Republic of Chile (part I)

Recently I found an interesting country to talk about, Chile. Starting I would like to talk about tourism, wich I think it is very interesting but don't understimate, there's lot to know about Chile, one of the most interesting countries I ever research.

Tourism:
The main attractions for tourists are places of natural beauty situated in the extreme zones of the country: San Pedro de Atacama, in the north, is very popular with foreign tourists who arrive to admire the Incaic architecture, the altiplano lakes, and the Valley of the Moon. In Putre, also in the North, there is the Chungará Lake, as well as the Parinacota and the Pomerape volcanoes, with altitudes of 6,348 m and 6,282 m, respectively. Throughout the central Andes there are many ski resorts of international repute, like Portillo and Valle Nevado. In the south, the main tourist sites are the Chiloé Archipelago and Patagonia, which includes Laguna San Rafael National Park, with its many glaciers, and the Torres del Paine National Park. The central port city of Valparaíso, with its unique architecture, is also popular. Finally, Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean is probably the main Chilean tourist destination.
For locals, tourism is concentrated mostly in the summer (December to March), and mainly in the coastal beach towns. Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, La Serena and Coquimbo are the main summer centres in the north, and Pucón on the shores of Lake Villarrica is the main one in the south. Due to its proximity to Santiago, the coast of the Valparaíso Region, with its many beach resorts, receives the largest number of tourists. Viña del Mar, Valparaíso's northern affluent neighbor, is popular due to its beaches, casino, and its annual song festival, the most important musical event in Latin America.

Geography:
The northern Atacama Desert contains great mineral wealth, primarily copper and nitrates. The relatively small Central Valley, which includes Santiago, dominates the country in terms of population and agricultural resources. This area also is the historical center from which Chile expanded in the late nineteenth century, when it integrated the northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests, grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. The Andes Mountains are located on the eastern border. Chile is the longest (N-S) country in the world (over 4,200 km). Chile controls Easter Island and Sala y Gómez Island, the easternmost islands of Polynesia, which it incorporated to its territory in 1888, and Robinson Crusoe Island, more than 600 km from the mainland, in the Juan Fernández archipelago. Easter Island is nowadays a province of Chile. Also controlled but only temporally inhabited (by some local fishermen) are the small islands of Sala y Gómez, San Ambrosio and San Felix, these islands are notable because they extend Chile's claim to territorial waters out from its coast into the Pacific.

National symbols:
The national flower is the copihue (Lapageria rosea, Chilean bellflower), which grows in the woods of southern Chile. The coat of arms depicts the two national animals: the condor (Vultur gryphus, a very large bird that lives in the mountains) and the huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus, an endangered white tail deer). It also has the legend Por la razón o la fuerza (By right or might or By reason or by force). The flag of Chile consists of two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red; there is a blue square the same height as the white band at the hoist-side end of the white band; the square bears a white five-pointed star in the center representing a guide to progress and honor; blue symbolizes the sky, white is for the snow-covered Andes, and red stands for the blood spilled to achieve independence.

Next post I will write more information about Chile.

India

Nice to see you again! =)

Today I would like to talk about India. To begin, I can talk about this structure where it can be found in that country. Known as Taj Mahal from the 17th century, it is often called a poem in stone. If so, the mausoleum is a love poem because it was created by Shah Jahan for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal.

The South Asian country of India includes a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, and it is a land of great contrasts in geography. The barren, snow-capped Himalaya, the world's tallest mountain system, rises along its northern border. South of the Himalaya, the low, fertile Ganges Plain is India's most populous region. The Great Indian Desert, eastern India receives some of the highest rainfall in the world during the monsoon season.

Home to the Indus Valley Civilization (ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin) and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history.

The name is derived from Indus, from the Old Persian word Hindu, Sanskrit Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, the people of the Indus. The Constitution of India and common usage in various Indian languages also recognise Bharat as an official name of equal status. Hindustan, which is the Persian word for “Land of the Hindus” and historically referred to northern India, is also occasionally used as a synonym for all of India.


India follows several religions, some originated, other brought from other cultures:
Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated there, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became an independent nation in 1947.

India displays significant biodiversity. India's forest cover ranges from the tropical rainforest of the Andaman Islands, Western Ghats, and North-East India to the coniferous forest of the Himalaya. Important Indian trees include the medicinal neem, widely used in rural Indian herbal remedies. The pipal fig tree, shown on the seals of Mohenjo-daro, shaded Gautama Buddha as the sought enlightenment.

