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Angeln

Angeln

Angeln (Danish: Angel) is a peninsula in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, protruding into the Baltic Sea. It is separated from the peninsula of Schwansen by the Schlei inlet, and from the Danish island of Als by the Flensburger Förde ("firth of Flensburg"). The region is believed by many to be the area the Angles left when migrating to Great Britain in the 5th-6th centuries. The word in itself means "hook", e.g. as in angling for fish. England and the English language takes its name from the Angles, and thus ultimately from the Angeln peninsula. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states: (after the Angles' migration to Great Britain) "Of the Angles - the country they left has since stood empty between the Jutes and the Saxons." Category:Schleswig-Holstein Category:England Category:English language

Danish language

Danish (dansk) belongs to the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages), a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 5.5 million people mainly in Denmark including some 50,000 people in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, where it holds the status of minority language. Danish also holds official status and is a mandatory subject in school in the former Danish colonies of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, that now enjoy limited autonomy. In Iceland, which was a part of Denmark until 1944, Danish is still the second foreign language taught in schools (although a few learn Swedish or Norwegian instead). The language started diverging from the common ancestor language Old Norse sometime during the 13th century and became more distinct from the other emerging Scandinavian national languages with the first bible translation in 1550, establishing an orthography differing from that of Swedish, though written Danish is usually far easier for Swedes to understand than the spoken language. Modern spoken Danish is characterized by a very strong tendency of reduction of many sounds making it particularly difficult for foreigners to understand and properly master, not just by reputation but by sheer phonetic reality.

Classification and related languages

Danish belongs to the East Scandinavian languages, together with Swedish. Though Norwegian is classified as a West Scandinavian language together with Faroese and Icelandic, a more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility places Icelandic and Faroese in a separate Insular Scandinavian branch while Norwegian is considered to be a Mainland Scandinavian language and grouped with Danish and Swedish. Written Danish and Norwegian Bokmål are particularly close, though the phonology and prosody of all three languages differ somewhat. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can understand the others, though studies have shown that speakers of Norwegian generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand any of the other languages.

History

Bokmål. The red area is the distribution of the dialect Old West Norse; the orange area is the spread of the dialect Old East Norse. The pink area is Old Gutnish and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility.]] In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries. The dialects are called runic due to the fact that the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e. A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island". From 1100 and onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand to Svealand. Some famous authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded 1944). Danish was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England. Many Danish derived words such as gate (gade) for street, still survive in Yorkshire and other parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings. The city of York was once the Danish settlement of Jorvik. The first translation of the Bible in Danish was published in 1550.

Geographical distribution

Danish is the official language of Denmark, one of two official languages of Greenland (the other is Greenlandic), and one of two official languages of the Faeroes (the other is Faeroese). In addition, there is a small community of Danish speakers in Schleswig, the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, where it is an officially recognized and protected regional language. Furthermore, it is one of the official languages of the European Union.

Dialects

Standard Danish (rigsdansk or rigsmål) is the language based on dialects spoken in and around the capital of Copenhagen. Unlike Swedish and Norwegian, Danish does not have more than one regional speech norm. More than 20% of all Danish speakers live in the metropolitan area and most government agencies, institutions and major businesses keep their main offices in Copenhagen, something that has resulted in a very homogeneous national speech norm. Though Oslo and Stockholm are quite dominant in terms of speech standards, cities like Bergen, Gothenburg and the Malmö-Lund region are large and influential enough to create secondary regional norms, making the standard language more varied than is the case with Danish. The general agreement is that Standard Danish is based on a form of Copenhagen dialect, but the specific norm is, as with most language norms, difficult to pinpoint for both laymen and linguists. More distinct "genuine" dialects still exist in smaller communities, but most speakers in these areas generally speak a regionalized form of Standard Danish. Usually an adaption of the local dialect to rigsdansk is spoken, though code-changing between the neutralized norm and a distinct dialect is common. Danish dialects are divided into three general dialect groups:
- Østdansk ("Eastern Danish)
- Ødansk ("Island Danish")
- Jysk ("Jutlandish") Historically, Eastern Danish includes what is today considered Southern Swedish dialects like Scanian and the dialect spoken on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic between the coasts Sweden and Germany. The background for this lies in the loss of originally Danish provinces like Blekinge, Halland and Skåne to Sweden in 1658. While many similarities can be found in Southern Swedish and the Bornholm-dialect, they are more similar to the modern national standards than to each other. The Bornholm-dialect has also maintained a distinction between three grammatical genders, rather than just two in Standard Danish and lacks the diphthongs used in the standard language.

Sounds

The sound system of Danish is in many ways unique among the world's languages. It is quite prone to considerable reduction and assimilation of both consonants and vowels even in very formal standard language. A rare feature is the presence of a prosodic feature called stød in Danish (lit. "push; thrust"), which is a form of laryngealization or creaky voice, and can in certain minimal pairs be the only distinguishing feature. Stød is a Danish development of the common Scandinavian word accents found in most dialects of Norwegian and Swedish, including the national standard languages, but which are tonal accents.

Vowels

Consonants

are devoiced in all contexts and hence realized as . often have slight frication, but are usually pronounced as pure approximants, and hence being rendered as . has been lost from the pronunciation of all but the oldest speakers. No distinction between and / is made in certain contexts, such as after , between short vowels and in word-final position. Hence lappe and labbe are rendered . The combination of is realized as , making it possible to postulate a tentative -phoneme in Danish. often has a syllabic function as a semivowel.

Prosody

Unlike the neighboring Mainland Scandinavian languages Swedish and Norwegian, the prosody of Danish does not have phonemic pitch. Stress is phonemic in and distinguishes words like such as ['bilist] "cheapest" and [bi'list] "car driver".

Grammar

:Main article: Danish grammar The infinitive forms of most Danish verbs end in a vowel, which in almost all cases is the letter e. Verbs are conjugated according to tense, but otherwise do not vary according to person or number. For example the present tense form of the Danish infinitive verb spise ("to eat") is spiser; this form is the same regardless of whether the subject is in the first, second, or third person, or whether it is singular or plural. This extreme ease of conjugating verbs is made up for by the many irregular verbs in the language. Danish nouns fall into two grammatical genders: common and neuter. While the majority of nouns (ca. 90%) have the common gender and neuter is often used for inanimate objects, the genders of nouns are not generally predictable and must in most cases be memorized. A distinctive feature of the Scandinavian languages, including Danish, is an enclitic definite article. To demonstrate: The common gender word "a man" (indefinite) is en mand but "the man" (definite) is manden. The neuter equivalent would be "a house" (indefinite) et hus, "the house" (definite) huset. Even though the definite and indefinite articles have separate origins, they have become homographs. In the plural the definite articles is -ene, whereas there is no indefinite article in the plural. The enclitic article is not used when an adjective is added to the noun; here the demonstrative pronoun is used instead: den store mand "the big man" and "the big house", det store hus Like most Germanic languages (but not English), Danish joins compound nouns. A clear example is kvindehåndboldlandsholdet, "the female handball national team". In some cases, these nouns are joined with an extra s, like landsmand (from land, "country", and mand, "man", meaning "compatriot"), but landmand (from same roots, meaning "farmer"). Some words are joined with an extra e, like gæstebog (from gæst and bog, meaning "guest book").

