title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The colonial settlement of large numbers of Scottish American, English American and Scotch-Irish Americans in the mountains and Piedmont, and coastal settlement by some English Americans and African Americans, have strongly influenced the state's culture in food, language and music. The concentration of Africans imported to coastal areas in the 18th century repeatedly from rice-growing regions of West Africa led to the development of Gullah-Geechee language and culture in the Low Country among African Americans. They share a unique heritage in which many African traditions of food, religion and culture were retained. In the creolization of Southern culture, their foodways became an integral part of Low Country cooking.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: , 87.35% (7,666,663) of Georgia residents age5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 7.42% (651,583) spoke Spanish, 0.51% (44,702) Korean, 0.44% (38,244) Vietnamese, 0.42% (36,679) French, 0.38% (33,009) Chinese (which includes Mandarin), and German, which was spoken as a main language by 0.29% (23,351) of the population over the age of 5. In total, 12.65% (1,109,888) of Georgia's population age5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The composition of religious affiliation in Georgia is 70% Protestant, 9% Catholic, 1% Mormon, 1% Jewish, 0.5% Muslim, 0.5% Buddhist, and 0.5% Hindu. Atheists, deists, agnostics, and other unaffiliated people make up 13% of the population. The largest Christian denominations by number of adherents in 2010 were the Southern Baptist Convention with 1,759,317; the United Methodist Church with 619,394; and the Roman Catholic Church with 596,384. Non-denominational Evangelical Protestant had 566,782 members, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) has 175,184 members, and the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. has 172,982 members. The Presbyterian Church (USA) is the largest Presbyterian body in the state, with 300 congregations and 100,000 members. The other large body, Presbyterian Church in America, had at its founding date 14 congregations and 2,800 members; in 2010 it counted 139 congregations and 32,000 members. The Roman Catholic Church is noteworthy in Georgia's urban areas, and includes the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah. Georgia is home to the largest Hindu temple in the United States, the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Atlanta, located in the suburb city of Lilburn. Georgia is home to several historic synagogues including The Temple (Atlanta), Congregation Beth Jacob (Atlanta), and Congregation Mickve Israel (Savannah). Chabad and the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute are also active in the state.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: As with all other U.S. states and the federal government, Georgia's government is based on the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial power. Executive authority in the state rests with the governor, currently Brian Kemp (Republican). Both the Governor of Georgia and lieutenant governor are elected on separate ballots to four-year terms of office. Unlike the federal government, but like many other U.S. States, most of the executive officials who comprise the governor's cabinet are elected by the citizens of Georgia rather than appointed by the governor.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Legislative authority resides in the General Assembly, composed of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Lieutenant Governor presides over the Senate, while members of the House of Representatives select their own Speaker. The Georgia Constitution mandates a maximum of 56 senators, elected from single-member districts, and a minimum of 180 representatives, apportioned among representative districts (which sometimes results in more than one representative per district); there are currently 56 senators and 180 representatives. The term of office for senators and representatives is two years. The laws enacted by the General Assembly are codified in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: State judicial authority rests with the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, which have statewide authority. In addition, there are smaller courts which have more limited geographical jurisdiction, including Superior Courts, State Courts, Juvenile Courts, Magistrate Courts and Probate Courts. Justices of the Supreme Court and judges of the Court of Appeals are elected statewide by the citizens in non-partisan elections to six-year terms. Judges for the smaller courts are elected to four-year terms by the state's citizens who live within that court's jurisdiction.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia consists of 159 counties, second only to Texas, with 254. Georgia had 161 counties until the end of 1931, when Milton and Campbell were merged into the existing Fulton. Some counties have been named for prominent figures in both American and Georgian history, and many bear names with Native American origin. Counties in Georgia have their own elected legislative branch, usually called the Board of Commissioners, which usually also has executive authority in the county. Several counties have a sole Commissioner form of government, with legislative and executive authority vested in a single person. Georgia is the only state with current Sole Commissioner counties. Georgia's Constitution provides all counties and cities with "home rule" authority. The county commissions have considerable power to pass legislation within their county, as a municipality would.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia recognizes all local units of government as cities, so every incorporated town is legally a city. Georgia does not provide for townships or independent cities, though there have been bills proposed in the Legislature to provide for townships; it does allow consolidated city-county governments by local referendum. All of Georgia's second-tier cities except Savannah have now formed consolidated city-county governments by referendum: Columbus (in 1970), Athens (1990), Augusta (1995), and Macon (2012). (Augusta and Athens have excluded one or more small, incorporated towns within their consolidated boundaries; Columbus and Macon eventually absorbed all smaller incorporated entities within their consolidated boundaries.) The small town of Cusseta adopted a consolidated city-county government after it merged with unincorporated Chattahoochee County in 2003. Three years later, in 2006, the town of Georgetown consolidated with the rest of Quitman County.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: There is no true metropolitan government in Georgia, though the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and Georgia Regional Transportation Authority do provide some services, and the ARC must approve all major land development projects in the Atlanta metropolitan area.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia had voted Republican in six consecutive presidential elections from 1996 to 2016, a streak that was broken when the state went for Democratic candidate Joe Biden in 2020.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Until 1964, Georgia's state government had the longest unbroken record of single-party dominance, by the Democratic Party, of any state in the Union. This record was established largely due to the disenfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites by the state in its constitution and laws in the early 20th century. Some elements, such as requiring payment of poll taxes and passing literacy tests, prevented blacks from registering to vote; their exclusion from the political system lasted into the 1960s and reduced the Republican Party to a non-competitive status in the early 20th century.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: White Democrats regained power after Reconstruction due in part to the efforts of some using intimidation and violence, but this method came into disrepute. In 1900, shortly before Georgia adopted a disfranchising constitutional amendment in 1908, blacks comprised 47% of the state's population.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The whites dealt with this problem of potential political power by the 1908 amendment, which in practice disenfranchised blacks and poor whites, nearly half of the state population. It required that any male at least 21 years of age wanting to register to vote must also: (a) be of good character and able to pass a test on citizenship, (b) be able to read and write provisions of the U.S. and Georgia constitutions, or (c) own at least 40 acres of land or $500 in property. Any Georgian who had fought in any war from the American Revolution through the Spanish–American War was exempted from these additional qualifications. More importantly, any Georgian descended from a veteran of any of these wars also was exempted. Because by 1908 many white Georgia males were grandsons of veterans and/or owned the required property, the exemption and the property requirement basically allowed only well-to-do whites to vote. The qualifications of good character, citizenship knowledge, and literacy (all determined subjectively by white registrars), and property ownership were used to disqualify most blacks and poor whites, preventing them from registering to vote. The voter rolls dropped dramatically. In the early 20th century, Progressives promoted electoral reform and reducing the power of ward bosses to clean up politics. Their additional rules, such as the eight-box law, continued to effectively close out people who were illiterate. White one-party rule was solidified.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: For more than 130 years, from 1872 to 2003, Georgians nominated and elected only white Democratic governors, and white Democrats held the majority of seats in the General Assembly. Most of the Democrats elected throughout these years were Southern Democrats, who were fiscally and socially conservative by national standards. This voting pattern continued after the segregationist period.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Legal segregation was ended by passage of federal legislation in the 1960s. According to the 1960 census, the proportion of Georgia's population that was African American was 28%; hundreds of thousands of blacks had left the state in the Great Migration to the North and Midwest. New white residents arrived through migration and immigration. Following support from the national Democratic Party for the civil rights movement and especially civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965, most African-American voters, as well as other minority voters, have largely supported the Democratic Party in Georgia. In the decades since the late 20th century, the conservative white-majority voters have increasingly supported Republicans for national and state offices.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In 2002, incumbent moderate Democratic Governor Roy Barnes was defeated by Republican Sonny Perdue, a state legislator and former Democrat. While Democrats retained control of the State House, they lost their majority in the Senate when four Democrats switched parties. They lost the House in the 2004 election. Republicans then controlled all three partisan elements of the state government.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Even before 2002, the state had become increasingly supportive of Republicans in Presidential elections. It has supported a Democrat for president only three times since 1960. In 1976 and 1980, native son Jimmy Carter carried the state; in 1992, the former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton narrowly won the state. Generally, Republicans are strongest in the predominantly white suburban (especially the Atlanta suburbs) and rural portions of the state. Many of these areas were represented by conservative Democrats in the state legislature well into the 21st century. One of the most conservative of these was U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald, former head of the John Birch Society, who died when the Soviet Union shot down KAL 007 near Sakhalin Island. Democratic candidates have tended to win a higher percentage of the vote in the areas where black voters are most numerous, as well as in the cities among liberal urban populations (especially Atlanta and Athens), and the central and southwestern portion of the state.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The ascendancy of the Republican Party in Georgia and in the South in general resulted in Georgia U.S. House of Representatives member Newt Gingrich being elected as Speaker of the House following the election of a Republican majority in the House in 1994. Gingrich served as Speaker until 1999, when he resigned in the aftermath of the loss of House seats held by members of the GOP. Gingrich mounted an unsuccessful bid for president in the 2012 election, but withdrew after winning only the South Carolina and Georgia primaries.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In 2008, Democrat Jim Martin ran against incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss. Chambliss failed to acquire the necessary 50 percent of votes due to a Libertarian Party candidate receiving the remainder of votes. In the runoff election held on December 2, 2008, Chambliss became the second Georgia Republican to be reelected to the U.S. Senate.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In the 2018 elections, the governorship remained under control by a Republican (by 54,723 votes against a Democrat, Stacey Abrams), Republicans lost eight seats in the Georgia House of Representatives (winning 106), while Democrats gained ten (winning 74), Republicans lost two seats in the Georgia Senate (winning 35 seats), while Democrats gained two seats (winning 21), and five Democrat U.S. Representatives were elected with Republicans winning nine seats (one winning with just 419 votes over the Democratic challenger, and one seat being lost).


