<p>For the Regency named Samosir, see Samosir Regency.</p><br>
<p>Samosir, or Samosir Island, is a large volcanic island in Lake Toba, located in the north of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Administratively, Samosir Island is governed as six of the nine districts within Samosir Regency. The lake and island were formed after the eruption of a supervolcano some 75,000 years ago. The island was originally connected to the surrounding caldera wall by a small isthmus, which was cut through to aid navigation.</p><br>
<p>At 640 km², Samosir is the largest island within an island, and the fifth largest lake island in the world. It also contains two smaller lakes, Lake Sidihoni and Lake Aek Natonang. Across the lake on the east from the island lies Uluan Peninsula. The island is linked to the mainland of Sumatra on its western part by a narrow isthmus connecting the town of Pangururan on Samosir and Tele on mainland Sumatra. Tele consequently offers one of the best views of Lake Toba and Samosir Island.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>Samosir is a popular tourist destination due to its exotic history and the vistas it offers. The tourist resorts are concentrated in the Tuktuk area. The island is the centre of the Batak culture and many of the Toba Batak traditional houses (rumah adat) remain on the island. Most of the tourist accommodations are concentrated in the small town of Tuktuk, which is located a one-hour ferry ride across the lake from the town of Parapat. The passenger ferry leaves from Tiga Raja harbor every hour between 8.30 and 19.00. For those running late there is an option to take the passenger boat from Aji bata to Tomok until 8.30 pm. A car ferry leaves the mainland from Ajibata and lands in the small town of Tomok, about a 10-minute drive from Tuktuk until 9 pm. There are also other passenger ferries and individual hotels may also have ferries available.</p><br>
<p>Argalasti  is a village and a former municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality South Pelion, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 74.820 km. It is built on a fertile plateau, 40 km southeast of Volos. It is an important commercial and tourism center of the area with a rich cultural tradition. Argalasti is a stopping point for those headed for the nearby beaches of the Pagasetic Gulf  or the Aegean Sea . An example of the architecture of the beginning of the 20th century is the church tower of Sts. Apostles.</p><br>
<h2>Subdivisions</h2><br>
<p>The municipal unit Argalasti is subdivided into the following communities (constituent villages in brackets):</p><br>
<p>Argalasti (Argalasti, Kalamos, Kallithea, Lefokastro, Myriovryti, Paltsi, Paou, Chorto)</p><br>
<p>Metochi</p><br>
<p>Xinovrysi (Xinovrysi, Potistika)</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>This Pelion town is well known for its buildings of architectural interest. Embedded into the walls of many constructions in the village one will find pieces of Ancient and Medieval buildings. The monastery of Saint Nicolas provides a magnificent view to the town. Close to the town square, is the church of Saint Apostles Peter and Paul built in 1886, with a marble bell tower built in 1913.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<p>Makrinitsa , nicknamed "balcony of Mt. Pelion," is a village and a former community in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Volos, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 59.903 km. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Pelion mountains, 6 km northeast of Volos. One of the most characteristic traditional settlements, full of mansions and houses that look like hanging ornaments on the green mountain side. One of the traditional coffee houses is decorated with a fresco by the famous Greek painter Theofilos. The picturesque cobbled paths of Makrinitsa are scattered with traditional water fountains. Makrinitsa is a popular tourist destination, especially during the winter.</p><br>
<p>The village is the home of the Museum of Folk Art and History of Pelion, housed in the historic Topali Mansion, with over 1,500 objects related to the folk culture and everyday life of the region.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<p>Zagora  is a village and a former municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Zagora-Mouresi, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 96.101 km. The biggest village of Mt. Pelion, Zagora was at its commercial and cultural peak in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Zagora is located north of Volos and west of Chorefto and is connected to the former by Greek National Road 34.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>During the course of the 8th century, mainland Greece was subjected to numerous Bulgarian raids. At the end of the century, a large scale Bulgarian military expedition headed by the chieftain Akamir was launched from Belasica. The Bulgarians plundered Thessaly, from their encampment which was located between modern day Volos and Velestino. The Byzantines called those Bulgarians Velegizitas or Vielesti. Volos, Velestino, Zagora and many other placenames in Magnesia originate from that period and are of Slavic origin. The name Zagora comes from the Slavic term Zagorije which means, behind the mountains. First mentions of the settlement under its current name come from the 13th century. In the 14th century Magnesia came under the control of Serbia, subsequent conquests by the Republic of Venice and the Catalans led to a big drop in the local population.</p><br>
<h2>Sights of interest</h2><br>
<p>The library of Zagora, which includes thousands of rare books, is known for holding the original manuscript of "A few seconds" by Fanis Loverdos. Famous scholars, like Dr Dragogiannis, have studied the rare volumes of the library to great extent. The school of Rigas Feraios or Hellenic Museum as it is known, is the oldest school on Pelion. The Patriarch of Constantinople Kallinikos Lapatis and the herald of the Greek Revolution Rigas Feraios were students there.</p><br>
<h2>Education and commercial activity</h2><br>
<p>Zagora has a primary and a secondary school, five churches, six coffee houses,two bakeries, two banks, a post office, and seven squares.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Patriarch Callinicus IV of Constantinople</p><br>
<p>Yannis Kordatos, scholar</p><br>
<p>Alexandros Pantos, founder of Panteion University</p><br>
<h2>Footnotes</h2><br>
<p>Almyros or Halmyros  is a town and a municipality of the regional unit of Magnesia, region of Thessaly, Greece. It lies in the center of prosperous fertile plain known as Krokio Pedio, which is crossed by torrents. Almyros is an important agricultural and commercial center of Magnesia, and is also developing as a tourist center for the area. The main agricultural products are tomatoes, cotton, wheat, almonds, peanuts and pistachio nuts.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The history of Almyros begins with the ancient city of Alos (about 10 km south of Almyros), the ruins of which can still be visited. Alos was a very important and populous town, famous for its port and for its role in the Persian Wars. After the Byzantine Empire, because of pirate raids, they built the town in the place that it is today.</p><br>
<p>Halmyros was the site of the decisive Battle of Halmyros on 15 March 1311, where the Catalan Company shattered the assembled feudal armies of Frankish Greece and conquered the Duchy of Athens.</p><br>
<p>In 1838, the settlement was described as being "a Turkish town, situated on the western coast of the Pagasitic Gulf, half an hour&#39;s journey inland, on the Plain of Krokios, and consisting of some 300 dwellings. It is chiefly inhabited by Turks, with only a few Christian settlers, who cultivate the lands of the Turks residing there". The Ottoman Empire ceded most of Thessaly in 1881, followed by development and repopulation by Greeks.</p><br>
<p>In 1980 a catastrophic magnitude 6.5 earthquake destroyed most of the town.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Almyros was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Almyros</p><br>
<p>Anavra</p><br>
<p>Pteleos</p><br>
<p>Sourpi</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 905.364 km, the municipal unit 473.940 km.</p><br>
<h3>Subdivisions</h3><br>
<p>The municipal unit of Almyros is divided into the following communities: Almyros, Efxeinoupoli, Anthotopos, Kokkotoi, Kroki, Kofoi, Platanos, and Fylaki.</p><br>
<h2>Province</h2><br>
<p>The province of Almyros (Επαρχία Αλμυρού) was one of the provinces of Magnesia. It had the same territory as the present municipality. It was abolished in 2006.</p><br>
<h2>Landmarks</h2><br>
<p>The Archaeological Museum of Almyros includes local artifacts and exhibits from the Neolithic period, through Mycenean, Geometric, Classical, Hellenistic periods, and later Roman years. Opposite the museum is the old High School, the Gymnasium of Almyros, which is a classic monumental building from the beginning of the 20th century. The Museum and Gymnasium are the oldest buildings in the area.</p><br>
<p>The Kouri forest, about 2 km from the town of Almyros, at an elevation of 75m, encompasses 108 ha of lowland oak forest. The forest is flat (elevation gadient is less than 2%). Oaks belong to the species: Quercus pubescens, Quercus aegilops, Quercus pedunculiflora. There are footpaths, as well as a miniature train for a brief tour through the woods and over small bridges.</p><br>
<p>The area is important to migratory birds, such as the mute swan, spoonbill, glossy ibis, and various herons.</p><br>
<p>South of the town are the moderately wooded Othrys mountains. 17 km from the town of Almyros but still in Almyros province, high in the Othrys mountains, is the 12th century Monastery of Panagia Xenia, with wall paintings, treasuries, and a library.</p><br>
<p>There are several sandy beaches in the municipality of Almyros.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Almyros is situated near the western end of the Pagasetic Gulf, 25 km southwest of Volos. Motorway 1 (Athens – Thessaloniki) passes east of the town Almyros.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<p>The Zimba, elevation 2,645 m, is the most familiar mountain in the Austrian mountain range called Rätikon. Located in the hinterland of Bludenz, this horn is the landmark of Montafon valley and especially of the main village of Schruns. Three ridges and three walls emphasize the shapeliness of the form. The eastern ridge is one of the most familiar climbing routes of the whole Rätikon range, but the normal way leads along the western ridge. Despite the altitude of just 2,645 m, the Zimba is a great viewpoint for the entire region.</p><br>
<h2>Climbing routes</h2><br>
<p>Western ridge, normal way, UIAA Class 3 (Opened by F. Sohm and J. Both in 1900)</p><br>
<p>North east ridge, seldom taken, Class 2. (August 1854 route by three hunters)</p><br>
<p>East ridge, the most difficult way up, Class 4</p><br>
<p>South wall, dangerous (grassy and falling rocks), Class 2. (First ascent route)</p><br>
<p>Piz Buin is a mountain in the Silvretta range of the Alps on the border between Austria and Switzerland. It forms the border between the Swiss canton of Graubünden and the Austrian state of Vorarlberg and is the highest peak in Vorarlberg.</p><br>
<p>Its original name in the Romansh language is Piz Buin Grand. A similar but smaller summit nearby is called Piz Buin Pitschen at 3,255 m (10,680 ft). Piz Buin was first climbed on 14 July 1865 by Joseph Anton Specht and Johann Jakob Weilenmann, guided by Jakob Pfitscher and Franz Pöll. Piz Buin Pitschen was climbed three years later.</p><br>
<p>Piz Buin can be reached from the Wiesbadener hut, crossing the Vermunt glacier, climbing up the Wiesbadener ridge and hiking over the Ochsentaler Glacier to the Buin gap. From the gap there is a zigzag walk to the top, with only a 20 m (65 ft) steep step to surmount before reaching the relatively flat summit space, which has an old wooden cross on the very top. The border between Switzerland and Austria crosses the summit from East to West.</p><br>
<p>The Royal Crescent is a row of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping crescent in the city of Bath, England. Designed by the architect John Wood, the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774, it is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the United Kingdom and is a Grade I listed building. Although some changes have been made to the various interiors over the years, the Georgian stone façade remains much as it was when it was first built.</p><br>
<p>The 500 ft crescent has 114 Ionic columns on the first floor with an entablature in a Palladian style above. It was the first crescent of terraced houses to be built and an example of "rus in urbe" (the country in the city) with its views over the parkland opposite.</p><br>
<p>Many notable people have either lived or stayed in the Royal Crescent since it was first built over 240 years ago, and some are commemorated on special plaques attached to the relevant buildings. Of the Royal Crescent&#39;s 30 townhouses, 10 are still full-size townhouses; 18 have been split into flats of various sizes; 1 is the No. 1 Royal Crescent museum and the large central house at number 16 is the Royal Crescent Hotel.</p><br>
<h2>Design and construction</h2><br>
<p>The street that is known today as "The Royal Crescent" was originally named "The Crescent." It is claimed that the adjective "Royal" was added at the end of the 18th century after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany had stayed there. He initially rented number one and later bought number 16. The Royal Crescent is close to Victoria Park and linked via Brock Street to The Circus which had been designed by John Wood, the Elder.</p><br>
<p>The land on which the Royal Crescent stands was bought from Sir Benet Garrard of the Garrard baronets, who were the landlords, in December 1766. Between 1767 and 1775 John Wood designed the great curved façade with Ionic columns on a rusticated ground floor. Each original purchaser bought a length of the façade, and then employed their own architect to build a house behind the façade to their own specifications; hence what can appear to be two houses is occasionally just one. This system of town planning is betrayed at the rear and can be seen from the road behind the Crescent: while the front is uniform and symmetrical, the rear is a mixture of differing roof heights, juxtapositions and fenestration. This architecture, described as "Queen Anne fronts and Mary-Anne backs", occurs repeatedly in Bath. It was the first crescent of terraced houses to be built and an example of "rus in urbe" (the country in the city) with its views over the parkland opposite.</p><br>
<p>In front of the Royal Crescent is a ha-ha, a ditch on which the inner side is vertical and faced with stone, with the outer face sloped and turfed, making an effective but invisible partition between the lower and upper lawns. The ha-ha is designed so as not to interrupt the view from Royal Victoria Park, and to be invisible until seen from close by. It is not known whether it was contemporary with the building of the Royal Crescent, however it is known that when it was first created it was deeper than it is at present. The railings between the crescent and the lawn were included in the Heritage at Risk Register produced by English Heritage but have been restored and removed from the register.</p><br>
<p>In 2003, the archaeological television programme Time Team dug the Royal Crescent in search of a Roman cemetery and the Fosse Way. The remains of a Roman wall were found behind the crescent and evidence of possible Iron and Bronze Age settlement on the lawn in front.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the late 19th century five cast iron lamp columns with decorative scrollwork were added. In 1921, architect Robert Tor Russell used the Crescent as a source of inspiration to design the central business district of Connaught Place, New Delhi, India.</p><br>
<p>During the Bath Blitz of World War II, known as the Baedecker Raids or Baedeker Blitz, some bomb damage occurred, the most serious being the gutting of numbers 2 and 17 by incendiaries. After World War II, during a period of redevelopment which is described as the Sack of Bath, the City Council considered plans that would have seen the Crescent transformed into Council offices. These were unsuccessful.</p><br>
<p>During the 20th century many of the houses which had formerly been the residences of single families with maids or other staff were divided into flats and offices. However, the tradition of distinguished gentlefolk retiring to the crescent continued. The whole crescent was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1950. Number 16 became a guest house in 1950. In 1971 it was combined with number 15 to become the Royal Crescent Hotel occupying the central properties of the Crescent, which were renovated and additional rooms in pavilions and coach houses within the gardens included in the accommodation. It was sold in 1978 to John Tham, the chairman of the London Sloane Club, and restored. It was later purchased by Von Essen Hotels, which became insolvent in 2011. In September 2011 it was expected that London & Regional Properties would purchase the hotel, but negotiations ended in January 2012 without a deal. On 2 April 2012, investment company the Topland Group announced that it had purchased the Royal Crescent Hotel.</p><br>
<p>In the 1970s the resident of No 22, Miss Amabel Wellesley-Colley, painted her front door yellow instead of the traditional white. Bath City Council issued a notice insisting it should be repainted. A court case ensued which resulted in the Secretary of State for the Environment declaring that the door could remain yellow. Other proposals for alteration and development including floodlighting and a swimming pool have been defeated.</p><br>
<h2>Notable residents</h2><br>
<p>The first resident of Number 1 was Thomas Brock who acted as trustee for John Wood his son-in-law, although he was rarely lived there as he was the town clerk of Chester. His tenant was Henry Sandford, a retired Irish MP who rented the house from 1776 until his death in Bath in 1796. He was described as a gentleman of the most benevolent disposition. William Wilberforce stayed at Number 2 in 1798. Christopher Anstey, a well-known writer of the time, was resident in number 4 from 1770 until 1805, although the plaque to him is placed on number 5. Jean Baptiste, Vicomte du Barre took over number 8 in 1778 and hosted parties and gambling. He died in a duel on Claverton Down and is buried in the churchyard at the Church of St Nicholas in Bathampton. From 1768 to 1774 number 9 was home to Philip Thicknesse, a soldier of fortune. Number 11 was home to the family of Thomas Linley, a singing-master and conductor of the concerts from 1771. His second daughter Elizabeth Ann Linley, a singer in her own right, eloped with the playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The centre house of the crescent (#16) was used as a residence and to host blue stocking events by Elizabeth Montagu.</p><br>
<p>In the nineteenth century the popularity of the Crescent and taking the waters at the Roman Baths diminished somewhat. Amongst the residents of Royal Crescent during this time were the electoral reformer Francis Burdett who lived at number 16 from 1814 to 1822 and his daughter Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The retired Admiral William Hargood lived at number 9 from 1834 until 1839 and in 1866 the same house was home to Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The jurist and explorer Thomas Falconer briefly lived at number 18 before his death in 1882. A few years later the house next door at number 17 became home to Isaac Pitman who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, now known as Pitman shorthand. English professor George Saintsbury took up residence at number 1A in 1916.</p><br>
<h2>Current use</h2><br>
<p>The houses and flats in the Crescent are a mixture of tenures. After World War II when there was a shortage of housing and the city council bought up older properties, including some in Royal Crescent, as public housing to rent out. The Housing Act 1985 changed the succession of Council Houses and facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations. Several were subsequently sold into private ownership, however one remains in council ownership.</p><br>
<p>No. 1 Royal Crescent is a historic house museum, owned and maintained by the Bath Preservation Trust through its membership to illustrate how wealthy owners of the late 18th century might have furnished and occupied such a house. It was purchased in 1967 by Major Bernard Cayzer, a member of the family that made its fortune through the Clan shipping line. He donated it to the Trust with an amount of money for its restoration and furnishing. The restoration was led by Philip Jebb. The Bath Preservation Trust was working during 2012–13 to re-unite Number One with its original servants wing at Number 1A Royal Crescent, which has been in use as a separate dwelling for many years. No. 1 serves as the Trusts headquarters. Number 15 and 16 are still used as a hotel.</p><br>
<p>Bath and North East Somerset council made an order banning coaches and buses from the crescent, after many years of complaints by residents that the tours given to tourists were disruptive, particularly because of the amplified commentary given by tour guides on open top buses.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The crescent is 500 ft long and each building is almost 50 ft high, including small rooms with dormer windows in the attic. The ground floor is plain emphasising the columns and windows of the first floor. The 114 columns are 30 in in diameter reaching 47 ft, each with an entablature 5 ft deep in a Palladian style. The central house (now the Royal Crescent Hotel) boasts two sets of coupled columns with a single window between them which is the middle of the crescent.</p><br>
<p>They are built of Bath stone. They have slate roofs but were originally stone tiled. The appearance of each house is very similar with only minor variations between them for example some have small balconettes on the first floor. Many of the windows have been restored to their original style with glazing bars rather than the horned plate glass sash windows which had been installed in the 19th or early 20th centuries. Some of the window sills had also been lowered. This has been reversed at Number 1 but policy has since changed with a decision to keep the alterations which were made in the 19th century. In front of the houses are cast iron railings which are mirrored by those on the opposite side of the road at the top of Victoria Park. The road is surfaced with pennant stone laid when the crescent was constructed.</p><br>
<h2>Film and television</h2><br>
<p>In 1965 the black comedy The Wrong Box (1966) used the Royal Crescent extensively as a location, standing in for London. The 1965 film Catch Us If You Can also had a sequence filmed outside the crescent and in one of its houses.</p><br>
<p>In 2007, a TV edition of Jane Austen&#39;s Persuasion, included many scenes shot at the Royal Crescent, where the Elliot family was supposedly living while in Bath. The Royal Crescent featured in the 2008 film The Duchess starring Keira Knightley.</p><br>
<p>The fictional heroine of BBC1 archaeology thriller Bonekickers was depicted as living in the Crescent.</p><br>
<p>The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is still situated on its original site. It was rebuilt in 1965, and renovation of the lagoon, walkways, and a seismic retrofit were completed in early 2009.</p><br>
<p>In addition to hosting art exhibitions, it remains a popular attraction for tourists and locals and is a favorite location for weddings and wedding party photographs for couples throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and such an icon that a miniature replica of it was built in Disney&#39;s California Adventure in Anaheim.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Palace of Fine Arts was one of ten palaces at the heart of the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, which also included the exhibit palaces of Education, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Varied Industries, Agriculture, Food Products, Transportation, Mines and Metallurgy and the Palace of Machinery. The Palace of Fine Arts was designed by Bernard Maybeck, who took his inspiration from Roman and Ancient Greek architecture in designing what was essentially a fictional ruin from another time.</p><br>
<p>While most of the exposition was demolished when the exposition ended, the Palace was so beloved that a Palace Preservation League, founded by Phoebe Apperson Hearst, was founded while the fair was still in progress.</p><br>
<p>For a time the Palace housed a continuous art exhibit, and during the Great Depression, W.P.A. artists were commissioned to replace the decayed Robert Reid murals on the ceiling of the rotunda. From 1934 to 1942 the exhibition hall was home to eighteen lighted tennis courts. During World War II it was requisitioned by the military for storage of trucks and jeeps. At the end of the war, when the United Nations was created in San Francisco, limousines used by the world&#39;s statesmen came from a motor pool there. From 1947 on the hall was put to various uses: as a city Park Department warehouse; as a telephone book distribution center; as a flag and tent storage depot; and even as temporary Fire Department headquarters.</p><br>
<p>While the Palace had been saved from demolition, its structure was not stable. Originally intended to only stand for the duration of the Exhibition, the colonnade and rotunda were not built of durable materials, and thus framed in wood and then covered with staff, a mixture of plaster and burlap-type fiber. As a result of the construction and vandalism, by the 1950s the simulated ruin was in fact a crumbling ruin.</p><br>
<p>In 1964, the original Palace was completely demolished, with only the steel structure of the exhibit hall left standing. The buildings were then reconstructed in permanent, light-weight, poured-in-place concrete, and steel I-beams were hoisted into place for the dome of the rotunda. All the decorations and sculpture were constructed anew. The only changes were the absence of the murals in the dome, two end pylons of the colonnade, and the original ornamentation of the exhibit hall.</p><br>
<p>In 1969, the former Exhibit Hall became home to the Exploratorium interactive museum, and, in 1970, also became the home of the 966-seat Palace of Fine Arts Theater. In 2003, the City of San Francisco along with the Maybeck Foundation created a public-private partnership to restore the Palace and by 2010 work was done to restore and seismically retrofit the dome, rotunda, colonnades and lagoon. In January 2013, the Exploratorium closed in preparation for its permanent move to the Embarcadero.</p><br>
<p>Today, Australian eucalyptus trees fringe the eastern shore of the lagoon. Many forms of wildlife have made their home there including swans, ducks (particularly migrating fowl), geese, turtles, frogs, and raccoons.</p><br>
<h2>Design</h2><br>
<p>Built around a small artificial lagoon, the Palace of Fine Arts is composed of a wide, 1,100 ft pergola around a central rotunda situated by the water. The lagoon was intended to echo those found in classical settings in Europe, where the expanse of water provides a mirror surface to reflect the grand buildings and an undisturbed vista to appreciate them from a distance.</p><br>
<p>Ornamentation includes Bruno Louis Zimm&#39;s three repeating panels around the entablature of the rotunda, representing "The Struggle for the Beautiful", symbolizing Greek culture. while Ulric Ellerhusen supplied the weeping women atop the colonnade and the sculptured frieze and allegorical figures representing Contemplation, Wonderment and Meditation.</p><br>
<p>The underside of the Palace rotunda&#39;s dome features eight large insets, which originally contained murals by Robert Reid. Four depicted the conception and birth of Art, "its commitment to the Earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect," and the four "golds" of California (poppies, citrus fruits, metallic gold, and wheat).</p><br>
<h2>Other surviving buildings of the exhibition</h2><br>
<p>The Palace of Fine Arts was not the only building from the exposition to escape demolition. The Japanese Tea House (not to be confused with the Japanese Tea House that remains in Golden Gate Park, which dates from an 1894 fair) was purchased in 1915 by land baron E.D. Swift and was transported by barge down the Bay to Belmont, California where it stands to this day. The Wisconsin and Virginia buildings were relocated to Marin County. The Ohio building was shipped to San Mateo County, where it survived until the 1950s. The Column of Progress stood for a decade after the close of the Exhibition, but was then demolished to accommodate traffic on Marina Boulevard. Although not built on the exhibition grounds, the only other structure from it still standing in its original location is the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, known now as the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.</p><br>
<p>The Legion of Honor Museum, in Lincoln Park, is a full-scale replica of the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d&#39;Honneur also known as the Hôtel de Salm in Paris by George Applegarth and H. Guillaume. At the close of the exposition, the French government granted Alma Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion, but World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921.</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>The Palace of Fine Arts has often been seen in films such as Vertigo (1958), Time After Time (1979), The Room (2003), and Twisted (2004) in establishing shots, key sequences, or cutaway scenes.</p><br>
<p>The Palace of Fine Arts has served as the backdrop for set pieces in So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993) and The Rock (1996).</p><br>
<p>Green Lake is a freshwater lake in north central Seattle, Washington, within Green Lake Park. The park is surrounded by the Green Lake neighborhood to the north and east, the Wallingford neighborhood to the south, the Phinney Ridge neighborhood to the west, and Woodland Park to the southwest. It is a glacial lake, its basin having been dug 50,000 years ago by the Vashon glacier, which also created Lake Washington, Union, Bitter and Haller Lakes.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Green Lake was named by David Phillips, who surveyed the area in September 1855 for the United States Surveyor General. His first notes referred to it as "Lake Green" because even in its natural state the lake is prone to algae blooms. The Duwamish called it dxWTLusH, a Lushootseed word of unknown meaning.</p><br>
<p>The area was originally homesteaded by various pioneers, the first being Erhart Sarfried, "Green Lake John." Sarfried subdivided his homestead in 1888 and sold the land to various entrepreneurs. W.D. Wood built an "amusement park" on the west side of the lake (which never amounted to more than a glorified lawn for picnics). On the east side of the lake, A.L. Parker logged the woods and built a sawmill. Edward C. Kilbourne built the first trolley line connecting the area to the city, the route of which is now Green Lake Way North. The trolley lines kept growing, until by 1910 they extended completely around the lake and a round trip could be made on a separate line going back to the city.</p><br>
<p>In July 2008, several metal spikes up to 3 ft in length were found along the bottom of the lake, injuring one person who accidentally stepped on them. The Seattle Parks Department later confirmed that the spikes were from a forgotten pilot program to control the growth of Eurasian water milfoil in Green Lake. The invasive aquatic plant had first appeared in the lake in the early 1980s. In 1984, the Parks Department installed 120,000 ft&sup2; of black plastic sheeting along the bottom of the lake, using the spikes to hold the sheeting in place. The spikes originally had curved tips to prevent injury, but the tips had corroded and broken off. The city paid a team of divers to remove the remaining spikes in late July 2008. Throughout the course of the investigation, it was revealed that the city had also tried combating the milfoil with weed-eating fish, but hadn&#39;t made any serious efforts in the past 15 years aside from occasionally paying divers to pull the weeds by hand.</p><br>
<h2>Green Lake Park</h2><br>
<p>After 1903 the area became part of Seattle&#39;s grand Olmsted Plan to create a series of interconnected greenspaces around the entire city. The park design still reflects the Olmsted vision.</p><br>
<p>Green Lake is surrounded by a 2.8 mi path. The path is divided an inner unpaved trail, and an outer asphalt path with two lanes, one for pedestrians and one for bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled unmotorized vehicles. The inner pedestrian lane is bidirectional, while the outer wheeled path is unidirectional, counterclockwise. The rules for these lanes are optional guidelines, enforced only by "peer pressure", according to the Parks and Recreation Department. The path attracts people seeking exercise and relaxation, and can be crowded. There is also an outer non-paved 3.2 mi path along the edge of the park. The park is a popular spot for qigong classes, roller hockey, soccer, baseball, golf, the Derek Baker Memorial Boccie Ball Club, and lawn bowls, part of the Woodland Park Lawn Bowling Club, and a monthly midnight bicycle race.</p><br>
<p>The bathhouse was built in 1927 next to an outdoor swimming area with concrete steps leading into the water. A lifeguard station with a boat was built next to this area in 1930 after several drownings in 1929. The bathhouse is now home to the Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, a small venue for plays.</p><br>
<p>Across the lake from the bathhouse, in the northeast part of the park, Green Lake&#39;s first community center was built in 1929 at a cost of $95,598. As it was built on the fill land from the 1911 draining, the community center was built on pilings. It contains two conference rooms, a gym with showers and bathrooms, and a stage. Toward the lake, another stepped swimming area was built. The tennis courts were added in 1945. In 1955 a 150,000 gallon swimming pool was added. It was named the Evans Pool in honor of two brothers, Ben and Lou Evans, for their long service to athletics at Seattle parks.</p><br>
<p>The children&#39;s wading pool was a Works Progress Administration project, as was the drainage ditch and the arched stone bridge providing a path over the ditch. The wading pool is staffed in the summer by the Seattle Parks department, and operates daily from June 23–September 3, from 11 a.m.–8 p.m.</p><br>
<p>South of the bathhouse is a lawn and fishing pier. Since 1984 this part of the lake has hosted a floating lantern memorial to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</p><br>
<p>Prospect Point, a spit of land that points toward Duck Island, protects a small area of water from high winds. This once was a popular spot for model boats, though model boating is no longer allowed on the lake.</p><br>
