao, was an eighth-generation descendant of the first emperor of the Liao dynasty, the Emperor Taizu of Liao
 * Northern Song and Southern Song
 * The Northern Song and the Southern Song were ruled by the House of Zhao; they are collectively known as the Song dynasty
 * The first ruler of the Southern Song, the Emperor Gaozong of Song, was a son of the eighth Northern Song monarch, the Emperor Huizong of Song; he was also a younger brother of the last Northern Song emperor, the Emperor Qinzong of Song
 * Yuan dynasty and Northern Yuan
 * The Yuan dynasty and the Northern Yuan were ruled by the House of Borjigin
 * The Emperor Huizong of Yuan was both the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty and the first ruler of the Northern Yuan
 * Ming dynasty and Southern Ming
 * The Ming dynasty and the Southern Ming were ruled by the House of Zhu
 * The Southern Ming founder, the Hongguang Emperor, was a grandson of the 14th emperor of the Ming dynasty, the Wanli Emperor
 * Later Jin and Qing dynasty
 * The Later Jin and the Qing dynasty were ruled by the House of Aisin Gioro
 * The Emperor Taizong of Qing was both the last Later Jin khan and the first emperor of the Qing dynasty
 * The Emperor Taizong of Qing was both the last Later Jin khan and the first emperor of the Qing dynasty

Central Plain dynasties
The Central Plain is a vast area on the lower reaches of the Yellow River which formed the cradle of Chinese civilization. "Central Plain dynasties" (中原王朝; Zhōngyuán wángcháo) refer to dynasties of China that had their capital cities situated within the Central Plain. This term could refer to dynasties of both Han and non-Han ethnic origins.

Unified dynasties
"Unified dynasties" (大一統王朝; dàyītǒng wángcháo) refer to dynasties of China, regardless of their ethnic origin, that achieved the unification of China proper. "China proper" is a region generally regarded as the traditional heartland of the Han people, and is not equivalent to the term "China". Imperial dynasties that had attained the unification of China proper may be known as the "Chinese Empire" or the "Empire of China" (中華帝國; Zhōnghuá Dìguó).

The concept of "great unity" or "grand unification" (大一統; dàyītǒng) was first mentioned in the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals that was supposedly authored by the Qi scholar Gongyang Gao. Other prominent figures like Confucius and Mencius also elaborated on this concept in their respective works.

Historians typically consider the following dynasties to have unified China proper: the Qin dynasty, the Western Han, the Xin dynasty, the Eastern Han, the Western Jin, the Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty, the Wu Zhou, the Northern Song, the Yuan dynasty, the Ming dynasty, and the Qing dynasty. The status of the Northern Song as a unified dynasty is disputed among historians as the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun were partially administered by the contemporaneous Liao dynasty while the Western Xia exercised partial control over Hetao; the Northern Song, in this sense, did not truly achieve the unification of China proper.

Infiltration dynasties and conquest dynasties
According to the historian and sinologist Karl August Wittfogel, dynasties of China founded by non-Han peoples that ruled parts or all of China proper could be classified into two types, depending on the means by which the ruling ethnic groups had entered China proper.

"Infiltration dynasties" or "dynasties of infiltration" (滲透王朝; shèntòu wángcháo) refer to Chinese dynasties founded by non-Han ethnicities that tended towards accepting Han culture and assimilating into the Han-dominant society. For instance, the Han-Zhao and the Northern Wei, established by the Xiongnu and Xianbei ethnicities respectively, are considered infiltration dynasties of China.

"Conquest dynasties" or "dynasties of conquest" (征服王朝; zhēngfú wángcháo) refer to dynasties of China established by non-Han peoples that tended towards resisting Han culture and preserving the identities of the ruling ethnicities. For example, the Liao dynasty and the Yuan dynasty, ruled by the Khitan and Mongol peoples respectively, are considered conquest dynasties of China.

These terms remain sources of controversy among scholars who believe that Chinese history should be analyzed and understood from a multiethnic and multicultural perspective.

Official nomenclature
It was customary for Chinese monarchs to adopt an official name for the realm, known as the guóhào (國號; "name of the state"), upon the establishment of a dynasty. During the rule of a dynasty, its guóhào functioned as the formal name of the state, both internally and for diplomatic purposes.

The formal name of Chinese dynasties was usually derived from one of the following sources:

 * The name of the ruling tribe or tribal confederation
 * e.g., the Western Xia dynasty took its name from its ruling class, the Xia tribal confederation
 * The noble title held by the dynastic founder prior to the founding of the dynasty
 * e.g., the Emperor Wu of Chen adopted the dynastic name "Chen" from his pre-imperial title "Prince of Chen" upon the establishment of the Chen dynasty
 * The name of a historical state that occupied the same geographical location as the new dynasty
 * e.g., the Former Yan was officially named "Yan" based on the ancient State of Yan located in the same region
 * The name of a previous dynasty from which the new dynasty claimed descent or succession from, even if such familial link was questionable
 * e.g., the Emperor Taizu of Later Zhou officially proclaimed the Later Zhou with the official title "Zhou" as he claimed ancestry from Guo Shu, a royal of the Zhou dynasty
 * A term with auspicious or other significant connotations
 * e.g., the Yuan dynasty was officially the "Great Yuan", a name derived from a clause in the Classic of Changes, "dà zāi Qián Yuán" (大哉乾元; "Great is the Heavenly and Primal")

There were instances whereby the official name was changed during the reign of a dynasty. For example, the dynasty known retroactively as Southern Han initially used the name "Yue", only to be renamed to "Han" subsequently.

The official title of several dynasties bore the character "dà" (大; "great"). In Yongzhuang Xiaopin by the Ming historian Zhu Guozhen, it was claimed that the first dynasty to do so was the Yuan dynasty. However, several sources like the History of Liao and the History of Jin compiled by the Yuan historian Toqto'a revealed that the official dynastic name of some earlier dynasties such as the Liao and the Jin also contained the character "dà". It was also common for officials, subjects, or tributary states of a particular dynasty to include the term "dà" (or an equivalent term in other languages) when referring to this dynasty as a form of respect, even if the official dynastic name did not include it. For instance, The Chronicles of Japan referred to the Tang dynasty as "Dai Tō" (大唐; "Great Tang") despite its dynastic name being simply "Tang".

While all dynasties of China sought to associate their respective realm with Zhōngguó (中國; "Central State"; usually translated as "Middle Kingdom" or "China" in English texts) and various other names of China, none of these regimes officially used such names as their dynastic title. Although the Qing dynasty explicitly identified their state with and employed "Zhōngguó"—and its Manchu equivalent "Dulimbai Gurun" —in official capacity in numerous international treaties beginning with the Treaty of Nerchinsk dated AD 1689, its dynastic name had remained the "Great Qing". "Zhōngguó", which has become nearly synonymous with "China" in modern times, is a concept with geographical, political, and cultural connotations.

The adoption of guóhào, as well as the importance assigned to it, had promulgated within the Sinosphere. Notably, rulers of Vietnam and Korea also declared guóhào for their respective realm.

