History.

Colonial.

Harvard was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it acquired British North America's first known printing press. In 1639, it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, who had left the school £779 and his library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650.  A 1643 publication gave the school's purpose as "to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust"; in its early years trained many Puritan ministers. It offered a classic curriculum on the English university modelmany leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridgebut conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any particular denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational and Unitarian churches.  Increase Mather served as president from 1681 to 1701. In 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, marking a turning of the college away from Puritanism and toward intellectual independence.

19th century.

In the 19th century, Enlightenment ideas of the power of reason and free will were widespread among Congregational ministers, putting those ministers and their congregations in tension with more traditionalist, Calvinist parties. When Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and President Joseph Willard died a year later, a struggle broke out over their replacements. Henry Ware was elected to the chair in 1805, and the liberal Samuel Webber was appointed to the presidency two years later, signaling the shift from the dominance of traditional ideas at Harvard to the dominance of liberal, Arminian ideas (defined by traditionalists as Unitarian ideas).  In 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassiz's approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans' "participation in the Divine Nature" and the possibility of understanding "intellectual existences." Agassiz's perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the "divine plan" in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on a presumed archetype for his evidence. This dual view of knowledge was in concert with the teachings of Common Sense Realism derived from Scottish philosophers Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart, whose works were part of the Harvard curriculum at the time. The popularity of Agassiz's efforts to "soar with Plato" probably also derived from other writings to which Harvard students were exposed, including Platonic treatises by Ralph Cudworth, John Norris and, in a Romantic vein, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The library records at Harvard reveal that the writings of Plato and his early modern and Romantic followers were almost as regularly read during the 19th century as those of the "official philosophy" of the more empirical and more deistic Scottish school.  Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the favored position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, but by Transcendentalist Unitarian convictions. Derived from William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson, these convictions were focused on the dignity and worth of human nature, the right and ability of each person to perceive truth, and the indwelling God in each person.  In 1876, Harvard became the first American university to award a PhD in economics.

20th century.

During the 20th century, Harvard's international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the university's scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new graduate schools were begun and the undergraduate college expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, became one of the most prominent schools for women in the United States. Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.  In the early 20th century, the student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians," a group later called "WASPs." A 1923 proposal by President A. Lawrence Lowell that Jews be limited to 15% of undergraduates was rejected, but Lowell did ban blacks from Harvard Yard, writing that "forcing" blacks and whites to live together "would increase a prejudice that... is most unfortunate and probably growing."  President James Bryant Conant reinvigorated creative scholarship to guarantee Harvard's preeminence among research institutions. He saw higher education as a vehicle of opportunity for the talented rather than an entitlement for the wealthy, so Conant devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. In 1943, he asked the faculty to make a definitive statement about what general education ought to be, at the secondary as well as at the college level. The resulting "Report", published in 1945, was one of the most influential manifestos in 20th century American education.  Between 1945 and 1960, admissions were opened up to bring in a more diverse group of students. No longer drawing mostly from rich alumni of select New England prep schools, the undergraduate college was now open to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but few blacks, Hispanics, or Asians. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, Harvard became more diverse.  Harvard's graduate schools began admitting women in small numbers in the late 19th century. During World War II, students at Radcliffe College (which since 1879 had been paying Harvard professors to repeat their lectures for women) began attending Harvard classes alongside men. Women were first admitted to Harvard Medical School in 1945. Since 1971, Harvard has controlled essentially all aspects of undergraduate admission, instruction, and housing for Radcliffe women. In 1999, Radcliffe was formally merged into Harvard.

21st century.

Drew Gilpin Faust, previously the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, became Harvard's first woman president on July 1, 2007. She was succeeded by Lawrence Bacow on July 1, 2018.  In February 2020, the United States Department of Education started an investigation into whether Harvard failed to properly report foreign gifts and contracts. This investigation is part of a growing probe by U.S. federal agencies into whether China and other countries gained inappropriate influence and access into American higher education.  With the launch of the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative in 2004, the 21st century also saw an increased emphasis on providing financial aid to promote access for students from all economic backgrounds. Since 2004, there have been several significant expansions of Harvard's financial aid program. As of 2020, more than half of Harvard College students receive loan-free scholarship aid from the university.

Campuses.

Cambridge.

Harvard's main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, about west-northwest of downtown Boston, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood. Harvard Yard itself contains key administrative offices such as University Hall and Massachusetts Hall; libraries such as Widener, Pusey, Houghton, and Lamont; Memorial Church; academic buildings such as Sever Hall and Harvard Hall; and most freshman dormitories. Sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates live in twelve residential houses, nine of which are south of Harvard Yard along or near the Charles River. The other three are located in a residential neighborhood half a mile northwest of the Yard at the Quadrangle (commonly referred to as the "Quad") which housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard. Each residential house is a community with undergraduates, faculty deans, and resident tutors, as well as a dining hall, library, and recreational spaces. The houses were made possible by a gift from Yale University alumnus Edward Harkness.  Radcliffe Yard, formerly the center of the campus of Radcliffe College and now home to Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, is adjacent to the Graduate School of Education and the Cambridge Common.  Between 2014 and 2016, Harvard University reported crime statistics for its main Cambridge campus that included 141 forcible sex offenses, 33 robberies, 46 aggravated assaults, 151 burglaries, and 32 cases of motor vehicle theft.  Harvard also has commercial real estate holdings in Cambridge and Allston, on which it pays property taxes. This includes the Allston Doubletree Hotel, The Inn at Harvard, and the Harvard Square Hotel.

Allston.

Harvard Business School and many athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located on a campus in Allston, a Boston neighborhood just across the Charles River from the Cambridge campus. The John W. Weeks Bridge, a pedestrian bridge over the Charles River, connects the two campuses.  Intending a major expansion, Harvard now owns more land in Allston than it does in Cambridge. A ten-year plan calls for 1.4 million square feet (130,000 square meters) of new construction and 500,000 square feet (50,000 square meters) of renovations, including new and renovated buildings at Harvard Business School, a hotel and conference center, a multipurpose institutional building, renovations to graduate student housing and Harvard Stadium, new athletics facilities, new laboratories and classrooms for the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), expansion of the Harvard Education Portal, and a district energy facility.  In 2020–2021, SEAS will expand into the new, 500,000+ square foot Science and Engineering Complex (SEC) in Allston. The SEC will be adjacent to the Enterprise Research Campus in synergy with Harvard Business School and the Harvard Innovation Lab to encourage technology- and life science-focused startups as well as collaborations with mature companies.

Longwood.

Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health are located on a campus in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston about south of the Cambridge campus. Several of Harvard's affiliated hospitals and research institutes are also in Longwood, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Joslin Diabetes Center, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Additional affiliates, most notably Massachusetts General Hospital, are located throughout the Greater Boston area.

Other.

Harvard also owns and operates the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, the Concord Field Station in Estabrook Woods in Concord, Massachusetts, the Villa I Tatti research center in Florence, Italy, the Harvard Shanghai Center in Shanghai, China, and the Arnold Arboretum in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.

Organization and administration.

Governance.

Harvard is governed by a combination of its Board of Overseers and the President and Fellows of Harvard College (also known as the Harvard Corporation), which in turn appoints the President of Harvard University. There are 16,000 staff and faculty, including 2,400 professors, lecturers, and instructors.  The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is the largest Harvard faculty and has primary responsibility for instruction in Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Continuing Education, which includes Harvard Summer School and Harvard Extension School. There are nine other graduate and professional faculties as well as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.  Joint programs with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology include the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, the Broad Institute, The Observatory of Economic Complexity, and edX.

Endowment.

Harvard has the largest university endowment in the world, valued at about $40.9 billion as of 2019. During the Great Recession, it suffered significant losses that forced large budget cuts, but the endowment has since recovered. One of the most visible results of Harvard's attempt to re-balance its budget was their halting of construction of the $1.2 billion Allston Science Complex that had been scheduled to be completed by 2011, resulting in protests from local residents.  Since 2016, Narv Narvekar has been the CEO of the endowment. Almost $2 billion annually is distributed from the endowment to fund operations. Harvard's ability to fund its degree and financial aid programs is highly dependent on the performance of its endowment; a poor performance in fiscal year 2016 led to a 4.4% cut in the number of graduate students funded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Endowment income is critical, as only 22% of revenue is from tuition, fees, room, and board.

Divestment.

Since the 1970s, several campaigns have sought to divest Harvard's endowment from holdings the campaigns opposed, including investments in apartheid South Africa, the tobacco industry, Sudan during the Darfur genocide, the fossil fuel industry, and the private prison industry.  During the divestment from South Africa movement in the late 1980s, student activists erected a symbolic "shantytown" on Harvard Yard and blockaded a speech by South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown. But the Harvard Management Company repeatedly refused to divest, responding that "operating expenses must not be subject to financially unrealistic strictures or carping by the unsophisticated or by special interest groups." Eventually, the university reduced its South African holdings by $230 million (out of $400 million) in response to the pressure.

Academics.

Admissions.