Vocabulary

Most Danish words are derived from the Old Norse language, with new words formed by compounding. A large percentage of Danish words, however, hails from Middle Low German (for example, betale = to pay, måske = maybe). Later on, standard German and French and now English have superseded Low German influence. Because English and Danish are related languages, many common words are very similar in the two languages. For example, the following Danish words are easily recognizable in their written form to English speakers: have, over, under, for, kat. When pronounced, these words sound quite different from their English equivalents, however. In addition, the suffix by, meaning "town", occurs in several English placenames, such as Whitby and Selby, as remnants of the Viking occupation.

Numerals

Danish numerals are in part based on a vigesimal system similar to that of French not shared with the other Scandinavian languages. This means that the score (i.e. 20, tyve) is used as a base number: Tres (short for tresindstyve, which is archaic) means 3 times 20, that is 60. The archaic ending -indstyve is never omitted when forming ordinal numbers between 50 and 99, so that "seventy-two" is usually rendered tooghalvfjers whereas "seventy-second" becomes tooghalvfjersindstyvende. Also, the first and second digits of numbers higher than 20 are reversed when spoken, such that 21 is said enogtyve (one and twenty). This is similar to German and also to some variants of Bokmål Norwegian (sometimes known as Riksmål). Many Danes are unaware of the vigesimal roots of these numerals. The numeral halvanden means one and a half (literally "half second", i.e. the first plus half of the second). See the table below for the full list.

Writing system

Danish is written using the Latin alphabet, with three additional letters: æ, ø, and å, which come at the end of the Danish alphabet, in that order. A spelling reform in 1948 introduced the letter å, already in use in Norwegian and Swedish, into the Danish alphabet to replace the letter aa; the old usage still occurs in some personal and geographical names and old documents (for example, the name of the city of Ålborg is often spelled Aalborg). Aa is treated just like å in alphabetical sorting, even though it looks like two letters. The same spelling reform changed the spelling of a few common words, such as vilde, kunde and skulde, to their current forms of ville, kunne and skulle, and did away with the practice of capitalising all nouns, which German still does. Modern Danish and Norwegian use the same alphabet, though spelling differs somewhat.

See also


- Synnejysk
- Danish phonology

External links


- [http://www.dicts.info/dictlist1.php?k1=23 All free Danish dictionaries]
- [http://www.ordnet.dk/ods/ Dictionary of the Danish Language]
- [http://www.speakdanish.dk/index.html "Speak Danish" 10 day intensive online course]
- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=dan Ethnologue report for Danish]
- [http://www.dsn.dk/omdsn_en.htm Information on the Danish language]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/Danish/ Dictionary] with Danish- English Translations from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition
- [http://hjem.tele2adsl.dk/johnmadsen/Danish/danish.html Danish grammar]
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=19&learn-Danish/ Hear and learn useful expressions in Danish] Category:Danish language Category:Guttural R Category:Languages of Denmark Category:Languages of Germany Category:North Germanic languages ko:덴마크어 ja:デンマーク語

Schleswig-Holstein

Flag
image:schleswig holstein.jpg
Statistics
Capital:Kiel
Area:ca 15,776 km²
Inhabitants:2,777,000 (1999)
pop. density:176 inh./km²
Website:[http://www.schleswig-holstein.de/ schleswig-holstein.de]
ISO 3166-2:DE-SH
Politics
Minister-president:Peter Harry Carstensen (CDU)
Ruling parties:CDU/SPD
Map
250px
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the 16 Bundesländer in Germany. The former English name was Sleswick-Holsatia, the Danish name is Slesvig-Holsten, the Norwegian name is Slesvik-Holstein, the Plattdüütsch name is Sleswig-Holsteen, and the North Frisian name is Slaswik-Holstiinj. Historically the name refers to a larger region, containing present-day Schleswig-Holstein and the county of South Jutland in Denmark.

Geography

Schleswig-Holstein lies on the base of the peninsula of Jutland between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The former Duchy of Holstein constitutes the southern part of Schleswig-Holstein, whereas Southern Schleswig constitutes the northern part. Furthermore the Duchy of Lauenburg and the former Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck in the southeast of the state are part of today's Schleswig-Holstein. The former Duchy of Schleswig, (Slesvig in Danish), has been divided between Denmark and Germany since 1920. Northern Schleswig, today the Danish county of South Jutland (Sønderjylland), was ceded to Denmark after a referendum following Germany's defeat in World War I. Schleswig-Holstein borders on Denmark in the north, the North Sea in the west, the Baltic Sea and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the east, and Lower Saxony and Hamburg in the south. Kiel is the capital of this Bundesland. In the western part of the state there are lowlands with virtually no hills. The North Frisian Islands, as well as almost all of Schleswig-Holstein's North Sea coast, form Schleswig-Holstein's Mud Flats National Park (Nationalpark Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer) which is the largest national park in Central Europe and is unique. Germany's only high-sea island Heligoland is situated further out in the North Sea. The Baltic Sea coast in the east of Schleswig-Holstein is marked by bays, fjords and cliff lines. There are rolling hills (the highest elevation is the Bungsberg at 168 metres) and many lakes, especially in the eastern part of Holstein called the Holsteinische Schweiz ("Switzerland of Holstein") and the Duchy of Lauenburg. Just one island lies off the eastern coast: Fehmarn. The longest river – besides the Elbe – is the Eider; the most important waterway is the Kiel Canal which connects the North Sea and Baltic Sea. See also List of places in Schleswig-Holstein. Schleswig-Holstein is divided into eleven Kreise (sg. Kreis; district): image:sh kreise.jpg
# Dithmarschen # Lauenburg (formally: Herzogtum Lauenburg) # Nordfriesland # Ostholstein # Pinneberg # Plön
  1. Rendsburg-Eckernförde
  2. Schleswig-Flensburg
  3. Segeberg
  4. Steinburg
  5. Stormarn
Furthermore there are four independent cities, which do not belong to any district: # Kiel # Lübeck # Neumünster # Flensburg

Languages

The official languages are German, Plattdüütsch, Danish and Frisian. Plattdüütsch—the classic language of the state—is spoken in most parts of the state, Danish by the Danish minority, Frisian by the North Frisians at the North Sea Coast and the Northern Frisian Islands and a special Frisian dialect called Hallun on the Island of Heligoland. High German was introduced in the 16th century, mainly for official purposes, but is today the most used language, since its use was made compulsory by the Prussian government after 1864.