Retroactive nomenclature
In Chinese historiography, historians generally do not refer to dynasties directly by their official name. Instead, historiographical names, which were most commonly derived from their official name, are used. For instance, the Sui dynasty is known as such because its formal name was "Sui". Likewise, the Jin dynasty was officially the "Great Jin".

When more than one dynasty shared the same Chinese character(s) as their formal name, as was common in Chinese history, prefixes are retroactively applied to dynastic names by historians in order to distinguish between these similarly-named regimes. Frequently used prefixes include:

 * Cardinal direction
 * "Northern" (北; běi): e.g., Northern Qi, Northern Yuan
 * "Southern" (南; nán): e.g., Southern Yan, Southern Tang
 * "Eastern" (東; dōng): e.g., Eastern Jin, Eastern Wei
 * "Western" (西; xī): e.g., Western Liang, Western Liao
 * Sequence
 * "Former" (前; qián): e.g., Former Qin, Former Shu
 * "Later" (後; hòu): e.g., Later Zhao, Later Han
 * Surname of the ruling family
 * e.g., Wu Zhou, Ma Chu
 * Other types of prefixes
 * e.g., Shu Han (the prefix "Shu" is a reference to the realm's geographical location at Sichuan), Hu Xia (the prefix "Hu", meaning "barbarian", refers to the dynasty's ethnic Xiongnu origin)

A dynasty could be referred to by more than one retroactive name in Chinese historiography, albeit some are more widely used than others. For instance, the Western Han is also known as the "Former Han", and the Yang Wu is also called the "Southern Wu".

Scholars usually make a historiographical distinction for dynasties whose rule were interrupted. For example, the Song dynasty is divided into the Northern Song and the Southern Song, with the Jingkang Incident as the dividing line; the original "Song" founded by the Emperor Taizu of Song was therefore differentiated from the "Song" restored under the Emperor Gaozong of Song. In such cases, the regime had collapsed, only to be re-established; a nomenclatural distinction between the original regime and the new regime is thus necessary for historiographical purpose. Major exceptions to this historiographical practice include the Western Qin, the Southern Liang, and the Tang dynasty; the first two were interrupted by the Later Qin, while the continuity of the latter was broken by the Wu Zhou.

In Chinese sources, the term "dynasty" (朝; cháo) is usually omitted when referencing dynasties that have prefixes in their historiographical names. Such a practice is sometimes adopted in English usage, even though the inclusion of the word "dynasty" is also widely seen in English scholarly writings. For example, the Northern Zhou is also sometimes referred to as the "Northern Zhou dynasty".

Often, scholars would refer to a specific Chinese dynasty by attaching the word "China" after the dynastic name. For instance, "Tang China" refers to the Chinese state under the rule of the Tang dynasty and the corresponding historical era.

Territorial extent
While the earliest orthodox Chinese dynasties were established along the Yellow River and the Yangtze in China proper, numerous Chinese dynasties later expanded beyond the region to encompass other territorial domains.

At various points in time, Chinese dynasties exercised control over China proper (including Hainan, Macau, and Hong Kong),  Taiwan, Manchuria (both Inner Manchuria and Outer Manchuria),  Sakhalin,  Mongolia (both Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia),  Vietnam, Tibet,  Xinjiang, as well as parts of Central Asia,  the Korean Peninsula, Afghanistan, and Siberia.

Territorially, the largest orthodox Chinese dynasty was either the Yuan dynasty or the Qing dynasty, depending on the historical source. This discrepancy can be mainly attributed to the ambiguous northern border of the Yuan realm: whereas some sources describe the Yuan border as located to the immediate north of the northern shore of Lake Baikal, others posit that the Yuan dynasty reached as far north as the Arctic coast, with its western boundary with the Golden Horde in Siberia delimited by the Ob and the Irtysh. In contrast, the borders of the Qing dynasty were demarcated and reinforced through a series of international treaties, and thus were more well-defined.

Apart from exerting direct control over the Chinese realm, various dynasties of China also maintained hegemony over other states and tribes through the Chinese tributary system. The Chinese tributary system first emerged during the Western Han and lasted until the 19th century AD when the Sinocentric order broke down.

The modern territorial claims of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China are inherited from the lands once held by the Qing dynasty at the time of its collapse.

List of major Chinese dynasties
This list includes only the major dynasties of China that are typically found in simplified forms of Chinese historical timelines. This list is neither comprehensive nor representative of Chinese history as a whole.

title: Dynasties of China


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Radon measure

In mathematics (specifically in measure theory), a Radon measure, named after Johann Radon, is a measure on the $σ$-algebra of Borel sets of a Hausdorff topological space $X$ that is finite on all compact sets, outer regular on all Borel sets, and inner regular on open sets. These conditions guarantee that the measure is "compatible" with the topology of the space, and most measures used in mathematical analysis and in number theory are indeed Radon measures.

Motivation
A common problem is to find a good notion of a measure on a topological space that is compatible with the topology in some sense. One way to do this is to define a measure on the Borel sets of the topological space. In general there are several problems with this: for example, such a measure may not have a well defined support. Another approach to measure theory is to restrict to locally compact Hausdorff spaces, and only consider the measures that correspond to positive linear functionals on the space of continuous functions with compact support (some authors use this as the definition of a Radon measure). This produces a good theory with no pathological problems, but does not apply to spaces that are not locally compact. If there is no restriction to non-negative measures and complex measures are allowed, then Radon measures can be defined as the continuous dual space on the space of continuous functions with compact support. If such a Radon measure is real then it can be decomposed into the difference of two positive measures. Furthermore, an arbitrary Radon measure can be decomposed into four positive Radon measures, where the real and imaginary parts of the functional are each the differences of two positive Radon measures.

The theory of Radon measures has most of the good properties of the usual theory for locally compact spaces, but applies to all Hausdorff topological spaces. The idea of the definition of a Radon measure is to find some properties that characterize the measures on locally compact spaces corresponding to positive functionals, and use these properties as the definition of a Radon measure on an arbitrary Hausdorff space.

Definitions
Let $m$ be a measure on the $σ$-algebra of Borel sets of a Hausdorff topological space $X$.
 * The measure $m$ is called inner regular or tight if, for every open set $U$, $m(U)$ is the supremum of $m(K)$ over all compact subsets $K$ of $U$.
 * The measure $m$ is called outer regular if, for every Borel set $B$, $m(B)$ is the infimum of $m(U)$ over all open sets $U$ containing $B$.
 * The measure $m$ is called locally finite if every point of $X$ has a neighborhood $U$ for which $m(U)$ is finite.

If $m$ is locally finite, then it follows that $m$ is finite on compact sets, and for locally compact Hausdorff spaces, the converse holds, too. Thus, in this case, local finiteness may be equivalently replaced by finiteness on compact subsets.

The measure $m$ is called a Radon measure if it is inner regular and locally finite. In many situations, such as finite measures on locally compact spaces, this also implies outer regularity (see also Radon spaces).

