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Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.<br/><br/> The atolls, formed of great rings of coral based on the submarine Laccadive-Chagos ridge, vary greatly in size. Some are only a few kilometres square, but in the far south the great atoll of Suvadiva is sixty-five kilometres across, and has a central lagoon of more than 2000 square kilometres. The northern and central atolls are separated from each other by comparatively narrow channels of deep water, but in the south Suvadiva is cut off by the eighty-kilometre-wide One-and-a-half-Degree Channel. Addu Atoll is still more isolated, being separated from the atoll of Suvadiva by the seventy-kilometre-wide Equatorial Channel.
The Ainu or in historical Japanese texts Ezo, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaido, and formerly northeastern Honshu) and Russia (Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands).<br/><br/> Historically, they spoke the Ainu language and related varieties and lived in Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin. Most of those who identify themselves as Ainu still live in this same region, though the exact number of living Ainu is unknown. This is due to confusion over mixed heritages and to ethnic issues in Japan resulting in those with Ainu backgrounds hiding their identities.<br/><br/> In Japan, because of intermarriage over many years with Japanese, the concept of a pure Ainu ethnic group is no longer feasible. Official estimates of the population are of around 25,000, while the unofficial number is upward of 200,000 people.
Marshall Islands stick charts were made by native Marshallese sailors to navigate the Pacific Ocean by canoe. The charts were a representation of major oceanic swell patterns and showed the ways the islands disrupted these patterns. Stick charts were primarily made from tied together coconut fronds, with island locations displayed on the charts with shells.<br/><br/> Each chart was unique and interpretative that most could only be deciphered by the individual navigator who had made it. Stick charts came to an end after World War II, once new electronic technologies allowed for easier travel among islands and led to the decline of canoe use.
Marshall Islands stick charts were made by native Marshallese sailors to navigate the Pacific Ocean by canoe. The charts were a representation of major oceanic swell patterns and showed the ways the islands disrupted these patterns. Stick charts were primarily made from tied together coconut fronds, with island locations displayed on the charts with shells.<br/><br/> Each chart was unique and interpretative that most could only be deciphered by the individual navigator who had made it. Stick charts came to an end after World War II, once new electronic technologies allowed for easier travel among islands and led to the decline of canoe use.
Marshall Islands stick charts were made by native Marshallese sailors to navigate the Pacific Ocean by canoe. The charts were a representation of major oceanic swell patterns and showed the ways the islands disrupted these patterns. Stick charts were primarily made from tied together coconut fronds, with island locations displayed on the charts with shells.<br/><br/> Each chart was unique and interpretative that most could only be deciphered by the individual navigator who had made it. Stick charts came to an end after World War II, once new electronic technologies allowed for easier travel among islands and led to the decline of canoe use.
The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945) was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War.<br/><br/> Although the two countries had fought intermittently since 1931, total war started in earnest in 1937 and ended only with the surrender of Japan in 1945. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and militarily and to secure its vast raw material reserves and other economic resources, particularly food and labour. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements.<br/><br/> Yet the two sides, for a variety of reasons, refrained from fighting a total war. In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army followed the Mukden Incident. The last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the beginning of total war between the two countries.
Like many of their neighbours, the Lao are adventurous eaters. In any village market you may find whole fried snake, barbecued field rat, grilled dog meat, fried baby frogs, frogs on skewers, fried giant water bugs and beetles – as well as more mundane offerings like marinated chicken feet, fried mole crickets and grasshoppers.
Beetle-fighting and betting thereon, is a traditional pastime among the Northern Thai, sections of the Shan in neighbouring Burma, and the Lao Tai of northern Laos. During the rainy season – between approximately July and October – when the rice is maturing in the paddies and farmers have some free time before the cool season harvest begins, the spectacular tua kuang, or rhinoceros beetles of the region begin their mating season in the forests and jungles of the northern borderlands.<br/><br/> There are at least five separate types of kuang living in north Thailand. As a group, they are distinguished by the male of the species, which sports a giant, armoured carapace surmounted by horn-like pincers, giving the creatures their common English name 'rhinoceros beetle'. By contrast, the female beetle seems an ordinary, even plain creature – though evidently, and reasonably enough, not to the male. During the mating season, deep in their natural habitat of bamboo groves or sugar cane clumps, the female emits a scent which stimulates the male and helps him find her.