<p>The Green Lake Aqua Theater was built in 1950 for the first Seafair in order to house an attraction called the Aqua Follies and their "swimusicals," a combination of aqua ballet, stage dancing, and comedy. The theater included a round stage and floating (though still recessed below the stage) orchestra pit, encircling a section of the lake with high diving platforms on each side. The grandstand capacity was more than 5,000 seats. The Aqua Follies continued to run during Seafair until 1965. Outside of the Seafair schedule the theater was the stage for plays and musicals whose directors always took advantage of the unique setting. In the summer of 1962, coinciding with the Century 21 Exposition, the Aqua Theater stage was host to a jazz festival, popular performers such as Bob Hope, two plays, and a special presentation of the Aqua Follies with 100 performers. After the Worlds Fair, summer productions languished, which is usually blamed on Seattles unpredictable weather, until the Aqua Theater was mostly abandoned. A 1969 concert by the Grateful Dead revealed that the grandstand was crumbling and dangerous. Beginning in 1970 the theater was dismantled, stage right now serving as a pedestrian pier and stage left providing dock and storage for crew shells. Some sections of the grandstand were left in place.</p><br>
<p>The southwest portion of the park connects with adjoining Woodland Park on land that is also mostly fill, much of which came from the excavation of a route for Aurora Avenue. The southwest portion of the lake once extended to what is now N. 54th Street.</p><br>
<p>In the summer, Green Lake is also popular for swimming and boating. Although public use of motorized boats has been banned since at least 1968, the lake was the site of hydroplane races from 1929 to 1984. Today many forms of motor-less boats, including sailboarding, pedal boats, rowboats, skiffs, and canoes, are commonly seen on the lake. The Milk Carton Derby is held annually on the lake as one of the opening events of Seafair. While remnants of boat launches still exist, all launches have been removed from the lake; all boats must be hand carried to the water.</p><br>
<p>The Green Lake Small Craft Center, a Seattle Parks facility, is located on the south end of the lake. It houses both Green Lake Crew and the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club. From August 10–13, 2006, Green Lake hosted the USRowing Masters National Championship Regatta, which included an estimated 2,000 competitors ranging in age from 23 to 86 years of age.</p><br>
<p>To the east of the lake across from the park, sits the Green Lake Library, built in 1910 with funds from Andrew Carnegie.</p><br>
<h2>Green Lake Crew</h2><br>
<p>The Green Lake Small Craft Center, which is a Seattle Parks facility, is the training ground for Green Lake Crew, which has a history of successful rowing at the national level.</p><br>
<p>The Green Lake Small Craft Center also is home to the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club. This Olympic style sprint paddling also competes at a national level.</p><br>
<h2>Animal and plant life</h2><br>
<p>Green Lake is a beacon for wildlife. Many types of wildlife, toads, ducks, cormorants, loons, herons, geese, turtles, raccoons, rats, squirrels, bats, hawks, eagles, and osprey are among the wild creatures commonly viewed there.</p><br>
<p>Green Lake is a popular dumping ground for unwanted house pets and developed a large population of feral rabbits. The rabbits created problems by burrowing under streets and retaining walls and into the Woodland Park Zoo. Over the years volunteers adopted or removed the rabbits but not fast enough to keep the population under control. In 2005 the city and zoo combined with the Rabbit Sanctuary to remove all of the rabbits and present an educational outreach campaign to teach people not to abandon rabbits. The practice of abandoning pets into or around Green Lake has resulted in several other non-native species needing removal, mostly ordinary goldfish but including exotic species such as sturgeon and caiman at various times.</p><br>
<p>Recently, a program has been implemented to substantially reduce the number of ducks and geese. Their droppings raise the level of phosphorus in the lake, leading to excessive growths of algae and milfoil. In 2003 the lake was treated with aluminum sulfate to encapsulate the phosphorus. A paddle boat, moored in the lake, is used to cut the milfoil. The fowl also leave pathogens in the lake which can cause Swimmer&#39;s itch. This shows the difficulty of maintaining water quality in a stagnant lake.</p><br>
<p>Many species of fish live in Green Lake. Trout, mainly rainbow trout, are stocked for recreational fishing. A large population of common carp are present, and can be seen spawning in the shallows in spring. Tiger muskellunge were stocked to control the carp population, as carp are perceived as an invasive species and can contribute to eutrophication. The lake also contains largemouth bass, yellow perch, bluegill, yellow bullhead, channel catfish, and small populations of many different unexpected species.</p><br>
<p>During the spring, Green Lake Park is in bloom with pink and white cherry trees. Planted along the west side of the lake in 1931 and 1932, they were a gift from the Japanese Association of North America.</p><br>
<h3>Species List of Common Names</h3><br>
<p>The park is home to many species of birds and mammals as well as a few reptile and amphibian species. The most notable species are Western Coyotes, feral rabbits, Barred Owls, and Red Eared Sliders (released turtles). The most common bird species include American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Robin, Annas Hummingbird, Bald Eagle, Barn Owl, Barred Owl, Bewicks Wren, Black-Capped Chickadee, Bushtit, European Starling, House Finch, Hairy/Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Flicker, Oregon Junco, Eurasian Rock Dove, Spotted Towhee, Steller&#39;s Jay, various Gull species, various Sparrow species, various Swallow species, and various waterfowl. Mammal species include Western Coyote, Nutria, feral rabbits, Norway Rats, Gray Squirrel, Mountain Beaver, and American Beaver. Reptile and Amphibian species include Red Eared Sliders, Spring Peepers and Garter Snakes.</p><br>
<p>Reichenau Island is an island in Lake Constance in southern Germany. It lies almost due west of the city of Konstanz, between the Gnadensee and the Untersee, two parts of Lake Constance. With a total land surface of 4.3 square kilometres and a circumference of 11 kilometres, the island is 4.5 kilometres long and 1.5 kilometres wide at its greatest extent. The highest point, the Hochwart, stands some 43 metres above the lake surface and 438.7 metres above mean sea level.</p><br>
<p>Reichenau is connected to the mainland by a causeway, completed in 1838, which is intersected between the ruins of Schopflen Castle and the eastern end of Reichenau Island by a 10-metre-wide and 95-metre long waterway, the Bruckgraben. A low road bridge allows the passage of ordinary boats but not of sailing-boats.</p><br>
<p>The island was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 because of its monastery, the Abbey of Reichenau. The abbeys Münster (minster church) is dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Mark. Two further churches were built on the island consecrated to Saint George and to Saints Peter and Paul. The famous artworks of Reichenau include (in the church of St George) the Ottonian murals of miracles of Christ, unique survivals from the 10th century. The abbeys bailiff was housed in a two-storey stone building to which two more storeys of timber framing were added in the 14th century, one of the oldest timber-frame buildings in south Germany.</p><br>
<p>Among the Abbey&#39;s far-flung landholdings was Reichenau, a village on the upper Rhine in the municipality of Tamins in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, named for the Abbey.</p><br>
<p>Today the island is also famous for its vegetable farms. The Wollmatinger Ried next to the island is a large nature preserve, a wetland area of reeds which is used by many birds as a stopover during their annual migration.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Alemannic name of the island was Sindleozesauua, but it was also known as simply Ow, Auua (island) – Latinized as Augia, later also Augia felix or Augia dives (rich, or fertile, island), hence Richenow, Reichenau.</p><br>
<p>The Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau was founded in 724 by the itinerant Saint Pirmin, who is said to have fled Spain ahead of the Moorish invaders, with patronage that included Charles Martel, and, more locally, Count Berthold of the Ahalolfinger and the Alemannian Duke Santfrid I (Nebi). Pirmin&#39;s conflict with Santfrid resulted in his leaving Reichenau in 727. Under his successor Haito the monastery began to flourish. It gained influence in the Carolingian dynasty, under Abbot Waldo of Reichenau (740–814), by educating the clerks who staffed Imperial and ducal chanceries. Abbot Reginbert of Reichenau (-846) built up the important book collection. Abbot Walahfrid Strabo (842–849), who was educated at Reichenau, was renowned as a poet and Latin scholar.</p><br>
<p>The Abbey stood along a main north–south highway between Germany and Italy, where the lake passage eased the arduous route. The Abbey of Reichenau housed a school, and a scriptorium and artists workshop, that has a claim to having been the largest and artistically most influential centre for producing lavishly illuminated manuscripts in Europe during the late 10th and early 11th centuries, often known as the Reichenau School. An example of the scriptoriums production is the Pericopes of Henry II, made for the Emperor, now in Munich. Reichenau has preserved its precious relics, which include the pitcher from the wedding at Cana.</p><br>
<p>The Abbey reached its apex under Abbot Berno of Reichenau (1008–48). During his time, important scholars, such as Hermannus Contractus, lived and worked in Reichenau. In the second half of the 11th century, the cultural importance of the Abbey started to wane owing to the restrictive reforms of Pope Gregory VII, and also to rivalry with the nearby St. Gall; in 1540, the Bishop of Constance, an old rival of the Reichenau abbots, became lord of Reichenau, and, under the control of the succeeding bishops, the abbey&#39;s significance dwindled.</p><br>
<p>When the abbey lands were secularized (initially in 1757 and permanently in 1803) and the monks disbanded under Napoleon, part of Reichenau&#39;s famed library was preserved in the state library (Landesbibliothek) at Karlsruhe. The Geographus Bavarus and several other important documents may be found in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Since 2001 a small community of Benedictines has been re-established at Niederzell (Sts. Peter and Paul).</p><br>
<p>Burchard III, Duke of Swabia and Herman I, Duke of Swabia were buried here, as was Gerold of Vinzgau.</p><br>
<h2>Burials at the Abbey</h2><br>
<p>Charles the Fat</p><br>
<p>The Strait of Georgia or the Georgia Strait is an arm of the Pacific Ocean between Vancouver Island, and the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada and extreme northern Washington, United States. It is approximately 240 km long and varies in width from 20 to 58 km. Along with the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, it is a constituent part of the Salish Sea. Archipelagos and narrow channels mark each end of the Strait of Georgia, the Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands in the south, and the Discovery Islands in the north. The main channels to the south are Boundary Pass, Haro Strait and Rosario Strait, which connect the Strait of Georgia to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In the north, Discovery Passage is the main channel connecting the Strait of Georgia to Johnstone Strait. The strait is a major navigation channel on the west coast of North America, owing to the presence of the port of Vancouver, and also due to its role as the southern entrance to the infracoastal route known as the Inside Passage.</p><br>
<h2>Extent</h2><br>
<p>The United States Geological Survey defines the southern boundary of the Strait of Georgia as a line running from East Point on Saturna Island to Patos Island, Sucia Island, and Matia Island, then to Point Migley on Lummi Island. This line touches the northern edges of Rosario Strait, which leads south to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Boundary Pass, which leads south to Haro Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.</p><br>
<p>The mean depth of the Strait of Georgia is 157 m, with a maximum depth of 448 m. Its surface area is approximately 6,800 km&sup2;. The Fraser River accounts for roughly 80 percent of the fresh water entering the strait. Water circulates in the strait in a general counterclockwise direction.</p><br>
<p>The term "Gulf of Georgia" includes waters other than the Georgia Strait proper, such as the inter-insular straits and channels of the Gulf Islands, and may refer to communities on the shore of southern Vancouver Island. As defined by George Vancouver in 1792, the Gulf of Georgia included all the inland waters beyond the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, including Puget Sound, Bellingham Bay, the waters around the San Juan Islands, as well as the Strait of Georgia.</p><br>
<h2>Islands</h2><br>
<p>Several major islands are in the strait, the largest being Quadra Island and Texada Island.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>First Nations communities have surrounded the Strait of Georgia for thousands of years. The first European exploration of the area was undertaken by Captain Jose Maria Narvaez and Pilot Juan Carrasco of Spain in 1791. At this time Francisco de Eliza gave the strait the name "Gran Canal de Nuestra Señora del Rosario la Marinera."</p><br>
<p>In 1792, it was renamed for King George III as the "Gulf of Georgia" by George Vancouver of Great Britain, during his extensive expedition along the west coast of North America. Vancouver designated the mainland in this region as New Georgia, and areas farther north as New Hanover and New Bremen.</p><br>
<p>The June 23, 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake shocked the Strait of Georgia region, causing the bottom of Deep Bay to sink between 3 and.</p><br>
<p>The two busiest routes of the BC Ferries system cross the strait, between Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver) and Swartz Bay (near Victoria) and between Horseshoe Bay (north of Vancouver) and Nanaimo.</p><br>
<p>The Strait of Georgia is known as a premier scuba diving and whale watching location.</p><br>
<p>In 1967, the Georgia Strait inspired the name of Vancouver&#39;s alternative newspaper, The Georgia Straight, which has published continuously since.</p><br>
<h2>Cities</h2><br>
<p>Towns and cities on the strait include Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Qualicum Beach, Parksville, Lantzville, and Nanaimo on the western shore, as well as Powell River, Sechelt, Gibsons, and Greater Vancouver on the east.</p><br>
<p>Across the border in the United States, Bellingham, Washington and other communities also lie on the eastern shore. Other settlements on Vancouver Island (such as Duncan) and the mainland are separated from Georgia Strait itself by islands and lesser straits but are often spoken of as being in the Strait of Georgia region.</p><br>
<h2>Georgia Strait bridge proposal</h2><br>
<p>A controversial idea has existed since 1872 of a bridge connecting Vancouver Island to the BC Mainland. The first idea was to cross Seymour Narrows (which is farther north than the end of the Strait of Georgia) at Menzies Bay with a rail bridge for the then-proposed Canadian Pacific Railway to link Victoria, via Bute Inlet and the Yellowhead Pass, with the rest of Canada. Later proposals have focussed on bridging the Strait of Georgia itself, which is much wider than Seymour Narrows.</p><br>
<p>A proposed modern road bridge connecting the Greater Vancouver Regional District to Vancouver Island in the manner of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, has been discussed for decades, ever since the commencement of service by BC Ferries. Some crossing design suggestions include a partly floating, partly submerged tunnel to allow ship traffic to move freely. The hurricane-force windstorms of Typhoon Freda in 1962 and of December 2006 call into question the safety of such a project.</p><br>
<p>Proponents of the bridge argue that a reliable link to Vancouver Island from mainland British Columbia will increase tourism and growth on Vancouver Island. Opponents argue that construction of a bridge will result in further urbanization of the island and that the area&#39;s environment will be negatively affected by construction and the increase in tourism. Other potential problems are the width and depth of the strait and the soft consistency of the strait floor, as well as high seismic activity in the Vancouver Island region, and the fact that the strait is heavily used as a navigation channel. The strait is far deeper than any bridged body of water in the world.</p><br>
<p>Former B.C. cabinet minister Dr. Patrick McGeer, a research neuroscientist and a science advocate, has repeatedly advanced the proposal in recent decades. In a CKNW news item broadcast in August 2008, McGeer said he thinks the idea just needs "a visionary politician" to support it. McGeer still has the conceptual model of the bridge that was displayed at Expo 86. The idea has formal opposition in the form of an Islands Trust policy banning the building of any bridges or tunnels connecting the Gulf Islands to the Mainland or Vancouver Island.</p><br>
<h2>Salish Sea</h2><br>
<p>In March 2008, the Chemainus First Nation proposed renaming the strait the "Salish Sea," an idea that reportedly met with approval by B.C.&#39;s Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who pledged to put it before the B.C. cabinet for discussion. Making the name "Salish Sea" official required a formal application to the Geographical Names Board of Canada. A parallel American movement promoting the name had a different definition, combining of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound as well as the Strait of Georgia and related waters under the name Salish Sea. This latter definition was made official in 2009 by geographic boards of Canada and the United States.</p><br>
<p>In October 2009, the Washington state Board of Geographic Names approved the Salish Sea toponym, not to replace the names of the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and Strait of Juan de Fuca, but instead as a collective term for all three. The British Columbia Geographical Names Office passed a resolution recommending that the name only be adopted by the Geographical Names Board of Canada should its US counterpart approve the name change. The United States Board on Geographic Names approved the name on November 12, 2009 and Canada approved it in 2010.</p><br>
<h2>Counties and regional districts facing the Strait</h2><br>
<p>San Juan County</p><br>
<p>Whatcom County</p><br>
<p>Capital Regional District</p><br>
<p>Cowichan Valley Regional District</p><br>
<p>Regional District of Nanaimo</p><br>
<p>Comox Valley Regional District</p><br>
<p>Strathcona Regional District</p><br>
<p>Powell River Regional District</p><br>
<p>Sunshine Coast Regional District</p><br>
<p>Greater Vancouver Regional District</p><br>
<p>Paiania  is a town and a municipality in East Attica, Greece. It is an eastern suburb of Athens, located east of Mount Hymettus. It is 11 km east of Athens city centre.</p><br>
<p>Paiania is home to the Vorres Museum of Folk and Contemporary Art, the broadcasting facilities of Greek television station Mega Channel and the former training facilities of football club Panathinaikos FC. Greek National Road 89 passes through the town, Motorway 6 passes east of it.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Paiania was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Glyka Nera</p><br>
<p>Paiania</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 53.155 km, the municipal unit 43.917 km. The municipal unit of Paiania also includes the village of Argithea (pop. 1,024).</p><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Demades (380-318 BC), orator and demagogue.</p><br>
<p>Demosthenes (384-322 BC), orator and demagogue.</p><br>
<p>Scafell  is a mountain in the English Lake District, part of the Southern Fells. Its height of 964 metres  makes it the second-highest mountain in England after its neighbour Scafell Pike, from which it is separated by Mickledore col.</p><br>
<h2>Topography</h2><br>
<p>Scafell stands between Wasdale in the west and upper Eskdale to the east. The highest part of the fell is a ridge running south from Mickledore as far as Slight Side, which is counted as a separate fell by most guidebooks. Despite regarding Slight Side as a separate entity, Wainwright included the wide upland area beyond it to the south west as a part of Scafell. More modern guides have partitioned the plateau off as a further independent top, Great How.</p><br>
<p>The opposing flanks of Scafell are entirely different in character. Smooth slopes, lacking vegetation at higher levels but also devoid of any real interest, run down toward Burnmoor and the head of Wastwater. But on the east crags looming impressively over upper Eskdale, and on the north side Scafell Crag provides some the finest rock scenery in the Lake District.</p><br>
<p>rect 23 372 252 419 Slight Side (762m)</p><br>
<p>rect 173 794 560 834 Scafell East Buttress</p><br>
<p>rect 707 787 893 861 Esk Crag or Buttress (c. 750m)</p><br>
<p>rect 245 303 409 358 Scafell (964m)</p><br>
<p>rect 408 238 637 280 Mickledore (c.840m)</p><br>
<p>rect 544 174 826 213 South Summit (c. 950m)</p><br>
<p>rect 706 310 928 355 Scafell Pike (978m)</p><br>
<p>rect 870 238 1108 286 Broad Crag (934m)</p><br>
<p>rect 1043 308 1198 360 Ill Crag (935m)</p><br>
<p>rect 1238 311 1446 351 Great End (910m)</p><br>
<p>rect 0 0 1444 1085 Click hyperlink or button to expand</p><br>
<p>desc none</p><br>
<p>From the narrow ridge of Mickledore the northern face of Scafell rises precipitously, an unusually complete barrier to progress along a Lakeland ridge, which frustrates many ridge walkers who find that this is a cliff for rock climbers only. At the top of the rise from Mickledore is Symonds Knott (3,146 ft), the northern top. The wall of crags &mdash; Scafell Crag to the west and the East Buttress above the Eskdale side of Mickledore &mdash; has two main weaknesses. Running laterally across Scafell Crag is Lords Rake, a scree-filled chute with several intermediate cols. It has two upper entrances onto the saddle separating Symonds Knott from the main summit. Formerly passable as a scramble, Lords Rake suffered from a serious rock fall in 2002 — with subsequent further falls — and recent guidebooks do not consider it a viable route, although it is gradually becoming more stable. The block that was bridged across the head of Lord&#39;s Rake collapsed into the gully in July 2016, leaving several small unstable blocks behind, which can be avoided with care. The access to West Wall Traverse is clear of debris. The second breach in the crags is Broad Stand, a series of sloping steps which drop down from Symonds Knott almost to Mickledore; however, these steepen immediately above Mickledore and cannot be negotiated safely except by rock-climbers. The main summit stands a little to the south of the saddle, all around being a sea of stones. An easy ridge then steps down southward over Long Green to Slight Side. On the east are Cam Spout Crag and the fine high waterfall after which it is named.</p><br>
<p>Beyond Slight Side is a rough upland with many craggy tops and a number of tarns, before the southward descent finally ends in Lower Eskdale. South West of Scafell, below the scarp of Great How, is Burnmoor Tarn, one of the largest in Lakeland. Around 40 ft deep, it holds trout, perch and pike. The tarn is prevented from following what would appear the natural line of drainage into Miterdale by moraines, and empties southward, reaching the Esk at Beckfoot. Near the southern shore stands Burnmoor Lodge, once a keeper&#39;s cottage and a dwelling two miles (3 km) from the nearest road.</p><br>
<h2>Summit</h2><br>
<p>The main summit bears a large cairn on a short rocky ridge. Northward is a saddle, marked by a large cross of stones and then the bouldery climb to Symonds Knott, the north top. This gives views straight down to Mickledore. Scafell gives a very different view to that from its higher neighbour with Wastwater and the coastal plain given great prominence. There is a fine vista of the Western Fells, together with Bowfell and the Coniston Fells.</p><br>
<h2>Ascents</h2><br>
<h3>Wasdale</h3><br>
<p>The classic ascent via Lords Rake path from Wastwater follows the main Scafell Pike footpath to Hollow Stones, then up to Lords Rake. Lords Rake may be followed in its entirety, or near the top of the first col, a diversion may be made onto the West Wall Traverse, the exit of which lies closer to the summit. However one section of Lords Rake is now threatened by unstable rocks following a rock fall in 2001. An alternative is to ascend from the Burnmoor track via Green How, but this misses the rock scenery of Scafell Crag.</p><br>
<h3>Eskdale</h3><br>
<p>A pleasant but lengthy alternative begins from Boot in Eskdale, following the River Esk upstream, and scrambling up to the summit by way of Foxes Tarn. A gentler return can be made across moorland, by way of the Burnmoor Tarn. Also starting in Eskdale, the Terrace route can be followed from Wha House, first ascending Slight Side.</p><br>
<h3>From Scafell Pike</h3><br>
<p>The route from Scafell Pike to Scafell (or its reverse) is one of the most frustrating in the Lake District. What seems like a direct route is in fact very hazardous as it has to negotiate Broad Stand crag, which is a dangerous and exposed scramble that has caused many accidents and injuries. It is usually treated as a rock climb, with appropriate ropes and belay protection. Wainwright warns against its dangers to walkers. Its dangers are more obvious travelling from Scafell Pike, but travelling from Scafell, the route loses a lot of height before the danger is seen.</p><br>
<p>Instead there are two walking routes, but they entail some loss of altitude. The first is via Foxes Tarn to the East of Scafell summit, and the second is via Lord&#39;s Rake and the West Wall traverse.</p><br>
<p>All routes go via Mickledore.</p><br>
<h3>Rock Climbing</h3><br>
<p>Scafell Crag, the massive north buttress of Scafell, and the overhanging East Buttress to the East of Mickledore Col, are the site of many famous historic and contemporary rock climbs. The history of climbing on these crags is documented by a book by The Fell and Rock Climbing Club called Nowt but a fleein&#39; thing., Latitude Press.</p><br>
<h2>Name history</h2><br>
<p>Until about 1920, the phonetic spelling "Scawfell" was the most common version. This was used by, among others William Wordsworth who, in addition to poetry, wrote a popular guide book to the Lake District, Harriet Martineau (whose work replaced Wordsworths as the definitive guidebook), Jonathan Otley (who was one of the first to measure the height of most of the Lakeland fells), John Dalton (who also estimated the elevation of many of the fells), the surveyor of the Wasdale Head Enclosure map of 30 January 1808 and the all hotel keepers and tour operators who lived or operated in the area, as typified by the many adverts in M. J. B. Baddeleys guide of 1895 (versus the guide text which was consistent with the maps therein). This split between local usage and maps printed by national publishers is further illustrated by the Wasdale Hall Estate Plan and Sales Particulars, dated 30th Sept 1920. This uses the spelling "Scawfell" throughout except in the map attached which was reproduced with permission of the Ordnance Survey. The first edition of the Rock and Fell Club Guide was titled "Climbs on the Scawfell Group". The phonetic "Scawfell" was still noticeably in use in the 1950s.</p><br>
<p>The change to the shorter spelling appears to have originated in the Donald Map of 1774, a document with a noticeable number of placename errors. This was then perpetuated by the Ordnance Survey from 1867. The Donald map is the first to name many mountains in the Lake District - earlier maps concentrated on showing passes through the mountains. Until 1867 the two spellings are roughly equally split on maps, the shorter form being more common with London publishers. General usage at the time was predominantly "Scawfell". The only notable guide book that used "Scafell" prior to 1867 is Ford. The Ordnance Survey produced detailed procedures on capturing correct placenames in 1825, largely as a result of their survey work transferring to Ireland between 1824 and 1838. However, when they restarted their work in England, given the status of Sca Fell as an essential surveying station (taking bearings of Slieve Donard and Snowdon, thereby helping to fix the relative positions of Ireland and England), the familiarity with this mountain probably meant that the "Name Book" procedures were overlooked. Hence the correct enquiries were not made and the mistake of Donald was perpetuated.</p><br>
<p>Wainwright stated that, originally, the name Scawfell/Scafell referred to the whole of the massif from Great End south to Slight Side; only more recently had the general term become applied solely to the part of the fell south of Mickledore. Wainwright&#39;s comments on this in book 4: "When men first named the mountains, the whole of the high mass south of Sty Head was known as Scaw Fell....". However, Jonathan Otley, writing in the first concise guide to the Lake District, maintained that local shepherds applied the name "Scawfell" only as far as Mickledore, with the summits beyond called simply "the Pikes". Otley also comments that the Donald map of 1774 and the Ordnance Survey were incorrect in their naming.</p><br>
<p>The latter was consistently referring to "Sca-Fell Higher Top" and "Sca-Fell Lower Top" from 1809, which Otley identifies as (in their modern names) Scafell Pike and Scafell, something which can be confirmed from the 1811 account, a modern map and some elementary trigonometry.</p><br>
<p>Once Scafell Pike (which has its own convoluted name history) had been identified as England&#39;s highest mountain, that fact and the greater interest in climbing and fell-walking necessitated the Scafell Range being broken down into a number of individually named elements. This process was completed before the death of Jonathan Otley in 1856, as Otley commented on this change.</p><br>
<p>It was once believed that Scafell was the highest mountain in this part of the Lake District &mdash; it is much more prominent in views from many directions than its higher neighbour &mdash; with the three apparently inferior peaks to the north (those now known as Scafell Pike, Ill Crag and Broad Crag) being known collectively as the "Pikes of Scawfell". The heights of many of the fells were first measured by John Dalton (Scafell: 3,240 feet) as a result of his study of meteorology and Jonathan Otley, who published a height of 3,100 feet (944.8 m) for "Scawfell" on his map of 1818. The Ordnance Survey first gave a height of 3,166 feet in 1809, but this remained essentially unpublished until the maps of Cumberland were printed. Dorothy Wordsworth did discover shortly after her ascent of "The Pikes" (Scafell Pike) in 1818 that this peak was higher than Sca Fell - presumably from Otley&#39;s map and guide book.</p><br>
<p>Mickledore  is a narrow ridge, 840 metres  high, connecting the mountains of Sca Fell and Scafell Pike in the English Lake District. It is also a pass between the valleys of Wasdale and Eskdale.</p><br>
<p>The ridge is easily reached and traversed from Scafell Pike to the north, or from the valleys to the east and west. However, access to the summit of Sca Fell is barred by the rockface of Broad Stand, which looks much easier to climb than it is (the climb is "Difficult" in the British grading system ). In descent, the cliff is even more dangerous. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge probably made a descent on 5 August 1802; he wrote:</p><br>
<p>The walker seeking a safe route between Englands highest mountains must go via Foxes Tarn, which involves a descent to 680 m or so, about 160 m below the height of the ridge. The more challenging routes of Lords Rake, and the West Wall Traverse, offer alternative ways to reach Scafell.</p><br>
<p>To the south-west of Mickledore, a notorious accident blackspot, Broad Stand is found. It is a steep buttress wall with sequential bouldering moves, which have been described as anything from scrambling through to rock climbing. The area is described as extremely dangerous by Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team. http://www.wmrt.org.uk/advice/accident-black-spots/scafell-broad-stand/</p><br>
<p>Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain&#39;s highest point, named "Wagagai", is located entirely within Uganda. Although there is no verifiable evidence of its earliest volcanic activity, geologists estimate that Mount Elgon is at least 24 million years old, making it the oldest extinct volcano in East Africa.</p><br>
<h2>Physical features</h2><br>
<p>Mount Elgon is a massive solitary volcanic mountain on the border of eastern Uganda and western Kenya. Its vast form, 80 km in diameter, rises 3,070 m above the surrounding plains. Its cooler heights offer respite for humans from the hot plains below, and its higher altitudes provide a refuge for flora and fauna.</p><br>
<p>Mt. Elgon consists of five major peaks:</p><br>
<p>Wagagai (4,321 m), in Uganda</p><br>
<p>Sudek (4,302 m) on the Kenya/Uganda border</p><br>
<p>Koitobos (4,222 m), a flat-topped basalt column in Kenya</p><br>
<p>Mubiyi (4,211 m) in Uganda</p><br>
<p>Masaba (4,161 m) in Uganda</p><br>
<p>Other features of note are:</p><br>
<p>The caldera &mdash; Elgon&#39;s is one of the largest intact calderas in the world.</p><br>
<p>The warm springs by the Suam River</p><br>
<p>Endebess Bluff (2,563 m)</p><br>
<p>Ngwarisha, Makingeny, Chepnyalil, and Kitum caves: Kitum Cave is over 60 m wide and penetrates 200 m. The cave contains salt deposits and it is frequented by wild elephants that lick the salt exposed by gouging the walls with their tusks. It became notorious following the publication of Richard Preston&#39;s book The Hot Zone in 1994 for its association with the Marburg virus after two people who had visited the cave (one in 1980 and another in 1987) contracted the disease and died.Preston, Richard, The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True-Life Thriller, Bantam Books, 1994.</p><br>
<p>The mountain soils are red laterite. The mountain is the catchment area for the several rivers such as the Suam River, which becomes the Turkwel downstream and drains into Lake Turkana, and the Nzoia River and the Lwakhakha River, which flow to Lake Victoria. The town of Kitale is in the foothills of the mountain. The area around the mountain is protected by two Mount Elgon National Parks, one on each side of the international border.</p><br>