(It is possible to extend the theory of Radon measures to non-Hausdorff spaces, essentially by replacing the word "compact" by "closed compact" everywhere. However, there seem to be almost no applications of this extension.)

Radon measures on locally compact spaces
When the underlying measure space is a locally compact topological space, the definition of a Radon measure can be expressed in terms of continuous linear functionals on the space of continuous functions with compact support. This makes it possible to develop measure and integration in terms of functional analysis, an approach taken by Bourbaki and a number of other authors.

Measures
In what follows $X$ denotes a locally compact topological space. The continuous real-valued functions with compact support on $X$ form a vector space $\mathcal{K}(X) = C_{c}(X)$, which can be given a natural locally convex topology. Indeed, $\mathcal{K}(X)$ is the union of the spaces $\mathcal{K}(X, K)$ of continuous functions with support contained in compact sets $K$. Each of the spaces $\mathcal{K}(X, K)$ carries naturally the topology of uniform convergence, which makes it into a Banach space. But as a union of topological spaces is a special case of a direct limit of topological spaces, the space $\mathcal{K}(X)$ can be equipped with the direct limit locally convex topology induced by the spaces $\mathcal{K}(X, K)$; this topology is finer than the topology of uniform convergence.

If $m$ is a Radon measure on $$X,$$ then the mapping $$I : f \mapsto \int f(x)\, m(dx)$$

is a continuous positive linear map from $\mathcal{K}(X)$ to $R$. Positivity means that $I(f) ≥ 0$ whenever $f$ is a non-negative function. Continuity with respect to the direct limit topology defined above is equivalent to the following condition: for every compact subset $K$ of $X$ there exists a constant $M_{K}$ such that, for every continuous real-valued function $f$ on $X$ with , $$|I(f)| \leq M_K \sup_{x\in X} |f(x)|.$$

Conversely, by the Riesz–Markov–Kakutani representation theorem, each linear form on $\mathcal{K}(X)$ arises as integration with respect to a unique regular Borel measure.

A real-valued Radon measure is defined to be continuous linear form on $\mathcal{K}(X)$; they are precisely the differences of  two Radon measures. This gives an identification of real-valued Radon measures with the dual space of the locally convex space $\mathcal{K}(X)$. These real-valued Radon measures need not be signed measures. For example, $sin(x)dx$ is a real-valued Radon measure, but is not even an extended signed measure as it cannot be written as the difference of two measures at least one of which is finite.

Some authors use the preceding approach to define (positive) Radon measures to be the positive linear forms on $\mathcal{K}(X)$. In this set-up it is common to use a terminology in which Radon measures in the above sense are called positive measures and real-valued Radon measures as above are called (real) measures.

Integration
To complete the buildup of measure theory for locally compact spaces from the functional-analytic viewpoint, it is necessary to extend measure (integral) from compactly supported continuous functions. This can be done for real or complex-valued functions in several steps as follows:
 * 1) Definition of the upper integral $μ*(g)$ of a lower semicontinuous positive (real-valued) function $K$ as the supremum (possibly infinite) of the positive numbers $μ(h)$ for compactly supported continuous functions $h ≤ g$;
 * 2) Definition of the upper integral $μ*(f)$ for an arbitrary positive (real-valued) function $g$ as the infimum of upper integrals $μ*(g)$ for lower semi-continuous functions $g ≥ f$;
 * 3) Definition of the vector space $F = F(X, μ)$ as the space of all functions $f$ on $f$ for which the upper integral $μ*(|f|)$ of the absolute value is finite; the upper integral of the absolute value defines a semi-norm on $X$, and $F$ is a complete space with respect to the topology defined by the semi-norm;
 * 4) Definition of the space $L^{1}(X, μ)$ of integrable functions as the closure inside $F$ of the space of continuous compactly supported functions.
 * 5) Definition of the integral for functions in $L^{1}(X, μ)$ as extension by continuity (after verifying that $F$ is continuous with respect to the topology of $L^{1}(X, μ)$);
 * 6) Definition of the measure of a set as the integral (when it exists) of the indicator function of the set.

It is possible to verify that these steps produce a theory identical with the one that starts from a Radon measure defined as a function that assigns a number to each Borel set of $μ$.

The Lebesgue measure on $R$ can be introduced by a few ways in this functional-analytic set-up. First, it is possibly to rely on an "elementary" integral such as the Daniell integral or the Riemann integral for integrals of continuous functions with compact support, as these are integrable for all the elementary definitions of integrals. The measure (in the sense defined above) defined by elementary integration is precisely the Lebesgue measure. Second, if one wants to avoid reliance on Riemann or Daniell integral or other similar theories, it is possible to develop first the general theory of Haar measures and define the Lebesgue measure as the Haar measure $X$ on $R$ that satisfies the normalisation condition $λ([0, 1]) = 1$.

Examples
The following are all examples of Radon measures:
 * Lebesgue measure on Euclidean space (restricted to the Borel subsets);
 * Haar measure on any locally compact topological group;
 * Dirac measure on any topological space;
 * Gaussian measure on Euclidean space $ℝ^{n}$ with its Borel sigma algebra;
 * Probability measures on the $λ$-algebra of Borel sets of any Polish space. This example not only generalizes the previous example, but includes many measures on non-locally compact spaces, such as Wiener measure on the space of real-valued continuous functions on the interval $σ$.
 * A measure on $ℝ$ is a Radon measure if and only if it is a locally finite Borel measure.

The following are not examples of Radon measures:
 * Counting measure on Euclidean space is an example of a measure that is not a Radon measure, since it is not locally finite.
 * The space of ordinals at most equal to $Ω$, the first uncountable ordinal with the order topology is a compact topological space. The measure which equals $1$ on any Borel set that contains an uncountable closed subset of $[0, 1]$, and $0$ otherwise, is Borel but not Radon, as the one-point set $\{Ω\}$ has measure zero but any open neighbourhood of it has measure $1$.
 * Let $[1, Ω)$ be the interval $X$ equipped with the topology generated by the collection of half open intervals $\{[a, b) : 0 ≤ a < b ≤ 1\}$. This topology is sometimes called Sorgenfrey line. On this topological space, standard Lebesgue measure is not Radon since it is not inner regular, since compact sets are at most countable.
 * Let $[0, 1)$ be a Bernstein set in $Z$ (or any Polish space). Then no measure which vanishes at points on $[0, 1]$ is a Radon measure, since any compact set in $Z$ is countable.
 * Standard product measure on $(0, 1)^{κ}$ for uncountable $Z$ is not a Radon measure, since any compact set is contained within a product of uncountably many closed intervals, each of which is shorter than 1.

We note that, intuitively, the Radon measure is useful in mathematical finance particularly for working with Lévy processes because it has the properties of both Lebesgue and Dirac measures, as unlike the Lebesgue, a Radon measure on a single point is not necessarily of measure $0$.