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In the three presidential elections up to and including 2016, the Republican candidate has won Georgia by approximately five to eight points over the Democratic nominee, at least once for each election being narrower than margins recorded in some states that have flipped within that timeframe, such as Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. This trend led to the state narrowly electing Democrat Joe Biden for president in 2020, and it coming to be regarded as a swing state.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In a 2020 study, Georgia was ranked as 49th on the "Cost of Voting Index" with only Texas ranking higher. In 2022, Georgia swung substantially back to the right towards Republicans with incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp winning reelection by almost double digits at 7.5% over Democrat Stacey Abrams with a raw vote margin of over 300,000 votes in the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election. The largest amount since the early 2000s, and every other Republican statewide getting elected by a 5-10% margin of victory.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: During the 1960s and 1970s, Georgia made significant changes in civil rights and governance. As in many other states, its legislature had not reapportioned congressional districts according to population from 1931 to after the 1960 census. Problems of malapportionment in the state legislature, where rural districts had outsize power in relation to urban districts, such as Atlanta's, were corrected after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in "Wesberry v. Sanders" (1964). The court ruled that congressional districts had to be reapportioned to have essentially equal populations.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: A related case, "Reynolds v. Sims" (1964), required state legislatures to end their use of geographical districts or counties in favor of "one man, one vote"; that is, districts based upon approximately equal populations, to be reviewed and changed as necessary after each census. These changes resulted in residents of Atlanta and other urban areas gaining political power in Georgia in proportion to their populations. From the mid-1960s, the voting electorate increased after African Americans' rights to vote were enforced under civil rights law.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Economic growth through this period was dominated by Atlanta and its region. It was a bedrock of the emerging "New South". From the late 20th century, Atlanta attracted headquarters and relocated workers of national companies, becoming more diverse, liberal and cosmopolitan than many areas of the state.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In the 21st century, many conservative Democrats, including former U.S. Senator and governor Zell Miller, decided to support Republicans. The state's then-socially conservative bent resulted in wide support for measures such as restrictions on abortion. In 2004, a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages was approved by 76% of voters. However, after the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in "Obergefell v. Hodges", all Georgia counties came into full compliance, recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry in the state.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In presidential elections, Georgia voted solely Democratic in every election from 1900 to 1960. In 1964, it was one of only a handful of states to vote for Republican Barry Goldwater over Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, it did not vote for either of the two parties, but rather the American Independent Party and its nominee, Alabama Governor George Wallace. In 1972, the state returned to Republicans as part of a landslide victory for Richard Nixon. In 1976 and 1980, it voted for Democrat and former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. The state returned to Republicans in 1984 and 1988, before going Democratic once again in 1992. For every election between that year and 2020, Georgia voted heavily Republican, in line with many of its neighbors in the Deep South. In 2020, it voted Democratic for the first time in 28 years, aiding Joe Biden in his defeat of incumbent Republican Donald Trump.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Prior to 2020, Republicans in state, federal and congressional races had seen decreasing margins of victory, and many election forecasts had ranked Georgia as a "toss-up" state, or with Biden as a very narrow favorite. Concurrent with the 2020 presidential election were two elections for both of Georgia's United States Senate seats (one of which being a special election due to the resignation of Senator Johnny Isakson, and the other being regularly scheduled). After no candidate in either race received a majority of the vote, both went to January 5, 2021, run-offs, which Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won. Ossoff is the state's first Jewish senator, and Warnock is the state's first Black senator. Biden's, Ossoff's, and Warnock's wins were attributed to the rapid diversification of the suburbs of Atlanta and increased turnout of younger African American voters, particularly around the suburbs of Atlanta and in Savannah, Georgia.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia's 2018 total gross state product was $602 billion. For years Georgia as a state has had the highest credit rating by Standard & Poor's (AAA) and is one of only 15 states with a AAA rating. If Georgia were a stand-alone country, it would be the 28th-largest economy in the world, based on data from 2005.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: There are 17 Fortune 500 companies and 26 Fortune 1000 companies with headquarters in Georgia, including Home Depot, UPS, Coca-Cola, TSYS, Delta Air Lines, Aflac, Southern Company, Anthem Inc., and SunTrust Banks.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Atlanta boasts the world's busiest airport, as measured both by passenger traffic and by aircraft traffic. Also, the Port of Savannah is the fourth-largest seaport and fastest-growing container seaport in North America, importing and exporting a total of 2.3 million TEUs per year.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Atlanta has a significant effect on the state of Georgia, the Southeastern United States, and beyond. It has been the site of growth in finance, insurance, technology, manufacturing, real estate, service, logistics, transportation, film, communications, convention and trade show businesses and industries, while tourism is important to the economy. Atlanta is a global city, also called "world city" or sometimes "alpha city" or "world center", as a city generally considered to be an important node in the global economic system.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: For the five years through November 2017, Georgia has been ranked the top state (number1) in the nation to do business, and has been recognized as number1 for business and labor climate in the nation, number1 in business climate in the nation, number1 in the nation in workforce training and as having a "Best in Class" state economic development agency.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In 2016, Georgia had a median annual income per person of between $50,000 and $59,999, which is in inflation-adjusted dollars for 2016. The U.S. median annual income for the entire nation is $57,617. This lies within the range of Georgia's median annual income.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Widespread farms produce peanuts, corn, and soybeans across middle and south Georgia. The state is the number one producer of pecans in the world, thanks to Naomi Chapman Woodroof regarding peanut breeding, with the region around Albany in southwest Georgia being the center of Georgia's pecan production. Gainesville in northeast Georgia touts itself as the Poultry Capital of the World. Georgia is in the top five blueberry producers in the United States.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Major products in the mineral industry include a variety of clays, stones, sands and the clay palygorskite, known as attapulgite.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: While many textile jobs moved overseas, there is still a textile industry located around the cities of Rome, Columbus, Augusta, Macon and along the I-75 corridor between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Historically it started along the fall line in the Piedmont, where factories were powered by waterfalls and rivers. It includes the towns of Cartersville, Calhoun, Ringgold and Dalton