History

1864 1864 1864 Main article: History of Schleswig-Holstein The Duchy of Schleswig was originally an integral part of Denmark, but was in medieval times established as a fief under the Kingdom of Denmark, with the same relation to the Danish Crown as for example Brandenburg or Bavaria had to the German Emperor. Saxonic Holstein became a part of the Roman Empire after Charlemagne's Saxonic campaigns in the late 8th century, and was eventually established as a single united province. Holstein had been inherited by the Sovereign Family of Holstein, who were the reigning family since the state's creation, around 800, with the Sovereign as Head of the Royal House. Around 1100 the Duke of Saxony gave Holstein, as it was his own country, to Count Adolf I of Schauenburg, and the Sovereign Family thereby gave up their country to prevent a conflict. Since that time Holstein would become either a duchy or a county. This was the start of a long fight between Denmark and Germany. The Sovereign Family still exists nowadays, however with no rights, but still with the style and titles. His Majesty, Albert Evert I, Sovereign Baron of Holstein is at the moment the sovereign of a state that has not been a sovereign country for centuries. Schleswig and Holstein have at different times belonged in part or completely to either Denmark or Germany, or have been virtually independent of both nations. Schleswig has almost never been a duchy. The exception is that Schleswig had never been part of Germany until the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. For many centuries, the King of Denmark was both a Danish Duke of Schleswig and a German Duke of Holstein, the Duke of Saxony. The short version is: Schleswig was either integrated into Denmark or was a Danish fief, and Holstein was a German fief and once a sovereign country long ago. Both were for several centuries ruled by the Kings of Denmark. In 1721 all of Schleswig was united as a single duchy under the King of Denmark, and the great powers of Europe confirmed in an international treaty that all future Kings of Denmark should automatically become Duke of Schleswig and Schleswig would consequently always follow the same line of succession as the one chosen in the Kingdom of Denmark. The German National awakening following the Napoleonic Wars led to a strong popular movement in Holstein and Southern Schleswig for (re-)unification with a new Prussian-dominated Germany. However, this development sparked an equally strong Danish national awakening in Denmark and Northern Schleswig calling for the complete reintegration of Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark and demanding an end to discrimination against Danes in Schleswig. In 1848 King Frederick VII of Denmark declared that he would grant Denmark a liberal constitution and the immediate goal for the Danish national movement was to ensure that this Constitution would not only give rights to all Danes, i.e. not only to the Kingdom of Denmark, but also to Danes (and Germans) living in Schleswig. Furthermore, they demanded the protection of the Danish language in Schleswig since the dominant language in almost a quarter of Schleswig had changed from Danish to German since the beginning of the nineteenth century. A Liberal constitution for Holstein was not seriously considered in Copenhagen since it was a well-known fact that the political elite of Holstein was far more conservative than the one in Copenhagen. This proved to be true, as the politicians of Holstein demanded that the Constitution of Denmark be scrapped – not only in Schleswig but also in Denmark, as well as demanding that Schleswig immediately follow Holstein and become a member of the German Confederation and eventually a part of the new united Germany. These demands were rejected and in 1848 the Germans of Holstein and Southern Schleswig rebelled. This was the beginning of the First War of Schleswig (1848-51) which ended in a Danish victory. Elements of this period were fictionalized in Royal Flash, the second of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels. In 1863 conflict broke out again as King Frederick VII of Denmark died leaving no heir. According to the line of succession of Denmark and Schleswig, the crowns of both Denmark and Schleswig would now pass to Duke Christian of Glücksburg (the future King Christian IX), the crown of Holstein was considered to be more problematic. This decision was challenged by a rival pro-German branch of the Danish royal family, the House of Augustenburg (Danish: Augustenborg) who demanded, as in 1848, the crowns of both Schleswig and Holstein. The passing of a common constitution for Denmark and Schleswig in november 1863 then gave Otto von Bismarck a chance to intervene and Prussia and Austria declared war on Denmark. This was the Second War of Schleswig which ended in a Danish defeat. British attempts to mediate failed, and Denmark lost Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg to Prussia and Austria. Following the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, section five of the Peace of Prague stated that the people in Northern Schleswig should be granted the right to a referendum on whether they would remain under Prussian rule or return to Danish rule. This promise was never fulfilled by Germany. Following the defeat of Germany in World War I, the Allied powers arranged a referendum in Northern and Central Schleswig. In Northern Schleswig (10 February 1920) 75 % voted for reunification with Denmark and 25 % voted for Germany. In Central Schleswig (14 March 1920) the results were reversed; 80 % voted for Germany and just 20 % for Denmark, primarily in Flensburg. No vote ever took place in the southern third of Schleswig. On 15 June 1920, Northern Schleswig officially returned to Danish rule. The Danish-German border was the only one of the borders imposed on Germany following World War I which was never challenged by Hitler. As a matter of trivia, the term "Holstein" derives from the Old Norse and Old Saxon, Holseta Land, meaning simply "Woodland". Originally, it referred to the central of the three Saxon tribes north of the Elbe river, Tedmarsgoi, Holcetae, and Sturmarii. The area of the Holcetae was between the Stör river and Hamburg, after Christianization their main church was in Schenefeld. The term Schleswig takes its name from the city of Schleswig. The name derives from the Schlei inlet in the east and vik meaning inlet or settlement in Old Saxon and Old Norse. The Kiel Canal crosses Schleswig-Holstein and allows German shipping to cross from the Baltic to the North Sea without leaving German territory, however its main purpose was to save the 280 nautical miles needed to go around Jutland, north of Denmark. It had a vital role in assisting German commerce and war efforts during the twentieth century.