Harvard's undergraduate admissions process is characterized by the Carnegie Foundation as "more selective, lower transfer-in." Admission is based on academic prowess, extracurricular activities, and personal qualities. For the undergraduate class of 2022, Harvard had 42,749 applicants, accepting 2,024 (4.7%) and enrolling 1,653. The middle 50% range of SAT scores of enrolled freshmen was 720–780 for reading and writing and 740–800 for math, while the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 33–35. The average high school grade point average (GPA) was 4.18.  Harvard College ended its early admissions program in 2007 as the program was believed to disadvantage low-income and minority applicants applying to selective universities, but for the class of 2016 and beyond, an early action program was reintroduced. The freshman class that entered in the fall of 2017 was the first to be predominantly (50.8%) nonwhite.  A federal lawsuit alleges that Harvard's admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans, who tend to be overrepresented among students with high academic achievement. A 2019 district court decision in the case (which has since been appealed) found no evidence of explicit racial bias but did not rule out a small amount of implicit bias. Harvard has implemented more implicit bias training for its admissions staff in accordance with the court's recommendations. In addition, Harvard's admissions preference for children of alumni, employees, and donors has been criticized as favoring white and wealthy candidates.  As of the 2019–2020 academic year, Harvard College tuition was about $48,000, contributing to about $70,000 in billed costs. Harvard's extensive fundraising allows it to offer one of the most generous financial aid programs in the country, with need-blind admission and 100% of demonstrated financial need met for both domestic and international students. Families with incomes below $65,000 pay nothing for their children to attend, while families earning between $65,000 and $150,000 pay no more than 10% of their annual incomes. Financial aid is solely based on need; no merit or athletic scholarships are offered.

Teaching and learning.

Harvard is a large, highly residential research university. The university has been accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges since 1929 and offers 50 undergraduate concentrations (majors), 134 graduate degrees, and 32 professional degrees. For the 2018–2019 academic year, Harvard granted 1,665 baccalaureate degrees, 1,013 graduate degrees, and 5,695 professional degrees.  The four-year, full-time undergraduate program has an arts and sciences instructional focus. Between 1978 and 2008, entering students were required to complete a core curriculum of seven classes outside of their concentration. Between 2008 and 2019, undergraduate students were required to complete courses in eight General Education categories: Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding, Culture and Belief, Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning, Ethical Reasoning, Science of Living Systems, Science of the Physical Universe, Societies of the World, and United States in the World. In 2019, a new General Education program was implemented with four categories: "Aesthetics and Culture," "Ethics and Civics," "Histories, Societies, Individuals," and "Science and Technology in Society." Although some introductory courses have large enrollments, most courses are small: the median class size is just 12 students.  Harvard's academic programs operate on a semester calendar beginning in early September and ending in mid-May. Undergraduates typically take four courses per term to graduate on time. In most concentrations, students can pursue either a basic program or an honors-eligible program requiring a senior thesis and advanced coursework. Harvard hosts chapters of academic honor societies such as Phi Beta Kappa as well as various committees and departments that award hundreds of named prizes annually. Along with other universities, Harvard has been accused of grade inflation, although there is evidence that the quality of its student body has also increased. The number of students who receive Latin honors was reduced from 90% to 60% in 2005. Moreover, the honors of "John Harvard Scholar" and "Harvard College Scholar" are now given only to the top 5 percent and the next 5 percent of each class.  University policy is to expel students engaging in academic dishonesty to discourage a "culture of cheating." In 2012, dozens of students were expelled for cheating after an investigation of more than 120 students. In 2013, a survey suggested that 42% of incoming freshmen had cheated on homework prior to entering the university. These incidents prompted the university to adopt an honor code, and the number of alleged academic violations has since decreased.  Harvard students (excluding Extension School and Summer School students) may cross-register for classes at the neighboring Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research.

Harvard is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and remains a preeminent research university with "very high" research activity (R1) and comprehensive doctoral programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, and medicine according to the Carnegie Classification.  With Harvard Medical School consistently ranking first among medical schools for research, biomedical research is an area of particular strength for the university. More than 11,000 faculty members and over 1,600 medical and graduate students contribute to discovery and innovation at Harvard Medical School as well as its 15 affiliated hospitals and research institutes. Harvard Medical School and its affiliates attracted $1.65 billion in competitive research grants from the National Institutes of Health in 2019, more than twice as much as any other university.  Research opportunities are available to undergraduates as well, as early as their freshman year. Numerous mechanisms for funding and faculty mentorship are available during both term-time and the summer.

Libraries and museums.

The Harvard Library system is centered in Widener Library in Harvard Yard and comprises nearly 80 individual libraries holding about 20.4 million items. According to the American Library Association, this makes it the largest academic library in the world.  Houghton Library, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, and the Harvard University Archives consist principally of rare and unique materials. America's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases both old and new is stored in Pusey Library and open to the public. The largest collection of East-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held in the Harvard-Yenching Library.  The Harvard Art Museums comprise three museums. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum covers Asian, Mediterranean, and Islamic art, the Busch–Reisinger Museum (formerly the Germanic Museum) covers central and northern European art, and the Fogg Museum covers Western art from the Middle Ages to the present emphasizing Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and 19th-century French art. The Harvard Museum of Natural History includes the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, the Harvard University Herbaria featuring the Blaschka Glass Flowers exhibit, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Other museums include the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, designed by Le Corbusier and housing the film archive, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, specializing in the cultural history and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere, and the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East featuring artifacts from excavations in the Middle East.

Reputation and rankings.

Among overall rankings, the "Academic Ranking of World Universities" ("ARWU") has ranked Harvard as the world's top university every year since it was released. When "QS" and "Times Higher Education" collaborated to publish the "Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings" from 2004 to 2009, Harvard held the top spot every year and continued to hold first place on "THE World Reputation Rankings" ever since it was released in 2011. In 2019, it was ranked first worldwide by "SCImago Institutions Rankings".  Among rankings of specific indicators, Harvard topped both the University Ranking by Academic Performance (2019–2020) and "" (2011), which measured universities' numbers of alumni holding CEO positions in "Fortune" Global 500 companies. According to annual polls done by "The Princeton Review", Harvard is consistently among the top two most commonly named "dream colleges" in the United States, both for students and parents. Additionally, having made significant investments in its engineering school in recent years, Harvard was ranked third worldwide for Engineering and Technology in 2019 by "Times Higher Education".

Student life.

Student government.

The Harvard Undergraduate Council and the Harvard Graduate Council are the chief organs of student government.

Athletics.

The Harvard Crimson fields 42 intercollegiate sports teams in the NCAA Division I Ivy League, more than any other NCAA Division I college in the country. Every two years, the Harvard and Yale track and field teams come together to compete against a combined Oxford and Cambridge team in the oldest continuous international amateur competition in the world. As with other Ivy League universities, Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships. Harvard's athletic rivalry with Yale is intense in every sport in which they meet, coming to a climax each fall in the annual football meeting, which dates back to 1875 and is usually called simply "The Game." While Harvard's football team is no longer one of the best as it was a century ago during football's early days (it won the Rose Bowl in 1920), both Harvard and Yale have influenced the way the game is played. In 1903, Harvard Stadium introduced a new era into football with the first permanent reinforced concrete stadium of its kind in the country. The stadium's structure played a role in the evolution of the college game. Seeking to reduce the alarming number of deaths and serious injuries, Walter Camp, former captain of the Yale football team, suggested widening the field to open up the game. But the stadium was too narrow to accommodate a wider playing surface, so other steps had to be taken. Camp would instead support revolutionary new rules for the 1906 season. These included legalizing the forward pass, perhaps the most significant rule change in the sport's history.  Even older than HarvardYale football rivalry, the Harvard–Yale Regatta is held each June on the Thames River in eastern Connecticut. The Harvard crew is typically considered to be one of the top teams in the country in rowing. Other sports in which Harvard teams are particularly strong are men's ice hockey, squash, and men's and women's fencing. Harvard's men's ice hockey team won the school's first NCAA Championship in any team sport in 1989, and Harvard also won the Intercollegiate Sailing Association National Championships in 2003. Harvard was the first Ivy League school to win an NCAA Championship in a women's sport when its women's lacrosse team won in 1990.  Harvard Undergraduate Television has footage from historical games and athletic events, including the 2005 pep rally before The Game.  The school color is crimson, which is also the name of Harvard's sports teams and the student newspaper, "The Harvard Crimson". The color was unofficially adopted (in preference to magenta) by an 1875 vote of the student body, although the association with some form of red can be traced back to 1858, when Charles William Eliot, a young graduate student who would later become Harvard's 21st and longest-serving president (1869–1909), bought red bandanas for his crew so they could more easily be distinguished by spectators at a regatta.

Fight songs.

Harvard has several fight songs, the most played of which, especially at football, are "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard" and "Harvardiana." While "Fair Harvard" is actually the alma mater, "Ten Thousand Men" is better known outside the university. The Harvard University Band performs these fight songs and other cheers at football and hockey games. These were parodied by Harvard alumnus Tom Lehrer in his song "Fight Fiercely, Harvard," which he composed while an undergraduate.

Notable people.

Faculty.