Moderated Radon measures
Given a Radon measure $κ$ on a space $m$, we can define another measure $X$ (on the Borel sets) by putting

$$M(B) = \inf\{ m(V) \mid V \text{ is an open set with } B \subseteq V \subseteq X \} .$$

The measure $M$ is outer regular, and locally finite, and inner regular for open sets. It coincides with $M$ on compact and open sets, and $m$ can be reconstructed from $m$ as the unique inner regular measure that is the same as $M$ on compact sets. The measure $M$ is called moderated if $m$ is $M$-finite; in this case the measures $σ$ and $m$ are the same. (If $M$ is $m$-finite this does not imply that $σ$ is $M$-finite, so being moderated is stronger than being $σ$-finite.)

On a hereditarily Lindelöf space every Radon measure is moderated.

An example of a measure $σ$ that is $m$-finite but not moderated as follows. The topological space $σ$ has as underlying set the subset of the real plane given by the $X$-axis of points $(0, y)$ together with the points $(1/n, m/n^{2})$ with $y$, $m$ positive integers. The topology is given as follows. The single points $(1/n, m/n^{2})$ are all open sets. A base of neighborhoods of the point $(0, y)$ is given by wedges consisting of all points in $n$ of the form $(u, v)$ with $|v − y| ≤ |u| ≤ 1/n$ for a positive integer $X$. This space $n$ is locally compact. The measure $X$ is given by letting the $m$-axis have measure $0$ and letting the point $(1/n, m/n^{2})$ have measure $1/n^{3}$. This measure is inner regular and locally finite, but is not outer regular as any open set containing the $y$-axis has measure infinity. In particular the $y$-axis has $y$-measure $0$ but $m$-measure infinity.

Radon spaces
A topological space is called a Radon space if every finite Borel measure is a Radon measure, and strongly Radon if every locally finite Borel measure is a Radon measure. Any Suslin space is strongly Radon, and moreover every Radon measure is moderated.

Duality
On a locally compact Hausdorff space, Radon measures correspond to positive linear functionals on the space of continuous functions with compact support. This is not surprising as this property is the main motivation for the definition of Radon measure.

Metric space structure
The pointed cone $\mathcal{M}_{+}(X)$ of all (positive) Radon measures on $M$ can be given the structure of a complete metric space by defining the Radon distance between two measures $m_{1}, m_{2} ∈ \mathcal{M}_{+}(X)$ to be $$\rho (m_{1}, m_{2}) = \sup \left\{ \left. \int_{X} f(x) (m_1 - m_2) (dx) \ \right| \mathrm{continuous\,} f : X \to [-1, 1] \subset \mathbb{R} \right\}.$$

This metric has some limitations. For example, the space of Radon probability measures on $X$, $$\mathcal{P} (X) = \{ m \in \mathcal{M}_{+} (X) \mid m (X) = 1 \},$$ is not sequentially compact with respect to the Radon metric: i.e., it is not guaranteed that any sequence of probability measures will have a subsequence that is convergent with respect to the Radon metric, which presents difficulties in certain applications. On the other hand, if $X$ is a compact metric space, then the Wasserstein metric turns $\mathcal{P}(X)$ into a compact metric space.

Convergence in the Radon metric implies weak convergence of measures: $$\rho (m_{n}, m) \to 0 \Rightarrow m_{n} \rightharpoonup m,$$ but the converse implication is false in general. Convergence of measures in the Radon metric is sometimes known as strong convergence, as contrasted with weak convergence.

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

title: Radon measure


text:
Sōichirō Hoshi

Sōichirō Hoshi (保志 総一朗) is a Japanese voice actor and singer affiliated with Arts Vision. Some of his major anime roles include Son Goku in Saiyuki, Kira Yamato in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny & Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Freedom, Kazuki Fuuchouin in GetBackers, Masaru Daimon in Digimon Savers, Kaoru Hanabishi in Ai Yori Aoshi, and Tomoki Sakurai in Heaven's Lost Property. In video game franchises he voices Sanada Yukimura in Sengoku Basara, Keiichi Maebara in Higurashi When They Cry, Kilik in Soulcalibur, and various characters in Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time. He partially voices Shirogane Takeru in the Muv-Luv series. Hoshi was also known for his voice roles of villains as Goro Akechi from Persona 5, Death Gun from Sword Art Online, and Lio Shirazumi in The Garden of Sinners & Sentarō Miya in Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life.

For his work, Hoshi has been awarded the voice acting award in the Anime Grand Prix in both 2005 and 2006. Additionally, in the 2007 Seiyu Awards, Hoshi was a nominee in the category "Best Actors in supporting roles" for his portrayal as Kira Yamato in the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny.

title: Sōichirō Hoshi


text:
Sneakernet

Sneakernet, also called sneaker net, is an informal term for the transfer of electronic information by physically moving media such as magnetic tape, floppy disks, optical discs, USB flash drives or external hard drives between computers, rather than transmitting it over a computer network. Sneakernets enable data transfer through physical means and offer a solution in the presence of network connections that lack reliability; however, a consequence of this physical transfer is high latency. The term, a tongue-in-cheek play on net(work) as in Internet or Ethernet, refers to walking in sneakers as the transport mechanism. Alternative terms may be floppy net, train net, or pigeon net.

Summary and background
Sneakernets are in use throughout the computer universe. A sneakernet may be used when computer networks are prohibitively expensive for the owner to maintain; in high-security environments where manual inspection (for re-classification of information) is necessary; where information needs to be shared between networks with different levels of security clearance; when data transfer is impractical due to bandwidth limitations; when a particular system is simply incompatible with the local network, unable to be connected, or when two systems are not on the same network at the same time. Because sneakernets take advantage of physical media, security measures used for the transfer of sensitive information are respectively physical.

This form of data transfer is also used for peer-to-peer (or friend-to-friend) file sharing and has grown in popularity in metropolitan areas and college communities. The ease of this system has been facilitated by the availability of USB external hard drives, USB flash drives and portable music players.

The United States Postal Service offers a Media Mail service for compact discs, among other items. This provides a viable mode of transport for long distance sneakernet use. In fact, when mailing media with sufficiently high data density such as high capacity hard drives, the throughput (data transferred per unit of time) as well as the cost per unit of data transferred may compete favorably with networked methods of data transfer.

Afghanistan
In 2021 Taliban-governed Afghanistan, "computer kars" distribute Internet-derived content by hand: "Movies, music, mobile applications, iOS updates, and naughty videos. Also creating Apple IDs and social media accounts, and backing up and unlocking phones and recovering data." The kars collectively maintain an archive of hundreds of terabytes of data. Four terabytes of the latest Indian or American movies or Turkish TV dramas, dubbed in the Afghan national languages Dari and Pashto reportedly wholesale for about 800 afghanis, or nine US dollars, while the retail price of five gigabytes of content is 100 afghanis, or one US dollar. Kars report that their earnings have dropped 90% under Taliban rule.

Australia
When Australia joined Usenet in 1983, it received articles via tapes sent from the United States to the University of Sydney, which disseminated data to dozens of other computers on the country's Unix network.

