Showing posts with label Geography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geography. Show all posts

The Far North, Where Is It Actually?

 
Spanning the distance from the 60th parallel (60° north latitude) to the North Pole, Canada's Far North sprawls across some 1.5 million sq. mi. (3.9 million sq. km.). Its three constituent territories -the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut- account for more than 40 percent of Canada's total land area. Yet the combined population of the region is around 100,000 -no more than that of a small city.


Clearly, it takes a special kind of person to want to live in Canada's sparsely populated Far North. The long, dark winters provide some of the harshest weather known on Earth. The attractions here remain largely natural ones -from the magical aurora borealis of winter to summer's unsettling "midnight sun."

Canada's territories also boast the country's highest mountain ranges and its longest and most powerful rivers. The vast expanses of lakes are so numerous that they may never all be named.

Far from being a place of banishment, Canada's northern territories inspire great passion in most who visit or live there. No doubt this attachment runs deepest among the native people, who make up more than half of the total population.

In 1999, the Canadian government acknowledged their special tie to the land by carving out the new, native-governed territory. Its name, "Nunavut," was taken from the Inuit words for "our land."

11 Interesting Facts About The Ohio River

 
The Ohio River is a 1,579-km-long (981-mi) tributary of the Mississippi that originates at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in Pittsburgh, Pa. The Ohio flows through western Pennsylvania and along the West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois borders, discharging into the Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill.


Here are some facts about the beautiful river.

1. The river's drainage basin of 528,000 km2 (204,000 mi2) supports a population of 25,000,000 and is one of the world's most productive industrial-agricultural areas. The Ohio flows past the major cities of Cincinnati, Ohio; Louisville, Ky.; and Evansville, Ind.

2. The river valley's major industries are coal, oil, steel, chemicals, pottery, and tobacco. The Ohio's many tributaries include the Beaver, Kanawha, Scioto, Kentucky, Green, Wabash, and Tennessee rivers.

3. Rainfall along the river exceeds 1,016 mm (40 in) per year, and the mean annual temperature is 10–16° C (50–60° F).

4. Even though it is prone to severe spring floods and summer droughts, the Ohio is navigable year-round because of flood-control systems and continual dredging.

5. The 46 locks and dams that had been built along the river by 1929 began to be supplemented or replaced by 19 high-lift locks in 1955.


6. The main traffic on the river consists of barges carrying bulk commodities.

7. The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission was established in 1948 to control water pollution.

8. The Ohio River valley was occupied by Mound Builders as early as 500 B.C.. The area was inhabited by Shawnee Indians when Robert Cavelier de La Salle, explored it in 1669.

9. The French built forts along the upper river valley, causing a conflict with the British that culminated in the French and Indian War (1754–63).

10. The river was an important route for pioneers moving west.

11. In 1997 flooding of the Ohio and its tributaries in the Ohio River valley contributed to the deaths of 38 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.

7 Important Things About Lithuanian Economy

 
Services, industry, and agriculture are the main sectors of the Lithuanian economy. Services employ roughly half of the workforce. About 30% are engaged in industry, and 20% work in agriculture. Services include wholesale and retail trade, transportation, communications, utilities, government, education, and finance.
Let’s learn some other facts.


1. During the Soviet period the central planners in Moscow directed an intensive industrialization of the Lithuanian economy, establishing machine-building, metalworking, and petrochemical industries. These plants were integrated into the Soviet military-industrial complex.

2. After the restoration of independence, the country switched to a free-market economy. Land and buildings were returned to the original owners or their descendants, and Soviet-era industrial plants were sold. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the market for many of these plants had disappeared and they went into bankruptcy, resulting in widespread unemployment.

3. Gradually Lithuania succeeded in modernizing its industrial production and in reorienting it toward the markets of the European Union (EU), which it joined in 2004. The country's industries produce a variety of machinery, durable consumer goods, electronics, chemical products, textiles, and foodstuffs.

4. The nation's agricultural sector specializes in dairy and meat production. Cattle, pigs, and poultry are the principal livestock raised. Rye, barley, oats, potatoes, flax, sugar beets, and fodder are the most abundantly grown crops.

