title: Shamanism

text: Anthropologist Mihály Hoppál also discusses whether the term "shamanism" is appropriate. He notes that for many readers, "-ism" implies a particular dogma, like Buddhism or Judaism. He recommends using the term "shamanhood" or "shamanship" (a term used in old Russian and German ethnographic reports at the beginning of the 20th century) for stressing the diversity and the specific features of the discussed cultures. He believes that this places more stress on the local variations and emphasizes that shamanism is not a religion of sacred dogmas, but linked to the everyday life in a practical way. Following similar thoughts, he also conjectures a contemporary paradigm shift. Piers Vitebsky also mentions that, despite really astonishing similarities, there is no unity in shamanism. The various, fragmented shamanistic practices and beliefs coexist with other beliefs everywhere. There is no record of pure shamanistic societies (although their existence is not impossible). Norwegian social anthropologist Hakan Rydving has likewise argued for the abandonment of the terms "shaman" and "shamanism" as "scientific illusions."


title: Shamanism

text: Dulam Bumochir has affirmed the above critiques of "shamanism" as a Western construct created for comparative purposes and, in an extensive article, has documented the role of Mongols themselves, particularly "the partnership of scholars and shamans in the reconstruction of shamanism" in post-1990/post-communist Mongolia. This process has also been documented by Swiss anthropologist Judith Hangartner in her landmark study of Darhad shamans in Mongolia. Historian Karena Kollmar-Polenz argues that the social construction and reification of shamanism as a religious "other" actually began with the 18th-century writings of Tibetan Buddhist monks in Mongolia and later "probably influenced the formation of European discourse on Shamanism".


title: Shamanism

text: Shamanism is a system of religious practice. Historically, it is often associated with Indigenous and tribal societies, and involves belief that shamans, with a connection to the otherworld, have the power to heal the sick, communicate with spirits, and escort souls of the dead to the afterlife. The origins of Shamanism stem from indigenous peoples of far northern Europe and Siberia.


title: Shamanism

text: Despite structural implications of colonialism and imperialism that have limited the ability of Indigenous peoples to practice traditional spiritualities, many communities are undergoing resurgence through self-determination and the reclamation of dynamic traditions. Other groups have been able to avoid some of these structural impediments by virtue of their isolation, such as the nomadic Tuvan (with an estimated population of 3000 people surviving from this tribe). Tuva is one of the most isolated Asiatic tribes in Russia where the art of shamanism has been preserved until today due to its isolated existence, allowing it to be free from the influences of other major religions.


title: Shamanism

text: There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world, but several common beliefs are shared by all forms of shamanism. Common beliefs identified by Eliade (1972) are the following:


title: Shamanism

text: As Alice Kehoe notes, Eliade's conceptualization of shamans produces a universalist image of Indigenous cultures, which perpetuates notions of the dead (or dying) Indian as well as the noble savage.


title: Shamanism

text: Shamanism is based on the premise that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits which affect the lives of the living. Although the causes of disease lie in the spiritual realm, inspired by malicious spirits, both spiritual and physical methods are used to heal. Commonly, a shaman "enters the body" of the patient to confront the spiritual infirmity and heals by banishing the infectious spirit.


title: Shamanism

text: Many shamans have expert knowledge of medicinal plants native to their area, and an herbal treatment is often prescribed. In many places shamans learn directly from the plants, harnessing their effects and healing properties, after obtaining permission from the indwelling or patron spirits. In the Peruvian Amazon Basin, shamans and "curanderos" use medicine songs called "icaros" to evoke spirits. Before a spirit can be summoned it must teach the shaman its song. The use of totemic items such as rocks with special powers and an animating spirit is common.


title: Shamanism

text: Such practices are presumably very ancient. Plato wrote in his "Phaedrus" that the "first prophecies were the words of an oak", and that those who lived at that time found it rewarding enough to "listen to an oak or a stone, so long as it was telling the truth".


title: Shamanism

text: Belief in witchcraft and sorcery, known as "brujería" in Latin America, exists in many societies. Other societies assert all shamans have the power to both cure and kill. Those with shamanic knowledge usually enjoy great power and prestige in the community, but they may also be regarded suspiciously or fearfully as potentially harmful to others.


title: Shamanism

text: By engaging in their work, a shaman is exposed to significant personal risk as shamanic plant materials can be toxic or fatal if misused. Spells are commonly used in an attempt to protect against these dangers, and the use of more dangerous plants is often very highly ritualized.


title: Shamanism

text: Generally, shamans traverse the axis mundi and enter the "spirit world" by effecting a transition of consciousness, entering into an ecstatic trance, either autohypnotically or through the use of entheogens or ritual performances. The methods employed are diverse, and are often used together.


title: Shamanism

text: An entheogen ("generating the divine within") is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Entheogens have been used in a ritualized context, in a number of different cultures, possibly for thousands of years. Examples of substances used by some cultures as entheogens include: peyote, "Echinopsis pachanoi", psilocybin and Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) mushrooms, uncured tobacco, cannabis, ayahuasca, "Salvia divinorum", and iboga.


title: Shamanism

text: Entheogens also have a substantial history of commodification, especially in the realm of spiritual tourism. For instance, countries such as Brazil and Peru have faced an influx of tourists since the psychedelic era beginning in the late 1960s, initiating what has been termed "ayahuasca tourism."


title: Shamanism

text: Just like shamanism itself, music and songs related to it in various cultures are diverse. In several instances, songs related to shamanism are intended to imitate natural sounds, via onomatopoeia.


title: Shamanism

text: Sound mimesis in various cultures may serve other functions not necessarily related to shamanism: practical goals such as luring game in the hunt; or entertainment (Inuit throat singing).


title: Shamanism

text: Shamans often claim to have been called through dreams or signs. However, some say their powers are inherited. In traditional societies shamanic training varies in length, but generally takes years.


title: Shamanism

text: Turner and colleagues mention a phenomenon called "shamanistic initiatory crisis", a rite of passage for shamans-to-be, commonly involving physical illness or psychological crisis. The significant role of initiatory illnesses in the calling of a shaman can be found in the case history of Chuonnasuan, who was one of the last shamans among the Tungus peoples in Northeast China.


title: Shamanism

text: The wounded healer is an archetype for a shamanic trial and journey. This process is important to young shamans. They undergo a type of sickness that pushes them to the brink of death. This is said to happen for two reasons:


title: Shamanism

text: Shamans have been conceptualized as those who are able to gain knowledge and power to heal in the spiritual world or dimension. Most shamans have dreams or visions that convey certain messages. Shamans may claim to have or have acquired many spirit guides, who they believe guide and direct them in their travels in the spirit world. These spirit guides are always thought to be present within the shaman, although others are said to encounter them only when the shaman is in a trance. The spirit guide energizes the shamans, enabling them to enter the spiritual dimension. Shamans claim to heal within the communities and the spiritual dimension by returning lost parts of the human soul from wherever they have gone. Shamans also claim to cleanse excess negative energies, which are said to confuse or pollute the soul.


title: Shamanism

text: Shamans act as mediators in their cultures. Shamans claim to communicate with the spirits on behalf of the community, including the spirits of the deceased. Shamans believe they can communicate with both living and dead to alleviate unrest, unsettled issues, and to deliver gifts to the spirits.


title: Shamanism

text: Among the Selkups, the sea duck is a spirit animal. Ducks fly in the air and dive in the water and are thus believed to belong to both the upper world and the world below. Among other Siberian peoples, these characteristics are attributed to waterfowl in general. The upper world is the afterlife primarily associated with deceased humans and is believed to be accessed by soul journeying through a portal in the sky. The lower world or "world below" is the afterlife primarily associated with animals and is believed to be accessed by soul journeying through a portal in the earth. In shamanic cultures, many animals are regarded as spirit animals.


title: Shamanism

text: Shamans perform a variety of functions depending upon their respective cultures; healing, leading a sacrifice, preserving traditions by storytelling and songs, fortune-telling, and acting as a psychopomp ("guide of souls"). A single shaman may fulfill several of these functions.


title: Shamanism

text: The functions of a shaman may include either guiding to their proper abode the souls of the dead (which may be guided either one-at-a-time or in a group, depending on the culture), and the curing of ailments. The ailments may be either purely physical afflictions—such as disease, which are claimed to be cured by gifting, flattering, threatening, or wrestling the disease-spirit (sometimes trying all these, sequentially), and which may be completed by displaying a supposedly extracted token of the disease-spirit (displaying this, even if "fraudulent", is supposed to impress the disease-spirit that it has been, or is in the process of being, defeated so that it will retreat and stay out of the patient's body), or else mental (including psychosomatic) afflictions—such as persistent terror, which is likewise believed to be cured by similar methods. In most languages a different term other than the one translated "shaman" is usually applied to a religious official leading sacrificial rites ("priest"), or to a raconteur ("sage") of traditional lore; there may be more of an overlap in functions (with that of a shaman), however, in the case of an interpreter of omens or of dreams.


title: Shamanism

text: There are distinct types of shamans who perform more specialized functions. For example, among the Nani people, a distinct kind of shaman acts as a psychopomp. Other specialized shamans may be distinguished according to the type of spirits, or realms of the spirit world, with which the shaman most commonly interacts. These roles vary among the Nenets, Enets, and Selkup shamans.


title: Shamanism

text: The assistant of an Oroqen shaman (called "jardalanin", or "second spirit") knows many things about the associated beliefs. He or she accompanies the rituals and interprets the behaviors of the shaman. Despite these functions, the "jardalanin" is not a shaman. For this interpretative assistant, it would be unwelcome to fall into a trance.


title: Shamanism

text: Among the Tucano people, a sophisticated system exists for environmental resources management and for avoiding resource depletion through overhunting. This system is conceptualized mythologically and symbolically by the belief that breaking hunting restrictions may cause illness. As the primary teacher of tribal symbolism, the shaman may have a leading role in this ecological management, actively restricting hunting and fishing. The shaman is able to "release" game animals, or their souls, from their hidden abodes. The Piaroa people have ecological concerns related to shamanism. Among the Inuit the "angakkuq" (shamans) fetch the souls of game from remote places, or soul travel to ask for game from mythological beings like the Sea Woman.