Harvard's faculty includes numerous renowned scholars such as biologists E. O. Wilson and William Kaelin Jr.; biophysicists Adam Cohen and Xiaowei Zhuang; physicists Lisa Randall, Subir Sachdev, and Howard Georgi; astrophysicists Alyssa A. Goodman and John M. Kovac; mathematicians Shing-Tung Yau and Joe Harris; computer scientists Michael O. Rabin and Leslie Valiant; chemists Elias James Corey, Dudley R. Herschbach, and George M. Whitesides; literary critics Helen Vendler, Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Menand, and Stephanie Burt; composers Robert Levin and Bernard Rands; lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Lawrence Lessig; historian Henry Louis Gates Jr.; psychologists Steven Pinker and Daniel Gilbert; economists Amartya Sen, Greg Mankiw, Robert Barro, Stephen Marglin, Jason Furman, Michael Kremer, Oliver Hart, Raj Chetty, Lawrence Summers, Eric Maskin, David Laibson, Andrei Shleifer, and Matthew Rabin; philosophers Harvey Mansfield, Shirley Williams, Cornel West, and Michael J. Sandel; and political scientists Robert Putnam, Steven Levitsky, Danielle Allen, and Joseph Nye.  Past faculty members include Stephen Jay Gould, Robert Nozick, Stephan Thernstrom, Sanford J. Ungar, Michael Walzer, Martin Feldstein, Roy Glauber, and Stanley Hoffmann.

Literature and popular culture.

The perception of Harvard as a center of either elite achievement, or elitist privilege, has made it a frequent literary and cinematic backdrop. "In the grammar of film, Harvard has come to mean both tradition, and a certain amount of stuffiness," film critic Paul Sherman has said.

Film.

Harvard's policy since 1970 has been to permit filming on its property only rarely, so most scenes set at Harvard (especially indoor shots, but excepting aerial footage and shots of public areas such as Harvard Square) are in fact shot elsewhere.

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning and one of the most prestigious in the world.

L’université Harvard (), ou plus simplement Harvard, est une université privée américaine située à Cambridge, ville de l'agglomération de Boston, dans le Massachusetts. Fondée le, c'est le plus ancien établissement d'enseignement supérieur des États-Unis.


History.

Colonial period.

Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the Province of New York began as early as 1704, at which time Colonel Lewis Morris wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Church of England, persuading the society that New York City was an ideal community in which to establish a college. However, it was not until the founding of the College of New Jersey (the present Princeton University) across the Hudson River in New Jersey that the City of New York seriously considered founding a college. In 1746, an act was passed by the general assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. In 1751, the assembly appointed a commission of ten New York residents, seven of whom were members of the Church of England, to direct the funds accrued by the state lottery towards the foundation of a college.  Classes were initially held in July

18th century.

After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore its vitality, promising to make whatever changes to the school's charter the state might demand. The legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1, 1784, it passed "an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College". The Act created a Board of Regents to oversee the resuscitation of King's College, and, in an effort to demonstrate its support for the new Republic, the legislature stipulated that "the College within the City of New York heretofore called King's College be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College", a reference to Columbia,

19th century to present.

In November 1813, the college agreed to incorporate its medical school with The College of Physicians and Surgeons, a new school created by the Regents of New York, forming Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. The college's enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the college functioned. In 1857, the college moved from the King's College campus at Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for the next forty years. During the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F.A.P. Barnard, the president that Barnard College is named after, the institution rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. Barnard

Campus.

According to "New York Magazine", Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.

Morningside Heights.

The majority of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in Morningside Heights on Seth Low's late-19th century vision of a university campus where all disciplines could be taught at one location. The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts planning principles by the architects McKim, Mead & White. Columbia's main campus occupies more than six city blocks, or, in Morningside Heights, New York City, a neighborhood that contains a number of academic institutions. The university owns over 7,800 apartments in Morningside Heights, housing faculty, graduate students, and staff. Almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories (purpose-built or converted) are located on campus or in Morningside Heights. Columbia University has an extensive tunnel system more than a century old, with the oldest portions predating the present

Other campuses.

In April 2007, the university purchased more than two-thirds of a site for a new campus in Manhattanville, an industrial neighborhood to the north of the Morningside Heights campus. Stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street, the new campus will house buildings for Columbia's Business School, School of International and Public Affairs, and the Jerome L. Greene Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior, where research will occur on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The $7 billion expansion plan includes demolishing all buildings, except three that are historically significant, eliminating the existing light industry and storage warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments. Replacing these buildings will be of space for the university. Community activist groups in West Harlem fought the expansion for reasons ranging from property protection and fair exchange for land, to residents' rights. Subsequent public hearings drew neighborhood opposition., the State of New York's Empire State Development Corporation approved use of eminent domain, which, through declaration of Manhattanville's "blighted"

Sustainability.

In 2006, the university established the Office of Environmental Stewardship to initiate, coordinate and implement programs to reduce the university's environmental footprint. The U.S. Green Building Council selected the university's Manhattanville plan for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Neighborhood Design pilot program. The plan commits to incorporating smart growth, new urbanism and "green" building design principles. Columbia is one of the 2030 Challenge Partners, a group of nine universities in the city of New York that have pledged to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 30% within the next ten years. Columbia University adopts LEED standards for all new construction and major renovations. The university requires a minimum of Silver, but through its design and review process seeks to achieve

Academics.

Undergraduate admissions and financial aid.

Columbia University received nearly 40,100 applications for the class of 2024 (entering 2020) and a total of around 2,450 were admitted to the two schools for an overall acceptance rate of 6.1%, making Columbia the third most selective college in the United States behind Stanford and Harvard as well as the second most selective college in the Ivy League. According to the 2012 college selectivity ranking by U.S. News & World Report, which factors admission and yield rates among other criteria, Columbia was tied with Yale, Caltech and MIT as

Organization.

Columbia University is an independent, privately supported, nonsectarian institution of higher education. Its official corporate name is "The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York." The university's first charter was granted in 1754 by King George II; however, its modern charter was first enacted in 1787 and last amended in 1810 by the New York State Legislature. The university is governed by 24 trustees, customarily including the president, who serves "ex officio". The trustees themselves are responsible for choosing their successors. Six of the 24 are nominated from a pool of candidates recommended by the Columbia Alumni Association. Another six are nominated by the board in consultation with the executive committee of the University Senate. The remaining 12, including the president, are nominated by the trustees themselves through their internal processes. The term of office for trustees

International partnerships.

Columbia students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner

Rankings.

Columbia University is ranked 3rd overall among U.S. national universities and 7th globally for 2020 by "U.S. News & World Report". QS University Rankings listed Columbia as 5th in the United States. Ranked 15th among U.S. colleges for 2020 by "Wall Street Journal" and "Times Higher Education", in recent years it has been ranked as high as 2nd. Individual colleges and schools were also nationally ranked by "U.S. News & World Report" for its 2021 edition. Columbia Law School was ranked for 4th, the Mailman School of Public Health 4th, the School of Social Work tied for 3rd, Columbia Business School 8th, the College of Physicians and Surgeons tied for 6th for research (and tied for 31st for primary care), the School of Nursing tied for 11th in the master's program and tied for 1st in the doctorate nursing program, and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied

Research.

Columbia was the first North American site where the uranium atom was split. The College of Physicians and Surgeons played a central role in developing the modern understanding of neuroscience with the publication of "Principles of Neural Science", described by historian of science Katja Huenther as the "neuroscience 'bible'". The book was written by a team of Columbia researchers that included Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel, James H. Schwartz, and Thomas Jessell. Columbia was the birthplace of FM radio and the laser. The first brain-computer interface capable of translating brain signals into speech was developed by neuroengineers at Columbia. The MPEG-2 algorithm of transmitting high quality audio and video over limited bandwidth was developed by Dimitris Anastassiou, a Columbia professor of electrical engineering. Biologist Martin Chalfie was the first to introduce the use of Green

Military and veteran enrollment.

Columbia is a long-standing participant of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Yellow Ribbon Program, allowing eligible veterans to pursue a Columbia undergraduate degree regardless of socioeconomic status for over 70 years.

Student life.

Students.

In 2017, Columbia University's student population was 32,429 (8,868 students in undergraduate programs and 23,561 in postgraduate programs), with 42% of the student population identifying themselves as a minority and 28% born outside of the United States. Twenty-six percent of students at Columbia have family incomes below $60,000, making it one of the most socioeconomically diverse top-tier colleges. Sixteen percent of students at Columbia receive Federal Pell Grants, which mostly go to students whose family incomes are below $40,000. Seventeen percent of students are the first member of their family to attend a four-year college.  On-campus housing is guaranteed for all four years as an undergraduate. Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering) share housing in the on-campus residence halls.

Publications.

The "Columbia Daily Spectator" is the nation's second-oldest student newspaper; and "The Blue and White", a monthly literary magazine established in 1890, discusses campus life and local politics in print and on its daily blog, dubbed the "Bwog". "The Morningside Post" is a student-run multimedia news publication. Its content: student-written investigative news, international affairs analysis, opinion, and satire.  Political publications include "The Current", a journal of politics, culture and Jewish Affairs; the "Columbia Political Review", the multi-partisan political magazine of

Broadcasting.