5. Lithuania is poor in energy resources. It has a hydroelectric power plant on the Nemunas River in Kaunas, but it depends entirely on Russia for imported oil and natural gas. The port of Būtingė is the terminal for a Russian oil export pipeline. On the shore of Lake Drūkšiai is the large Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant, the same type as the one that exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986. When Lithuania applied for membership in the EU, it agreed to the EU's demand that the plant be closed. The first unit was shut in 2004, and the second was closed at the end of 2009. In 2007 Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland agreed to build a new reactor at Ignalina that would serve all four countries. The first unit of the new plant was not scheduled to go on line until 2015, however; in the meantime, closure of the existing Ignalina plant made Lithuania even more dependent on Russia for its energy needs.

6. Lithuania is a member of the World Trade Organization. Trade with Russia is still important, but most of the country's trade has been redirected toward members of the EU. Tourism has expanded; extensive white sand beaches, particularly at the Courland Spit, attract vacationers from Germany, Russia, and other countries. The city of Vilnius is the center of the nation's cultural life. With many old churches and other buildings in various Western and Eastern architectural styles, it is another hub of tourism.

7. After the initial disruptions following the USSR's collapse, the economy expanded rapidly. This occurred despite its dependency on imported oil, natural gas, and many industrial raw materials.

Facts About Lithuanian Literature, Arts, and Music

 
Although contemporary arts are well developed in Lithuania, its folk art is at the core of its national consciousness. The folk songs, or dainos, are the oldest form of folklore. The ancient Indo-European origins of the dainos are evident in their form and structure. Thousands have been collected since the 1800s. A unique kind of Lithuanian folk song, the sutartinė, is an ancient form of two- and three-voiced polyphony.


The first writings in Lithuania were the letters of King Gediminas (c. 1275-1341), chronicles, and historical and polemical essays. They were written in Latin or Old Slavonic. The earliest printed book in Lithuanian was Catechismus by Martynas Mažvydas, in 1547. A Lutheran pastor, Christian Donalitius (Kristijonas Donelaitis, 1714-1780), was the first significant Lithuanian poet. In his poem Metai ("The Seasons"), written in hexameter, he related the difficult life and labor of his parishioners, Lithuanian serfs, in Lithuania Minor. During the late 19th and the early 20th century, a dramatic and lyric poet, a Catholic priest named Maironis (Jonas Mačiulis, 1862-1932), became the poet-prophet of the Lithuanian national reawakening.

Poetry, lyric poetry in particular, dominates Lithuanian literature. There are many accomplished poets, and the following are merely the most prominent: Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas (1893-1967), Jonas Aistis (1904-1973), Bernardas Brazdžionis (1907-2002), Henrikas Radauskas (1910-1970), Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas, Henrikas Nagys (1920-1996), Judita Vaičiūnaitė (1937-2001), Justinas Marcinkevičius, Tomas Venclova, and Sigitas Parulskis. Notable novelists include Juozas Baltušis (1909-1991), Marius Katiliškis (1915-1980), and Jurga Ivanauskaitė. Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius (1882-1954) and Balys Sruoga (1896-1947) were the leading dramatists of the interwar period; Antanas Škėma (1911-1961) was the stage writer of the following generation. George Mačiūnas (1931-1978) is known as the founder of the Fluxus art movement. Another well-known artist is Jonas Mekas, poet, filmmaker, and founder of the New American Cinema.

Lithuania has a rich architectural heritage of churches and other old buildings that range in style from the late Gothic to the baroque and neoclassical. Each of those styles has acquired a distinctive local character. A noted architect of Lithuanian neoclassical style was Laurynas Gucevičius (1753-1798).

An outstanding modern painter and composer was Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911). He has been considered an early precursor of abstract art, although his subtle and highly original work is difficult to classify. Other important Lithuanian artists were the painters Pranas Domšaitis-Domschat (1880-1965) from Lithuania Minor, Adomas Galdikas (1893-1969), and Vytautas Kasiulis (1918-1995); graphic artist and stained-glass painter Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas (1907-1997); graphic artists Romas Viesulas (1918-1986) and Rimtautas Gibavičius (1935-1993); stained-glass painter Albinas Elskus; sculptors Petras Rimša (1881-1961), Vytautas Kašuba (1915-1997), and Vladas Vildžiūnas.

The prominent contemporary Lithuanian composers are Feliksas Bajoras, Osvaldas Balakauskas, and Onutė Narbutaitė. Music has a strong tradition in the country, and annual international festivals of classical music and jazz take place in Vilnius and several other cities. Song and dance festivals are also held in the cities and towns every summer.