<h2>Flora</h2><br>
<p>Some rare plants are found on the mountain, including Ardisiandra wettsteinii, Carduus afromontanus, Echinops hoehnelii, Ranunculus keniensis, and Romulea keniensis.</p><br>
<h2>Local ethnicities</h2><br>
<p>Mount Elgon and its tributaries are home to four tribes, the Bagisu, the Sapiinjak, the Sabaot, also known as the Elgon Masai and the Ogiek, better known in the region under the derogatory umbrella term Ndorobo.</p><br>
<p>Pyhäjärvi is a lake in southern Finland. Although the name means in modern Finnish "holy lake", it probably meant originally "border lake". Pyhäjärvi is shaped like the letter "C" with the cities of Tampere and Nokia on the northern end, and town of Lempäälä at the southern end.</p><br>
<p>The lake is fed by the water running through the Tammerkoski rapids in the center of Tampere from the North, and by the waters from lake Vanajavesi in the South. Because of the Tammerkoski rapids, the water in Pyhäjärvi is warmer and richer in ozone than that in the northern lake, Näsijärvi, which results in the life in this lake being richer, even though the water is more polluted.</p><br>
<p>There are a number of other Pyhäjärvis in Finland and its former territories, as well.</p><br>
<p>Viikinsaari is an island meaning Viking Island that is found in Pyhäjärvi. On it are held various summer events. There is a church in which can be seen old pagan symbols and a door marked with fist marks. The fist prints were left by the desperate red women that were imprisoned there before being led out and massacred during the Finnish civil war, which was between the Reds and Whites.</p><br>
<p>During the summer there are regular trips from Tampere&#39;s Vieras Satama (Unknown boat Harbour) by pleasure boat to the Island. There is also a dance hall and restaurant there.</p><br>
<p>Lake Winnebago is a freshwater lake in the north central United States, located in east central Wisconsin. At 137,700 acre it is the largest lake entirely within the state, covering an area of about 30 by, with 88 mi of shoreline, an average depth of 15.5 ft, and a maximum depth of 21 ft. It has many shallow reefs along the west shore, and a drop-off type shoreline on the east. There are several islands along the west shore.</p><br>
<p>The lake has two primary tributaries, the Wolf and Fox Rivers, which combine at Lake Butte des Morts. The Fox River flows east through Oshkosh and into Lake Winnebago at its west central shore, then flows out at the northwest shore, around Doty Island at Neenah-Menasha to Little Lake Butte des Morts. The river then flows northeast and empties into Green Bay and serves as part of the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. Lake Winnebago is part of a larger system of lakes in Wisconsin known as the Winnebago Pool.</p><br>
<p>Cities on its shores include the aforementioned Oshkosh, Neenah, and Menasha, as well as Fond du Lac at the south shore. Municipal drinking water systems serving over 250,000 people draw directly from the lake, including systems serving the cities of Oshkosh, Neenah, Menasha, and Appleton.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The lake is a remnant of Glacial Lake Oshkosh approximately 12,000 years ago. Ice blocked water from entering Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and the glacial lake ponded against ice since it had no outlet.</p><br>
<p>The Niagara Escarpment is a few miles east of Lake Winnebago. The softer Ordovician rocks that underlie the lake have eroded away, and the stronger Silurian rocks stand as a ridge that formed the lake basin.</p><br>
<p>In 1634, the French discovered the Winnebago tribe on the shores of Green Bay, inhabiting the area stretching to Lake Winnebago. Although "Ho-Chunk" is the people&#39;s own name for themselves, their Algonquian neighbors called them "Winnebago", which means "people of the filthy water". This term was used by the Algonquians because Lake Winnebago had a strong fish odor in the summer.</p><br>
<p>The steamer B. F. Carter made a trip from the east shore to the west shore at Oshkosh every two weeks in the 1880s during the summer season.</p><br>
<p>Lake Winnebago is known for having occasional ice shoves on very windy days in March as the winter ice breaks up. Residents have described that it "sounds like a freight train." Buildings on the shore have been wrecked by the shoves, which are up to 25 feet high.</p><br>
<h2>Locks and dams</h2><br>
<p>Lake Winnebago is not man-made, but its level was raised about three feet (0.9 m) by two dams on either side of Doty Island, erected in 1850 and 1930. The lake level is today regulated by the USA Army Corps of Engineers to meet demands for flood control, to reduce ice damage to private property, to release water for hydropower and pollution dilution downstream, and to extend the high water season for boating.</p><br>
<p>A system of seventeen locks connects Lake Winnebago to Lake Michigan at Green Bay, an elevation drop of about 150 ft. This lock system is located along the lower Fox River and starts at the northwest corner of Lake Winnebago in the city of Menasha and ends at the mouth of Green Bay. One of the locks, the Rapid Croche Lock, is permanently sealed as a barrier to prevent the movement of sea lamprey upstream, and only three of the remaining locks were being maintained. Lock reconstruction is underway and is being supervised by the Fox River Navigation Authority.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Many annual events take place on the Winnebago Pool, including shoreline concerts, fishing tournaments, power boat events, pleasure boating rallies, sail runs and ice racing.</p><br>
<h3>Boating</h3><br>
<p>Along with the upper lakes of Big Lake Butte des Morts, Winneconne, Poygan, the Wolf River and the upper and lower Fox River, it is a popular pleasure boating area. A 1989 survey of boating intensity by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources ranked the Winnebago Pool as the state&#39;s busiest inland waterway, surpassing the Mississippi River.</p><br>
<h3>Parks</h3><br>
<p>High Cliff State Park on the lake&#39;s northeast shore offers camping, hiking trails, views of the lake, a marina, beach, an observation tower, and picnic areas. Camping is available at Calumet County Park and Columbia County Park in Fond du Lac County. Effigy mounds overlook the lake at High Cliff and Calumet County Park.</p><br>
<p>Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac is a 400 acre municipal park on the southern shore of Lake Winnebago with picnic areas, shelters/gazebos, a playground, a deer park, baseball diamonds, a marina, and boat launch ramps. Train rides, an old fashioned carousel, bumper boats, aqua bikes, and canoes are available for rides. A petting zoo is open Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. Menominee Park in Oshkosh features trails, fishing piers, boat launches, a zoo, a small amusement park, and softball, tennis and basketball facilities. It is the site of the city&#39;s Sawdust Days Festival in July.</p><br>
<h3>Fishing</h3><br>
<p>Lake Winnebago is one of the more heavily fished lakes in the state. Many fishermen consider it one of the nations top walleye fisheries. Other species present include bluegill, largemouth bass, muskellunge, northern pike, perch, burbot, white bass, Crappie, freshwater drum, channel catfish, flathead catfish, and smallmouth bass. In June 2010, Oshkosh hosted an event recognized by Guinness World Records as historys largest fishing tournament. A 2007 study put the economic value of recreational fishing at approximately $300 million per year.</p><br>
<h4>Winter</h4><br>
<p>Ice fishing is popular on Lake Winnebago, and it is not uncommon for 10,000 cars to park on it during the ice fishing season. Expansion cracks on the ice are bridged, and many cities along the east and west shores plow roads on the icy surface. Sauger and walleye predominate, with rare perch and white bass catches.</p><br>
<p>The spearfishing season for lake sturgeon is in February. The first year of regulated sturgeon spearing was 1903, when an eight-pound limit was introduced. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources regulates the number of fish taken each year.</p><br>
<h4>Other seasons</h4><br>
<p>Late spring (between May 5 and June 30) is dominated by walleye and sauger fishing. Sauger, also known as sand pike, bite the best in cooler water. June fishing is the peak time for white bass, and July for perch. Fishing declines in fall.</p><br>
<p>The Grampian Mountains  are one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, occupying a considerable portion of the Scottish Highlands in northeast Scotland. The range extends southwest to northeast between the Highland Boundary Fault and the Great Glen, occupying almost half of the land area of Scotland and including the Cairngorms and the Lochaber hills. The range includes many of the highest mountains in the British Isles, including Ben Nevis and Ben Macdui the two highest.</p><br>
<h2>Extent</h2><br>
<p>There is some ambiguity about the extent of the range. In the introduction of Wyness (1969) the author, writing about Deeside, puts the northern edge of the Grampians at the River Dee when he writes:</p><br>
<p>Clearly, then, Wyness defines the Cairngorm as being the range of mountains running from immediately south of Aberdeen’ westward to Beinn Dearg in the Forest of Atholl.</p><br>
<p>In Watson (1975) the author – while defining the extent of the Cairngorms – specifically excludes the range south of the River Dee, writing:</p><br>
<p>Both Wyness and Watson roughly agree where the eastern, northern, and western limits of The Cairngorms lie.</p><br>
<p>The Grampians extend southwest to northeast between the Highland Boundary Fault and the Great Glen. This includes the Cairngorms and the Lochaber hills. The range includes Ben Nevis (the highest point in the British Isles at 1,344 metres above sea level) and Ben Macdui (the second highest at 1,309 metres).</p><br>
<p>The mountains are composed of granite, gneiss, marble, schists and quartzite. The other major mountain ranges in Scotland are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands.</p><br>
<p>A number of rivers and streams rise in the Grampians: the Tay, Spey, Cowie Water, Burn of Muchalls, Burn of Pheppie, Burn of Elsick, Cairnie Burn, Don, Dee and Esk. The area is generally sparsely populated.</p><br>
<h2>History and name</h2><br>
<p>The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recorded Mons Graupius as the site of the defeat of the native Caledonians by Gnaeus Julius Agricola circa 83 AD. The actual location of Mons Graupius, literally the Graupian Mountain (the element Graupian is of unknown significance), is a matter of dispute among historians, though most favour a location within the Grampian massif, possibly at Raedykes, Megray Hill or Kempstone Hill. The spelling Graupius comes from the Codex Aesinas, a mediaeval copy of Tacituss Germania believed to be from the mid-9th century. "Graupius" was incorrectly rendered "Grampius" only in the 1476 printed edition of Tacituss biography of Agricola. The name Grampians is believed to have first been applied to the mountain range in 1520 by the Scottish historian Hector Boece, an adaptation of the incorrect Mons Grampius. Thus the range owes its name to this day to a typesetter&#39;s mistake.</p><br>
<p>In the Middle Ages, this locale was known as the Mounths, a name still held by a number of geographical features. Until the 19th century, they were generally considered to be more than one range. This view is still held by many today, and they have no single name in the Scottish Gaelic language or Doric dialect of the Lowland Scots. In both languages, a number of names are used. Grampian Region was translated into Scots Gaelic as "Roinn a&#39; Mhonaidh".</p><br>
<h2>Sources</h2><br>
<p>Lake Mai-Ndombe  is a large freshwater lake in the Mai-Ndombe District of the Bandundu Province in western Democratic Republic of the Congo.</p><br>
<p>The lake is within the Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe area, the largest Wetland of International Importance recognized by the Ramsar Convention in the world.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>The lake drains to the south through the Fimi River into the Kwah and Congo Rivers. Known until 1972 as Lake Leopold (after the Leopold II, King of the Belgians, also known as the Butcher of Congo). Mai-Ndombe means “black water” in Lingala. The lake is of irregular shape and ranges in depth from only 5 meters (mean) to 10 meters (maximum). Covering approximately 890 square miles (2,300 square km), it is known to double or triple in size during the rainy season. Its waters are oxygenated throughout their depth and the pH ranges from 4.2 to 5.5. Low, forested shores surround it with dense, humid equatorial rainforest prevailing to the north and a mosaic of forest and savanna to the south.</p><br>
<h2>Biodiversity</h2><br>
<p>The fish of Lake Mai-Ndombe, although presumed to be similar to those of Lake Tumba, have been poorly documented. Since initial surveys from 1909-1916 by George Albert Boulenger, the lake has been a site for the continual discovery of new species. In 1984 a new species of cichlid, Nanochromis transvestitus, named for the fact that it exhibits reverse sexual dichromatism, was discovered in the lake. In 2006 a new species of cichlid, Nanochromis wickleri, was discovered, and in 2008, yet another new species, Chrysichthys praecox, was documented.</p><br>
<h2>Economic activity</h2><br>
<p>Some of the main concession areas of the logging company Sodefor are to the north and south of Lake Mai-Ndombe.</p><br>
<p>On 28 November 2009, two logging barges sank causing the loss of 73 lives. The boat was not authorised to carry passengers, but was believed to have some 270 people on board at the time.</p><br>
<h2>Bibliography</h2><br>
<p>Mapping the vegetation cover of the Mai-Ndombe region (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Regional School of Integrated Forest and Land Management. University of Kinshasa, July 2003</p><br>
<p>Source book for the inland fishery resources of Africa, Vol. 1. J.-P. Vanden Bossche & G.M. Bernacsek</p><br>
<p>Bangweulu — where the water sky meets the sky — is one of the worlds great wetland systems, comprising Lake Bangweulu, the Bangweulu Swamps and the Bangweulu Flats or floodplain. Situated in the upper Congo River basin in Zambia, the Bangweulu system covers an almost completely flat area roughly the size of Connecticut or East Anglia, at an elevation of 1,140 m straddling Zambias Luapula Province and Northern Province. It is crucial to the economy and biodiversity of northern Zambia, and to the birdlife of a much larger region, and faces environmental stress and conservation issues.</p><br>
<p>With a long axis of 75 km and a width of up to 40 km, Lake Bangweulu&#39;s permanent open water surface is about 3,000 km², which expands when its swamps and floodplains are in flood at the end of the rainy season in May. The combined area of the lake and wetlands reaches 15,000 km². The lake has an average depth of only 4 m.</p><br>
<p>The Bangweulu system is fed by about seventeen rivers of which the Chambeshi (the source of the Congo River) is the largest, and is drained by the Luapula River.</p><br>
<h2>Sections of Lake Bangweulu</h2><br>
<p>A notable feature of the Bangweulu system is a series of parallel sandy ridges running south-west to north-east. These are particularly striking in satellite photographs and are easily seen along the north-western shore, the Lifunge Peninsula (2), Mbalala Island (3), Chilubi Island (6), and the Kapata Peninsula (10). They divide the lake into three sections parallel to its main axis. One divides off a section called Lake Chifunabuli (1), 50 km long but only 5 km wide. Its entrance through a gap in the sand spits (at the end of Lifunge Peninsula) is only 250 m wide. Another sandy ridge, Mbabala Island, divides off a section called Lake Walilupe (4), 30 km long by 13 km wide. The main, middle section of the lake between Ifunge and Mbabala is known only as Bangweulu.</p><br>
<p>There are numerous bays, inlets, smaller lakes and lagoons around Lake Bangweulu, connected by open water, narrow channels or swamps. The largest is Lake Kampolombo (9), 30 km by 5 km, south of Lake Walilupe and connected to it by a 7 km channel. The 32 km long Kapata Peninsula lies between Lake Kampolombo and the swamps; at its tip on the eastern side is the 15 km long Lake Kangwena (11).</p><br>
<p>Only the western side of the lake and some of the islands have a well defined shore, with sandy beaches in places especially around Samfya, though even there, some of the bays and inlets are swampy.</p><br>
<h2>The Bangweulu Swamps</h2><br>
<p>The Bangweulu Swamps, larger than the lake, extend from the north-west clockwise around to the south. The main part covers an area of roughly 120 km by 75 km and they are normally not less than 9,000 km².</p><br>
<p>The swamps act as a check on annual flooding downstream in the Luapula by releasing water slowly through many lagoons and channels. They help prevent the Luapula valley being flooded excessively in the rainy season.</p><br>
<h3>Rivers and channels through the swamps</h3><br>
<p>The Bangweulu swamps are fed mainly from the north-east by the Chambeshi River, and drain to the south into the Luapula River. The lake is connected to these rivers, and they to each other, by a complex mass of channels through the swamps that may become choked by vegetation and change their course; there is no easy navigation between them. Floating beds of papyrus may close up the channels to a width allowing only dugout canoes to pass. Motorised vessels are hampered by their width as well as by vegetation clogging propellers. Since colonial times attempts have been made to improve navigation and alter drainage patterns by cutting channels through the swamp. In 1942, attempts were made, with limited success, to cut an outlet from Lake Walilupe to the Luapula&#39;s exit from the swamps, to allow motor boats to transport cassava and other produce from the northern area of the lake to Kapalala Ferry on the Luapula and from there to the Copperbelt.</p><br>
<h3>Lagoons</h3><br>
<p>There are numerous lagoons in the swamps, the more prominent ones are: Lake Chali (12) in the south-west, Lake Chaya (13) in the east at the mouth of the Lulingilla River in the east, Lake Wumba (14) in the north-east at the confluence of the Chambeshi and Luansenshi (20) Rivers, and the Pook Lagoon (15) in the East near Nsalushi Island (25).</p><br>
<h3>Other features of the swamps</h3><br>
<p>On the northern side there are several wide swampy estuaries where rivers enter the lake or swamps, going from north-west to north-east they are: Lupososhi Estuary (16), Luena Estuary (17), Lukuto Estuary (18), Chambeshi Estuary (19) (and Luansenshi Estuary which feeds into it).</p><br>
<p>On the eastern and south-eastern sides the swamps are fed by the Munikashi, Luitikila, Lumbatwa, Lukulu and Lulimala rivers. The estuaries of the last three are the main dry season grazing grounds of the Black Lechwe.</p><br>
<p>In the main part of the swamps, just south of Chilubi Island, is a large area which is very shallow in the flood season and may become fairly dry at the end of the dry season, called the Lunga Bank (27).</p><br>
<p>The lake is commonly assumed to be a prime habitat for Emela-ntouka, an unknown animal resembling a Monoclonius.</p><br>
<h3>Floodplains</h3><br>
<p>Large grassy floodplains with an area of about 3,000 km² lie mainly south of the swamps, but also in the north-north-east, acting as an extension of the region in the wet season. The southern floodplains are famous for large herds of the near-endemic black lechwe. Further information on wildlife of the wetlands is found on the Bangweulu Wetlands ecosystem page.</p><br>
<h3>Water parameters</h3><br>
<p>Water temperatures at the surface of the Bangweulu system ranged from 25.8 to 28.3°C in November 1993 and from 23.7 to 27.1°C in February 1994. The conductivity of the Bangweulu system is unusually low and varies between 20 and 40 µS/cm. Transparency of the water ranges from 0.35 to 0.60 m in most water bodies of the system, but in the Tuchingo lagoon the transparency is much larger (&gt;1.70 m) allowing the bottom to be seen.</p><br>
<h2>European exploration</h2><br>
<p>The lake was known to Europeans from reports by chiefs such as Kazembe and from Swahili traders, and it was sometimes referred to as Lake Bemba from the name of the dominant tribe. In 1868 explorer and missionary David Livingstone was the first European to see the lake at the north end of the Lake Chifunabuli section. He was taken by canoe as far as Mbabala Island. His last expedition a few years later foundered in the swamps and their maze of shifting channels as he struggled to discover the rivers draining in and out of the lake. He died in 1873 in Chief Chitambo&#39;s village on the edge of the southern flood plain, about 100 km from the lake itself. The spot is marked by the Livingstone Memorial (see map). The lake was partially surveyed in 1883 by the French traveller, Victor Giraud, and first circumnavigated by Poulett Weatherley in 1896.</p><br>
<p>It was a desire for the riches of Bangweulu&#39;s fisheries and game-rich floodplain which motivated King Leopold II of Belgium to insist, in border negotiations between his Congo Free State and the British in Northern Rhodesia, on a land corridor reaching Bangweulu from Katanga. This resulted in the shape of the Congo Pedicle (34) which, as it turned out, does not penetrate the area enough to be of the desired value.</p><br>
<p>The first Christian missions in Bangweulu were founded in the early 1900s under the authority of Bishop Joseph Dupont of the Catholic White Fathers who was based north of Kasama.</p><br>
<h2>Human settlement</h2><br>
<p>The area of the lake is inhabited by Bemba people and affiliated tribes who also speak Chibemba. The Bemba heartland of Paramount Chief Chitimukulu lies to the north-east, around Kasama.</p><br>
<h3>The Bangweulu fishery</h3><br>
<p>The lake supports a seasonal fishing industry and the population may increase markedly during the season. In 1989 the average annual catch was estimated at 11,900 tonnes, caught by 10,300 people using 5305 dugout canoes, 114 plank and fibreglass boats, and only 54 outboard motors. In 2000 the catch was 13,500 t.</p><br>
<p>FAO Fisheries Technical Papers T426/2 (2003). Website accessed 24 April 2007.</p><br>
<h3>Natural gas pipeline</h3><br>
<p>In early 2004 a private European natural gas company finished preliminary plans to lay a pipeline which would cut directly through the Southeast portion of the Lake. Part of this plan was a proposed dam to allow for partial drainage of the required part of the lake. This plan was met with harsh opposition from the local people as well as environmental activists. After much court-wrangling and lengthy hearings on the project, the plan was disposed of by the European company as they built a detour for their pipeline in the surrounding province.</p><br>
<h3>Towns and districts</h3><br>
<p>The largest town, Samfya lies on the south western shore and is the principal base for road and boat transport and tourism, as well as being the administrative centre for Samfya District covering about three-quarters of the lake and swamps. Chilubi District covers most of the rest, its boma is on Chilubi Island (6), which is bordered by the swamps to the east. Luwingu District just touches the lake at Nsombo, which is the principal town at the northern end of the lake. Mpika and Kasama districts just touch the eastern and southern margins of the floodplain, and Serenje District and the Congo Pedicle just reach the southern margin of the floodplain.</p><br>
<h3>Islands</h3><br>
<p>There are numerous inhabited islands in the Bangweulu system.</p><br>
<p>On the lake they are:</p><br>
<p>Chilubi Island (6), the largest, partly in the lake and mainly in the swamps</p><br>
<p>Mbabala Island (3), a sand spit dividing off the Lake Walilupe section</p><br>
<p>Chishi Island (5), in the middle of the northern part of the lake</p><br>
<p>Lifunge Mwenzi Island (7), dividing off the northern part of Lake Chifunabuli</p><br>
<p>Small Islands: Chindo and Ibula Islands near the north-west shore, and Chibwe Ngombe Island, a tiny sliver north-west of Chilubi Island.</p><br>
<p>In the swamps:</p><br>
<p>Nsumbu Island (8) east of Chilubi Island</p><br>
<p>In the eastern swamps: Chisale Island, Panyo Island (24), Nsalushi Island (25), Nsumpa Island, Matonga Island and Kawulu Island</p><br>
<p>Near the Chambeshi River where it enters the eastern swamps: Mutwamina Island and Munyanga Island</p><br>
<p>In the southern swamps: Ncheta Island (26) (with the village of Bwalya Mponda), and Mbo, east of the Luapula&#39;s exit from the swamps</p><br>
<p>Kasoma village on the south-east edge of the Lunga Bank</p><br>
<p>Kalimakonde village on the banks of the Churchill Channel</p><br>
<p>Flood season islands: on the edge of the swamps, connected to the mainland in the dry season:</p><br>
<p>In the north-east: Kasansa Island (23), Chichile Island (22), Luangwa Island, Mbishi Island, and Munkanta at the edge of Lake Chaya, where the Lulingila River enters the eastern swamps.</p><br>
<p>In the south: Kasenga (28), close to the outlet of Lake Kangwena, Kataba (29), and Yongolo, and Itulo at the edge of south-east swamps.</p><br>
<h4>Other settlements</h4><br>
<p>Lubwe (30) on Lake Chifunabuli has a Catholic mission and hospital</p><br>
<p>Kasaba (31), a Catholic mission in the north-west</p><br>
<p>Santa Maria, a mission on Chilubi Island</p><br>
<p>Mpanta, east of Samfya on the channel draining out of Lake Walilupe</p><br>
<p>Twingi (32), with a mission, at the south end of the Kapata Peninsula</p><br>
<p>Chaba (33), in the north-east</p><br>
<p>Mofu, in the north-east.</p><br>
<p>Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes. It lies on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and is in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Lake Kivu empties into the Ruzizi River, which flows southwards into Lake Tanganyika.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Lake Kivu is approximately 90 km long and 50 km at its widest. Its irregular shape makes measuring its precise surface area difficult; it has been estimated to cover a total surface area of some 2,700 km&sup2;. The surface of the lake sits at a height of 1,460 m above sea level. The lake has a maximum depth of 475 m and a mean depth of 220 m, making it the world&#39;s eighteenth deepest lake by maximum depth, and the ninth deepest by mean depth.</p><br>
<p>Some 1,370 km or 58 percent of the lake&#39;s waters lie within DRC borders.</p><br>
<p>The lake bed sits upon a rift valley that is slowly being pulled apart, causing volcanic activity in the area.</p><br>
<p>The worlds tenth-largest island on a lake, Idjwi, lies in Lake Kivu, within the boundaries of Virunga National Park. Settlements on the lakes shore include Bukavu, Kabare, Kalehe, Sake and Goma in Congo, and Gisenyi, Kibuye, and Cyangugu in Rwanda.</p><br>
<h2>Chemistry</h2><br>
<p>Lake Kivu is a fresh water lake and, along with Cameroonian Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun, is one of three that are known to undergo limnic eruptions. Around the lake, geologists found evidence of massive biological extinctions about every thousand years, presumably caused by outgassing events. The trigger for lake overturns is unknown in Lake Kivus case, but volcanic activity is suspected. The gaseous chemical composition of exploding lakes is unique to each lake, in Lake Kivus case, methane and carbon dioxide due to lake water interaction with a volcano.</p><br>
<p>The amount of methane is estimated to be 65 cubic kilometres. If burnt over one year, it would give an average power of about 100 gigawatts for the whole period. There is also an estimated 256 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide. The water temperature is 24 °C, and the pH level is about 8.6. The methane is reported to be produced by microbial reduction of the volcanic CO2. A future overturn and gas release from the deep waters of Lake Kivu would result in catastrophe, dwarfing the historically documented lake overturns at Lakes Nyos and Monoun. The lives of the approximately two million people who live in the lake basin area would be in jeopardy.</p><br>
<p>Cores from the Bukavu Bay area of the lake reveal that the bottom has layered deposits of the rare mineral monohydrocalcite interlain with diatoms, on top of sapropelic sediments with high pyrite content. These are found at three different intervals. The sapropelic layers are believed to be related to hydrothermal discharge and the diatoms to a bloom which reduced the carbon dioxide levels low enough to precipitiate monohydrocalcite.</p><br>
<p>Scientists hypothesise that sufficient volcanic interaction with the lake&#39;s bottom water that has high gas concentrations would heat water, force the methane out of the water, spark a methane explosion, and trigger a nearly simultaneous release of carbon dioxide.</p><br>
<p>The carbon dioxide would then suffocate large numbers of people in the lake basin as the gases roll off the lake surface. It is also possible that the lake could spawn lake tsunamis as gas explodes out of it.</p><br>
<p>The risk posed by Lake Kivu began to be understood during the analysis of more recent events at Lake Nyos. Lake Kivu&#39;s methane was originally thought to be merely a cheap natural resource for export, and for the generation of cheap power. Once the mechanisms that caused lake overturns began to be understood, so did awareness of the risk the lake posed to the local population.</p><br>
<p>An experimental vent pipe was installed at Lake Nyos in 2001 to remove gas from the deep water, but such a solution for the much larger Lake Kivu would be considerably more expensive. No plan has been initiated to reduce the risk posed by Lake Kivu. The approximately 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in the lake is a little under 2 percent of the amount released annually by human fossil fuel burning. Therefore, the process of releasing it could potentially have costs beyond building and operating the system.</p><br>
<p>This problem associated with the prevalence of methane is that of mazuku, the Swahili term "evil wind" for the outgassing of methane and carbon dioxide that kills people and animals, and can even kill vegetation when in high enough concentration.</p><br>
<h3>Methane extraction</h3><br>
<p>Lake Kivu has recently been found to contain approximately 55 billion cubic metres (1.94 trillion cubic feet) of dissolved biogas at a depth of 300 m. Until 2004, extraction of the gas was done on a small scale, with the extracted gas being used to run boilers at the Bralirwa brewery in Gisenyi. As far as large-scale exploitation of this resource is concerned, the Rwandan government has negotiated with a number of parties to produce methane from the lake.</p><br>
<p>In 2011 ContourGlobal, a USA based energy company focused on emerging markets, secured project financing to initiate a large-scale methane extraction project. The project will be run through a local Rwandan entity called KivuWatt, using an offshore barge platform to extract, separate, and clean the gasses obtained from the lake bed before pumping purified methane via an underwater pipeline to on-shore gas engines. Stage one of the project aims to build and supply three "gensets" along the lake shore, totalling 25 MW of electrical capacity. Initial project operations are scheduled to commence in 2012.</p><br>
<p>In addition to managing gas extraction, KivuWatt will also manage the electrical generation plants and on-sell the electrical power to the Rwandan government under the terms of a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). This allows KivuWatt to control a vertically integrated energy offering from point of extraction to point of sale into the local grid. Extraction is said to be cost-effective and relatively simple because once the gas-rich water is pumped up, the dissolved gases (primarily carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and methane) begin to bubble out as the water pressure gets lower. This project is expected to increase Rwanda&#39;s energy generation capability by as much as 20 times, and will enable Rwanda to sell electricity to neighbouring African countries. The firm was awarded the 2011 Africa Power deal of the year for innovation in the financing arrangements it obtained from various sources for the KivuWatt project. The $200 million power plant was operating at 26 MW in 2016.</p><br>
<h2>Biology and fisheries</h2><br>
<p>The fish fauna in Lake Kivu is relatively poor with 28 described species, including four introduced species. The natives are the Lake Rukwa minnow (Raiamas moorii), four species of barb (Ripon barbel, Barbus altianalis, East African red-finned barb, Enteromius. apleurogramma, Redspot barb, Enteromius kerstenii and Pellegrin&#39;s barb, Enteromius pellegrini), an Amphilius catfish, two Clarias catfish (C. liocephalus and C. gariepinus), Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and 15 endemic Haplochromis cichlids. Another c. 20 possibly undescribed species of cichlids are known from the lake. The introduced species are three cichlids, the longfin tilapia (Oreochromis macrochir), O. leucostictus and redbreast tilapia (Coptodon rendalli), and a clupeid, the Lake Tanganyika sardine, Limnothrissa miodon.</p><br>
<p>The exploitable stock of the Lake Tanganyika sardine was estimated at 2000–4000 tons per year. It was introduced to Lake Kivu in the late 1959 by a Belgian Engineer A. Collart. At present, Lake Kivu is the sole natural lake in which L. miodon, a sardine originally restricted to Lake Tanganyika, has been introduced initially to fill an empty niche. Prior to the introduction, no planktivorous fish was present in the pelagic waters of Lake Kivu. In the early 1990s, the number of fishers on the lake was 6,563, of which 3,027 were associated with the pelagic fishery and 3,536 with the traditional fishery. Widespread armed conflict in the surrounding region from the mid-1990s resulted in a decline in the fisheries harvest.</p><br>
<p>Following this introduction, the sardine has gained substantial economic and nutritional importance for the lakeside human population but from an ecosystem standpoint, the introduction of planktivorous fish may result in important modifications of plankton community structure. Recent observations showed the disappearance during the last decades of a large grazer, Daphnia curvirostris, and the dominance of mesozooplankton community by three species of cyclopoid copepod: Thermocyclops consimilis, Mesocyclops aequatorialis and Tropocyclops confinis.</p><br>
<p>The first comprehensive phytoplankton survey was released in 2006. With an annual average chlorophyll a in the mixed layer of 2.2 mg m and low nutrient levels in the euphotic zone, the lake is clearly oligotrophic. Diatoms are the dominant group in the lake, particularly during the dry season episodes of deep mixing. During the rainy season, the stratified water column, with high light and lower nutrient availability, favour dominance of cyanobacteria with high numbers of phototrophic picoplankton. The actual primary production is 0.71 g C m d (≈ 260 g C m a).</p><br>