Columbia is home to two pioneers in undergraduate campus radio broadcasting, WKCR-FM and CTV. Many undergraduates are also involved with Barnard's radio station, WBAR. WKCR, the student run radio station that broadcasts to the Tri-State area, claims to be the oldest FM radio station in the world, owing to the university's affiliation with Major Edwin Armstrong. The station went operational on July 18, 1939, from a 400-foot antenna tower in Alpine, New Jersey, broadcasting the

Debate and Model UN.

The Philolexian Society is a literary and debating club founded in 1802, making it the oldest student group at Columbia, as well as the third oldest collegiate literary society in the country. The society annually administers the Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry Contest. The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team competes in tournaments around the country as part of the American Parliamentary Debate Association, and hosts both high school and college tournaments on Columbia's campus, as well as public debates on issues affecting the university.  The Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA), oversees Columbia's Model United Nations activities. CIRCA hosts college and high school Model UN conferences, hosts speakers influential in international politics to speak on campus, trains students from underprivileged schools in New York in Model UN and oversees a competitive team, which travels to colleges around the country and to an international conference every year. The competitive team consistently wins best and outstanding delegation awards and is considered one of the top teams in the country.

Technology and entrepreneurship.

The Columbia University Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE) was founded in 1999. The student-run group aims to foster entrepreneurship on campus. Each year CORE hosts dozens of events, including talks, #StartupColumbia, a conference and venture competition for $250,000, and Ignite@CU, a weekend for undergrads interested in design, engineering, and entrepreneurship. Notable speakers include Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, Alexis Ohanian, Drew Houston, and Mark Cuban. By 2006, CORE had awarded graduate and undergraduate students over $100,000 in seed capital.  CampusNetwork, an on-campus social networking site called Campus Network that preceded Facebook, was created and popularized by Columbia engineering student Adam Goldberg in 2003. Mark Zuckerberg later asked Goldberg to join him in Palo Alto to work on Facebook, but Goldberg declined the offer. The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science offers a minor in Technical Entrepreneurship through its Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement. SEAS' entrepreneurship activities focus on community building initiatives in New York and worldwide, made possible through partners such as Microsoft Corporation.  Columbia is a top supplier of young engineering entrepreneurs for New York City. Over the

Athletics.

A member institution of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in Division I FCS, Columbia fields varsity teams in 29 sports and is a member of the Ivy League. The football Lions play home games at the 17,000-seat Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium. The Baker Athletics Complex also includes facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, track, and rowing, as well as the new Campbell Sports Center, opened in January 2013. The basketball, fencing, swimming & diving, volleyball, and wrestling programs are based at the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on the main campus. Former students include Baseball Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Eddie Collins, football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman, Marcellus Wiley, and world champion women's weightlifter Karyn Marshall. On May 17, 1939, fledgling NBC broadcast a doubleheader between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers at Columbia's Baker Field, making it the first televised regular athletic event in history.  Columbia University athletics has a long history, with many accomplishments

World Leaders Forum.

Established in 2003 by university president Lee C. Bollinger, the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University provides the opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students alike to listen to world leaders in government, religion, industry, finance, and academia. The World Leaders Forum is a year-around event series that strives to provide a platform for uninhibited speech among nations and cultures, while educating students about problems and progress around the globe.  All Columbia undergraduates and graduates, as well as students of Barnard College and other Columbia affiliated schools, can register to participate in the World Leaders Forum using their student IDs. Even for individuals who do not have the privilege to

Other.

The Columbia University Orchestra was founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, and is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States. Undergraduate student composers at Columbia may choose to become involved with Columbia New Music, which sponsors concerts of music written by undergraduate students from all of Columbia's schools.  There are a number of performing arts groups at Columbia dedicated to producing student theater, including the Columbia Players, King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe (KCST), Columbia Musical Theater Society (CMTS), NOMADS (New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students), LateNite Theatre, Columbia University Performing Arts League (CUPAL), Black Theatre Ensemble (BTE), sketch comedy group Chowdah, and improvisational troupes Alfred and Fruit Paunch. The Columbia University Marching Band tells jokes during the campus tradition of Orgo Night. The Columbia Queer

Student activism.

1936 Protest against Nazis.

In 1936, Robert Burke, CC '38 led a rally outside President Butler's mansion to

Protests of 1968.

Students initiated a major demonstration in 1968 over two main issues. The first was Columbia's proposed gymnasium in neighboring Morningside Park; this was seen by the protesters to be an act of aggression aimed at the black residents of neighboring Harlem. A second issue was the Columbia administration's failure to resign its institutional membership in the Pentagon's weapons research think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Students barricaded themselves inside Low Library, Hamilton Hall, and several other university buildings during the protests, and New York City police were called onto the campus to arrest or forcibly remove the students.  The protests achieved two of their stated goals. Columbia disaffiliated from the IDA and scrapped the plans for the controversial gym,

Protests against racism and apartheid.

Further student protests, including hunger strike and more barricades of Hamilton Hall and the Business School during the late 1970s and early 1980s, were aimed at convincing the university trustees to divest all of the university's investments in companies that were seen as active or tacit supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa. A notable upsurge in the protests occurred in 1978, when following a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the student uprising in 1968, students marched and rallied in protest of university investments in South Africa. The Committee Against Investment in South Africa (CAISA) and

Ahmadinejad speech controversy.

The School of International and Public Affairs extends invitations to heads of state and heads of government who come to New York City for the opening of the fall session of the United Nations General Assembly. In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of those invited to speak on campus. Ahmadinejad accepted his invitation and spoke on September 24, 2007, as part of Columbia University's World Leaders Forum. The invitation proved to be highly controversial. Hundreds of demonstrators swarmed the campus on September 24 and the speech itself was televised worldwide. University President Lee C. Bollinger tried to allay the controversy by letting Ahmadenijad speak, but with a negative introduction (given personally by Bollinger). This did not

ROTC controversy.

Beginning in 1969, during the Vietnam War, the university did not allow the U.S. military to have Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs on campus, though Columbia students could participate in ROTC programs at other local colleges and universities. At a forum at the university during the 2008 presidential election campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama said that the university should consider reinstating ROTC on campus. After the debate, the president of the university, Lee C. Bollinger, stated that he did not favor reinstating Columbia's ROTC program, because of the military's anti-gay policies. In November 2008, Columbia's undergraduate student body held a referendum on the question of whether or not to invite ROTC back to campus, and the students who voted were almost evenly divided on the issue. ROTC

Divestment from private prisons.

In February 2014, after learning that the university had over $10 million invested in the private prison industry, a group of students delivered a letter President Bollinger's office requesting a meeting and officially launching the Columbia Prison Divest (CPD) campaign., Columbia held investments in Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States, as well as G4S, the largest multinational security firm in the world. Students demanded that the university divest these holdings from the industry

Traditions.

Orgo Night.

In one of the school's longest-lasting traditions, begun in 1975, at midnight before the Organic Chemistry exam—often the first day of final exams—the Columbia University Marching Band invaded and briefly occupied the main undergraduate reading room in Butler Library to distract and entertain studying students with some forty-five minutes of raucous jokes and music, beginning and ending with the singing of the school's fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar". After the main show before a crowd that routinely began filling the room well before the announced midnight start time, the Band led a procession to several campus locations, including the residential quadrangle of Barnard College for more music and temporary relief from the stress of last-minute studying.  In December 2016, following several years of complaints from students who said that some Orgo Night scripts and advertising posters were offensive to

Tree-Lighting and Yule Log ceremonies.

The campus Tree-Lighting Ceremony was inaugurated in 1998. It celebrates the illumination of the medium-sized trees lining College Walk in front of Kent and Hamilton Halls on the east end and Dodge and Journalism Halls on the west, just before finals week in early December. The lights remain on until February 28. Students meet at the sun-dial for free hot chocolate, performances by "a cappella" groups, and speeches by the university president and a guest.

The Varsity Show.

The Varsity Show is an annual musical written by and for students and was established in 1894, making it one of Columbia's oldest

Notable people.

