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Engelbert Kaempfer
Engelbert Kaempfer (16 September 16512 November 1716) was a German naturalist, physician, explorer and writer known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693. He wrote two books about his travels. ''Amoenitatum exoticarum'', published in 1712, is important for its medical observations and the first extensive description of Japanese plants (''Flora Japonica''). His ''History of Japan'', published posthumously in 1727, was the chief source of Western knowledge about the country throughout the 18th and mid-19th centuries, when it was closed to foreigners. Early life Kaempfer was born at Lemgo in the Principality of Lippe, within the Holy Roman Empire. His father was a pastor and his mother helped support the congregation. He studied at Hameln, Lüneburg, Hamburg, Lübeck and Danzig (Gdańsk), and after graduating at Kraków, spent four years at Königsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science. Travels and studies Persi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lemgo
Lemgo (; nds, Lemge, Lemje) is a small university town in the Lippe district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated between the Teutoburg Forest and the Weser Uplands, 25 km east of Bielefeld and 70 km west of Hannover. The old Hanseatic town Lemgo has a population of c. 41,000 (2017) and belongs to the OWL region, which is one of the most important cluster regions for mechanical engineering and industrial electronics in Germany. In 2017 the German Internet portal reisereporter.de placed Lemgo among the most beautiful ten half-timbered towns in Germany. History It was founded in the 12th century by Bernard II, Lord of Lippe at the crossroad of two merchant routes. Lemgo was a member of the Hanseatic League, a medieval trading association of free or autonomous cities in several northern European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Poland. During the Reformation the city of Lemgo adopted Lutheranism in 1522, whereas otherwise in Lippe, its sprea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludvig Fabritius
Ludvig (Lodewyck) Fabritius (14 September 1648, Brazil – 6 October 1729, Stockholm) was the Swedish ambassador to Safavid Iran during the reign of King Charles XI (r. 1660–1697) and Charles XII (r. 1697–1718). After an early career in the Russian army, he became a diplomat representing the Swedish crown. Fabritius led three missions to the Safavid court: in 1679–80, 1683–84, and 1697–1700. His efforts were characterized by the desire to establish a new transit route between Sweden and Iran through Russia (with Narva as its hub), and several attempts to establish a fruitful alliance against the common enemy: the Ottoman Empire. Fabritius presented an invitation to the Safavid king from the Swedish king to join the Holy League, and was involved in the establishment of several Safavid-Swedish economic and trade agreements. Life Fabriutius was born Lodewyck Fabritius in Brazil of Dutch parents. He moved to the Tsardom of Russia in 1660–61 with his grandfather, and pursue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock company in the world, granting it a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be bought by any resident of the United Provinces and then subsequently bought and sold in open-air secondary markets (one of which became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange). It is sometimes considered to have been the first multinational corporation. It was a powerful company, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies. They are also known for their international slave trade. Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asia trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isfahan (city)
Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Region, Isfahan Province, Iran. It is located south of Tehran and is the capital of Isfahan Province. The city has a population of approximately 2,220,000, making it the third-largest city in Iran, after Tehran and Mashhad, and the second-largest metropolitan area. Isfahan is located at the intersection of the two principal routes that traverse Iran, north–south and east–west. Isfahan flourished between the 9th and 18th centuries. Under the Safavid dynasty, Isfahan became the capital of Persia, for the second time in its history, under Shah Abbas the Great. The city retains much of its history. It is famous for its Perso–Islamic architecture, grand boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, tiled mosques, and minarets. Isfahan also has many historical buildings, monuments, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world and also the largest city in the world located below sea level. Baku lies on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, alongside the Bay of Baku. Baku's urban population was estimated at two million people as of 2009. Baku is the primate city of Azerbaijan—it is the sole metropolis in the country, and about 25% of all inhabitants of the country live in Baku's metropolitan area. Baku is divided into twelve administrative raions and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on the islands of the Baku Archipelago, and the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, away from Baku. The Inner City of Baku, along with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower, were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. The c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baku Peninsula