title: Shamanism

text: The way shamans get sustenance and take part in everyday life varies across cultures. In many Inuit groups, they provide services for the community and get a "due payment", and believe the payment is given to the helping spirits. An account states that the gifts and payments that a shaman receives are given by his partner spirit. Since it obliges the shaman to use his gift and to work regularly in this capacity, the spirit rewards him with the goods that it receives. These goods, however, are only "welcome addenda". They are not enough to enable a full-time shaman. Shamans live like any other member of the group, as a hunter or housewife. Due to the popularity of ayahuasca tourism in South America, there are practitioners in areas frequented by backpackers who make a living from leading ceremonies.


title: Shamanism

text: There are two major frameworks among cognitive and evolutionary scientists for explaining shamanism. The first, proposed by anthropologist Michael Winkelman, is known as the "neurotheological theory". According to Winkelman, shamanism develops reliably in human societies because it provides valuable benefits to the practitioner, their group, and individual clients. In particular, the trance states induced by dancing, hallucinogens, and other triggers are hypothesized to have an "integrative" effect on cognition, allowing communication among mental systems that specialize in theory of mind, social intelligence, and natural history. With this cognitive integration, the shaman can better predict the movement of animals, resolve group conflicts, plan migrations, and provide other useful services.


title: Shamanism

text: The neurotheological theory contrasts with the "by-product" or "subjective" model of shamanism developed by Harvard anthropologist Manvir Singh. According to Singh, shamanism is a cultural technology that adapts to (or hacks) our psychological biases to convince us that a specialist can influence important but uncontrollable outcomes. Citing work on the psychology of magic and superstition, Singh argues that humans search for ways of influencing uncertain events, such as healing illness, controlling rain, or attracting animals. As specialists compete to help their clients control these outcomes, they drive the evolution of psychologically compelling magic, producing traditions adapted to people's cognitive biases. Shamanism, Singh argues, is the culmination of this cultural evolutionary process—a psychologically appealing method for controlling uncertainty. For example, some shamanic practices exploit our intuitions about humanness: Practitioners use trance and dramatic initiations to seemingly become entities distinct from normal humans and thus more apparently capable of interacting with the invisible forces believed to oversee important outcomes. Influential cognitive and anthropological scientists such as Pascal Boyer and Nicholas Humphrey have endorsed Singh's approach, although other researchers have criticized Singh's dismissal of individual- and group-level benefits.


title: Shamanism

text: David Lewis-Williams explains the origins of shamanic practice, and some of its precise forms, through aspects of human consciousness evinced in cave art and LSD experiments alike.


title: Shamanism

text: Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff relates these concepts to developments in the ways that modern science (systems theory, ecology, new approaches in anthropology and archeology) treats causality in a less linear fashion. He also suggests a cooperation of modern science and Indigenous lore.


title: Shamanism

text: Shamanic practices may originate as early as the Paleolithic, predating all organized religions, and certainly as early as the Neolithic period. The earliest known undisputed burial of a shaman (and by extension the earliest undisputed evidence of shamans and shamanic practices) dates back to the early Upper Paleolithic era (c. 30,000 BP) in what is now the Czech Republic.


title: Shamanism

text: Sanskrit scholar and comparative mythologist Michael Witzel proposes that all of the world's mythologies, and also the concepts and practices of shamans, can be traced to the migrations of two prehistoric populations: the "Gondwana" type (of circa 65,000 years ago) and the "Laurasian" type (of circa 40,000 years ago).


title: Shamanism

text: In November 2008, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced the discovery of a 12,000-year-old site in Israel that is perceived as one of the earliest-known shaman burials. The elderly woman had been arranged on her side, with her legs apart and folded inward at the knee. Ten large stones were placed on the head, pelvis, and arms. Among her unusual grave goods were 50 complete tortoise shells, a human foot, and certain body parts from animals such as a cow tail and eagle wings. Other animal remains came from a boar, leopard, and two martens. "It seems that the woman … was perceived as being in a close relationship with these animal spirits", researchers noted. The grave was one of at least 28 graves at the site, located in a cave in lower Galilee and belonging to the Natufian culture, but is said to be unlike any other among the Epipaleolithic Natufians or in the Paleolithic period.


title: Shamanism

text: A debated etymology of the word "shaman" is "one who knows", implying, among other things, that the shaman is an expert in keeping together the multiple codes of the society, and that to be effective, shamans must maintain a comprehensive view in their mind which gives them certainty of knowledge. According to this view, the shaman uses (and the audience understands) multiple codes, expressing meanings in many ways: verbally, musically, artistically, and in dance. Meanings may be manifested in objects such as amulets. If the shaman knows the culture of their community well, and acts accordingly, their audience will know the used symbols and meanings and therefore trust the shamanic worker.


title: Shamanism

text: There are also semiotic, theoretical approaches to shamanism, and examples of "mutually opposing symbols" in academic studies of Siberian lore, distinguishing a "white" shaman who contacts sky spirits for good aims by day, from a "black" shaman who contacts evil spirits for bad aims by night. (Series of such opposing symbols referred to a world-view behind them. Analogously to the way grammar arranges words to express meanings and convey a world, also this formed a cognitive map). Shaman's lore is rooted in the folklore of the community, which provides a "mythological mental map". Juha Pentikäinen uses the concept ""grammar of mind"".


title: Shamanism

text: Armin Geertz coined and introduced the hermeneutics, or "ethnohermeneutics", interpretation. Hoppál extended the term to include not only the interpretation of oral and written texts, but that of "visual texts as well (including motions, gestures and more complex rituals, and ceremonies performed, for instance, by shamans)". Revealing the animistic views in shamanism, but also their relevance to the contemporary world, where ecological problems have validated paradigms of balance and protection.


title: Shamanism

text: Traditional, Indigenous shamanism is believed to be declining around the world. Whalers who frequently interacted with Inuit groups are one source of this decline in that region.


title: Shamanism

text: In many areas, former shamans ceased to fulfill the functions in the community they used to, as they felt mocked by their own community, or regarded their own past as deprecated and were unwilling to talk about it to ethnographers.


title: Shamanism

text: Besides personal communications of former shamans, folklore texts may narrate directly about a deterioration process. For example, a Buryat epic text details the wonderful deeds of the ancient "first shaman" Kara-Gürgän: he could even compete with God, create life, steal back the soul of the sick from God without his consent. A subsequent text laments that shamans of older times were stronger, possessing capabilities like omnividence, fortune-telling even for decades in the future, moving as fast as a bullet.


title: Shamanism

text: In most affected areas, shamanic practices ceased to exist, with authentic shamans dying and their personal experiences dying with them. The loss of memories is not always lessened by the fact the shaman is not always the only person in a community who knows the beliefs and motives related to the local shaman-hood. Although the shaman is often believed and trusted precisely because they "accommodate" to the beliefs of the community, several parts of the knowledge related to the local shamanhood consist of personal experiences of the shaman, or root in their family life, thus, those are lost with their death. Besides that, in many cultures, the entire traditional belief system has become endangered (often together with a partial or total language shift), with the other people of the community remembering the associated beliefs and practices (or the language at all) grew old or died, many folklore memories songs, and texts were forgotten—which may threaten even such peoples who could preserve their isolation until the middle of the 20th century, like the Nganasan.


title: Shamanism

text: After exemplifying the general decline even in the most remote areas, there are revitalizations or tradition-preserving efforts as a response. Besides collecting the memories, there are also tradition-preserving and even revitalization efforts, led by authentic former shamans (for example among the Sakha people and Tuvans).


title: Shamanism

text: Native Americans in the United States do not call their traditional spiritual ways "shamanism". However, according to Richard L. Allen, research and policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation, they are regularly overwhelmed with inquiries by and about fraudulent shamans, aka ("plastic medicine people"). He adds, "One may assume that anyone claiming to be a Cherokee 'shaman, spiritual healer, or pipe-carrier', is equivalent to a modern day medicine show and snake-oil vendor."


title: Shamanism

text: There are also neoshamanistic movements, which usually differ from traditional shamanistic practice and beliefs in significant ways, and often have more connection to the New Age communities than traditional cultures.


title: Hogwarts

text: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry () is a fictional Scottish boarding school of magic for students aged eleven to eighteen, and is the primary setting for the first six books in J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series and serves as a major setting in the Wizarding World universe.


title: Hogwarts

text: Founded in the 10th century by Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin, Hogwarts was established in the Highlands of Scotland to educate young wizards and witches as well as to keep students safe from muggle persecution. Theory has it that Rowena Ravenclaw came up with the name of Hogwarts after dreaming of a warty hog that led her to a cliff by a lake. Since then, Hogwarts educated most wizarding children with residence in Great Britain and Ireland, keeping its location hidden from other wizarding schools and muggles.


title: Hogwarts

text: About three hundred years after the school was founded, the Triwizard Tournament was established as an interscholastic competition among the three most prestigious magical schools in Europe: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. The tournament continued for six centuries before being discontinued. An attempt was made in the 1994–1995 school year to revive the tournament, but the consequential death of Cedric Diggory resulted in its permanent discontinuation.


title: Hogwarts

text: Hogwarts is a coeducational, secondary boarding school, taking children from ages eleven to seventeen. Education at Hogwarts is not compulsory, with some students being home schooled as stated in the seventh book. Rowling initially said there are about one thousand students at Hogwarts. She later suggested around six hundred, while acknowledging that this number was still inconsistent with the small number of people in Harry's year. She further explained that this had resulted from her creating only 40 characters for Harry's year.


