Africa is the second largest continent, covering about a fifth of the world’s landmass. It stretches equally to the north and south of the equator and is made up of many different kinds of landscapes and ecosystems.

Africa consists of over 50 states, many of which became independent in the 20th century. The whole continent was ruled by European powers until the world wars. Today, many nations still suffer from the lack of democratic elements. Dictators and military leaders rule politically unstable countries, in which there are no free elections.

The continent has great deposits of the world’s most valuable minerals and raw materials, including diamonds, coal, copper and gold. However, Africa is the least developed of all continents. Food is often scarce and droughts hit many regions on a regular basis. Diseases spread throughout Africa, life expectancy is low and poverty is widespread.

Image : Martin23230, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Landscapes of Africa

Atlas Mountains

Sahara Desert

Atlas mountains in Marocco
Image: Kobersky (talk · contribs), CC BY-SA 2.5,
via Wikimedia Commons

Sahara desert in Algeria
Image: Fiontain, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Nile River

In the eastern part of the Sahara desert the Nile River winds its way to the Mediterranean Sea. The longest river system in the world begins near the equator in the highlands of Eastern Africa and flows through many different landscapes.

East African Highlands

East Africa is dominated by highlands and plateaus, as well as lakes and deep mountain valleys. They stretch from Ethiopia in the north to Mozambique in the south. Most of the highlands reach heights of over 1,500 metres. The highest mountains are old volcanoes that are not active any more. Mount Kilimanjaro, situated near the equator, is almost 6,000 metres high.

The Great Rift Valley is a series of cracks in the Earth’s surface that extends from The Red Sea to Mozambique. It was created when the African continent broke apart millions of years ago. The area once was dominated by active volcanoes and earthquakes. Today, the Great Rift Valley is made up of deep and narrow lakes. Lake Tanganyika, which is over 400 miles long and 1500 metres deep, is the longest freshwater lake in the world. The largest African lake, Lake Victoria, lies is a shallow basin between two deep valleys.

Great Rift Valley
Image: Sémhur, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Congo River Basin

The Congo River with its gigantic basin takes up much of central Africa. It stretches from the Atlantic to the highlands of East Africa and makes up about 20% of the world’s rainforests. Except for the Amazon, it carries more water than any other river in the world. The rainforest is habitat of half of the Africa’s plants and wildlife.

Deserts in Southern Africa

Southern Africa is covered by large deserts. The Namib Desert is the oldest in the world. It stretches along the Southern Atlantic coast of the continent and reaches up to 200 km inland. Its sand dunes near the coast reach a height of 300 metres and are up to 30 km long.

The Kalahari Desert is a dry sand basin that covers much of Botswana and western Namibia. It is not a real desert because the area gets at least some rainfall which makes it possible for animals to graze during the wet season.

South Africa

Most of South Africa is a series of old plateaus called velds. They reach a height of about 2,500 metres. To the south a ridge called the Great Escarpment drops down to the small coastal strip. Within this escarpment, the Drakensberg rises to an altitude of almost 3,500 metres.

Namib Desert and the Atlantic coast
Image: Robur.q, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Great Escarpment
Image: NJR ZA, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Islands

Africa is a continent with straight coastlines and therefore very few islands. The largest island, Madagascar, lies almost 400 km east of the mainland. Millions of years ago it was a part of India. It split from the Asian subcontinent and developed its own plant and animal life. Other important island groups are the Canaries in the Atlantic Ocean and the Seychelles and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

Climate and Vegetation

Most parts of Africa are warm or hot, but rainfall varies from region to region. It decreases the farther you move away from the equator. Most of Africa lies in the tropical or subtropical region. The highest temperatures of the continent are measured in the desert regions of the Sahara, where daytime temperatures reach up to 50°C. Nights can be cool and frosty, even during the summer. The coldest regions of Africa lie in the eastern highlands and southern Africa.

Most of Africa is divided into wet and dry seasons. Near the equator there are two very wet seasons, as the sun passes overhead in spring and fall. During this time heavy rain falls every day in the afternoon. Precipitation up to 4000 mm a year is no exception. Humidity is always high, making life in this region very unpleasant.

Other parts of Africa usually have one wet season which gets shorter the farther away you get from the equator. North of the equator most rain falls from April to September, south of the equator the rainy season is from October to March. The Mediterranean coast as well as the southern part of Africa get rainfall during the winter months.

Rainfall in Africa
Image: Delphi234, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Plant life is influenced by the amount of rainfall. Tropical rainforests extend to the north and south of the equator. They are home to thousands of plants and animal species. The rainforests consist of various layers of vegetation, from shrubs and ferns on the ground to trees that grow up to a height of 50 metres.

In the savannahs and grasslands longer grass is replaced by shorter grass as you move away from the equator, with trees scattered in-between. In some areas, like the Sahel zone, there are large differences in rainfall every year. In the last decades droughts have caused hunger and starvation in many part of the Sahel and Ethiopia.

Rainfall influences Africa’s agriculture. Nutrients in the top layers of the soil are washed away after torrential rain, on the other hand nothing can grow if it rains too little.

In the desert regions of the Sahara, Namib and Kalahari rainfall often drops to under a hundred cm a year. Differences in temperature between day and night are often larger than between summer and winter.

Climate regions in Africa are changing constantly, maybe due to global warming. Droughts are becoming more widespread across the Sahel and eastern Africa. The Sahara is moving southward and more and more areas are threatened by deforestation.

Rainy season in the Sahel zone
Image: NOAA, US Gov, Unidentified, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Population

Africa is often referred to as the cradle of mankind. Scientists agree that the first humans probably appeared in Africa 4 million years ago and from there spread to other continents.

About 1.2 billion people live in Africa today. By 2050 the population of the continent is expected to double. Africa is the continent with the highest birth-rates and strongest population growth. This is because medical aid is getting better, there are more hospitals and doctors who take care of the population. Compared with other continents the average life expectancy in Africa is still low. In some countries of central Africa people barely reach 60.

Life expectancy in Africa
Image (modified) :Lady3mlnm, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Africa’s population is unevenly distributed over the continent. Many parts of the Sahara desert and the tropical rainforest are sparsely inhabited. On the other hand the Nile Delta, the Mediterranean coast, Nigeria, the highlands of eastern Africa are densely populated. On average about 65 people live on 1 square mile.

Many people in Africa suffer from a shortage of food, droughts, poor sanitation and a series of tropical diseases. In addition, AIDS is widespread and the biggest single killer of the continent.

Tribal groups

The people in Africa belong to various cultures and have different social backgrounds. Arabs live in the Mediterranean countries of northern Africa. They came to the region at around 600 A.D. and blended in with the Berbers, the people who had already been living there.

Black Africans are in the majority south of the Sahara desert. These people are made up of thousands of different tribes, who speak over a thousand languages and have different traditions and cultures. Among the largest groups are the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Zulu of South Africa.

In the 17th and 18th centuries Europeans started to settle in the southern part of Africa. Especially the Dutch and the British found their way to the coast of the southern Cape and spread inwards. There they met native tribes and fought wars against them. During the colonial period of the 19th century millions of Europeans made their way to Africa, many of them stayed there. Asians, above all Indians, settled on the eastern coast and Madagascar.

Nomads in northeastern Africa
Image: Nikswieweg, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

Yoruba drummers in Nigeria
Image: Melvin “Buddy” Baker from St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Religions

There are hundreds of local religions spread across the African continent. Many native tribes pray to gods and other spirits, mostly to get a good harvest and stay in good health. Some religious ceremonies prepare young people for adulthood and marriage.

About 500 million Muslims live in Africa, especially in the Arab countries of the north. But also Nigeria, Somalia and Tanzania have strong Islamic groups. Christianity spread to Africa through the work of missionaries from Europe and North America. Today Christianity is dominant in the non-Arab countries south of the Sahara desert. Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa also has the largest number of Christians (about 80 million) on the continent. Copts are the native Christians in Egypt. They represent about 10% of the population there.

Religions in Africa
Image: derivative work: T L Miles (talk) / uploader of original revision of Religion_distribution.png was Moshin,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Life in Traditional African Societies

Today’s Society

Although most Africans still live in rural areas, cities are growing fast, mostly because many people do not have jobs in the countryside and move to the urban areas to find more opportunities and a better life. Today about 50% of the population lives in cities. Lagos, Nigeria, Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Cairo, Egypt are among the fastest growing cities in the world.

Africa’s Economy

Although Africa is a continent that is rich in resources and raw materials, a large part of its population lives in poverty. In the last few decades, the standard of living has improved but income is still very low. In addition, Africa relies heavily on farming products and minerals as a source of income.

Farming

Farming is the most important economic activity and way of earning money for the people of Africa. Almost 70% of its population work in agriculture.

Most of the continent’s population depends on staple crops, food that people need themselves and base their diet on. These include corn, sorghum, rice and wheat as well as potatoes, fruits and vegetables. Cash crops are grown on large plantations and exported to other countries. They include cocoa, bananas and coffee.

In many African countries, food production cannot keep up with the increasing population. This leads to chronic food shortages. Some African countries have turned from food exporters in the last century to food importers today. However, most of them do not have the money and capital to import food from abroad. In addition, climate change and widespread droughts lead to hunger and starvation in many parts of Africa.

Livestock is raised in all parts of Africa. Sheep, goats, camels, pigs and other animals are kept for food, skin and as working and transportation animals.

Farmers in Burkina Faso
Image: Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=289842

Cocoa harvest in Cameroon
Image: CHRISTONALDO, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mining

Africa is rich with minerals and raw materials. The continent has large deposits of copper, gold, phosphates, platinum and minerals. The mining industry focuses on the countries south of the equator. Diamonds, gold and coal are produced in South Africa, which has the most advanced mining industry. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil-producing country. Bauxite and phosphates are mined in Morocco.

While Africa does have many resources, they do not control the world markets. Most countries do not process raw materials but export them to developed countries. The fight over raw materials has also led to conflicts and wars in Africa. Selling diamonds illegally, for example, helped to finance a civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.

Minerals in Africa

Manufacturing

Industry is a young sector of the African economy. Most industries were set up after the countries got their independence from Europe. During the colonial period they got their finished products from Europe, often at a high price. Many nations still have developing industrial sectors. While foreigners own many companies, the number of young African businessmen opening up firms has increased steadily.

Tourism and Transportation

Tourism is a leading source of income in at least some African countries. Millions of people from around the globe visit the historic sites of ancient Egypt. Others travel to the mountains of eastern Africa or go on a safari in one of the game reserves in Kenya or Tanzania. Conflicts, wars and uprisings during the Arab Spring kept tourists away from Egypt and northern Africa.