Bhutan
The Rigsum Sherig Collection project uses a sneakernet to distribute offline educational resources, including Kiwix and Khan Academy on a Stick, to hundreds of schools and other educational institutions in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Many of the schools in Bhutan have computers or IT labs, but no Internet connection (or a very slow one). The sneakernet, facilitated by teachers, distributes about 25 GB of free, open-source educational software to the schools, often using external hard disks.

Cuba
El Paquete Semanal is a roughly 1TB compilation of media, distributed weekly throughout Cuba via portable hard drives and USB memory sticks.

Iran
A weekly data dump compilation collected through the satellite system Toosheh.

North Korea
North Korean dissidents have been known to smuggle flash drives filled with western movies and television shows.

Pakistan
The May 2011 raid of Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, revealed that he used a series of USB thumb drives to store his email drafts. A courier of his would then take the saved emails to a nearby Internet cafe and send them out to the desired recipients.

South Africa
In September 2009, Durban company Unlimited IT reportedly pitted a messenger pigeon against South African ISP Telkom to transfer 4 GB of data 60 mi from Howick to Durban. The pigeon, carrying the data on a memory stick, arrived in one hour eight minutes, with the data taking another hour to read from the memory stick. During the same two-hour period, only about 4.2% of the data had been transferred over the ADSL link. A similar experiment was conducted in England in September 2010; the "pigeonnet" also proved superior. In November 2009 the Australian comedy/current-affairs television program Hungry Beast repeated this experiment. The experiment had the team transfer a 700 MB file via three delivery methods to determine which was the fastest; A carrier pigeon with a microSD card, a car carrying a USB Stick, or a Telstra ADSL line. The data was to be transferred a distance of 132 km by road. The pigeon won the race with a time of approximately 1 hour 5 minutes, the car came in second at 2 hours 10 minutes, while the internet transfer did not finish, having dropped out a second time and not come back.

Wizzy Digital Courier provided Internet access to schools in South Africa with poor or no network connectivity by implementing UUCP on USB memory sticks. This allowed offline cached email transport and scoops of web pages to back-fill a web cache.

United States
Google has used a sneakernet to transport large datasets, including 120 TB of data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Users of Google Cloud can import their data into Google Cloud Storage through sneakernet.

Oracle similarly offers its Data Transfer Service to customers to migrate data to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or export data from it.

The SETI@home project uses a sneakernet to overcome bandwidth limitations: data recorded by the radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico was stored on magnetic tapes which were then shipped to Berkeley, California, for processing. In 2005, Jim Gray reported sending hard drives and even "metal boxes with processors" to transport large amounts of data by postal mail.

Very Long Baseline Interferometry performed using the Very Long Baseline Array ships hard drives to a data reduction site in Socorro, New Mexico. They refer to their data transfer mechanism as "HDOA" (Hard Drives On Airplane).

Data analytics teams in the financial services sector often use sneakernets to transfer sensitive corporate information and information obtained from data mining, such as ledger entries, customer data and financial statistics. There are several reasons for this: firstly, sneakernets can generally provide very high security (and possibly more importantly, they are perceived to be secure) due to the impossibility of a man-in-the-middle attack or packet sniffing; secondly, the volumes of data concerned are often extremely high; and thirdly, setting up secure network links between the client business and the analytics team's facilities is often either impossible or an extremely convoluted process.

In 2015 Amazon Web Services launched AWS Snowball, a 50 lb, 50 TB device for transporting data to the AWS cloud; and in 2016 AWS Snowmobile, a truck to transport up to 100 PB of data in one load. For similar reasons, there is also a Google Transfer Appliance, an IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration device, and Microsoft's Azure Data Box Disk service.

Observation data from the Event Horizon Telescope is collected on hard drives which are transported by commercial freight airplanes from the various telescopes to the MIT Haystack Observatory and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, where the data is analyzed.

USSR
In later USSR, the operating system called DEMOS was created and adapted for many types of Soviet computers by cloning versions of UNIX that were brought into USSR on magnetic tapes bypassing the Iron Curtain. This allowed to build Relcom country-wide UUCP network to provide global Usenet access for Soviet users which led to the registration of .su ("Soviet Union") top level domain in 1990.

Non-fiction
"There's a lot of band-width in a station wagon."

The first USENET citation is July 16, 1985, and it was widely considered an old joke already.

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."

Other alleged speakers included Tom Reidel, Warren Jackson, or Bob Sutterfield.

Although the station wagon transporting magnetic tapes is generally considered the canonical version, variants using trucks or Boeing 747s or C-5s and later storage technologies such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, Blu-rays, or SD Cards have frequently appeared.

The very first problem in Andrew S. Tanenbaum's 1981 textbook Computer Networks asks the student to calculate the bandwidth of a St. Bernard carrying floppy disks.

Fiction

 * In Minority Report, the computer center of the "Precrime" police division operates by transferring data from one console to another using a thin, flat storage device.
 * The Terry Pratchett novel Going Postal (2004) includes a contest between a horse-drawn mail coach and the "Grand Trunk Clacks" (a semaphore line) to see which is faster to transmit the contents of a book to a remote destination.
 * William Gibson's novel Spook Country (2007) also features sneakernets, with iPods being the storage device used to clandestinely move information.
 * In Cory Doctorow's novel Little Brother, the main character uses the term sneakernet to describe how he and his friends distribute the fictitious XNet software for encrypted communications.

Similar concepts

 * Delay-tolerant networks, such as the Haggle project at Cambridge University.
 * IP over Avian Carriers (RFC 1149), an April Fools' Day RFC describing the transmission of messages via homing pigeon.

title: Sneakernet


text:
Anti-social behaviour

Antisocial behaviours, sometimes called dissocial behaviours, are actions which are considered to violate the rights of or otherwise harm others by committing crime or nuisance, such as stealing and physical attack or noncriminal behaviours such as lying and manipulation. It is considered to be disruptive to others in society. This can be carried out in various ways, which includes, but is not limited to, intentional aggression, as well as covert and overt hostility. Anti-social behaviour also develops through social interaction within the family and community. It continuously affects a child's temperament, cognitive ability and their involvement with negative peers, dramatically affecting children's cooperative problem-solving skills. Many people also label behaviour which is deemed contrary to prevailing norms for social conduct as anti-social behaviour. However, researchers have stated that it is a difficult term to define, particularly in the United Kingdom where many acts fall into its category. The term is especially used in Irish English and British English.

Although the term is fairly new to the common lexicon, the word anti-social behaviour has been used for many years in the psychosocial world where it was defined as "unwanted behaviour as the result of personality disorder." For example, David Farrington, a British criminologist and forensic psychologist, stated that teenagers can exhibit anti-social behaviour by engaging in various amounts of wrongdoings such as stealing, vandalism, sexual promiscuity, excessive smoking, heavy drinking, confrontations with parents, and gambling. In children, conduct disorders could result from ineffective parenting. Anti-social behaviour is typically associated with other behavioural and developmental issues such as hyperactivity, depression, learning disabilities, and impulsivity. Alongside these issues one can be predisposed or more inclined to develop such behaviour due to one's genetics, neurobiological and environmental stressors in the prenatal stage of one's life, through the early childhood years.