<p>A study of evolutionary genetics showed that the cichlids from lakes in northern Virunga (e.g., Edward, George, Victoria) would have evolved in a "proto-lake Kivu", much older than the intense volcanic activity (20,000-25,000 years ago) which cut the connection. The elevation of the mountains west of the lake (which is currently the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, one of the largest reserves of eastern lowland (or Grauers) gorillas in the world), combined with the elevation of the eastern rift (located in eastern Rwanda) would be responsible for drainage of water from central Rwanda in the actual Lake Kivu. This concept of "proto-lake Kivu" was challenged by lack of consistent geological evidence, although the cichlids molecular clock suggests the existence of a lake much older than the commonly cited 15,000 years.</p><br>
<p>Lake Kivu is the home of four species of freshwater crab, including two non-endemics (Potamonautes lirrangensis and P. mutandensis) and two endemics (P. bourgaultae and P. idjwiensis). Among Rift Valley lakes, Lake Tanganyika is the only other with endemic freshwater crabs.</p><br>
<p>Lake Edward, Rutanzige or Edward Nyanza is the smallest of the African Great Lakes. It is located in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo  and Uganda, with its northern shore a few kilometres south of the equator.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Henry Morton Stanley first saw the lake in 1888, during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. The lake was named in honour of Prince Albert Edward, The Prince of Wales, son of then British-monarch Queen Victoria, and later to become King Edward VII.</p><br>
<p>In 1973, Uganda and Zaire (DRC) renamed it Lake Idi Amin or Lake Idi Amin Dada after Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. After his overthrow in 1979, it recovered its original name.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<h3>Topography and drainage</h3><br>
<p>Lake Edward lies at an elevation of 920 m, is 77 km long by 40 km wide at its maximum points, and covers a total surface area of 2,325 km&sup2, making it the 15th-largest on the continent. The lake is fed by the Nyamugasani River, the Ishasha River, the Rutshuru River, the Ntungwe River, and the Rwindi River. Lake George to the northeast empties into it via the Kazinga Channel. Lake Edward empties to the north via the Semliki River into Lake Albert.</p><br>
<p>The western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley towers up to 2,000 m above the western shore of the lake. The southern and eastern shores are flat lava plains. The Ruwenzori Mountains are 20 km north of the lake.</p><br>
<h3>Volcanism</h3><br>
<p>The region shows much evidence of volcanic activity over the last 5000 years. The Katwe-Kikorongo and Bunyaruguru Volcanic Fields, with extensive cones and craters, lie either side of the Kazinga Channel on the northwest shore of the lake. It is thought that Lakes George and Edward used to be joined as one larger lake, but lava from these fields flowed in and divided it, leaving only the Kazinga Channel as the remnant of the past union. To the south lies the May-ya-Moto thermally active volcano 30 km away, and the Nyamuragira volcano in the western Virunga Mountains lies 80 km south, but its lava flows have reached the lake in the past.</p><br>
<p>The Katwe-Kikorongo field features dozens of large craters and cones covering an area of 30 km by 15 km between lakes Edward and George, and includes seven crater lakes. The largest of these, the 2.5 km long Lake Katwe, occupies a crater 4 km across and is separated from Lake Edward by just 300 m of land. The crater is about 100 m deep, and Lake Katwes surface is about 40 m lower than Lake Edwards. It is remarkable that the volcanic origin of this area southeast of the Ruwenzoris was not known until it was reported by G. F. Scott Elliot in 1894. Stanley visited Lake Katwe in 1889 and noted the deep depression, the salinity of the lake, and a spring of sulphurous water nearby, but he failed to connect this to volcanism.</p><br>
<p>Holmes, A. and Harwood, H.F. (1932), Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 88 (1-4), p. 370&ndash;442,</p><br>
<p>The similarly-sized Bunyaruguru field on the other side of the Kazinga Channel contains about 30 crater lakes, some of which are larger than Katwe.</p><br>
<h3>Settlements</h3><br>
<p>Lake Edward lies completely within the Virunga National Park (Congo) and the Queen Elizabeth National Park (Uganda) and does not have extensive human habitation on its shores, except at Ishango (DRC) in the north, home to a park ranger training facility. About two-thirds of its waters are in the DRC and one third in Uganda. Apart from Ishango, the main Congolese settlement in the south is Vitshumbi, while the Ugandan settlements are Mweya and Katwe in the northeast, near the crater lake of that name, which is the chief producer of salt for Uganda. The nearest cities are Kasese in Uganda to the northeast and Butembo in the DRC to the northwest, which are respectively about 50 km and 150 km distant by road.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>Lake Edward is home to many species of fish, including populations of Bagrus docmak, Sarotherodon niloticus, Sarotherodon leucostictus, and over 50 species of Haplochromis and other haplochromine species, of which only 25 are formally described. Fishing is an important activity among local residents. Fauna living on the banks of the lake &ndash; including chimpanzees, elephants, crocodiles, and lions &ndash; are protected by the national parks. The area is also home to many perennial and migratory bird species.</p><br>
<p>Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya, outside the town of Naivasha in Nakuru County, which lies north west of Nairobi. It is part of the Great Rift Valley. The name derives from the local Maasai name Nai&#39;posha, meaning "rough water" because of the sudden storms which can arise.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Lake Naivasha is at the highest elevation of the Kenyan Rift valley at 1,884 m in a complex geological combination of volcanic rocks and sedimentary deposits from a larger Pleistocene era lake.</p><br>
<p>Apart from transient streams, the lake is fed by the perennial Malewa and Gilgil rivers. There is no visible outlet, but since the lake water is relatively fresh it is assumed to have an underground outflow.</p><br>
<p>The lake has a surface area of 139 km²,</p><br>
<p>"THE OUTFLOW OF LAKE NAIVASHA BASED ON THE STABLE ISOTOPE COMPOSITION"</p><br>
<p>(characteristics), M.K. Arusei, J. K Sanga, M.P Tole, Department of Chemistry,</p><br>
<p>School of Environmental Studies, Moi University, P.O Box 3900 Eldoret, Kenya,</p><br>
<p>webpage:.</p><br>
<p>and is surrounded by a swamp which covers an area of 64 square km, but this can vary largely depending on rainfall. It is situated at an altitude of 1,884 metres (6,180 ft).</p><br>
<p>The lake has an average depth of 6 m (20 ft), with the deepest area being at Crescent Island, at a maximum depth of 30 m (100 ft).</p><br>
<p>Njorowa Gorge used to form the lakes outlet, but it is now high above the lake and forms the entrance to Hells Gate National Park.</p><br>
<p>The town of Naivasha (formerly East Nakuru) lies on the north-east edge of the lake.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>The lake is home to a variety of types of wildlife including over 400 different species of bird and a sizeable population of hippos. The fish community in the lake has been highly variable over time, influenced by changes in climate, fishing effort and the introduction of invasive species. The most recent shift in the fish population followed the accidental introduction of common carp in 2001. Nine years later, in 2010, common carp accounted for over 90% of the mass of fish caught in the lake.</p><br>
<p>There are two smaller lakes in the vicinity of Lake Naivasaha: Lake Oloiden and Lake Sonachi (a green crater lake). The Crater Lake Game Sanctuary lies nearby, while the lake shore is known for its population of European immigrants and settlers.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Between 1937 and 1950, the lake was used as a landing place for flying boats on the Imperial Airways passenger and mail route from Southampton in Britain to South Africa. It linked Kisumu and Nairobi. Joy Adamson, the author of Born Free, lived on the shores of the lake in the mid-1960s. On the shores of the lake is Oserian ("Djinn Palace"), which gained notoriety in the Happy Valley days between the two world wars. It now forms part of the Oserian flower farm. In 1999, the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association received the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for its conservation efforts regarding the Lake Naivasha Ramsar site.</p><br>
<h2>Agriculture and Industry</h2><br>
<p>Floriculture forms the main industry around the lake. However, the largely unregulated use of lake water for irrigation is reducing the level of the lake and is the subject of concern in Kenya.</p><br>
<p>Fishing in the lake is also another source of employment and income for the local population. The lake varies in level greatly and almost dried up entirely in the 1890s. Lake levels in general follow the rainfall pattern in the catchment area.</p><br>
<p>In 1981, the first geothermal plant for Lake Naivasha was commissioned and by 1985, a total of 45 MW of electricity was being generated in the area.</p><br>
<p>The water level for Lake Naivasha reached a low level of 0.6 m depth in 1945,</p><br>
<p>but the water level rose again, with minor drops, to reach a maximum depth nearly 6 m in 1968. There was another major decline of the water level in 1987, when the depth reached 2.25 m above the lake bottom. The decline of the lake water level in 1987 increased concern in the future of geothermal industry, and it was speculated that Lake Naivasha underground water might be feeding the geothermal reservoir at Olkaria. Hence, the decline in the lake water would affect the future of the geothermal industry.</p><br>
<p>Lake Abaya  is a lake in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples&#39; Region of Ethiopia.</p><br>
<p>In 1896 Lake Abaya was renamed "Lake Margherita" after the Queen Margherita of Savoy, wife of King Humbert I of Italy by the Italian explorer Vittorio Bottego who first explored the region. The name "Lake Margherita" (Lago Margherita) is still used in Italy while is now obsolete in other countries.</p><br>
<p>Lake Abaya is located in the Main Ethiopian Rift, east of the Guge Mountains. It is fed on its northern shore by the Bilate which rises on the southern slopes of Mount Gurage, and the Gidabo. The town of Arba Minch lies on its southwestern shore, and the southern shores are part of the Nechisar National Park. Just to the south is Lake Chamo. Lake Abaya is 60 kilometers long and 20 wide, with a surface area of 1162 square kilometers. It has a maximum depth of 13.1 meters and is at an elevation of 1285 meters. There are a number of islands in this lake, the largest being Aruro; others include Gidicho, Welege, Galmaka, and Alkali. The lake is red due to a high load of suspended sediments. Lake Abaya does not always have an outflow, but in some years it overflows into Lake Chamo.</p><br>
<p>Savanna, known for its wildlife and birdlife surrounds the lake, which is also fished by local people. According to the Ethiopian Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, 412 tonnes of fish are landed each year, which the department estimates is 69% of its sustainable amount.</p><br>
<p>Lake Ngami is an endorheic lake in Botswana north of the Kalahari Desert. It is seasonally filled by the Taughe River, an effluent of the Okavango River system flowing out of the western side of the Okavango Delta. It is one of the fragmented remnants of the ancient Lake Makgadikgadi. Although the lake has shrunk dramatically beginning from 1890, it remains an important habitat for birds and wildlife, especially in flood years.</p><br>
<p>Lake Ngami had many famous visitors during the 19th (and into the 20th) century. In 1849 David Livingstone described it as a "shimmering lake, some 80 mi long and 20 wide". Livingstone also made a few cultural notes about the people living in this area; he noticed they had a story similar to that of the Tower of Babel, except that the builders heads were "cracked by the fall of the scaffolding" (Missionary Travels, chap. 26). Charles John Andersson (who published Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries during Four Years Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa in 1856) and Frederick Thomas Green also visited the area in the early 1850s. Frederick Lugard led a British expedition to the lake in 1896. Arnold Weinholt Hodson passed through the area on his journey from Serowe to Victoria Falls in 1906.</p><br>
<p>Ngami Lacuna, a methane lake on Saturn&#39;s moon Titan is named after this lake.</p><br>
<p>The African Great Lakes  are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the third-largest fresh water lake in the world by area, and Lake Tanganyika, the world&#39;s second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth. Collectively, they contain 31,000 km  of water, which is more than either Lake Baikal or the North American Great Lakes. This total constitutes about 25% of the planet&#39;s unfrozen surface fresh water.</p><br>
<p>The large rift lakes of Africa are the ancient home of great biodiversity; 10% of the world&#39;s fish species live there.</p><br>
<p>Countries in the African Great Lakes region (sometimes also called Greater Lakes region) include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.</p><br>
<p>A conference will be held on the lakes region in 2017 in Uganda.</p><br>
<p>The Great Lakes area, where colonial era borders cut through ethnic groups, has in the last 20 years been a crucible of conflict that has launched multiple uprisings and invasions. The United Nations, the United States, and several European countries have special envoys or representatives to the Great Lakes region. On June 18, 2013, Russ Feingold was appointed United States Special Representative for the region by United States Secretary of State John Kerry. He announced his departure from the position on February 24, 2015.</p><br>
<h2>Lakes and drainage basins</h2><br>
<p>The following are included on most lists of the African Great Lakes, grouped by drainage basin:</p><br>
<p>Lake Victoria</p><br>
<p>Lake Albert</p><br>
<p>Lake Edward</p><br>
<p>Lake Tanganyika</p><br>
<p>Lake Kivu</p><br>
<p>Lake Malawi</p><br>
<p>Lake Turkana</p><br>
<p>The exact number of lakes considered part of the African Great Lakes varies by list, and may include smaller lakes in the rift valleys, especially if they are part of the same drainage basin as the larger lakes, such as Lake Kyoga.</p><br>
<h2>African Great Lakes Region</h2><br>
<p>The African Great Lakes region consists of countries that surround the African Great Lakes. It comprises Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.</p><br>
<p>The Bantu Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region. It also serves as a national or official language of four nations in the region: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.</p><br>
<p>Due to the high population density of an estimated 107 million people, and the agricultural surplus in the region, the area became organized into a number of small states. The most powerful of these monarchies were Buganda, Bunyoro, Rwanda, and Burundi. Unusual for sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional borders were largely maintained by the colonial powers.</p><br>
<p>Being the long sought after source of the Nile, the region had long been of interest to Europeans. The first Europeans to arrive in the region in any numbers were missionaries who had limited success in converting the locals, but did open the region to later colonization. The increased contact with the rest of the world led to a series of devastating epidemics affecting both humans and livestock. While seen as a region with great potential after independence, the region has in recent decades been marred by civil war and conflict, from which only Tanzania has escaped. According to the UNHCR, Tanzania hosted the most Congolese refugees of the region. The worst affected areas have been left in great poverty.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The highlands are relatively cool, with average temperatures of 17–19˚C and abundant rainfall. Major drainage basins include those of the Congo-Zaire, Nile, and Zambezi rivers, which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean, respectively.</p><br>
<p>Forests are dominant in the lowlands of the Congo-Zaire Basin, while grasslands and savannas are most common in the southern and eastern highlands. Temperatures in the lowlands average about 95 °F (about 35 °C). Around Lake Turkana, the climate is hot and very dry.</p><br>
<p>A short rainy season in October is followed by a longer one from April to May.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>The Western Rift Valley lakes are freshwater and home to an extraordinary number of endemic species. More than 1,500 cichlid fish species live in the lakes, as well as other fish families. The lakes are also important habitats for a number of amphibian species. Nile crocodiles are numerous. Mammals include elephants, gorillas and hippopotamus.</p><br>
<p>The Lake Turkana area is home to hundreds of species of birds endemic to Kenya. The flamingo wades in its shallows. The East African rift system also serves as a flyway for migrating birds, bringing in hundreds more. The birds are essentially supported by plankton masses in the lake, which also feed the fish there.</p><br>
<p>Vegetation ranges from rainforest to savanna grasses. In some lakes, rapidly growing invasive plants, like the surface-choking water hyacinth and shore-clogging papyrus, are problems. Water hyacinth have thus far affected only Lake Victoria.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Until 12 million years ago, the bountiful waters of the equatorial plateau either flowed west into the Congo River system or east to the Indian Ocean. Creation of the Great Rift Valley changed that. A rift is a weak place in Earth&#39;s crust due to the separation of two tectonic plates, often accompanied by a graben, or trough, in which lake water can collect. This rift began when East Africa, impelled by currents in the mantle, began separating from the rest of Africa, moving to the northeast. The basins that resulted from the geological uplifts filled with water that now flowed north.</p><br>
<p>Lake Victoria is not actually within the Rift Valley. It occupies a depression between the Eastern and Western Rifts, formed by the uplift of the rifts to either side.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeology</h2><br>
<p>Around two to three million years ago, Lake Turkana was larger and the area more fertile, making it a center for early hominids. Richard Leakey led numerous anthropological excavations in the area, which yielded many important discoveries of hominin remains. The two-million-year-old Skull 1470 was found in 1972. It was originally thought to be Homo habilis, but some anthropologists have assigned it to a new species, Homo rudolfensis, named after the lake (previously known as Lake Rudolf). In 1984, the Turkana Boy, a nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus boy was discovered. More recently, a 3,500,000-year-old skull was discovered there, named Kenyanthropus platyops, which means "The Flat-Faced Man of Kenya".</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Fishing—primarily of tilapia species but also of Nile perch—provides the main livelihood. With four Great Lakes on its borders, Uganda ranks as one of the world&#39;s largest producers of freshwater fish. The climate and rich volcanic soils in the highlands also sustain intensely cultivated croplands.</p><br>
<p>The economies of the Great Lakes region states have different structures and are at various stages of development. The GDP real growth rate ranges from 5.1 percent in Burundi to 6.4 in DRC. GDP per capita fluctuates between $700 in DRC and Burundi and $1,900 in Uganda.</p><br>
<p>Seram  is the largest and main island of Maluku province of Indonesia, despite Ambon Island&#39;s historical importance. It is located just north of smaller Ambon Island and a few other surrounding islands, such as Haruku, Geser, Nusalaut, Banda and Saparua.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<p>Seram is traversed by a central mountain range, the highest point of which, Mount Binaiya, is covered with dense rain forests. Its remarkably complex geology is because of its location at the meeting of several tectonic microplates, which has been described as "one of the most tectonically complex areas on Earth". Seram actually falls on its own microplate, which has been twisted around by 80° in the last 8 million years by the relatively faster movement of the Papua microplate. Meanwhile, along with the northward push of the Australian Plate, this has resulted in the uplift that gives north-central Seram peaks of over 3000 m. On the island are important karst areas. In the mountains near Sawai is the cave Hatu Saka, currently the deepest cave in Indonesia (-388 m). In Taniwell district, on the north coast, is the underground river Sapalewa, one of the largest underground rivers on the planet.</p><br>
<p>The population of the island in the 2010 Census was 434,113 people, administered among 3 regencies, Maluku Tengah Regency had 170,392 people on Seram Island itself and 191,306 on the lesser islands (majority on Ambon Island), the entirety of Seram Bagian Barat Regency and Seram Bagian Timur Regency.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>Seram Island is remarkable for its high degree of localised bird endemism. From the 117 species of birds on the island, 14 are endemic, including the eclectus parrot, purple-naped lory, salmon-crested cockatoo, lazuli kingfisher, sacred kingfisher, grey-necked friarbird and Moluccan king parrot.</p><br>
<p>The mammals found on Seram include Asian species (murid rodents) as well as Australasian marsupials. The montane area of Seram supports the greatest number of endemic mammals of any island in the region. It harbors 38 mammal species and includes nine species that are endemic or near endemic, several of which are limited to montane habitats. These include the Seram bandicoot, Moluccan flying fox, Seram flying-fox, Manusela mosaic-tailed rat, spiny Ceram rat and the Ceram rat, all considered threatened.</p><br>
<p>Saltwater crocodiles exist within some of the island&#39;s rivers, including the Salawai River.</p><br>
<p>In the eastern part of the island, Manusela National Park has been established in 1997, covering an area of 1,890 km² (11% of the island).</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Most central Moluccans consider Seram to be their original ancestral home and it is still known colloquially as Nusa Ina (Mother Island).</p><br>
<p>In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Seram was generally within the sphere of influence of Ternate, although it was often ruled more directly by the Ternaten vassal state of Buru. The expedition of António de Abreu (as captain) and Francisco Serrão sighted and explored the entire southern coast of Seram in early 1512, for the first time for Europeans. Portuguese missionaries were active there in the 16th century. Dutch trading posts were opened in the early 17th century, and the island came under nominal Dutch control c. 1650. In the 1780s, Seram provided a key base of support for Prince Nuku of Tidores long-running rebellion against Dutch rule. From 1954 until 1962 the islands mountain terrain was the scene of an armed guerilla struggle against Indonesian rule by the counter revolutionary Republic of South Moluccas movement led by Soumokil.</p><br>
<h2>Administration</h2><br>
<p>Seram includes three of the regencies within the province of Maluku. West Seram (Kabupaten Seram Bagian Barat), capital at Dataran Hunipopu, had a population (2003) of 140,657; and Eastern Seram (Kabupaten Seram Bagian Timur), capital at Dataran Hunimoa, had a population (2003) of 78,336. The Central Maluku Regency (Kabupaten Maluku Tengah), with its capital at Masohi, includes the middle part of Ceram, as well as some other smaller islands.</p><br>
<h2>Religion</h2><br>
<p>Seram has been traditionally associated with the animism of the indigenous Alfur (or Nuaulu), a West Melanesian people who reputedly retained a custom of headhunting until the 1940s. Today, however, most of the population of Seram today is either Muslim or Christian due to both conversion and immigration. Seram was affected by the violent inter-religious conflict that swept Maluku province starting in late 1998, resulting in tens of thousands of displaced persons across the province but after the Malino II Accord agreement tempers cooled. Seram has been peaceful for many years but towns like Masohi remain informally divided into de facto Christian and Muslim sections.</p><br>
<p>Around 7,000 people belonging to the Manusela tribe follow Hinduism.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Copra, resin, sago, and fish are important products. Oil is produced in the northeast near Bula by CITIC Seram Energy who took over from KUFPEC (Indonesia) Limited in 2006. The Oseil oil field is located onshore in the northeast of the island in the Seram Non-Bula Production Sharing Contract area.</p><br>
<p>The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is a National Historical Park of original and reconstructed 19th century buildings in Appomattox County, Virginia. The village is famous as the site of the Battle of Appomattox Court House and containing the house of Wilmer McLean, where the surrender of the Confederate army under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War. The McLean House was the site of the surrender conference, but the village itself is named for the presence nearby of what is now preserved as the Old Appomattox Court House.</p><br>
<p>The park was established August 3, 1935. The village was made a national monument in 1940 and a national historical park in 1954. It is located about three miles (5 km) east of Appomattox, Virginia, the location of the Appomattox Station and the "new" Appomattox Court House. It is in the center of the state about 25 mi east of Lynchburg, Virginia.The historical park was described in 1989 as having an area of 1,325 acre.</p><br>
<h2>History of the village</h2><br>
<p>The antebellum village started out as "Clover Hill" named after its oldest existing structure, the Clover Hill Tavern (c. 1819). The village was a stagecoach stop along the Richmond-Lynchburg stage road. The activity in Clover Hill centered around Clover Hill Tavern. The tavern provided lodging to travelers. Fresh horses for the stage line were also provided at the stop, which had been done since the tavern was built. It was also the site of organizational meetings and so when Appomattox County was established by an Act on February 8, 1845, Clover Hill village became the county seat. It was parts of Buckingham, Prince Edward, Charlotte, and Campbell Counties. The jurisdiction took its name from the headwaters that emanate there, the Appomattox River. Early Virginians believe the name Appomattox came from an Indian tribe called Apumetec.</p><br>
<p>From about 1842, Hugh Raine basically owned most of the Clover Hill area. He obtained it from his brother John Raine who defaulted on his loans. Later, he sold the property to a Colonel Samuel D. McDearmon. Since his acquisition, it became the county seat and he surveyed 30 acre of the hamlet. He designated 2 acre to be used by the new county to build a courthouse and other government buildings. The courthouse was to be built across the Stage Road from the Clover Hill Tavern. The jail was to be built behind the courthouse. McDearmon divided the remaining land surrounding the courthouse into 1 acre lots. He felt that with Clover Hill&#39;s new status as a county seat he would find professional people ready and willing to purchase the lots. His hopes were later dashed in 1854 as the train depot stopped three miles (5 km) west in Appomattox, Virginia. The American Civil War put the final nails in the coffin. The district once known as Clover Hill and later renamed to Appomattox Court House continued to decline as businesses moved to the area of the Appomattox Station.</p><br>
<p>The village contained 30 acre of the original Patteson&#39;s Clover Hill Tavern property of some 200 acre.</p><br>
<p>The county records show:</p><br>
<p>According to a Union writer at the time of the American Civil War the village consisted of about "five houses, a tavern, and a courthouse &mdash; all on one street that was boarded up at one end to keep the cows out." There were actually more dwellings in this obscure hamlet, some of which were off the main village street. There were a large number of cabins and out-buildings. The hamlet had two stores, law offices, a saddler, wheelwright, three blacksmiths, and other businesses. A tavern had been built by John Raine in 1848 that became the celebrated McLean house. Many rural counties in the Southern States had county seats whose names were formed by adding court house (two words) to the name of the county, hence the village name became Appomattox Court House.</p><br>
<p>It presently has a couple of dozen restored buildings. Some of the notable buildings are the Peers House, McLean House, New County Jail, Jones Law Office, Clover Hill Tavern, Woodson Law Office, Bocock-Isbell House, Mariah Wright House, Plunkett-Meeks Store, Sweeney-Conner Cabin, Charles Sweeney Cabin, Sweeney Prizery and the Old Appomattox Court House. There are also various ruins and cemeteries within the village. At the time of the Act of Congress that authorized the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in 1935, the existing buildings were the Clover Hill Tavern, the Tavern guest house and kitchen, the Woodson Law office structure, the Plunkett-Meeks Store, the Bocock-Isbell House, and several residences outside the village limits.</p><br>
<p>There are several markers throughout the field of the village that show points of interest within the Park. Some of these are the sites of General Lees and General Grants headquarters; the site of the apple tree where General Lee waited for General Grants reply on the morning of April 9, 1865; the line of General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlains temporarily commanding the 1st Division of the V Corps, drawn up to receive the Confederate arms on April 12, 1865; and the position of the last cannon fired by the Confederate artillery on the morning of April 9, 1865. There is also a monument and two tablets that were erected by the state of North Carolina describing the last engagement of the armies this same morning.</p><br>
<p>General George Armstrong Custer of Little Bighorn fame received a flag of truce at the village of "Appomattox Court House" that brought about the discontinuance of hostilities of the Confederate and the Union armies leading to the surrender meeting between General Lee and General Grant at the McLean House.</p><br>
<p>The program for the development of the Park calls for a partial restoration of Clover Hill and the hamlet of Appomattox Court House to its appearance in April 1865. This will constitute for the people of the United States a memorial to the termination of the American Civil War. World War II stopped temporarily the development of the Park, however it was resumed in 1947. Some structures in the village that were built after 1865 were taken down that did not represent a true picture of the end of the Civil War. In 1954, Virginia State Route 24 was relocated south of the Appomattox Court House Historical Park so the National Park Service could restore the Richmond-Lynchburg stage road to its 1865 appearance. Also this would allow the National Park Service to do archeological exploration at the original Appomattox Court House building.</p><br>
<p>Wildspitze is the highest mountain in the Ötztal Alps and in North Tyrol, as well as the second highest mountain in Austria after the Großglockner. The nearest higher mountain is the Ortler, 48.5 km away in South Tyrol.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Wildspitze is on a ridge called Weißkamm ("white ridge") that joins the main chain of the Alps at the Weißkugel. Its north and west flanks form the end of the Pitz valley, while the south and east flanks rise above the upper ends of the Ötztal. The mountain has twin peaks, with a rocky south summit (3768 m or by most other sources 3770 m) and a firn-covered north summit that is ca 3,765 m. The mountain is surrounded by glaciers on three sides, of which with 8 km² the Taschachferner is the largest. The 50° north face is popular with ice climbers.</p><br>
<p>The lookout from the peak is only limited by the curvature of the earth. To the east one can see as far as the Großglockner and to the west as far as the Finsteraarhorn.</p><br>
<h2>Early ascents</h2><br>
<p>The first recorded attempt at the Wildspitze was made in 1847 by Hermann and Adolf Schlagintweit, who probably reached a point at 3,552 m on the north east ridge. but the south summit was a better viewpoint and the first two parties had climbed it instead. On August 29, 1861, Nikodem and Leander Klotz guided Anthon von Ruthner and Friedrich R. von Enderes, both from Vienna, to the south summit again. During their hour-long stay on top, Leander traversed to the north peak, which subsequently was considered the first ascent of the main summit of the Wildspitze. However, by the end of the 20th century, snow melt had lowered the northern summit to about 3,765 m, rendering the south summit the highest point and 1848 the year of first ascent.</p><br>
<h2>Routes</h2><br>
<p>The most common route to the top is from the Breslauer Hut, which is approached from the village Vent (1900 m a.s.l.). Most climbers sleep at the hut or in a tent and continue to the summit the next day (about 4 hours from the Breslauerhütte).</p><br>
<p>An alternative route goes from the Braunschweiger Hut in the Pitztaler glacier area. From the hut the route crosses the glaciers to the Mittelbergjoch, and then traverses a crevasse-filled area of the Tasachferner glacier to the summit of the Wildspitze. The average time used for this tour is 6.5 hours.</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>Wildspitze appears in the video for German Neue Deutsche Härte band&#39;s Rammstein song Ohne dich.</p><br>
<p>The Frisian Islands, also known as the Wadden Islands or Wadden Sea Islands, form an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea in northwestern Europe, stretching from the northwest of the Netherlands through Germany to the west of Denmark. The islands shield the mudflat region of the Wadden Sea  from the North Sea.</p><br>
<p>The Frisian Islands, along with the mainland coast in the German Bight, form the region of Frisia (German and Dutch: Friesland), homeland of the Frisian people. Generally, the term Frisian Islands is used for the islands where Frisian is spoken and the population is ethnically Frisian. In contrast, the term Wadden Islands applies to the entire archipelago, including the Dutch-speaking westernmost islands of Texel and Vlieland and Danish-speaking Danish Wadden Sea Islands further north off the west coast of Jutland.</p><br>