List of Minister-presidents of Schleswig-Holstein

# 1945 - 1947: Theodor Steltzer # 1947 - 1949: Hermann Lüdemann # 1949 - 1950: Bruno Diekmann # 1950 - 1951: Walter Bartram # 1951 - 1954: Friedrich-Wilhelm Lübke # 1954 - 1963: Kai-Uwe von Hassel (CDU) # 1963 - 1971: Helmut Lemke # 1971 - 1982: Gerhard Stoltenberg (CDU), see List of Honorary Citizens of Schleswig-Holstein # 1982 - 1987: Uwe Barschel (CDU) # 1987 - 1988: Henning Schwarz (CDU) # 1988 - 1993: Björn Engholm (SPD) # 1993 - 2005: Heide Simonis (SPD) # 2005 - : Peter Harry Carstensen (CDU)

External links


- [http://www.schleswig-holstein.de/ Official governmental portal]
- [http://www.numismondo.com/pm/sch/ Schleswig-Holstein Plebiscite Paper Money] - 1919, 1920 Issues Category:Schleswig-Holstein Category:States of Germany als:Schleswig-Holstein ko:슐레스비히홀슈타인 주 ja:シュレースヴィヒ＝ホルシュタイン州 simple:Schleswig-Holstein

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, from 53 deg. to 66 deg. north latitude and from 20 deg. to 26 deg. east longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainlands of Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Öresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. Kattegat then continues in the Skagerrak into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is linked to the White Sea by the White Sea Canal and directly to the North Sea by the Kiel Canal. Kiel Canal

Name

The first one to name it the Baltic Sea was Adam of Bremen and he seems to have based it on a large island, Baltia, mentioned by Xenophon and located in northern Europe.

Etymology

It is possibly connected to the Germanic belt, a name used for some of the Danish straits, while others claim it to be derived from Latin balteus (belt). From this use, Baltic has been applied to the Baltic countries. Another proposed derivation from the Indo-European root [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/piet&text_number=+129&root=config
- bhel] meaning white, shining seems speculative.

The name in other languages

The Baltic Sea is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages:
- In the Germanic languages except English East Sea is used: Danish (Østersøen), Dutch (Oostzee), German (Ostsee), Norwegian (Østersjøen), and Swedish (Östersjön); in addition, Finnish, a Balto-Finnic language has calqued the Swedish term as Itämeri, disregarding the geography; the sea is west of Finland.
- In another Balto-Finnic language, Estonian, it is called the West Sea (Läänemeri).
- Baltic Sea is used in English; in Latin (Mare Balticum) and the Romance languages French (Mer Baltique), Italian (Mar Baltico), Romanian (Marea Baltică) and Spanish (Mar Báltico); in the Slavic languages Polish (Morze Bałtyckie or Bałtyk), Kashubian (Bôłt), and Russian (Baltiyskoye Morye (Балтийское море)); and in the Baltic languages Latvian (Baltijas jūra) and Lithuanian (Baltijos jūra). ; Notes # [http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nfbb/0435.html] (in ).

Geophysical data

The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, the largest body of brackish water in the world. The fact that it does not come from the collision of plates, but is a glacially scoured river valley, accounts for its relative shallowness.

Dimensions

The Baltic sea is about 1610 km (1000 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 m (180 ft, 30 fathoms) deep. The maximum depth is 459 m (1506 ft, 251 fathoms), on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about 377,000 sq km (145,522 sq mi) and the volume is about 21,000 cubic km (3129 cubic mi). The periphery amounts to about 8000 km (4968 mi) of coastline. [http://www.envir.ee/baltics/geograph.htm] These figures are somewhat variable because a number of different estimates have been made.

Icing in winter

The Baltic sea is iced in winter, except for the deepest regions in the center. Ice begins in the Gulf of Bothnia in October or November. Fast ice, attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering the ports unusable without the services of icebreakers. Level ice, ice sludge, pancake ice or rafter ice form in the more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the arctic, with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to 15 m, and was noted by the ancients. The degree of icing depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate or severe. Severe winters ice even the regions around Denmark and southern Sweden, leaving open only a relatively small extent south of Gotland. The ice reaches a maximum extent in February or March. By June it is gone.

Hydrography

The Baltic Sea is effluent through the Danish straits; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges 940 cubic km per year into the North Sea. Due to the difference in salinity, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in 475 cubic km per year. It mixes very slowly with the upper waters, resulting in a salinity gradient from top to bottom, with most of the salt water remaining below 40 to 70 m of depth. The difference between the outflow and the inflow comes entirely from fresh water. More than 250 streams drain a basin of about 1.6 million square km, contributing a volume of 660 cubic km per year to the Baltic. They include the major rivers of north Europe, such as the Oder, the Vistula, the Neman and the Neva. Some of this water is polluted. Additional fresh water comes from the difference of precipitation less evaporation, which is positive. Despite the influx of salt water in the lower levels, the Baltic is still more of a lake or river than a sea. Tides are negligible. Wave height in calm weather varies between 2 and 3 m. Violent and sudden storms often sweep the surface, due to large transient temperature differences and a long reach of wind.

Salinity

Salinity is much lower than in the ocean, varying from 0.1 percent in the north to 0.6-0.8 percent in the center. Below 40-70 m, it can be as much as 1.5-2.0 percent. A lateral salinity gradient also exists from most saline in the northern Kattegat to least saline in the Northern Gulf of Bothnia. The most saline water remains on the bottom, creating a barrier to the exchange of Oxygen and nutrients, fostering totally different maritime environments.

Regional emergence

The land is still emerging from its subsident state, which was caused by the weight of the last glaciation. Consequently, the surface area and the depth of the sea are diminishing. The uplift is about eight millimetres per year on the Finnish coast of the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia .

Geographic data

Subdivisions

The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia out of which the northernmost part is referred to as the Bay of Bothnia. Immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland. The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with St. Petersburg. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland Basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea. The Gulf of Riga lies between Riga and Saaremaa. Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel peninsula on the Polish coast and west of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast. Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom and Wolin, east of Rügen. Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm and Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The three Danish straits, the Great Belt, the Little Belt and The Sound (Öresund) connect the Baltic Sea with the Kattegat bay and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea. The confluence of these two seas at Skagen on the northern tip of Denmark is a visual spectacle visited by many tourists each year.

Land use

The Baltic sea drainage basin is roughly four times the surface area of the sea itself. About 48% of the region is forested, with Sweden and Finland containing the majority of the forest, especially around the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. About 20% of the land is used for agriculture and pasture, mainly in Poland and around the edge of the Baltic sea proper, in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. About 17% of the basin is unused open land with another 8% of wetlands. Most of the latter are in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. The rest of the land is heavily populated.

Demographics

About 85 million people live in the Baltic drainage basin, 15 within 10 km of the coast and 29 within 50 km of the coast. Around 22 million live in cities, defined as centers of over 250,000. 90% of these are concentrated in the 10 km band around the coast. Of the nations containing all or part of the basin, Poland includes 45% of the 85 million, Russia 12%, Sweden 10% and the others (see below) less than 6% each.