Transportation is poorly developed in many African countries. Only the middle and upper classes own cars. Many Africans go on foot or use buses and bikes as a method of transportation. Air transport is well developed in places that attract tourists, like Egypt and Kenya

Game reserve in South Africa
Image:flowcomm, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

History of Africa

Africa is often called the cradle of civilization. The first human beings roamed the continent about 2 million years ago. Old civilizations grew along the banks of the Nile River. Thousands of years ago ancient Egypt became a powerful empire, to the south Nubia emerged in today’s Sudan.

In the early centuries after the birth of Christ Christianity started to spread to northern Africa. In the Middle Ages Islam became the major religion. It spread across northern Africa very quickly and later on expanded to regions south of the Sahara desert. Christianity experienced a comeback in the 19th century when missionaries from Europe began to spread it to western and central Africa.

After 1000 A.D., great empires emerged in Ghana and other areas in western African. City-states, including Mogadishu and Zanzibar, grew into powerful trading centres in East Africa.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages the first Europeans came to Africa. From the early 1500s on, they made money by bringing slaves to North America. The British, Dutch and Portuguese set up trading posts along the western African coast where they searched for gold and ivory. In the 17th century, the Dutch set up a trading post at the Cape of Good Hope. It grew into a Dutch colony until the 19th century, when the British took over.

At the end of the 19th century, Europeans ruled most of Africa. They saw the continent as a major source of raw materials that they could bring back to Europe for their emerging industries. As a result, the Industrial Revolution did not take place in Africa. Throughout the colonial period, European countries fought for influence and control in Africa. In the “Scramble for Africa”, they divided the continent into spheres of interest. Native Africans often resisted colonial governments and in many areas, they were killed in uprisings.

The main colonial powers were:

• Great Britain (Egypt, Sudan, Eastern Africa, Rhodesia and South Africa)
• France (Algeria, French West Africa, Equatorial Africa)
• Belgium (Congo)
• Portugal(Angola, Mozambique)
• Germany (Southwest Africa – Namibia)
• Spain (Spanish Sahara)
• Italy (Ethiopia, Libya, Somaliland)

In the early 1900s, nationalism grew in many areas of Africa. People wanted colonialism to end and be free. After World War II most European countries ended their involvement in Africa, either out of their own free will or because they were forced out.

African colonies
Image: Eric Gaba – Wikimedia Commons user: Sting, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In the 1950s, Algerians started to revolt against France. In a bloody colonial war that cost a million lives the Algerians became independent in 1962. In Angola and Mozambique, the Portuguese fought wars before they gave up their territories.

One of the last countries to gain independence was Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe, where blacks fought for over a decade against the British. In South Africa, white Europeans gave up control of the country after Apartheid ended in the 1990s.

Many African countries did not know how to cope with their newly gained independence, largely because they had no experience in administrating and governing a nation. As a result, civil wars, tribal conflicts and power struggles broke out. They resulted in dozens of wars in Africa since the 1960s. In the most gruesome conflict of the 1990s, a civil war in Ruanda led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people. However, Africa has had to cope with other problems as well. Virus outbreaks, for example Ebola, and other tropical diseases have killed thousands in the past years.

Videos

Overview of Africa
The Sahara Desert
Africa’s Population Boom

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
Words and Definitions 1
Words and Definitions 2
Match the Sentence Parts
Africa – Missing Word Cloze
Drought Hits Africa – Multiple Choice Cloze
Names and Places 1
Names and Places 2
Cities of Africa
Landscapes of Africa
Countries of Africa
African History – Order the Events
Crossword

Jigsaw Puzzle

Put the pieces of the puzzle into the correct position to create a map of Africa.

Wordsearch

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key

Tropical rainforests are woodlands around the equator with a lot of vegetation that is evergreen. It is very warm and rain falls throughout the year.

Although only 7 % of the land surface are covered with rainforests, more than half of the world’s plants and animal species live there.

Rainforests are very important for human beings. Plants produce food and medicine, and we get industrial products out of some of them. Trees produce timber, help control the earth’s climate and supply us with fresh air.

Despite these advantages, people cut down thousands of square kilometres of rainforest every year.

Half of the world’s rainforests can be found in the Amazon River basin in South America. Smaller rainforests lie in Central America and southern Mexico. The western part of Africa has about 2 million square kilometres of rainforest in and around the Congo River basin. Rainforests in Asia are found in southern India, Malaysia and on many Indonesian islands.

The world’s tropical rainforests

Climate

Temperatures stay the same the whole year round—about 20 to 30 degrees Celsius.

Around the equator there are two rainy seasons with heavy rainfall — up to 10 metres. When you move away from the equator, it gets a bit drier in some months , but there are still more than 2 metres of rain a year.

The weather hardly changes from one day to the next. In the morning it is clear . The sun starts heating up the ground and warm, humid air starts to rise. In the afternoon, clouds get darker and there are thunderstorms for an hour or two before it starts to clear up again .

Most of the rain stays in the rainforest . It evaporates , creates clouds and comes down again.

Rainforest soils are not very fertile because the rain washes out most of the nutrients.

Structure of the Rainforest

Rainforests have four layers.

• The top layer is the canopy. It consists of the tallest trees of the rainforest. They may get over 50 metres tall. But only very few reach this height. This is the part that gets most of the sunlight.
• The subcanopy is a layer of trees that is below the canopy. More than 70 % of rainforest animals and plant species live in the canopy and subcanopy. Lianas often climb around trees.
• The understory is the shadowy lower area. It has young trees and plants like ferns or palms that do not need much light. Only 1 or 2 per cent of the sunlight reaches the understory.
• The floor has a thin layer of leaves, seeds or fruits and branches that fall from the trees. It decomposes fast, and new material takes its place.

When large , tall trees die and fall to the ground, they leave a gap in the rainforest. Very quickly, smaller trees take this place and their crowns grow larger. That’s why the layers of the rain forest always change.

Rainforest canopy on the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean
Image :  © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Plants of the Rainforest

About half of the world’s plant species can be found in the rainforest. Because it is warm and rains the whole year, forests stay green. Trees lose their leaves and immediately grow new ones. The rain forest is the home of many plants : lianas, ferns, orchids and many kinds of tropical trees.

Palm tree

Palm trees grow in the hot and wet climate of the tropics. They give us food, drink and sometimes building material. Most palm trees are found in Southeast Asia, South America and on islands in the Pacific.

There are over 2,000 kinds of palms. They grow straight and tall and most of them carry fruits, like the coconut.

Rubber tree

Rubber is one of our most important raw materials. Natural rubber comes from the juice of the rubber tree. It grows best in hot climates. The tree can be about 20 metres tall. It has smooth, shiny leaves. A white, milky fluid comes out of the bark if you cut into it. This is called latex.

Today, most rubber comes from plantations in Southeast Asia.

Orchid

Wild orchids grow in places with a lot of rainfall. Most species grow on trunks or branches of trees. In cooler regions, orchids are grown in greenhouses. Most of them grow in a mixture of fascinating colours.

Ferns at Melbourne Botanical Gardens
Image : fir0002 flagstaffotos [at] gmail.com Canon 20D + Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, GFDL 1.2,
via Wikimedia Commons

White orchid
Image : Niall Kearney, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Latex collected from a rubber tree
Image:  Irvin calicut, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

Animals of the Rainforest

Fish, reptiles, birds and insects also live in the rainforest and its rivers. Plants and animals need each other to survive. Insects pollinate the flowers of the rainforest. Animals get food from the flowers’ nectar. Seeds from trees are often taken away by other animals and birds and dropped in faraway areas.

Piranha

The piranha is a fish with sharp teeth that lives in the lakes and rivers of the Amazon . It attacks and eats other fish and water animals. In some cases, it even attacks humans. Piranhas have flat bodies and can grow up to 30 cm long.

Red piranha
Image: Cliff, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Toucan

Toucans are typical birds of the tropical rainforests. They have big and long bills that are brightly coloured , so that they can attract other birds. The largest toucans can get up to 65 cm long. Most of them live in hollow trees.

Toucan
Image : Basa Roland, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Gorilla

Gorillas are the largest members of the ape family. They have huge shoulders, long arms and short legs. They may weigh up to 200 kg.

Gorillas live in Africa near the equator. Although most of them live in the lowlands, there are some highland types.

People have hunted gorillas for a long time . As a result, they have become very rare and only about 1,000 gorillas live in the wild today.

Gorilla at Detroit Zoo
Image : RedGazelle15, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Value of the Rainforest

People benefit from the rainforest in many ways :

• Economic value – Wood is the most important product of the rainforest. About 80 % of it is used for energy and 20 % is sold to make furniture. The forests produce other valuable goods like fruits, nuts, different kinds of oils and rubber.
• Scientific value – Scientists study the rainforest as an ecosystem. They learn a lot about how plants and animals live together. Tropical plants are used to cure diseases like malaria.
• Environmental value – Rainforests help to regulate our environment. Trees control the water that reaches the ground. They also take up a lot of rain. Much of this water evaporates and gets into the atmosphere again as vapour. Then it turns into rain and comes down to earth. Without rainforests, floods and droughts would be very extreme. Rainforests also help our atmosphere from becoming too warm.

Fog produces water vapour, which returns into the atmosphere
Image: Vyacheslav Argenberg (http://www.vascoplanet.com/), CC BY 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

People of the Rainforest

Most of the world’s rainforests are populated by indigenous people. These are people who have been living there for thousands of years . They depend on the rainforests for survival. Some people live in places that you can get to only by boat.

Many people collect fruits, nuts and firewood. They hunt and fish for food to stay alive. They burn down small areas of rainforest and grow crops there. When the soil gets too bad , they go to other places and plant new crops. This method of farming is called shifting cultivation.

Today, the living areas of these indigenous tribes are in danger, because other people have come here to chop down trees, raise cattle or mine gold and silver.

Woman collecting firewood in the rainforest
Image: Micleone88, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Deforestation

People are destroying the world’s rainforests at a very fast rate. One of the reasons is deforestation. More and more trees are cut down every year because

• the world’s population needs more and more wood
• people in the tropical rainforest need energy. They can’t buy oil or gas because it’s too expensive.
• governments find valuable raw materials in these areas — like iron ore, gold or silver.
• dams are built along tropical rivers.
• big companies get land to grow meat and produce food.