<p>Most of the Frisian Islands are environmentally protected areas, and an international wildlife nature reserve is being coordinated between the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Natural gas and oil drilling continue, however, and in the vicinity of the Ems, Weser and Elbe estuaries, and ship traffic causes tension between wildlife protection and economic values.</p><br>
<h2>Origins</h2><br>
<p>During the last ice age, which ended approximately 12,000 years ago, sea level was about 60 m lower than it is now, and part of what is now the North Sea was dry land. With the melting of the ice caps, the sea level rose, reaching the current coast line around the beginning of the Holocene era, approximately 7,000 years ago. Tidal action transported large quantities of sand to form a line of dunes extending over 500 km from the Netherlands to the mouth of the river Elbe in Germany. The sea broke through the dunes in many places to form the Wadden Islands, with the low-lying country behind becoming the tidal Wadden mudflats.</p><br>
<h3>Island forming</h3><br>
<p>The Dutch West Frisian and the German East Frisian Islands are barrier islands.</p><br>
<p>They arose along the breakers&#39; edge where the water surge piled up sediment, and behind which sediment was carried away by the breaking waves. Over time, shoals arose, which ultimately were only covered by infrequent storm floods. Once plants began to colonize the sandbanks, the land began to stabilize.</p><br>
<p>In contrast, the North Frisian Islands arose from the remains of old Geestland islands, where the land was partially removed by storm floods and water action and then separated from the mainland. They are, therefore, often higher and their cores are less exposed to changes than the islands to the south. Beyond the core, however, the same processes are at work, as is particularly evident on Sylt, where the south of the island threatens to be broken away and the harbour at List in the north silts up.</p><br>
<p>The Danish Islands, the next in the chain to the north, arose from sandbanks. Into the 20th century, silt on the islands was a serious problem. To protect them, small woods were planted.</p><br>
<h2>Habitation</h2><br>
<p>Long before the beginning of the modern era, there were already humans inhabiting the Wadden area. Up to 800 AD, most inhabitants lived on terpen (artificial mounds). Living conditions were difficult. The Roman naturalist Pliny, writing in the first century AD, described the Frisians as...</p><br>
<p>... people who live without trees or shrubs.... in the east, to the coasts of the ocean, a number of races in such needy conditions exist; but this also applies to the races of peoples which are called the large and small Chaucen, which we have seen in the north. There, two times in each period of a day and a night, the ocean with a fast tide submerges an immense plain, thereby the hiding... whether the area is sea or land. There this miserable race inhabits raised pieces ground or platforms, which they have moored by hand above the level of the highest known tide. Living in huts built on the chosen spots, they seem like sailors in ships if water covers the surrounding country, but like shipwrecked people when the tide has withdrawn itself, and around their huts they catch fish which try to escape with the expiring tide. It is for them not possible to keep herds and live on milk such as the surrounding tribes. They cannot even fight with wild animals, because all the bush country lies too far away. They braid ropes of sedges and rushes from the marshes with which they make nets to be able to catch fish, and they dig up mud with their hands and dry it more in wind than in the sun, and with soil as fuel they heat their food and their own bodies, frozen in northern wind. Their only drink comes from storing rain water in tanks front of their houses. And these are the races which, if they were now conquered by the Roman nation, say that they will fall into slavery! It is only too true: Destiny saves people as a punishment.</p><br>
<p>Around 1000, dike construction began. Monks were instrumental in this activity, among others those of the monastery of Aduard. But earlier attempts had been undertaken to dam the sea. At the Frisian Peins (near Franeker), a 40-meter section of dike has been discovered that is thought to date from the 1st or 2nd century BC.</p><br>
<p>In the late Middle Ages, the dike system was gradually strengthened and flooding diminished. Beginning in the 17th century, dikes were built further out to reclaim more land. This activity peaked in the 19th and 20th centuries.</p><br>
<h2>Conservation of the West Frisian/Dutch coast</h2><br>
<p>The dunes south of the Wadden Sea were also liable to this process, but human intervention prevented the many storm surges from changing the coast of the provinces North Holland and South Holland into separate islands with Wadden mudflats behind them. However, around 1200, storm surges did break up the northern coast of Western Friesland into five islands. Around 1600, four of these along the West coast had been again recovered, but Wieringen, to the south-east of Texel, remained an island up to the 20th century.</p><br>
<h2>Embankment of the mudflat</h2><br>
<p>In Friesland and Groningen plans were made to embank and drain the Wadden Sea. As a result, the islands would have become part of the mainland. As of today, nature and environmental movements have been able to prevent this.</p><br>
<p>The only plan ever to be carried out was the construction of a causeway from the Frisian Holwerd to Ameland, in 1872, which was not very successful. Shortly after construction, the causeway had already suffered so much storm damage that the dam was abandoned in 1882. The dam has been almost entirely eroded since then.</p><br>
<p>In the northern Wadden Sea building dams proved to be considerably simpler. Nordstrand is now so much linked to the rampart by dikes that it is difficult to define it as an island, and also Langeness, Oland, Nordstrandischmoor, Hamburger Hallig, Sylt, and Rømø are all reachable by dams. Mandø is even reachable without a dam by means of tidal road.</p><br>
<h2>Development</h2><br>
<h3>Migration</h3><br>
<p>The Wadden Islands are in continuous apparent movement. The most important movement is the migration: the islands themselves are slowly but certainly moving from West to East. On the West side most of the islands disappear slowly into the sea and on the East side even larger sand-banks arise. This movement is also the reason that most of the villages themselves are on the West side of their island. When they were founded they were situated in the center. Over the course of the last few centuries, many houses and even entire villages disappeared into the sea.</p><br>
<h3>Hook shaping</h3><br>
<p>The second movement is the development of a hook shape. Along the sea breaches hook-shaped sand ridges arise, which change form with the moving of the sea arm. By growth of these hooks new shoals arise such as the Noorder and Zuiderhaaks. Sometimes such a shoal grows, originating where an island has been walking, and the island regains area.</p><br>
<h2>Islands</h2><br>
<h3>Dutch Wadden Islands</h3><br>
<p>(from West to East)</p><br>
<h4>Inhabited</h4><br>
<p>Texel (largest and most populous of all the Frisian/Wadden Islands)</p><br>
<p>Vlieland</p><br>
<p>Terschelling</p><br>
<p>Ameland</p><br>
<p>Schiermonnikoog</p><br>
<p>The Dutch islands have a surface of 405.2 km² and a total of 23,872 inhabitants.</p><br>
<h4>Uninhabited</h4><br>
<p>Noorderhaaks</p><br>
<p>Richel</p><br>
<p>Griend</p><br>
<p>Engelsmanplaat</p><br>
<p>Simonszand</p><br>
<p>Rottumerplaat</p><br>
<p>Rottumeroog</p><br>
<p>Zuiderduintjes</p><br>
<p>The names of all these places suggest this is the transition area between island and shoal (plaat in Dutch). Noorderhaaks, Rottumerplaat and Rottumeroog are generally considered to be islands, the others are considered to be sandbars and disappear from time to time into the waves. The former island of Wieringen can be found at the top of Noord-Holland, against the Afsluitdijk.</p><br>
<h3>German Wadden Islands</h3><br>
<p>(from West to East and south to North)</p><br>
<h4>Inhabited</h4><br>
<p>Borkum</p><br>
<p>Juist</p><br>
<p>Norderney</p><br>
<p>Baltrum</p><br>
<p>Langeoog</p><br>
<p>Spiekeroog</p><br>
<p>Wangerooge</p><br>
<p>Neuwerk</p><br>
<p>Pellworm</p><br>
<p>Nordstrand (presently mainland)</p><br>
<p>Inhabited Halligen</p><br>
<p>Amrum</p><br>
<p>Föhr</p><br>
<p>Sylt</p><br>
<h4>Uninhabited</h4><br>
<p>Lütje Hörn</p><br>
<p>Kachelotplate</p><br>
<p>Memmert</p><br>
<p>Minsener Oog</p><br>
<p>Alte Mellum</p><br>
<p>Großer Knechtsand</p><br>
<p>Nigehörn</p><br>
<p>Scharhörn</p><br>
<p>Trischen</p><br>
<p>Tertius (frequently submerged)</p><br>
<p>Blauort</p><br>
<p>Süderoogsand</p><br>
<p>Norderoogsand</p><br>
<p>Japsand</p><br>
<p>Uninhabited Halligen (Habel, Südfall, Norderoog)</p><br>
<p>The German islands have a surface of 448.52 km² (173 sq. mi.) and 53,296 inhabitants. It is possible to make a boat excursion from several German Wadden Islands to the small rock island of Helgoland which is situated 70 km off the German coast. Although Heligoland (German: Helgoland) is not a Wadden Island, there are strong cultural links with the Wadden area; for example a dialect of North Frisian is spoken there.</p><br>
<p>Not all these islands are officially considered to be Wadden Islands. For the definition of an island, a minimum of 160 hectares (0.6 sq. mi.) must no longer be submerged during average high water by the North Sea.</p><br>
<h3>Danish Wadden Islands</h3><br>
<p>(from South to North)</p><br>
<p>Rømø</p><br>
<p>Mandø</p><br>
<p>Koresand (uninhabited)</p><br>
<p>Fanø</p><br>
<p>Langli (uninhabited)</p><br>
<p>In the 20th century, south of the Danish island Rømø lay the small island Jordsand, which sank in 1999. North of the Danish island Fanø the sand coast has been opened and closed numerous times in the course of history, but at the moment the coast line is closed, and forms a whole again except for two west coast fjords. The Danish islands have a total surface of 193.8 km² (74.5 sq. mi.) and 4,173 inhabitants.</p><br>
<p>Rottumeroog is an uninhabited island in the Wadden Sea and is part of the Netherlands. The island is one of three West Frisian Islands in the province of Groningen. It is situated between the islands of Rottumerplaat and Borkum.</p><br>
<p>The island originates from the 15th or 16th century. At first the island was used for agriculture by the St. Juliana&#39;s Abbey from Rottum. Rottumeroog is now part of the natural reserve Rottum and access to the island is prohibited.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Rottumeroog is located at 53&deg;32&prime;25&Prime;N latitude, 6&deg;34&prime;55&Prime;E longitude in the municipality of Eemsmond in the north of the province of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. It is situated off the coast of Groningen&#39;s mainland and it is the easternmost island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, east of the island of Rottumerplaat, north of the island of Zuiderduintjes, and west of the East Frisian island of Borkum (Germany).</p><br>
<p>Rottumeroog does not have a solid core and slowly moves in southeastern direction as a result of sea currents. On the north side, land is gradually washed away; on the south side, new land is forming. Rottumeroog had a surface area of 205 hectare in 1995 and 265 hectare in 2007.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Between 1400 and 1540 CE, the island of Monnikenlangenoog had split into the islands of Bosch and Rottumeroog. Bosch had disappeared in the 18th century, but Rottumeroog still remains today.</p><br>
<p>The name Rottumeroog means literally Island of Rottum, after the village of Rottum on the mainland of Groningen. The Benedictine St. Julianas Abbey in Rottum used to own two-thirds of the island and used it for their livestock. After the Protestant Reformation the islands rights transferred to the province Groningen before being sold to private persons in the 17th century. The province bought the island back in 1738 due to back maintenance, eventually the central government took over. Until 1965 the island was inhabited by a vogt and his family; since then the island has been uninhabited.</p><br>
<p>Several buildings have been built on the island. In the 19th century the navigational beacon Emder Kaap was built. The structure is listed as a national heritage site (rijksmonument) since 1988 and was moved southwards in 1999. The vogt had a house as well; this building was demolished in 1998 due to the encroaching North Sea. In February 2014, the bird observation post was removed from the island. Later in 2014 all remaining buildings on the islands, except for the Emder Kaap, were removed due to the changing shape and position of the island.</p><br>
<p>The future area of the island is uncertain. In 2012, the island broke into two during high tide, giving rise to the claim that the island might disappear in the Ems estuary in the near future.</p><br>
<h2>Natural reserve</h2><br>
<p>The Wadden Sea, in which Rottumeroog is situated, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (natural criteria viii, ix, and x) since 2009.</p><br>
<p>Together with Rottumerplaat and Zuiderduintjes, the island forms the natural reserve Rottum. The island is generally not maintained, the shape and position are left for nature to change. The island is uninhabited and access is usually prohibited; several excursions to the islands are allowed each year under strict conditions.</p><br>
<p>The island is home to birds and grey seals.</p><br>
<p>Rottumerplaat is one of the three islands that make up Rottum in the West Frisian Islands. The island is located in the North Sea off the Dutch coast. It is situated between the islands of Schiermonnikoog and Rottumeroog.</p><br>
<p>Access to the island is prohibited since Rottumerplaat is a resting and forage area for numerous bird species. Rijkswaterstaat, Staatsbosbeheer and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality are responsible for the administration of the island. Twice a year marine debris is cleaned from the island.</p><br>
<p>Sediment deposition has caused the island to become significantly larger in recent years.</p><br>
<p>Rottumerplaat is the northernmost point of the Netherlands.</p><br>
<h2>Fauna</h2><br>
<p>Rottumerplaat is a resting and forage area for sanderling, dunlin and Kentish plovers. Common eider, common shelduck, Arctic tern, common tern, little tern, Kentish plover, and ringed plover nest on the island. From 1996 the Sandwich tern nested on Rottumerplaat, but has since stopped doing so.</p><br>
<h2>Godfried Bomans and Jan Wolkers</h2><br>
<p>In 1971 writers Jan Wolkers and Godfried Bomans each spent a week on the island. Their only connection with the outside world was a short daily radio relay with VARA radio presenter Willem Ruis, who stayed at a hotel in nearby Warffum. The interviews were broadcast as a radio programme, Alone On An Island. For Godfried Bomans, the stay on the island was a disaster; he could not cope with the noise the many seagulls made and he was troubled by loneliness. Jan Wolkers however experienced his stay on the island as an adventure and kept himself alive by catching shrimps and eel, and boiling sea sandwort. He also rescued a young seal. Both authors published a book about their stay on the island.</p><br>
<p>Zuiderduintjes  is an uninhabited island in the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands. It is situated south of Rottumeroog, east of Rottumerplaat, and west of Borkum. The island is one of the three West Frisian Islands in the municipality of Eemsmond and in the province of Groningen.</p><br>
<p>Zuiderduintjes is part of the nature reserve Rottum and access to the island is prohibited.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Zuiderduintjes is one of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. It is located at 53&deg;31&prime;20&Prime;N latitude, 6&deg;35&prime;20&Prime;E longitude in the municipality of Eemsmond in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. It is situated off the coast of Groningen&#39;s mainland, south of the island of Rottumeroog, east of the island of Rottumerplaat, and southwest of the East Frisian island of Borkum.</p><br>
<p>It had a surface area of 57 hectare in 1995 and 74 hectare in 2007.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Zuiderduintjes was part of the island of Rottumeroog, but has separated from it around 1930 and has since moved further southeast.</p><br>
<h2>Natural reserve</h2><br>
<p>Zuiderduintjes is part of the nature reserve Rottum. Access to the island is prohibited since it is a resting and foraging area for birds and seals.</p><br>
<p>The island has a dune and salt marsh vegetation, and its plants include Elytrigia juncea subsp. boreoatlantica, Sonchus arvensis var. maritimus, Chenopodium album, Chenopodium rubrum, Matricaria maritima, Atriplex littoralis, Descurainia sophia, Artemisia maritima, Festuca rubra, Elytrigia maritima, Salicornia procumbens, and Suaeda maritima.</p><br>
<p>Lamia  is a city in central Greece. The city dates back to antiquity, and is today the capital of the regional unit of Phthiotis and of the Central Greece region .</p><br>
<h2>Name</h2><br>
<p>One account says that the city was named after the mythological figure of Lamia, the daughter of Poseidon, and queen of the Trachineans. Another holds that it is named after the Malians, the inhabitants of the surrounding area. In the Middle Ages, Lamia was called Zetounion (Ζητούνιον), a name first encountered in the 8th Ecumenical Council in 869. It was known as Girton under Frankish rule following the Fourth Crusade and later El Cito when it was controlled by the Catalan Company of mercenaries. In Turkish, it was sometimes called Izdin or İzzeddin. The city was also known as Zeitoun.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Archaeological excavations have shown the site of Lamia to have been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC).</p><br>
<p>In Antiquity, the city played an important role due to its strategic location, controlling the narrow coastal plain above Thermopylae that connected southern Greece with Thessaly and the rest of the Balkans. The city was therefore fortified in the 5th century BC, and was contested by the Macedonians, Thessalians and Aetolians until the Roman conquest in the early 2nd century BC. After Alexander the Great&#39;s death in 323 BC, the Athenians and other Greeks rebelled against Macedonian overlordship. Antipatros, the regent of Macedon, took refuge behind the substantial walls of the city (Lamian War, 323&ndash;322 BC). The war ended with the death of the Athenian general Leosthenes, and the arrival of a 20,000-strong Macedonian army. Lamia prospered afterwards, especially in the 3rd century BC under Aetolian hegemony, which came to an end when Manius Acilius Glabrio sacked the city in 190 BC.</p><br>
<p>Little is known of the citys history after. In Late Antiquity, the city was the seat of a bishop (attested since 431), suffragan of Larissa, but had declined to obscurity: for instance, it is not shown on the 5th-century Tabula Peutingeriana. Some archaeological remains from the period have been found in the Castle (the citys ancient acropolis), including a basilica, coins and marble inscriptions, while the walls of the Castle are thought to have been rebuilt under Justinian I in the 6th century. The Synecdemus of Hierocles includes Lamia among the 16 cities of the province of Thessaly.</p><br>
<p>The city was occupied by Slavs in the 7th century, and re-appears only in 869/70 under the name of Zetounion (Ζητοῦνιον), probably deriving from a Slavic word for "grain". The city played once more a role in the Byzantine–Bulgarian wars of the late 10th century due to its vicinity to Thermopylae: it was near the town that the Byzantine general Nikephoros Ouranos scored a crushing victory over Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria in the Battle of Spercheios in 997. The city was visited by Emperor Basil II in his triumphal journey to Greece in 1018, and in 1165, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela recorded 50 Jewish families in the city and of raids by the neighbouring Vlachs.</p><br>
<p>Following the Fourth Crusade (1204), the city was captured by the Frankish crusaders. Initially, it was given as a fief to the Knights Templar, who rebuilt its fortress. In 1209–10 the Templars were evicted due to their support to the rebellion of the Lombard barons of the Kingdom of Thessalonica, and the Latin Emperor Henry of Flanders confiscated the city (and neighbouring Ravennika) and made it an imperial domain under a bailli, possibly Rainerio of Travale. Under Frankish rule, it was the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop (Dioecesis Sidoniensis or Cythoniensis), probably a suffragan of the Latin Archbishop of Neopatras. In ca. 1218/20, or perhaps even shortly after 1223, the two towns were captured by Epirote forces. Lamia remained in Epirote hands until it was surrendered again to the Franks of the Duchy of Athens in 1275 as part of the dowry of Helena Angelina Komnene, daughter of John I Doukas, ruler of Thessaly. It thereby again became a Catholic see.</p><br>
<p>The Catalans held the city from 1318 until 1391, and then passed to the Acciaioli Dukes of Athens. The fortress was razed by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I in 1394. After the disastrous Battle of Ankara in 1402, the weakened Ottomans were forced to return some territories, including the region of Zetounion, to Byzantine rule. The Turks besieged the city for two years sometime before 1415, but the Byzantines resisted successfully. Sometime between 1424 and July 1426, however, the city had been once more conquered by the Turks. Apart from an attack by the troops of the Despotate of the Morea in 1444, which plundered the city, from then on the town remained under firm Ottoman control until it became part of the newly independent Kingdom of Greece in 1832. Until the annexation of Thessaly in 1881, it was a border city (the borders were drawn at a site known as "Taratsa" just north of Lamia).</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>Lamia has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Snowfalls are rare, about 50 percent of years do not experience a single snowfall.</p><br>
<h2>Landmarks</h2><br>
<p>Lamia Castle, the city&#39;s fortified Acropolis</p><br>
<p>Platia Eleftherias (Freedom Square) - site of the towns independence day parade, and main cathedral. Also has many cafes with outdoor seating.</p><br>
<p>Platia Diakou (Diakos Square) - square containing the statue of Athanasios Diakos</p><br>
<p>Platia Parkou (Park Square)</p><br>
<p>Platia Laou (People&#39;s Square) - square featuring the statue of Aris Velouchiotis</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Lamia was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 5 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Gorgopotamos</p><br>
<p>Lamia</p><br>
<p>Leianokladi (Lianokladi)</p><br>
<p>Pavliani</p><br>
<p>Ypati</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 947.006 km, the municipal unit 413.482 km.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Athanasios Diakos (1788&ndash;1821) Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence, died in Lamia</p><br>
<p>Dimitrios Giatzis (1891–1964) Army officer</p><br>
<p>Ioannis Paparrodou (1904–1941) Army Officer</p><br>
<p>Aris Velouchiotis (nom de guerre οf Athanasios Klaras) (1905&ndash;1945) leader of the World War II guerrilla resistance</p><br>
<p>Ilias Tsirimokos (1907&ndash;1968) politician, former Prime Minister of Greece</p><br>
<p>Thanos Leivaditis (1934&ndash;2005) actor and screenwriter</p><br>
<p>Frans Tsagkaris (1937-2013) doctor and politician</p><br>
<p>Dimitris Koutsoumpas (1955) General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece</p><br>
<p>Niki Bakoyianni (1968) high jumper</p><br>
<h2>International relations</h2><br>
<p>Lamia is twinned with:</p><br>
<p>Rzeszów, Poland</p><br>
<p>Paphos, Cyprus</p><br>
<p>Chioggia, Italy</p><br>
<h2>Sporting teams</h2><br>
<p>Lamia has some sport clubs that play in the higher national divisions. For a period of one season, Lamia hosted the Athenian basketball club Panellinios B.C. The main clubs of Lamia are shown below.</p><br>
<p>Stroma is an island off the northern coast of the mainland of Scotland. It is the most southerly of the islands in the Pentland Firth between the Orkney islands and Caithness, the northeasternmost part of the mainland. The name is from the Old Norse Straumr-øy meaning "island in the stream".</p><br>
<p>Ancient stone structures testify to the presence of Stromas earliest residents, while a Norse presence around 900–1,000 years ago is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga. It has been politically united with Caithness since at least the 15th century. Although Stroma lies only a few miles off the Scottish coast, the savage weather and ferociously strong tides of the Pentland Firth meant that the islands inhabitants were very isolated, causing them to be largely self-sufficient, trading agricultural produce and fish with the mainlanders.</p><br>
<p>Most of the islanders were fishermen and crofters; some also worked as maritime pilots to guide vessels through the treacherous waters of the Pentland Firth. The tides and currents meant that shipwrecks were frequent—the most recent occurring in 1993—and salvage provided an additional though often illegal supplement to the islanders&#39; incomes. A lighthouse was built on Stroma in 1890 and still operates under automation.</p><br>
<p>Stroma is now abandoned, with the houses of its former inhabitants unoccupied and falling into ruin. Its population fell gradually through the first half of the 20th century as inhabitants drifted away to seek opportunities elsewhere, as economic problems and Stromas isolation made life on the island increasingly unsupportable. From an all-time peak of 375 people in 1901, the population fell to just 12 by 1961 and the last islanders left at the end of the following year. Stromas final abandonment came in 1997 when the lighthouse keepers and their families departed. The island is now owned by one of its former inhabitants, who uses it to graze cattle and sheep.</p><br>
<h2>Geography, geology, flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>Stroma is located in the Pentland Firth about 2 mi northwest of John o&#39; Groats on the mainland. The island divides the firth into two channels, the Inner Sound to the south and the Outer Sound to the north. It is mostly low-lying and flat, covering an area of around 375 hectare and rising to a height of 53 m at Cairn Hill in the southeast. It is oriented in a north-south direction, measuring about 2 mi long by 1 mi wide.</p><br>
<p>The island is ringed by cliffs that vary in height from around 33 m on the west coast to low cliffs with a narrow rocky foreshore elsewhere. The eastern side of the island slopes downward in an easterly or southeasterly direction, with the angle of the slope increasing from around 3 degrees in the centre of the island to about 30 degrees on the east coast. The bedrock of the island consists of flat layers of weathered Middle Old Red Sandstone, known as Rousay flags. A six-foot band of the fine-grained stone used to be quarried on a small scale for use on the mainland as roofing material. It is similar in composition to the Mey Beds on the mainland, though in some places on Stroma it is replaced by beds of angular and rounded masses of sandstone in a nodular matrix, similar to the Ackergill Beds in Caithness. Only fragmentary fossil remains have been found; these include specimens of the extinct Devonian fish Dipterus and Coccosteus.</p><br>
<p>Stroma is bisected by a fault which runs in a north-south direction through its centre, intersected by another fault running in an east-northeast direction across the north of the island. The soil on either side of the fault line is significantly different; the eastern and southern parts of Stroma are covered by fertile clay fed by bedrock minerals, while less fertile boggy ground predominates on the west side.</p><br>
<p>The heavily indented coastline has a circumference of about 7 mi, A partially collapsed sea cave called The Gloup is located in the northwest of the island. This feature is a deep rocky pit, filled with sea water.</p><br>
<p>The flora and fauna of Stroma are similar to those of the mainland. The island is treeless; its vegetation consists primarily of grasses, heather and small flowers. Seals are plentiful along its shores and are sometimes found inland during the breeding season. The western cliffs are the site of colonies of terns, guillemots, fulmars and eider ducks. The cliffs are designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest within the North Caithness Cliffs Special Protection Area. The waters off Stroma support a number of cetacean species including minke whale, white-beaked dolphin and harbour porpoise.</p><br>
<h2>Demographics</h2><br>
<p>Two settlements existed on Stroma: Nethertown, in the north of the island, and Uppertown or Overtown, in the south. They originally belonged to the Freswick estate, which owned Nethertown, and the Mey estate, which owned Uppertown. Between the two was Mains of Stroma, the island&#39;s principal farm. A track runs the entire length of the island, connecting the lighthouse at the north tip with the two settlements and the harbour on the south coast.</p><br>
<p>The island is now uninhabited; the last resident islanders left in 1962 and the very last inhabitants, the keepers of the island lighthouse and their families, left in 1997 when the lighthouse was automated. The population reached a peak of 375 in 1901 but censuses conducted between 1841 and 1961 tell the story of the collapse of Stroma&#39;s population during the 20th century:</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Prehistoric settlement and remains</h3><br>
<p>Stroma was inhabited in prehistoric times, as demonstrated by the presence of a number of ancient stone structures around the island. A ruined chambered cairn is situated at the far north end of the island near the lighthouse. It has been partially excavated and measures some 16 m in diameter by 1.8 m high. The 18th century inhabitants of the island collected the prehistoric stone arrowheads that they found on the western side of the island, believing them to be "elf-shot", and regarded them as having been made by fairies. They believed that if they possessed an "elf-shot" they would be granted protection for themselves and their cattle from any harm caused by the fairies.</p><br>
<p>Structures similar to cists, which the islanders called "Picts&#39; Beds", are also found on the island. Notable examples can be seen in the north near Nethertown. They are usually located near middens, out of which animal bones and shells are eroding. Little appears to be known about the purpose and origins of these structures. Although the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland attributes them to prehistory, it is also possible that they are Norse in origin. A kidney-shaped burnt mound located near Castle Geo in the south-east of Stroma can be more confidently ascribed to prehistory. It consists of an accumulation of cracked and scorched stones that were used to heat water in a communal cooking trough. Although the example on Stroma has not been dated, burnt mounds found elsewhere on Orkney and Shetland have been dated to the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age.</p><br>
<p>The remains of an earth-and-stone fort are situated on the promontory of Bught o Camm on the west coast of Stroma, near the north end of the island, though its origins are unknown. A rampart standing 1 m with an average spread of 6 m encloses an area of some 70 m by 30 m and blocks off access to the promontory. There is no evidence of structures inside the forts perimeter. It may possibly have been entered from the east end of the rampart, where a 3 m gap exists, but this may alternatively have been produced by natural processes.</p><br>
<h3>Medieval period</h3><br>
<p>The first historical record of the island is found in the 12th century Orkneyinga Saga. It records that a man named Valthiof, the son of Olaf Rolfson, lived and farmed on Stroma. One Yule Eve, he set off in a ten-oar boat to Orphir on Mainland, Orkney at the invitation of the Earl of Orkney, Paul Haakonsson. However, the boat was lost with all hands – as the Saga puts it, "sad news as Valthiof was a most accomplished man". The Earl later granted Valthiof&#39;s farm to Thorkel Flettir. Later, a rowdy Viking named Sweyn Asleifsson fled to Stroma, pursued by Earl Harald Haakonsson. The two men were trapped on the island due to bad weather but were persuaded to make peace by a mutual friend named Asmundi, who insisted that Sweyn and Harald should share the same bed.</p><br>
<p>The Norse are also believed to have built a fortification, now called Castle Mestag, at Mell Head in the far south-west of Stroma. The structure (also known as "the Robber&#39;s Castle") is situated on the top of an isolated rock stack some 4.5 m from the cliffs of the main island. The islanders believed that it had once been connected by a drawbridge or some other kind of artificial span, or alternatively it may once have been accessible via a rock arch that has since collapsed.</p><br>
<p>Due to its proximity to the Scottish mainland, Stroma has long been politically united with Caithness.</p><br>
<p>It is more reliably recorded that in 1455 the Bishop of Caithness, William Mudy, granted Stroma and other lands and castles to his brother Gilbert. It eventually passed into the hands of the Sinclair family, who have held the title of Earl of Caithness since 1455. In 1659 George Sinclair, the 6th Earl of Caithness, granted the wadset of Stroma to John Kennedy of Kermuck, who had fled to the far north after being outlawed following the fatal wounding of John Forbes of Watertown.</p><br>
<p>115 years later, the Rev. George Low recorded in his account of a tour of the island that he had seen "the remains of a pretty large house and gardens, once possessed by a gentleman, the proprietor of the island, who being forced to fly his native home on account of a duel, chose this for his retreat". The gardens were said to have been furnished with "plants that cured every disease". Nothing is now left of the house, but the gardens may have been located within a walled enclosure near the Nethertown pier.</p><br>
<h3>Life on Stroma: 17th and 18th centuries</h3><br>
<p>Life on the island was very isolated due to its inaccessibility. Until as late as 1894 it had no landing place, which meant that boats had to be landed directly on the beach and pulled up above the waterline. Particularly in winter, when storms raged through the Pentland Firth, Stroma could be cut off for weeks at a time. Such episodes posed serious risks to the islanders, as they had no doctor. The winter of 1937 illustrated the problems that the weather could pose; during January and February that year, the island was cut off for three weeks by violent gales which demolished houses along the seafront and washed boats 100 yards (90 m) inland. Stromas isolation came at an especially bad time, as most of the population had caught influenza and supplies of food dwindled to the point that some items had to be rationed. Eventually two boats were able to reach the island, carrying supplies and a doctor from Caithness, along with three weeks worth of mail.</p><br>