Geologic history

The Baltic Sea somewhat resembles a riverbed, with two tributaries (the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia). From geological surveys it has become apparent that there was a river in the area prior to the Pleistocene: the Eridanos. Multiple glaciations in the Pleistocene scooped out the river bed into the sea basin. By the time of the last, or Eemian interglacial (MIS 5e), the Eemian sea was in place. From that time the waters underwent a geologic history summarized under the names listed below. Many of the stages are named after certain marine animals (e. g., the Littorina mollusk) that are clear markers of changing water temperatures and salinity. The factors that determined the sea’s characteristics were the submergence or emergence of the region due to the weight of ice and subsequent isostatic readjustment, and the connecting channels it could find to the North Sea-Atlantic either through the straits of Denmark or at what are now the large lakes of Sweden, and the White Sea-Arctic Sea.
- Eemian sea, 130,000-115,000 BP
- Baltic ice lake, 12,600-10,300 BP
- Yoldian sea, 10,300-9500 BP
- Ancylus lake, 9500-8000 BP
- Mastogloia sea 8000 BP-7500 BP
- Littorina sea, 7500-4000 BP
- Post-littorina sea 4000 BP-current

Prehistory

History

At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea when the ice on the Baltic Sea broke apart and chunks floated about. The Sarmatian tribes inhabited Eastern Europe and southern Russia. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work the Getica. Since the Viking age, the Scandinavians have called it "the Eastern Lake" (Austmarr, "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr), but Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name Gandvik, "-vik" being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. (Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling.) In addition to fish the sea also provides amber, especially from its southern shores. The bordering countries have traditionally provided lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp, and furs. Sweden had from early medieval times also a flourishing mining industry, especially on iron ore and silver. Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. All this has provided for rich trading since the Roman times. In the early Middle Ages, Vikings of Scandinavia fought for power over the sea with Slavic Pomeranians. The Vikings used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually all the way to Black Sea and southern Russia. Lands next to the sea's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted into Christianity in the Northern Crusades: Finland in the 12th century by the Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early 13th century by the Danes and the Germans (Livonian Brothers of the Sword). The powerful German Teutonic Knights gained control over most of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, while fighting the Poles, the Danes, the Swedes, the Russians of ancient Novgorod, and the Lithuanians (latest of all Europeans to convert to Christianity). Later on, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe became the Hanseatic league, which used the Baltic Sea to establish trade routes between its member cities. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Poland, Denmark and Sweden fought wars for Dominium Maris Baltici (Ruling over the Baltic Sea). Eventually, it was the Swedish empire that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum (Our Baltic Sea). In the 18th century Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially the eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax and hemp. During the Crimean War a joint fleet of Britain and France attacked Russian fortresses by bombarding Sveaborg that guards Helsinki and Kronstadt that guards Saint Petersburg and destroying Bomarsund in the Åland Islands. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern coast became German. The First World War was fought also on the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland returned to the Baltic Sea, and Polish ports of Gdynia and Gdańsk became leading ports of the Baltic. During the Second World War Germany reclaimed all of the southern shore and much of the eastern by occupying Poland and the Baltic states. In 1945 the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for drowned people on torpedoed refugee ships. As of 2004, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster of all time, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over 5,000 airplane wrecks, sunken warships, etc., (mainly from the Second World War) lying in the bottom of the sea. After 1945 the sea was a border between conflicted military blocks: in case of military conflict in Germany, in parallel with a Soviet offensive towards the Atlantic Ocean, communist Poland's fleet was prepared to invade Danish isles. In May 2004, the Baltic Sea became almost completely a European Union internal sea when the Baltic states and Poland became parts of the European Union, leaving only the Russian metropolis of Saint Petersburg and the exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast as non-EU areas. The Baltic Sea starts to get very rough with the October storms. These winter storms have been the cause of many shipwrecks, for example, the sinking of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden in 1994 that claimed the lives of hundreds. But thanks to the cold brackish water where the shipworm cannot survive, the sea is a time capsule for centuries-old shipwrecks. Perhaps the most famous one is the Vasa.

Biology

Vasa Approximately 100,000 square km of the bottom, ¼ of the total area, are a variable dead zone. The more saline and therefore heavier water remains on the bottom, preventing Oxygen distribution to it. Mainly bacteria grow there, digesting organic pollutants and releasing hydrogen sulfide. The bloom of algae is visible from the air. Since most oceanic species use the bottom for various purposes, which is denied over much of the Baltic, the ecology differs from that of the Atlantic. The low salinity of the Baltic sea has led to the evolution of many slightly divergent species, such as the Baltic Sea herring, which is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The benthic fauna consists mainly of Monoporeia affinis, which is originally a freshwater species. The lack of tides has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic.

Economy

Construction of the Great Belt Bridge (1997) and Oresund Bridge (1999) over the international waterway of the Danish Straits limited the Baltic Sea to the middle-sized vessels. In meantime, the Baltic Sea is the main trade route for export of Russian oil. Many of the neighboring countries are rather concerned about this, since a major oil leak would be disastrous in the Baltic given the slow exchange of water, and the many unique species. The tourism industries, especially in economies dependent on tourism like for example in northeastern Germany, are naturally very concerned. Shipbuilding is practiced in many large shipyards around the Baltic: Gdańsk, Szczecin in Poland, HDW in Kiel, Germany, Karlskrona and Kockums in Malmö, Sweden, and Rauma, Turku, Helsinki in Finland and Klaipėda in Lithuania. There are several cargo and passenger ferry operators on the Baltic Sea, such as Silja Line, Polferries, Viking Line, Tallink and Superfastferries.

Countries

Main article: Baltic Sea countries Countries that border on the sea:
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Germany
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Russia
- Sweden Countries that are in the drainage basin but do not border on the sea:
- Belarus
- Czech Republic
- Norway
- Slovakia
- Ukraine

Islands and Archipelagoes

Main article: List of islands in the Baltic Sea
- Åland Islands (Finland, autonomous)
- Bornholm (Denmark)
- Gotland (Sweden)
- Hailuoto (Finland)
- Hiiumaa (Estonia)
- Kotlin (Russia)
- Muhu (Estonia)
- Öland (Sweden)
- Rügen (Germany)
- Saaremaa (Estonia)
- Stockholm archipelago (Sweden)
- Usedom or Uznam (split between Germany and Poland)
- Valassaaret (Finland)
- Wolin (Poland)