10 Interesting Facts About Lithuanians You Might Not Know

 
Lithuanians constitute 83% of the country's total population. The Lithuanian language belongs to the Baltic group of Indo-European languages. It and Latvian are the only Baltic languages remaining in use since the Prussian language became extinct in the late 17th century. Of all the living Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is closest to its ancient origins.


Let’s learn the other facts.

1. Poles, most of whom are Polonized ethnic Lithuanians, are the second largest ethnic group and account for 7% of the population.

2. Russians, most of whom live in urban areas, are the third largest at 6%. Although some Russians lived in Lithuania for centuries, most came as settlers during the Soviet era to replace people who had been forcibly deported.

3. Other minority groups in Lithuania are Belarusians, Ukrainians, Jews, Germans, Tatars, and Karaites.

4. Some 79% of the population are Roman Catholics. About 5% are Russian Orthodox or Old Believers, and 1% are Lutherans, Calvinists, or members of other Protestant denominations.

5. Before World War II there was a large, vibrant, and creative Jewish community in Lithuania. The city of Vilnius was an important center of Jewish religious and secular learning and also a hub of Jewish economic, political, literary, and artistic activity.

6. Lithuania's Jews, known as Litvaks, made up approximately 8% of the population at the time, but 90% of them were killed during the German occupation of 1941–1944. After the war most of the survivors emigrated to Israel and other countries. Only a small remnant of about 4,000 remained in Lithuania.

7. Two-thirds of the population live in the cities, and one-third in rural areas. The largest city is the capital, Vilnius. Other major cities are Kaunas, at the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris rivers; the ice-free port of Klaipėda; and the industrial cities of Šiauliai and Panevėžys.

8. There are several universities. The oldest of them is the University of Vilnius, which was founded in 1579.

9. Between 1989 and 2004, the population of Lithuania declined by 6.8%, owing both to the return of some Soviet-era settlers to Russia and to a large-scale emigration of young people to western Europe and other areas in search of better-paying employment. In addition, the birthrate decreased below the replacement level, while the death rate remained about the same. This resulted in a shrinking and aging population, which was a common trend in Europe.

10. Lithuania comprises five historically and culturally defined regions. These are Samogitia (Žemaitija), covering more than a quarter of the nation's territory, in the west; Aukštaitija, the largest, extending over almost half of the country, in the northeast; and three small regions -Sūduva, in the southwest; Dainava, in the south; and the Klaipėda (Memel) territory, which along with much of Kaliningrad was once part of the distinct region known as Lithuania Minor, on the Baltic Sea and the lower Nemunas River.

7 Facts About Land and Natural Resources of Lithuania

 
Lithuania, (Lithuanian, Lietuva), is a country in central Europe on the east coast of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are known as the Baltic States. Although distinct in several respects -with Estonia and Latvia historically and culturally linked to Protestant Germany and Scandinavia, and Lithuania most closely tied to Roman Catholic Poland- the three have in common a contemporary history that distinguishes them from other countries.


Here are some facts about land and natural resources of Lithuania.

1. Lithuania is part of Europe's central lowlands, with a topography carved by the retreating ice sheet of the Quaternary Period. The central lowlands lie between a hilly region to the west and the crescent-shaped region of hills and lakes to the east.

2. Drūkšiai, the largest of Lithuania's hundreds of lakes, has an area of 16 square miles (42 sq km).

3. Of the many rivers, the Nemunas is the longest, at 582 miles (937 km). It rises in Belarus, flows through Lithuania, and forms a boundary between Lithuania and the Kaliningrad exclave of the Russian Federation before flowing into the Baltic Sea's Courland Lagoon. The Neris, a tributary of the Nemunas, is the next longest, at 317 miles (510 km).

4. The climate is moderated by the Atlantic Ocean; the average temperature ranges from 23° F (-5° C) in January to 63° F (17° C) in July. Annual precipitation averages 31 inches (800 mm).

5. Over a quarter of Lithuania is woodland. The forests -mostly pine, spruce, or birch- are densest in the eastern part of the country.

6. There are several nature reserves. In some regions air and water pollution is considerable, since environmental laws had not been implemented during the Soviet era.

7. Commercially exploitable natural resources include dolomite, quartz sand, limestone, and clay. Peat is cut from the extensive bogs. Amber is found along the Baltic shore.