<p>Two chapels were established on Stroma at some point prior to the 17th century; they were known as the Kirk of Stara (from the Norse name for "big church") and the Kirk of Old Skoil (from Skali, possibly a name given to a farm). Their locations are now unknown, but the Kirk of Old Skoil may have been located in the far south-east of Stroma where the islands graveyard is now. They both fell into disuse by the mid-17th century and, lacking a church of their own, it was perhaps not surprising that the islanders were felt by mainlanders to be somewhat lacking in religious commitment. An inquiry by the Canisbay Kirk in the 17th century rebuked them for visiting "Popish" chapels on the mainland, profaning the Lords Day, being "ale sellers and drinkers" and playing football and dancing on the Sabbath. The Presbytery decided that the inhabitants were spiritually neglected "by reason of the dangerous passage to that place, especially in winter." The minister of Canisbay was supposed to preach four times a year on Stroma but was reprimanded for only doing so twice yearly. The islanders were instructed to attend church at Canisbay and a kirk session ordained in 1654 that they should be given free passage and that any Stroma person with a boat who stayed away should be fined.</p><br>
<p>The islands population numbered a few dozen families throughout the 18th century, corresponding to a population of no more than a couple of hundred people; it was recorded as numbering 30 families in 1710, 47 in 1724, 40 in 1735 and 30 in 1760. They rented their land from two branches of the Sinclair family, the Sinclairs of Mey who owned Uppertown and the Sinclairs of Freswick who owned Nethertown. The latter acquired Nethertown in 1721 and eventually took possession of Uppertown as well by obtaining the wadset from the Kennedys, reportedly through skullduggery. According to the deathbed confession of one of the witnesses to the transaction, the laird, Sinclair of Freswick, obtained the "assent" of the deceased Kennedy holder of the wadset by placing a quill in the dead mans hand and moving it to make the corpse write its name on the document. The other witness committed suicide, perhaps out of guilt. The island was reasonably profitable for the Sinclairs; in 1724 the islanders paid an annual rent of 1,300 marks (equivalent to about £125 at 2011 prices), part of which was paid in surplus grain ferried by Stroma&#39;s boats to the Sinclair granaries at Staxigoe near Wick. They were self-sufficient in dairy produce and were known for the quality of their cheese-making; Daniel Defoe thought Stroma cheese was excellent.</p><br>
<h3>19th and 20th centuries</h3><br>
<p>By the early 19th century, around 30 families numbering 170 people lived on Stroma, As well as agricultural exports, they also exported flagstones from the island and imported peat to burn as fuel; they were dismissive of the practice in some of the Orkney Islands of using cow dung as fuel, referring to the northern island of Sanday as "the little island where the coos shit fire". Low observed the effect of the island&#39;s climate on the inhabitants: "The men are stout hardy spadesmen as was said before, the women while young are tolerably well looked, but as they advance in age grow very hard favoured, acquiring a peculiar ghastliness in their countenances contrary to what is observed of the women in Orkney."</p><br>
<p>The islanders also supported themselves through fishing, exploiting the high-quality catches that were to be made around the islands coasts. James Traill Calder wrote in his 1861 Sketch of the Civil and Traditional History of Caithness that "The finest cod in the north is to be got in the Pentland Firth... Large and excellent lobsters are caught around the island." As well as trapping lobsters, the islanders practised hand line cod fishing in the waters of the Firth. This involved towing lengths of line with heavy weights and a metal rod or sprool at one end, from which hung a short length of hemp and hook baited with limpets. To encourage the fish to bite, the boats had to be held still by their rowers, which required great skill in the Firths unpredictable currents. The island was noted for its native type of boat, the Stroma yole, which was a direct descendant of the old Norse longship.</p><br>
<p>Many of the male islanders utilised their knowledge of the Firths currents to hire themselves out to passing vessels as maritime pilots. Their expertise was the product of a lifetimes experience on the waters of the Firth; as it was said, they had been "dabbling in salt water from their childhood upwards". It is not now known exactly where the mill was or what happened to it. Although it is described in the Statistical Account, written in the 1790s, and a Robert Miller is listed in the 1851 census as its miller, by 1861 he had moved to farm a five-acre croft and no further mention is made of the mill in contemporary accounts.</p><br>
<p>Stromas violent storms occasionally wrought destruction on the island. In December 1862, a great storm broke over the island with such force that it swept right across the northern end of Stroma, leaving wreckage, rocks and seaweed on the top of the 100-foot-high cliffs and destroying the channels leading to the watermill. However, the seas destructive power had one positive benefit for the islanders, if not for those caught out by the currents and shoals of the Pentland Firth. Over the last two hundred years, over sixty vessels ranging from fishing boats to large cargo vessels have been wrecked on the shores of Stroma, with many more vessels coming to grief on the reefs and shoals of the neighbouring mainland and Orkney coasts. Many vessels – at least 560 between 1830 and 1990 – have had to be refloated in the Pentland Firth after getting into difficulties. Shipwrecks were a valuable source of income, timber and goods for the islanders, who would salvage liberally – and often with little regard for legality – whenever a stranded ship was abandoned. The building of Stroma&#39;s first lighthouse in the late 19th century was initially opposed by some of the islanders who were more concerned with profiting from shipwrecks than preventing them.</p><br>
<p>The shipwrecks continued, nonetheless, with one of the most profitable of all being the 1931 wreck of the 6,000-ton Danish freighter Pennsylvania on the neighbouring island of Swona. The vessel was plundered by the inhabitants of Stroma, Swona and South Ronaldsay. Much of her cargo of slot machines, spark plugs, clothing, tobacco, watches and car parts was looted and concealed in haystacks, oatfields, lochs and caves. David Stogdon, a lifeboatman, recalled seeing what the islanders did with their illicit salvage: "Every house was stuffed with wreck... clocks, telescopes, binnacles... I seem to remember enormous dining-room tables in small cottages. And then of course from time to time theyd have cargo parts of lorries or something like that which could be put together to make a lorry and taken ashore on two or three fishing boats in calm weather. Theyd land it quietly somewhere, drive it along and sell it." Customs officers, policemen, coastguards and Receivers of Wreck were not generally welcome – the island had no police force – and the islanders let it be understood that unfortunate things could happen to the boats of unwanted visitors: "Police boats could go missing, develop an unexpected leak or spontaneously combust." The area still presents hazards to passing ships; in January 1993, the Danish coaster Bettina Danica ran aground off the southern end of Stroma. The wreck was broken apart by the action of the sea in 1997 and only her stern section is still visible.</p><br>
<p>Another way the islanders supported themselves was through the illicit brewing of spirits as a way of boosting their income – a common practice among the older people. An inspector who visited the islands school in 1824 described the inhabitants of Stroma as "all professed smugglers". The suppression of smuggling by the authorities led to a significant drop in the islands population the first half of the 19th century. The census of 1841 noted: "now smuggling being completely suppressed, several families have left the island and removed to the Orkneys to follow more lawful pursuits." While smuggling may have been tackled, illicit distilling continued for many years. One former inhabitant, Mrs. David Gunn, recalled in 1971 how her great-grandmother had managed to avoid the "excisemen" (customs officers) confiscating her illegally brewed alcohol:</p><br>
<p>Despite their physical isolation, the islanders maintained a lively community. A school had been established in 1723 by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SPCK), with sixty children on its initial attendance roll. The demands of island life conflicted to some extent with those of schooling. The SPCK&#39;s inspector found only eighteen out of seventy pupils present when he visited in 1824. He found that many of the children were fully occupied helping their families in summer and only attended school in winter. Two places of worship were built within a couple of years of each other, a Baptist chapel in 1877 and a Church of Scotland church in 1878 (at a cost of £900). Although they soon became focal elements of community life, there seems to have been some bad blood between the two congregations, perhaps due to a clash between the missionary zeal of local Baptists and the Calvinism of the Presbyterian Kirk.</p><br>
<p>The inhabitants of Stroma were highly self-sufficient, and many practiced additional trades such as carpentry or roof-laying in addition to their "day jobs" in fishing or crofting. They built their own houses and boats, produced most of their own food, maintained farm equipment, shod their own horses, and made their own clothes, boots and shoes. In the 1920s they built their own wind turbines to recharge the batteries of their radio sets. By the end of the 19th century the island had three shops including a grocery.</p><br>
<p>Most of the houses on Stroma are single-storey stone-built structures with two main rooms (a "butt" and a "ben") plus a closet (a small bedroom) and a porch. The rooms were small and simply furnished, incorporating recessed box beds. These consisted of a series of wooden planks with a layer of straw on top, on which was placed a chaff-filled mattress. The butt was used as a living room and included an iron stove with an oven, and sometimes a water tank to enable hot water to be generated, while the ben was used for visitors and as a sitting-room.</p><br>
<p>One former islander, James Simpson, recalls that "we had about two hundred and fifty folks here when I was a boy. It never seemed a lonely place. There were always people going in and out of each others houses, there were forty children at the school and there were two teachers. We had concerts; three concerts in the winter when you had to sing loud to get above the sound of the wind. The young people would meet at the shop in the long, long evenings in summer." The island had some distinctively eccentric characters: Donald Banks, the islands coffin-maker, was known for quarrelling with his neighbours (telling one family, "Ill no bury any more o ye!") and combining poetry with coffin-making, as in the order he placed with a mainland supplier:</p><br>
<p>Dear Mr. Sutherland,</p><br>
<p>Would you be so good,</p><br>
<p>To send eight planks of coffin wood.</p><br>
<p>Half inch lining, (dear Mr. Sutherland,)</p><br>
<p>For those who are pining...</p><br>
<p>Describing life on Stroma, Simpson comments:</p><br>
<h3>Decline and abandonment</h3><br>
<p>Stromas population fell precipitously through the first half of the 20th century, leading eventually to the islands final abandonment at the end of the 1950s. There was no single cause that precipitated the collapse of Stroma&#39;s population. Living conditions on the island were always basic; there was no running water or electricity, and gas only arrived in the 1950s, which contrasted poorly with the improvements being made on the mainland. The island was relatively overpopulated; by 1901 the population was nearly twice that of sixty years previously, and there was little spare land left for farming. Families of six to eight children were common, but there was simply not enough work for all, so the eldest often left for the mainland or emigrated to Canada or the United States to find work. The lack of a proper harbour meant that the islanders could not make use of larger boats or develop a modern fishery. Young people started moving away to seek better-paying opportunities elsewhere, eventually followed by their parents.</p><br>
<p>Both of the World Wars had a major impact on Stroma, which was only a dozen miles from the Royal Navys chief base at Scapa Flow in Orkney. Six islanders died in each of the World Wars; the names of all twelve are inscribed on the islands war memorial, and during the Second World War as much as a quarter of the population was on war service. Adding to the island&#39;s economic problems, the introduction of the 11-plus exam in 1944 meant that all children over the age of 12 had to leave Stroma to complete their education at the secondary school in Wick. Because they could not commute between the island and Wick, they had to attend school as boarders, which incurred additional expenses for their parents.</p><br>
<p>Two other factors have often been cited in Stroma&#39;s depopulation: the building of the nuclear power station at nearby Dounreay in the 1950s, which created many new jobs on the mainland, and in the same decade the construction of a harbour on Stroma on which many islanders were employed. Although it has been claimed that this gave the islanders the incentive (and the means) to leave, local historian Donald A. Young points out that of islanders who left after 1945, only one went directly from Stroma to Dounreay. Most of the rest either continued fishing or carried on crofting on the mainland, while others found alternative jobs. Some ex-islanders eventually found jobs at Dounreay, but they had already moved to the mainland for work or education.</p><br>
<p>The Sinclairs of Mey sold their portion of the island to Colonel F. B. Imbert-Terry in 1929, who sold it in turn to John Hoyland, an umbrella manufacturer from Yorkshire, in 1947. Hoyland also acquired the remaining island estate of the Sinclairs of Freswick, uniting Stroma for a reported cost of £4,000. His tenure coincided with the final collapse of the islands population. As the tenants left, Hoyland put Stroma on the market but found no buyers. A Caithness councilman suggested various schemes for Stroma, including establishing a nudist colony and using it as a site for a crematorium, but the council rejected suggestions that it should take on responsibility for the island. As the population left, the local economy disintegrated; there were no longer enough able-bodied men to man the fishing boats, and the remaining facilities on the island were closed down for lack of custom. The last store on the island, the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society shop, closed in 1956. Only three families, numbering 16 people in total, were left by 1957; that year, the islands school closed, by which time it only had two pupils. The Post Office closed in 1958 when the family which operated it left for the mainland.</p><br>
<p>In the summer of 1958, Hoyland prompted controversy by offering the island to the American TV quiz show Bid n Buy as a prize. After an outcry on both sides of the Atlantic, the shows producers settled for offering a car instead. In December 1960, he sold Stroma to James Simpson, an islander whose family had moved to farm on the mainland near the Castle of Mey in 1943. Simpson had not originally intended to buy the island but happened to be talking about it with a lawyer: "I said, I see Stroma was sold last week, and its not sold this week. Is it on the market? Yes, he said, Stromas for sale. I said, "What kind of money?" So he told me what kind of money, and there and then, the lawyer wrote that I, James Simpson, offered to buy the island of Stroma at a certain figure, and I signed my name at the end of it." His wife was not enthusiastic about the purchase: "Lena nearly flew at me for being so stupid. She says, Stroma? What on earth are you going to do with an island?&#39;". He was successful in his bid and used the island to graze his animals, repopulating it with around 200 sheep and 30 cattle.</p><br>
<p>By this time, the five-member Manson family had become the last native inhabitants of Stroma, "Now liv in a silent community of empty houses, an empty church and an empty school." Although the head of the family, Andrew Manson, called the island "a paradise in summer" and a place where he was "free of outside distractions and watching my sons growing from boyhood to manhood – teaching them to live like men, to be dependent on no one," it was a bleak life for the women, who had applied for a council house at Scrabster, near Thurso. The Mansons finally left Stroma on 6 December 1962, bringing to an end thousands of years of permanent habitation on the island.</p><br>
<h3>Island of ruins</h3><br>
<p>Stroma is now entirely deserted by humans; its only permanent inhabitants are the seals, birds and sheep that live on the island. The church, school and old croft houses stand derelict, with many having fallen into ruin. The writer Bella Bathurst, visiting the island in the early 2010s, described the scene:</p><br>
<p>Inside some of the houses, Bathurst writes, everyday objects still remain where they were left decades ago; "the bed and the limed matchboard ceiling are intact, untouched even by the damp. The kitchen table still stands in the parlour and a framed and fading photograph gazes out from the top of the mantelpiece." In another house seen 20 years earlier by Leslie Thomas, "was a rank of family photographs, shades in Victorian dress staring out forever into a room now desolate and holed, but which had once held the life of a warm family."</p><br>
<p>Elsewhere, the books remain "dusty but tidy" in the abandoned school, and the church still contains its pulpit, "dumb and hung with ragged red tassles" with prayer books "left to be trampled upon by heathen sheep and nibbled by rabbits and rats." In the former post office, forms and licence applications and a bottle of dried ink still stand on the counter, while in a back room stands "a nice dresser, upon which a teapot and a jug and some sheet music: Red Sails in the Sunset, The Generals Fast Asleep and You Cant Do That There Ere.&#39; Nobody on Stroma will ever sing those songs now."</p><br>
<p>Bathurst and Thomas express contrasting views on the significance of Stromas abandonment. Thomas regards it as a tragedy: "Of all the out-of-the-way places I have known, this was the saddest. It seemed as though its life had been ended in a fit of pique." To Bathurst, however, "it is tempting to see Stromas abandonment as the result of some appalling trauma. Abandonment is always taken as a sign of failure, a collective death... But Stroma does not feel sad. True, there is sorrow in seeing the once meticulous vegetable patches turned over to weeds, or wondering how many more winters the box beds will stand before they start to rot. But that isn&#39;t the whole story. What is interesting about Stroma is not the fact of its abandonment, but the tale of its past."</p><br>
<h2>Communications</h2><br>
<p>Stroma lacked a regular connection to the mainland until 1879, when the Post Office subsidised a weekly boat service from Huna on the mainland and established a post office on the island. However, the volume of mail from Stroma proved so small that the service was grossly uneconomical. By the 1950s, the Post Office was spending 1s. 2d. for each letter worth 2½d. in postage.</p><br>
<p>For many years, the islanders had no means of contacting the mainland in emergencies other than signalling with hand lamps and hoping that someone would see them. A radio telephone was installed in 1935, and in 1953 a telephone cable was laid. A red telephone box was installed in the centre of the island, symbolic of the 6 millionth phone box installation in the UK. It is still there today, though no longer in use.</p><br>
<p>It was not until 1894 that Stroma gained its first artificial landing point, a pier built from Portland cement near Nethertown at a cost of £800. In 1955, Caithness County Council constructed a new harbour on the south coast of the island at the then great cost of £28,500. Although it was intended to help stem the exodus of people from the island, Stroma was abandoned only a few years after the harbour&#39;s completion.</p><br>
<p>In the late 1930s Highland Airways looked into the possibility of including Stroma in the hospital ambulance plane service that was then in operation. On 19 August 1937, Captain Fresson of Highland Airways landed a small aircraft in farmland adjoining the Mains of Stroma, and the following spring the islanders cleared an area of moorland on the west side of the island to create an airstrip. The first official flight landed in June 1938. However, the Second World War prevented any further developments and a regular service was not established. After the war, Highland Airways was taken over by British European Airways, which abandoned any interest in serving the island.</p><br>
<p>Today, Stroma has no regular communications with the mainland. The island&#39;s owner runs occasional boat trips there on weekends.</p><br>
<h2>Notable buildings</h2><br>
<h3>Lighthouse</h3><br>
<p>In 1890, a lighthouse was built at Stroma&#39;s northern tip, Langaton Point. It was only operational for six years before being replaced, and very little is now known about the structure. The unmanned lighthouse originally housed a Trotter-Lindberg lamp which burned petroleum spirit or lythene. The fuel supply was stored in cisterns near the lantern, which was regularly recharged at least fortnightly by the local fishermen or crofters. It was one of the first lighthouses in Scotland to use this type of "scintillating" light.</p><br>
<p>It was replaced in 1896, possibly on the same site, by a new lighthouse built to a design by David Stevenson as part of a major programme of construction works around northern Scotland. A fog warning system was installed the following year. The lighthouse was subjected to a machine-gun attack by a German aircraft on 22 February 1941. It caused little damage and no injuries, and the keepers were soon able to make repairs.</p><br>
<p>Until 1961 the lighthouse was administered as a shore station, and subsequently (after the resident population of Stroma had left) as a rock station. An electric lamp with a maximum power of 1.1 million cp was installed in 1972, utilising a sealed beam optic mounted on a gearless revolving pedestal. By this time the keepers and their families were the only people living on Stroma. A helicopter pad was installed to enable supplies and personnel to be flown in. In 1997 the station was converted to automatic operation, utilising a 250 watt metal halide lamp which rotates on a gearless pedestal. A lens system from Sule Skerry lighthouse was refitted in the Stroma lighthouse. The old air-driven fog horn was removed and replaced by an electric fog signal which is installed on the balcony of the lighthouse. The lighthouse station&#39;s power, which was formerly obtained from generators, is now provided by batteries which are charged at regular intervals. The current light flashes white every 20 seconds and can be seen from a nominal range of 26 nmi.</p><br>
<h3>Kennedy mausoleum and the mummies of Stroma</h3><br>
<p>One curious side-effect of the constant spray of sea-water over Stroma – apart from making the drinking water brackish and giving the air a constant salt taste – was that it mummified the corpses of some of the island&#39;s inhabitants. They were housed in a mausoleum in the south-east corner of Stroma, built by the Kennedy family in 1677. The building still stands, although it is now unroofed; The lintel of the door has the inscription "I.K." (John Kennedy) and the date 1677 carved into it.</p><br>
<p>The mummies of Stroma were something of a tourist attraction in the 18th century; the Welsh naturalist and traveller Thomas Pennant described the mummies as "entire and uncorrupted bodies of persons who had been dead sixty years. I was informed that they were very light, had a flexibility in their limbs and were of a dusky color." However, their popularity proved their undoing. In 1762 Bishop of Ross and Caithness Robert Forbes recorded in his journal that Murdoch Kennedy</p><br>
<p>By 1786 the mummies had been destroyed by cattle and careless visitors as, according to Walker&#39;s Hibernian Magazine, "curiosity to see the mummies had brought many idle people to Stroma, that some, out of wantonness had shattered the door, and others the bodies; and the door not being repaired, sheep and cattle entered the vault, and trampled them to pieces." There is now no trace of the original burials in the vault.</p><br>
<p>The Kasai River  is a tributary of the Congo River, located in central Africa. The river begins in Angola and then serves as the border between Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo , until it flows into the DRC. The Kasai joins the Congo at Kwamouth northeast of Kinshasa. The Kasai&#39;s tributaries include the Fimi, Kwango, and Sankuru rivers. The short stretch of the Kasai from the inflow of the Fimi to the Congo is known as the Kwah River. The Kasai basin consists mainly of equatorial rainforest areas, which provide an agricultural land in a region noted for its infertile, sandy soil. It is a tributary of Congo river and diamonds are found in this river. Around 60% of diamonds in Belgium go from Kasai river for cutting and shaping.</p><br>
<h2>Exploration</h2><br>
<p>Henry Morton Stanley reached the confluence on 9 March 1877, calling the river Nkutu, a "powerful and deep river", but recognizing it as originating from David Livingstone&#39;s Kwango.</p><br>
<h2>Economic importance</h2><br>
<p>The tributaries of River Kasai are clear of obstacles like cataracts and river weed, making them very navigable. They facilitate the transport sector and form an important trade artery. The river’s role in transport and trade was more prominent during the pre-colonial period when slave trade was legal. Slave traders used one of its major tributaries, the Kwango River, to navigate the equatorial rain forest, capture slaves and find their way back to the Atlantic Ocean where they had docked their ships.</p><br>
<p>It is greatly controversial that some of the local kingdoms that lived along the Kasai River supported slave trade. The Rund kingdom for instance, readily provided slaves for most notorious slave traders like John Matthews, a renowned British slave vendor. These activities, though they occurred between 18th and 19th centuries, left a lasting impact in the regions where they were most prominent, like between Kwango and Kwilu rivers. The population has never recovered fully, with the population density lower than that of areas that did not experience slave trade.</p><br>
<p>The most probable trigger to British and Portuguese great interests in the Kasai River is the presence of alluvial diamonds lying in rich deposit beds, especially at the river’s mouth. More deposits lie along the beds of its major tributary, the Kwango River. In fact, it is common to hear the phrase “the diamond heartland of North Eastern Angola” used in reference to the Kwango River valley. This is because the diamond alluvial beds found in this region are the richest in Angola.</p><br>
<p>The Luvua River  is a river in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo . It flows from the northern end of Lake Mweru on the Zambia-Congo border in a northwesterly direction for 350 km to its confluence with the Lualaba River opposite the town of Ankoro. The Lualaba becomes the Congo River below the Boyoma Falls.</p><br>
<h2>Course</h2><br>
<p>Lake Mweru, at an elevation of about 1,000 m, is a floodplain lake that has been formed by a process of erosion where the wind has carried off alluvium.</p><br>
<p>The Luvua River leaves the north end of the lake at Pweto in the DRC.</p><br>
<p>The river flows about 350 km northwest to Ankoro, where it meets the Lualaba.</p><br>
<p>The middle course of the river is obstructed by a series of rapids, torrents and cataracts as it drops down from the plateau into the Congo Basin.</p><br>
<p>At Piana Mwanga the falls are used to generate electrictiy for the Manono and Kitotolo mines.</p><br>
<p>The river can be navigated in shallow-draft boats for 160 km of its lower course below Kiambi.</p><br>
<p>The Luvua has its peak discharge between March and May, with significantly lower discharge between September and November.</p><br>
<h2>Watershed</h2><br>
<p>The Congo River basin has the form of a huge, shallow saucer. The Luvua breaks through the southeast rim of this saucer, bringing water from the Mweru-Bangweulu watershed.</p><br>
<p>The Luvua drains an area of over 218,000 km&sup2, much of which was at one time part of the Zambezi watershed.</p><br>
<p>There is strong faunal evidence for the Luvua basin having once been part of the Zambezi system, with several species of fish that are common in the Zambezi system also being found in the Luvua.</p><br>
<p>Congo fauna have penetrated up the Luvua into Lake Mweru, but have been blocked by the Mambatuta Falls from entry into Lake Bangweulu. The transition occurred in the early Tertiary.</p><br>
<h2>Congo headwater theory</h2><br>
<p>Some geographers consider that the Luvua is a section of the Congo River.</p><br>
<p>They place the origin of the Congo in the highlands between Tanzania and Zambia, where the Chambeshi River originates, flowing southwest to Lake Bangweulu. From that lake the Luapula River emerges and flows northward over 500 km to Lake Mweru. The Luvua river exits lake Mweru and flows northwest to join the Lualaba River, which becomes the Congo River further downstream.</p><br>
<p>Some say that the Congo begins where the Lualaba and Luvua meet.</p><br>
<p>The argument for treating the Lualaba as the main headwater, although it is much shorter, is that it has twice the volume of water at the point where it meets the Luvua.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The upper Luvua valley was home to the Bwile people.</p><br>
<p>Some time after 1810 Kumwimbe Ngombe, ruler of the Luba Kingdom, conquered the region.</p><br>
<p>The European missionary and explorer David Livingstone "discovered" Lake Mweru in 1867, and formed the theory that the Luvua flowed to the Upper Nile. It was only after Livingstone&#39;s death that Henry Morton Stanley in his expedition of 1874-1877 showed that the river in fact was a tributary of the Congo.</p><br>
<p>Starting in 1891, a Swahili named Shimba launched a series of slave-raiding expeditions that depopulated most of the western shore of Lake Mweru. Shimba joined forces with another Swahili named Kafindo who was based on the upper Luvua, and attacked the local Yeke ruler. These attacks continued until the Belgian Braseur arrived and began to "pacify" the region, which the European powers had agreed belonged to Belgium.</p><br>
<p>In 2000, during the Second Congo War, government forces suffered a major defeat by Rwandan forces at Pweto, at the source of the river. The DRC forces had brought most of their armored vehicles across the river. There was a single ferry, and they did not have enough time to evacuate the vehicles before the Rwandans arrived. Soldiers loaded a T-62 tank awkwardly, and the ferry tipped over and sank. The Rwandans found 33 tanks, as well as other vehicles, which the DRC troops had tried to burn.</p><br>
<p>The Luapula River is a section of Africa&#39;s second-longest river, the Congo. It is a transnational river forming for nearly all its length part of the border between Zambia and the DR Congo. It joins Lake Bangweulu  to Lake Mweru  and gives its name to the Luapula Province of Zambia.</p><br>
<h2>Source and upper Luapula</h2><br>
<p>The Luapula drains Lake Bangweulu and its swamps into which flows the Chambeshi River, the source of the Congo. There is no single clear channel connecting the two rivers and the lake, but a mass of shifting channels, lagoons and swamps, as the explorer David Livingstone found to his cost. (He died exploring the area, and one of his last acts was to question Chief Chitambo about the course of the Luapula.) The channel boldly marked as the Luapula and confidently shown on many maps flowing south out of Lake Bangweulu at 11°25S 29°49E can be seen on satellite images such as Google Earth to actually peter out into green vegetation around 11°46S 29°48E.</p><br>
<p>Below the Bangweulu swamps and floodplain the Luapula flows steadily in an arc south-west turning north-west then north, with some rapids and well-known set of cataracts, Mambilima Falls near the main road.</p><br>
<h2>The Luapula Valley</h2><br>
<p>From the Chembe Ferry to Lake Mweru, the 300 km long Luapula Valley has a higher rural population than the plateau through which it cuts to a depth of up to 500 m. The river is known for this valley and for its long thin delta entering Lake Mweru, usually referred to as the Luapula Swamps. The well-populated part of the valley starts north from Mambilima Falls, and along the rest of its length is nicknamed Mwapoleni Road, after the Chibemba greeting called out as people pass each other.</p><br>
<p>For many practical study purposes the lower Luapula and Mweru can be considered as one entity. They lie in a rift valley or graben once considered separate from the East African Rift but now seen as a branch of it. Mweru however drains not into Lake Tanganyika in the Albertine Rift but via the Luvua River, which has cut a deep, narrow zigzag valley to join the Lualaba River, as the upper Congo is named. The Luapula is part of the longest tributary of the Congo, and hence, by convention, is part of its source, even though the upper Lualaba carries more water.</p><br>
<p>Overlying the edge of the rift valley 60 km west of the Luapula Swamps is the Luizi structure, a 12.6 km wide series of concentric rings. It has been recently confirmed as an meteoritic impact crater (an astrobleme) formed less than 600 million years ago.</p><br>
<p>. 64th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting. (2001). Accessed 30 March 2007. The Luizi structure can be seen on Google Earth at decimal latitude/longitude 10.16 S, 28.00 E.</p><br>
<h2>The Luapula Swamps</h2><br>
<p>The swamps stretch along the last 100 km of the river before it reaches the lake, and for much of that they are 30 km wide, covering an area of about 2500 km². There are four inhabited islands in the DR Congo part of the delta, including the largest in the system which is connected to dry land in the dry season. Zambia has three inhabited islands in the delta including Chisenga Island. There are also many lagoons, the largest of which is Mofwe Lagoon on the Zambian side.</p><br>
<p>As in the Bangweulu Swamps, floating beds of papyrus are a feature of the swamps, which often block channels and change the shape of lagoons. However, the main river channel does not get blocked and stays consistently about 400 m wide. It has not developed the branching channels typical of river deltas.</p><br>