Deforestation in the tropical rainforest
Image : Dikshajhingan / CC BY-SA 4.0

Videos

The Amazon Rainforest
Deforestation

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
Match the Sentence Parts
Words and Definitions 1
Words and Definitions 2
Endangered Gorillas in Congo’s Rainforest – Missing Word Cloze
Crossword

Word Search

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key

Writing Tasks

Email : Destruction of the Rainforest

Diary : Life in the Rainforest

As a junior citizen, you are very worried about the destruction of the world’s rainforests. Write an email to your local representative and tell him your view of this problem.

In your email you should

• ask if your government is doing anything to cope with the problem
• make suggestions on how rainforests can be saved
• suggest ways of helping people who live in the rainforests

Write about 200 words.

Deforestation in Borneo
IndoMet in the Heart of Borneo, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

You are a member of an expedition team travelling through the Amazon rainforest. You have decided to keep a diary and write down what you have seen in the two weeks you have travelled. Write at least 2 diary entries.

In your entries, you should write about

• the plants and animals you have seen
• the weather you have experienced
• the native people you have met and how they live

World Population From the Beginnings to the Present

Human beings have been living on Earth for over a million years, but for a long time there were not very many of them. The world’s population was never higher than 10 million. People died quickly because they didn’t have enough food to eat. Early inhabitants were mostly hunters and fishers. Some of them gathered berries from wild plants. After people started growing crops and raising animals they had more food and lived longer.

When Jesus Christ was born about 2,000 years ago about 300 million people inhabited the Earth. During the next 1500 years the population of the world grew very slowly. Many people died of illnesses and plagues . The Black Death , which sailors brought to Europe from Asia, killed about a third of the European population in the Middle Ages.

The Industrial Revolution , which began in the middle of the 18th century, started a period of rapid population growth , especially in Europe. Farmers were able to grow more and more food because they had machines to work with. New kinds of medicine helped to fight off many diseases that had killed millions of people in the centuries before. Humans also lived longer because they had cleaner drinking water.

Birth rates started to go up because families had many children. More babies than ever before survived the first few years of childhood . The one billion mark was reached in the early 1800s. In the next one hundred years the population doubled to 2 billion, and in 1960 there were 3 billion people living on Earth.

The second half of the 20th century brought along some change :

• In Europe , North America, Japan and Australia the birth rate dropped because families wanted to have fewer children. Population growth in these areas slowed down .
• In the developing countries of Asia and Africa birth rates stayed high and better medical help in these regions lowered the death rates. That is why these countries are growing very rapidly .

In the last 30 years the world’s population has doubled. The fastest growing regions are Africa with a growth rate of 2.5 %, and Latin America with a growth rate of 0.7% per year. In Europe the population is decreasing by about 0.3 %. On average, the world’s population is growing at a rate of 1.1 % per year.



World population growth in percent
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_growth_rate_world.png ,
CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED

The 10 Most Populous Countries (2024)

Rank	Country	Population in millions
1	India	1 428
2	China	1 425
3	USA	339
4	Indonesia	277
5	Pakistan	240
6	Nigeria	223
7	Brazil	216
8	Bangladesh	172
9	Russia	144
10	Mexico	128



Continents’ share of world population – own work

Population Density

Population density tells us how many people live on one square kilometre of land. The world’s population is not spread evenly over the continents. Asia and Europe are the most densely populated continents. Many other areas of the world , like deserts, polar regions or high mountains are very sparsely ,or not at all populated .

About 90% of the Earth’s people live on only 10% of the land. Most of them live north of the equator because two thirds of the Earth’s landmasses are there.

Many people also live near coastal regions . In China, for example, 80% of the country’s inhabitants live in the eastern part of the country near the coast. In South America, most people live in the big cities, which all lie in coastal areas.

There are many reasons why people live in certain places. Areas with moderate temperatures and enough rainfall are densely populated, because people find good farming conditions there. Raw materials also attract groups of people. North-western Germany and parts of England are densely populated because coal is mined there. Economic reasons also play an important role in choosing where to live. People go to places where they can find jobs and where the economy is strong.



World Population Density
Image: English English is Correct, CC0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Population Pyramids

Population pyramids tell us how many people there are in a certain age group as well as the number of men and women in these groups.

There are three different types of pyramids:

• Countries with a fast growing population
  These pyramids show a strong base and a very narrow top. Birth rates are high and there many children and young people. People also die earlier than in Europe or North America.
• Countries with zero growth
  The number of births reached its peak during the baby boom of the 1950s and 60s. Since then the birth rate has been constant.
• Counties with declining population
  Many European countries have such a population structure. Families are having fewer children and the death rate is sometimes higher than the birth rate. The baby boomers of the past century are getting older and older, which leads to many pensioners. These countries can only grow if they have enough immigrants who come to live and work there.




Such pyramids also can tell governments which problems they will be facing in the future. Countries , in which more than half of the population is under 18, will need more and more schools and later on enough jobs to give all citizens work.

Countries with a declining population have a high number of older people. They don’t have enough young workers to pay the pension for these people when they retire. Such countries need more hospitals and old people’s homes to care for their elderly citizens.

Almost all pyramids show that, although more boys are born than girls, there are more older women than men. This is, partly, because women live longer than men—3 to 5 years on average.



Angola – Fast growing population



Jordan – Zero growth



Italy – Declining population

Source : PopulationPyramid.net Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO

City Population

Up to the Industrial Revolution people all over the world lived mainly in the countryside. In 1800, only 3 % of the world’s population lived in cities. In 1900 only 12 cities had more than 1 million people.

Today, about half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. There are over 500 cities with more than a million people. In developed countries, up to 70 % or more live in larger cities, whereas in poorer countries this rate is below 40 %.

During the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century cities grew fast, especially in Europe and North America, because new industries were created there and people found many jobs . Later on cities grew more slowly because they became overcrowded and diseases could spread faster. Today death rates in cites are low because they have better doctors and more hospitals.

In industrialized countries the growth of cities has stopped. New York and London grew very quickly during the 1800s and early 1900s, but since then their growth has slowed down.

African and Asian cities like Lagos, Bombay or Calcutta are growing rapidly and this will probably continue during the next years. About 40 cities around the world have a population of over 5 million . They are called megacities . 80% of them are in poorer countries.

People go to the cities for many reasons. The table shows you what pulls them to the cities and what pushes them away from the countryside.

Pull Factors

• more and better jobs
• better hospitals and health care
• better living standards
• cities are social and financial centres
• better education—schools and universities

Push Factors

• too many people in the countryside
• low income
• not enough raw materials (water, wood etc..)
• the quality of farming land is getting worse



The largest cities in the world (2023) – own work

China’s One Child Policy

In 1979 the Chinese government started its “one child” policy because the population of the country was growing too fast. A married couple was only allowed to have one child. If families followed this government plan they would get free education, health care and money for their only child. However, families that had two or more children were punished. They had to pay for everything themselves and got no help from the government. They even had to pay more tax.

To help control population growth, China allowed women to have free abortions and gave them birth control pills for free.

The government’s plan also caused many problems for China. Parents often wanted to have a boy instead of a girl in order to carry on the family name. As a result female babies were often left on the streets by their mothers and some were even killed. 90% of unborn babies that are aborted are female.

In the last 40 years China’s population growth has slowed down. Without the one-child policy there would probably be about 300 million more people living in China today. The law worked mostly in cities, where the government had more control over the people. In the countryside where a lot of poor farmers and minorities lived , the laws were not so strict. People were not punished for having two or more children

China ended its one-child policy in 2016. The government started allowing families to have two children. In 2021 they allowed familes three children.



Migration

Migration means leaving your home country and living or working somewhere else. Some countries, like the USA, have a population that is made up mainly of immigrants or their descendants who have arrived there in the past 200 years.

Today, about 150 million people live outside their native countries. The biggest movements of people are from

• Central and South America to North America
• Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union to Western Europe
• Africa and Asia to Europe
• the Middle East to Europe




People leave their home countries for many reasons. Sometimes they think they can get better jobs and more money in richer countries. Sometimes they leave their own country for political reasons or because of their religion.

During the course of history people have left their homes because of unemployment, wars in their country or because of a famine. Thousands of Irish men and women left the island in the middle of the 19th century because there was a potato crisis and many of them didn’t have enough to eat.

The Balkan wars in the 1990s left millions of people homeless. They became refugees and went to neighboring countries to the north and west. Conflicts in the Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan brought over 1.5 million people to Western Europe in 2015 alone.

Some countries depend on immigrants to keep their economy running or because they have low birth rates and need foreigners to work. Today, governments in many countries face illegal immigration. Especially the USA and countries in Western Europe are sending back more and more people to their home countries.



Refugees at the Slovenian – Austrian border in 2015
Image:Borut Podgoršek, MORS, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Status of Women

The situation of women in our world today is very important. There are many differences between richer and poorer countries.

In industrialized countries birth rates have fallen since the 1960s. One reason is that more and more women have jobs and go to work. They do not want to stay at home any longer and have fewer babies.

In developing countries the situation of women is different. Many of them are at home, do the household chores and care for their children.

Helping women in the Third World is very important and can slow down the population explosion. One of the key factors is education. Women who go to school and maybe later on study at a university have higher chances of getting a job. They don’t marry so early and start having children at a later age.

Such women also know more about birth control and can plan the number of children they want to have.

Educated women also know more about health care. Young girls who have sex at an early age risk getting AIDS and passing it on to their babies when they are pregnant. More than half of the 40 million people living with AIDS today are women. In Africa, more than 75 % of all AIDS victims are young women between 15 and 24.



Number of births per 1,000 people
Image: Korakys, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Old Age

Developed countries all over the world have the same problem. Their birth rates are falling and people are getting older. Medical and health care is getting better all the time. We call this an ageing society.

In industrialized countries life expectancy is getting higher and higher. In most European countries women reach an average of over 80 years and men live up to about 78.

We need more and more people who care for the elderly. This means building more old people’s homes and other care units.

The government must spend more money on pensions. This won’t work if we don’t have enough young people who have jobs and pay taxes. More and more people have to work up to 65 and longer. They take away jobs that young adults need.

An older labor force means that we are not as flexible and productive as countries that have young workers.

Dangers of Overpopulation

The world’s population is growing by almost 80 million people every year. We will be facing many problems in the future:

Environmental Problems

• More and more people need room to live. They are taking away the living areas of animals and plants.
• Cities have problems making enough drinking water for thousands of people who want to start a new life there every year.
• Population in rural areas is growing too. People need more food and have to grow more crops on the same land. This means that the quality of the soil is getting worse and worse.
• More and more trees are being destroyed, especially in tropical regions. More carbon dioxide, which is usually taken up by trees, is now set free into the atmosphere. This leads to global warming.