The university has graduated many notable alumni, including five Founding Fathers of the United States, an author of the United States Constitution and a member of the Committee of Five;, there were 125 Pulitzer Prize winners and 39 Oscar winners, as well as three United States presidents., there were 101 National Academy members who were alumni.  In a 2016 ranking of universities worldwide with respect to living graduates who are billionaires, Columbia ranked second, after Harvard.  Former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the law school. Other political figures educated at Columbia include former U.S President Barack Obama, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. Dwight D. Eisenhower served as the thirteenth president of Columbia University from 1948 to 1953. The university has also educated 26 foreign heads of state, including president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, president of East Timor Jose Ramos Horta, president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves and other historical figures such as Wellington Koo, Radovan Karadžić, Gaston Eyskens, and T. V. Soong. The author of India's constitution Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was also an alumnus of Columbia.  Alumni of Columbia have occupied top positions in Wall Street and the rest of the business world. Notable members of the Astor family attended Columbia, while other business graduates include investor Warren Buffett, former CEO of PBS and NBC Larry Grossman, chairman of Wal-Mart S. Robson Walton and Bain Capital Co-Managing Partner, Jonathan Lavine. CEO's of top Fortune 500 companies include James P. Gorman of Morgan Stanley, Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin, Philippe Dauman of Viacom, Ursula Burns of Xerox, and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup. Notable labor organizer and women's educator Louise Leonard McLaren received her degree of Master of Arts from Columbia.  In science and technology, Columbia alumni include: founder of IBM Herman Hollerith; inventor of FM radio Edwin Armstrong; Francis Mechner; integral in development of the nuclear submarine Hyman Rickover; founder of Google China Kai-Fu Lee; scientists Stephen Jay Gould, Robert Millikan, Helium–neon laser inventor Ali Javan and Mihajlo Pupin; chief-engineer of the New York City Subway, William Barclay Parsons; philosophers Irwin Edman and Robert Nozick; economist Milton Friedman; psychologist Harriet Babcock; and sociologists Lewis A. Coser and Rose Laub Coser.  Many Columbia alumni have gone on to renowned careers in the arts, including composers Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, and Art Garfunkel. Four United States Poet Laureates received their degrees from Columbia. Columbia alumni have made an indelible mark in the field of American poetry and literature, with such people as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, pioneers of the Beat Generation, and Langston Hughes, a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance, all having attended the university. Other notable writers who attended Columbia include authors Isaac Asimov, J.D. Salinger, Upton Sinclair, Danielle Valore Evans, and Hunter S. Thompson.  University alumni have also been very prominent in the film industry, with 33 alumni and former students winning a combined 43 Academy Awards (). Some notable Columbia alumni that have gone on to work in film include directors Sidney Lumet ("12 Angry Men") and Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker"), screenwriters Howard Koch ("Casablanca") and Joseph L. Mankiewicz ("All About Eve"), and actors James Cagney and Ed Harris.

Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence, seven of which belong to the Ivy League.

L'université Columbia (officiellement Columbia University in the City of New York ou tout simplement « Columbia ») est une université privée située dans le quartier de Morningside Heights, à côté de Morningside Park, au sein de l'Upper West Side, dans le nord-ouest de l'arrondissement de Manhattan, à New York (États-Unis). Fondée en 1754, elle est l'un des plus anciens établissements d’enseignement supérieur aux États-Unis et fait partie du groupe de l'Ivy League regroupant huit des universités les plus anciennes, les plus célèbres et les plus élitaires du pays.


Name.

The name Dalmatia derives from the name of the Dalmatae tribe, which is connected with the Illyrian word "delme" meaning "sheep", compare the Albanian word for sheep, "delmë". Its Latin form "Dalmatia" gave rise to its current English name. In the Venetian language, once dominant in the area, it is spelled "Dalmàssia", and in modern Italian "Dalmazia". The modern Croatian spelling is "Dalmacija",.  Dalmatia is referenced in the New Testament at, so its name has been translated in many of the world's languages.

Definition.

In antiquity the Roman province of Dalmatia was much larger than the present-day Split-Dalmatia County, stretching from Istria in the north to modern-day Albania in the south. Dalmatia signified not only a geographical unit, but was an entity based on common culture and settlement types, a common narrow eastern Adriatic coastal belt, Mediterranean climate, sclerophyllous vegetation of the Illyrian province, Adriatic carbonate platform, and karst geomorphology.

Modern area.

Dalmatia is today a historical region only, not formally instituted in Croatian law. Its exact extent is therefore uncertain and subject to public perception. According to Lena Mirošević and Josip Faričić of the University of Zadar: ...the modern perception of Dalmatia is mainly based on the territorial extent of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia, with the exception of Rab island, which is geographically related to the Kvarner area and functionally to the Littoral–Gorski Kotar area, and with the exception of the Bay of Kotor, which was annexed to another state (Montenegro) after World War I. Simultaneously, the southern part of Lika and upper Pounje, which were not a part of Austrian Dalmatia, became a part of Zadar County. From the present-day administrative and territorial point of view, Dalmatia comprises the four Croatian littoral counties with seats in Zadar, Šibenik, Split, and Dubrovnik.  "Dalmatia" is therefore generally perceived to extend approximately to the borders of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia. However, due to territorial and administrative changes over the past century, the perception can be seen to have altered somewhat with regard to certain areas, and sources conflict as to their being part of the region in modern times:

Culture and ethnicity.

The inhabitants of Dalmatia are culturally subdivided into two groups. The urban families of the coastal cities, commonly known as "Fetivi", are culturally akin to the inhabitants of the Dalmatian islands (known derogatorily as "Boduli"). The two are together distinct, in the Mediterranean aspects of their culture, from the more numerous inhabitants of the Zaleđe, the hinterland. Referred to (sometimes derogatorily) as the "Vlaji", their name originated from the Vlachs with whom they have no ethnical connection. The latter are historically more influenced by Ottoman culture, merging almost seamlessly at the border with the Herzegovinian Croats and southern Bosnia and Herzegovina in general. Population of present-day Dalmatia is descended from Croats who assimilated with already existing Romanized Illyrians, upon their arrival.  The former two groups (inhabitants of the islands and the cities) historically included many Venetian and Italian speakers, many of whom identified as Italians (esp. after the Italian unification). Their presence, relative to those identifying as Croats, decreased dramatically over the course of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. The Italian speakers constituted (according to the Italian linguist Bartoli) nearly one third of Dalmatians in the second half of the 18th century. According to the Austrian census it had decreased to 12.5% in 1865 and 3.1% in 1890. There remains, however, a strong cultural, and, in part, ancestral heritage among the natives of the cities and islands, who today almost exclusively identify as Croats, but retain a sense of regional identity.

Geography and climate.

Most of the area is covered by the Dinaric Alps mountain range running from north-west to south-east. On the coasts the climate is Mediterranean, while further inland it is moderate Mediterranean. In the mountains, winters are frosty and snowy, while summers are hot and dry. To the south winters are milder. Over the centuries many forests have been cut down and replaced with bush and brush. There is evergreen vegetation on the coast. The soils are generally poor, except on the plains where areas with natural grass, fertile soils, and warm summers provide an opportunity for tillage. Elsewhere, land cultivation is mostly unsuccessful because of the mountains, hot summers, and poor soils, although olives and grapes flourish. Energy resources are scarce. Electricity is mainly produced by hydropower stations. There is a considerable amount of bauxite.  The largest Dalmatian mountains are Dinara, Mosor, Svilaja, Biokovo, Moseć, Veliki Kozjak, and Mali Kozjak. The regional geographical unit of historical Dalmatia – the coastal region between Istria and the Gulf of Kotor – includes the Orjen mountains with the highest peak in Montenegro, 1894 m. In present-day Dalmatia, the highest peak is Dinara (1913 m), which is not a coastal mountain, while the highest coastal Dinaric mountains are on Biokovo (Sv. Jure, 1762 m) and Velebit (Vaganski vrh, 1757 m), although the Vaganski vrh itself is located in Lika-Senj County.  The largest Dalmatian islands are Brač, Korčula, Dugi Otok, Mljet, Vis, Hvar, Pag and Pašman. The major rivers are Zrmanja, Krka, Cetina, and Neretva.  The Adriatic Sea's high water quality, along with the immense number of coves, islands, and channels, makes Dalmatia an attractive place for nautical races, nautical tourism, and tourism in general. Dalmatia also includes several national parks that are tourist attractions: Paklenica karst river, Kornati archipelago, Krka river rapids, and Mljet island.

Administrative division.

The area of Dalmatia roughly corresponds to Croatia's four southernmost counties, listed here north to south: Other large Dalmatian cities include Biograd, Kaštela, Sinj, Solin, Omiš, Knin, Metković, Makarska, Trogir, Ploče, and Imotski.

History.

Antiquity.

Dalmatia's name is derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae who lived in the area of the eastern Adriatic coast in the 1st millennium BC. It was part of the Illyrian Kingdom between the 4th century BC and the Illyrian Wars (220, 168 BC) when the Roman Republic established its protectorate south of the river Neretva. The name "Dalmatia" was in use probably from the second half of the 2nd century BC and certainly from the first half of the 1st century BC, defining a coastal area of the eastern Adriatic between the Krka and Neretva rivers. It was slowly incorporated into Roman possessions until the Roman province of Illyricum was formally established around 32–27 BC. In 9 AD the Dalmatians raised the last in a series of revolts together with the Pannonians, but it was finally crushed and, in 10 AD, Illyricum was split into two provinces, Pannonia and Dalmatia, which spread into larger area inland to cover all of the Dinaric Alps and most of the eastern Adriatic coast.  The historian Theodore Mommsen wrote in his book, "The Provinces of the Roman Empire", that all Dalmatia was fully romanized by the 4th century AD. However, analysis of archaeological material from that period has shown that the process of Romanization was rather selective. While urban centers, both coastal and inland, were almost completely romanized, the situation in the countryside was completely different. Despite the Illyrians being subject to a strong process of acculturation, they continued to speak their native language, worship their own gods and traditions, and follow their own social-political tribal organization which was adapted to Roman administration and political structure only in some necessities.  The collapse of the Western Roman Empire, with the beginning of the Migration Period, left the region subject to Gothic rulers Odoacer and Theodoric the Great. They ruled Dalmatia from 480 to 535 AD, when it was restored to the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire by Justinian I.

Middle Ages.