Cities

The biggest coastal cities:
- Saint Petersburg (Russia) 4,700,000
- Riga (Latvia) 760,000
- Stockholm (Sweden) 743,703 (metropolitan area 1,823,210)
- Helsinki (Finland) 559,716 (metropolitan area 980,000)
- Copenhagen (Denmark) 502,204 (metropolitan area 1,823,109) (facing the Sound)
- Gdańsk (Poland) 462,700
- Szczecin (Poland) 413,600
- Tallinn (Estonia) 401,774
- Kaliningrad (Russia) 400,000
- Malmö (Sweden) 259,579 (facing the Sound)
- Gdynia (Poland) 255,600
- Kiel (Germany) 250,000
- Lübeck (Germany) 216,100
- Rostock (Germany) 212,700
- Klaipėda (Lithuania) 194,400
- Turku (Finland) 175,000 Important ports (though not being big cities):
- Świnoujście (Poland) 50,000
- Ventspils (Latvia) 44,000
- Baltiysk (Russia) 20,000
- Hanko (Finland) 10,000
- Ports of the Baltic Sea

See also


- Baltic
- Baltic region
- Council of the Baltic Sea States
- Baltic states
- Scandinavia
- Northern Europe
- List of rivers of the Baltic Sea

External links


- [http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/encyclopedia.html Encyclopedia of Baltic History]
- [http://www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/wrecks.htm Old shipwrecks] in the Baltic
- [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/pgi_en/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=4&Itemid=2 How the Baltic Sea was changing] - Prehistory of the Baltic from the [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/ Polish Geological Institute]
- [http://www.helsinki.fi/maantiede/geofi/fennia/demo/pages/oksanen.htm Late Weichselian and Holocene shore displacement history of the Baltic Sea in Finland] - more prehistory of the Baltic from the [http://www.helsinki.fi/geography/ Department of Geography] of the University of Helsinki
- [http://maps.grida.no/baltic Baltic Environmental Atlas: Interactive map of the Baltic Sea region]
- [http://www.envir.ee/baltics/ The Baltic Sea Environment]

Tourism links

University of Helsinki
- [http://www.zrot.pl Zrot : Official Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL)] (Polish, English, German)
- [http://www.zart.com.pl Zart : Polish Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL)] (Polish, English, German)
- [http://www.vorpommern.de Official German Tourism Site : Regional Tourist Board Vorpommern (D)] (English, German, Swedish, Polish, French, Russian, Spanish)
- [http://www.ostseeland.de Ost|See|Land - Overview: German Polish- Tourism site (D)] (English, German, Swedish, Polish)
- [http://itameri.kyamk.fi/e.html The Baltic Sea Information Centre] (English, Finnish) Category:Seas Category:Baltic Sea ko:발트 해 ja:バルト海 simple:Baltic Sea th:ทะเลบอลติก

Schlei

The Schlei (Danish: Slien) is a firth in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany. It stretches from the Baltic Sea near Kappeln and Arnis to the City of Schleswig. Along Schlei there are many little bays and swamps. The important Viking settlement of Hedeby was located at the bottom of the firth, archeologists have made extensive digs in the area, but was later abandoned in favour of the city of Schleswig. A museum has been built on the site, telling the story of the abandoned town. Category:Schleswig-Holstein

ALS

ALS may refer to:
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a form of motor neurone disease more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease or Maladie de Charcot
- Advanced Life Support, a protocolised form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
- Automatic Landing System, an instrument based Landing System. ja:ALS

Flensburg


- For the short-lived May 1945 Nazi government led by Karl Dönitz see Flensburg government. Flensburg (Danish: Flensborg, Frisian: Flansborj) is an independent town in the North of the German state Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region Südschleswig. After Kiel and Lübeck it is the third largest town in Schleswig-Holstein. The nearest larger towns are Kiel (68 km south) and Odense in Denmark (92 km north-east). In Germany, Flensburg is known for
- the nation-wide database of traffic violators
- the large erotic mail-order companies Beate Uhse and Orion
- its beer Flensburger Pilsener
- the center of the Danish national minority in Germany
- the greeting Moin
- its handball team SG Flensburg-Handewitt

Geography

Flensburg is situated in the north of the German state Schleswig-Holstein, on the German-Danish border [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=54.78950500488281,9.435882568359375&spn=0.042400360107421875,0.0550389289855957&t=k&hl=en satellite image]. After Westerland on Sylt it is Germany's northernmost town. Flensburg lies at the innermost tip of the Flensburg Fjord, an estuary of the Baltic Sea. Flensburg's eastern shore is part of the peninsula Angeln.

History

Flensburg was founded in the 13th century at the innermost tip of the Flensburg Fjord and began to rise after the decline of the Hanseatic League. Between 1460 and 1864 it was one of the major ports of the Danish monarchy. In the Second war of Schleswig in 1864 the city was captured by Prussia, and Germany retained the city in the Schleswig Plebiscite following World War I. There is still a large Danish community living in Flensburg. The Danish name of the town is Flensborg. In the Second World War the town remained virtually undamaged. Admiral Karl Dönitz fled here in 1945 to escape the Allied troops. The remnants of the German government continued to operate what the Allies referred to as the Flensburg government after the fall of Berlin (May 2, 1945), and even after the surrender of Germany, until being shut down on May 23.

Danish minority

May 23 The Danish minority in Flensburg and the surrounding towns run their own schools, libraries and Lutheran churches but do not exclude themselves from the German majority. Rather than that, the co-existence of these two groups is considered a sound and healthy symbiosis. In Denmark, Flensburg seems to be mainly associated with its duty-free shops where, amongst other things, spirits, beer and candy can be purchased at cheaper prices than in Denmark. However, the price difference is not as large as it used to be.

External links


- http://www.flensburg.de
- http://www.flensburg-tourist.de
- http://www.skoleforeningen.de
- http://www.flensburg-online.de Category:Towns in Schleswig-Holstein

Great Britain

:For an explanation of often confusing terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). British Isles (terminology) Great Britain is an island lying off the north-western coast of Europe, comprising the main territory of the United Kingdom (UK). Great Britain is also used as a political term describing the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales, the three countries which together comprise the entire island and include some outlying islands. Great Britain is also widely, but inaccurately, used as a synonym for the sovereign state properly known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Geographical definition

With an area of 218 595km² (84,400 sq.mi) the island of Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles. It is the largest island in Europe, and eighth largest in the world. It is the third most populous island after Java and Honshu. Great Britain stretches over approximately ten degrees of latitude on its longer, north-south axis. Geographically, the island is marked by low, rolling countryside in the east and south, while hills and mountains predominate in the western and northern regions. Before the end of the last ice age, Great Britain was a peninsula of Europe; the rising sea levels caused by glacial melting at the end of the ice age caused the formation of the English Channel, the body of water which now divides Great Britain from the European mainland. The climate of Great Britain is milder than that of other regions of the Northern Hemisphere at the same latitude, because the warm waters of the Gulf Stream pass by the British Isles and exert a moderating influence on the weather. Cool, but not cold, temperatures, clouds more often than sun, and abundant rain are the rule in most years.