title: Hogwarts

text: According to the novels, admission to Hogwarts is selective, in that children who show magical ability will automatically gain a place, and squibs cannot attend the school as students (though they can work there in other roles, as Argus Filch does). A magical quill at Hogwarts detects the birth of magical children and writes their names into a large parchment book, but there is no admission test because "you are either magical or you are not." Every year, a teacher checks this book and sends a letter to the children who are turning eleven. Acceptance or refusal of a place at Hogwarts must be posted by 31 July. The letter also contains a list of supplies like spell books, uniform, and other things that the student will need. The prospective student is expected to buy all the necessary materials, normally from shops in Diagon Alley, a concealed street near Charing Cross Road in London that can be found behind the wizarding pub, The Leaky Cauldron. Students who cannot afford their supplies can receive financial aid from the school, as happened with the young orphan Tom Riddle.


title: Hogwarts

text: Letters to Muggle-born witches and wizards, who may not be aware of their powers and are unfamiliar with the concealed wizarding world, are delivered in person by a member of Hogwarts staff, who then explains to the parents or guardians about magical society, and reassures them regarding this news.


title: Hogwarts

text: Though the school is in Great Britain, its catchment area is the wider British Isles, as Irish students can also attend.


title: Hogwarts

text: Each student is allowed to bring an owl, a cat or a toad. Along with the acceptance letter, first-year students are sent a list of required equipment which includes a wand, subject books, a standard size 2 pewter cauldron, a set of brass scales, a set of glass or crystal phials, a kit of basic potion ingredients (for Potions), and a telescope (for Astronomy). The Hogwarts uniform consists of plain work robes in black, a plain black hat, a pair of protective gloves, and a black winter cloak with silver fastenings. Each uniform must contain the wearer's nametag. First years are not allowed a broomstick of their own, though an exception to this rule is made for Harry Potter in his first year after he demonstrates an excellent ability as a Seeker in Quidditch.


title: Hogwarts

text: The primary mode of transport to Hogwarts is the Hogwarts Express that students take at the start of each school year. Students board the train from the also fictional and hidden Platform 9¾ at King's Cross station in London. The train arrives at Hogsmeade station near Hogwarts, some time after nightfall.


title: Hogwarts

text: From there, first-year students are accompanied by the "Keeper of the Keys, Game and Grounds" (which was Hagrid during the first novel) to small boats, which magically sail across the lake and get them near the entrance of Hogwarts. The older students ride up to the castle in carriages pulled by creatures called Thestrals. When the first-year students initially arrive at the castle, they wait in a small chamber off the entrance hall until the older students have taken their seats, and then enter the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony to determine their House assignments. As Professor Minerva McGonagall said in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", "The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room."


title: Hogwarts

text: After the Sorting Hat sings a song, each student in turn is seated upon the stool in front of the rest of the student body. The Hat is placed on the student's head, whereupon it examines his or her mind and assigns them to one of the four Houses based on abilities, personality, and preferences. After the Sorting Ceremony, the students and teachers enjoy a feast, prepared by the Hogwarts house-elves. If Dumbledore is feeling cheerful, he will lead the students in singing the school song.


title: Hogwarts

text: Hogwarts is divided into four houses, each bearing the last name of its founder: Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff. Throughout the school year, the houses compete for the House Cup, gaining and losing points based on actions such as performance in class and rule violations. The house with the highest end-of-year total wins and has its colours displayed in the Great Hall for the following school year. Each house also has its own Quidditch team that competes for the Quidditch Cup. These two competitions breed rivalries between the houses. Houses at Hogwarts are living and learning communities for their students. Each house is under the authority of one of the Hogwarts staff members. The Heads of the houses, as they are called, are in charge of giving their students important information, dealing with matters of severe punishment, and responding to emergencies in their houses, among other things. The dormitory and common room of a House are, barring rare exceptions, inaccessible to students belonging to other Houses; however, different houses will share classes as they are based on year group rather than House.


title: Hogwarts

text: In the early days of Hogwarts, the four founders hand-picked students for their Houses. When the founders worried how students would be selected after their deaths, Godric Gryffindor took his hat off and they each added knowledge to it, allowing the Sorting Hat to choose the students by judging each student's qualities and placing them in the most appropriate house. The student's own choices may affect the decision: the clearest example is the Hat telling Harry that he would do well in Slytherin in the first book, but ultimately selecting Gryffindor after Harry asks it not to put him in Slytherin.


title: Hogwarts

text: The translators of the books' foreign editions had difficulty translating the "house" concept; in countries where this system does not exist, no word could adequately convey the importance of belonging to a house, the loyalty owed to it, and the pride taken in prizes won by the house.


title: Hogwarts

text: Gryffindor values courage, bravery, nerve, and chivalry. Gryffindor's mascot is the lion, and its colours are scarlet red and gold (maroon and gold on the ties and scarves). During the books, the Head of this house is the Transfiguration Professor and Deputy Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall until she becomes headmistress, and the house ghost is Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, more commonly known as Nearly Headless Nick. According to Rowling, Gryffindor corresponds roughly to the element of fire. The founder of the house is Godric Gryffindor.


title: Hogwarts

text: The Gryffindor common room is in one of the castle's highest towers, and its entrance is on the seventh floor in the east wing of the castle and is guarded by a painting of The Fat Lady, who is garbed in a pink dress. She permits entry only after being given the correct password, as was established in the third book, when Sirius Black tried forcing entry into the tower, only to be blocked by The Fat Lady after he could not give the correct password. In the first book, Neville Longbottom tends to forget the password and must wait near the painting until other Gryffindors arrive to open the way.


title: Hogwarts

text: Hufflepuff values hard work, patience, justice, and loyalty. The house mascot is the badger, and canary yellow and black (or golden yellow and graphite in the "Fantastic Beasts" films) are its colours. During the books, the Head of this house is the Herbology Professor Pomona Sprout, and the house ghost is the Fat Friar. According to Rowling, Hufflepuff corresponds roughly to the element of earth. The founder of this house is Helga Hufflepuff.


title: Hogwarts

text: The entrance to the Hufflepuff dormitories and common room entrance is concealed in a pile of large barrels in an alcove in the corridor that holds the kitchen. To enter, one must tap the barrel two from the bottom in the middle of the second row in the rhythm of "Helga Hufflepuff". Unlike any other house, the Hufflepuff common room has a repelling device that douses the illegal entrant in vinegar if the wrong lid is tapped or the rhythm is wrong. The Hufflepuff common room is filled with yellow hangings and fat armchairs and it has little tunnels leading to the dormitories, all of which have perfectly round doors, like barrel tops.


title: Hogwarts

text: Ravenclaw values intelligence, learning, wisdom and wit. The house mascot is an eagle and the house colours are blue and bronze (blue and silver in the "Harry Potter" and "Fantastic Beasts" films and on the ties and scarves). During the books, the head of this house is the Charms teacher, Professor Filius Flitwick, and the house ghost is the Grey Lady. According to Rowling, Ravenclaw corresponds roughly to the element of air. The founder of this house is Rowena Ravenclaw.


title: Hogwarts

text: The dormitories are in Ravenclaw Tower, on the west side of Hogwarts. The common room is round and filled with blue hangings and armchairs, has a domed ceiling painted with stars and features a replica statue of Rowena wearing her diadem. Harry also notes that Ravenclaws "have a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains". A logical riddle must be solved to gain entry, whereas the Gryffindor and Slytherin common rooms only require a password. Professor McGonagall, the head of the Gryffindor House, solves the riddle accurately.


title: Hogwarts

text: Slytherin values ambition, cunning, leadership, and resourcefulness; the Sorting Hat said in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" that Slytherins will do anything to get their way. The house mascot of Slytherin is the serpent, and the house colours are green and silver. Throughout the series, until the seventh book, the Head of House is Professor Severus Snape. Then, the previous Head of House Professor Horace Slughorn comes out of retirement, re-assuming authority after Snape becomes headmaster. The ghost of Slytherin house is Bloody Baron. According to Rowling, Slytherin corresponds roughly to the element of water. The founder of this house is Salazar Slytherin.


title: Hogwarts

text: The Slytherin dormitories and common room are reached by speaking a password to a patch of bare stone wall in the dungeons, which causes a hidden door to open. The Slytherin common room is a long, low, dungeon-style room, under the Hogwarts Lake, furnished with green lamps and carved armchairs. The room is described in the second book as having a greenish glow.


title: Hogwarts

text: The Sorting Hat claims that blood purity is a factor in selecting Slytherins, although this is not mentioned until the fifth book. There is no reason to believe, however, that Muggle-born students are not sorted there, merely that pure-blooded students are more desirable to that house, as there are several examples of half-bloods in the house – such as Snape and Tom Riddle/Voldemort – and Harry himself was only excluded from the house at his own insistence. In "Deathly Hallows", a group of Snatchers claim that "not many Mudbloods" are sorted into Slytherin.


title: Hogwarts

text: When believing Harry to be dead and thinking that he has final victory in his grasp, Voldemort proclaims his intention to abolish the other three houses and force all Hogwarts students into Slytherin. This design is foiled by his defeat and death, after which Slytherin becomes more diluted in its blood purity, no longer remaining the pure-blood bastion it once was.


title: Hogwarts

text: Being a school of magic, many subjects at Hogwarts differ from the studies of a typical school. Some subjects, such as History of Magic, derive from non-wizard – or muggle – subjects, but many others, such as charms and apparition classes, are unique to the wizarding world.


title: Hogwarts

text: There are twelve named teachers (referred to as Professors), each specialising in a single subject. All professors are overseen by a school head and deputy head. Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Herbology are compulsory subjects for the first five years, as well as flying lessons. At the end of their second year, students are required to add at least two optional subjects to their syllabus for the start of the third year. The five choices are Arithmancy, Muggle Studies, Divination, Study of Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures. According to J.K. Rowling, "very specialised subjects such as alchemy are sometimes offered in the final two years, if there is sufficient demand."


title: Hogwarts

text: At the end of their fifth year, students take the Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) examinations for all subjects in which they are enrolled. Each examination consists of a written knowledge test and, where applicable, a practical demonstration of skills before a panel of proctors from the Ministry of Magic. Students who achieve a high enough O.W.L. grade in a particular subject may take its advanced course for the final two years, in preparation for the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (N.E.W.T.) given at the end of the seventh year.