Poverty

Population growth is highest in developing countries. Young people have to care for their parents and grandparents, so they have less money to buy the things that they need. They stay poor.

Africa is the fastest-growing continent on earth. But its people are getting poorer and poorer. Every third person in Africa doesn’t have enough to eat. The average African family has about 5 children.



Houses in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya
Image:Colin Crowley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Food and Water

The “ Green Revolution” of the 1960s and 70s has given farmers better methods and tools to grow crops and food. But ,still, they cannot produce enough to feed the growing population. Food will get expensive for these countries because some of them have to buy it from industrial countries. Many people die of starvation and millions more will die in the future. In addition , about 400 million people all over the world live in places where there is not enough drinking water.

Unemployment

Many Third World countries have a high number of children or young people. Unemployment will be going up over the next decades, because the governments cannot create enough jobs to give work to its younger generation. Young people who can’t find any work sometimes try to get money by stealing, dealing with drugs or doing other illegal things. This might lead to social unrest in such countries.



Demonstration against unemployment in southern India
Image:No machine-readable author provided. Soman assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Exercises

Multiple Choice Cloze
TRUE or FALSE
Words and Definitions
Match the Sentence Parts
World Population in Numbers
Baby Boomers – Missing Sentence Parts
Dangers of Overpopulation – Missing Word Cloze
Megacities – Match the Numbers with the Cities
Status of Women – Too Many Words
Crossword

Word Search

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/tourism/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:27:14 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=1384 Introduction

Tourism is travelling for pleasure or to enjoy yourself away from the place you live. People do this for many different reasons – to have fun, visit other countries and learn about other cultures or just relax from stressful working life. Tourists go to various destinations – countries with great landmarks, places with lovely beaches or simply areas of wilderness and untouched nature.

In the last few decades tourism has grown very much, mostly because people’s lifestyles have changed. They don’t want to stay at home any more. They spend more money on travelling than previous generations did. Travelling has also become cheaper and more affordable. The rise of budget airlines has made it possible to afford trips to faraway countries.



Image:Pxhere, Public Domain

History of Tourism

People have been travelling for pleasure since ancient times. In ancient Egypt, religious festivals attracted people from the whole Nile Valley. Ancient Greeks travelled regularly to the site of their gods. Romans travelled to Greece, Sicily and other places in the empire. Wealthy Romans had second homes near the sea where they spent the summer.

During the Renaissance, educated Europeans embarked on what was called the Grand Tour , a trip to several European countries to enjoy art and architecture and get educated.

In the 19th century the invention of the steam engine made it possible for people to travel by boat and train. Regular passenger services from Europe to America started in the 20th century. The invention of the automobile made it possible to travel larger distances by car.

In the 1960s, going on holidays by plane became affordable for many. Jumbo jets of the early 1970s were capable of carrying over 400 passengers and reducing costs of travelling to other continents even further.



Promenade in Blackpool, UK at the end of the 19th century
Image: Detroit Publishing Co., under license from Photoglob Zürich,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons



Tourists boarding a passenger jet
Image: Håkan Dahlström from Malmö, Sweden, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Types of Tourism

Beach Tourism

Many tourists spend their holidays on beaches. They relax, go bathing or just enjoy the salty sea breeze and the ocean. Spending holidays on beaches has had a long tradition for over one and a half centuries.

Winter Tourism

Winter tourism started out in the middle of the 19th century when wealthy Europeans went to St. Moritz and other alpine resorts. In Europe and in the American Rockies skiing resorts attract millions of people every year. Various lifts bring skiers to altitudes of over 3,000 meters.



Winter park in Colorado
Image: Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Medical Tourism

People go to other countries for medical treatment and operations. Irish women, for example, go to the UK because abortions are forbidden in their country. West Europeans go to Eastern Europe for dental treatment. Americans go to Mexico for plastic surgery and other operations.

Educational Tourism

Young people live as exchange students in other countries, where they go to school and study the language and culture of the host country.

Sports Tourism

An increasing number of sports fans travel to places where special events are being held. The Olympic Games and world championships attract visitors from around the world.

Package Holidays

Organized tours were started in the middle of the 19th century by a British businessman, Thomas Cook. Package tours are made up of travel to and accommodation at the destination. A tourist agency often provides everything from a plane flight to a rental car. Sometimes such package tours offer a combination of beach holidays and sightseeing trip.

Spa Tourism

Spas have been popular since Roman times. In 16th century Britain, Bath became the center of spa tourism for the rich population. During the 19th century spas emerged all over Europe. Today people go to spas for the healing effect of mineral waters as well as for wellness treatment, massages, steam baths and other services.



Spa in Budapest, Hungary
Image: me, CC BY 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Adventure Tourism

In the past few decades trips to faraway exotic places have become popular. Tourists looking for thrilling activities go mountaineering, rafting, trekking , or even to remote places in the rainforest.

Religious Tourism

Religious tourists go on pilgrimages to holy sites. Roman Catholics, for example, travel to Lourdes, Fatima or the Vatican in Europe. Muslims are required to go to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. Varanasi , on the banks of the Ganges River, is the spiritual capital of the Hindus.



Pilgrims arriving in Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Image: Jules Verne Times Two / www.julesvernex2.com, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Ecotourism

Recently many people have chosen a type of tourism that does not damage the environment. They avoid travelling by plane or do not buy souvenirs that are made out of endangered plants and animals. Some holiday offers give tourists the chance to take part in environmental projects.

Importance of Tourism

Tourism is a worldwide industry. In many countries it is the most important largest source of income. Global tourism is growing at a rate of 4% a year.

The tourist industry provides jobs and brings a country foreign currencies. Many groups profit from tourism: travel agencies, store owners ,airports and airlines, hotels, restaurants, etc..

However, mass tourism, can also lead to environmental problems. It can pollute beaches or create noise in otherwise quiet regions. Popular tourist attractions must be controlled by authorities.



International tourist arrivals in 2018





Recent Developments in Tourism

In the past years there has been a trend towards shorter holiday breaks during the year. People like to take a few days off to travel. The internet has changed the way people organize their holidays. Booking plane tickets online is easy and prices are often lower than with travel agents.

International tourism has suffered many drawbacks, like the 9/11 attacks, which made security at airports stricter and travelling more difficult. The tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004 killed over 250,000 people including thousands of tourists.

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major setback in global tourism. People often spend their holidays in their home country because of travel restrictions abroad.



Security check at Berlin-Schönefeld airport
Image: Ralf Roletschek, GFDL,
via Wikimedia Commons

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is the opposite of mass tourism. People travel to remote areas and visit faraway places without destroying or ruining the environment. Ecotourism is intended for small groups of tourists who want to learn more about nature in a certain area and help people who live there. Eco-tourists travel to places where plant and animal life is the main attraction. They want to know more about how people live side by side in a natural habitat.

Ecotourism makes people aware of how beautiful the land and countryside is. Local tour guides show visitors how important our environment is. They know how the region has developed over time. Tourists stay in small local houses, as opposed to gigantic hotel complexes in mass tourism regions.

Other aims of ecotourism are

• helping conserve nature in a faraway place
• educating tourists about the place they are travelling to
• respecting the culture of people who live there
• the conservation of animal and plant species that are in danger of becoming extinct
• minimizing the impact of tourism in the area
• helping people who live there
• leaving a small carbon footprint




Among the most important destinations of ecotourism are

• the Galapagos Islands
• Costa Rica and other parts of Central America
• the Amazon rain forest
• East Africa



Ecotourism started out in the 1970s as an alternative to mass tourism. Today it is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry because more and more people are becoming aware of it. As a result, some countries are using ecotourism to gain money and profits. In some areas, it is operated by foreign investors who are only interested in their own profits. Bringing too many people to a remote place could, however, damage local culture.




Eco tourists can help preserve the local environment by

• walking instead of using motor vehicles
• using less water
• turning off electricity if they don’t need it
• eating locally produced food
• not throwing things away
• keeping to footpaths
• wearing clothes that do not offend the locals
• not scaring animals
• respecting the local customs and traditions



Ecotourism in Svalbard

Image: Ecotourism_Svalbard.JPG: Woodwalkerderivative work: IdLoveOne, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons



The Hanging Bridge of Thenmala, Kerala, India
Image : Augustus Binu/ www.dreamsparrow.net/ facebook, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons



Ecotour guide standing on a kayak around Lido Key

Image: Fred Hsu on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Videos

Mass Tourism in Cities
Tourism in Costa Rica
Medical Tourism in India
Ecotourism in Thailand

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
Words and Definitions
Match the Sentence Parts
Missing Word Cloze
Mass Tourism Threatens Venice – One Word Too Many
The Galapagos Islands – Missing Sentence Parts
Crossword

Word Search

Jigsaw Puzzle

/

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key

Related Topics

At the Airport
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/new-york-a-city-that-never-sleeps/ Tue, 06 Feb 2024 16:51:51 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=1316 Introduction

New York is the biggest city in the United States with a population of over 8 million . It lies along the Hudson River in the southeast corner of the state that has the same name. New York is always alive – a “city that never sleeps”.

Boroughs of New York

New York is made up of five districts, called boroughs.

• Manhattan is the central part of New York. It is the smallest district with an area of only 60 square kilometres. All of the city’s major banks and the stock exchanges can be found here. It is the seat of the city’s government and the home of cultural institutions.
• Brooklyn is a major seaport and the centre of industry. It has the most residents of all boroughs and is known as the district of churches and homes.
• Queens is the largest of New York’s boroughs. It consists of rows of single-family houses and is often referred to as the city’s biggest suburb. Whites, Hispanics and Blacks live together in Queens.
• The Bronx , a residential district with many apartment buildings, is the only borough situated on the mainland.
• For many years Staten Island could only be reached by ferry. Today, the borough is connected with Brooklyn through the Verrazano – Narrows Bridge. The opening of this bridge in 1964 led many New Yorkers to move to Staten Island.



(1) Manhattan – (2) Brooklyn – (3) Queens – (4) The Bronx – (5) Staten Island
Image: Julius Schorzman , CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Population

New York is a melting pot of different nationalities with people who have their origins all over the world. Hispanics, African Americans and people of European origin make up most of the city’s population. Ellis Island, not far from the Statue of Liberty, was once the main entry point for the millions of immigrants who have come to America in the past two centuries.