Political definition

Politically, Great Britain describes the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales. It includes outlying islands such as the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland but does not include the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands. Over the centuries, Great Britain has evolved politically from several independent countries (England, Scotland, and Wales) through two kingdoms with a shared monarch (England and Scotland), a single all-island Kingdom of Great Britain, to the situation following 1801, in which Great Britain together with the island of Ireland constituted the larger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK). The UK became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the 1920s following the independence of five-sixths of Ireland as the Republic of Ireland.

History

The Roman geographer Ptolemy called the larger island Megale Brettania (Great Britain), and the smaller island Micra Bretannia (Little Britain). Hence, originally, the term Great Britain referred to the largest island in the British Isles, just as the largest of the Canary Islands is still called Gran Canaria, and the largest of the Comoros is Grande Comore. Nevertheless, it is sometimes supposed that Great Britain is a translation of the French term Grande Bretagne, which is used in France to distinguish Britain from Brittany (in French: Bretagne), which had been settled in late Roman times by Romano-Celtic refugees from Roman Britain, then under attack by the Anglo-Saxons. Since the English court and aristocracy was largely French-speaking for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest of 1066, the French term naturally passed into English usage. The term was revived during the reign of King James VI of Scotland, I of England to describe the island, on which co-existed two separate kingdoms, both at that time ruled by the same monarch. Though England and Scotland each remained legally in existence as separate countries with their own parliaments, collectively they were sometimes referred to as Great Britain. In 1707, an Act of Union joined both parliaments. That Act used two different terms to describe the new all island nation, a 'United Kingdom' and the 'Kingdom of Great Britain'. However, the former term is regarded by many as having been a description of the union rather than its name at that stage. Most reference books therefore describe the all-island kingdom that existed between 1707 and 1800 as the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, under a new Act of Union, this kingdom merged with the Kingdom of Ireland, over which the monarch of Great Britain had ruled. The new kingdom was from then onwards unambiguously called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties gained independence to form a separate Irish Free State. The remaining truncated kingdom has therefore since then been known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom now also formally includes a number of Overseas Territories.

Usage and nomenclature

Usage of the term Great Britain

Great Britain is also widely, but incorrectly, used as a synonym for the political state properly known as the United Kingdom (see below). This common usage is technically inaccurate as the United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland, in addition to the three countries that make up Great Britain, as shown by its full name "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", and also because the three countries that make up Great Britain itself collectively include over 100 other islands, such as the Isles of Scilly, St Michael's Mount, the Isle of Wight, Lindisfarne, Lundy the Isle of Portland, and Steepholm in England; Flatholm and Anglesey in Wales; and the Isle of Arran, Bute, the Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, and inner and outer Hebrides of Scotland. The British themselves occasionally use the abbreviation GB, such as in the Olympic Games where the British team is sometimes informally referred to as 'Team GB'. The UK also uses the international foreign vehicle identification code of GB, although on number plates that include European Identification the code of UK is used. The UK short-code can be confused with the Ukraine. This is discussed further under Britain. There is similar situation with the terms Britain and British, which are used to relate to the whole of the UK and not just the island of Great Britain. This usage is generally considered to be correct. Examples of this are "British monarchs", "British culture" and "British citizens" - which would generally be considered to embrace the whole of the United Kingdom. As if this was not confusion enough, the term "British" also has specific historical and archaeological usage, referring to the Celtic tribes present on the island prior to and during the Roman occupation. In rugby league the RFL fields its representative side under the name Great Britain.

Nomenclature

The name Britain is derived from the name Britannia, used by the Romans from circa 55 BC. The etymology of this term has been the subject of (sometimes fanciful) speculation, but is generally thought to derive from a Celtic word, Pritani, "painted", a reference to the inhabitants of the islands' use of body-paint and tattoos (see Britain for further discussion of etymology). In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (circa 1136), the island of Great Britain was referred to as Britannia maior ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"), the Gaulish region which approximates to modern Brittany. The term "Bretayne the grete" was used by chroniclers as early as 1338, but it was not used officially until King James I proclaimed himself "King of Great Britain" on 20 October 1604 to avoid the more cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland".

Territories associated with Great Britain


- Kingdom of England
- Kingdom of Scotland
- Principality of Wales
- Duchy of Cornwall

Other lands of the archipelago


- Ireland
  - Republic of Ireland
  - Northern Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Channel Islands

Related topics


- United Kingdom
- UK topics
- British Isles
- Britain
- History of Britain
- History of England
- History of Scotland
- History of Wales
- British Empire
- The Commonwealth of Nations formerly called the British Commonwealth
- List of British monarchs
- Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
- British Prime Ministers
- Constitutional status of Cornwall The Cornish question
- Acts of Union 1536-1543 merging Kingdom of England and Principality of Wales
- Act of Union 1707 merging Scotland and England to form Great Britain
- Act of Union 1800 merging Great Britain and Ireland to form the United Kingdom
- Anglo-Irish Treaty facilitating the Irish Free State's exit from the United Kingdom
- SS Great Britain,
- .gb ccTLD

References

External links


- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/coast Coast] – the BBC explores the coast of Great Britain
- [http://www.know-britain.com/general/great_britain.html Know Britain] – one explanation of the terms "Great Britain", "United Kingdom" and so on
- [http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/freegb/index.htm#maps Administrative map of Great Britain] – from the Ordnance Survey; various formats
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/nations/ BBC Nations]
- [http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/britishisles/ The British Isles]
- [http://www.walkingtree.com/ Mercator's Atlas] Maps of Cornwall & Wales ("Cornewallia & Wallia"), Ireland ("Irlandia"), Scotland ("Scotia") and England ("Anglia") circa 1564. Category:British Isles Category:Geography of the United Kingdom Category:Islands in the British Isles Category:Islands ko:그레이트브리튼 섬 ja:グレートブリテン島 simple:Great Britain