title: Hogwarts

text: The day begins at Hogwarts with breakfast in the Great Hall. Students sit at their own House table and can eat and socialise, or finish homework. The Headmaster or Headmistress eats with the professors at the High Table placed at the far end of the hall. During breakfast, owls bring in the students' post, generally consisting of "The Daily Prophet", letters from parents or friends, or packages from home. A bell signals the start of the first class of the morning at 9 am.


title: Hogwarts

text: There are two long morning classes with a short break in between them for students to get to their next class. After lunch, classes resume at 1 pm, and there is a break around afternoon teatime before another class period. The classes are about one hour in length, with occasional double periods lasting two hours. Classes end around five o'clock. First-year students get Friday afternoons off, while sixth- and seventh-year students have several free periods during the week. In the evening, students eat their dinner in the Great Hall, after which they are expected to be in their common rooms. Astronomy classes take place late at night in the Astronomy Tower.


title: Hogwarts

text: The four House dormitories have secret entrances, generally known only to members of that house and require a password (Gryffindor & Slytherin), riddle answer (Ravenclaw) or ritual (Hufflepuff) in order to gain entrance. Inside is the common room, which contains armchairs and sofas for the pupils and tables for studying and homework. There are fireplaces to keep the rooms warm, and students either relax here in the evenings or else complete their homework, but may complete their work in the bedroom. There are notice boards in each common room and at other strategic points throughout the school. The students sleep in their House dormitories, which branch off from the common rooms. Each dormitory gets at least two rooms; one for boys and one for girls (an enchantment prevents boys from entering the girls' area, although there is no spell to prevent the reverse from occurring). Each student sleeps in a large four-poster bed with bed covers and heavy curtains in the House colours, and thick white pillows. There is a bedside table for each bed, and each dormitory has a jug of water and goblets on a tray.


title: Hogwarts

text: On designated weekends, Hogwarts students in their third year or higher, with a signed permission slip, are permitted to walk to the nearby wizarding village of Hogsmeade, where they can relax and enjoy the pubs, restaurants and shops. There appears to be a good relationship between the school and the village, and the students get on well with the locals. Favourite places in Hogsmeade include Honeydukes Sweetshop, Zonko's Joke Shop, clothing stores such as Gladrags Wizardwear, the Shrieking Shack (regarded as the most haunted building in Britain), the pubs The Three Broomsticks and The Hog's Head, and Madam Puddifoot's coffee shop.


title: Hogwarts

text: The house-elves at Hogwarts amongst other duties provide all food to students and staff. They cook a wide variety of dishes especially at the feasts. The various dishes are prepared in the kitchens directly below the Great Hall. Within the kitchen are four long tables directly aligned with the house tables in the great hall above. At meal times the food is magically transported up, appearing directly in front of the students.


title: Hogwarts

text: Apart from losing points from a house, serious misdeeds at Hogwarts are punishable by detention. Whenever a student loses a house point, their house jewels (ruby for Gryffindors, emeralds for Slytherin, sapphires for Ravenclaw, and diamonds for Hufflepuff) are taken away from a glass hourglass located in every classroom. The same goes for adding points to the specific house, although the teacher or prefect must conjure the gems from thin air.


title: Hogwarts

text: According to the school caretaker, Argus Filch, detention meant subjection to various forms of corporal punishment until recently. Arthur Weasley claimed still to bear physical scars inflicted by Apollyon Pringle, Filch's predecessor. In present times, however, detention usually involves assisting staff or faculty with tedious tasks. Examples of detention include the one imposed on Harry by Umbridge in "Order of the Phoenix". In this case, Harry was forced to write, "I must not tell lies" repeatedly using a magical quill which then carves what is written into the back of the writer's hand. However, most teachers at the school never use this cruel punishment. In another case, when Snape caught Harry using the Sectumsempra curse on Draco, he was forced to go through over a thousand boxes of files describing wrongdoers at Hogwarts and their punishments. Harry was supposed to order them in alphabetical order, and rewrite the cards whose words were hard to see or otherwise damaged. The Weasley twins Fred and George had a whole drawer of these cards.


title: Hogwarts

text: For even more serious offences, students may be suspended or even expelled from Hogwarts. Harry and Ron are threatened with expulsion after crashing Ron's car into the Whomping Willow at the start of their second year, and Harry is expelled before the start of his fifth year (although the sentence is quickly changed to a disciplinary hearing) after he is detected using magic in the presence of Muggles, a serious offence among the wizarding community. Dumbledore argued in Harry's defence, stating that it was done in self-defence, and that the Ministry has no authority to expel students – such powers are invested in the Headmaster and the Board of Governors. Snape has attempted to have Harry expelled, and he attempted to have Harry's father, James Potter, expelled when they were at Hogwarts together. The only student known to have been expelled is Hagrid, for the murder of Myrtle with an acromantula believed to be the Monster of Slytherin and for opening the Chamber of Secrets – crimes for which Tom Riddle had framed him.


title: Hogwarts

text: Professors seem to be able to punish students with relative impunity and can hand out detention, even for unsatisfactory grades. Enforcement of rules outside of class mainly falls to the caretaker, with the assistance of the prefects. A student's Head of House usually has the final say in disciplinary matters. However, during Umbridge's tenure at Hogwarts, she quickly obtains the power to have the final say in disciplinary actions, due to an Educational Decree (one of many) passed by Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge.


title: Hogwarts

text: In the summer before their fifth year, two fifth year students from each House are picked to be prefects, which grants them privileges and responsibilities and disciplinary responsibilities. The leaders of the student body, the Head Boy and Head Girl, are drawn from the seventh year students. Prefects have the authority to give detentions for infractions.


title: Hogwarts

text: A huge, rambling, quite scary-looking castle, with a jumble of towers and battlements. Like the Weasleys' house, it isn't a building that Muggles could build, because it is supported by magic.


title: Hogwarts

text: In the novels, Hogwarts is somewhere in Scotland (the film "Prisoner of Azkaban" says that Dufftown is near). The school is depicted as having numerous charms and spells on and around it that make it impossible for a Muggle to locate it. Muggles cannot see the school; rather, they see only ruins and several warnings of danger. The castle's setting is described as having extensive grounds with sloping lawns, flowerbeds and vegetable patches, a loch (called The Black Lake), a large dense forest (called the Forbidden Forest), several greenhouses and other outbuildings, and a full-size Quidditch pitch. There is also an owlery, which houses all the owls owned by the school and those owned by students. Some rooms in the school tend to "move around", and so do the stairs in the grand staircase. Witches and wizards cannot Apparate or Disapparate in Hogwarts grounds, except when the Headmaster lifts the enchantment, whether only in certain areas or for the entire campus, so as to make the school less vulnerable when it serves the headmaster to allow Apparition. Electricity and electronic devices are not found at Hogwarts. In "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", Hermione indicates that due to the high levels of magic, "substitutes for magic (that) Muggles use" such as computers, radar and electricity "go haywire" around Hogwarts. Radios however, make an exception. Rowling explains this by saying that the radios are not powered by electricity but by magic.


title: Hogwarts

text: Hogwarts is on the shore of a lake, sometimes called the Black Lake. In that lake are merpeople, Grindylows, and a giant squid. The giant squid does not attack humans and sometimes acts as a lifeguard when students are in the lake. The castle and its grounds are home to many secret areas as well as well-known and well-used places.


title: Hogwarts

text: Accessed by entering a trapdoor in the forbidden corridor on the third floor, and protected by a gauntlet of seven magical challenges set up by the teachers.


title: Hogwarts

text: The Chamber of Secrets, which is deep under the school (most likely under the lake), was home to an ancient Basilisk, intended to be used to purge the school of Muggle-born students. Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, built the Chamber before he left the school.


title: Hogwarts

text: The entrance to the Chamber is hidden in the second-floor girls' lavatory (haunted by Moaning Myrtle). One of the sink taps has a snake scratched into its side; when a command in Parseltongue is spoken, it opens to reveal the mouth of a dark, slimy chute, wide enough to slide down, that gives onto a stone tunnel. There are many skeletons of small animals littering the floor and even a gigantic skin shed by the Basilisk. The tunnel leads to a solid wall, carved with two entwined serpents with emeralds for eyes. At a command in Parseltongue, the wall opens to expose a long, dim corridor, lined with monumental statues of snakes, including two rows of towering stone pillars with more carved serpents that brace the ceiling. A colossal statue of Salazar Slytherin, looking ancient and monkey-like, is at the centre. The Basilisk rested inside the statue and emerged from its mouth when the Heir of Slytherin, Tom Riddle, summoned it.


title: Hogwarts

text: In his second year at Hogwarts, Harry uses Parseltongue to open the chamber and destroys the diary containing the embodied memory of a 16-year-old Tom Riddle from his own days at Hogwarts and also slays the basilisk. It is later revealed that the diary was a Horcrux.


title: Hogwarts

text: In "Deathly Hallows", Ron and Hermione enter the Chamber. Ron opens the door (despite not speaking Parseltongue) by imitating sounds he heard Harry use to open Slytherin's locket. They pull a basilisk fang from its skeleton to use to destroy the Horcrux made from Helga Hufflepuff's cup.


title: Hogwarts

text: When Tom Riddle opened the Chamber, Myrtle was sulking in a stall after being teased by student Olive Hornby. She opened the door, intending to tell him to leave, but died immediately upon meeting the Basilisk's gaze and decided to become a ghost to get revenge on Hornby. The bathroom remains operational, but is rarely used by students because of Myrtle's disagreeable presence and her habit of flooding it when she is distraught.


title: Hogwarts

text: The film's depiction of the Chamber has snake heads in place of the pillars and Slytherin's statue is only his head. Rowling reveals in the book "Harry Potter Page to Screen; The Complete Filmmaking Journey" that the Chamber has flooded since its creation under unknown circumstances.