The first immigrants came from England, Germany and Scandinavia at the beginning of the 19th century. Between 1880 and 1930 Eastern Europeans, Italians and the Irish came to America. After World War II Asians, Cubans and Hispanics came to New York in large numbers. The city also has the largest Jewish community in the world.



Ellis Island – aerial view
Image :David.Clay.Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Culture

New York is often said to be the cultural centre of the United States. Many famous museums are at home in the city. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a huge collection of over 2,000 European and 4,000 American paintings, sculptures and drawings. Other famous museums are the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art.

New York City is especially popular among theatre-goers. The greatest theatre district in the world is around Times Square and Broadway. About 40 theatres offer a wide range of dramas, musicals and comedy shows.

Music lovers can attend performances of New York’s Metropolitan Opera or concerts of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.



The Guggenheim Museum
Image: Jean-Christophe BENOIST, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Broadway
Image: Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:05, 29 August 2014 (UTC), CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Transportation

Like many modern megacities New York also has great traffic problems. Most foreign travellers get to New York through John F. Kennedy International Airport, one of the world’s busiest, situated in the south-eastern part of the city.

Public transport centres on a subway system which is the largest in the world. It is over 300 km long, has over 400 stations and is used by almost 4 million people every day. Because New York is such a large city many people tend to walk or, when in a hurry, go by one of the thousands of Yellow Cabs that cruise around



Yellow cabs in Manhattan
Image: Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Subway station in New York
Image:  Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons



JFK International Airport
Image : User:KenzieAbraham, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

History

The first Europeans were explorers who were impressed by the area’s natural harbour. In 1609 the English navigator Henry Hudson sailed up the river that is today named after him. In 1626 the Dutch set up a trading post at the southern tip of Manhattan and called it New Amsterdam. In the same year they bought Manhattan from the Indians who lived there.



New Amsterdam in 1664
Image: Johannes Vingboons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The British took over the colony in 1664 and named it after the Duke of York. After the American Revolution New York became America’s first capital , but only for a short time. Back then about 33,000 people lived there.

In the early part of the 19th century waves of European immigrants started to come to the city. They usually worked for little money, helped boost the economy and made New York the largest city in the country. The rapid growth of the city also created problems: crime, poverty, overpopulation and pollution. In the 1970s the city went through a big economic crisis. It didn’t have enough money to pay its bills and almost went bankrupt , but recovered again some years later.



Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in 1902
Image:  See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In recent years the city has become the target of terrorist activities. In 1993 a car bomb exploded in the basement of the World Trade Centre, killing six people. The city’s darkest hour came on September 11th , 2001 when terrorists hijacked two planes and flew them into the World Trade Centre. Both buildings collapsed— the attack killed almost three thousand people. In April 2006 developers began constructing a skyscraper called Freedom Tower at the place where the World Trade Centre once stood.



United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City during the September 11 attacks
Image : UA_Flight_175_hits_WTC_south_tower_9-11.jpeg: Flickr user TheMachineStops (Robert J. Fisch)derivative work: upstateNYer, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Sights of New York

Statue of Liberty

Times Square

Empire State Building

Central Park

Brooklyn Bridge

Grand Central Station

9/11 Memorial

Staten Island Ferry

For over a hundred years the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of the United States. It stands on Liberty Island and was a gift that France gave to the USA in 1886 as a symbol of friendship between the two countries . With its pedestal made of concrete the statue has a height of 93 metres. It represents a woman looking out over the harbour. On her head is a crown and in her hand a torch. Although tourists can go up to the observation deck in the crown, the torch itself is closed to all visitors.



Statue of Liberty
Image:  “Liberty Island photo D Ramey Logan.jpg 
from Wikimedia Commons byD Ramey Logan, CC-BY 4.0“

Times Square, where 42nd Street and Broadway meet, is often called Crossroads of the World. Millions of people see it on television every New Year’s Eve. It got its name because the New York Times building was originally located there. Today it is home to theatres and cinemas with many electronic billboards surrounding the square.



Times Square
Image:  Terabass, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Empire State Building is one of the best known buildings in the world. Located in the middle of Manhattan, the steel framed structure has 102 storeys and a height of 381 metres. Built in 1931, it was the first building of such a tremendous height. For over twenty years it was the tallest building in the world and the tallest building of New York until the construction of the World Trade Centre in the 1970s. The building has appeared in famous films like King Kong and Superman. About 2 million tourists visit the Empire State Building every year.



Empire State Building
Image :  Sam Valadi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Central Park is the largest and most important public park in Manhattan. It extends for about 4km and has an area of 340 hectares. The park includes lakes, ice rinks, fountains, playgrounds, bicycle paths and other facilities. When it was built in the 1840s the park was far away from the city’s centre. Some of it was farming area another part was swampy, wet land that had to be laid dry. It took 20,000 workers more than 15 years to remove thousands of trees and complete the park.



Central Park
Image:  Ingfbruno, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Brooklyn Bridge, built between 1869 and 1883 connects Manhattan with New York’s most populous borough, Brooklyn. The 1.5 km long bridge, which spans the East River, is one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 19th century.



Brooklyn Bridge
Image: Suiseiseki, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Grand Central Station is one of the most beautiful buildings of the city. It is the busiest train station in the world with about 800 000 people passing through it every day. It’s well-known for its wonderful ceiling with a mural of golden leaves.



Grand Central Station
Image:  Metropolitan Transportation Authority from United States of America, 
CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The 9/11 memorial is a place that commemorates the tragic events that happened on September 11, 2001.



9/11 memorial
Image : Dave Za>, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Staten Island ferry is a passenger boat that brings people from Manhattan to Staten Island. It operates 25 hours a day, 7 days a week.



Staten Island Ferry
Image :  InSapphoWeTrust, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Neighbourhoods of Manhattan



Neighbourhoods of Manhattan


Image: No machine-readable author provided. Roke~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).,
 CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Videos

Ellis Island
Discover New York’s Boroughs
Times Square
The 9/11 Memorial

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
TRUE or FALSE ?
Words and Definitions 1
Words and Definitions 2
Order the Events
Sights of New York – Missing Word Cloze
New York – Famous Sights
JFK – New York’s International Airport – Multiple Choice Cloze
Crossword

Word Search

Jigsaw Puzzle

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/at-the-airport/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 08:04:03 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=1177 Introduction



Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport in London
Image : Citizen59, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An airport is a place where airplanes take off and land. Passengers get on and off planes, cargo and other goods are loaded and unloaded at airports. Air travel has become the main type of transportation over long distances and modern airplanes belong to the safest means of travel. Every day millions of people fly on thousands of planes all over the world.

Currently , there are over 40,000 airports around the world. The largest of them are like small cities. They have hotels, restaurants, banks, post offices and other shops, as well as their own police force or fire department . Thousands of people work at an airport every day.

Types of Airports

• Commercial service airports serve the big national and international airlines. Planes from all over the world take off and land there.
• General aviation airports are smaller airports that handle private, business and charter planes as well as planes that carry people to and from bigger airports.
• Military airfields are operated by the army and sometimes share space with other airports.



Heathrow Airport, London, U.K.
Image :  Kenneth Iwelumo (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2), via Wikimedia Commons



American Military Airport on the Pacific island of Guam
Image: United States Air Force, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Terminal

The terminal is the largest building at an airport. All passengers must pass through it when they start or end their trip. At the ticket counter you receive your boarding card and your baggage is checked and weighed . Then the airline assistant will put a label with a three-letter code around your baggage .It shows the destination airport and makes sure the suitcases get on the correct airplane.

While you wait to board your plane you may spend your time at some of the many shops that are at the airport: newsstands , restaurants, gift shops or even banks. Many international airports have duty-free shops. If you are visiting a foreign country, you can buy things there without having to pay duty or import tax. Some airports have an observation lounge where you can look through large windows and watch planes take off and land.

Before you go to your gate you must pass a security area where your passport is checked and your bags are x-rayed and checked for weapons and other things that you are not allowed to take on board. The gate is the place where you leave the airport building to get on your plane. Gates may often be very far away from the centre of the terminal. Moving sidewalks take you to those that are far away. At larger airports you are taken there by bus or train. Big airports may have up to a hundred or more gates. Arriving passengers cannot leave the terminal at once. They first go to baggage claim , a place where you get your baggage after it is unloaded from the plane.



Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport
Image: TimBray at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Duty-free shop at Beijing international airport
Image: Zhanyanguange, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Self check-in at Dublin Airport
Image: Marek Slusarczyk, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

The Runway

Airplanes take off and land on runways. Big passenger planes need long runways that are up to 4 or 5 km in length . They may look like ordinary paved roads but are made of a special material so that they won’t crack when heavy planes land. Snow ploughs and machines that spread salt keep them snow- and ice-free in winter. Green, red and white lights mark runways so that pilots can see them at night and when visibility is bad. Airplanes use taxiways to move to the main runway or to hangars . Small trucks bring big planes out of the parking zone.



Runway at Ardabil Airport in northwestern Iran
Image: Shahram Sharifi (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2), via Wikimedia Commons



Gibraltar Airport’s runway crossed by a road between Gibraltar and Spain
Image: Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Airport Facilities

Control Tower

The control tower is the centre of airport traffic control. Air controllers use radar, radio, signal lights and other electronic equipment to guide planes when they take off and land. They give pilots permission to take off or tell them which runway to use. At busier airports controllers handle up to 200 aircraft per hour.



Air traffic control tower at Birmingham Airport, U.K.
Image: Myself (Adrian Pingstone)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hangars

Hangars are buildings in which airplanes are repaired or serviced . Most airlines have their own hangars, in which they can park many jets at the same time. Most hangars are far away from terminals and runways so that they do not interfere with airport traffic .



Lufthansa Airbus in a hangar
Image :  C Mercieca at English WikipediaW,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Other Facilities

Airports have many other buildings. Food kitchens or catering companies prepare food that is brought onto planes. Large airlines often have their offices in their own buildings. All airports have big parking lots or houses and most airports are connected with the inner cities through trains or subways.

Originally , airports were built far away from city centers. They have not moved, but cities have grown a lot and today many suburbs lie near them. A lot is being done to make life more bearable for people who live in nosier airport areas. At some airports, traffic is forbidden during night hours. Airports today are getting bigger and bigger. As more and more people choose air travel as a convenient way of travelling, new terminals and other facilities must be built in order to cope with a growing number of passengers.

