A jungle is

land cover Land cover is the physical material at the surface of Earth. Land covers include grass, asphalt, trees, bare ground, water, etc. Earth cover is the expression used by ecologist Frederick Edward Clements that has its closest modern equivalent being ...

ed with dense

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

and tangled vegetation, usually in

tropical climate Tropical climate is the first of the five major climate groups in the Köppen climate classification identified with the letter A. Tropical climates are defined by a monthly average temperature of 18 °C (64.4 °F) or higher in the cool ...

s. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century.

Etymology

The word ''jungle'' originates from the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

word ''jaṅgala'' (), meaning rough and arid. It came into the English language via

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

in the 18th century. ''Jāṅgala'' has also been variously transcribed in English as ''jangal'', ''jangla'', ''jungal'', and ''juṅgala''. Although the Sanskrit word refers to dry land, it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its connotation as a dense "tangled thicket", while others have argued that a cognate word in

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, جنگل (Jangal), did refer to forests. The term is prevalent in many languages of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

, and the

Iranian Plateau The Iranian plateau or Persian plateau is a geological feature in Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. It comprises part of the Eurasian Plate and is wedged between the Arabian Plate and the Indian Plate; situated between the Zagros ...

, where it is commonly used to refer to the plant growth replacing

primeval forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

or to the unkempt

tropical vegetation Tropical vegetation is any vegetation in tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse that in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole ye ...

that takes over abandoned areas.

History

The jungle is the richest habitat on Earth. Over the intervals of time, different parts of tropical areas have provided a variety of flora and fauna, together with newer species discovered annually. Tropical jungles have been the home to

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

s, who have shaped traditional cultures and

civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...

s based on the environment.

Wildlife

Because jungles occur on all inhabited landmasses and may incorporate numerous vegetation and land types in different

climatic zone Climate classifications are systems that categorize the world's climates. A climate classification may correlate closely with a biome classification, as climate is a major influence on life in a region. One of the most used is the Köppen climate ...

s, the

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

of jungles cannot be straightforwardly defined.

Varying usage

As dense and tangled vegetation

One of the most common meanings of ''jungle'' is land overgrown with tangled vegetation at ground level, especially in the

tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

. Typically such vegetation is sufficiently dense to hinder movement by humans, requiring that travellers cut their way through.Tropical Forests
Nygren, A. 2006 Representations of Tropical Forests and Tropical Forest-Dwellers in Travel Accounts of ‘National Geographic', Environmental Values 15 This definition draws a distinction between

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

and jungle, since the understorey of rainforests is typically open of vegetation due to a lack of sunlight, and hence relatively easy to traverse. Jungles may exist within, or at the borders of, tropical forests in areas where the woodland has been opened through natural disturbance such as hurricanes, or through human activity such as logging. The successional vegetation that springs up following such disturbance, is dense and tangled and is a "typical" jungle. Jungle also typically forms along rainforest margins such as stream banks, once again due to the greater available light at ground level. Monsoon forests and

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

s are commonly referred to as jungles of this type. Having a more open canopy than rainforests, monsoon forests typically have dense understoreys with numerous

liana A liana is a long- stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight. The word ''liana'' does not refer to a ta ...

s and shrubs making movement difficult, while the prop roots and low canopies of mangroves produce similar difficulties.

As moist forest

Because European explorers initially travelled through tropical forests largely by river, the dense tangled vegetation lining the stream banks gave a misleading impression that such jungle conditions existed throughout the entire forest. As a result, it was wrongly assumed that the entire forest was impenetrable jungle. This in turn appears to have given rise to the second popular usage of jungle as virtually any humid

tropical forest Tropical forests (a.k.a. jungle) are forested landscapes in tropical regions: ''i.e.'' land areas approximately bounded by the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing winds. Some tropical fores ...

.Purser, B. 2003. Jungle bugs: masters of camouflage and mimicry. Firefly Books, Toronto. Jungle in this context is particularly associated with

tropical rain forest Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...