The American Psychiatric Association, in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, diagnoses persistent anti-social behaviour as antisocial personality disorder. Genetic factors include abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex of the brain while neurobiological risk include maternal drug use during pregnancy, birth complications, low birth weight, prenatal brain damage, traumatic head injury, and chronic illness. The World Health Organization includes it in the International Classification of Diseases as dissocial personality disorder. A pattern of persistent anti-social behaviours can also be present in children and adolescents diagnosed with conduct problems, including conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder under the DSM-5. It has been suggested that individuals with intellectual disabilities have higher tendencies to display anti-social behaviours, but this may be related to social deprivation and mental health problems. More research is required on this topic.

Development
Intent and discrimination may determine both pro-social and anti-social behaviour. Infants may act in seemingly anti-social ways and yet be generally accepted as too young to know the difference before the age of four or five. Berger states that parents should teach their children that "emotions need to be regulated, not depressed". One problem with the assumption that a behaviour that is "simply ignorant" in infants would have antisocial causes in persons older than 4 or 5 years at the same time as the latter are supposed to have more complex brains (and with it a more advanced consciousness) is that it presumes that what appears to be the same behaviour would have fewer possible causes in a more complex brain than in a less complex brain, which is criticized because a more complex brain increases the number of possible causes of what looks like the same behaviour as opposed to decreasing it.

Studies have shown that in children between ages 13–14 who bully or show aggressive behaviour towards others exhibit anti-social behaviours in their early adulthood. There are strong statistical relationships that show this significant association between childhood aggressiveness and anti-social behaviours. Analyses saw that 20% of these children who exhibit anti-social behaviours at later ages had court appearances and police contact as a result of their behaviour.

Many of the studies regarding the media's influence on anti-social behaviour have been deemed inconclusive. Some reviews have found strong correlations between aggression and the viewing of violent media, while others find little evidence to support their case. The only unanimously accepted truth regarding anti-social behaviour is that parental guidance carries an undoubtedly strong influence; providing children with brief negative evaluations of violent characters helps to reduce violent effects in the individual.

Family
Families greatly impact the causation of anti-social behaviour. Some other familial causes are parent history of anti-social behaviours, parental alcohol and drug abuse, unstable home life, absence of good parenting, physical abuse, parental instability (mental health issues/PTSD) and economic distress within the family.

Neurobiology
Studies have found that there is a link between antisocial behaviour and increased amygdala activity specifically centered around facial expressions that are based in anger. This research focuses on the fact that the symptom of over reactivity to perceived threats that comes with antisocial behaviour may be from this increase in amygdala activity. This focus on perceived threat does not include emotions centered around distress.

Consumption patterns
There is a small link between antisocial personality characteristics in adulthood and more TV watching as a child. The risk of early adulthood criminal conviction increased by nearly 30 percent with each hour children spent watching TV on an average weekend. Peers can also impact one's predisposition to anti-social behaviours, in particular, children in peer groups are more likely to associate with anti-social behaviours if present within their peer group. Especially within youth, patterns of lying, cheating and disruptive behaviours found in young children are early signs of anti-social behaviour. Adults must intervene if they notice their children providing these behaviours. Early detection is best in the preschool years and middle school years in best hopes of interrupting the trajectory of these negative patterns. These patterns in children can lead to conduct disorder, a disorder that allows children to rebel against atypical age-appropriate norms. Moreover, these offences can lead to oppositional defiant disorder, which allows children to be defiant against adults and create vindictive behaviours and patterns. Furthermore, children who exhibit anti-social behaviour also are more prone to alcoholism in adulthood.

Intervention and treatment
As a high prevalence mental health problem in children, many interventions and treatments are developed to prevent anti-social behaviours and to help reinforce pro-social behaviours.

Several factors are considered as direct or indirect causes of developing anti-social behaviour in children. Addressing these factors are necessary to develop a reliable and effective intervention or treatment. Children's perinatal risk, temperament, intelligence, nutrition level, and interaction with parents or caregivers can influence their behaviours. As for parents or caregivers, their personality traits, behaviours, socioeconomic status, social network, and living environment can also affect children's development of anti-social behaviour.

An individual's age at intervention is a strong predictor of the effectiveness of a given treatment. The specific kinds of anti-social behaviours exhibited, as well as the magnitude of those behaviours also impact how effective a treatment is for an individual. Behavioural parent training (BPT) is more effective to preschool or elementary school-aged children, and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has higher effectiveness for adolescents. Moreover, early intervention of anti-social behaviour is relatively more promising. For preschool children, family is the main consideration for the context of intervention and treatment. The interaction between children and parents or caregivers, parenting skills, social support, and socioeconomic status would be the factors. For school-aged children, the school context also needs to be considered. The collaboration amongst parents, teachers, and school psychologists are usually recommended to help children develop the ability of resolving conflicts, managing their anger, developing positive interactions with other students, and learning pro-social behaviours within both home and school settings.

Moreover, the training for parents or caregivers are also important. Their children would be more likely to learn positive social behaviours and reduce inappropriate behaviours if they become good role models and have effective parenting skills.

Cognitive behavioural therapy
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), is a highly effective, evidence-based therapy, in relation to anti-social behaviour. This type of treatment focuses on enabling the patients to create an accurate image of the self, allowing the individuals to find the trigger of their harmful actions and changing how individuals think and act in social situations. Due to their impulsivity, their inability to form trusting relationships and their nature of blaming others when a situation arises, individuals with particularly aggressive anti-social behaviours tend to have maladaptive social cognitions, including hostile attribution bias, which lead to negative behavioural outcomes. CBT has been found to be more effective for older children and less effective for younger children. Problem-solving skills training (PSST) is a type of CBT that aims to recognize and correct how an individual thinks and consequently behaves in social environments. This training provides steps to assist people in obtaining the skill to be able to evaluate potential solutions to problems occurring outside of therapy and learn how to create positive solutions to avoid physical aggression and resolve conflict.

Therapists, when providing CBT intervention to individuals with anti-social behaviour, should first assess the level of the risk of the behaviour in order to establish a plan on the duration and intensity of the intervention. Moreover, therapists should support and motivate individuals to practice the new skills and behaviours in environments and contexts where the conflicts would naturally occur to observe the effects of CBT.

Behavioural parent training
Behavioural parent training (BPT) or parent management training (PMT), focuses on changing how parents interact with their children and equips them with ways to recognize and change their child's maladaptive behaviour in a variety of situations. BPT assumes that individuals are exposed to reinforcements and punishments daily and that anti-social behaviour, which can be learned, is a result of these reinforcements and punishments. Since certain types of interactions between parents and children may reinforce a child's anti-social behaviour, the aim of BPT is to teach the parent effective skills to better manage and communicate with their child. This could be done by reinforcing pro-social behaviours while punishing or ignoring anti-social behaviours. It is important to note that the effects of this therapy can be seen only if the newly acquired communication methods are maintained. BPT has been found to be most effective for younger children under the age of 12. Researchers credit the effectiveness of this treatment at younger ages due to the fact that younger children are more reliant on their parents. BPT is used to treat children with conduct problems, but also for children with ADHD.