Airport Management

Commercial airports are mostly publicly owned but they must find their ways of making money. They rent space to airlines for check-in counters or baggage areas and charge them fees for landing.

 

Companies and firms must pay to open up shops and restaurants. In addition , the airports get lots of money from parking fees . The airport manager and his staff are in charge of running the entire airport. Various departments are responsible for finances, administration , safety , or engineering .



Parking lot at an airport
Image : Pixabay , CC0Public Domain

Problems of Airports

Originally , airports were built far away from city centers. They have not moved, but cities have grown a lot and today many suburbs lie near them. A lot is being done to make life more bearable for people who live in nosier airport areas. At some airports, traffic is forbidden during night hours. Airports today are getting bigger and bigger. As more and more people choose air travel as a convenient way of travelling, new terminals and other facilities must be built in order to cope with a growing number of passengers.



Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson was the world’s busiest airport in 2018 (before the pandemic)

Image :Craig Butz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The World’s Largest Airports

List of the airports with the highest  number of passengers per year (2019 – before the pandemic)

https://topics.english-online.at/wp-content/uploads/airports/airport-terminal-cloze.htm

Rank	Name of Airport	City,Country	Yearly Passengers in Millions
1	Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport	Atlanta, USA	110
2	Beijing Capital International Airport	Beijing, China	100
3	Los Angeles International Airport	Los Angeles, USA	88
4	Dubai International Airport	Dubai, UAE	86
5	Tokyo Haneda Airport	Tokyo, Japan	85
6	O’Hare International Airport	Chicago, USA	84
7	Heathrow Airport	London, U.K.	80
8	Shanghai Pudong International Airport	Shanghai, China	76
9	Charles de Gaulle Airport	Paris, France	76
10	Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport	Dallas, USA	75

Videos

At the Airport
The World’s Largest Airports

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
TRUE or FALSE ?
Words and Definitions 1
Words and Definitions 2
Match the Sentence Parts
The Airport Terminal . Missing Word Cloze
JFK – World’s Busiest Airport – Multiple Choice Cloze
Crossword

Word search

Writing Task

Write about a recent trip to the airport and what you have seen there. (If you haven’t  been to an airport, you can use the information in this unito make up a report).

Write about 

• the shops and other facilities in the terminal
• a visit to the observation deck where you see planes take off and land
• the security measures at airports

Your report should be about 300 words long !



Image:Ralf Roletschek, GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/the-roman-empire/ Sun, 28 Jan 2024 03:43:18 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=880 Introduction

Ancient Rome was the center of one of the largest and most powerful empires in history. With its center in today’s Italy, the Roman Empire conquered the whole Mediterranean region and spread its influence to the Middle East, Northern Africa, Western and Central Europe. It reached the height of its power between 100 and 200 A.D. Afterwards the Roman Empire began to collapse because it became too big to rule. The West Roman Empire ended in 476 A.D. when Germanic tribes invaded, the East Roman Empire continued to exist for many centuries.

The ancient Romans influenced countries and civilizations in the following centuries. Their language, Latin, became the basis for many other European languages. Governments and legal systems in the western world were founded on Roman law. The ancient Romans were the first to build bridges, concrete roads and a sewage system that took waste water away from houses and homes.



The Roman Empire at the height of its power
Image : User:Jrockley / User:Kasper Holl, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

History of Ancient Rome

According to legends, ancient Rome was founded on 7 hills in the 8th century before Christ by Remus and his brother Romulus, who became the first king of Rome. Its early inhabitants were called the Latins, who lived on the fertile plains of Latium. During its early history ancient Rome was controlled by the Etruscans, people who lived in northern Italy. At that time they were the most modern civilization in Italy. Rome grew steadily under Etruscan influence. At about 500 B.C., the Etruscan occupation ended and Rome became a republic.

The Roman Republic

The republic was governed by two consuls. They were chosen by an assembly of men. The Senate was an institution that advised the consuls. Although it was weak at first, its power grew gradually. By this time Rome was the largest city in Latium. In the following centuries it conquered many smaller towns around it. By the third century B.C. Rome ruled over most of the Italian peninsula.

At about 400, Rome was under attack by Gauls, who occupied northern Italy. Although they invaded Rome and burned down the city in 390 B.C., the Romans fought back and defeated the Gauls. Between 264 and 146 B.C. Rome fought three wars against Carthage, a sea power located in today’s Tunisia.

The Punic Wars brought most of Northern Africa and Spain under Roman control. A famous Carthaginian general, Hannibal, wanted to attack Rome from the north. He led his soldiers over the Alps and invaded Italy from the north, but in the end he was defeated. In 146 Carthage was destroyed.



Ancient Carthage and the lands controlled by it
Image (altered) : Aldan-2, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By 150 B.C. Rome had expanded its influence eastward and took control of Greece, which became one of Rome’s richest provinces. Because faraway territories could not be directly ruled, governors, called proconsuls, were put in charge of the conquered territories. Many people were taken as slaves and brought back to Rome to work as servants or on farms.

In the first century B.C. ancient Rome suffered from power struggles and civil wars. Senators, generals and tribunes fought for power. When an important Roman general, Julius Caesar, came back to Italy after defeating Gaul another civil war began. Caesar’s supporters helped him win over his rivals and Julius Caesar became the sole ruler of Rome. However, many Romans didn’t trust him and in 44 B.C. he was assassinated.

The Roman Empire

The assassination of Julius Caesar led to the downfall of the Roman republic. Augustus became the first Roman emperor in 27 B.C. After the government of the people had been destroyed, the Romans wanted a strong ruler who would give them peace and prosperity. For the next 200 years Roman emperors were very strong.

Although the emperors had ultimate power, Senators and other representatives elected by the people still existed. Augustus controlled the army and appointed new Senators and consuls. He also created strong fortifications along the borders of the Roman Empire, which extended to Britain and the Danube River.

Economically Rome was now at its height. There were large farms in rural areas that produced food for an ever growing population. Throughout the empire the Romans built roads that made it possible to bring troops and supplies to other parts of the empire.



Section of Hadrian’s wall – a border wall in the north of the U.K.

Image: quisnovus from Gloucester, England, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Decline of the Roman Empire

One of the reasons for the Roman Empire’s decline is that it became too much too big. A single ruler could not efficiently rule such a large territory. During the second century A.D. Germanic tribes from the north started attacking Rome. The empire was defended by Marc Aurelius one of the great emperors of the period.

When Diocletian became emperor in 284 A.D. he tried to reorganize the empire and divide it into smaller areas. One of his successors, Constantine the Great, permanently divided the empire into two parts: an east Roman Empire with its capital Constantinople and a west Roman Empire with Rome as its capital city. Constantine granted freedom to the Christians and promised not to persecute them any longer. He also became the first ruler to convert to Christianity.

In the 5th century Germanic tribes kept moving to the south and invaded the Roman Empire. Vandals invaded Rome and plundered the city. In 476 A.D. Odoacer, a German tribal leader forced the Roman emperor to give up power. The east Roman Empire survived for almost another thousand years. In 1453, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and made it centre of the Ottoman Empire.



The East and West Roman Empire in 395 A.D.

Image (altered) : AKIKA3D, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Life in Ancient Rome

Country and City Life

Roman cities were very modern places in which people lived, traded and worked. The center of these ancient cities was a forum, a large open space surrounded by markets, baths, arenas and other public buildings.

Wealthy Romans could afford living in large luxurious houses, which often lay on the outskirts of the city, far away from the noise and smell of the city center. They had servants and slaves to do everyday work for them. The poor population had to live in overcrowded, dirty buildings. They were always in danger of collapsing or being burned down.

Life in the countryside was more relaxed. The population was made up of farmers who raised animals and planted crops. During the summer they often fought in the army. A latifundium was the large farm of a rich landowner. He was able to make a higher profit by working with slaves.

Normal people lived in small houses or huts that were not as big and luxurious as those of the city. Many inhabitants of Rome had country houses, which they went to in order to escape the hectic city life.



Model of a Roman town house for upper class people
Image:Arnaud 25, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Roman Family

Head of the Roman family was the paterfamilias, the oldest male. He controlled the whole household and had power over all the members of his family. In the upper classes, slaves and servants also lived with a family. Romans often married for political reasons. Many rich Romans arranged marriages for their children so they could stay in the higher classes and keep their influence and power.

When Rome was still a republic, women had very few rights. They had to stay at home and care for the household, prepare meals and look after their children. They were not allowed to own land. This changed when ancient Rome became an empire. Women were allowed to have their own shops and businesses, and they were able to buy land. They could also get a better job.

Food

While many Romans ate simple meals, wealthy inhabitants had the best food the empire could offer. They ate white bread, olives, fruit and cheese, as well as fish. Breakfast was usually a slice of bread or a pancake with dates and honey. Romans usually had a small lunch at about 11 in the morning. Dinner was the main meal of the day. It was normally taken in the late afternoon or early evening. Fish, cooked meat and a variety of vegetables were served. Sometimes they had a small cake with honey for dessert.

Clothes

Roman clothing was made out of wool, which women spun into cloth. Richer citizens could afford to buy clothes made out of silk, linen or cotton, which the Romans obtained from other parts of the empire.

Citizens of Rome wore a tunic, a piece of loose clothing that fell down to the knees. On special occasions they were allowed to wear a toga, an elegant piece of white clothing that was wrapped around their body.

Women wore tunics and later on stolas, which reached down to their feet. They liked jewelry and experimented in dyeing their hair.

Outdoors, Romans often wore shoes that were closed around the toes, when in the house, they liked to wear sandals.



Toga worn by men in the Roman empire
Image : Pearson Scott Foresman, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons


Leisure Time

Bath houses were the centre of Roman leisure life. Men and women often got together in separate bath houses. There they could relax, get massages, exercise, take baths and gossip. People of all social classes got together in such public bath houses. Going to a bath was a symbol of cleanliness, of being purer and better than others.

Ancient Romans celebrated religious holidays very often. Almost every god and goddess had their own holiday. Festivals and entertainment were arranged in honor of them.

Amphitheaters were the ancestors of modern stadiums. The Colosseum in Rome was, by far, the biggest amphitheater. It could hold over 50 000 spectators. Gladiators entertained the audience by fighting against wild animals and often combating each other.

The Circus Maximus was the center of chariot races. Up to 250 000 people attended such a race. Chariot racing had been popular in ancient Greece and was one of the highlights of ancient Olympic Games. Each chariot was pulled by four horses.