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In November 2009, the South Korean automaker Kia Corporation began production in Georgia. The first Kia plant built in the U.S., Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia, is located in West Point. Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer, plans to begin production at a facility in Social Circle in 2024.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Industrial products include textiles and apparel, transportation equipment, food processing, paper products, chemicals and products, and electric equipment.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia was ranked the number 2 state for infrastructure and global access by "Area Development" magazine.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Georgia Ports Authority owns and operates four ports in the state: Port of Savannah, Port of Brunswick, Port Bainbridge, and Port Columbus. The Port of Savannah is the third-busiest seaport in the United States, importing and exporting a total of 2.3 million TEUs per year. The Port of Savannah's Garden City Terminal is the largest single container terminal in North America. Several major companies including Target, IKEA, and Heineken operate distribution centers in close proximity to the Port of Savannah.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport moves over 650,000 tons of cargo annually through three cargo complexes ( of floor space). It has nearby cold storage for perishables; it is the only airport in the Southeast with USDA-approved cold-treatment capabilities. Delta Air Lines also offers an on-airport refrigeration facility for perishable cargo, and a 250-acre Foreign Trade Zone is located at the airport.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia is a major railway hub, has the most extensive rail system in the Southeast, and has the service of two Class I railroads, CSX and Norfolk Southern, plus 24 short-line railroads. Georgia is ranked the No. 3 state in the nation for rail accessibility. Rail shipments include intermodal, bulk, automotive and every other type of shipment.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia has an extensive interstate highway system including of interstate highway and of federal and state highways that facilitate the efficient movement of more than $620 billion of cargo by truck each year. Georgia's six interstates connect to 80 percent of the U.S. population within a two-day truck drive. More than $14 billion in funding has been approved for new roadway infrastructure.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Southern Congressmen have attracted major investment by the U.S. military in the state. The several installations include Moody Air Force Base, Fort Stewart, Hunter Army Airfield, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Fort Benning, Robins Air Force Base, Fort Gordon, Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Coast Guard Air Station Savannah and Coast Guard Station Brunswick. These installations command numerous jobs and business for related contractors.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia's electricity generation and consumption are among the highest in the United States, with natural gas being the primary electrical generation fuel, followed by coal. The state also has two nuclear power facilities, Plant Hatch and Plant Vogtle, which contribute almost one fourth of Georgia's electricity generation, and two additional nuclear reactors are being built at Vogtle as of 2022. In 2013, the generation mix was 39% gas, 35% coal, 23% nuclear, 3% hydro and other renewable sources. The leading area of energy consumption is the industrial sector because Georgia "is a leader in the energy-intensive wood and paper products industry". Solar generated energy is becoming more in use with solar energy generators currently installed ranking Georgia 15th in the country in installed solar capacity. In 2013, $189 million was invested in Georgia to install solar for home, business and utility use representing a 795% increase over the previous year.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia has a progressive income tax structure with six brackets of state income tax rates that range from 1% to 6%. In 2009, Georgians paid 9% of their income in state and local taxes, compared to the U.S. average of 9.8% of income. This ranks Georgia 25th among the states for total state and local tax burden. The state sales tax in Georgia is 4% with additional percentages added through local options (e.g. special-purpose local-option sales tax or SPLOST), but there is no sales tax on prescription drugs, certain medical devices, or food items for home consumption.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The state legislature may allow municipalities to institute local sales taxes and special local taxes, such as the 2% SPLOST tax and the 1% sales tax for MARTA serviced counties. Excise taxes are levied on alcohol, tobacco, and motor fuel. Owners of real property in Georgia pay property tax to their county. All taxes are collected by the Georgia Department of Revenue and then properly distributed according to any agreements that each county has with its cities.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office promotes filming in the state. Since 1972, seven hundred film and television projects have been filmed on location in Georgia. Georgia overtook California in 2016 as the state with the most feature films produced on location. In fiscal year 2017, film and television production in Georgia had an economic impact of $9.5 billion. Atlanta has been called the "Hollywood of the South". Television shows like "Stranger Things", "The Walking Dead", and "The Vampire Diaries" are filmed in the state. Movies too, such as "Passengers", "Forrest Gump", "Contagion", "Hidden Figures", "Sully", "Baby Driver", "", "", "Black Panther", "Birds of Prey" and many more, were filmed around Georgia.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: In the Atlanta area, World of Coke, Georgia Aquarium, Zoo Atlanta and Stone Mountain are important tourist attractions. Stone Mountain is Georgia's "most popular attraction"; receiving more than four million tourists per year. The Georgia Aquarium, in Atlanta, was the largest aquarium in the world in 2010 according to Guinness World Records.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Golden Isles is a string of barrier islands off the Atlantic coast of Georgia near Brunswick that includes beaches, golf courses and the Cumberland Island National Seashore.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Several sites honor the lives and careers of noted American leaders: the Little White House in Warm Springs, which served as the summer residence of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt while he was being treated for polio; President Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains and the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta; the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta, which is the final resting place of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King; and Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. King preached.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia's major fine art museums include the High Museum of Art and the Michael C. Carlos Museum, both in Atlanta; the Georgia Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens; Telfair Museum of Art and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah; and the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Atlanta Opera brings opera to Georgia stages. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is the most widely recognized orchestra and largest arts organization in the southeastern United States.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: There are a number of performing arts venues in the state, among the largest are the Fox Theatre, and the Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff Arts Center, both on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta as well as the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, located in Northwest Atlanta.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Authors have grappled with Georgia's complex history. Popular novels related to this include Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind", Olive Ann Burns' "Cold Sassy Tree", and Alice Walker's "The Color Purple".


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: A number of noted authors, poets and playwrights have lived in Georgia, such as James Dickey, Flannery O'Connor, Sidney Lanier, Frank Yerby and Lewis Grizzard.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Well-known television shows set in Atlanta include, from Tyler Perry Studios, "House of Payne" and "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns", "The Real Housewives of Atlanta", the CBS sitcom "Designing Women", "Matlock", the popular AMC series "The Walking Dead", FX comedy drama "Atlanta", Lifetime's "Drop Dead Diva", "Rectify" and numerous HGTV original productions.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: "The Dukes of Hazzard", a 1980s TV show, was set in the fictional Hazzard County, Georgia. The first five episodes were shot on location in Conyers and Covington, Georgia as well as some locations in Atlanta. Production was then moved to Burbank, California.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Also filmed in Georgia is "The Vampire Diaries", using Covington as the setting for the fictional Mystic Falls.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: A number of notable musicians in various genres of popular music are from Georgia. Among them are Ray Charles (whose many hits include "Georgia on My Mind", now the official state song), and Gladys Knight (known for her Georgia-themed song, "Midnight Train to Georgia").


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Rock groups from Georgia include the Atlanta Rhythm Section, The Black Crowes, and The Allman Brothers.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The city of Athens sparked an influential rock music scene in the 1980s and 1990s. Among the groups achieving their initial prominence there were R.E.M., Widespread Panic, and the B-52's.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Since the 1990s, various hip-hop and R&B musicians have included top-selling artists such as Outkast, Usher, Ludacris, TLC, B.o.B., and Ciara. Atlanta is mentioned in a number of these artists' tracks, such as Usher's "A-Town Down" reference in his 2004 hit "Yeah!" (which also features Atlanta artists Lil Jon and Ludacris), Ludacris' "Welcome to Atlanta", Outkast's album "ATLiens", and B.o.B.'s multiple references to Decatur, Georgia, as in his hit song "Strange Clouds".


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Two movies, both set in Atlanta, won Oscars for Best Picture: "Gone with the Wind" (1939) and "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989). Other films set in Georgia include "Deliverance" (1972), "Parental Guidance" (2012), and "Vacation" (2015).


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Sports in Georgia include professional teams in nearly all major sports, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations, and active amateur teams and individual sports. The state of Georgia has teams in four major professional leagues—the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Georgia Bulldogs (Southeastern Conference), Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (Atlantic Coast Conference), Georgia State Panthers and Georgia Southern Eagles (Sun Belt Conference) are Georgia's NCAA Division I FBS football teams, having won multiple national championships between them. The Georgia Bulldogs and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have a historical rivalry in college football known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, and the Georgia State Panthers and the Georgia Southern Eagles have recently developed their own rivalry.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The 1996 Summer Olympics took place in Atlanta. The stadium that was built to host various Olympic events was converted to Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves through 2016.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Masters golf tournament, the first of the PGA Tour's four "majors", is held annually the second weekend of April at the Augusta National Golf Club.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Atlanta Motor Speedway hosts the Dixie 500 NASCAR Cup Series stock car race and Road Atlanta the Petit Le Mans endurance sports car race.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Atlanta's Georgia Dome hosted Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994 and Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. The dome has hosted the NCAA Final Four Men's Basketball National Championship in 2002, 2007, and 2013. It hosted WWE's WrestleMania XXVII in 2011, an event which set an attendance record of 71,617. The venue was also the site of the annual Chick-fil-A Bowl post-season college football games. Since 2017, they have been held at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium along with the FIRST World Championships.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Professional baseball's Ty Cobb was the first player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was from Narrows, Georgia and was nicknamed the "Georgia Peach".


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Mercedes-Benz Stadium hosted Super Bowl LIII in 2018 and the CFP National Championship in the same year, the SEC Championship Game in 2017, the MLS All-Star Game in 2018, the MLS Cup in 2018, and the record-setting friendly fixture between Mexico Men's National Football Team and Honduras Men's National Football Team.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: There are 48 state parks, 15 historic sites, and numerous wildlife preserves under supervision of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Other historic sites and parks are supervised by the National Park Service and include the Andersonville National Historic Site in Andersonville; Appalachian National Scenic Trail; Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area near Atlanta; Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park at Fort Oglethorpe; Cumberland Island National Seashore near St. Marys; Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island; Fort Pulaski National Monument in Savannah; Jimmy Carter National Historic Site near Plains; Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park near Kennesaw; Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta; Ocmulgee National Monument at Macon; Trail of Tears National Historic Trail; and the Okefenokee Swamp in Waycross, Georgia


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Outdoor recreational activities include hiking along the Appalachian Trail; Civil War Heritage Trails; rock climbing and whitewater kayaking. Other outdoor activities include hunting and fishing.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia county and city public school systems are administered by school boards with members elected at the local level. , all but 19 of 181 boards are elected from single-member districts. Residents and activist groups in Fayette County, Georgia sued the board of commissioners and school board for maintaining an election system based on at-large voting, which tended to increase the power of the majority and effectively prevented minority participation on elected local boards for nearly 200 years. A change to single-member districts has resulted in the African-American minority being able to elect representatives of its choice.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia high schools (grades nine through twelve) are required to administer a standardized, multiple choice End of Course Test, or EOCT, in each of eight core subjects: algebra, geometry, U.S. history, economics, biology, physical science, ninth grade literature and composition, and American literature. The official purpose of the tests is to assess "specific content knowledge and skills". Although a minimum test score is not required for the student to receive credit in the course, completion of the test is mandatory. The EOCT score accounts for 15% of a student's grade in the course. The "Georgia Milestone" evaluation is taken by public school students in the state. In 2020, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Georgia State BOE agreed to state superintendent Richard Woods’ proposal to change the weight of the EOCT test to only count for 0.01% of the Student's course grade. This change is currently only in effect for the 2020–21 school year.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia has 85 public colleges, universities, and technical colleges in addition to more than 45 private institutes of higher learning. Among Georgia's public universities is the flagship research university, the University of Georgia, founded in 1785 as the country's oldest state-chartered university and the birthplace of the American system of public higher education. The University System of Georgia is the presiding body over public post-secondary education in the state. The System includes 29 institutions of higher learning and is governed by the Georgia Board of Regents. Georgia's workforce of more than 6.3 million is constantly refreshed by the growing number of people who move there along with the 90,000 graduates from the universities, colleges and technical colleges across the state, including the highly ranked University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University and Emory University.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The HOPE Scholarship, funded by the state lottery, is available to all Georgia residents who have graduated from high school or earned a General Educational Development certificate. The student must maintain a 3.2 or higher grade point average and attend a public college or university in the state.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Georgia Historical Society, an independent educational and research institution, has a research center located in Savannah. The research center's library and archives hold the oldest collection of materials related to Georgia history in the nation.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Atlanta metropolitan area is the ninth largest media market in the United States as ranked by Nielsen Media Research. The state's other top markets are Savannah (95th largest), Augusta (115th largest), and Columbus (127th largest).