Fish


Conodonta
Hyperoartia
:Petromyzontidae (lampreys)
Pteraspidomorphi (early jawless fish)
Thelodonti
Anaspida
Cephalaspidomorphi (early jawless fish)
:Galeaspida
:Pituriaspida
:Osteostraci
Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates)
:Placodermi
:Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish)
:Acanthodii
:Osteichthyes (bony fish)
::Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish)
::Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish)
:::Actinistia (coelacanths)
:::Dipnoi (lungfish)
A fish is a poikilothermic (cold-blooded) water-dwelling vertebrate with gills. There are over 27,000 species of fish, making them the most diverse group of vertebrates. Taxonomically, fish are a paraphyletic group whose exact relationships are much debated; a common division is into the jawless fish (class Agnatha, 75 species including lampreys and hagfish), the cartilaginous fish (class Chondrichthyes, 800 species including sharks and rays), with the remainder classed as bony fish (class Osteichthyes). Fish come in different sizes, from the 14m (45 ft) whale shark to a 7 mm (just over 1/4 of an inch) long stout infantfish. Many types of aquatic animals named "fish", such as jellyfish and cuttlefish, are not true fish. Other sea dwelling creatures, like dolphins, are actually mammals. Certain species of fish maintain elevated body temperatures to varying degrees. Endothermic teleosts (bony fishes) are all in the suborder Scombroidei and include the billfishes, tunas, and one species of "primitive" mackerel (Gasterochisma melampus). All sharks in the family Lamnidae – shortfin mako, long fin mako, white, porbeagle, and salmon shark – are known to have the capacity for endothermy, and evidence suggests the trait exists in family Alopiidae (thresher sharks). The degree of endothermy varies from the billfish, which warm only their eyes and brain, to bluefin tuna and porbeagle sharks who maintain body temperatures elevated in excess of 20 °C above ambient water temperatures. See also gigantothermy. Endothermy, though metabolically costly, is thought to provide advantages such as increased contractile force of muscles, higher rates of central nervous system processing, and higher rates of digestion.

Fish ecology

Fish can be found in almost all large bodies of water in either salt, brackish, or fresh water, at depths ranging from just below the surface to several thousand meters. However, hyper-saline lakes like the Great Salt Lake do not support fishes. Some species of fish have been specially bred to be kept and displayed in an aquarium, and can survive in the home environment. Catching fish for the purpose of food or sport is known as fishing. The annual yield from all fisheries worldwide is about 100 million tonnes. Overfishing is a threat to many species of fish. On May 15 2003, the journal Nature reported that all large oceanic fish species worldwide had been so systematically over caught that fewer than 10% of 1950 levels remained. [http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030514.wfish1405/BNStory/National/] Particularly imperiled were sharks, Atlantic cod, Bluefin tuna, and Pacific sardines. The authors recommended immediate, drastic cutbacks in fish catches and reservation of ocean habitats worldwide.

Note on usage: "fish" vs. "fishes"

"Fishes" is the proper English plural form of "fish" that biologists use when speaking about two or more fish species, as in "There are over 25,000 fishes in the world" (meaning that there are over 25,000 fish species in the world). When speaking of two or more individual fish organisms, then the word "fish" is used, as in "There are several million fish of the species Gadus morhua" (meaning that G. morhua comprises several million individuals). To see both in action, consider the statement "There are twelve fish in this aquarium, representing five fishes" (meaning that the aquarium contains twelve individuals, some of the same species and some of different species, for a total of five species). The usage of the two words is similar to that of the words "people" and "peoples".

Fish as food

Fishes are an important source of food in many cultures. Other water-dwelling animals such as mollusks, crustaceans, and shellfish are often called "fish" when used as food. For more details, see Fish (food). Fish (food)

See also


- Animal
- Aquarium
- Deep sea fish
- Fish anatomy
- Fish farming
- Fish migration
- Fish (singer)
- Fishing
- Ichthyology (the study of fish)
- List of fish families
- List of fish common names
- List of freshwater aquarium fish species
- Marine aquarium fish species
- Fishing Light Attractors
- Oily fish
- Ostracoderm - the first fishes
- Prehistoric fish
- Shoal - the collective noun for fish (also school)
- White fish

External links


- [http://www.70south.com/resources/animals/marine/antarcticfish 70South - information on Antarctic fish]
- [http://www.aworldoffish.com A World of Fish] Species information and fish care
- [http://www.fishbase.org Fish database] (FishBase)
- Join Ray Mullet in the [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/fish/ Fish Olympics]!
- Project for children - [http://marine.rutgers.edu/~kils/BASS/mobile/INDEX.HTM build a fish mobile with a behavior]
- [http://www.aquatichouse.com Fish Keeping]
- [http://www.aquaticcommunity.com Site with one of the largest fish databases in the world]
- [http://reelinthefish.net/interviews/jameskoliver.html Reelinthefish.net | Interview with Dr James K. Oliver, Reefbase Scientist]
- [http://fishy.us Fishy.Us]Articles & Particles
- [http://hardrockforums.com/forums Saltwater & Freshwater Forums]
- [http://www.fishfriend.com/ Your Fish Tank's Friend]
- [http://find-a-seafood-recipe.com/ Fish and Seafood Recipes]Cooking With Fish
- [http://www.easyreefer.com/ Reef aquarium community and learning center]
- [http://www.fiberi.de German Educator in Fisheries, Specialist in Fancy Goldfish and Fishhealth, with Forum and large Picture-Gallery]
- [http://www.freeonlinegames.com/play/3019.html]Interesting fish game.
- [http://www.sushifaq.com The Sushi FAQ - (the alt.food.sushi Usenet group FAQ) at SushiFAQ.com]
- [http://sushiotaku.blogspot.com/ The Sushi Otaku Blog] Category:Fisheries science Category:Seafood zh-min-nan:Hî ko:물고기 ms:Ikan ja:魚類 simple:Fish th:ปลา

England

:For an explanation of often-confusing terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). England is a nation and the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom accounting for more than 83% of the total UK population. It occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares land borders with fellow home nations Scotland, to the north, and Wales, to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the sea. England is named after the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes believed to have originated in Angeln in Northern Germany, who settled in England in the 5th and 6th centuries. It has not had a distinct political identity since 1707, when Great Britain was established as a unified political entity; however, it has a legal identity separate from those of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as part of the entity "England and Wales;". England's largest city, London, is also the capital of the United Kingdom.

History

Main article: History of England England has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, although the repeated Ice Ages made much of Britain uninhabitable for extended periods until as recently as 20,000 years ago. Stone Age hunter-gatherers eventually gave way to farmers and permanent settlements, with a spectacular and sophisticated megalithic civilisation arising in western England some 4,000 years ago. It was replaced around 1,500 years later by Celtic tribes migrating from Western and continental Europe, mainly from France. These tribes were known collectively as "Britons", a name bestowed by Phoenician traders — an indication of how, even at this early date, the island was part of a Europe-wide trading network. The Britons were significant players in continental politics and supported their allies in Gaul militarily during the Gallic Wars with the Roman Republic. This prompted the Romans to invade and subdue the island, first with