Ba Dinh Square has special significance for the Vietnamese, as it was here that Ho Chi Minh declared the nation’s independence from France in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 people on 2 September 1945.<br/><br/> Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum stands on the west side of Ba Dinh Square, a heavy grey structure, faced in stone quarried from Marble Mountain near Danang.<br/><br/> Ho Chi Minh specifically requested that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in northern, central and southern Vietnam, symbolising the national unity to which he had devoted his life.<br/><br/> After his death in 1969, power lay with communist hardliners led by anh ba or ‘second brother’ Le Duan, until the latter’s death in 1986. Only after Le Duan’s demise did Ho Chi Minh’s private secretary Vu Ky reveal that Le Duan and some other leading members of the Vietnamese Politburo had tampered with Ho’s final testament by deleting his request to be cremated.
Phnom Penh lies on the western side of the Mekong River at the point where it is joined by the Sap River and divides into the Bassac River, making a meet place of four great waterways known in Cambodian as Chatomuk or 'Four Faces'. It has been central to Cambodian life since soon after the abandonment of Angkor in the mid-14th century and has been the capital since 1866.<br/><br/> An elegant Franco-Cambodian city of broad boulevards and Buddhist temples, it was considered one of the jewels of Southeast Asia until Cambodia became involved in the Second Indochina War in 1965. Ten years later victorious Khmer Rouge forces captured the city. These extreme left-wing communists, led by the secretive Pol Pot, ordered the immediate evacuation of Phnom Penh causing up to two million deaths during the period 1975-79. During this time the city was abandoned and fell into ruin. Since the defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 it has been gradually recovering, but still bears scars of a terrible past.
Phnom Penh lies on the western side of the Mekong River at the point where it is joined by the Sap River and divides into the Bassac River, making a meet place of four great waterways known in Cambodian as Chatomuk or 'Four Faces'. It has been central to Cambodian life since soon after the abandonment of Angkor in the mid-14th century and has been the capital since 1866.<br/><br/> An elegant Franco-Cambodian city of broad boulevards and Buddhist temples, it was considered one of the jewels of Southeast Asia until Cambodia became involved in the Second Indochina War in 1965. Ten years later victorious Khmer Rouge forces captured the city. These extreme left-wing communists, led by the secretive Pol Pot, ordered the immediate evacuation of Phnom Penh causing up to two million deaths during the period 1975-79. During this time the city was abandoned and fell into ruin. Since the defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 it has been gradually recovering, but still bears scars of a terrible past.
Kham is a region in eastern Tibet which was considered a "special administrative district" within China until 1939, when it became an official Chinese province. The people of Kham are called ‘Khampas’ and are highly reputed warriors.
Isfahan was a medieval waystation on the Silk Road until the 16th century when Shah Abbas the Great (1587–1629) conquered it and made it the new capital of the Safavid dynasty under a unified Persia. He built parks, libraries, baths and mosques, and Isfahan became one of the largest cities in the world. In 1722, following the defeat of the Safavids in the Battle of Gulnabad, Afghans raided Isfahan after a long siege, which left much of the city in ruins. Nowadays, it is the second city of Iran, and produces fine carpets, textiles, steel and handicrafts. The city’s Naghsh-e Jahan Square was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and is regarded and an outstanding example of Iranian and Islamic architecture.
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius.<br/><br/> Together with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends.
Trang has been a trading center since at least the 1st century CE. It grew to power and prosperity between the 7th and 13th centuries during the Srivijaya period and remains an important commercial town today.<br/><br/> Rubber, palm oil and fishing are the mainstays of the province's economy. Tourism is making an increasing impact as Trang’s Anadaman Coast and islands are increasingly developed and popularized. The town has a strong Overseas Chinese character (and hence good Chinese restaurants) as a result of an influx of Chinese labor in the latter half of the 19th century.<br/><br/> Trang province was dependent on tin mining until the first rubber seedlings were brought into Thailand around 1901 – part of a long journey from South America via the neighboring Malay States.