<p>Very tall reeds grow at the edge of the swamps in most places, making it difficult to see over the lagoons from land or to find the way to the maze of narrow channels used by dugout canoes. Guides are needed to navigate through them, and they are a haven for smuggling between the two countries sharing the swamps.</p><br>
<p>Crocodile and hippopotamus are common and a hazard for fishermen and travellers. However, the Shila people used to hunt hippopotamus using nothing more than harpoons thrown from canoes.</p><br>
<p>On the western side of the delta in DR Congo is a broad grassy floodplain covering about 1600 km². At the end of the rainy season the combined Luapula wetlands exceed 4000 km². The floodplain was home to herds of lechwe and the shy sitatunga, the famous semi-aquatic antelopes of the region, but both are believed extinct in the lower Luapula due to hunting and the lack of wildlife management.</p><br>
<h2>Human settlement</h2><br>
<p>The upper and middle reaches of the Luapula are quite sparsely populated.</p><br>
<p>The natural resources of the lower valley, which include fisheries in the river, lagoons and wetlands with fertile farmland at the margins, attracted the Lunda invaders of Mwata Kazembe to settle there around 1750. Their present capital is at Mwansabombwe on the edge of the delta. Arab traders and slavers from Zanzibar and Portuguese traders from Mozambique were attracted to the area in the 18th and 19th Centuries. David Livingstone was the first Briton to visit in 1867. He did not explore the river but in his hunt for the origin of the Nile, Mwata Kazembe was the first to tell him that the Luapula connects the Chambeshi/Bangweulu and Mweru/Luvua/Lualaba systems. Livingstone wrongly believed the Lualaba then flowed to the Nile rather than to the River Congo.</p><br>
<p>Some of the first missionaries in Central Africa were also attracted to the valley. The first was the Garanganze Mission of the Plymouth Brethren at Mambilima around 1892, followed by the London Missionary Society at Mbereshi in 1900.</p><br>
<p>The first large town of the colonial era was the river port, Kasenga, in DR Congo, which grew prosperous in the 1930s from supplying fish to Elizabethville and other towns of the Katanga Copperbelt via the first motor road to reach the valley. Most of the fish was caught in Lake Mweru and brought by boat up the Luapula to Kasenga, where it was packed in ice produced in several plants. Although the fish catch has declined and most now travels on the better roads of Zambia, Kasenga remains the only port on the river. For more on the fisheries of the area, see Lake Mweru.</p><br>
<p>On the Zambian side of the Luapula, an outbreak of sleeping sickness made the British colonial authorities move their Fort Rosebery boma out of the valley onto the plateau at Mansa, while fears of malaria in the Luapula Swamps made them establish the next on the plateau at Kawambwa. Consequently, the towns and villages in the valley, such as the largest, Mwansabombwe, do not have the same ex-colonial character as the administrative towns. However, following the lead of missionary builders and Mwata Kazembe, from the early 1900s most housing in the valley was of solid brick construction, sun-dried brick mainly, but with some burnt brick.</p><br>
<h2>Water Transport on the Luapula</h2><br>
<p>Before the advent of road transport, people travelled by canoe along the river between lakes Bangweulu and Mweru.</p><br>
<p>The lower river between Kasenga and Kilwa on Mweru is now the only stretch of the river carrying much boat transport and most of that is now for DR Congo, where roads are frequently impassable. Up to the late 1940s, the upper Luapula from Kapalala to Lake Bangweulu and the Chambeshi River was one of the most important stretches for river transport in the then Northern Rhodesia. Goods travelled by road from the railhead at Sakania 10 km north of Ndola to Kapalala to be loaded onto dugout canoes and small boats. During World War I, a fleet of 1885 such craft were used to convey matériel to Chambeshi from where it went on a military road to Mbala for the East African Campaign. Unfortunately the floating papyrus and other vegetation frequently choked the channels through the Bangweulu swamps joining the lake, the Luapula and the Chambeshi, making it difficult to use larger motorboats.</p><br>
<h2>River crossings</h2><br>
<p>The first vehicle pontoon ferries were at Kasenga, Kapalala and Shiniama near Matanda. None remain, though a passenger ferry operates between Kasenga and Kashiba, Zambia. Around 1950 the Chembe Ferry on the Congo Pedicle road became on the main vehicle crossing. The river there is 400 m wide but can flood to 1 km wide in a heavy rainy season. In 1983 the first bridge over the river was built, the 2.5-kilometre long Luapula Bridge on the Samfya-Serenje Road. The bridge approaches include nearly 20 km of elevated causeway over wetlands and another 40 km of embankment over flood plain. The second bridge over the river, the 320-metre long Chembe Bridge is under construction for completion in 2008.</p><br>
<p>The Chambeshi  River of northeastern Zambia is the most remote headstream of the Congo River  and therefore considered its source. </p><br>
<p>The Chambeshi rises as a stream in the mountains of northeast Zambia near Lake Tanganyika at an elevation of 1760 metres above sea level. It flows for 480km into the Bangweulu Swamps, which are part of Lake Bangweulu, and by the end of the rainy season in May, it delivers a flood which recharges the swamps and inundates a vast floodplain to the southeast, supporting the Bangweulu Wetlands ecosystem. The water then flows out of the swamps as the Luapula River.</p><br>
<p>For more than 100 km of its length as it flows to the east of Kasama the river consists of a maze of channels in swamps about 2 km wide, in a floodplain up to 25 km wide. Further downstream, where it is bridged by the Kasama-Mpika road and the Tazara Railway, the permanent main channel is about 100 m wide, and up to 400 m wide in flood.</p><br>
<p>The Okavango River  is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for 1,600 km. It begins in Angola, where it is known by the Portuguese name Rio Cubango. Further south, it forms part of the border between Angola and Namibia, and then flows into Botswana, draining into the Moremi Game Reserve.</p><br>
<p>Before it enters Botswana, the river drops 4 m in a series of rapids known as Popa Falls, visible when the river is low, as during the dry season.</p><br>
<p>Discharging to an endorheic basin, the Okavango does not have an outlet to the sea. Instead, it empties into a swamp in the Kalahari Desert, known as the Okavango Delta or Okavango Alluvial Fan. In the rainy season, an outflow to the Boteti River in turn seasonally discharges to the Makgadikgadi Pans, which features an expansive area of rainy-season wetland where tens of thousands of flamingos congregate each summer. Part of the rivers flow fills Lake Ngami. Noted for its wildlife, the Okavango area contains Botswanas Moremi Game Reserve.</p><br>
<p>During colder periods in Earth&#39;s history, a part of the Kalahari was a massive lake, known as Lake Makgadikgadi. In this time, the Okavango would have been one of its largest tributaries.</p><br>
<h2>Water conflict</h2><br>
<p>Both Namibia and Botswana experience drought, and as a result, concerns have been expressed about possible conflict over use of the river&#39;s water. Namibia has built a water canal, measuring about 300 km long, and has proposed a project to build a 250-km pipeline to divert water from the river into Namibia to help relieve the drought.</p><br>
<p>Botswana, however, uses the Okavango Delta for both tourism income and a water source. The Department of Water Affairs in Botswana has submitted that 97% of the water in the river is lost through evaporation, so the country cannot afford to lose any extra water.</p><br>
<p>Namibia, in turn, has argued that it will only divert half a percent of the rivers flow, and that it is entitled to any water that flows through its country. To deal with such issues, in September 1994, Angola, Namibia, and Botswana signed an agreement to form the, to provide advice to the three countries about the best ways to share the Okavango Rivers resources.</p><br>
<h2>Flood</h2><br>
<p>Every wet season, Angola receives three times more rainfall than Botswana, discharging a higher than usual flow into the Okavango, turning swathes of outlying desert into a huge wetland.</p><br>
<p>Although the summer rains fall in Angola in January, they take a whole month to travel the first 1,000 km of the Okavango River, and then they take a further four months to filter through the plants and numerous channels of the final 250 km of the delta. As a result, the flood is at its biggest sometime between June and August, during Botswana’s dry winter months. The delta then swells to three times its permanent size, attracting animals from miles around and creating one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife.</p><br>
<p>At its widest point in a big flood year, the seasonal swamp stretches to 150 km across from east to west; one of the factors that leads to the ever-changing nature of the delta is the flatness of the area. If one were to take a cross section of the delta at its widest point, one would find that the height variation from the mean over that 150 km is less than 2 m, which means that a minor sand deposition can cause major changes.</p><br>
<p>In very wet years, a part of the river&#39;s flow may extend along the Magweggana River (actually a northeastern distributary of the Okavango Delta) and enter the Zambezi River, bypassing the Kalahari.</p><br>
<p>Sipi Falls is a series of three waterfalls in Eastern Uganda in the district of Kapchorwa, northeast of Sironko and Mbale. The waterfalls lie on the edge of Mount Elgon National Park near the Kenyan border.</p><br>
<p>The Sipi Falls area is the starting point for many hikes up Mt. Elgon. The most popular route starts in Budadiri and follows the Sasa trail to the summit and then descends down the Sipi trail back into the Sipi Falls. Hikes around the falls offer stunning views of the Karamoja plains, Lake Kyoga, and the slopes of Mt. Elgon. Individuals can organise trips through the Uganda Wildlife Authority or local private operators.</p><br>
<p>There are a number of lodges and backpackers / campsites in the area offering a range of accommodation for all budgets. With a cooler climate than most of the country Sipi Falls is a nice place to unwind, relax and literally chill out away from the hustle and bustle of the towns and cities.</p><br>
<p>Being on the foothills of Mt. Elgon, Sipi offers a number of alternative activities to the mainstream river activities in and around Jinja. Rob&#39;s Rolling Rock, a local outfit trained by Italian climbers offers abseiling along the side of the main 100m Sipi waterfall as well as climbing on 14 bolted sport routes with a range of difficulty. Other activities include hiking around the local area and visiting the local waterfalls.</p><br>
<p>The Sipi River is named after the ‘Sep’, a plant indigenous to the banks of the River. Resembling a type of wild banana, Sep is a medicinal plant, the translucent green frond with a bolt of crimson rib is used for treating measles and fever.</p><br>
<p>The Sipi Falls area is particularly famous for locally grown Bugisu Arabica coffee. Bugisu Arabica only grows at an altitude of between 1,600 and 1,900 metres. Coffee tours are organized through guides with knowledge of coffee farming, processing and roasting. Profits from this go towards community projects.</p><br>
<p></revision></p><br>
<p>Moreton Island is an island on the eastern side of Moreton Bay on the coast of South East Queensland, Australia. The Coral Sea lies on the east coast of the island. Moreton Island lies 58 km northeast of the Queensland capital, Brisbane. 95% of the island is contained within a national park and a popular destination for day trippers, four wheel driving, camping, recreational angling and whale watching and just a 75-minute ferry ride from Brisbane.</p><br>
<p>The island is within the City of Brisbane and is gazetted into four localities, the small townships of Bulwer, Cowan Cowan and Kooringal with the bulk of the island being the locality of Moreton Island. The private Tangalooma Island Resort is also within the locality of Moreton Island. All residential areas are located on the western coast of the island facing Moreton Bay.</p><br>
<p>The island was named by Matthew Flinders. At least five lighthouses have been built on the island. A small number of residents live in four small settlements. Tangalooma was the site of a whaling station. Access to the island is by vehicular barge or passenger ferry services. Moreton Island is a popular destination for camping and fishing.</p><br>
<p>It is one of the wettest parts of the City of Brisbane with precipitation spread evenly throughout the year compared to other parts of South East Queensland. Cape Moreton receives an annual average rainfall of 1,567 mm.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island covers an area of approximately 186 km&sup2, and extends for 37 km from north to south and is 13 km at its widest point. Cape Moreton, at the north eastern tip of the island, is the only rock outcrop on the island. It was named Cape Morton by Captain James Cook in May 1770, and was at that time assumed to be part of the mainland. The current spelling came about because of a clerical error later.</p><br>
<p>The highest point on the island is named Mount Tempest, which at 280 m is reputedly the highest, stabilised, coastal sandhill in the world. Close to Mount Tempest is another large sandhill&mdash;Storm Mountain at 264 m. Only in Iran are there sandhills of comparable size, measuring up to 210 m from bases to crest.</p><br>
<p>Four small settlements exist on the western side of the island. The northernmost of these is Bulwer near the north western corner of the island, whilst Cowan Cowan is approximately 4.5 km further south. Approximately 6 km further south lies the private Tangalooma Island Resort. This former whaling station features the Tangalooma Marine Education and Conservation Centre (TMECC) and is known for its dolphin feeding and wreck diving. Tangalooma is the main access point to the island with regular passenger ferry and vehicular barge services. The island&#39;s main airstrip is 1,000 m long and lies between Cowan Cowan and Tangalooma. The other settlement is Kooringal which is located near the southern tip of the island. This township has its own 500 m airstrip and was serviced by a vehicular barge that ran to Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island until April 2009 when the barge was sold off due to limited business and high operation costs. A new vehicular barge called the Amity Trader now services the same route.</p><br>
<p>Fort Cowan Cowan, an old World War II bunker and fortification complex that was used to protect the approaches to Moreton Bay, is located north of Cape Cowan Cowan. The bar between the two islands is known as South Passage and is dangerous to cross in high seas.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Moreton Island is the traditional home of the Ngugi tribe.</p><br>
<p>At Cape Moreton is Queensland&#39;s oldest lighthouse, Cape Moreton Light, which was first lit in 1857. The lighthouse was followed by at least four other lighthouse erected since the 1860s, at Comboyuro Point, North Point, Cowan Cowan Point and Yellow Patch. During World War II, a number of defence installations were installed on the island by the Royal Australian Navy and Australian Army. These sites included anti aircraft guns and mine control buildings. Their purpose was to protect the approaches to the port of Brisbane and at its peak 900 troops were stationed on the island.</p><br>
<p>Between 1952 and 1962, Tangalooma, on the western side of the island, was the site of Queensland&#39;s only whaling station, with humpback whales being harvested on their annual migration north. Each season up to 600 whales were processed with a maximum of 11 whales per day. The site of the whaling station is now the Tangalooma Island Resort. The flensing plan of the station still exists as part of the resort.</p><br>
<p>Moreton Island was included in the Greater Brisbane area in 1974. The council initially permitted 60% of the island to potentially be sandmined, however a public outcry led to the council changing the zoning to open space. The sands on the island contain rutile and zircon. The Queensland Government, led by Joh Bjelke-Petersen supported sandmining on the island and established the Cook Inquiry which produced a report recommending that 94% of the island be banned from mining. Despite this more mining licences were granted until 1984 when the Federal government announced it would decline export licences for the island&#39;s mineral sands. In 1989, then Premier of Queensland, Wayne Goss halted mining of the island and compensated the companies involved.</p><br>
<p>A salt-water lagoon on the island was used as a temporary home to a dugong called Pig. Pig was the youngest dugong ever successfully reared in captivity. The dugong was placed in the lagoon to increase its natural instincts before being released into the wild.</p><br>
<h3>Pacific Adventurer oil spill</h3><br>
<p>On 11 March 2009 the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer lost bunker oil and cargo north of Moreton Island during heavy seas that were generated by Tropical Cyclone Hamish. The ship reportedly lost 31 containers of ammonium nitrate and as much as 230 tonnes of bunker oil. The spilled bunker oil was washed ashore on beaches along the northern end of Moreton Island including Honeymoon Bay, as well as along Bribie Island and beaches on the Sunshine Coast. These have been deemed disaster areas, although a controversy has arisen as to the lack of early response as well as the refusal to accept offers of help or allow access to clean up the area.</p><br>
<p>The ship&#39;s owners face the possibility of up to 2 million in fines and the skipper could have to pay up to $200,000. They may also be liable for up to $250 million for environmental damage to the shoreline.</p><br>
<p>Britains Swire Shipping Ltd., the Hong Kong-registered ships owner, said containers aboard the ship had slipped from the deck as it rocked in cyclone-stirred waters, ripping a hole in a bunker oil tank and spilling the equivalent of more than 11,000 impgal of bunk oil into the sea. Later, the company said a diver&#39;s inspection of the hull had led it to conclude the amount of spilled bunk oil was "significantly more" than that, but did not give a replacement figure.</p><br>
<h2>Heritage listings</h2><br>
<p>Moreton Island has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:</p><br>
<p>Cape Moreton: Cape Moreton Lightstation</p><br>
<p>25 Dorothy Newnham Street: Signal Station, Moreton Island</p><br>
<p>30 Jessie Wadsworth Street: Fort Cowan Cowan (Cowan Cowan Battery)</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Established in 1966, 98% of the island is contained within the Moreton Island National Park, which has a World Conservation Union (IUCN) category of II. The park is managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.</p><br>
<p>Camping and four wheel driving is permitted and possible in many parts, with the appropriate fee. Motor vehicle access is by ferry, but is for four wheel drive vehicles only, as there are no sealed roads on the island. Camping is permitted, however permits must be obtained on the mainland. There are plenty of recreational activities including sand tobogganing which Moreton is famous for, snorkeling & diving, bird watching, feeding dolphins, whale watching from land, fishing and parasailing.</p><br>
<p>There are more islands to the south, South Stradbroke Island and North Stradbroke Island, and to the north; Bribie Island and Fraser Island (reputed to be the biggest sand island in the world, Moreton Island being the second largest to Fraser).</p><br>
<h3>Management plan</h3><br>
<p>The Queensland Government implemented a new management plan called the Moreton Island Management Plan on 1 July 2007. This plan includes a new camping booking system, designated routes for quads, trikes and trail bikes and other zoning which defines rules for access and recreational opportunities. The plan incorporated existing fire management plans, pest and plant control measures and feral animal eradication programs.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>Access to the island is via vehicle ferry service from the Moreton Island Adventures MICAT at Port of Brisbane in Lytton, and the resort passenger services on the Tangalooma Island Resort Fleet departing from the Brisbane River at Holt St Pinkenba. A service from Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island was discontinued. Timetable details are available at. The Combie Trader barge service from Scarborough in Redcliffe City to Bulwer no longer operates. It ceased in July 2008 due to matters with the terminal and landing areas.</p><br>
<p>There is no public bus service on the island. Tours and taxi transfers by four wheel drive (off-road) vehicles operate from Bulwer. Private vehicles may be brought to the island by ferry. They can be driven on the island but require a vehicle access permit as the island is a national park. Four wheel drive (off-road) vehicles are necessary as roads are unsealed and often sandy tracks beyond resort areas. Many beaches, particularly on the east shore, also serve as roads. There is little or no petrol on the island.</p><br>
<p>Göbekli Tepe, Turkish for "Potbelly Hill", is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, approximately 12 km northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa. The tell has a height of 15 m and is about 300 m in diameter. It is approximately 760 m above sea level.</p><br>
<p>The tell includes two phases of use believed to be of a social or ritual nature dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the world&#39;s oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m and weighs up to 20 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime. The site was abandoned after the PPNB. Younger structures date to classical times.</p><br>
<p>The details of the structure&#39;s function remain a mystery. It was excavated by a German archaeological team under the direction of Klaus Schmidt from 1996 until his death in 2014. Schmidt believed that the site was a sanctuary where people from a wide region periodically congregated, not a settlement.</p><br>
<h2>Discovery</h2><br>
<p>The site was first noted in a survey conducted by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago in 1963. American archaeologist Peter Benedict identified lithics collected from the surface of the site as belonging to the Aceramic Neolithic, but mistook the stone slabs (the upper parts of the T-shaped pillars) for grave markers, postulating that the prehistoric phase was overlain by a Byzantine cemetery. The hill had long been under agricultural cultivation, and generations of local inhabitants had frequently moved rocks and placed them in clearance piles, which may have disturbed the upper layers of the site. At some point attempts had been made to break up some of the pillars, presumably by farmers who mistook them for ordinary large rocks.</p><br>
<p>In 1994, Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute, who had previously been working at Nevalı Çori, was looking for another site to excavate. He reviewed the archaeological literature on the surrounding area, found the 1963 Chicago researchers’ brief description of Göbekli Tepe, and decided to reexamine the site. Having found similar structures at Nevalı Çori, he recognized the possibility that the rocks and slabs were prehistoric. The following year, he began excavating there in collaboration with the Şanlıurfa Museum, and soon unearthed the first of the huge T-shaped pillars.</p><br>
<h2>Dating</h2><br>
<p>The imposing stratigraphy of Göbekli Tepe attests to many centuries of activity, beginning at least as early as the Epipaleolithic period. Structures identified with the succeeding period, Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), have been dated to the 10th millennium BCE. Remains of smaller buildings identified as Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) and dating from the 9th millennium BCE have also been unearthed.</p><br>
<p>A number of radiocarbon dates have been published:</p><br>
<p>The Hd samples are from charcoal in the fill of the lowest levels of the site and would date the end of the active phase of occupation of Level III - the actual structures will be older. The Ua samples come from pedogenic carbonate coatings on pillars and only indicate the time after the site was abandoned—the terminus ante quem.</p><br>
<h2>Complex</h2><br>
<p>Göbekli Tepe is on a flat and barren plateau, with buildings fanning in all directions. In the north, the plateau is connected to a neighbouring mountain range by a narrow promontory. In all other directions, the ridge descends steeply into slopes and steep cliffs. On top of the ridge there is considerable evidence of human impact, in addition to the actual tell. Excavations have taken place at the southern slope of the tell, south and west of a mulberry that marks an Islamic pilgrimage, but archaeological finds come from the entire plateau. The team has also found many remains of tools.</p><br>
<h3>Plateau</h3><br>
<p>The plateau has been transformed by erosion and by quarrying, which took place not only in the Neolithic, but also in classical times. There are four 10 m and 20 cm channels on the southern part of the plateau, interpreted as the remains of an ancient quarry from which rectangular blocks were taken. These are possibly related to a square building in the neighbourhood, of which only the foundation is preserved. Presumably, this is the remains of a Roman watchtower which belonged to the Limes Arabicus. However, this is not known with certainty.</p><br>
<p>Most structures on the plateau seem to be the result of Neolithic quarrying, with the quarries being used as sources for the huge, monolithic architectural elements. Their profiles were pecked into the rock, with the detached blocks then levered out of the rock bank. Several quarries where round workpieces had been produced were identified. Their status as quarries was confirmed by the find of a 3-by-3-metre piece at the southeastern slope of the plateau. Unequivocally Neolithic are three T-shaped pillars that have not been levered out of the bedrock. The biggest of them lies on the northern plateau. It has a length of 7 m and its head has a width of 3 m. Its weight may be around 50 tons. The two other unfinished pillars lie on the southern Plateau.</p><br>
<p>At the western edge of the hill, a lion-like figure was found. In this area, flint and limestone fragments occur more frequently. It was therefore suggested that this could have been some kind of sculpture workshop. It is unclear, on the other hand, how to classify three phallic depictions from the surface of the southern plateau. They are near the quarries from classical times, making their dating difficult.</p><br>
<p>Apart from the tell, there is an incised platform with two sockets that could have held pillars, and a surrounding flat bench. This platform corresponds to the complexes from Layer III at the actual tell. Continuing the naming pattern, it is called "complex E." Owing to its similarity to the cult-buildings at Nevalı Çori it has also been called "Temple of the Rock." Its floor has been carefully hewn out of the bedrock and smoothed, reminiscent of the terrazzo floors of the younger complexes at Göbekli Tepe. Immediately northwest of this area are two cistern-like pits, believed to be part of complex E. One of these pits has a table-high pin as well as a staircase with five steps.</p><br>
<p>At the western escarpment, a small cave has been discovered in which a small relief depicting a bovine was found. It is the only relief found in this cave.</p><br>
<h3>Layer III</h3><br>
<p>At this early stage of the site&#39;s history, circular compounds or temene first appear. They range from 10 to 30 metres in diameter. Their most notable feature is the presence of T-shaped limestone pillars evenly set within thick interior walls composed of unworked stone. Four such circular structures have been unearthed so far. Geophysical surveys indicate that there are 16 more, enclosing up to eight pillars each, amounting to nearly 200 pillars in all. The slabs were transported from bedrock pits located approximately 100 metres (330 ft) from the hilltop, with workers using flint points to cut through the limestone bedrock.</p><br>
<p>Two taller pillars stand facing one another at the centre of each circle. Whether the circles were provided with a roof is uncertain. Stone benches designed for sitting are found in the interior. Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The reliefs depict mammals such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles and donkeys; snakes and other reptiles, arthropods such as insects and arachnids; and birds, particularly vultures. At the time the edifice was constructed, the surrounding country was likely to have been forested and capable of sustaining this variety of wildlife, before millennia of settlement and cultivation led to the near–Dust Bowl conditions prevalent today. Vultures also feature prominently in the iconography of Çatalhöyük and Jericho. Professor of Archaeology Steven Mithen suggests that in the early Neolithic culture of Anatolia and the Near East, the deceased were deliberately exposed in order to be excarnated by vultures and other carrion birds. (The head of the deceased was sometimes removed and preserved — possibly a sign of ancestor worship.) This, then, would represent an early form of sky burial, as still practiced by Tibetan Buddhists and by Zoroastrians in Iran and India.</p><br>
<p>Few humanoid figures have appeared in the art at Göbekli Tepe. However, some of the T-shaped pillars have human arms carved on their lower half, suggesting that they are intended to represent the bodies of stylized humans (or perhaps gods). Loincloths also appear on the lower half of a few pillars. The horizontal stone member on top is thought to symbolize a human head. The pillars as a whole therefore have an anthropomorphic identity. Whether they were intended to serve as surrogate worshippers, symbolize venerated ancestors, or represent supernatural, anthropomorphic beings is not known.</p><br>
<p>Some of the floors in this, the oldest, layer are made of terrazzo (burnt lime), others are bedrock from which pedestals to hold the large pair of central pillars were carved in high relief. Radiocarbon dating places the construction of these early circles in the range of 9600 to 8800 BCE. Carbon dating suggests that (for reasons unknown) the enclosures were backfilled during the Stone Age.</p><br>
<h3>Layer II</h3><br>
<p>Creation of the circular enclosures in layer III later gave way to the construction of small rectangular rooms in layer II. Rectangular buildings make a more efficient use of space compared with circular structures. They are often associated with the emergence of the Neolithic. But the T-shaped pillars, the main feature of the older enclosures, are also present here, indicating that the buildings of Layer II continued to serve as sanctuaries. Layer II is assigned to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). The several adjoining rectangular, doorless and windowless rooms have floors of polished lime reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. Carbon dating has yielded dates between 8800 and 8000 BCE. Several T-pillars up to 1.5 meters tall occupy the center of the rooms. A pair decorated with fierce-looking lions is responsible for the name "lion pillar building" by which their enclosure is known.</p><br>
<p>A sort of a stone totem pole was discovered at Göbekli Tepe, Layer II in 2010. It is 1.92 metres high, and is superficially reminiscent of those in North America. The pole features three figures, the uppermost depicting a predator, probably a bear, and below it a human-like shape. Because the statue is damaged, the interpretation is not entirely clear. Fragments of a similar pole were discovered about 20 years ago in Nevalı Çori, also in Turkey. Also, an older layer at Gobekli does feature some related sculptures portraying animals on human heads.</p><br>
<h3>Layer I</h3><br>
<p>Layer I is the uppermost part of the hill. It is the shallowest, but accounts for the longest stretch of time. It consists of loose sediments caused by erosion and the virtually uninterrupted use of the hill for agricultural purposes since it ceased to operate as a cult center.</p><br>
<p>The site was deliberately backfilled sometime after 8000 BCE: the buildings were buried under debris, mostly flint gravel, stone tools, and animal bones that must have been imported from elsewhere. In addition to Byblos points (weapon heads, i.e. arrowheads etc.) and numerous Nemrik points, Helwan-points and Aswad-points dominate the backfill&#39;s lithic inventory.</p><br>
<h2>Chronological context</h2><br>
<p>All statements about the site must be considered preliminary, as less than 5% of the site has been excavated, and Schmidt planned to leave much of it untouched to be explored by future generations (when archaeological techniques will presumably have improved). While the site formally belongs to the earliest Neolithic (PPNA), up to now no traces of domesticated plants or animals have been found. The inhabitants are assumed to have been hunters and gatherers who nevertheless lived in villages for at least part of the year. So far, very little evidence for residential use has been found. Through the radiocarbon method, the end of Layer III can be fixed at about 9000 BCE (see above) but it is believed that the elevated location may have functioned as a spiritual center by 11,000 BCE or even earlier, essentially at the very end of the Pleistocene.</p><br>
<p>The surviving structures, then, not only predate pottery, metallurgy, and the invention of writing or the wheel, but were built before the so-called Neolithic Revolution, i.e., the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry around 9000 BCE. But the construction of Göbekli Tepe implies organization of an advanced order not hitherto associated with Paleolithic, PPNA, or PPNB societies. Archaeologists estimate that up to 500 persons were required to extract the heavy pillars from local quarries and move them 100 - to the site. The pillars weigh 10 -, with one still in the quarry weighing 50 tons. It has been suggested that an elite class of religious leaders supervised the work and later controlled whatever ceremonies took place. If so, this would be the oldest known evidence for a priestly caste—much earlier than such social distinctions developed elsewhere in the Near East.</p><br>