According to a meta-analysis, the effectiveness of BPT is supported by short-term changes on the children's anti-social behaviour. However, whether these changes are maintained over a longer period of time is still unclear.

School-based Intervention
First Step to Success is an early intervention for Kindergarten to 3rd grade children who are demonstrating antisocial behaviours. First Step is a collaborative intervention between home and school. There are three important components: (1) Screening; (2) School intervention (CLASS): teaches the child appropriate behaviour through positive reinforcement; (3) Home intervention (HomeBase): teaches the parent key skills for supporting their child and the use of positive reinforcement. The classroom intervention phase (CLASS) takes about 30 days to complete and has 3 phases: (1) Coach-led; (2) Teacher-led; (3) Maintaining. The Red Card/Green Card game (red = inappropriate behaviour; green = appropriate behaviour) is played at school each day. The coach/teacher shows a red/green card as a visual cue to the target student based on their current behaviour. Points are earned if the card is on green at the end of a timed interval. If enough points are earned at the end of the game, the target child gets to choose a reward that the entire class can enjoy together (i.e., extra time at recess, playing a special game, etc.). Coaches/teachers communicate daily with parent(s) throughout the intervention. The home intervention (HomeBase) begins a few days after the classroom intervention. HomeBase builds parent's confidence in 6 specific skill areas and in parent-child activities. Coaches meet with parent(s) once weekly for 6 weeks. Parent(s) engage with the target child for 10–15 minutes daily in one-on-one time during the intervention. Overall, First Steps takes about 3 months to implement, requires minimal time from parent(s) and teachers and has shown empirically positive results in increasing prosocial behaviour in at-risk children.

Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy or talk therapy, although not always effective, can also be used to treat individuals with anti-social behaviour. Individuals can learn skills such as anger and violence management. This type of therapy can help individuals with anti-social behaviour bridge the gap between their feelings and behaviours, which they lack the connection previously. It is most effective when specific issues are being discussed with individuals with anti-social behaviours, rather than a broad general concept. This type of therapy works well with individuals who are at a mild to moderate stage of anti-social behaviour since they still have some sense of responsibility regarding their own problems. Mentalization-based treatment is another form of group psychotherapy shifting its focus on the relational and mental factors related to anti-social personality disorder rather than anger management and violent acts. This particular group therapy targets the mentalizing vulnerabilities and attachment patterns of patients by using a semi-structured group process focused on personal formulation and by establishing group values to promote learning from other members and generating "we-ness."

When working with individuals with anti-social behaviour, therapist must be mindful of building a trusting therapeutic relationship since these individuals might have never experienced rewarding relationships. Therapists also need to be reminded that changes might take place slowly, thus an ability for noticing small changes and constant encouragement for individuals with anti-social behaviour to continue the intervention are required.

Family therapy
Family therapy, which is a type of psychotherapy, helps promote communication between family members, thus resolving conflicts related to anti-social behaviour. Since family exerts enormous influence over children's development, it is important to identify the behaviours that could potentially lead to anti-social behaviours in children. It is a relatively short-term therapy which involves the family members who are willing to participate. Family therapy can be used to address specific topics such as aggression. The therapy may end when the family can resolve conflicts without needing the therapists to intervene.

Diagnosis
There is no official diagnosis for anti-social behaviour. However, we can have a look at the official diagnosis for antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and use it as guideline while keeping in mind that anti-social behaviour and ASPD are not to be confused.

Distinguishing from antisocial personality disorder
When looking at non-ASPD patients (who show anti-social behaviour) and ASPD patients, it all comes down to the same types of behaviours. However, ASPD is a personality disorder which is defined by the consistency and stability of the observed behaviour, in this case, anti-social behaviour. Antisocial personality disorder can only be diagnosed when a pattern of anti-social behaviour began being noticeable during childhood and/or early teens and remained stable and consistent across time and context. In the official DSM IV-TR for ASPD, it is specified that the anti-social behaviour has to occur outside of time frames surrounding traumatic life events or manic episodes (if the individual is diagnosed with another mental disorder). The diagnosis for ASPD cannot be done before the age of 18. For example, someone who exhibits anti-social behaviour with their family but pro-social behaviour with friends and coworkers would not qualify for ASPD because the behaviour is not consistent across context. Someone who was consistently behaving in a pro-social way and then begins exhibiting anti-social behaviour in response to a specific life event would not qualify for ASPD either because the behaviour is not stable across time.

Law breaking behaviour in which the individuals are putting themselves or others at risk is considered anti-social even if it is not consistent or stable (examples: speeding, use of drugs, getting in physical conflict). In relation to the previous statement, juvenile delinquency is a core element to the diagnosis of ASPD. Individuals who begin getting in trouble with the law (in more than one area) at an abnormally early age (around 15) and keep recurrently doing so in adulthood may be suspected of having ASPD.

Evidence: frustration and aggression
With some limitations, research has established a correlation between frustration and aggression when it comes to anti-social behaviour. The presence of anti-social behaviour may be detected when an individual is experiencing an abnormally high amount of frustrations in their daily life routine and when those frustrations always result into aggression. The term impulsivity is commonly used to describe this behavioural pattern. Anti-social behaviour can also be detected if the aggressiveness and impulsiveness of the individual's behaviour in response to frustrations is so that it causes obstruction to social interactions and achievement of personal goals. In both of these cases, we can consider the different types of treatment and therapy previously mentioned in this article.
 * Examples in childhood: unable to make friends, unable to follow rules, getting kicked out of school, unable to fulfill minimal levels of education (elementary school, middle school).
 * Examples in early adulthood: unable to keep a job or an apartment, difficulty with maintaining relationships.

Prognosis
The prognosis of having anti-social behaviour is not very favourable due to its high stability throughout children development. Studies have shown that children who are aggressive and have conduct problems are more likely to have anti-social behaviour in adolescence. Early intervention of anti-social behaviour is relatively more effective since the anti-social pattern lasts for a shorter period of time. Moreover, since younger children would have smaller social networks and less social activities, fewer contexts need to be considered for the intervention and treatment. For adolescents, studies have shown that the influence of treatments becomes less effective.

The prognosis seems to not be influenced by the duration of intervention, however; a long-term follow-up is necessary to confirm that the intervention or treatment is effective.

Individuals who exhibit anti-social behaviour are more likely to use drugs and abuse alcohol. This could make the prognosis worse since he or she would less likely be involved in social activities and would become more isolated.

United Kingdom
An anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) is a civil order made against a person who has been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour. The orders, introduced in the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, were designed to criminalize minor incidents that would not have warranted prosecution before.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defines anti-social behaviour as acting in a manner that has "caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household" as the perpetrator. There has been debate concerning the vagueness of this definition.

However, among legal professionals in the UK there are behaviours commonly considered to fall under the definitions of anti-social behaviour. These include, but are not limited to, threatening or intimidating actions, racial or religious harassment, verbal abuse, and physical abuse.