title: Hogwarts

text: There are usually seven secret passages in and out of the school, and in addition, the series describes the use of twin vanishing cabinets to create another. Filch knows of just four of these while the Marauders (James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew) and the Weasley twins know of all seven, though where some lead is unknown. The Room of Requirement may, on occasion, create an eighth passage out of the school. The only known instance of this occurring is a passage to the Hog's Head that forms in "Deathly Hallows". Due to the nature of the Room of Requirement, it is possible that several passages to different locations could be accessed from the Room. The three passages out of Hogwarts that Filch does "not" know about are:


title: Hogwarts

text: A further link between two vanishing cabinets, one in the school and the other in Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley presumably works until "Chamber of Secrets" when Peeves (persuaded by Nearly Headless Nick) smashes the Hogwarts cabinet. The passage is reopened in "Half-Blood Prince" when Draco Malfoy fixes the cabinet. This passage is not shown on the Marauder's Map as it is not part of the castle itself.


title: Hogwarts

text: Besides passages in and out of the school, there are also numerous short-cuts that lead from one part of the castle to another. These are often concealed in such fashions as a tapestry which hides a hole in the wall.


title: Hogwarts

text: On the seventh floor opposite an enormous tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy attempting to train trolls for the ballet, the Room of Requirement appears only when someone is in need of it. To make it appear, one must walk past its hidden entrance three times while concentrating on what is needed. The room will then appear, outfitted with whatever is required. To the Hogwarts house-elves, it is also known as the Come and Go Room.


title: Hogwarts

text: Dumbledore is the first to mention the room, noting that he discovered it at five-thirty in the morning, filled with chamber pots when he was trying to find a toilet. However, Dumbledore did not appear to know the Room's secrets. Dobby later told Harry of the Room in detail and admitted to frequently bringing Winky to the room to cure her bouts of Butterbeer-induced drunkenness, finding it full of antidotes and a "nice elf-sized bed." Filch was said to find cleaning supplies here when he had run out; when Fred and George needed a place to hide, it would appear as a broom cupboard. Trelawney also makes a habit of using it to hide her empty sherry bottles after she is sacked in "Order of the Phoenix". It would seem that when one wishes to hide something it produces the same room for everyone: the Room of Hidden Things, which is full of many centuries worth of abandoned objects, such as broken furniture, books, and in one case a dead quintaped (for more information see "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), which were presumably forgotten by their owners.


title: Hogwarts

text: Harry learns of the room's abilities from Dobby in "Order of the Phoenix", finding it the perfect location for his Dumbledore's Army meetings, during which it is filled with bookcases full of Defence Against the Dark Arts volumes, many different kinds of Dark Detectors, and a plethora of floor cushions for practising defensive spells. When the D.A. is betrayed, the room is left open, and Pansy Parkinson is able to retrieve the list of members of the organisation. In "Half-Blood Prince" Harry uses the Room of Hidden Things to stash his copy of "Advanced Potion-Making", describing it as the size of a large cathedral and packed to overflowing with items hidden by Hogwarts inhabitants over the years, such as old potions, clothing, ruined furniture, an old tiara (which happens to be one of Voldemort's Horcruxes), or books which are "no doubt banned or graffitied or stolen." He later realises that Draco has been using the room in this state to hide and repair the Vanishing Cabinet to use it to smuggle Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Ironically, while Harry tries many times to get into the Room of Requirement to see what Draco is doing, the only time he succeeds to get into the room (and he is not thinking about Draco), he gains access to the room where Malfoy has been working.


title: Hogwarts

text: In "Deathly Hallows", the students who need a place to hide from the Carrows, two Death Eater professors, use the room. It is also revealed that the Room of Requirement's current version can change while still occupied, though should a completely different version be required (e.g. the Room of Hidden Things instead of DA Headquarters) the room must be empty. The Room can also answer to the desire of the wizard within the room, such as providing Harry with a whistle when he needed one during a Dumbledore's Army meeting, or creating a passage to the Hog's Head (as the room cannot produce food). Later, Ravenclaw's diadem is found to be one of Voldemort's Horcruxes and has been hidden in the Room of Hidden Things by Voldemort. Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter the Room, with Harry knowing that he must look for a place to hide things, and find the tiara; but they are ambushed by Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. The diadem is finally destroyed when Crabbe fills this version of the Room with what Hermione believes to have been Fiendfyre; a destructive magical fire. It is not known if the room continues to function after the events of "Deathly Hallows"; Ron expresses concern that it may have been ruined in all of its forms by the cursed fire.


title: Hogwarts

text: Due to the Room of Requirement not being in a fixed location, it is one of the select locations in Hogwarts that does not appear on the Marauder's Map.


title: Hogwarts

text: The Forbidden Forest is a large, dark enchanted forest in the boundaries of the school grounds. It is usually referred to simply as "the Forest" and in the film series as the "Dark Forest". It is strictly forbidden to all students, except during Care of Magical Creatures lessons and, on rare occasions, detentions.


title: Hogwarts

text: Among the plant species within the Forest are trees such as beech, oak, pine, sycamore, yew and knotgrass and thorn undergrowth. Though the Forest is vastly dense and wild, there are a few paths and clearings. Hagrid, who frequently travels into the Forest for various reasons, mostly makes these trails. The Forest is also home to an assortment of creatures, many of them dangerous.


title: Hogwarts

text: In 2017, a Forbidden Forest expansion was added to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter, enabling fans to explore it for the first time.


title: Hogwarts

text: The Hogwarts Express is a train that carries pupils non-stop from Platform at King's Cross station in London to Hogsmeade Station, near Hogwarts. Prefects of the school ride in a separate carriage near the front of the train. The compartments on the train appear to be lettered; in "Half-Blood Prince", the "Slug Club" meets in compartment C.


title: Hogwarts

text: The train began use in the 1850s. Before that, pupils used to reach Hogwarts on brooms or enchanted carriages.


title: Hogwarts

text: The steam engine used in the film adaptations is the GWR 4900 Class 5972 "Olton Hall", but it was not the first locomotive to be disguised as the Hogwarts Express. To promote the books, the Southern Railway locomotive 34027 "Taw Valley" was repainted and renamed temporarily, but was rejected by director Chris Columbus as looking 'too modern' for the film. Filming locations for the Hogwarts Express sequences include Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Kings Cross railway station and the route of the Jacobite Express which follows the West Highland Line from Fort William to Mallaig in Scotland, as it crosses the Glenfinnan Viaduct.


title: Hogwarts

text: Several model trains have been made of the Hogwarts Express. An 00 gauge is produced by Hornby, though this is of a Castle Class locomotive rather than the Hall Class used in the films. A three-rail H0 gauge model is produced by Märklin, and a two-rail H0/00 was produced in the early 2000s by Bachmann. Several now-discontinued L gauge models have been produced by LEGO. Lionel has released an O gauge set in their 2007 catalogue and a G gauge set for 2008.


title: Hogwarts

text: A completely functioning full-scale replica of the Hogwarts Express was created for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter's expansion at Universal Orlando Resort connecting King's Cross Station at the Diagon Alley expansion in Universal Studios Florida to the Hogsmeade station at Islands of Adventure, manufactured by Doppelmayr Garaventa Group in the form of a funicular railway people mover. The Hogwarts Express King's Cross Station features a wall between Platforms 9 and 10, where guests can "walk through" to get to Platform , as in the first film.


title: Hogwarts

text: Rowling has suggested that she may have inadvertently taken the name from the hogwort plant ("Croton capitatus"), which she had seen at Kew Gardens some time before writing the series, although the names "The Hogwarts" and "Hoggwart" appear in the 1954 Nigel Molesworth book "How to Be Topp" by Geoffrey Willans. The name "Hogwart" also appears in the 1986 Labyrinth fantasy film.


title: Hogwarts

text: Most exterior scenes were shot on location at Alnwick Castle, but views of the exterior of the entire school were created from shots of Durham Cathedral with a digital spire added to the towers. Durham Cathedral also served as a set for Hogwarts interiors.


title: Hogwarts

text: A scale model was created for exterior shots of the entire school. Models of Alnwick Castle and Durham Cathedral were also built to create more integration between the model and on location shots. It took a team of 86 artists and crew members 74 years worth of man hours to complete the model.


title: Hogwarts

text: Hogwarts school was voted as the 36th best Scottish educational establishment in a 2008 online ranking, outranking Edinburgh's Loretto School. According to a director of the Independent Schools Network Rankings, it was added to the schools listing "for fun" and was then voted on.


title: Hogwarts

text: Most translations keep the name 'Hogwarts', transcribing it if necessary. For example, in Arabic it is transcribed as = "Hūghwūrts", in Russian as = "Khogvarts", in Japanese as = "Hoguwātsu", in Bengali as = "Hogowarts", in Greek as = "Hóguarts", and in simplified Chinese as = "Huògéwòcí".


title: Hogwarts

text: However, some translations translate or otherwise adapt the name: French ' (' = "bacon"), Latvian ' shortened from ' = "pig" + ' = "warts", Dutch ' modified from ' = "pig rock", Norwegian Bokmål ' (galt = boar, vort = wart) (Nynorsk keeps ""), Finnish ' (' = "wart"), Hungarian ' (playing with the name of Oxford in tribute to Harry Potter’s home country), Slovenian ' (' = "warts")), Czech ' means simply "warts". The Ancient Greek translation of the school is "Ὑογοήτου Παιδευτήριον τὸ τῆς Γοητείας καὶ Μαγείας", loosely translating to "Hogwizard's School of Wizardry and Magic", "Ὑογοήτου" replacing "Hogwarts" and derived from the ancient Greek words ὑo- (hog) and γοητής (wizard).