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: There are 48 television broadcast stations in Georgia including TBS, TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network, CNN and Headline News, all founded by notable Georgia resident Ted Turner. The Weather Channel also has its headquarters in Atlanta.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: By far, the largest daily newspaper in Georgia is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a daily readership of 195,592 and a Sunday readership of 397,925. Other large dailies include "The Augusta Chronicle", the "Columbus Ledger-Enquirer", "The Telegraph" (formerly "The Macon Telegraph") and the "Savannah Morning News".


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: WSB-AM in Atlanta was the first licensed radio station in the southeastern United States, signing on in 1922. Georgia Public Radio has been in service since 1984 and, with the exception of Atlanta, it broadcasts daily on several FM (and one AM) stations across the state. Georgia Public Radio reaches nearly all of Georgia (with the exception of the Atlanta area, which is served by WABE).


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: WSB-TV in Atlanta is the state's oldest television station, having begun operations in 1948. WSB was only the second such operation founded in the Southern U.S., trailing only WTVR in Richmond, Virginia.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Transportation in Georgia is overseen by the Georgia Department of Transportation, a part of the executive branch of the state government. Georgia's major Interstate Highways are I-20, I-75, I-85, and I-95. On March 18, 1998, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a resolution naming the portion of Interstate 75, which runs from the Chattahoochee River northward to the Tennessee state line the Larry McDonald Memorial Highway. Larry McDonald, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, had been on Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it was shot down by the Soviets on September 1, 1983.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Georgia's primary commercial airport is Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), the world's busiest airport. In addition to Hartsfield–Jackson, there are eight other airports serving major commercial traffic in Georgia. Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport is the second-busiest airport in the state as measured by passengers served, and is the only additional international airport. Other commercial airports (ranked in order of passengers served) are located in Augusta, Columbus, Albany, Macon, Brunswick, Valdosta, and Athens.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Georgia Ports Authority manages two deepwater seaports, at Savannah and Brunswick, and two river ports, at Bainbridge and Columbus. The Port of Savannah is a major U.S. seaport on the Atlantic coast.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is the principal rapid transit system in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Formed in 1971 as strictly a bus system, MARTA operates a network of bus routes linked to a rapid transit system consisting of of rail track with 38 train stations. MARTA operates almost exclusively in Fulton and DeKalb counties, with bus service to two destinations in Cobb county and the Cumberland Transfer Center next to the Cumberland Mall, and a single rail station in Clayton County at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. MARTA also operates a separate paratransit service for disabled customers. , the average total daily ridership for the system (bus and rail) was 482,500 passengers.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: The state has 151 general hospitals, more than 15,000 doctors and almost 6,000 dentists. The state is ranked forty-first in the percentage of residents who engage in regular exercise.


title: Georgia (U.S. state)

text: Jimmy Carter, from Plains, Georgia, was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta in 1929. He was a civil rights movement leader who protested for equal rights and against racial discrimination. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Blake R. Van Leer played an important role in the civil rights movement, Georgia's economy and was president of Georgia Tech. Mordecai Sheftall, the highest ranking Jewish officer in the American Revolution, was born and lived his life in Georgia. Naomi Chapman Woodruff, originally from Idaho, was responsible for developing a peanut breeding program in Georgia which lead to a harvest of nearly five times the typical amount.


title: Euro

text: The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . The euro is divided into 100 cents.


title: Euro

text: The currency is also used officially by the institutions of the European Union, by four European microstates that are not EU members, the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, as well as unilaterally by Montenegro and Kosovo. Outside Europe, a number of special territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency. Additionally, over 200 million people worldwide use currencies pegged to the euro.


title: Euro

text: As of 2013, the euro is the second-largest reserve currency as well as the second-most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar. , with more than €1.3 trillion in circulation, the euro has one of the highest combined values of banknotes and coins in circulation in the world.


title: Euro

text: The name "euro" was officially adopted on 16 December 1995 in Madrid. The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999, replacing the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1 (US$1.1743). Physical euro coins and banknotes entered into circulation on 1 January 2002, making it the day-to-day operating currency of its original members, and by March 2002 it had completely replaced the former currencies.


title: Euro

text: Between December 1999 and December 2002, the euro traded below the US dollar, but has since traded near parity with or above the US dollar, peaking at US$1.60 on 18 July 2008 and since then returning near to its original issue rate. On 13 July 2022, the two currencies hit parity for the first time in nearly two decades due in part to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Euro

text: The euro is managed and administered by the European Central Bank (ECB, Frankfurt am Main) and the Eurosystem (composed of the central banks of the eurozone countries). As an independent central bank, the ECB has sole authority to set monetary policy. The Eurosystem participates in the printing, minting and distribution of notes and coins in all member states, and the operation of the eurozone payment systems.


title: Euro

text: The 1992 Maastricht Treaty obliges most EU member states to adopt the euro upon meeting certain monetary and budgetary convergence criteria, although not all participating states have done so. Denmark has negotiated exemptions, while Sweden (which joined the EU in 1995, after the Maastricht Treaty was signed) turned down the euro in a non-binding referendum in 2003, and has circumvented the obligation to adopt the euro by not meeting the monetary and budgetary requirements. All nations that have joined the EU since 1993 have pledged to adopt the euro in due course. The Maastricht Treaty was later amended by the Treaty of Nice, which closed the gaps and loopholes in the Maastricht and Rome Treaties.


title: Euro

text: The euro is divided into 100 cents (also referred to as "euro cents", especially when distinguishing them from other currencies, and referred to as such on the common side of all cent coins). In Community legislative acts the plural forms of "euro" and "cent" are spelled without the "s", notwithstanding normal English usage. Otherwise, normal English plurals are used, with many local variations such as "centime" in France.


title: Euro

text: All circulating coins have a "common side" showing the denomination or value, and a map in the background. Due to the linguistic plurality in the European Union, the Latin alphabet version of "euro" is used (as opposed to the less common Greek or Cyrillic) and Arabic numerals (other text is used on national sides in national languages, but other text on the common side is avoided). For the denominations except the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, the map only showed the 15 member states which were members when the euro was introduced. Beginning in 2007 or 2008 (depending on the country), the old map was replaced by a map of Europe also showing countries outside the EU. The 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, however, keep their old design, showing a geographical map of Europe with the 15 member states of 2002 raised somewhat above the rest of the map. All common sides were designed by Luc Luycx. The coins also have a "national side" showing an image specifically chosen by the country that issued the coin. Euro coins from any member state may be freely used in any nation that has adopted the euro.


title: Euro

text: The coins are issued in denominations of €2, €1, 50c, 20c, 10c, 5c, 2c, and 1c. To avoid the use of the two smallest coins, some cash transactions are rounded to the nearest five cents in the Netherlands and Ireland (by voluntary agreement) and in Finland and Italy (by law). This practice is discouraged by the commission, as is the practice of certain shops of refusing to accept high-value euro notes.


title: Euro

text: Commemorative coins with €2 face value have been issued with changes to the design of the national side of the coin. These include both commonly issued coins, such as the €2 commemorative coin for the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, and nationally issued coins, such as the coin to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics issued by Greece. These coins are legal tender throughout the eurozone. Collector coins with various other denominations have been issued as well, but these are not intended for general circulation, and they are legal tender only in the member state that issued them.


title: Euro

text: The design for the euro banknotes has common designs on both sides. The design was created by the Austrian designer Robert Kalina. Notes are issued in €500, €200, €100, €50, €20, €10, and €5. Each banknote has its own colour and is dedicated to an artistic period of European architecture. The front of the note features windows or gateways while the back has bridges, symbolising links between states in the union and with the future. While the designs are supposed to be devoid of any identifiable characteristics, the initial designs by Robert Kalina were of specific bridges, including the Rialto and the Pont de Neuilly, and were subsequently rendered more generic; the final designs still bear very close similarities to their specific prototypes; thus they are not truly generic. The monuments looked similar enough to different national monuments to please everyone.