Roman citizens went to the many theatres in the city that showed plays of famous Roman playwrights. Most of the plays were comedies, in which actors wore masks that showed if they were happy or sad.



Ancient Roman bath house
Image:Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons



Colloseum – Rome’s largest amphitheatreImage: FeaturedPics, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Chariot race in ancient Rome
Image:Midx1004 at English Wikipedia, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

Education

During the early centuries of ancient Rome children were mostly educated at home by their parents. Fathers taught their sons how to read and write , as well as the basics of law and religion. Mothers showed their daughters how to cook, weave and spin.

Later on, rich Romans started sending their children to school, which they had to pay for. There they learned to read, write and solve mathematical problems. One of the main tasks was to teach child to become a good speaker. Older pupils studied Greek language and literature, as well as, astronomy.

Famous Romans

Julius Caesar

Augustus

Nero

Romulus and Remus

Marcus Brutus

Hadrian

Virgil

Cicero

Constantine

Pontius Pilate

Julius Caesar may be regarded as Rome’s most important general and statesman. He was a great military leader and won many battles that helped him gain power and, in the end, made him the sole ruler of Rome.

During his military career he conquered Gaul, invaded Britain and kept Germanic tribes out of the empire.



Julius Caesar

Image: Unknown author, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

Augustus was born as Octavian, son of a rich Roman banker. His great-uncle Julius Caesar adopted him and made him his heir. After Caesar’s death Octavian formed an army to fight against Mark Antony, who took over control of Rome from Caesar. The two men came to an agreement and shared control of the Roman Empire. They also defeated Caesar’s murderers. When Octavian found out about the love relationship between Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt he saw this as a threat to the Roman Empire and turned against Antony. After Antony’s death, Octavian was given the name Augustus and became Rome’s first emperor.

Under his reign Augustus expanded Rome’s territory. He conquered the Iberian Peninsula and pushed the boundaries of the Roman Empire north to the Danube River. He also gave orders to restore old buildings that needed repair and built roads to the outskirts of the empire.

After his death Augustus was worshipped in Rome because of his successful reign .



Bust of Augustus
Image : © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Nero was 17 when he became emperor of Rome in 54 A.D. He turned out to be a ruthless ruler who had his mother killed. But at first Nero was good-natured and a sensible leader. He focused on improving trade and the cultural life of the empire. However, as time went on, Nero became more violent and unpredictable.

According to rumors, he laid a fire that destroyed most of Rome. He blamed Christians for setting the fire and persecuted them throughout his reign. In 68 A.D. Nero saw that he no longer had the support of the Senate and committed suicide.

Romulus and Remus were twins who supposedly founded the city of Rome. According to the legend, their parents abandoned them at an early age, placed them into a basket and put it into the river Tiber. A wolf discovered the basket and brought it to a shepherd who brought up the twins.

When they became adults the brothers argued over which hill to build a city on. After a following fight Remus was killed and Romulus became the first king of Rome. He was a popular ruler and a great military leader.

Marcus Brutus was a Roman statesman who helped assassinate Julius Caesar because he wanted to break his power. On March 15, 44 B.C. Brutus and other men stabbed Julius Caesar to death as he entered a meeting of the Senate. After the Senate took over control of Rome again, Brutus was sent to govern the eastern part of the Roman Empire. In 43 B.C. Brutus killed himself after he had been defeated by Octavian and Mark Antony in the Battle of Philippi.

Hadrian became Roman emperor in 117 A.D. He was especially known for construction projects. He completed the Roman Pantheon and built a stone wall across northern Britain to defend the empire from outsiders. Hadrian traveled to almost every corner of the empire. He admired ancient Greece and wanted to make Athens the cultural centre of the empire. Hadrian was considered to be a peaceful emperor. He died in 138 A.D.



The Pantheon in Rome
Image: Rabax63, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Virgil was Rome’s greatest poet. Born in northern Italy in 70 B.C. he started writing during his studies in Rome and Naples. His most famous work was the Aeneid which was left uncompleted. Based on Homer’s Odyssey and the Iliad, Virgil describes the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas who sailed westwards and founded the city of Rome. In the epic poem Virgil shows the greatness of Rome and his admiration for its rulers.

In other poems Virgil wrote about country and peasant life. After his death, Virgil’s influence spread throughout Rome. Roman schools taught their pupils about him and made them read his poems. Writers in the Middle Ages often referred to Virgil in their works.

Cicero (106 – 43 B.C.) was a great Roman philosopher, speaker and writer. He was one of the most important translators from Greek to Latin. He was banned from Rome by the first triumvirate, but then allowed to return. He was killed because of his opposing views. Even today, Latin students around the world read the works of Cicero.



Bust of Cicero
Image:José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro ,
via Wikimedia Commons

Constantine I (275 – 337 A.D.) was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. When he ruled Rome the Christians and other religious groups got their freedom. He rebuilt Byzantium, and named it Constantinople, the Christian capital of ancient Rome.

Pontius Pilate was a Roman governor in Judea during the time of Jesus Christ. He became famous as judge at the trial of Jesus Christ. He had Jesus killed for treason because he claimed to be the king of Jews. Leaders of Judea thought of him as dangerous to the Roman Empire.

According to the Bible, however, Pilate claims he did not want to have Jesus Christ crucified.



Painting that shows Jesus Christ appearing before Pontius Pilate
Image: Mihály Munkácsy, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

Religion

Like the ancient Greeks, the Romans worshipped many gods. The most important was Jupiter. Like Zeus, he was the king of gods and the god of thunder. Almost every Roman city had temples to worship the gods. Sometimes emperors were made gods. It helped to make people more loyal to them.

Romans wanted to have a good relationship with their gods, who they believed had magical power. Gods were responsible for the growth of good crops and a good harvest; they watched over the family and brought favorable weather. People made sacrifices to gods and in return they hoped for their blessing. When the Romans conquered other territories they worshipped local gods of that area.

Roman Gods

• Jupiter – god of the sky
• Saturn – father of Jupiter
• Neptune – Jupiter’s brother, god of the sea
• Mars – god of war
• Pluto – god of the underworld

Roman Goddesses

• Juno – Jupiter’s wife;
• Minerva – goddess of wisdom and knowledge
• Venus – goddess of love
• Diana – goddess of the hunt

In ancient Rome, there was a strong connection between religion and government. Priests were officials elected by the government. Pontiffs were high religious officials who oversaw festivals and laid down the rules for worship .The highest priest was the pontifex maximus. During the empire, the emperor automatically held this position.

Astrology and the ability to foresee future events were important in Roman religion. It was necessary to find out what the gods wanted and how people could please them.

During the last centuries of the Roman Empire many people turned to Christianity. The Roman government considered this to be a threat to their religion and persecuted Christians for a long time. By 300 A.D. Christianity became the main religion of the empire. Emperor Constantine became the first ruler to convert to Christianity.

Life expectancy in ancient Rome was not very high. People started to worry about death from an early age on. Romans believed that after a person died their spirit would descend to the underworld.



Marble statue of Jupiter, king of the Roman gods

Image: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Video

Ancient Rome – National Geographic

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
Words and Definitions 1
Words and Definitions 2
TRUE or FALSE ?
Match the Sentence Parts
Historical Timeline of Rome – Match the Dates and the Events
Who was Who in the Roman Empire ?
Life in Ancient Rome – Missing Word Cloze
Roman Gladiators – Missing Sentence Parts
Crossword 1
Crossword 2

Word Search

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/the-american-president/ Fri, 19 Jan 2024 13:22:35 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=393 Introduction

The President of the United States is probably the most powerful leader of the world. He has many duties, like signing bills and commanding the armed forces. The president’s advisors get together in the Cabinet.

Congress and the Supreme Court control the president and his decisions.

America has had great presidents: George Washington, the first president of the newly formed United States, Abraham Lincoln who abolished slavery, Franklin D. Roosevelt who led America through World War II or John F. Kennedy , a popular president who was assassinated in Dallas.

A presidential election is held every four years. Americans do not choose their president directly . Instead, they vote for electors who get together in the Electoral College.

Official Seal of the American President
Image : See page for author, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons



Jobs and Duties of a President

The President of the United States must lead a strong nation and make sure that laws are put into effect . He is the commander of the army and can send American soldiers to war. The President also decides which relationships America has with other countries. He is the Head of State and meets with leaders of other nations.

To become president a person

• must be at least 35 years old
• must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years
• must be born in the United States

A president serves his country for four years. He can also be elected a second time. Until 1951, US presidents were able to hold office for more than eight years. Franklin D. Roosevelt , for example, was elected four times and was president from 1933-1945.

If Congress finds out that a president has done something wrong he can be removed from the White House .

A President’s Job

The President is the head of the executive branch of government. When the Senate and the House of Representatives want a new law to be passed , they send a bill to the President. If he agrees , he signs the bill and it becomes a law .

However, if the President does not like it he doesn’t have to sign it. This is called a veto. The bill goes back to Congress and if two thirds of all members vote against the veto it becomes a law .

The Cabinet

The President does not rule the country alone. The Cabinet is a group of people who get together and give the President information on many things. The President himself chooses them and they meet at least once a week. They are experts in many fields like defence , the environment , education and others.



President Obama in a Cabinet meeting
Image source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/cabinet

Life of an American President

An American President is always busy. He has several conferences and meets up to a hundred or more people every day.

The President lives in the White House in Washington,D.C. Most of the time he does his work in the Oval Office. There, he meets his helpers, leaders from other countries and other people. Presidents often spend their weekends at Camp David, a retreat in the Maryland mountains. There they relax, play golf, go riding and fishing and have time for their families.

The Secret Service protects the American President around the clock. It checks food and the hotels in which a President stays and plans his trips and journeys.

A President travels across the country or abroad in his own plane – Air Force One. It is a Boeing 747 in which he can work and live as he does in the White House.

Even though presidents are closely protected some of them were killed in office. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 when he was at a theatre performance. John F. Kennedy was murdered on the streets of Dallas, Texas in 1963.

 



Joe Biden in the Oval Office
Image : The White House, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons



Air Force One
Image : redlegsfan21, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

How the American Government Works

The legislative branch makes laws for the country. This is done in Congress, which is made up of two parts. The House of Representatives has 435 members. Small states have only a few members and big states, like California or New York have many representatives. The Senate has 100 senators, two from each state. Members of Congress are elected every two years.

The executive branch makes sure that people follow the laws that the legislative branch makes. The leaders of this branch are the President and his Vice President. They are elected by the people every four years.