Notable endemics are the Nilgiri leaf monkey and the brown and carmine Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. India contains 172 threatened species. These include the Asiatic Lion, the Bengal Tiger, and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which suffered a near-extinction from ingesting the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.

Something about culture:
India's culture has managed to preserve established traditions while absorbing new customs, traditions, and ideas from invaders and immigrants and spreading its cultural influence to other parts of Asia.

Indian architecture is one area that represents the diversity of Indian culture. Much of it, including notable monuments such as the Taj Mahal and other examples of Mughal architecture and South Indian architecture.

Indian music covers a wide range of traditions and regional styles. Classical music largely encompasses the two genres – North Indian Hindustani, South Indian Carnatic traditions and their various offshoots in the form of regional folk music.

Indian dance also has diverse folk and classical forms. Among the well-known folk dances are the bhangra of the Punjab, the bihu of Assam, the chhau of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and the ghoomar of Rajasthan.

Indian cuisine is characterized by a wide variety of regional styles and sophisticated use of herbs and spices. The staple foods in the region are rice (especially in the south and the east) and wheat (predominantly in the north). Spices originally native to the Indian subcontinent that are now consumed world wide include black pepper; in contrast, hot chili peppers, popular across India, were introduced by the Portuguese.

Traditional Indian dress varies across the regions in its colours and styles and depends on various factors, including climate. Popular styles of dress include draped garments such as sari for women and dhoti or lungi for men; in addition, stitched clothes such as salwar kameez for women and kurta-pajama and European-style trousers and shirts for men, are also popular.

Finally, it would be wise to talk about sports:
India's official national sport is field hockey, administered by the Indian Hockey Federation. The Indian field hockey team has won the 1975 Men's Hockey World Cup and Olympic gold medals. However, cricket is the most popular sport; the India national cricket team has won the 1983 Cricket World Cup and the 2007 ICC World Twenty20. Indian national team cricketers enjoy widespread popularity and hold several world records.
Tennis has become increasingly popular, owing to the victories of the India Davis Cup team. Association football is also a popular sport in northeast India. The Indian national football team has won the South Asian Football Federation Cup several times. Chess, commonly held to have originated in India, is also gaining popularity with the rise in the number of Indian Grandmasters. Traditional sports include kabaddi, kho kho, and gilli-danda, which are played nationwide. India is also home to the ancient martial arts, Kalarippayattu and Varma Kalai. The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Award are India's highest civilian sports awards.

I hope you enjoyed the culture of India, till my next post! lies in the west, but

Congo, Republic of the

The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville or the Congo, is a country in Central Africa.
The republic is a former French colony. Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. Congo became a multi-party democracy in 1992.

The earliest inhabitants of the region were Pygmy people(member of any human group whose adult males grow to less than 150 cm -4 feet 11 inches- in average height or less than 155 cm), who later were largely displaced and absorbed by Bantu tribes during the Bantu expansions. The Bakongo are a Bantu ethnicity that also occupied parts of present-day Angola, Gabon, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, forming the basis for ethnic affinities and rivalries among those countries. Several Bantu kingdoms -notably those of the Kongo, the Loango, and the Teke- built trade links leading into the Congo River basin.

The inhabitants of the Congo river delta first came into contact with Europeans in the late 15th century with Portuguese expeditions charting the African coastline. Commercial relationships were quickly established between the inland Bantu kingdoms and European merchants who traded various commodities, manufactured goods, and slaves captured from the hinterlands. For centuries, Congo river delta was a major commercial hub for transatlantic trade.

Located in the central-west Africa, with a small portion of coast in the Atlantic Ocean and crossed by the Equator, the Congo is hot and humid climate. About 55% of the territory is covered by tropical forests.

The Congo is located in the central-west sub-Saharan Africa, and is crossed by the equator. To the south and east, is limited by the Congo River and its tributaries one of the Ubangi River, and the left sides of both rivers belong to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The other is the country's borders with Gabon to the west, Cameroon and Central African Republic to the north and (Angola) the southwest. The Congo also has a short Atlantic coast.
Its capital, Brazzaville, is situated on the banks of the Congo River in the south of the country, even in front of Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo.

The country is a southwestern coastal plain, which is mainly drained by the river Kouilou-Niari. The interior consists of a central plateau between two basins, north and south.

Animals: some are very known, others very strange =)
- Gorilla, Tigerfish, Buffalo, Okapi