James' World 2

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Phnom Penh is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation’s economic, industrial, and cultural center.

Phnom Penh was founded in 1434 to succeed Angkor Thom as the capital of the Khmer nation but was abandoned several times before being reestablished in 1865 by King Norodom. The city formerly functioned as a processing center, with textiles, pharmaceuticals, machine manufacturing, and rice milling. Its chief assets, however, were cultural. Institutions of higher learning included the Royal University of Phnom Penh (established in 1960 as Royal Khmer University), with schools of engineering, fine arts, technology, and agricultural sciences, the latter at Chamkar Daung, a suburb. Also located in Phnom Penh were the Royal University of Agronomic Sciences and the Agricultural School of Prek Leap.

Once known as the “Pearl of Asia”, it was considered one of the loveliest French-built cities in Indochina in the 1920s. Phnom Penh, along with Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, are significant global and domestic tourist destinations for Cambodia. Founded in 1372, the city is noted for its historical architecture and attractions. It became the national capital in 1434 following the fall of Angkor and remained so until 1497. It regained its capital status during the French colonial era in 1865. There are a number of surviving colonial-era buildings scattered along the grand boulevards.

On the banks of the Tonlé Sap, Mekong, and Bassac Rivers, Phnom Penh is home to more than 2 million people, approximately 14% of the Cambodian population. The Greater Phnom Penh area includes the nearby Ta Khmau city and some districts of Kandal province.

Phnom Penh (lit. ‘Penh’s Hill’) takes its name from the present Wat Phnom (lit. ‘Hill Temple’) or from the former Funan Kingdom, an ancient kingdom that existed from 1st to 6th century AD in Southeast Asia and the forerunner of the current Cambodian monarchy. Legend has it that in 1372, a wealthy widow named Penh found a Koki tree floating down the Tonlé Sap river after a storm. Inside the tree were four bronze Buddha statues and a stone statue of Vishnu. Penh ordered villagers to raise the height of the hill northeast of her house and used the Koki wood to build a temple on the hill to house the four Buddha statues, and a shrine for the Vishnu image slightly lower down. The temple became known as Wat Phnom Daun Penh, which is now known as Wat Phnom, a small hill 27 meters (89 ft) in height.

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An image from Phnom Penh

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The Bactrian camel, also known as the Mongolian camel or domestic Bactrian camel, is a large even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of Central Asia. It has two humps on its back, in contrast to the single-humped dromedary camel. Its population of two million exists mainly in the domesticated form. Their name comes from the ancient historical region of Bactria.

Domesticated Bactrian camels have served as pack animals in inner Asia since ancient times. With its tolerance for cold, drought, and high altitudes, it enabled the travel of caravans on the Silk Road. Bactrian camels, whether domesticated or feral, are a separate species from the wild Bactrian camel, which is the only truly wild (as opposed to feral) species of camel in the world.

The Bactrian camel shares the genus Camelus with the dromedary (C. dromedarius) and the wild Bactrian camel (C. ferus). The Bactrian camel belongs to the family Camelidae. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first European to describe the species of Camelus: in his 4th-century-BC History of Animals, he identified the one-humped Arabian camel and the two-humped Bactrian camel. The Bactrian camel was given its current binomial name Camelus bactrianus by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae.

In 2007, Peng Cui (of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and colleagues carried out a phylogenetic study of the evolutionary relationships between the two tribes of Camelidae: Camelini—consisting of the three Camelus species (the study considered the wild Bactrian camel as a subspecies of the Bactrian camel)—and Lamini—consisting of the alpaca (Vicugna pacos), the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), the llama (L. glama) and the vicuña (V. vicugna). The study revealed that the two tribes had diverged 25 million years ago (early Miocene), notably earlier than what had been previously estimated from North American fossils. Speciation began first in Lamini as the alpaca came into existence 10 million years ago. Nearly two million years later, the Bactrian camel and the dromedary emerged as two independent species. However, the fossil record suggests a far more recent divergence between the Bactrian camel and the dromedary because, despite a moderately rich fossil record of camelids, no fossil that fits within this divergence is older than middle Pleistocene (about 0.8 Ma). Wikipedia

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An image of Bactrian Camels

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Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. Located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario, Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). As of 2021, Ottawa had a city population of 1,017,449 and a metropolitan population of 1,488,307, making it the fourth-largest city and fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.

Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city has evolved into the political center of Canada. Its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001 which significantly increased its land area.

Ottawa has the most educated population among Canadian cities and is home to a number of colleges and universities, research and cultural institutions, including the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, the National Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Canada, and numerous national museums.

The city name Ottawa was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River, the name of which is derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning “to trade”. The city’s modern name in Algonquin language is Odàwàg. Ottawa is built on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory, as Canada has never signed any treaty with the Algonquin Nation.

With the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago, the Ottawa Valley became habitable. Local populations used the area for wild edible harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel, and camps for over 6,500 years. Ottawa is situated on the traditional land of the Algonquins, Indigenous peoples who are closely related to the Odawa and Ojibwe peoples. The Algonquins call the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning “Great River” or “Grand River”. The Ottawa River valley has archeological sites with arrowheads, pottery, and stone tools. Three major rivers meet within Ottawa, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. Wikipedia

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An image from Ottawa, Canada

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