The Middle Ages in Dalmatia were a period of intense rivalry among neighboring powers: the waning Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia (later in a personal union with Hungary), the Bosnian Kingdom, and the Venetian Republic. Dalmatia at the time consisted of the coastal cities functioning much like city-states, with extensive autonomy, but in mutual conflict and without control of the rural hinterland (the Zagora). Ethnically, Dalmatia started out as a Roman region, with a romance culture that began to develop independently, forming the now-extinct Dalmatian language.  In the Early Medieval period, Byzantine Dalmatia was ravaged by an Avar invasion that destroyed its capital, Salona, in 639 AD, an event that allowed for the settlement of the nearby Diocletian's Palace in Spalatum (Split) by Salonitans, greatly increasing the importance of the city. The Avars were followed by the great South Slavic migrations.  The Slavs, loosely allied with the Avars, permanently settled the region in the first half of the 7th century AD and remained its predominant ethnic group ever since. The Croats soon formed their own realm: the Principality of Dalmatian Croatia ruled by native Princes of Guduscan origin. The meaning of the geographical term "Dalmatia" now shrank to the coastal cities and their immediate hinterland. These cities were the romance-speaking Dalmatian city-states and remained influential as they were well fortified and maintained their connection with the Byzantine Empire. The original name of the cities was "Jadera, Spalatum, Crespa, Arba, Tragurium, Vecla, Ragusium" and "Cattarum". The language and the laws were initially Latin, but after a few centuries they developed their own neo-Latin language (the "Dalmatico"), that lasted until the 19th century. The cities were maritime centres with a huge commerce mainly with the Italian peninsula and with the growing Republic of Venice. The two communities were somewhat hostile at first, but as the Croats became Christianized this tension increasingly subsided. A degree of cultural mingling soon took place, in some enclaves stronger, in others weaker, as Slavic influence and culture was more accentuated in Ragusa, Spalatum, and Tragurium.  In about 925 AD, Duke Tomislav was crowned, establishing the Kingdom of Croatia, and extending his influence further southwards to Zachlumia. As an ally of the Byzantine Empire, the King was given the status of Protector of Dalmatia, and became its "de facto" ruler. In the High Medieval period, the Byzantine Empire was no longer able to maintain its power consistently in Dalmatia, and was finally rendered impotent so far west by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Venetian Republic, on the other hand, was in the ascendant, while the Kingdom of Croatia became increasingly influenced by Hungary to the north, being absorbed into it via personal union in 1102. Thus, these two factions became involved in a struggle in this area, intermittently controlling it as the balance shifted. During the reign of King Emeric, the Dalmatian cities separated from Hungary by a treaty. A consistent period of Hungarian rule in Dalmatia was ended with the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241. The Mongols severely impaired the feudal state, so much so that that same year, King Béla IV had to take refuge in Dalmatia, as far south as the Klis fortress. The Mongols attacked the Dalmatian cities for the next few years but eventually withdrew without major success.  In the south, due to its protected location, Kotor became a major city for the salt trade. The area was prosperous during the 14th century under the rule of Serbian emperor Stefan Dušan, who encouraged law enforcement, which helped the Bay of Kotor to become a safe place for doing business. In 1389 Tvrtko I, the founder of the Bosnian Kingdom, was able to control the Adriatic littoral between Kotor and Šibenik, and even claimed control over the northern coast up to Rijeka, and his own independent ally, Dubrovnik (Ragusa). This was only temporary, as Hungary and the Venetians continued their struggle over Dalmatia after Tvrtko's death in 1391. By this time, the whole Hungarian and Croatian Kingdom was facing increasing internal difficulties, as a 20-year civil war ensued between the Capetian House of Anjou from the Kingdom of Naples, and King Sigismund of the House of Luxembourg. During the war, the losing contender, Ladislaus of Naples, sold his "rights" on Dalmatia to the Venetian Republic for a mere 100,000 ducats. The much more centralized Republic came to control all of Dalmatia by the year 1420, it was to remain under Venetian rule for 377 years (1420–1797).

Early modern period (1420–1815).

From 1420 to 1797 the Republic of Venice controlled most of Dalmatia, calling it "Esclavonia" in the 15th century with the southern enclave, the Bay of Kotor, being called "Albania Veneta". Venetian was the commercial "lingua franca" in the Mediterranean at that time, and it heavily influenced Dalmatian and to a lesser degree coastal Croatian and Albanian.  The southern city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) became de facto independent in 1358 through the Treaty of Zadar when Venice relinquished its suzerainty over it to Louis I of Hungary. In 1481, Ragusa switched allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. This gave its tradesmen advantages such as access to the Black Sea, and the Republic of Ragusa was the fiercest competitor to Venice's merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Republic of Venice was also one of the powers most hostile to the Ottoman Empire's expansion, and participated in many wars against it. As the Ottomans took control of the hinterland, many Christians took refuge in the coastal cities of Dalmatia. The border between the Dalmatian hinterland and the Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina greatly fluctuated until the Morean War, when the Venetian capture of Knin and Sinj set much of the borderline at its current position. After the Great Turkish War and the Peace of Passarowitz, more peaceful times made Dalmatia experience a period of certain economic and cultural growth in the 18th century, with the re-establishment of trade and exchange with the hinterland. This period was abruptly interrupted with the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797. Napoleon's troops stormed the region and ended the independence of the Republic of Ragusa as well, saving it from occupation by the Russian Empire and Montenegro.  In 1805, Napoleon created his Kingdom of Italy around the Adriatic Sea, annexing to it the former Venetian Dalmatia from Istria to Kotor. In 1808 he annexed to this Italian Kingdom the just conquered Republic of Ragusa. A year later in 1809 he removed the Venetian Dalmatia from his Kingdom of Italy and created the Illyrian Provinces, which were annexed to France, and created his marshal Nicolas Soult "Duke of Dalmatia".  Napoleon's rule in Dalmatia was marked with war and high taxation, which caused several rebellions. On the other hand, French rule greatly contributed to Croatian national awakening (the first newspaper in Croatian was published then in Zadar, the "Il Regio Dalmata – Kraglski Dalmatin"), the legal system and infrastructure were finally modernized somewhat in Dalmatia, and the educational system flourished. French rule brought a lot of improvements in infrastructure; many roads were built or reconstructed. Napoleon himself blamed Marshal Auguste Marmont, the governor of Dalmatia, that too much money was spent. However, in 1813, the Habsburgs once again declared war on France and, by the following year, had restored control over Dalmatia.

Nineteenth century.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Dalmatia was granted as a province to the Emperor of Austria. It was officially known as the Kingdom of Dalmatia.  In 1848, the Croatian Assembly (Sabor) published the People's Requests, in which they requested among other things the abolition of serfdom and the unification of Dalmatia and Croatia. The Dubrovnik Municipality was the most outspoken of all the Dalmatian communes in its support for unification with Croatia. A letter was sent from Dubrovnik to Zagreb with pledges to work for this idea. In 1849, Dubrovnik continued to lead the Dalmatian cities in the struggle for unification. A large-scale campaign was launched in the Dubrovnik paper "L'Avvenire" ("The Future") based on a clearly formulated programme: the federal system for the Habsburg territories, the inclusion of Dalmatia into Croatia and the Slavic brotherhood. The president of the council of Kingdom of Dalmatia was the politician Baron Vlaho Getaldić.  In the same year, the first issue of the Dubrovnik almanac appeared, "Flower of the National Literature" ("Dubrovnik, cvijet narodnog književstva"), in which Petar Preradović published his noted poem "To Dubrovnik". This and other literary and journalistic texts, which continued to be published, contributed to the awakening of the national consciousness reflected in efforts to introduce the Croatian language into schools and offices, and to promote Croatian books. The Emperor Franz Joseph brought the so-called Imposed Constitution which prohibited the unification of Dalmatia and Croatia and also any further political activity with this end in view. The political struggle of Dubrovnik to be united with Croatia, which was intense throughout 1848–49, did not succeed at that time.  In 1861 was the meeting of the first Dalmatian Assembly, with representatives from Dubrovnik. Representatives of Kotor came to Dubrovnik to join the struggle for unification with Croatia. The citizens of Dubrovnik gave them a festive welcome, flying Croatian flags from the ramparts and exhibiting the slogan: Ragusa with Kotor. The Kotorans elected a delegation to go to Vienna; Dubrovnik nominated Niko Pucić, who went to Vienna to demand not only the unification of Dalmatia with Croatia, but also the unification of all Croatian territories under one common Assembly. During this period, the Habsburgs carried out an aggressive anti-Italian policy through a forced slavization of the region.

Twentieth century.