When people are not sure about the meaning of a law, the judicial branch listens to the opinions and makes a decision. It is made up of courts. The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest in the country. 9 judges , who are appointed by the President, meet in a building in Washington D.C.



How the American government works

Road to the White House

Primaries

There are many people who would like to become President. From January to June of the election year, the two big parties, Republicans and Democrats, hold primaries in many states. In these primaries, people decide who should become the party’s candidate for the presidential election in November.

Conventions

At the end of the primaries, each party organizes a big party called a convention. Thousands of party members meet and select the candidate who did best in the primaries. At the convention, the candidate also tells the people who will become Vice President if he or she gets elected .

General Election

From August to November the candidates of each party travel all over the country, hold speeches and try to get the people to vote for them. On the first Tuesday in November the American people vote for one of the presidential candidates .

In most cases, there are only two candidates, a Republican and a Democrat, but in the last elections candidates from other parties have taken part in the election.

Electoral College

Americans do not vote for the President directly. They select electors who represent them in the electoral college .

Each state has a certain number of electors. Big states with a large population, like California have many electors (55) and small states, like Hawaii only have a few electors. All together there are 538 electors who get together in the Electoral College.

In December all the electors meet and elect a president. Most of the time they vote for the candidate who has won in their state. The candidate who has 270 or more electoral votes becomes President .

Candidates often concentrate on the big states with lots of electors. They know that if they win in states like California, New York or Texas they have a good chance of becoming President.



Number of electors of each state in the Electoral College
Image:Original: Cg-realmsDerivative work: Ali Zifan / Public domain

Inauguration

On January 20th of the following year the new President and his Vice President begin the new term . They put their left hand on a Bible and take an oath .

The Electoral College System

The Americans do not elect their president directly. They vote for an elector – a representative who must vote for the same candidate. There are 538 electors. Together, they are called the Electoral College. Each state has as many electors as it has members in Congress . There are 435 representatives in the House, based on the number of inhabitants each state has, and one hundred Senators, two from each state. There are three additional electors from the District of Columbia .

On Election Day voters go to the polls to choose the electors in their state; however they only see the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates . When they vote for a candidate of a party they actually vote for an elector of that state. This is called the popular vote.

In almost all of the states the candidate who receives the most popular votes wins all that state’s electoral votes. A candidate needs 270 votes to win the election . Even though the winner of the election is known by the following morning he or she is officially elected president in December when the electors meet.

Problems of the Electoral College

Many people don’t agree with the way the Americans elect their president. They think it’s wrong for the winning candidate to get all the electoral votes of a state and the loser none. That’s why it is possible for a candidate to receive fewer votes from the people and still win the election by winning the “big” states. This happened last in 2016, when the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton got three million popular votes more than Donald Trump, but lost the Electoral College by 227 to 304.

Others criticize that candidates concentrate their campaign on the big states, like California, New York, Texas, Florida and others because they have the most electors. Smaller states or those in which a candidate feels safe may get less attention in the campaign .

Those who are in favour of keeping the system say that smaller states are better represented because they have more electors.

History of the Electoral College

The voting system in America goes back to the days of the founding fathers who wrote the first constitution . They did not want the people to vote directly for the president. Because there was no radio and TV they thought that it was too hard for the people to get information about a candidate .

At first, electors could vote for whoever they wanted to, but then political parties became stronger and they had a growing influence on the electors.

The 2020 Presidential Election

In the 2020 election Donald Trump ran for a second term against former Vice President Joe Biden. After Biden had beaten Trump in the Electoral College vote, he refused to admit he had lost. Instead, the President challenged the results in many states. He went to court and claimed that there was fraud in the states that he had lost.

On December 14, 2020 the Electoral College confirmed that Joe Biden had won the election. He received 306 electoral votes compared to 232 for Trump.

The former president continued to state that the election was rigged and many of his supporters believed him. After Trump held a speech near the White House on January 6, 2021 hundreds of supporters stormed the Capitol, where Congress was counting electoral votes and confirming election results. Many Trump supporters were arrested and one person was even killed.

In 2022 Trump announced that he wanted to run for President again. In the following year he was charged with a series of crimes, including plans to overturn the election and remain in power, as well as keeping secret documents in his private home. The first trials are scheduled to take place in early 2024.



Protesters attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021
Image: Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Famous Presidents

George Washington – America’s First President



George Washington – America’s first president
Source : Portrait by Gilbert Stuart, Public Domain

George Washington is best known as America’s first president. But he was much more than that. He fought against and defeated the British army in the War of Independence (1775 – 1783) and he helped to write the American constitution.

As a boy, Washington had an exciting life. He worked on his parents’ plantation and learned how to plant tobacco and grow crops. He also loved to explore the wilderness, hunt for food and sleep in the open.

At an early age Washington became a surveyor and helped new settlers buy land. When he grew older he became a soldier and fought with the British against the French and the Indians.

When Great Britain started to collect more and more taxes from the settlers war broke out between the American colonists and British soldiers. George Washington became commander of the American army.

Washington had many problems during the war. The British had more soldiers and weapons. Winters were cold and long. Many soldiers left him and his troops didn’t have enough clothes.

When Washington surprised the British army at Yorktown, Virginia almost 8,000 British soldiers gave up. The British king started to lose interest in the colonies and in 1783 the war ended. Washington and his soldiers had won America’s independence.

In the following years George Washington and many other leaders helped to write a constitution for the new country. In 1789 , Washington was elected as the country’s first president. Nobody was against him. He didn’t want a second term but his friends convinced him that he was the best person for his country. In 1797, at the age of 65, Washington went back home to his farm. He died on December 14, 1799.

No other American has become more famous than George Washington. The nation’s capitol was named after him. Many towns, streets, lakes and parks have his name. Even a state is called Washington. His portrait is on stamps and the one dollar bill.

Abraham Lincoln



Abraham Lincoln – 16th president of the USA
Image: Alexander Gardner, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest presidents in American history. He helped end slavery and stopped America from breaking apart in the Civil War (1861 – 1865). He was also the first president to be murdered in office.

Lincoln grew up in Kentucky in the early 19th century. During his childhood his family moved to Indiana and then to Illinois. As a young man, Lincoln was tall and thin. He had dark skin and his hair was black. He did all kinds of work, like cutting wood or ploughing the fields and growing corn.

In Illinois, Abe started to get interested in politics. He was a great speaker and people liked to listen to him. Lincoln started studying law and became a successful lawyer.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the presidential elections for the Republican party. It was a time of crisis in America. Slavery was a big problem. The Southern states needed slaves to work on their big farms and the people in the North were against slavery.

In 1861 the American Civil War started. The Southern states broke away from the North and formed their own army. It became the bloodiest war in American history.

On January 1st 1863, Lincoln declared that all slaves in America were free. But nothing really changed for them. They kept on working for white landowners in the Southern states for the next decades.

As the war went on, the Northerners won many battles – the most famous one was at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On April 9th 1865 the South gave up and the war was over.Five days later Lincoln attended a theatre performance in Washington. Shortly after 10 o’clock he was shot in the head by John Booth, a famous actor. Lincoln died a few hours later.

Many people say that Lincoln was America’s most important president. He ended slavery and helped America stay one country.

Franklin D. Roosevelt – The Wartime President



Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair in 1941
Image : Margaret Suckley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only president who was elected four times and he served his country for 12 years. He died 83 days after he started his fourth term.

As a young man Roosevelt became crippled by polio. He could not stand or move his legs. His muscles were also damaged and he spent most of his life in a wheelchair. When many people thought that this illness would end his political career, Roosevelt became President for the first time in 1933.

At that time, America suffered from bad depression. Many people had lost their jobs and families didn’t have enough to eat. Roosevelt started a new programme called the New Deal. The government spent lots of money to create new jobs – it built roads, bridges, new schools and did other important things to help the population.

America’s people saw that FDR could do a lot for his country and they elected him for a second time in 1936.

When Roosevelt started his third term in office in 1941, Europe was at war. At first, he wanted America to stay out of World War II but when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the USA declared war on Japan and Germany.

Roosevelt’s health was already very bad when he started his fourth term in January 1945. He met with the leaders of Great Britain and Russia, Churchill and Stalin, at Yalta . There the three leaders planned the final attacks on Germany and talked about how they would divide the country after the war. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.

John F. Kennedy



John F. Kennedy – America’s first Roman Catholic president
Image: Cecil Stoughton, White House,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John F. Kennedy was the youngest man who has ever been elected President of the United States. His term ended after two years and ten months when he was shot to death in Dallas, Texas.

Kennedy came from an Irish family that left Ireland during the 1840’s . In America the Kennedys became rich and JFK’s father was a politician and millionaire. After John had studied politics at Harvard University he joined the US Navy and was commander of a boat during World War II. He became a war hero and was honoured because he rescued the crew of his boat when it was bombed by Japanese airplanes.

In the 1940s Kennedy’s political career began. He became a member of the House of Representatives and later a Senator in his home state of Massachusetts. In 1960 Kennedy won the race for the White House and became the first Roman Catholic president of the USA. People liked him because he was good-looking and rich. He was a young, dynamic American and he had an attractive wife, Jacqueline.

Kennedy had many things to do during his short presidency. He helped African Americans in their fight for equal rights. He also sent US advisors to Vietnam because the Communists threatened to take control of it. JFK promised to put a man on the moon before the Soviets. His main problem, however, was Cuba. In 1961 the Soviet Union put missiles, which could attack the US, on the island. When Kennedy threatened to start a war, the Russians removed their missiles.

On November 22, 1963 JFK’s presidency ended when he rode in his open car through the streets of Dallas, Texas. Bullets hit him in the back of the head. He was rushed to hospital but doctors couldn’t save his life. Shortly afterwards he died and Vice President Lyndon Johnson became President.

A few hours after the murder Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, because he was in the building from which the shots came. The police were sure that Oswald was the murderer. A few days later, Oswald himself was killed. The assassination is still a mystery today. First, it was thought that Oswald acted alone, but today many people think that there were more people involved in Kennedy’s murder.

Videos

How to become President of the United States
The Electoral College
George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
John F. Kennedy
Barack Obama

Exercises

Multiple Choice Test
Missing Word Cloze
TRUE or FALSE ?
Road to the White House – Order the events
The Electoral College – Missing word cloze
The Most Populous States of the US
History of American Presidents – Order the events
Famous Presidents – Multiple choice test
Abraham Lincoln – Multiple Choice Cloze
Words and definitions 1
Words and definitions 2
Crossword 1
Crossword 2

Word Search

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
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