, but may extend to

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

, temperate rainforest, and mangroves with no reference to the vegetation structure or the ease of travel. The terms "tropical forest" and "rainforest" have largely replaced "jungle" as the descriptor of humid tropical forests, a linguistic transition that has occurred since the 1970s. "Rainforest" itself did not appear in English dictionaries prior to the 1970s.Rogers, C. 2012 ''Jungle Fever: Exploring Madness and Medicine in Twentieth-Century Tropical Narratives''. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. . The word "jungle" accounted for over 80% of the terms used to refer to tropical forests in print media prior to the 1970s; since then it has been steadily replaced by "rainforest",Slater, C (2003). In Search of the Rain Forest. Duke University Press although "jungle" still remains in common use when referring to tropical rainforests.

As metaphor

As a metaphor, ''jungle'' often refers to situations that are unruly or lawless, or where the only law is perceived to be "survival of the fittest". This reflects the view of "city people" that forests are such places.

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...

gave the title ''

The Jungle ''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers wer ...

'' (1906) to his famous book about the life of workers at the Chicago Stockyards, portraying the workers as being mercilessly exploited with no legal or other lawful recourse. The term "

The Law of the Jungle "The law of the jungle" (also called jungle law) is an expression that has come to describe a scenario where "anything goes". The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines the Law of the Jungle as "''the code of survival in jungle life'', now usual ...

" is also used in a similar context, drawn from Rudyard Kipling's ''

The Jungle Book ''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, ...

'' (1894)—though in the society of jungle animals portrayed in that book and obviously meant as a metaphor for human society, that phrase referred to an intricate code of laws which Kipling describes in detail, and not at all to a lawless chaos. The word "jungle" carries connotations of untamed and uncontrollable nature and isolation from civilisation, along with the emotions that evokes: threat, confusion, powerlessness, disorientation and immobilisation. The change from "jungle" to "rainforest" as the preferred term for describing tropical forests has been a response to an increasing perception of these forests as fragile and spiritual places, a viewpoint not in keeping with the darker connotations of "jungle". Cultural scholars, especially

post-colonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...

critics, often analyse the jungle within the concept of hierarchical domination and the demand western cultures often places on other cultures to conform to their standards of civilisation. For example:

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''White ...

notes that the

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

depicted by

Johnny Weissmuller Johnny Weissmuller (born Johann Peter Weißmüller; June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984) was an American Olympic swimmer, water polo player and actor. He was known for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century. H ...

was a resident of the jungle representing the savage, untamed and wild, yet still a white master of it; and in his essay "

An Image of Africa "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness''" is the published and amended version of the second Chancellor's Lecture given by Chinua Achebe at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in February 1975. The essay was included in his ...

" about ''

Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel ...

'' Nigerian novelist and theorist

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and ''magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies ...

notes how the jungle and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

become the source of temptation for white European characters like Marlowe and Kurtz. Former

Israeli Prime Minister The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exec ...

Ehud Barak Ehud Barak ( he-a, אֵהוּד בָּרָק, Ehud_barak.ogg, link=yes, born Ehud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli general and politician who served as the tenth prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until Jan ...

compared Israel to "a villa in the jungle", a comparison which had been often quoted in Israeli political debates. Barak's critics on the left side of Israeli politics strongly criticised the comparison. For example,

Uri Avnery Uri Avnery ( he, אורי אבנרי, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was an Israeli writer, politician, and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat for two ...

charged that comparing "civilised" Israel with "a villa" and Israel's Arab neighbors with the "wild beasts" of the "jungle" tends to throw the blame for the absence of peace on the "wild" Arab and Palestinian side, and absolve Israel of responsibility.Larry Derfner, "Ehud Barak to step down: On his de-evolution, and Israel's", +972 Magazine, November 26, 201

/ref>

References

External links

BBC - Science and Nature: Jungle

by Dennis Paulson {{Authority control Forests Metaphors