James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country in Southeast Asia. Located at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, it covers 311,699 square kilometers. With a population of over 96 million, it is the world’s fifteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, Laos, and Cambodia to the west, and shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic age. The first known Vietnamese nation during the first millennium BC centered on the Red River Delta, located in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed and put the Vietnamese under Chinese rule from 111 BC until the first independent dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta. The Nguyễn—the last imperial dynasty—fell to French colonization in 1887. Following the August Revolution, the nationalist Viet Minh under the leadership of communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independence from France in 1945.

Vietnam went through prolonged warfare through the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. The Vietnam War began shortly after, during which the nation was divided into communist North supported by the Soviet Union and China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States. Upon North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1976. An ineffective planned economy, trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country. In 1986, the Communist Party initiated economic and political reforms, transforming the country to a market-oriented economy.

The reforms facilitated Vietnamese integration into global economy and politics. A developing country with a lower-middle-income economy, Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing economies of the 21st century. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the United Nations, the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, and the World Trade Organization. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice. Contemporary issues in Vietnam include corruption and a poor human rights record.

.

An image from Vietnam

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a 2,430-meter (7,970 ft) mountain ridge. It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometers (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco. The Urubamba River flows past it, cutting through the Cordillera and creating a canyon with a tropical mountain climate.

For most speakers of English or Spanish, the first ‘c’ in Picchu is silent. In English, the name is pronounced /ˌmɑːtʃuː ˈpiːtʃuː/ or /ˌmætʃuː ˈpiːktʃuː/, in Spanish as [ˈmatʃu ˈpitʃu] or [ˈmatʃu ˈpiktʃu], and in Quechua (Machu Pikchu) as [ˈmatʃʊ ˈpɪktʃʊ].

The Incas, in contrast with the Mayans, had no written language, and no European visited the site until the 19th century, so far as is known. There are, therefore, no written records of the site while it was in use. The names of the buildings, their supposed uses, and their inhabitants are all the product of modern archeologists, on the basis of physical evidence, including tombs at the site.

Most recent archaeologists (2021) believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the “Lost City of the Incas”, it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later, at the time of the Spanish conquest. According to the new AMS radiocarbon dating, it was occupied from c. 1420-1532.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give visitors a better idea of how they originally appeared. By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored and restoration continues.

Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historic Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide internet poll. Wikipedia

.

An image of Machu Picchu Peru

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________