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp (; ; ; ) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, it is the most populous municipality in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of around 1,200,000 people, it is the second-largest metropolitan region in Belgium, after only Brussels.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp is on the river Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the river's Westerschelde estuary. It is about north of Brussels, and about south of the Dutch border. The Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. The city is also known as the hub of the world's diamond trade. In 2020, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network rated Antwerp as a Gamma + (third level/top tier) Global City.


title: Antwerp

text: Both economically and culturally, Antwerp is and has long been an important city in the Low Countries, especially before and during the Spanish Fury (1576) and throughout and after the subsequent Dutch Revolt. The Bourse of Antwerp, originally built in 1531 and re-built in 1872, was the world's first purpose-built commodity exchange. It was founded before stocks and shares existed, so was not strictly a stock exchange. In 1920, the city hosted the Summer Olympics.


title: Antwerp

text: The inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed "Sinjoren" (), after the Spanish honorific "señor" or French "seigneur", "lord", referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city's population is very diverse, coming from a range of 179 nationalities; As of 2019, more than 50% of its population has a parent that was not a Belgian citizen at birth. A particularly notable community among these is the close-knit Jewish one, as Antwerp is one of the only two cities in Europe (together with London and its Stamford Hill neighbourhood) that kept a considerable Haredi population in the 21st century; They are also more much visible than in London, due to them being concentrated around the centre.


title: Antwerp

text: The centre is also most notably home to the Antwerpen-Centraal railway station; eclectically built in a combination of Neo-Renaissance and Art Nouveau, it is considered to be one of the most beautiful train stations in the world.


title: Antwerp

text: Early recorded versions of the name include "Ando Verpia" on Roman coins found in the city centre, Germanic "Andhunerbo" from around the time Austrasia became a separate kingdom (that is, about 567 CE), and (possibly originally Celtic) "Andoverpis" in Dado's "Life of St. Eligius" "(Vita Eligii)" from about 700 CE. The form "Antverpia" is New Latin.


title: Antwerp

text: A Germanic (Frankish or Frisian) origin could contain prefix "anda" ("against") and a noun derived from the verb "werpen" ("to throw") and denote, for example: land thrown up at the riverbank; an alluvial deposit; a mound (like a terp) thrown up (as a defence) against (something or someone); or a wharf. If "Andoverpis" is Celtic in origin, it could mean "those who live on both banks".


title: Antwerp

text: There is a folklore tradition that the name "Antwerpen" is from Dutch "handwerpen" ("hand-throwing"). A giant called Antigoon is said to have lived near the Scheldt river and extracted a toll from passing boatmen. He severed the hand of anyone who did not pay, and threw it in the river. Eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giant's own hand and flung that into the river. This is unlikely to be the true origin, but it is celebrated by a statue (illustrated further below) in the city's main market square, the Grote Markt.


title: Antwerp

text: Historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman "vicus". Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961 (ref. Princeton), produced pottery shards and fragments of glass from mid-2nd century to the end of the 3rd century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks.


title: Antwerp

text: The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century. "Het Steen" Castle has its origins in the Carolingian period in the 9th century. The castle may have been built after the Viking incursions in the early Middle Ages; in 879 the Normans invaded Flanders. The surviving structure was built between 1200 and 1225 as a gateway to a larger castle of the Dukes of Brabant which was demolished in the 19th century. It is Antwerp's oldest building. At the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto II, a border province facing the County of Flanders.


title: Antwerp

text: In the 11th century, the best-known leader of the First Crusade (1096–1099), Godfrey of Bouillon, was originally Margrave of Antwerp, from 1076 until his death in 1100, though he was later also Duke of Lower Lorraine (1087–1100) and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre (1099–1100). In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michael's Abbey at Caloes. Antwerp was also the headquarters of Edward III during his early negotiations with Jacob van Artevelde, and his son Lionel, the Duke of Clarence, was born there in 1338.


title: Antwerp

text: After the silting-up of the Zwin and the consequent decline of Bruges, the city of Antwerp, then part of the Duchy of Brabant, grew in importance, with the city doubling its population between 1500 and 1569. At the end of the 15th century the foreign trading houses were transferred from Bruges to Antwerp, and the building assigned to the association of English merchants active in the city is specifically mentioned in 1510. During this time, the old Mediterranean trade routes were gradually losing importance and the discovery of new sea routes via Africa to Asia and via the Atlantic to America helped push Antwerp to a position of prominence.


title: Antwerp

text: By 1504, the Portuguese had established Antwerp as one of their main shipping bases, bringing in spices from Asia and trading them for textiles and metal goods. The city's trade expanded to include cloth from England, Italy and Germany, wines from Germany, France and Spain, salt from France, and wheat from the Baltic. The city's skilled workers processed soap, fish, sugar, and especially cloth. Banks helped finance the trade, the merchants, and the manufacturers. The city was a cosmopolitan center; its bourse opened in 1531, "To the merchants of all nations."


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp became the sugar capital of Europe, importing the raw commodity from Portuguese and Spanish plantations on both sides of the Atlantic, where it was grown by a mixture of free and forced labour, increasingly with enslaved Africans as the century progressed. The city attracted Italian and German sugar refiners by 1550, and shipped their refined product to Germany, especially Cologne. Antwerp also had an unusually high number of painters, around 360 in 1560, in a city with a population of roughly 89,000 in 1569 (250 people per painter), it was known as the best city for painters north of the Alps, serving notable painters such as Pieter Bruegel. Moneylenders and financiers developed a large business lending money all over Europe including the English government in 1544–1574. London bankers were too small to operate on that scale, and Antwerp had a highly efficient bourse that itself attracted rich bankers from around Europe. After the 1570s, the city's banking business declined: England ceased its borrowing in Antwerp in 1574.


title: Antwerp

text: Fernand Braudel states that Antwerp became "the centre of the "entire" international economy, something Bruges had never been even at its height." Antwerp had the highest growth rate and was the richest city in Europe at the time. Antwerp's Golden Age is tightly linked to the "Age of Exploration". During the first half of the 16th century Antwerp grew to become the second-largest European city north of the Alps. Many foreign merchants were resident in the city. Francesco Guicciardini, the Florentine envoy, stated that hundreds of ships would pass in a day, and 2,000 carts entered the city each week. Portuguese ships laden with pepper and cinnamon would unload their cargo. According to Luc-Normand Tellier "It is estimated that the port of Antwerp was earning the Spanish crown seven times more revenues than the Spanish colonization of the Americas".


title: Antwerp

text: Without a long-distance merchant fleet, and governed by an oligarchy of banker-aristocrats forbidden to engage in trade, the economy of Antwerp was foreign-controlled, which made the city very cosmopolitan, with merchants and traders from Venice, Genoa, Ragusa, Spain and Portugal. Antwerp had a policy of toleration, which attracted a large crypto-Jewish community composed of migrants from Spain and Portugal.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp experienced three booms during its golden age: the first based on the pepper market, a second launched by American silver coming from Seville (ending with the bankruptcy of Spain in 1557), and a third boom, after the stabilising Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559, based on the textiles industry. At the beginning of the 16th century Antwerp accounted for 40% of world trade. The boom-and-bust cycles and inflationary cost-of-living squeezed less-skilled workers. In the century after 1541, the city's economy and population declined dramatically The Portuguese merchants left in 1549, and there was much less trade in English cloth. Numerous financial bankruptcies began around 1557. Amsterdam replaced Antwerp as the major trading center for the region.


title: Antwerp

text: The religious revolution of the Reformation erupted in violent riots in August 1566, as in other parts of the Low Countries. The regent Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was swept aside when Philip II sent the Duke of Alba at the head of an army the following summer. When the Dutch revolt against Spain broke out in 1568, commercial trading between Antwerp and the Spanish port of Bilbao collapsed and became impossible. On 4 November 1576, Spanish soldiers sacked the city during the so-called Spanish Fury: 7,000 citizens were massacred, 800 houses were burnt down, and over £2 million sterling of damage was done.


title: Antwerp

text: Subsequently, the city joined the Union of Utrecht in 1579 and became the capital of the Dutch Revolt. In 1585, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, captured it after a long siege and as part of the terms of surrender its Protestant citizens were given two years to settle their affairs before quitting the city. Most went to the United Provinces in the north, starting the Dutch Golden Age. Antwerp's banking was controlled for a generation by Genoa, and Amsterdam became the new trading centre.


title: Antwerp

text: The recognition of the independence of the United Provinces by the Treaty of Münster in 1648 stipulated that the Scheldt should be closed to navigation, which destroyed Antwerp's trading activities. This impediment remained in force until 1863, although the provisions were relaxed during French rule from 1795 to 1814, and also during the time Belgium formed part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands (1815 to 1830). Antwerp had reached the lowest point in its fortunes in 1800, and its population had sunk to under 40,000, when Napoleon, realizing its strategic importance, assigned funds to enlarge the harbour by constructing a new dock (still named the Bonaparte Dock), an access-lock and mole, and deepening the Scheldt to allow larger ships to approach Antwerp. Napoleon hoped that by making Antwerp's harbour the finest in Europe he would be able to counter the Port of London and hamper British growth. However, he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo before he could see the plan through.


title: Antwerp

text: In 1830, the city was captured by the Belgian insurgents, but the citadel continued to be held by a Dutch garrison under General David Hendrik Chassé. For a time Chassé subjected the town to periodic bombardment which inflicted much damage, and at the end of 1832 the citadel itself was besieged by the French Northern Army commanded by Marechal Gerard. During this attack the town was further damaged. In December 1832, after a gallant defence, Chassé made an honourable surrender, ending the Siege of Antwerp (1832).


title: Antwerp

text: Later that century, a double ring of Brialmont Fortresses was constructed some from the city centre, as Antwerp was considered vital for the survival of the young Belgian state. And in 1894 Antwerp presented itself to the world via a World's Fair attended by 3 million.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp was the first city to host the World Gymnastics Championships, in 1903. During World War I, the city became the fallback point of the Belgian Army after the defeat at Liège. The Siege of Antwerp lasted for 11 days, but the city was taken after heavy fighting by the German Army, and the Belgians were forced to retreat westwards. Antwerp remained under German occupation until the Armistice.