<p>Around the beginning of the 8th millennium BCE Göbekli Tepe ("Potbelly Hill") lost its importance. The advent of agriculture and animal husbandry brought new realities to human life in the area, and the "Stone-age zoo" (Schmidts phrase applied particularly to Layer III, Enclosure D) apparently lost whatever significance it had had for the regions older, foraging communities. But the complex was not simply abandoned and forgotten to be gradually destroyed by the elements. Instead, each enclosure was deliberately buried under as much as 300 to 500 m3 of refuse consisting mainly of small limestone fragments, stone vessels, and stone tools. Many animal, even human, bones have also been identified in the fill. Why the enclosures were buried is unknown, but it preserved them for posterity.</p><br>
<h2>Interpretation</h2><br>
<p>Schmidt&#39;s view was that Göbekli Tepe is a stone-age mountain sanctuary. Radiocarbon dating as well as comparative, stylistical analysis indicate that it is the oldest religious site yet discovered anywhere. Schmidt believed that what he called this "cathedral on a hill" was a pilgrimage destination attracting worshippers up to 150 km distant. Butchered bones found in large numbers from local game such as deer, gazelle, pigs, and geese have been identified as refuse from food hunted and cooked or otherwise prepared for the congregants.</p><br>
<p>Schmidt considered Göbekli Tepe a central location for a cult of the dead and that the carved animals are there to protect the dead. Though no tombs or graves have been found so far, Schmidt believed that they remain to be discovered in niches located behind the sacred circles&#39; walls.</p><br>
<p>In 2017, discovery of human crania with incisions were reported, interpreted as providing evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult.</p><br>
<p>Schmidt also interpreted it in connection with the initial stages of the Neolithic. It is one of several sites in the vicinity of Karaca Dağ, an area which geneticists suspect may have been the original source of at least some of our cultivated grains (see Einkorn). Recent DNA analysis of modern domesticated wheat compared with wild wheat has shown that its DNA is closest in sequence to wild wheat found on Karaca Dağ 30 km away from the site, suggesting that this is where modern wheat was first domesticated. Such scholars suggest that the Neolithic revolution, in particular the beginnings of grain cultivation (i.e. not animal husbandry) took place here. Schmidt believed, as others do, that mobile groups in the area were compelled to cooperate with each other to protect early concentrations of wild cereals from wild animals (herds of gazelles and wild donkeys). Wild cereals may have been used for sustenance more intensively than before and were perhaps deliberately cultivated. This would have led to early social organization of various groups in the area of Göbekli Tepe. Thus, according to Schmidt, the Neolithic did not begin on a small scale in the form of individual instances of garden cultivation, but developed rapidly in the form of "a large-scale social organization".</p><br>
<p>With its mountains catching the rain and a calcareous, porous bedrock creating lots of springs, creeks and rivers the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris was a refuge during the dry and cold Younger Dryas climatic event (10,800 – 9,500 BCE). Crowded conditions could have led these people to develop common rituals strengthened by monumental gathering places to reduce tensions and conflicts over resources, and probably to mark territorial claims.</p><br>
<p>Schmidt engaged in some speculation regarding the belief systems of the groups that created Göbekli Tepe, based on comparisons with other shrines and settlements. He assumed shamanic practices and suggested that the T-shaped pillars represent human forms, perhaps ancestors, whereas he saw a fully articulated belief in gods only developing later in Mesopotamia, associated with extensive temples and palaces. This corresponds well with an ancient Sumerian belief that agriculture, animal husbandry, and weaving were brought to mankind from the sacred mountain Ekur, which was inhabited by Annuna deities, very ancient gods without individual names. Schmidt identified this story as a primeval oriental myth that preserves a partial memory of the emerging Neolithic. It is also apparent that the animal and other images give no indication of organized violence, i.e. there are no depictions of hunting raids or wounded animals, and the pillar carvings generally ignore game on which the society depended, such as deer, in favor of formidable creatures such as lions, snakes, spiders, and scorpions. Expanding on Schmidts interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghius semiotic interpretation reads Göbekli Tepe&#39;s iconography as a cosmogonic map which would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos.</p><br>
<h2>Importance</h2><br>
<p>Göbekli Tepe is regarded by some as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change the understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Ian Hodder of Stanford University said, "Göbekli Tepe changes everything". If indeed the site was built by hunter-gatherers as some researchers believe then it would mean that the ability to erect monumental complexes was within the capacities of these sorts of groups which would overturn previous assumptions. Some researchers believe that the construction of Göbekli Tepe may have contributed to the later development of urban civilization. As excavator Klaus Schmidt put it: "First came the temple, then the city."</p><br>
<p>Not only its large dimensions, but the side-by-side existence of multiple pillar shrines makes the location unique. There are no comparable monumental complexes from its time. However, since its discovery surface surveys have shown that several hills in the greater area also have T-shaped stone pillars (e.g. Hamzan Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepesi, Sefer Tepe, Taslı Tepe), but there has so far not been much excavation done. Most of these constructions seem to be smaller than Göbekli Tepe, and their placement evenly between contemporary settlements indicate that they were local social/ritual gathering places, with Göbekli Tepe maybe as a regional centre. So far none of the smaller sites are as old as the lowest Level III of Göbekli Tepe, but contemporary with its younger Level II (mostly rectangular buildings, though Harbetsuvan is circular). This could indicate that this type of architecture and associated activities originated at Göbekli Tepe and then spread to other sites.</p><br>
<p>A 500 years younger site is Nevalı Çori, a Neolithic settlement also excavated by the German Archaeological Institute and submerged by the Atatürk Dam since 1992. Its T-shaped pillars are considerably smaller, and its rectangular shrine was located inside a village. The roughly contemporary architecture at Jericho is devoid of artistic merit or large-scale sculpture, and Çatalhöyük, perhaps the most famous Anatolian Neolithic village, is 2,000 years later.</p><br>
<p>At present Göbekli Tepe raises more questions for archaeology and prehistory than it answers. It remains unknown how a force large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and compensated or fed in the conditions of pre-sedentary society. Scholars cannot interpret the pictograms, and do not know for certain what meaning the animal reliefs had for visitors to the site; the variety of fauna depicted, from lions and boars to birds and insects, makes any single explanation problematic. As there is little or no evidence of habitation, and the animals pictured are mainly predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation. Alternatively, they could have served as totems. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has also been challenged by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, "similar in some ways to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their impressive house posts and totem poles." It is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one. Human burial may or may not have occurred at the site. The reason the complex was carefully backfilled remains unexplained. Until more evidence is gathered, it is difficult to deduce anything certain about the originating culture or the site&#39;s significance.</p><br>
<h2>Conservation</h2><br>
<p>Future plans include construction of a museum and converting the environs into an archaeological park in the hope that this will help preserve the site in the state in which it was discovered.</p><br>
<p>In 2010, Global Heritage Fund (GHF) announced it will undertake a multi-year conservation program to preserve Göbekli Tepe. Partners include the German Archaeological Institute, German Research Foundation, Şanlıurfa Municipal Government, the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture and, formerly, Klaus Schmidt.</p><br>
<p>The stated goals of the GHF Göbekli Tepe project are to support the preparation of a site management and conservation plan, construction of a shelter over the exposed archaeological features, training community members in guiding and conservation, and helping Turkish authorities secure UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for GT.</p><br>
<p>"GHF - Gobekli Tepe, Turkey - Overview", globalheritagefund.org:</p><br>
<p>Mount Cameroon is an active volcano in Cameroon near the Gulf of Guinea. Mount Cameroon is also known as Cameroon Mountain or Fako  or by its native name Mongo ma Ndemi . It is the highest point in sub-Saharan western and central Africa, the fourth most prominent peak in Africa and the 31st most prominent in the world.</p><br>
<p>The mountain is part of the area of volcanic activity known as the Cameroon Volcanic Line, which also includes Lake Nyos, the site of a disaster in 1986. The most recent eruption occurred on February 3, 2012.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>Mount Cameroon is one of Africa&#39;s largest volcanoes, rising to 4,040 m above the coast of west Cameroon. It rises from the coast through tropical rainforest to a bare summit which is cold, windy, and occasionally dusted with snow. The massive steep-sided volcano of dominantly basaltic-to-trachybasaltic composition forms a volcanic horst constructed above a basement of Precambrian metamorphic rocks covered with Cretaceous to Quaternary sediments. More than 100 small cinder cones, often fissure-controlled parallel to the long axis of the massive 1,400 km3 volcano, occur on the flanks and surrounding lowlands. A large satellitic peak, Etinde (also known as Little Mount Cameroon), is located on the southern flank near the coast. Mount Cameroon has the most frequent eruptions of any West African volcano. The first written account of volcanic activity could be the one from the Carthaginian Hanno the Navigator, who might have observed the mountain in the 5th century BC. Moderate explosive and effusive eruptions have occurred throughout history from both summit and flank vents. A 1922 eruption on the southwestern flank produced a lava flow that reached the Atlantic coast, and a lava flow from a 1999 south-flank eruption stopped only 200 m (660 ft) from the sea, cutting the coastal highway.</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>The peak is frequently ascended by hikers. The annual Mount Cameroon Race of Hope scales the peak in around 4½ hours. Sarah Etonge, who has won the race seven times and is also a tour operator, has become known as queen of the mountain.</p><br>
<p>English explorer Mary Kingsley, one of the first Europeans to scale the mountain, recounts her expedition in her 1897 memoir Travels in West Africa.</p><br>
<p>Impatiens etindensis and I. grandisepala are plant species known only from Mount Cameroon. There are no trees in this area.</p><br>
<p>Mount Karisimbi is an inactive volcano in the Virunga Mountains on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. At 4,507 m, Karisimbi is the highest of the eight major mountains of the mountain range, which is a part of Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Karisimbi is flanked by Mikeno to the north, Bisoke to the east and Nyiragongo to the west, on the other side of the Rift Valley. Karisimbi is the 11th highest mountain of Africa.</p><br>
<p>The name Karisimbi comes from the word amasimbi in the local language, Kinyarwanda, which means snow. Snow can mostly be found during the dry season in June, July and August on the top of the volcano.</p><br>
<p>Between Karisimbi and Bisoke is the Karisoke Research Center, which was founded by Dian Fossey in order to observe the mountain gorillas living in this area.</p><br>
<h2>1908 expedition</h2><br>
<p>On February 27, 1908 an expedition led by Egon Von Kirschstein was coming down the Branca Crater when a hailstorm and snowstorm caused twenty of the expedition&#39;s porters to perish.</p><br>
<p>Aneto is the highest mountain in the Pyrenees and in Aragon, and Spain&#39;s third-highest mountain, reaching a height of 3,404 m. It stands in the Spanish province of Huesca, the northernmost of all three Aragonese provinces, 4 miles south of the French border. It forms the southernmost part of the Maladeta massif. It is also still locally known as Pic de Néthou in French, that name and its variants having been in general use until the beginning of the 20th century.</p><br>
<p>Aneto is located in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, in the municipality of Benasque, Huesca province, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It is part of the Maladeta massif and is located in the Benasque valley. It consists of Paleozoic terrain of a granitic nature and Mesozoic materials. Its northern side holds the largest glacier in the Pyrenees, covering 79.6 hectare in 2005; it is shrinking rapidly due to warming summer temperatures and decreasing winter precipitations over the 20th century – it covered 106.7 ha in 1981, and over 200 ha in the 19th century. It is estimated that it has lost more than half of its surface in the last 100 years, and that it may disappear around 2050.</p><br>
<h2>Toponym</h2><br>
<p>Initially, the great mass of granite did not even have a name. There are indications that the shepherds and hunters from the southern valleys referred to it as Malheta or Malahita or Punta. The first cultured traveller who saw it from the port (or pass) of Benasque, Louis Ramond de Carbonnières, simply described its appearance as "needles of ice" in 1787.</p><br>
<p>The highest point of the Pyrenees eventually inherited the name of a village on its south-eastern side: Aneto.</p><br>
<p>The French, on hearing the Argonese pronunciation of "Aneto", retained the last two clearly accentuated phonetic syllables, "ne" and "tu", ignoring the first syllable "a". Based on such oral transcription, the French name "Netou" came to exist along with several historical variants: Nelto, Nettou, Anetthou, Annetton, Anelthou, Nethom or Aréthon, all used by various cartographers. Even though the summit and slopes are entirely within Spanish territory, the first extensive studies of the Pyrenees - and the only ones for the following 100 years - were French ones from the 19th century - starting with the very detailed study by Jean Daniel François Schrader (1844-1924) in 1874. So these names were the toponyms that were then used. It took Émile Belloc&#39;s renown work on the Pyrenees (notably on its hydrology, glaciology and etymology) to establish the name of Aneto as the official toponym; he consistently used that name in 1898 already.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Some two miles away on its north-west fringe lies the Maladeta peak that, though not being among the five highest peaks in the environment, gave its name to the entire massif. It subsequently earned the greatest interest of climbers, especially in the early 18th century. Mainly, it was a matter of perspective, since from the natural entrance to the valley or arriving from France, its top is in the foreground, while the crest hides the true extent of its eastern neighbor, taller and with larger glaciers. Only when Friedrich von Parrot reached the top of the Maladeta in 1817, came the realisation that both Aneto as well as its neighbours the Pico del Medio, the Punta Astorg, the Pico Maldito and la Aguja Schmidt Endell towered higher. Until then, the Monte Perdido had been considered the highest. However, the uncovering of the highest point of the Pyrenees had hardly been accomplished when the mountain began to earn a reputation, as several glacial disasters, some fatal, dissipated the interest in crowning it - notably with the death of Luchon Barrau, considered the dean and leading expert in the area. He fell in a crack in the ice on Maladeta. This caused a real shock and the natives, already very fearful of venturing on the glacier, became genuinely scared of the mountain which they considered cursed.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Aneto rises to 3,404 meters above sea level in the centre of the Pyrenees mountain range. It lies entirely in Spain, just south of the main ridge of the Pyrenees and the border between France and Spain.</p><br>
<p>The peak lies in the north-east of the province of Huesca above the town of Benasque,</p><br>
<p>Aneto occupies the eastern end of the Malditos Massif which primarily consists of a 6km long ridge, running from north-west to south east at over 3000m. The ridge connects Aneto towards the east with the more visible Maladeta peak, further to the west, and includes the Coronas peaks and Pico Maldito, which, together with the crest of the portillons, gives the massif its characteristic image.</p><br>
<p>Photo of the Maladeta massif with names of its peaks.</p><br>
<p>Although the valley to the north is the source of the Ésera river, which flows west and then south, the northern slopes of Aneto and its glacier drain into a sinkhole in the Plan de Aigualluts and flow underground to the east where they resurface to empty into the Aran Valley and the Garonne river, flowing north into France and the Atlantic Ocean. The waters of the western and southern sides, flow into the Coronas and Llosas lakes respectively before draining separately into the river Ballibierna, which flows into the Esera, then the Cinca before joining the Ebro and flowing to the Mediterranean. Thus although Aneto does not lie on the main ridge of the Pyrenees, it does lie on the watershed between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.</p><br>
<h2>Glaciers</h2><br>
<p>This agglomeration of summits, all markedly Alpine, is the birthplace of what were once the largest glaciers in the Pyrenees, which stretched up to the mouth of the Congosto Ventamillo with depths of ice several hundred meters thick. Today, global warming has reduced the portentous mass to eleven glaciers that total only three hundred acres. No one knows for sure when the melting process began but despite a slight advance in the &#39;50s</p><br>
<p>it has now accelerated rapidly, and it is expected that the Aneto permafrost and the glaciers of the Pyrenees could disappear around the middle of the 21st century. The Aneto-Maladeta massif sustains a total of 286 acres&#39; surface, representing more than half of all the glaciers in Spain - all of which being located in the Pyrenees.</p><br>
<p>There are three glaciers on the slopes of the mountain: the oldest, Aneto glacier on the north side; the Barrancos, alongside the Las Tempestades on the north-east side; and the Coronas or Coronado glacier on the south side.</p><br>
<p>The rest cannot truly be defined as glaciers without contention, as they have lost all mobility and do not behave as such. Among these are the Cregüella, Alba and Salenques glaciers, which are in a major state of decline. However, even considering them as snowfields, their past glacier state has kept them to date and they are expected to maintain their icy heart for decades.</p><br>
<h2>Climbing</h2><br>
<p>The mountain&#39;s ascent is usually made from the Renclusa Refuge (2,140 m). From there, the itinerary traverses the longest part of the glacier that extends to the north of the peak. The summit is defended by a short rocky passage called the Bridge of Mohammed. It is a narrow ridge of large, stable blocks, with an exposed drop on either side. At the summit is an impressive cross and a contrasting view, with the snow-covered Maladeta massif north-west and the Alto Aragon region to the south.</p><br>
<p>The usual ascent is a very easy although long (12-hour) alpine route. It is taken by many people each year, including many with little or no experience of alpine climbing or high level walking. The high number of people who come to climb Aneto each year makes a significant contribution to the local economy. The vast majority of the people staying at the Renclusa Refuge are there solely to climb Aneto. By comparison many of the adjacent peaks, which are arguably finer climbs, see relatively few ascents and are comparatively quiet.</p><br>
<h3>First ascent</h3><br>
<p>On 18 July 1842, Platon de Tchihatcheff (Чихачёв, Chikhachev), a former Russian officer vacationing in Luchon, left from Bagnères-de-Luchon accompanied by guides Pierre Sanio de Luz, Luchonnais Bernard Arrazau and Pierre Redonnet. Also in the party were Albert de Franqueville, a Norman botanist, and his guide, Jean Sors. They took the trail from the Hospice de France, crossed the Benasque Pass, then spent the night at the La Renclusa shelter, a simple construction of dry rocks that is now a large mountain refuge.</p><br>
<p>The next day, they crossed a pass towards Alba pass and lost their way on the south slope around Lake Gregueña. Late in the day, at the end of their strength, they took refuge for the night in a cabin near the Vallibierna valley.</p><br>
<p>As the sun rose the next morning, the group left for the Coroné pass. Despite a fear of crevasses, they decided to approach the summit by the glacier. After climbing a ridge only a few metres wide (named the "Bridge of Muhammad" by Albert de Franqueville as it is believed, according to a Muslim legend that says that the entrance to Paradise is as narrow as the blade of a scimitar on which only the righteous pass), they reached the summit on 20 July 1842, where they constructed a cairn and left a bottle containing each climber&#39;s name. Tchihatcheff wanted to open a more direct route back across the glacier, but his companions flatly refused, forcing him to yield. Four days later he performed a second ascent with another group, pursuing the same objective that his first companions had denied him. On crossing the Portillon, in view of the cracks that furrowed the glacier, a mutiny almost started, but finally, after everyone tied themselves to a big rope, they crossed the chasms and the passage of Muhammad was defeated a second time.</p><br>
<p>Thereafter Aneto entered into the dynamics of dissemination and popularization of the Pyrenees peaks. In France, its ascension became a great classic and every spring tourist to Bagneres de Luchon had to try it. Henry Spont wrote a book reflecting on this experience, simply titled Le Néthou, describing the trip, the schedule and recommended equipment.</p><br>
<h3>First winter ascent</h3><br>
<p>The first winter ascent of the mountain was achieved on 1 March 1878 by Roger de Monts, B. Courrèges, and B. and V. Paget.</p><br>
<h2>Flora</h2><br>
<p>The uniqueness of the massif and its appeal has led to the virtual abandonment of farming activities, replaced by tourism. The flora of the environment, therefore, has been impeccably conserved, especially on hillsides and massifs, where the forests remain in their primary state.</p><br>
<h3>Upper Alpine</h3><br>
<p>This layer, which reaches 3,404 meters above sea level, is the one that presents greatest difficulties for the development of life. The harsh weather conditions that the plants have to endure at the top of the peaks, ridges and crests, require the development of an extraordinary resilience. There are a number of factors to endure such as strong insolation, low temperatures and short growing seasons in the presence of snow most of the year.</p><br>
<p>Totally devoid of woody vegetation, it is colonized by more than 100 plant species, including lichens, mosses, succulents and microscopic algae. Among the flora present are the Androsace Vandelli, which is found at 2,800 meters, and the Silene acaulis. 20% of these species are endemic to the Pyrenees.</p><br>
<h2>Air traffic boundary</h2><br>
<p>An aviation intersection called ANETO exists very close to the mountain itself, exactly on the border of France and Spain. For pilots crossing the Pyrenees this intersection marks the boundary between the Bordeaux and Barcelona airspaces.</p><br>
<p>Mount Nyiragongo is an active stratovolcano with an elevation of 3,470 m in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Albertine Rift. It is located inside Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 20 km north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just west of the border with Rwanda. The main crater is about two kilometres wide and usually contains a lava lake. The crater presently has two distinct cooled lava benches within the crater walls – one at about 3,175 m and a lower one at about 2,975 m. Nyiragongos lava lake has at times been the most voluminous known lava lake in recent history. The depth of the lava lake varies considerably. A maximum elevation of the lava lake was recorded at about 3,250 m prior to the January 1977 eruption – a lake depth of about 600 m. A recent very low elevation of the lava lake was recorded at about 2,700 m. Nyiragongo and nearby Nyamuragira are together responsible for 40% of Africas historical volcanic eruptions.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The volcano partly overlaps with two older volcanoes, Baratu and Shaheru, and is also surrounded by hundreds of small volcanic cinder cones from flank eruptions.</p><br>
<p>The lava emitted in eruptions at Nyiragongo is often unusually fluid. Nyiragongos lavas are made of melilite nephelinite, an alkali-rich type of volcanic rock whose unusual chemical composition may be a factor in the unusual fluidity of the lavas there. Whereas most lava flows move rather slowly and rarely pose a danger to human life, Nyiragongos lava flows may race downhill at up to 100 km/h. This is because of the extremely low silica content (the lava is mafic). Hawaiian volcanic eruptions are also characterized by lavas with low silica content, but the Hawaiian volcanoes are broad, shallow-sloped shield volcanoes in contrast to the steep-sided cone of Nyiragongo, and the silica content is high enough to slow most Hawaiian flows to walking pace.</p><br>
<h3>Active history</h3><br>
<p>Not much is known about how long the volcano has been erupting, but since 1882, it has erupted at least 34 times, including many periods where activity was continuous for years at a time, often in the form of a churning lava lake in the crater. The existence of the lava lake had been suspected for some time, but was not scientifically confirmed until 1948. At that time, it was measured at nearly 120,000 m&sup2;. Subsequent expeditions showed that the lake fluctuated in size, depth, and temperature over time.</p><br>
<p>The lava lake activity continued through 2010. At present, the lake is mostly confined within a broad, steep-sided cinder cone on the crater floor, roughly 60 feet high by 600 feet wide.</p><br>
<h2>1977 Eruption</h2><br>
<p>Between 1894 and 1977 the crater contained an active lava lake. On 10 January 1977, the crater walls fractured, and the lava lake drained in less than an hour. The lava flowed down the flanks of the volcano at speeds of up to 60 km/h (40 mi/h, the fastest lava flow recorded to date) on the upper slopes, overwhelming villages and killing at least 70 people. The hazards posed by eruptions like this are unique to Nyiragongo. Nowhere else in the world does such a steep-sided stratovolcano contain a lake of such fluid lava. Nyiragongo&#39;s proximity to heavily populated areas increases its potential for causing a natural disaster. The 1977 eruption raised awareness of the unique dangers posed by Nyiragongo, and because of this it was designated a Decade Volcano, worthy of particular study, in 1991.</p><br>
<p>The 1977 eruption was preceded by the creation of a new small volcano, Murara, a short distance away on the slopes of Nyamuragira.</p><br>
<h2>2002 Eruptions</h2><br>
<p>Lava lakes reformed in the crater in eruptions in 1982–1983 and 1994. Another major eruption of the volcano began on January 17, 2002, after several months of increased seismic and fumarolic activity. A 13 km fissure opened in the south flank of the volcano, spreading in a few hours from 2800 m to 1550 m elevation and reaching the outskirts of the city of Goma, the provincial capital on the northern shore of Lake Kivu. Lava streamed from three spatter cones at the end of the fissure and flowed in a stream 200 to 1000 m wide and up to 2 m deep through Goma. Warnings had been given and 400,000 people were evacuated from the city across the Rwandan border into neighbouring Gisenyi during the eruption. Lava covered the northern end of the runway at Goma International Airport, leaving the southern two-thirds usable, and reached Lake Kivu. This raised fears that the lava might cause gas-saturated waters deep in the lake to suddenly rise to the surface, releasing lethally large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane – similar to the disaster at Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1986. This did not happen, but volcanologists continue to monitor the area closely.</p><br>
<p>About 147 people died in the eruption from asphyxiation by carbon dioxide and buildings collapsing due to the lava and earthquakes. At least 15% of Goma comprising 4,500 buildings were destroyed, leaving about 120,000 people homeless.</p><br>
<p>Immediately after the eruption stopped, a large number of earthquakes were felt around Goma and Gisenyi. This swarm activity continued for about three months and caused the collapse of more buildings.</p><br>
<p>Six months after the start of the 2002 eruption, Nyiragongo volcano erupted again. Activity at Nyiragongo is ongoing, but currently confined to the crater, where another lava lake has formed about 250 metres below the level of the 1994 lava lake.</p><br>
<h2>Ongoing threat</h2><br>
<p>Localized carbon dioxide toxicity, known locally as mazuku, has killed children even more recently. In locations where the gas seeps from the ground in relatively high levels, without the dispersing effects of wind, its effects can be deadly. On March 8, 2016, Goma Volcano Observatory discovered a new vent that opened in the northeast edge of the crater, following local reports of rumblings coming from the volcano. Some fear that this could lead to a flank eruption.</p><br>
<h2>Monitoring</h2><br>
<p>The volcano is monitored by a team of scientists at the Goma Volcanic Observatory. It is monitored 24/7 365 days a year with seismic data produced every four minutes and temperature data produced every ten minutes.</p><br>
<p>The Virunga Mountains  are a chain of volcanoes in East Africa, along the northern border of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , and Uganda. The mountain range is a branch of the Albertine Rift Mountains, which border the western branch of the East African Rift. They are located between Lake Edward and Lake Kivu. The name "Virunga" is an English version of the Kinyarwanda word ibirunga, which means "volcanoes".</p><br>
<p>The mountain range consists of eight major volcanoes. Most of them are dormant, except Mount Nyiragongo 3,462 m and Mount Nyamuragira 3,063 m, both in the DRC. Recent eruptions occurred in 2006 and in January 2010. Mount Karisimbi is the highest volcano at 4,507 m. The oldest mountain is Mount Sabyinyo, which rises 3,634 m above sea level.</p><br>
<p>The Virunga Mountains are home of the critically endangered mountain gorilla, listed on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species due to habitat loss, poaching, disease, and war (Butynski et al. 2003). The Karisoke Research Center, founded by Dian Fossey to observe gorillas in their native habitat, is located between Mount Karisimbi and Mount Bisoke.</p><br>
<h2>List of mountains in the Virunga Mountain Range</h2><br>
<h2>National Parks</h2><br>
<p>Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo</p><br>
<p>Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda</p><br>
<p>Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, Uganda</p><br>
<h2>In culture</h2><br>
<p>Michael Crichton&#39;s novel Congo is set mostly in the Virunga region.</p><br>
<p>Samba Mapangala, a Congolese-Kenyan musician, had a band called Orchestra Virunga.</p><br>
<p>Nyamuragira is an active volcano in the Virunga Mountains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, situated about 25 km north of Lake Kivu. The name is derived from the Kinyarwanda verb Kuragira inka, meaning to herd cows; Inka means cow or cows.</p><br>
<p>It has been described as Africa&#39;s most active volcano and has erupted over 40 times since 1885. As well as eruptions from the summit, there have been numerous eruptions from the flanks of the volcano, creating new smaller volcanoes that have lasted only for a short time (e.g. Murara from late 1976 to 1977).</p><br>
<p>Recent eruptions occurred on 2 January 2010 and 8 November 2011.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<p>Nyamuragira volcano is an active volcano in the Virunga Mountains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, situated about 25 km north of Lake Kivu. It is in the Province of Nord-Kivu. (It is 13 km north-north-west of Nyiragongo, the volcano which caused extensive damage to the city of Goma in its 2002 eruption.)</p><br>
<p>Nyamuragira has a volume of 500 cubic km, and covers an area of 1,500 km. It has a low shield profile, and contrasts with adjacent steep-sided Nyiragongo volcano.</p><br>
<h2>Sulfur dioxide</h2><br>
<p>Nyamuragira volcano is responsible for a large portion of the sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere by volcanoes.</p><br>
<h2>2010 eruption</h2><br>
<p>At dawn on 2 January 2010, Nyamuragira began spewing out lava flows. There are no settlements close to the volcano, but wildlife officials feared that the eruption may threaten the chimpanzees in the area. Another danger was that the lava could have flowed into the southern sector of Virunga National Park, where there are settlements and villages.</p><br>
<p>Extensive lava flows from the 2010 eruption can be seen on satellite photographs reaching 25 km south-west to Lake Kivu, about 22 km north-west and 35 km north-north-east.</p><br>
<h2>2011 eruption</h2><br>
<p>The volcano erupted again on November 5, 2011.</p><br>
<p>That eruption produced a 400-meter high column of lava, and it is said to have been its largest eruption in 100 years.</p><br>
<h2>2013 activity</h2><br>
<p>Goma volcanologists warn for an imminent eruption, as more steam and fumes are released from the volcano.</p><br>
<h2>New lava lake formed in 2014</h2><br>
<p>For the first time in 75 years, a new lava lake appeared at the volcano. That is one of the few volcanoes on Earth which have sustained lava lakes for several decades. The last formed lava lake at the volcano was emptied in the 1938 lava flow. The formation of the new lava lake occurred between June and August 2014. The lava lake has a depth of 500 metres. The lava lake is growing and can produce lava flows in the future. Goma vulcanologists are studying the possibilities of an evacuation in few months. The eruption wasn&#39;t that bad, but left a lot of ash and air pollution.</p><br>