In a survey conducted by University College London during May 2006, the UK was thought by respondents to be Europe's worst country for anti-social behaviour, with 76% believing Britain had a "big or moderate problem".

Current legislation governing anti-social behaviour in the UK is the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 which received Royal Assent in March 2014 and came into enforcement in October 2014. This replaces tools such as the ASBO with 6 streamlined tools designed to make it easier to act on anti-social behaviour.

Australia
Anti-social behaviour can have a negative effect and impact on Australian communities and their perception of safety. The Western Australia Police force define anti-social behaviour as any behaviour that annoys, irritates, disturbs or interferes with a person's ability to go about their lawful business. In Australia, many different acts are classed as anti-social behaviour, such as: misuse of public space; disregard for community safety; disregard for personal well-being; acts directed at people; graffiti; protests; liquor offences; and drunk driving. It has been found that it is very common for Australian adolescents to engage in different levels of anti-social behaviour. A survey was conducted in 1996 in New South Wales, Australia, of 441, 234 secondary school students in years 7 to 12 about their involvement in anti-social activities. 38.6% reported intentionally damaging or destroying someone else's property, 22.8% admitted to having received or selling stolen goods and close to 40% confessed to attacking someone with the idea of hurting them. The Australian community are encouraged to report any behaviour of concern and play a vital role assisting police in reducing anti-social behaviour. One study conducted in 2016 established how perpetrators of anti-social behaviour may not actually intend to cause offense. The study examined anti-social behaviours (or microaggressions) within the LGBTIQ community on a university campus. The study established how many members felt that other people would often commit anti-social behaviours, however there was no explicit suggestion of any maliciousness behind these acts. Rather, it was just that the offenders were naive to the impact of their behaviour.

The Western Australia Police force uses a three-step strategy to deal with anti-social behaviour.

 * 1) Prevention – This action uses community engagement, intelligence, training and development and the targeting of hotspots, attempting to prevent unacceptable behaviour from occurring.
 * 2) Response – A timely and effective response to anti-social behaviour is vital. Police provide ownership, leadership and coordination to apprehend offenders.
 * 3) Resolution – Identifying the underlying issues that cause anti-social behaviour and resolve these issues with the help of the community. Offenders are successfully prosecuted.

Japan
The 1970's, brought attention to a social and historical phenomenon called hikikomori. Often called the lost generation, with pervasive and severe social withdrawal and anti-social tendencies. Individuals with hikikomori, are commonly in their 20's or 30's, avoiding as much social interaction as possible. Japanese psychologist and leading expert on the topic, Tamaki Saito, was one of the first to present that approximately 1% of the country's population was considered hikikomori at the time. Today, it is still existent in Japan taking on new forms of seclusion by using digital tools, such as video games and internet chatting, to replace social interaction. The term Hikikomori has since been used throughout the world, in Asia, Europe, North and South America, Africa and Australia.

title: Anti-social behaviour


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Hiram Blanchard

Hiram Blanchard (January 17, 1820 – December 17, 1874) was a Nova Scotia lawyer, politician, and the first premier of Nova Scotia. Blanchard won election to the Nova Scotia legislative assembly in Inverness in 1859 as a Liberal.

Early life
Hiram Blanchard was born in West River, Nova Scotia, on January 17, 1820, to father Jonathan Blanchard and mother Sarah Goggins. Hiram attended the same school as his brother, Jotham Blanchard, Pictou Academy. After graduating, Blanchard began studying law at Guysborough, Nova Scotia, with future Nova Scotia House of Assembly member William Frederick DesBarres and was admitted to the bar as an attorney at age 21 in November 1841. Marrying Eliza Cantrell in 1842, he was admitted to the bar as a barrister in April 1843. Shortly after his admission to the bar, Blanchard opened up a law office in the small seaside village of Port Hood, Nova Scotia, practising in the law courts of Antigonish and Guysborough. In a short time, Blanchard gained a reputation amongst those in the legal profession for his skill in examining witnesses and clear presentation of facts.

In 1860, Blanchard moved to Halifax and became engaged in a partnership with Jonathan McCully, then Solicitor General and railway commissioner in the government of Joseph Howe. There, he argued against characters such as James MacDonald, the future federal Minister of Justice and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. Charles James Townshend, a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, observed the courtroom encounters of McCully and Blanchard, commenting "... it was delightful and instructive to listen to [their] forensic battle. Both were men of high and honourable character, incapable of any unworthy schemes to win their cases." In 1870, Blanchard became partners with Nicholas Meagher, future Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

Political career
In 1860, William Young left politics to become chief justice of Nova Scotia. Blanchard had been very reluctant to become involved in politics until up to just before this time. The 1859 Nova Scotia election was largely influenced between the ongoing squabbles between Roman Catholic and Protestant populations, but Hiram Blanchard's election win for the Liberals in his constituency of Inverness was based on a platform of "equal rights to all, proscription of none, favouritism to none". Blanchard rose above religious quarrels and managed to win in a Roman Catholic community, even though he was a Presbyterian himself. In the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, Blanchard drew particular attention to the plight of the insane and the deaf, two disadvantaged groups in Nova Scotia at the time. Although he supported the free schooling initiative of Premier Charles Tupper, Blanchard objected to the idea that schools should be governed by a council made up of members of the Executive Council of Nova Scotia.

Blanchard supported the idea of confederation, and after Nova Scotia became a part of Canada in 1867, he became attorney-general and leader of the Conservative Party government, as the position of leader of the government had been vacated by Charles Tupper following his run for federal politics. However, Blanchard was in his new-found position for less than three months. In the September 1867 provincial election, the issue of Nova Scotia's entry to the confederation led to the government's demise in favour of William Annand's Anti-Confederation Party, and in the newly elected Assembly, only two members, Blanchard included, supported the idea of confederation. In 1868, Blanchard's re-election to his constituency of Inverness was declared invalid as he had recently been appointed the legal advisor for the federal government in his province. In the subsequent by-election, Blanchard was defeated. In the 1871 election, he was once again elected, serving as leader of the opposition until his death on December 17, 1874, at Halifax. Blanchard was survived by his four daughters and wife.

title: Hiram Blanchard


text:
Wieselburg

Wieselburg (Central Bavarian: Wieslbuag) is a town in Lower Austria, Austria, located near the River Erlauf. Its name roughly translates to castle where two rivers meet, as there are two rivers that run together to create the Erlauf. Its population is approximately 4,200 (including surrounding villages).

A brewery, an agricultural college and research institute (HBLFA Francisco Josephinum), a college of higher education (Fachhochschule), and one of the oldest churches north of the Alps dating from AD 976 are located in the town. Wieselburg was made a town 1000 years later, in 1976. Annually in the ending of June beginning of July an agricultural fair, Wieselburger Messe, takes place.

People

 * Karl Bienenstein (de)
 * Alfred Gusenbauer, educated here
 * Paul Hörbiger (de)
 * Eugen Wüster (de)

title: Wieselburg