title: Antwerp

text: During World War II, the city was an important strategic target because of its port. It was occupied by Germany on May 18th 1940 and liberated by the British 11th Armoured Division on September 4th 1944. After this, the Germans attempted to destroy the Port of Antwerp, which was used by the Allies to bring new material ashore. Thousands of Rheinbote, V-1 and V-2 missiles were fired (more V-2s than used on all other targets during the entire war combined), causing severe damage to the city but failed to destroy the port due to poor accuracy. After the war, Antwerp, which had already had a sizeable Jewish population before the war, once again became a major European centre of Haredi (and particularly Hasidic) Orthodox Judaism.


title: Antwerp

text: A Ten-Year Plan for the port of Antwerp (1956–1965) expanded and modernized the port's infrastructure with national funding to build a set of canal docks. The broader aim was to facilitate the growth of the north-eastern Antwerp metropolitan region, which attracted new industry based on a flexible and strategic implementation of the project as a co-production between various authorities and private parties. The plan succeeded in extending the linear layout along the Scheldt river by connecting new satellite communities to the main strip.


title: Antwerp

text: Starting in the 1990s, Antwerp rebranded itself as a world-class fashion centre. Emphasizing the avant-garde, it tried to compete with London, Milan, New York and Paris. It emerged from organized tourism and mega-cultural events.


title: Antwerp

text: The municipality comprises the city of Antwerp proper and several towns. It is divided into nine entities (districts):


title: Antwerp

text: In 1958, in preparation of the 10-year development plan for the Port of Antwerp, the municipalities of Berendrecht-Zandvliet-Lillo were integrated into the city territory and lost their administrative independence. During the 1983 merger of municipalities, conducted by the Belgian government as an administrative simplification, the municipalities of Berchem, Borgerhout, Deurne, Ekeren, Hoboken, Merksem and Wilrijk were merged into the city. At that time the city was also divided into the districts mentioned above. Simultaneously, districts received an appointed district council; later district councils became elected bodies.


title: Antwerp

text: In the 16th century, Antwerp was noted for the wealth of its citizens ("Antwerpia nummis"). The houses of these wealthy merchants and manufacturers have been preserved throughout the city. However, fire has destroyed several old buildings, such as the house of the Hanseatic League on the northern quays, in 1891. During World War II, the city also suffered considerable damage from V-bombs, and in recent years, other noteworthy buildings have been demolished for new developments.


title: Antwerp

text: Although Antwerp was formerly a fortified city, hardly anything remains of the former enceinte, only some remains of the city wall can be seen near the Vleeshuis museum at the corner of Bloedberg and Burchtgracht. "Steen" castle on the Scheldt-quai is the gate wing of the demolished castle of the Dukes of Brabant. It was partly reconstructed in the 19th century.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp's development as a fortified city is documented between the 10th and the 20th century. The fortifications were developed in different phases:


title: Antwerp

text: This is the population of the city of Antwerp only, not of the larger current municipality of the same name.


title: Antwerp

text: In 2010, 36% to 39% of the inhabitants of Antwerp had a migrant background. A study projected that in 2020, 55% of the population would be of immigrant background, either first, second, or third generation.


title: Antwerp

text: After the Holocaust and the murder of its many Jews, Antwerp became a major centre for Orthodox Jews. At present, about 15,000 Haredi Jews, many of them Hasidic, live in Antwerp. The city has three official Jewish Congregations: Shomrei Hadass, headed by Rabbi Dovid Moishe Lieberman, Machsike Hadass, headed by Rabbi Aron Schiff (formerly by Chief Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth) and the Portuguese Community Ben Moshe. Antwerp has an extensive network of synagogues, shops, schools and organizations. Significant Hasidic movements in Antwerp include Pshevorsk, based in Antwerp, as well as branches of Satmar, Belz, Bobov, Ger, Skver, Klausenburg, Vizhnitz and several others. Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth, chief rabbi of the Machsike Hadas community, who died in 2001, was arguably one of the better known personalities to have been based in Antwerp. An attempt to have a street named after him has received the support of the Town Hall and is in the process of being implemented.


title: Antwerp

text: The Jains in Belgium are estimated to be around about 1,500 people. The majority live in Antwerp, mostly involved in the very lucrative diamond business. Belgian Indian Jains control two-thirds of the rough diamonds trade and supplied India with roughly 36% of their rough diamonds. A major temple, with a cultural centre, has been built in Antwerp (Wilrijk). Mr Ramesh Mehta, a Jain, is a full-fledged member of the Belgian Council of Religious Leaders, put up on 17 December 2009.


title: Antwerp

text: There are significant Armenian communities that reside in Antwerp, many of them are descendants of traders who settled during the 19th century. Most Armenian Belgians are adherents of the Armenian Apostolic Church, with a smaller numbers are adherents of the Armenian Catholic Church and Armenian Evangelical Church.


title: Antwerp

text: One of the important sectors that Armenian communities in Antwerp excel and involved in is the diamond trade business, that based primarily in the diamond district. Some of the famous Armenian families involved in the diamond business in the city are the Artinians, Arslanians, Aslanians, Barsamians and the Osganians.


title: Antwerp

text: According to the American Association of Port Authorities, the port of Antwerp was the seventeenth largest (by tonnage) port in the world in 2005 and second only to Rotterdam in Europe. It handled 235.2 million tons of cargo in 2018. Importantly it handles high volumes of economically attractive general and project cargo, as well as bulk cargo. Antwerp's docklands, with five oil refineries, are home to a massive concentration of petrochemical industries, second only to the petrochemical cluster in Houston, Texas. Electricity generation is also an important activity, with four nuclear power plants at Doel, a conventional power station in Kallo, as well as several smaller combined cycle plants. There is a wind farm in the northern part of the port area. There are plans to extend this in the period 2014–2020. The old Belgian bluestone quays bordering the Scheldt for a distance of to the north and south of the city centre have been retained for their sentimental value and are used mainly by cruise ships and short sea shipping.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp's other great mainstay is the diamond trade that takes place largely within the diamond district. 85 percent of the world's rough diamonds pass through the district annually, and in 2011 turnover in the industry was $56 billion. The city has four diamond bourses: the Diamond Club of Antwerp, the Beurs voor Diamanthandel, the Antwerpsche Diamantkring and the Vrije Diamanthandel. Antwerp's history in the diamond trade dates back to as early as the sixteenth century, with the first diamond cutters guild being introduced in 1584. The industry never disappeared from Antwerp, and even experienced a second boom in the early twentieth century. By the year 1924, Antwerp had over 13,000 diamond finishers."" Since World War II families of the large Hasidic Jewish community have dominated Antwerp's diamond trading industry, although the last two decades have seen Indian and Maronite Christians from Lebanon and Armenian, traders become increasingly important.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp World Diamond Centre, (AWDC) the successor to the "Hoge Raad voor Diamant", plays an important role in setting standards, regulating professional ethics, training and promoting the interests of Antwerp as the capital of the diamond industry. However, in recent years Antwerp has seen a downturn in the diamond business, with the industry shifting to cheaper labor markets such as Dubai or India.


title: Antwerp

text: The industry has avoided the 2022 European sanctions against Russia although the imports from Alrosa have diminished.


title: Antwerp

text: A six-lane motorway bypass encircles much of the city centre and runs through the urban residential area of Antwerp. Known locally as the "Ring" it offers motorway connections to Brussels, Hasselt and Liège, Ghent, Lille and Bruges and Breda and Bergen op Zoom (Netherlands). The banks of the Scheldt are linked by three road tunnels (in order of construction): the Waasland Tunnel (1934), the Kennedy Tunnel (1967) and the Liefkenshoek Tunnel (1991).


title: Antwerp

text: Daily congestion on the Ring led to a fourth high-volume highway link called the "Oosterweelconnection" being proposed. It would have entailed the construction of a long viaduct and bridge (the "Lange Wapper") over the docks on the north side of the city in combination with the widening of the existing motorway into a 14-lane motorway; these plans were eventually rejected in a 2009 public referendum.


title: Antwerp

text: In September 2010 the Flemish Government decided to replace the bridge by a series of tunnels. There are ideas to cover the Ring in a similar way as happened around Paris, Hamburg, Madrid and other cities. This would reconnect the city with its suburbs and would provide development opportunities to accommodate part of the foreseen population growth in Antwerp which currently are not possible because of the pollution and noise generated by the traffic on the Ring. An old plan to build an R2 outer ring road outside the built up urban area around the Antwerp agglomeration for port related traffic and transit traffic never materialized.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp is the focus of lines to the north to Essen and the Netherlands, east to Turnhout, south to Mechelen, Brussels and Charleroi, and southwest to Ghent and Ostend. It is served by international trains to Amsterdam and Paris, and national trains to Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, Brussels, Charleroi, Hasselt, Liège, Leuven and Turnhout.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp Central station is an architectural monument in itself, and is mentioned in W G Sebald's haunting novel "Austerlitz". Prior to the completion in 2007 of a tunnel that runs northwards under the city centre to emerge at the old Antwerp Dam station, Central was a terminus. Trains from Brussels to the Netherlands had to either reverse at Central or call only at Berchem station, to the south, and then describe a semicircle to the east, round the Singel. Now, they call at the new lower level of the station before continuing in the same direction.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp is also home to Antwerpen-Noord, the largest classification yard for freight in Belgium and second largest in Europe. The majority of freight trains in Belgium depart from or arrive here. It has two classification humps and over a hundred tracks.


title: Antwerp

text: The city has a web of tram and bus lines operated by De Lijn and providing access to the city centre, suburbs and the Left Bank. The tram network has 14 lines, of which the underground section is called the "premetro" and includes a tunnel under the river. The Franklin Rooseveltplaats functions as the city's main hub for local and regional bus lines.


title: Antwerp

text: A small airport, Antwerp International Airport, is located in the district of Deurne, with passenger service to various European destinations. A bus service connects the airport to the city centre.


title: Antwerp

text: The now defunct VLM Airlines had its head office on the grounds of Antwerp International Airport. This office is also CityJet's Antwerp office. When VG Airlines (Delsey Airlines) existed, its head office was located in the district of Merksem.


