25 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General , UNESCO World Heritage
Nusa Lembongan – Mushroom Beach © San Andreas/cc-by-sa-3.0
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Bali is a
province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the
Lesser Sunda Islands . Located east of
Java and west of
Lombok , the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably
Nusa Penida ,
Nusa Lembongan , and
Nusa Ceningan . The provincial capital,
Denpasar , is the
most populous city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the second largest, after
Makassar , in
Eastern Indonesia . Bali is the only
Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 83.5% of the population adhering to
Balinese Hinduism .
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24 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General , UNESCO World Heritage
Berbak National Park © cifor.org – James Maiden/cc-by-sa-2.0
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Sumatra is a large island in western
Indonesia that is part of the
Sunda Islands . It is the largest island that is located entirely in Indonesia (after
Borneo , which is shared between Indonesia and other countries) and the
sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km² (not including adjacent islands such as the Riau Islands and Bangka Belitung Islands). The
Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra site was inscribed as a
UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004. The 25,951 km² area of the World Heritage Site includes the National Parks
Gunung Leuser ,
Kerinci Seblat and
Bukit Barisan Selatan .
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24 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Great Britain / Großbritannien | Rubric: Environment , General , Sustainability
Cannon Point at sundown © Blaine Steinert
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The Chagos Archipelago or Chagos Islands (formerly the Bassas de Chagas, and later the Oil Islands) are a group of seven
atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical
islands in the
Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the
Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmost
archipelago of the
Chagos-Laccadive Ridge , a long submarine mountain range in the
Indian Ocean . As part of its
British Indian Ocean Territory , the Chagos were home to the
Chagossians , a
Bourbonnais Creole -speaking people, for more than a century and a half until the
United Kingdom evicted them between 1967 and 1973 to allow the
United States to build a military base on
Diego Garcia , the largest of the Chagos Islands. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, and only by military and civilian contracted personnel.
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23 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General , UNESCO World Heritage
Barakuda Beach in Karimun © Midori/cc-by-3.0
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Java is bordered by the
Indian Ocean on the south and the
Java Sea on the north. With a population of over 141 million (Java only) or 145 million (including the inhabitants of its surrounding islands), Java is the home to 56.7 percent of the
Indonesian population and is the world’s
most populous island . The
Indonesian capital city,
Jakarta , is located on its
northwestern coast. Much of Indonesian history took place on Java. It was the center of powerful Hindu-Buddhist empires, the Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial
Dutch East Indies . Java was also the center of the
Indonesian struggle for independence during the 1930s and 1940s. Java dominates
Indonesia politically, economically and culturally. Four of Indonesia’s eight UNESCO world heritage sites are located in Java:
Ujung Kulon National Park ,
Borobudur Temple ,
Prambanan Temple , and
Sangiran Early Man Site .
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22 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General
Banjarmasin Floating Market © Muhammad Haris/cc-by-sa-4.0
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Borneo is the third-
largest island in the world and the largest in
Asia . At the geographic centre of
Maritime Southeast Asia , in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of
Java , west of
Sulawesi , and east of
Sumatra . The
island is politically divided among three countries:
Malaysia and
Brunei in the north, and
Indonesia to the south. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory (
East ,
South ,
West ,
North and
Central Kalimantan ,
Kalimantan ). In the north, the
East Malaysian states of
Sabah and
Sarawak make up about 26% of the island. Additionally, the Malaysian federal territory of
Labuan is situated on a small island just off the coast of Borneo. The sovereign state of
Brunei , located on the north coast, comprises about 1% of Borneo’s land area. A little more than half of the island is in the
Northern Hemisphere including Brunei and the Malaysian portion, while the Indonesian portion spans both the Northern and
Southern hemispheres. The largest Indonesian cities on Borneo are:
Samarinda ,
Banjarmasin ,
Balikpapan ,
Pontianak ,
Palangka Raya ,
Banjarbaru ,
Tarakan ,
Singkawang , and
Bontang . Borneo is home to one of the oldest
rainforests in the world.
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22 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait
Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito
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Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an
Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher,
humanist , writer, playwright and poet of the
Renaissance period. He has often been called the father of modern
political science . For many years he was a senior official in the
Florentine Republic , with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned by Italian scholars. He was secretary to the Second
Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the
Medici were out of power. He wrote his best-known work
The Prince (
Il Principe ) in 1513, having been exiled from city affairs (
Works by Niccolò Machiavelli ).
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21 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General
West Beach in Bira © Kondephy/cc-by-sa-4.0
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Sulawesi, formerly known as
Celebes , is one of the four
Greater Sunda Islands , and the
world’s eleventh-largest island , situated east of
Borneo , west of the
Maluku Islands , and south of
Mindanao and the
Sulu Archipelago . Within Indonesia, only
Sumatra ,
Borneo and
Papua are larger in territory, and only
Java and Sumatra have larger populations.
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20 May 2019 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General , Theme Weeks , UNESCO World Heritage
Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddist temple © Gunawan Kartapranata/cc-by-sa-3.0
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Indonesia is a country in
Southeast Asia , between the
Indian and
Pacific oceans. It is the world’s largest
island country , with more than
seventeen thousand islands , and at 1,904,569 square kilometres (735,358
square miles ), the 14th largest by land area and the 7th largest in combined sea and land area. With over 261 million people, it is the world’s
4th most populous country as well as the most populous
Muslim-majority country .
Java , the world’s
most populous island , contains more than half of the country’s population.
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20 May 2019 | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika | Rubric: General , San Francisco Bay Area , UNESCO World Heritage
Map of Golden Gate National Recreation Area © nps.gov
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The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (
GGNRA ) is a
U.S. National Recreation Area protecting 82,027 acres (33,195 ha) of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the
San Francisco Bay Area . Much of the park is land formerly used by the
United States Army . GGNRA is managed by the
National Park Service and is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with more than 15 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world, with a size two-and-a-half times that of the consolidated city and county of
San Francisco .
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