Numud

Sep 262013
 

Cities in the world are both similar and different. All of them are societies of many thousands people living next to each other and doing works that do not directly create food. Cities are both products and power of the civilization. Most of todays achievements, industrial and scientific, are created there. They are hubs for entertainment, infrastructure, education, shopping, tourism. Even rural people regularly visit cities. The life in the cities is more individual and varied.

While similar cities are also greatly different all over the world. Architecture, urbanisation, culture, religion, lifestyles and different ethnic communities form a distinct blend unique to the region.

The first cities have been established in Mesopotamia 3200 BC. For centuries urbal lifestyle was limited to a select minority: nobility and craftsmen. Majority had to grow food to avert famine. Only the largest empires were able to support massive megalopolises (e.g. Rome) using food and water from vast areas around them. All this started to change in 1700s-1800s, when improved agriculture allowed more and more peasants to leave for urban factories. This “Industrial revolution” changed the city life from an exception to a rule. In 19th century already some European nations had a larger population in their cities than villages. In 20th century most American and Asian nations followed suit. At ~2006 there were more people living in cities than villages all over the world.

WorldCityTypesMap

Americas Asia Europe Africa Oceania
United States city Subcontinent city Post-Soviet city North African city Australasian city
Latin American city East Asian city British city Central African city Oceanian city
Chinese city Mediterranean city South African city
Gulf city Nordic city
Southeast Asian city Central European city
Mideastern city
Sep 022013
 

Climate regulates everything in nature. The heat and cold, the daylight duration, what plants will grow, what animals will live, what uses will be possible for the land – all this depends on climate.

There are five main climatic zones:
1.Tropical humid, with rainforests, wet savannas, always hot weather and much rain.
2.Tropical arid, with deserts, steppes, little life and an extremely hot summer sun.
3.Temperate, with survivable summers, never-cold winters and so many villages/cities that the nature is nearly displaced.
4.Continental, with hot summers and cold winters and soil ranging from fertile to nearly useless as one goes closer to the Poles.
5.Polar, with frozen ground and ice, cold all year round and little human habitation.

Additionally Alpine climate zone is sometimes established to cover the mountains where climate is different from nearby lowlands.

Simplified Koppen scale of world climate

Map of the world’s main 5 climate zones (Koppen scale)

General rules for the climate helping to understand the differences in seasons, heat, cold, day duration, etc. in various locations.

Distance from the equator:
*The further the location is from the Equator the colder it is.
*The further the location is from the Equator, the longer are the days in summers and the shorter are the days in winter. At the Equator every single day and night are of the same equal duration (12 hours). At the Polar Circles in a single summer night the sun not sets and similarly at a single winter day the sun does not rise. The further from the Polar Circle to the Pole the location is the more there are “dark winter days” and “light summer nights”. At the Poles half of the year is day and half of the year is night.
*If the location is south of the Equator summers are December-February and winters are June-August. If the location is north of the Equator summers are June-August and winters are December-February. At the equator there are no seasonal climate variations.

Altitude:
*The higher the location the colder it is.
*The higher the location the bigger is its difference between day and night temperatures.
*The higher the location is the less there is oxygen, making those unused to it become tired quicker.
*The higher the location is the more there is ultraviolet radiation, making the skin tan quicker.

Distance from the Ocean:
*The further the location is from the Ocean the colder are its winters and the hotter are its summers. Larger Oceans influence climate more than small inland seas.
*Warm or cool currents in nearby oceans makes the cliamte warmer or cooler than it otherwise would be.

Climate of the location greatly influences culture, economy and traditions of each particular area.

Sep 022013
 

An impassably lush jungle, a savanna full of animal life, heavy rains, exotic hot locations – all this is the Tropical humid climate.

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Sep 022013
 

Vast sandy deserts nearly devoid of life, almost as desolate steppes, little rain and hard-to-survive summer day heat. This is what Tropical Dry climates feel like.

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Sep 022013
 

Cool but not cold winters, warm-to-hot summers, a decent amount of rain for plants to grow, many villages and cities. This is your average Temperate climate location.

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Sep 022013
 

Winters are freezing but summers can even be hot. The lowering population density as you travel northwards. Long summer days and winter nights. This is Continental climate.

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Sep 012013
 

While world has thousands of languages, the number of scripts used is much lower. The main scripts were expanded by religions, empires or both. They were adopted to write previously unwritten languages. Top 10 most popular writing systems are used by well over 90% of the world population.

Scripts are usually divided into multiple families: Sinitic, Indian/Brahmic and Western. Each family was supposedly started by people who did not know other writing systems (although this is disputed). As the time went by the original script of the family evolved and changed into different forms used in different areas (and for different languages)

Moreover, the scripts are divided into categories by what their characters mean. Each character may mean either entire word, a syllable, a modifiable syllable, any phoneme (like in Latin script) or consonant only phoneme. Based on this criteria the script is called either alphabet (character=phoneme), abdjad (character=consonant), abugida (character=modifiable syllable), syllabary (character=sylable).

World scripts map

Western Middle Eastern South Asian East Asian Other
Latin script Arabic script Devanagari Chinese script Other scripts
Cyrillic script Other Middle Eastern Bengali script Japanese script
Other European Other Indian/SE Asian Korean script
Aug 302013
 

American cities are young and constantly changing. There are few old buildings. In flourishing cities a new building is frequently torn down before the generation that saw its construction passed away. Even the most iconic buildings and churches are not saved from wrecking ball if the economy dictates so.

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Aug 302013
 

A Latin American city has a historic center dating to the colonial era (16th-18th centuries). It is based on a rectangular layout. One central area is left as a small park. This is called “Plaza de Armas” (Weapons square) as it used to be a refuge for city dwellers under siege.

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Aug 302013
 

To many a Central African city is an epitomy of poverty, with their endless slums and minuscule wages. Technologies the urban dwellers elsewhere take for granted are often not present in a Central African city.

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Aug 302013
 

Chinese cities are constantly growing with new taller and taller skyscrapers built every month rather than year. The urbanization drive that swept other continents decades ago now reached China. 400 million people moved into cities since 1985, driving the urbanization from 20% to 50%.

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Aug 272013
 

Latin script is the most popular in the world, used by 38,5% of all human beings in 51% land. It is the prime script for sciences. Many signs in non-Latin scripts are transliterated into Latin as well.

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Aug 272013
 

Arabic script is closely associated with Islam. Holy Quran must be read in Arabic thus people who converted into Islam learned the language and the script. It is thus used to write the languages of most muslim nations.

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Aug 272013
 

Bengal script is mainly used for the Bengal language and nearby minorities of Bangladesh/India. This language has over 250 million speakers however, putting Bengal script among the most popular ones in the world.

Bengal script