title: Euro

text: The Europa series, or second series, consists of six denominations and no longer includes the €500 with issuance discontinued as of 27 April 2019. However, both the first and the second series of euro banknotes, including the €500, remain legal tender throughout the euro area.


title: Euro

text: In December 2021, the ECB announced its plans to redesign euro banknotes by 2024. A theme advisory group, made up of one member from each euro area country, was selected to submit theme proposals to the ECB. The proposals will be voted on by the public; a design competition will also be held.


title: Euro

text: Since 1 January 2002, the national central banks (NCBs) and the ECB have issued euro banknotes on a joint basis. Eurosystem NCBs are required to accept euro banknotes put into circulation by other Eurosystem members and these banknotes are not repatriated. The ECB issues 8% of the total value of banknotes issued by the Eurosystem. In practice, the ECB's banknotes are put into circulation by the NCBs, thereby incurring matching liabilities vis-à-vis the ECB. These liabilities carry interest at the main refinancing rate of the ECB. The other 92% of euro banknotes are issued by the NCBs in proportion to their respective shares of the ECB capital key, calculated using national share of European Union (EU) population and national share of EU GDP, equally weighted.


title: Euro

text: Capital within the EU may be transferred in any amount from one state to another. All intra-Union transfers in euro are treated as domestic transactions and bear the corresponding domestic transfer costs. This includes all member states of the EU, even those outside the eurozone providing the transactions are carried out in euro. Credit/debit card charging and ATM withdrawals within the eurozone are also treated as domestic transactions; however paper-based payment orders, like cheques, have not been standardised so these are still domestic-based. The ECB has also set up a clearing system, TARGET, for large euro transactions.


title: Euro

text: The euro was established by the provisions in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. To participate in the currency, member states are meant to meet strict criteria, such as a budget deficit of less than 3% of their GDP, a debt ratio of less than 60% of GDP (both of which were ultimately widely flouted after introduction), low inflation, and interest rates close to the EU average. In the Maastricht Treaty, the United Kingdom and Denmark were granted exemptions per their request from moving to the stage of monetary union which resulted in the introduction of the euro.


title: Euro

text: The name "euro" was officially adopted in Madrid on 16 December 1995. Belgian Esperantist Germain Pirlot, a former teacher of French and history, is credited with naming the new currency by sending a letter to then President of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, suggesting the name "euro" on 4 August 1995.


title: Euro

text: Due to differences in national conventions for rounding and significant digits, all conversion between the national currencies had to be carried out using the process of triangulation via the euro. The "definitive" values of one euro in terms of the exchange rates at which the currency entered the euro are shown on the right.


title: Euro

text: The rates were determined by the Council of the European Union, based on a recommendation from the European Commission based on the market rates on 31 December 1998. They were set so that one European Currency Unit (ECU) would equal one euro. The European Currency Unit was an accounting unit used by the EU, based on the currencies of the member states; it was not a currency in its own right. They could not be set earlier, because the ECU depended on the closing exchange rate of the non-euro currencies (principally sterling) that day.


title: Euro

text: The procedure used to fix the conversion rate between the Greek drachma and the euro was different since the euro by then was already two years old. While the conversion rates for the initial eleven currencies were determined only hours before the euro was introduced, the conversion rate for the Greek drachma was fixed several months beforehand.


title: Euro

text: The currency was introduced in non-physical form (traveller's cheques, electronic transfers, banking, etc.) at midnight on 1 January 1999, when the national currencies of participating countries (the eurozone) ceased to exist independently. Their exchange rates were locked at fixed rates against each other. The euro thus became the successor to the European Currency Unit (ECU). The notes and coins for the old currencies, however, continued to be used as legal tender until new euro notes and coins were introduced on 1 January 2002.


title: Euro

text: The changeover period during which the former currencies' notes and coins were exchanged for those of the euro lasted about two months, until 28 February 2002. The official date on which the national currencies ceased to be legal tender varied from member state to member state. The earliest date was in Germany, where the mark officially ceased to be legal tender on 31 December 2001, though the exchange period lasted for two months more. Even after the old currencies ceased to be legal tender, they continued to be accepted by national central banks for periods ranging from several years to indefinitely (the latter for Austria, Germany, Ireland, Estonia and Latvia in banknotes and coins, and for Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Slovakia in banknotes only). The earliest coins to become non-convertible were the Portuguese escudos, which ceased to have monetary value after 31 December 2002, although banknotes remained exchangeable until 2022.


title: Euro

text: A special euro currency sign (€) was designed after a public survey had narrowed the original ten proposals down to two. The European Commission then chose the design created by the Belgian artist Alain Billiet. Of the symbol, the Commission stated


title: Euro

text: The European Commission also specified a euro logo with exact proportions and foreground and background colour tones. Placement of the currency sign relative to the numeric amount varies from state to state, but for texts in English the symbol (or the ISO-standard "EUR") should precede the amount.


title: Euro

text: Following the U.S. financial crisis in 2008, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed in 2009 among investors concerning some European states, with the situation becoming particularly tense in early 2010. Greece was most acutely affected, but fellow Eurozone members Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were also significantly affected. All these countries used EU funds except Italy, which is a major donor to the EFSF. To be included in the eurozone, countries had to fulfil certain convergence criteria, but the meaningfulness of such criteria was diminished by the fact it was not enforced with the same level of strictness among countries.


title: Euro

text: According to the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2011, "[I]f the [euro area] is treated as a single entity, its [economic and fiscal] position looks no worse and in some respects, rather better than that of the US or the UK" and the budget deficit for the euro area as a whole is much lower and the euro area's government debt/GDP ratio of 86% in 2010 was about the same level as that of the United States. "Moreover", they write, "private-sector indebtedness across the euro area as a whole is markedly lower than in the highly leveraged Anglo-Saxon economies". The authors conclude that the crisis "is as much political as economic" and the result of the fact that the euro area lacks the support of "institutional paraphernalia (and mutual bonds of solidarity) of a state".


title: Euro

text: The crisis continued with S&P downgrading the credit rating of nine euro-area countries, including France, then downgrading the entire European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) fund.


title: Euro

text: A historical parallel – to 1931 when Germany was burdened with debt, unemployment and austerity while France and the United States were relatively strong creditors – gained attention in summer 2012 even as Germany received a debt-rating warning of its own. In the enduring of this scenario the euro serves as a mean of quantitative primitive accumulation.


title: Euro

text: The euro is the sole currency of 19 EU member states: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. These countries constitute the "eurozone", some 343 million people in total . According to bilateral agreements with the EU, the euro has also been designated as the sole and official currency in a further four European microstates awarded minting rights (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City). With all but one (Denmark) EU members obliged to join when economic conditions permit, together with future members of the EU, the enlargement of the eurozone is set to continue.


title: Euro

text: The euro is also the sole currency in three overseas territories of France that are not themselves part of the EU, namely Saint Barthélemy, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, as well as in the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.


title: Euro

text: Moreover, it has also been adopted unilaterally as the sole currency of Montenegro and Kosovo. The euro has also been used as a foreign trading currency in Cuba since 1998, Syria since 2006, and Venezuela since 2018. In 2009, Zimbabwe abandoned its local currency and introduced major global convertible currencies instead, including the euro and the United States dollar. The direct usage of the euro outside of the official framework of the EU affects nearly 3 million people.


title: Euro

text: Outside the eurozone, several EU member states have currencies that are pegged to the euro, which is a precondition to joining the eurozone. The Danish krone, Croatian kuna, and Bulgarian lev are pegged due to their participation in the ERM II.


title: Euro

text: Additionally, a total of 21 countries and territories that do not belong to the EU have currencies that are directly pegged to the euro including 14 countries in mainland Africa (CFA franc), two African island countries (Comorian franc and Cape Verdean escudo), three French Pacific territories (CFP franc) and two Balkan countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark) and North Macedonia (Macedonian denar). On 1 January 2010, the dobra of São Tomé and Príncipe was officially linked with the euro. Additionally, the Moroccan dirham is tied to a basket of currencies, including the euro and the US dollar, with the euro given the highest weighting.


title: Euro

text: These countries generally had previously implemented a currency peg to one of the major European currencies (e.g. the French franc, Deutsche mark or Portuguese escudo), and when these currencies were replaced by the euro their currencies became pegged to the euro. Pegging a country's currency to a major currency is regarded as a safety measure, especially for currencies of areas with weak economies, as the euro is seen as a stable currency, prevents runaway inflation, and encourages foreign investment due to its stability.


title: Euro

text: In total, , 182 million people in Africa use a currency pegged to the euro, 27 million people outside the eurozone in Europe, and another 545,000 people on Pacific islands.


title: Euro

text: Since 2005, stamps issued by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta have been denominated in euro, although the Order's official currency remains the Maltese scudo. The Maltese scudo itself is pegged to the euro and is only recognised as legal tender within the Order.