title: Antwerp

text: Belgium's major international airport, Brussels Airport, is about from the city of Antwerp, and connects the city worldwide. It is connected to the city centre by bus, and also by train. The new "Diabolo" rail connection provides a direct fast train connection between Antwerp and Brussels Airport as of the summer of 2012.


title: Antwerp

text: There is also a direct rail service between Antwerp (calling at Central and Berchem stations) and Charleroi South station, with a connecting buslink to Brussels South Charleroi Airport, which runs twice every hour on working days.


title: Antwerp

text: The runway has increased in length, and there is now direct connectivity to Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Greece from the city of Antwerp.


title: Antwerp

text: In September 2019 Air Antwerp began operations with their first route to London City Airport with old VLM Airlines Fokker 50's.


title: Antwerp

text: In the 16th and 17th century important mayors include Philips of Marnix, Lord of Saint-Aldegonde, Anthony van Stralen, Lord of Merksem and Nicolaas II Rockox.


title: Antwerp

text: In the early years after Belgian independence, Antwerp was governed by Catholic-Unionist mayors. Between 1848 and 1921, all mayors were from the Liberal Party (except for the so-called Meeting-intermezzo between 1863 and 1872). Between 1921 and 1932, the city had a Catholic mayor again: Frans Van Cauwelaert.


title: Antwerp

text: From 1932 onwards and up until 2013, all mayors belonged to the Social Democrat party: Camille Huysmans, Lode Craeybeckx, Frans Detiège and Mathilde Schroyens, and after the municipality fusion: , Leona Detiège en Patrick Janssens. Since 2013, the mayor is the Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever, belonging to the Flemish separatist party N-VA (New Flemish Alliance).


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"), with cool winters, warm summers and frequent, though light, precipitation throughout the year.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp had an artistic reputation in the 17th century, based on its school of painting, which included Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, the Teniers and many others.


title: Antwerp

text: Informally, most Antverpians (in Dutch "Antwerpenaren", people from Antwerp) speak Antverpian daily (in Dutch "Antwerps"), a dialect that Dutch-speakers know as distinctive from other Brabantic dialects for its characteristic pronunciation of vowels: an 'aw' sound approximately like that in 'bore' is used for one of its long 'a'-sounds while other short 'a's are very sharp like the 'a' in 'hat'. The "Echt Antwaarps Teater" ("Authentic Antverpian Theatre") brings the dialect on stage.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp is a rising fashion city, and has produced designers such as the Antwerp Six. The city has a cult status in the fashion world, due to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, one of the most important fashion academies in the world. It has served as the learning centre for many Belgian fashion designers. Since the 1980s, several graduates of the Belgian Royal Academy of Fine Arts have become internationally successful fashion designers in Antwerp. The city has had a huge influence on other Belgian fashion designers such as Raf Simons, Veronique Branquinho, Olivier Theyskens and Kris Van Assche.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp is famous for its local products. In August every year the Bollekesfeest takes place. The Bollekesfeest is a showcase for such local products as Bolleke, an amber beer from the De Koninck Brewery. The city's historical ale, Seefbier, dating back to the 16th century and brewed at the Antwerpse Brouw Compagnie is a testament to the city's long brewing history and one of Belgium's oldest existing beerstyles. The Mokatine sweets made by Confiserie Roodthooft, Elixir D'Anvers, a locally made liquor, locally roasted coffee from Koffie Verheyen, sugar from Candico, Poolster pickled herring and Equinox horse meat, are other examples of local specialities. One of the most known products of the city are its biscuits, the "Antwerpse Handjes", literally "Antwerp Hands". Usually made from a short pastry with almonds or milk chocolate, they symbolize the Antwerp trademark and folklore. The local products are represented by a non-profit organization, Streekproducten Provincie Antwerpen vzw.


title: Antwerp

text: A number of Christian missions to seafarers are based in Antwerp. These include the Mission to Seafarers, British & International Sailors' Society, the Finnish Seamen's Mission, the Norwegian Sjømannskirken and the Apostleship of the Sea. They provide cultural and social activities as well as religious services. The iconic Italiëlei premises have been closed down and all activities have been moved to the Antwerp Harbour Hotel on Noorderlaan.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp is the home of the Antwerp Jazz Club (AJC), founded in 1938 and located on the square Grote Markt since 1994.


title: Antwerp

text: The band dEUS was formed in 1991 in Antwerp. dEUS began their career as a covers band, but soon began writing their own material. Their musical influences range from folk and punk to jazz and progressive rock.


title: Antwerp

text: Confetti's were a new beat band at the end of the 80's. Their name stems from the name of a nightclub in the Antwerps affluent suburb of Brasschaat. Their 1st video for 'The Sound of C' was shot on the main Antwerp shopping street.


title: Antwerp

text: Pump Up the Jam the eurobeat/dance song that reached top positions in charts worldwide in 1989 was produced in Antwerp. Belgian-Congolese singer Ya Kid K had Antwerp as her Belgian home base.


title: Antwerp

text: Cultuurmarkt van Vlaanderen is a musical festival and a touristic attraction that takes place annually on the final Sunday of August in the city center of Antwerp. Where international and local musicians and actors, present their stage and street performances.


title: Antwerp

text: Tomorrowland (festival) is probably the most famous festival to arise from Antwerp. Though the festival is effectively located 15 km (10 mi) south of the city its founders in the past organised a festival ('Antwerp is burning') within city limits. The office of the company behind Tomorrowland (weareone.world bvba) is located in the heart of the city. The company founders are involved in conceptualising urban planning concepts for specific Antwerp areas and are known to invite their favourite Antwerp food places to set up a pop-up at the festival.


title: Antwerp

text: The city of Antwerp will co-host the 2020 World Choir Games together with the city of Ghent. Organised by the Interkultur Foundation, the World Choir Games is the biggest choral competition and festival in the world.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp held the 1920 Summer Olympics, which were the first games after the First World War and also the only ones to be held in Belgium. The road cycling events took place in the streets of the city.


title: Antwerp

text: Royal Antwerp F.C., currently playing in the Belgian First Division, were founded in 1880 and is known as 'The Great Old' for being the first club registered to the Royal Belgian Football Association in 1895. Since 1998, the club has taken Manchester United players on loan in an official partnership. Another club in the city was Beerschot VAC, founded in 1899 by former Royal Antwerp players. They played at the Olympisch Stadion, the main venue of the 1920 Olympics. Nowadays K. Beerschot V.A. plays at the Olympisch Stadion in the Belgian first division.


title: Antwerp

text: Between these two football teams there has always been a big rivalry. When the two play against each other the stadiums are packed and the passioned fans give a great display of their passion, but this has also led to fights, hooliganism and vandalism.


title: Antwerp

text: The Antwerp Giants play in Basketball League Belgium and Topvolley Antwerpen play in the Belgium men's volleyball League.


title: Antwerp

text: Antwerp has a university and several colleges. The University of Antwerp ("Universiteit Antwerpen") was established in 2003, following the merger of the RUCA, UFSIA and UIA institutes. Their roots go back to 1852. The university has approximately 23,000 registered students, making it the third-largest university in Flanders, as well as 1,800 foreign students. It has 7 faculties, spread over four campus locations in the city centre and in the south of the city. The university is part of Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) and Young European Research Universities Network (YERUN).


title: Antwerp

text: The city has several colleges, including Antwerp Management School (AMS), Charlemagne University College ("Karel de Grote Hogeschool"), Plantin University College ("Plantijn Hogeschool"), and Artesis University College ("Artesis Hogeschool"). Artesis University College has about 8,600 students and 1,600 staff, and Charlemagne University College has about 10,000 students and 1,300 staff. Plantin University College has approximately 3,700 students.


title: Richard Simmons

text: Milton Teagle "Richard" Simmons (born July 12, 1948) is an American fitness personality and public figure, known for his eccentric, flamboyant, and energetic personality. He has promoted weight-loss programs, most prominently through his "Sweatin' to the Oldies" line of aerobics videos.


title: Richard Simmons

text: Simmons began his weight-loss career by opening his gym Slimmons in Beverly Hills, California, catering to the overweight, and he became widely known through exposure on television and through the popularity of his consumer products. He is often parodied and was a frequent guest of late-night television and radio talk shows, such as the "Late Show with David Letterman" and "The Howard Stern Show".


title: Richard Simmons

text: He continued to promote health and exercise through a decades-long career, and later broadened his activities to include political activism – such as in 2008 in support of a bill mandating noncompetitive physical education in public schools as a part of the No Child Left Behind Act.


title: Richard Simmons

text: Simmons's most recent public appearances were in February 2014, and by 2016, speculation and expressions of concern about his well-being began to surface in the media. Both Simmons and his publicist said the concerns were unwarranted, as he simply chose to be less publicly visible.


title: Richard Simmons

text: During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Simmons began to upload archival content to his YouTube channel (recorded before his decision to withdraw from public life) to help people stay fit at home.


title: Richard Simmons

text: Milton Teagle Simmons was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 12, 1948, to Leonard Douglas Simmons, Sr., and Shirley May (née Satin). He was born to "show-business parents" and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Simmons has an older brother, Leonard, Jr. Their father was raised Methodist and worked as a master of ceremonies and later in thrift stores, while their mother was Russian Jewish and was a traveling fan dancer and later a store cosmetics saleswoman.


title: Richard Simmons

text: Simmons later converted to Catholicism and attended Cor Jesu High School. He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette before graduating from Florida State University with a bachelor of arts in art.


title: Richard Simmons

text: He became obese during his early childhood and adolescence. He began to overeat and became overweight as early as the age of 4, and by the age of 5, he knew it was perceived negatively. At 15, he weighed . As a young man, he considered being a priest. As a young adult art student, he had appeared among the "freak show" characters in the Fellini films "Satyricon" (1968) and "The Clowns" (1970), and he eventually reached a peak of .


title: Richard Simmons

text: In an interview with the "Tampa Bay Times", Simmons explained he adopted the name Richard after an uncle who paid for his college tuition. His first job in New Orleans was as a child, selling pralines at Leah's Pralines.