In 1905 a dispute arose in the Austrian Reichsrat over whether Austria should pay for Dalmatia. It has been argued that in the conclusion of the so-called ""April Laws"" is written ""given by Banus Count Keglevich of Buzin"", which explained the historical affiliation of Dalmatia to Hungary. Two years later Dalmatia elected representatives to the Austrian Reichsrat.  Dalmatia was a strategic region during World War I that both Italy and Serbia intended to seize from Austria-Hungary. Italy joined the Triple Entente Allies in 1915 upon agreeing to the London Pact that guaranteed Italy the right to annex a large portion of Dalmatia in exchange for Italy's participation on the Allied side. From 5–6 November 1918, Italian forces were reported to have reached Lissa, Lagosta, Sebenico, and other localities on the Dalmatian coast. By the end of hostilities in November 1918, the Italian military had seized control of the entire portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the London Pact and by 17 November had seized Rijeka as well. In 1918, Admiral Enrico Millo declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia. Famous Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio supported the seizure of Dalmatia, and proceeded to Zadar in an Italian warship in December 1918. However, in spite of the guarantees of the London Pact to Italy of a large portion of Dalmatia and Italian military occupation of claimed territories of Dalmatia, during the peace settlement negotiations of 1919 to 1920 the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson that advocated self-determination of nations took precedence, with Italy only being permitted to annex Zadar from Dalmatia, while the rest of Dalmatia was to be part of Yugoslavia.  At the end of the First World War, the Austrian Empire disintegrated, and Dalmatia was again split between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) which controlled most of it, and the Kingdom of Italy which held small portions of northern Dalmatia around Zadar and the islands of Cres, Lošinj, and Lastovo. Italy entered the First World War in a territorial gamble, mostly to gain Dalmatia. But Italy got only a small part of its pretensions, so Dalmatia mostly stayed Yugoslav until Benito Mussolini invaded Yugoslavia in 1941 and occupied the region.  In 1922, the territory of the former Kingdom of Dalmatia was divided into two provinces, the District of Split ("Splitska oblast"), with its capital in Split, and the District of Dubrovnik ("Dubrovačka oblast"), with its capital in Dubrovnik. In 1929, the Littoral Banovina ("Primorska Banovina"), a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, was formed. Its capital was Split, and it included most of Dalmatia and parts of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. The southern parts of Dalmatia were in Zeta Banovina, from the Gulf of Kotor to Pelješac peninsula including Dubrovnik. In 1939, Littoral Banovina was joined with Sava Banovina (and with smaller parts of other banovinas) to form a new province named the Banovina of Croatia. The same year, the ethnic Croatian areas of the Zeta Banovina from the Gulf of Kotor to Pelješac, including Dubrovnik, were merged with a new Banovina of Croatia.  During World War II, in 1941, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria occupied Yugoslavia, redrawing their borders to include former parts of the Yugoslavian state. A new Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), was created, and Fascist Italy was given some parts of the Dalmatian coast, notably around Zadar and Split, as well as many of the area's islands. The remaining parts of Dalmatia became part of the NDH. Many Croats moved from the Italian-occupied area and took refuge in the satellite state of Croatia, which became the battleground for a guerrilla war between the Axis and the Yugoslav Partisans. Following the surrender of Italy in 1943, most of Italian-controlled Dalmatia was taken over by German forces and reverted to control under the puppet Independent State of Croatia. Zadar was razed by the Allies during World War II, starting the exodus of its Italian population. After WWII, Dalmatia became part of the People's Republic of Croatia, part of the SFR Yugoslavia (then called the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia).  The territory of former Kingdom of Dalmatia was divided between two federal Republics of Yugoslavia and most of the territory went to Croatia, leaving only the Bay of Kotor to Montenegro. When Yugoslavia dissolved in 1991, those borders were retained and remain in force. During the Croatian war of Independence, most of Dalmatia was a battleground between the Croatian government and the Yugoslav People's Army, which aided the local Serb rebels, with much of the northern part of the region around Knin and the far South around, but not including, Dubrovnik being placed under the control of Serb forces. Croatia did regain the southern territories in 1992 but did not regain the north until 1995.

Dalmatia (; ; ; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria.

La Dalmatie (en croate ', en italien ', en latin "") est une région historique littorale des Balkans, le long de la mer Adriatique, aujourd'hui partagée entre la Croatie qui en possède la plus grande part, le Monténégro et l'Herzégovine.


History.

When Norse invaders from modern day Denmark, Norway and Sweden arrived in the then-province of Neustria and settled the land that became known as Normandy, these Germanic-speaking people came to live among a local Romance-speaking population. In time, the communities converged, so that "Normandy" continued to form the name of the region while the original Normans became assimilated by the Gallo-Romance people, adopting their speech. Later, when conquering England, the Norman rulers in England would eventually assimilate, thereby adopting the speech of the local English. However, in both cases, the "élites" contributed elements of their own language to the newly enriched languages that developed in the territories.  In Normandy, the Norman language inherited only some 150 words from Old Norse. The influence on phonology is disputed, although it is argued that the retention of aspirated /h/ and /k/ in Norman is due to Norse influence.

Geographical distribution.

Norman is spoken in mainland Normandy in France, where it has no official status, but is classed as a regional language. It is taught in a few colleges near Cherbourg-Octeville.  In the Channel Islands, the Norman language has developed separately, but not in isolation, to form:  The British and Irish governments recognize Jèrriais and Guernésiais as regional languages within the framework of the British–Irish Council. Sercquiais is in fact a descendant of the 16th-century Jèrriais used by the original colonists from Jersey who settled the then uninhabited island.  The last first-language speakers of Auregnais, the dialect of Norman spoken on Alderney, died during the 20th century, although some rememberers are still alive. The dialect of Herm also lapsed at an unknown date; the patois spoken there was likely Guernésiais (Herm was not inhabited all year round in the Norman culture's heyday).  An isogloss termed the "Joret line" ("ligne Joret") separates the northern and southern dialects of the Norman language (the line runs from Granville, Manche to the French-speaking Belgian border in the province of Hainaut and Thiérache). Dialectal differences also distinguish western and eastern dialects.  Three different standardized spellings are used: continental Norman, Jèrriais, and Dgèrnésiais. These represent the different developments and particular literary histories of the varieties of Norman. Norman may therefore be described as a pluricentric language.  The Anglo-Norman dialect of Norman served as a language of administration in England following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. This left a legacy of Law French in the language of English courts (though it was also influenced by Parisian French). In Ireland, Norman remained strongest in the area of south-east Ireland, where the Hiberno-Normans invaded in 1169. Norman remains in (limited) use for some very formal legal purposes in the UK, such as when the monarch gives royal assent to an Act of Parliament using the phrase, "La Reyne (le Roy) le veult" ("The Queen (the King) wills it").  The Norman conquest of southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries brought the language to Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula, where it may have left a few words in the Sicilian language. "See: Norman and French influence on Sicilian."  Literature in Norman ranges from early Anglo-Norman literature through the 19th-century Norman literary renaissance to modern writers ("see" list of Norman-language writers).

Old French influences.

Norman French preserves a number of Old French words which have been lost in Modern French. Examples of Norman French words of Old French origin:  Examples of Norman French words with -ei instead of -oi in Standard French words  Examples of Norman French words with "c-" et "g-" instead of "ch-" et "j in Standard French"

Norse influences.

Examples of Norman words of Norse origin: In some cases, Norse words adopted in Norman have been borrowed into French – and more recently some of the English words used in French can be traced back to Norman origins.

English influences.

Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the Norman and other languages and dialects spoken by the new rulers of England were used during several hundred years, developing into the unique insular dialect now known as Anglo-Norman French, and leaving traces of specifically Norman words that can be distinguished from the equivalent lexical items in French:  Other borrowings, such as "captain", "kennel", "cattle" and "canvas", exemplify how Norman retained Latin /k/ that was not retained in French.  In the United Kingdom, Acts of Parliament are confirmed with the words "La Reyne le veult" ("The Queen wishes it"), or "Le Roy le veult ("The King wishes it") and other Norman phrases are used on formal occasions as legislation progresses.

Norman immigration.

Norman immigrants to North America also introduced some "Normanisms" to Quebec French and the French language in Canada generally. Joual, a working class sociolect of Quebec, in particular exhibits a Norman influence.

Norman or Norman French ("",, Guernésiais: "Normand", Jèrriais: "Nouormand") is, depending on classification, either a French dialect or a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with French, Picard and Walloon. The name "Norman French" is sometimes used to describe not only the Norman language, but also the administrative languages of "Anglo-Norman" and "Law French" used in England. For the most part, the written forms of Norman and modern French are mutually intelligible. This intelligibility was largely caused by the Norman language's planned adaptation to French orthography.

Le normand ("normaund" en normand) est une langue romane parlée en Normandie continentale et insulaire. C’est une des principales langues d'oïl. Il est classé dans les langues sérieusement en danger par l'Unesco.


Etymology.

The name "Cozumel" was derived from the Mayan "Cuzamil" or "Ah Cuzamil Peten" in full, which means "the island of swallows" ().

Geography.

The island is located in the Caribbean Sea along the eastern side of the Yucatan Peninsula about south of Cancún and from the mainland. The island is about long and wide. With a total area of, it is Mexico's largest Caribbean island, largest permanently inhabited island, and Mexico's third-largest island, following Tiburón Island and Isla Ángel de la Guarda.  The majority of the island's population lives in the town of San Miguel (pop. 77,236 in 2010), which is on the island's western shore. The municipality, which includes two small areas on the mainland enclaved within the Municipality of Solidaridad with a land area of 10.423 km (4.024 sq mi), has a total land area of 647.33 km (249.93 sq mi).  Large parts of the island are covered with mangrove forest which has many endemic animal species. Cozumel is a flat island based on limestone, resulting in a karst topography. The highest natural point on the island is less than above sea level. The cenotes are deep water-filled sinkholes formed by water percolating through the soft limestone soil for thousands of years. Cozumel's cenotes are restricted to qualified cave divers with appropriate credentials.