title: Euro

text: Since its introduction, the euro has been the second most widely held international reserve currency after the U.S. dollar. The share of the euro as a reserve currency increased from 18% in 1999 to 27% in 2008. Over this period, the share held in U.S. dollar fell from 71% to 64% and that held in RMB fell from 6.4% to 3.3%. The euro inherited and built on the status of the Deutsche Mark as the second most important reserve currency. The euro remains underweight as a reserve currency in advanced economies while overweight in emerging and developing economies: according to the International Monetary Fund the total of euro held as a reserve in the world at the end of 2008 was equal to $1.1 trillion or €850 billion, with a share of 22% of all currency reserves in advanced economies, but a total of 31% of all currency reserves in emerging and developing economies.


title: Euro

text: The possibility of the euro becoming the first international reserve currency has been debated among economists. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave his opinion in September 2007 that it was "absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the US dollar as reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency". In contrast to Greenspan's 2007 assessment, the euro's increase in the share of the worldwide currency reserve basket has slowed considerably since 2007 and since the beginning of the worldwide credit crunch related recession and European sovereign-debt crisis.


title: Euro

text: In economics, an optimum currency area, or region (OCA or OCR), is a geographical region in which it would maximise economic efficiency to have the entire region share a single currency. There are two models, both proposed by Robert Mundell: the stationary expectations model and the international risk sharing model. Mundell himself advocates the international risk sharing model and thus concludes in favour of the euro. However, even before the creation of the single currency, there were concerns over diverging economies. Before the late-2000s recession it was considered unlikely that a state would leave the euro or the whole zone would collapse. However the Greek government-debt crisis led to former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw claiming the eurozone could not last in its current form. Part of the problem seems to be the rules that were created when the euro was set up. John Lanchester, writing for "The New Yorker", explains it:


title: Euro

text: The most obvious benefit of adopting a single currency is to remove the cost of exchanging currency, theoretically allowing businesses and individuals to consummate previously unprofitable trades. For consumers, banks in the eurozone must charge the same for intra-member cross-border transactions as purely domestic transactions for electronic payments (e.g., credit cards, debit cards and cash machine withdrawals).


title: Euro

text: Financial markets on the continent are expected to be far more liquid and flexible than they were in the past. The reduction in cross-border transaction costs will allow larger banking firms to provide a wider array of banking services that can compete across and beyond the eurozone. However, although transaction costs were reduced, some studies have shown that risk aversion has increased during the last 40 years in the Eurozone.


title: Euro

text: Another effect of the common European currency is that differences in prices—in particular in price levels—should decrease because of the law of one price. Differences in prices can trigger arbitrage, i.e., speculative trade in a commodity across borders purely to exploit the price differential. Therefore, prices on commonly traded goods are likely to converge, causing inflation in some regions and deflation in others during the transition. Some evidence of this has been observed in specific eurozone markets.


title: Euro

text: Before the introduction of the euro, some countries had successfully contained inflation, which was then seen as a major economic problem, by establishing largely independent central banks. One such bank was the Bundesbank in Germany; the European Central Bank was modelled on the Bundesbank.


title: Euro

text: The euro has come under criticism due to its regulation, lack of flexibility and rigidity towards sharing member states on issues such as nominal interest rates.


title: Euro

text: Many national and corporate bonds denominated in euro are significantly more liquid and have lower interest rates than was historically the case when denominated in national currencies. While increased liquidity may lower the nominal interest rate on the bond, denominating the bond in a currency with low levels of inflation arguably plays a much larger role. A credible commitment to low levels of inflation and a stable debt reduces the risk that the value of the debt will be eroded by higher levels of inflation or default in the future, allowing debt to be issued at a lower nominal interest rate.


title: Euro

text: Unfortunately, there is also a cost in structurally keeping inflation lower than in the United States, UK, and China. The result is that seen from those countries, the euro has become expensive, making European products increasingly expensive for its largest importers; hence export from the eurozone becomes more difficult.


title: Euro

text: In general, those in Europe who own large amounts of euro are served by high stability and low inflation.


title: Euro

text: A monetary union means states in that union lose the main mechanism of recovery of their international competitiveness by weakening (depreciating) their currency. When wages become too high compared to productivity in exports sector, then these exports become more expensive and they are crowded out from the market within a country and abroad. This drives the fall of employment and output in the exports sector and fall of trade and current account balances. Fall of output and employment in tradable goods sector may be offset by the growth of non-exports sectors, especially in construction and services. Increased purchases abroad and negative current account balance can be financed without a problem as long as credit is cheap. The need to finance trade deficit weakens currency, making exports automatically more attractive in a country and abroad. A state in a monetary union cannot use weakening of currency to recover its international competitiveness. To achieve this a state has to reduce prices, including wages (deflation). This could result in high unemployment and lower incomes as it was during European sovereign-debt crisis.


title: Euro

text: The euro increased price transparency and stimulated cross-border trade. A 2009 consensus from the studies of the introduction of the euro concluded that it has increased trade within the eurozone by 5% to 10%, although one study suggested an increase of only 3% while another estimated 9 to 14%. However, a meta-analysis of all available studies suggests that the prevalence of positive estimates is caused by publication bias and that the underlying effect may be negligible. Although a more recent meta-analysis shows that publication bias decreases over time and that there are positive trade effects from the introduction of the euro, as long as results from before 2010 are taken into account. This may be because of the inclusion of the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and ongoing integration within the EU. Furthermore, older studies accounting for time trend reflecting general cohesion policies in Europe that started before, and continue after implementing the common currency find no effect on trade. These results suggest that other policies aimed at European integration might be the source of observed increase in trade. According to Barry Eichengreen, studies disagree on the magnitude of the effect of the euro on trade, but they agree that it did have an effect.


title: Euro

text: Physical investment seems to have increased by 5% in the eurozone due to the introduction. Regarding foreign direct investment, a study found that the intra-eurozone FDI stocks have increased by about 20% during the first four years of the EMU. Concerning the effect on corporate investment, there is evidence that the introduction of the euro has resulted in an increase in investment rates and that it has made it easier for firms to access financing in Europe. The euro has most specifically stimulated investment in companies that come from countries that previously had weak currencies. A study found that the introduction of the euro accounts for 22% of the investment rate after 1998 in countries that previously had a weak currency.


title: Euro

text: The introduction of the euro has led to extensive discussion about its possible effect on inflation. In the short term, there was a widespread impression in the population of the eurozone that the introduction of the euro had led to an increase in prices, but this impression was not confirmed by general indices of inflation and other studies. A study of this paradox found that this was due to an asymmetric effect of the introduction of the euro on prices: while it had no effect on most goods, it had an effect on cheap goods which have seen their price round up after the introduction of the euro. The study found that consumers based their beliefs on inflation of those cheap goods which are frequently purchased. It has also been suggested that the jump in small prices may be because prior to the introduction, retailers made fewer upward adjustments and waited for the introduction of the euro to do so.


title: Euro

text: One of the advantages of the adoption of a common currency is the reduction of the risk associated with changes in currency exchange rates. It has been found that the introduction of the euro created "significant reductions in market risk exposures for nonfinancial firms both in and outside Europe". These reductions in market risk "were concentrated in firms domiciled in the eurozone and in non-euro firms with a high fraction of foreign sales or assets in Europe".


title: Euro

text: The introduction of the euro increased European financial integration, which helped stimulate growth of a European securities market (bond markets are characterized by economies of scale dynamics). According to a study on this question, it has "significantly reshaped the European financial system, especially with respect to the securities markets [...] However, the real and policy barriers to integration in the retail and corporate banking sectors remain significant, even if the wholesale end of banking has been largely integrated." Specifically, the euro has significantly decreased the cost of trade in bonds, equity, and banking assets within the eurozone. On a global level, there is evidence that the introduction of the euro has led to an integration in terms of investment in bond portfolios, with eurozone countries lending and borrowing more between each other than with other countries. Financial integration made it cheaper for European companies to borrow. Banks, firms and households could also invest more easily outside of their own country, thus creating greater international risk-sharing.


title: Euro

text: As of January 2014, and since the introduction of the euro, interest rates of most member countries (particularly those with a weak currency) have decreased. Some of these countries had the most serious sovereign financing problems.


title: Euro

text: The effect of declining interest rates, combined with excess liquidity continually provided by the ECB, made it easier for banks within the countries in which interest rates fell the most, and their linked sovereigns, to borrow significant amounts (above the 3% of GDP budget deficit imposed on the eurozone initially) and significantly inflate their public and private debt levels. Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, governments in these countries found it necessary to bail out or nationalise their privately held banks to prevent systemic failure of the banking system when underlying hard or financial asset values were found to be grossly inflated and sometimes so nearly worthless there was no liquid market for them. This further increased the already high levels of public debt to a level the markets began to consider unsustainable, via increasing government bond interest rates, producing the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis.


title: Euro

text: The evidence on the convergence of prices in the eurozone with the introduction of the euro is mixed. Several studies failed to find any evidence of convergence following the introduction of the euro after a phase of convergence in the early 1990s. Other studies have found evidence of price convergence, in particular for cars. A possible reason for the divergence between the different studies is that the processes of convergence may not have been linear, slowing down substantially between 2000 and 2003, and resurfacing after 2003 as suggested by a recent study (2009).