The Absheron Peninsula ( az, Abşeron yarımadası) is a peninsula in Azerbaijan. It is the location of Baku, the biggest and the most populous city of the country, and also the Baku metropolitan area, with its satellite cities Sumqayit and Khyrdalan. There are three districts, of which two are urban (Baku and Sumqayit), and one, (Absheron Rayon), is suburban district in Absheron region. It extends eastward into the Caspian Sea, and reaches a maximum width of . Though technically the easternmost extension of the Caucasus Mountains, the landscape is only mildly hilly, a gently undulating plain that ends in a long spit of sand dunes known as Shah Dili, and now declared the Absheron National Park. In this part, the peninsula is dissected by ravines and characterized by frequent salt lakes. Etymology The name "Absheron" comes from Persian ''āb šuran'' (salty waters). This also gave its name to the city of Apsheronsk in Russia. According to Conrad Malte-Brun in 1810, an alternati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shemakha
Shamakhi ( az, Şamaxı, ) is a city in Azerbaijan and the administrative centre of the Shamakhi District. The city's estimated population was 31,704. It is famous for its traditional dancers, the Shamakhi Dancers, and also for perhaps giving its name to the Soumak rugs. Eleven major earthquakes have rocked Shamakhi but through multiple reconstructions, it maintained its role as the economic and administrative capital of Shirvan and one of the key towns on the Silk Road. The only building to have survived eight of the eleven earthquakes is the landmark Juma Mosque of Shamakhi, built in the 8th century. History Shamakhi was in antiquity part of successive Persian empires and was first mentioned as ''Kamachia'' by the ancient Greco-Roman Egyptian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus in the 1st to 2nd century AD. Shamakhi was an important town during the Middle Ages and served as a capital of the Shirvanshah realm from the 8th to 15th centuries. Shamakhi maintained economic and cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau of Western Asia. It covers a surface area of (excluding the highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east) and a volume of . It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/L), about a third of the salinity of average seawater. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the southwest, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast. The sea stretches nearly from north to south, with an average width of . Its gross coverage is and the surface is about below sea level. Its main freshwater inflow, Europe's longest river, the Volga, enters at the shallow north end. Two deep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia (Republic of Dagestan) to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918 and became the first secular democratic Muslim-majority state. In 1920, the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan SSR. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the same year. In September 1991, the ethnic Armenian majority of the Nagorno-Karabakh region formed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shirvan
Shirvan (from fa, شروان, translit=Shirvān; az, Şirvan; Tat: ''Şirvan''), also spelled as Sharvān, Shirwan, Shervan, Sherwan and Šervān, is a historical Iranian region in the eastern Caucasus, known by this name in both pre-Islamic Sasanian and Islamic times. Today, the region is an industrially and agriculturally developed part of the Azerbaijan Republic that stretches between the western shores of the Caspian Sea and the Kura River, centered on the Shirvan Plain. History Etymology Vladimir Minorsky believes that names such as Sharvān (Shirwān), Lāyzān and Baylaqān are Iranian names from the Iranian languages of the coast of the Caspian Sea. There are several explanations about this name: * Shirvan or Sharvan are changed forms of the word "Shahrbān" ( fa, شهربان, links=no) which means "the governor". The word "Shahrban" has been used since Achaemenian Dynasty as "Xshathrapawn" (satrap) to refer to different states of the kingdom. * Shervan in Per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niyazoba
Niyazoba (also, Mikhailovka, Mikhaylovka, and Nizovaya) is a village and municipality in the Khachmaz Rayon of Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th .... It has a population of 1,352. References * Populated places in Khachmaz District {{Khachmaz-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrakhan
Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, 60 miles (100 km) from the Caspian Sea, with a population of 475,629 residents at the 2021 Census. At an elevation of below sea level, it is the lowest city in Russia. Astrakhan was formerly the capital of the Khanate of Astrakhan (a remnant of the Golden Horde), and was located on the higher right bank of the Volga, 7 miles (11 km) from the present-day city. Situated on caravan and water routes, it developed from a village into a large trading centre, before being conquered by Timur in 1395 and captured by Ivan the Terrible in 1556. In 1558 it was moved to its present site. The oldest economic and cultural center of the Lower Volga, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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