Fauna.

Endemic species and subspecies of bird include:  Endemic dwarf mammals are found on the island:  There are three rodents that are larger than their mainland counterparts: "Oryzomys couesi", "Peromyscus leucopus", and critically endangered "Reithrodontomys spectabilis", the latter of which is also endemic to the island.  Endemic marine life:  Other native wildlife includes:

Coral Reefs.

Cozumel is surrounded by a diverse ecosystem of coral reefs that is home to more than 1,000 marine species. The reefs are primarily found on underwater cliffs, there are also some in coastal lagoons and on sand bars at the north tip of the island. They are part of the much larger Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System which is the second largest reef in the world, stretching over 1,000 kilometers (620 mi). Cozumel's deeper coral reefs were historically famed for their black corals, yet black coral populations declined from the 1960s to the mid-1990s because of overharvesting and by 2016 had not recovered.. A huge portion of the reef on the south side of island is sectioned off into the Arrecifes de Cozumel National Park. This park is protected under the Ramsar Convention along with Manglares y Humedales del Norte de Isla Cozumel, they both are included in the UNESCO protected area called Isla Cozumel Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. The site includes the coral reefs on the southern coast of Cozumel. The reefs in Cozumel are made up of hard coral and soft coral. The marine life that inhibit the reefs include zoanthids, polychaets, actinarians, hydroids, sponges, crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms and many varieties of Caribbean fish. The park is also a habitat to several endangered marine species such as the loggerhead sea turtle, hawksbill sea turtle, queen triggerfish, and the endemic splendid toadfish. Due to the abundant marine life and coral reefs the clear and warm Caribbean water, Cozumel is considered one the best scuba-diving destinations in the world.

Climate.

Cozumel has tropical savanna climate under the Köppen climate classification that closely borders on a tropical monsoon climate. The dry season is short, from February to April, but even in these months precipitation is observed, averaging about of rain per month. The wet season is lengthy, covering most of the months, with September and October being the wettest months, when precipitation averages over. Thunderstorms can occasionally occur during the wet season. Temperatures tend to remain stable with little variation from month to month though the temperatures are cooler from December to February with the coolest month averaging. Owing to its proximity to the sea, the island is fairly humid, with an average humidity of 83%. The wettest recorded month was October 1980 with of precipitation and the wettest recorded day was June 19, 1975, with. Extremes range from on January 18, 1977 to.

History.

The Maya are believed to have first settled Cozumel by the early part of the 1st millennium AD, and older Preclassic Olmec artifacts have been found on the island as well. The island was sacred to Ix Chel, the Maya Moon Goddess, and the temples here were a place of pilgrimage, especially by women desiring fertility. There are a number of ruins on the island, most from the Post-Classic period. The largest Maya ruins on the island were near the downtown area and have now been destroyed. Today, the largest remaining ruins are at San Gervasio, located approximately at the center of the island. The first Spanish expedition to visit Cozumel was led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518. In the following year Hernán Cortés stopped by the island on his way to Veracruz. The Grijalva and Cortés expeditions were both received peacefully by the Maya of Cozumel, unlike the expeditions’ experiences on other parts of the mainland. Even after Cortés destroyed some of the Maya idols on Cozumel and replaced them with an image of the Virgin Mary, the native inhabitants of the island continued to help the Spanish re-supply their ships with food and water so they could continue their voyages. Gerónimo de Aguilar was rescued at this time. As many as 10,000 Maya lived on the island then, but in 1520, infected crew members of the Pánfilo Narváez expedition brought the smallpox contagion to the island and by 1570 only 186 men and 172 women were left alive on Cozumel. In the ensuing years Cozumel was often the target of attacks by pirates, and in 1650 many of the islanders were forcibly relocated to the mainland town of Xcan Boloná to avoid the Buccaneers’ predation. Later, in 1688, most of the rest of the island's population, as well as many of the settlements along the Quintana Roo coast, were evacuated inland to towns such as Chemax. In 1848, refugees escaping the tumult of the Caste War of Yucatán settled on the island and in 1849 the town of San Miguel de Cozumel was officially recognized by the Mexican government.  In 1861, American President Abraham Lincoln ordered his Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, to meet with the Mexican "chargé d'affaires" Matias Romero to explore the possibility of purchasing the island of Cozumel for the purpose of relocating freed American slaves offshore. The idea was summarily dismissed by Mexican President Benito Juarez, but in 1862 Lincoln did manage to establish a short-lived colony of ex-slaves on Île à Vache off the coast of Haiti.  Although the original airport was a World War II relic and was able to handle jet aircraft and international flights, a much larger airport was built in the late 1970s.  Scuba diving is still one of Cozumel's primary attractions, mainly due to the coral reef on the western shore of Cozumel. These coral reefs are protected from the open ocean by the island's natural geography. In 1996, the government of Mexico also established the Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park, forbidding anyone from touching or removing any marine life within the park boundaries. Despite the importance of healthy reefs to Cozumel's tourist trade, a deepwater pier was built in the 1990s for cruise ships to dock, causing damage to the reefs, and it is now a regular stop on cruises in the Caribbean. Over the past few decades, coral reef health has significantly declined in Cozumel, with much lower coral cover now present than was historically recorded. The island was struck directly by two Category 4 hurricanes during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. In July, Hurricane Emily passed just south of Cozumel, exposing the island to the storm's intense inner core. Despite Emily being a powerful storm, it was the larger, stronger, slower-moving Hurricane Wilma that caused the most destruction when it hit the island in October. Wilma's eye passed directly over Cozumel.  There was some damage to the underwater marine habitat. This included the coral reefs, which suffered particularly at the shallower dive sites, and the fish that inhabit the reefs.

Economy.

Tourism, diving and charter fishing comprise the majority of the island's economy. There are more than 300 restaurants on the island and many hotels, some of which run dive operations, have swimming pools, private docks, and multiple dining facilities.  Other water activities include para-sailing, kitesurfing, and a tourist submarine. There are also two dolphinariums. At the cruise ship docks, there are several square blocks of stores selling Cuban cigars, jewellery, T-shirts, tequila, and a large variety of inexpensive souvenirs. Also, the only working pearl farm in the Caribbean is located on the North edge of the island.  San Miguel is home to many restaurants with a huge variety of different cuisines, along with several discothèques, bars, cinemas, and outdoor stages. The main plaza is surrounded by shops; in the middle of the plaza is a fixed stage where Cozumeleños and tourists celebrate every Sunday evening with music and dancing.  All food and manufactured supplies are shipped to the island. Water is provided by three different desalination facilities located on the island.

Education.

There are three universities on the island: the State Public University of Quintana Roo (UQROO) and two private universities, the Partenon Institute and the Interamerican University for Development (UNID). In addition to teaching English as a degree program, they offer other career options including natural resources research, tourism and commercial systems.

Culture.

Santa Cruz Festival and El Cedral Fair.

The Festival of Santa Cruz and El Cedral Fair is a historical tradition held in the town of El Cedral, in the south of Cozumel Island at the end of April. This annual event is said to have been started over 150 years ago by Casimiro Cárdenas. Cárdenas was one of a group that fled to the island from the village of Saban, on the mainland, after an attack during the Caste War of Yucatánin 1848. The attackers killed other villagers, but Cárdenas survived whilst clutching a small wooden cross.  Legend has it that Cárdenas vowed to start an annual festival wherever he settled, to honor the religious power of this crucifix. Today, the original Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) Festival forms part of the wider Festival of El Cedral, which includes fairs, traditional feasts, rodeos, bullfights, music and competitions. The celebrations last about five days in all and are held every year at the end of April or beginning of May.

Cozumel Carnival.

The Cozumel Carnival or "Carnaval de Cozumel" is one of the most important carnival festivities in México. It has been celebrated as a tradition beginning from the late nineteenth century and fills Cozumel's streets with parades. It begins the week before Mardi-Gras in February. Cozumel's Carnaval is a tradition which has been passed down through many generations that celebrates a mixture of cultures that escaped to the warm embrace of Cozumel. Dating back to the mid-1800s, Cozumel Carnaval was started by young people dressed in vibrantly colorful costumes known as "Estudiantinas" or "Comparsas", who expressed themselves in the streets of Cozumel through the artforms of dance, song, and fantasy.

Government.

Cozumel Municipality is one of eleven municipalities of Quintana Roo. The municipal seat is located in San Miguel de Cozumel, the largest city in the municipality.

Cozumel (, ) is an island and municipality in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen. It is separated from the mainland by Cozumel Channel and is close to the Yucatán Channel. The municipality is part of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

Cozumel (« terre des hirondelles » en maya yucatèque) est une île de la mer des Caraïbes située au large de la côte orientale de la péninsule du Yucatán. Elle constitue l'une des neuf municipalités de l'État de Quintana Roo, au Mexique. Cozumel attire de nombreux touristes notamment pour la plongée sous-marine.