title: Euro

text: A study suggests that the introduction of the euro has had a positive effect on the amount of tourist travel within the EMU, with an increase of 6.5%.


title: Euro

text: The ECB targets interest rates rather than exchange rates and in general, does not intervene on the foreign exchange rate markets. This is because of the implications of the Mundell–Fleming model, which implies a central bank cannot (without capital controls) maintain interest rate and exchange rate targets simultaneously, because increasing the money supply results in a depreciation of the currency. In the years following the Single European Act, the EU has liberalised its capital markets and, as the ECB has inflation targeting as its monetary policy, the exchange-rate regime of the euro is floating.


title: Euro

text: The euro is the second-most widely held reserve currency after the U.S. dollar. After its introduction on 4 January 1999 its exchange rate against the other major currencies fell reaching its lowest exchange rates in 2000 (3 May vs sterling, 25 October vs the U.S. dollar, 26 October vs Japanese yen). Afterwards it regained and its exchange rate reached its historical highest point in 2008 (15 July vs US dollar, 23 July vs Japanese yen, 29 December vs sterling). With the advent of the global financial crisis the euro initially fell, to regain later. Despite pressure due to the European sovereign-debt crisis the euro remained stable. In November 2011 the euro's exchange rate index – measured against currencies of the bloc's major trading partners – was trading almost two percent higher on the year, approximately at the same level as it was before the crisis kicked off in 2007. In mid July, 2022, the euro equalled the US dollar for a short period of time.


title: Euro

text: Besides the economic motivations to the introduction of the euro, its creation was also partly justified as a way to foster a closer sense of joint identity between European citizens. Statements about this goal were for instance made by Wim Duisenberg, European Central Bank Governor, in 1998, Laurent Fabius, French Finance Minister, in 2000, and Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, in 2002. However, 15 years after the introduction of the euro, a study found no evidence that it has had a positive influence on a shared sense of European identity (and no evidence that it had a negative effect either).


title: Euro

text: The formal titles of the currency are "euro" for the major unit and "cent" for the minor (one-hundredth) unit and for official use in most eurozone languages; according to the ECB, all languages should use the same spelling for the nominative singular. This may contradict normal rules for word formation in some languages, e.g., those in which there is no "eu" diphthong.


title: Euro

text: Bulgaria has negotiated an exception; "euro" in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is spelled eвро ("evro") and not eуро ("euro") in all official documents. In the Greek script the term ευρώ (evró) is used; the Greek "cent" coins are denominated in λεπτό/ά (leptó/á). Official practice for English-language EU legislation is to use the words euro and cent as both singular and plural, although the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation states that the plural forms "euros" and "cents" should be used in English.


title: Euro

text: The word 'euro' is pronounced differently according to pronunciation rules in the individual languages applied; in German , in English , in French , etc.


title: Euro

text: For local phonetics, cent, use of plural and amount formatting (€6,00 or 6.00 €), see Language and the euro.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Lauren Keyana Palmer (born August 26, 1993), better known as Keke Palmer ( ), is an American actress and singer. Known for playing leading and character roles on stage and screen, she has received a Primetime Emmy Award, five NAACP Image Awards, and nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. "Time" magazine included her on their list of most influential people in the world in 2019.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Palmer made her acting debut in "" (2004). She later appeared in the television film "The Wool Cap" (2004), and had her breakthrough starring in the drama film "Akeelah and the Bee" (2006). Her debut studio album, "So Uncool", was released in 2007, and she progressed as a child actress with roles in "Madea's Family Reunion" (2006), "Jump In!" (2007), "The Longshots" (2008) and "Shrink" (2009).


title: Keke Palmer

text: Palmer played a number of roles on Nickelodeon, such as the title character in the sitcom "True Jackson, VP" (2008–2011), providing the voice of Aisha in the Nickelodeon revival of "Winx Club" (2011–2014), and headlining the television film "Rags" (2012). Palmer made her transition to mature roles with the VH1 biographical film "" (2013). From 2014 to 2015 she starred as Ella in "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella" on Broadway. She has since starred in television series such as the Fox satirical horror series "Scream Queens" (2015–2016), the Epix drama series "Berlin Station" (2017–2019), the slasher series "Scream" (2019), and the Facebook Watch series "Turnt Up with the Taylors" (2021) for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award. She also starred in films such as "Animal" (2014), "Hustlers" (2019) and Jordan Peele's "Nope" (2022).


title: Keke Palmer

text: Since "So Uncool", Palmer has released three extended plays: "Lauren" (2016), "Virgo Tendencies, Pt. 1" (2019) and "Virgo Tendencies, Pt. 2" (2020). She hosted the talk show "Just Keke" (2014) and co-hosted the talk show "Strahan, Sara and Keke" (2019–2020), the latter earning her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Lauren Keyana Palmer was born on August 26, 1993, in Harvey, Illinois and raised in nearby Robbins, Illinois. She grew up in a Catholic household. Her parents, Sharon and Lawrence "Larry" Palmer, who met in drama school, had both worked as professional actors before settling into full-time jobs. Her father works for a polyurethane company, and her mother is a high school teacher who works with autistic children. Her father also volunteers as a Catholic deacon. The nickname "Keke" is not a shortening of "Keyana": according to Palmer, her name came about because her older sister had an imaginary friend named Keke before she was born. Palmer first sang in a church and performed at a stage show at a Chicago tourist destination. In 2002, Palmer auditioned for a stage production of "The Lion King" at age nine.


title: Keke Palmer

text: In 2004, she gained her first film role in "". In 2005, Palmer signed a record deal with Atlantic Records. That same year, she was featured in the television film "Knights of the South Bronx", as well as starring in the television series "Second Time Around" and "ER". That same year, producer Ralph Farquhar helped Palmer book the starring role in a Disney Channel pilot titled "Keke and Jamal". The pilot was not picked up, and never aired.


title: Keke Palmer

text: In 2006, Palmer had her acting breakthrough starring in the film "Akeelah and the Bee", playing the titular Akeelah, a bright 11-year-old who comes from a poor neighborhood and competes in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Moira Macdonald of "The Seattle Times" wrote that Palmer "makes an appealing heroine". For the role, she won a Black Reel Award and an NAACP Image Award. She also had a supporting role in the 2006 film "Madea's Family Reunion". The following year, Palmer appeared in the thriller "Cleaner". She portrayed a lead role in the television film "Jump In!" Palmer also starred in two television programs "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" and "Just Jordan". Palmer released her debut album "So Uncool" on September 18, 2007. The album charted at number 86 on the US "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.


title: Keke Palmer

text: In 2008, Palmer began her starring role as the title character in Nickelodeon sitcom "True Jackson, VP". Palmer also wrote and performed the theme song for the series. Palmer earned $20,000 per episode of "True Jackson, VP", which made her the fourth-highest-paid child star on television. In July 2009, designer Jane Siskin created a Walmart fashion line inspired by "True Jackson, VP", with all the designs being approved by Palmer. She also played the lead role in the 2008 film "The Longshots". "True Jackson, VP" ended in 2011. Palmer debuted as the voice of Aisha in Nickelodeon's revival of "Winx Club". She received an NAACP Image Award nomination for her voiceover work. In 2012, Palmer starred in the film "Joyful Noise", released in January 2012. She produced and starred in "Rags", a television musical film, as well as voiced Peaches in "". In July 2012, Palmer released the single "You Got Me" featuring Kevin McCall. The video for the single was released on July 11, 2012. She released a self-titled mixtape "Keke Palmer" on October 1, 2012.


title: Keke Palmer

text: In 2013, Palmer portrayed Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas in the TLC biopic, "", which aired in October on VH1. She next starred in the horror film "Animal"; it was released on June 17, 2014. She then recurred during the second season of Showtime's drama series "Masters of Sex", portraying Coral, a nanny. That same year, Palmer hosted a daytime talk show on BET titled "Just Keke". In doing so, she became one of the youngest talk show hosts in television history; the show itself has been regarded as "groundbreaking" and "refreshing". In September 2014, Palmer became the first African American to star as the title character in the musical "Cinderella" on Broadway. She performed her final show during the closing night of the show's run on January 4, 2015. Later that year, Palmer announced that she had signed with Island Records.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Between September 2015 and December 2016, she starred as Zayday Williams in the horror comedy series "Scream Queens", created by Ryan Murphy. In January 2016, Palmer starred as Marty Maraschino in the television special "". "Rolling Stone"s Britany Spanos regarded Palmer's performance "a standout" and highlighted her "assertiveness, confidence and biting sense of humor". In June, Palmer released "Waited to Exhale", an album she wrote during her time on "True Jackson, VP" that went unreleased due to label issues and her "anxiety-driven hesitance". On November 4, Palmer released her second extended play, titled "Lauren", with a 17-minute short film of the same name being released exclusively on "Billboard"s website. In 2017, Palmer released her memoir, "I Don't Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice". That same year, she joined the drama series "Berlin Station" during its second season.


title: Keke Palmer

text: In April 2019, Palmer began guest co-hosting ABC's daytime talk show "Strahan and Sara", sporadically filling in for co-host Michael Strahan and more regularly beginning in June during co-host Sara Haines's maternity leave. She joined the slasher television series "Scream" as a series regular in its third season, portraying a character named Kym Johnson, which premiered on July 8, 2019. On August 26, Palmer became a third permanent co-host of "Strahan and Sara", which was then re-titled "Strahan, Sara and Keke". In September, Palmer starred as a "lovestruck stripper" in the crime drama film "Hustlers", directed by Lorene Scafaria. She sang the song "Giants" as part of a virtual group named True Damage, in which she voices a character named Senna, in the video game "League of Legends" for the 2019 World Championship. The song features singers Becky G and Soyeon as well as rappers Duckwrth and Thutmose as the other group members. In November, True Damage performed the song live during the opening ceremony of the finals.


title: Keke Palmer

text: "Strahan, Sara and Keke" ended unexpectedly in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic ended live studio programming through the industry, and ABC decided to shift the timeslot towards news. Palmer later received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host alongside Haines and Strahan. That same year, Palmer began starring in a web television comedy series titled "Turnt Up with the Taylors", in which she portrays all of the characters. She released an extended play titled "Virgo Tendencies, Pt. 1" on August 28. On August 30, Palmer hosted the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, during which she also performed her song "Snack". She released a follow-up EP"Virgo Tendencies, Pt. 2"in December 2020. The following year, Palmer won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for her performance in "Turnt Up with the Taylors". In the same year, Palmer briefly hosted a reboot of the classic 90's MTV dating show "Singled Out" with Joel Kim Booster as her co-host for the short-lived online streaming service network Quibi.


title: Keke Palmer

text: In 2021, Palmer hosted the reality competition series "Foodtastic" for Disney+. In 2022, Palmer starred in "Alice", directed by Krystin Ver Linden, which had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. She also served as narrator on "Not So Pretty", a documentary investigating the beauty industry directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering for HBO Max. Palmer voiced the character of Izzy Hawthorne in the Pixar animated film "Lightyear", a spinoff of the "Toy Story" film series.


title: Keke Palmer

text: That same year she starred as Emerald Haywood in the Jordan Peele-directed science-fiction horror "Nope" for which she received critical attention; her performance won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2022 Palmer debuted as host of an NBC reboot of the game show "Password", with Jimmy Fallon as executive producer/permanent celebrity guest.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Palmer works with the Boys' and Girls' Clubs of the American charity Cool To Be Smart program, speaking to children about the importance of learning. She is also a supporter of Urban Farming and the Girl Scouts. She has worked with the YWCA and Saving Our Daughters. As of 2010, Palmer has been a representative for the Saving Our Daughters project, an anti-bullying campaign.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Palmer was included in the "Time"s 100 Next list in November 2019, which "spotlights 100 rising stars who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, science, health and more." She is a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2020, she marched in Hollywood, California, as part of the George Floyd protests. That same year, she addressed the movement during her opening monologue at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Palmer's first studio album, "So Uncool", was heavily influenced by contemporary R&B, being described as "bright, bouncy, and melodic enough to appeal to teens and pre-teens. Fans of dancey teen pop will want to give this auspicious debut a listen". Palmer was influenced by American R&B singers Ciara, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Aaliyah, Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, as well as girl group TLC. Among her urban influences, Palmer also cites pop artists Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne.


title: Keke Palmer

text: She has said she does not want her sexuality defined by labels and said that people should be fluid with labelling themselves, as their identities can change.


title: Keke Palmer

text: Palmer has struggled with anxiety and depression. In 2019, as part of the #YouKnowMe campaign, she shared via Twitter that she had an abortion at the age of 24. Palmer has been dealing with polycystic ovary syndrome her entire life.


title: Keke Palmer

text: While hosting "Saturday Night Live" on December 3, 2022, Palmer announced she was pregnant with her first baby with boyfriend Darius Jackson.


title: Vatican City

text: Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State (; ), is an independent city-state, microstate and enclave within Rome, Italy. Also known as The Vatican, the state became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity of international law, which maintains the city state's temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. With an area of and a 2019 population of about 453, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and population. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (13091377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere. The Vatican is also a metonym for the Holy See.


title: Vatican City

text: The Holy See dates back to Early Christianity and is the principal episcopal see of the Catholic Church, which has approximately 1.329 billion baptized Catholics in the world in the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. The independent state of Vatican City, on the other hand, came into existence on 11 February 1929 by the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, which spoke of it as a new creation, not as a vestige of the much larger Papal States (756–1870), which had previously encompassed much of central Italy.


title: Vatican City

text: Vatican City contains religious and cultural sites such as St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. The unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by donations from the faithful, by the sale of postage stamps and souvenirs, fees for admission to museums, and sales of publications. Vatican City has no taxes and items are duty-free.


title: Vatican City

text: The name "" was first used in the Lateran Treaty, signed on 11 February 1929, which established the modern city-state named after Vatican Hill, the geographic location of the state within the city of Rome. "Vatican" is derived from the name of an Etruscan settlement, or , located in the general area the Romans called "Ager Vaticanus", "Vatican territory".


title: Vatican City

text: The Italian name of the city is or, more formally, , meaning 'Vatican City State'. Its Latin name is ""; this is used in official documents by the Holy See, the Church and the Pope.


title: Vatican City

text: The name "Vatican" was already in use in the time of the Roman Republic for the "Ager Vaticanus", a marshy area on the west bank of the Tiber across from the city of Rome, located between the Janiculum, the Vatican Hill and Monte Mario, down to the Aventine Hill and up to the confluence of the Cremera creek.


title: Vatican City

text: Because of its vicinity to Rome's archenemy, the Etruscan city of Veii (another naming for the "Ager Vaticanus" was "Ripa Veientana" or "Ripa Etrusca"), and for being subjected to the floods of the Tiber, the Romans considered this originally uninhabited part of Rome dismal and ominous.


title: Vatican City

text: The particularly low quality of Vatican wine, even after the reclamation of the area, was commented on by the poet Martial (40 – between AD 102 and 104). Tacitus wrote that in AD 69, the Year of the Four Emperors, when the northern army that brought Vitellius to power arrived in Rome, "a large proportion camped in the unhealthy districts of the Vatican, which resulted in many deaths among the common soldiery; and the Tiber being close by,q the inability of the Gauls and Germans to bear the heat and the consequent greed with which they drank from the stream weakened their bodies, which were already an easy prey to disease".


title: Vatican City

text: The toponym "Ager Vaticanus" is attested until the 1st century AD: afterwards, another toponym appeared, "Vaticanus", denoting an area much more restricted: the Vatican Hill, today's St. Peter's Square, and possibly today's Via della Conciliazione.


title: Vatican City

text: Under the Roman Empire, many villas were constructed there, after Agrippina the Elder (14 BC–18 October AD 33) drained the area and laid out her gardens in the early 1st century AD. In AD 40, her son, Emperor Caligula (31 August AD 12–24 January AD 41; r. 37–41) built in her gardens a circus for charioteers (AD 40) that was later completed by Nero, the , usually called, simply, the Circus of Nero.


title: Vatican City

text: The Vatican Obelisk was originally taken by Caligula from Heliopolis in Egypt to decorate the "spina" of his circus and is thus its last visible remnant. This area became the site of martyrdom of many Christians after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. Ancient tradition holds that it was in this circus that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down.


title: Vatican City

text: Opposite the circus was a cemetery separated by the Via Cornelia. Funeral monuments and mausoleums, and small tombs, as well as altars to pagan gods of all kinds of polytheistic religions, were constructed lasting until before the construction of the Constantinian Basilica of St. Peter in the first half of the 4th century. A shrine dedicated to the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis remained active long after the ancient Basilica of St. Peter was built nearby.


title: Vatican City

text: Remains of this ancient necropolis were brought to light sporadically during renovations by various popes throughout the centuries, increasing in frequency during the Renaissance until it was systematically excavated by orders of Pope Pius XII from 1939 to 1941. The Constantinian basilica was built in 326 over what was believed to be the tomb of Saint Peter, buried in that cemetery.


title: Vatican City

text: From then on, the area became more populated in connection with activity at the basilica. A palace was constructed nearby as early as the 5th century during the pontificate of Pope Symmachus (reigned 498–514).


title: Vatican City

text: Popes gradually came to have a secular role as governors of regions near Rome. They ruled the Papal States, which covered a large portion of the Italian peninsula, for more than a thousand years until the mid-19th century, when all the territory belonging to the papacy was seized by the newly created Kingdom of Italy.


title: Vatican City

text: For most of this time, the popes did not live at the Vatican. The Lateran Palace, on the opposite side of Rome, was their habitual residence for about a thousand years. From 1309 to 1377, they lived at Avignon in France. On their return to Rome, they chose to live at the Vatican. They moved to the Quirinal Palace in 1583, after work on it was completed under Pope Paul V (1605–1621), but on the capture of Rome in 1870 retired to the Vatican, and what had been their residence became that of the King of Italy.