title: Anthony of Padua

text: According to his request, Anthony was buried in the small church of Santa Maria Mater Domini (probably dating from the late 12th century) and near a convent that had been founded by him in 1229. Nevertheless, due to his increased notability, the construction of a large basilica began around 1232, although it was not completed until 1301. The smaller church was incorporated into the structure as the Cappella della Madonna Mora (Chapel of the Dark Madonna). The basilica is commonly known today as "Il Santo" (The Saint).


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Various legends also surround the death of Anthony. One holds that when he died, children cried in the streets and all the church bells rang of their own accord. Another legend is in regard to his tongue. He was buried in a chapel that became part of the basilica, where his tongue, jaw, and vocal cords were symbolically chosen as relics for veneration (as was a tradition in medieval times) to be displayed in a large reliquary. When his body was exhumed 30 years after his death, it was found turned to dust, but the tongue was claimed to have glistened and looked as if it were still part of a live body; a further claim being made that this was a sign of his gift of preaching. On 1 January 1981, Pope John Paul II authorized a scientific team to study Anthony's remains and the tomb was opened five days later.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Anthony was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 30 May 1232, at Spoleto, Italy, less than one year after his death. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI:


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Anthony's fame spread through Portuguese evangelization, and he has been known as the most celebrated of the followers of Francis of Assisi. He is the patron saint of Lisbon, Padua and many places in Portugal and in the countries of the former Portuguese Empire.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: He is especially invoked and venerated all over the world as the patron saint for the recovery of lost items and is credited with many miracles involving lost people, lost things and even lost spiritual goods.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: St. Anthony Chaplets help devotees to meditate on the thirteen virtues of the saint. Some of these chaplets were used by members of confraternities which had Anthony as their patron saint.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In 1692, Spanish missionaries came across a small Payaya Indian community along what was then known as the Yanaguana River on the feast day of Saint Anthony, 13 June. The Franciscan chaplain, Father Damien Massanet, with agreement from General Domingo de Teran, renamed the rivers in his honor, and eventually built a mission nearby, as well. This mission became the focal point of a small community that eventually grew in size and scope to become the seventh-largest city in the country, the U.S. city of San Antonio, Texas.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In New York City, the Shrine Church of St. Anthony in Greenwich Village, Manhattan celebrates his feast day, starting with the traditional novena of prayers asking for his intercession on the 13 Tuesdays preceding his feast. This culminates with a week-long series of services and a street fair. A traditional Italian-style procession is held that day through the streets of its South Village neighborhood, during which a relic of the saint is carried for veneration.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Each year on the weekend of the last Sunday in August, Boston's North End holds a feast in honor of Saint Anthony. Referred to as the "Feast of All Feasts", Saint Anthony's Feast in Boston's North End was begun in 1919 by Italian immigrants from Montefalcione, a small town near Naples, where the tradition of honoring Saint Anthony goes back to 1688.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Each year the Sandia Pueblo along with Santa Clara Pueblo celebrates the feast day of Saint Anthony with traditional Native American dances.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: On 27 January 1907, in Beaumont, Texas, a church was dedicated and named in honor of Saint Anthony. The church was later designated a cathedral in 1966 with the formation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, but was not formally consecrated. On 28 April 1974, St. Anthony Cathedral was dedicated and consecrated by Bishop Warren Boudreaux. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI granted the cathedral the designation of minor basilica. St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica celebrated its 100th anniversary on 28 January 2007.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: St. Anthony gives his name to Mission San Antonio de Padua, the third Franciscan mission dedicated along El Camino Real in California in 1771.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In Ellicott City, Maryland, southwest of Baltimore, the Conventual Franciscans of the St. Anthony Province dedicated their old novitiate house as the Shrine of St. Anthony which since 1 July 2004 serves as the official shrine to Saint Anthony for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Saint Anthony is known in Portugal, Spain, and Brazil as a marriage saint, because legends exist of him reconciling couples. His feast day, 13 June, is Lisbon's municipal holiday, celebrated with parades and marriages (the previous day, 12 June, is the "Dia dos Namorados" in Brazil). He is one of the saints celebrated in the Brazilian "Festa Junina", along with John the Baptist and Saint Peter. He is venerated in Mogán Village in Gran Canaria, where his feast day is celebrated every year with oversized objects carried through the streets for the fiesta.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In the town of Brusciano, Italy, located near Naples, an annual feast in honor of Saint Anthony is held in late August. This tradition dates back to 1875. The tradition started when a man prayed to Saint Anthony for his sick son to get better. He vowed that if his son would become healthy he would build and dance a "giglio" like the people of Nola do for their patron San Paolino during the annual Fest Dei Gigli. (A "giglio" is a tall tower topped with a statue of the saint that is carried through the streets in carefully choreographed maneuvers that resemble a dance.) The celebration has grown over the years to include six giglio towers built in honor of the saint. This tradition has also carried over to America, specifically the East Harlem area of New York, where the immigrants from the town of Brusciano formed the Giglio Society of East Harlem and have been holding their annual feast since the early 1900s.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In Albania, the Franciscans arrived in 1240 spreading the word of Saint Anthony. The St. Anthony Church, Laç () in Laç was built in his honor.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In Poland, he is the patron saint of Przeworsk. The icon of Saint Anthony, dating from 1649, is housed in a local Franciscan church, .


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Saint Anthony is honored in Uvari, in Tamil Nadu, India, where legend holds that the crew of a Portuguese ship was cured of cholera through the intercession of St. Anthony. The local church is dedicated to St. Anthony and houses an ancient wooden statue believed to have been carved by one of the crew.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In the Philippines, the devotion to St. Anthony of Padua began in 1581, in the town of Pila, Laguna, where Franciscans established the first church in the country dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, now elevated as the National Shrine of St. Anthony of Padua under the Diocese of San Pablo.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In Siolim, a village in the Indian state of Goa, St. Anthony is always shown holding a serpent on a stick. This is a depiction of the incident which occurred during the construction of the church wherein a snake was disrupting construction work. The people turned to St. Anthony for help and placed his statue at the construction site. The next morning, the snake was found caught in the cord placed in the statue's hand.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Antonianism () was a syncretic Bakongo Catholic movement formed in the Kingdom of Kongo between 1704 and 1708 as a development out of the Roman Catholic Church in Kongo, yet without denying the authority of the Pope. Its founder was a young charismatic woman named Beatriz Kimpa Vita who said she was possessed by Saint Anthony of Padua. Beatriz became known for healing and other miracles. It was eventually suppressed by King Pedro IV of Kongo, and Dona Beatriz was burned at the stake as a heretic.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: As the number of Franciscan saints increased, iconography struggled to distinguish Anthony from the others. Because of a legend that he had once preached to the fish by the mouth of the river Marecchia in Rimini, this was sometimes used as his attribute. He is also often seen with a white lily stalk, representing his purity. Other conventions referred to St. Anthony's visionary fervor. Thus, one attribute in use for some time was a flaming heart. He is also sometimes depicted along with the mule in Rimini that allegedly bowed down to him holding the Eucharist.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In 1511, Titian painted three large frescoes in the Scuola del Santo in Padua, depicting scenes of the miracles from the life of Saint Anthony: "The Miracle of the Jealous Husband", which depicts the murder of a young woman by her husband; "A Child Testifying to Its Mother's Innocence"; and "The Saint Healing the Young Man with a Broken Limb".


title: Anthony of Padua

text: Another key pattern has him meditating on an open book in which the Christ Child himself appears, as in the El Greco above. Over time the child came to be shown considerably larger than the book and some images even do without the book entirely. He typically appears carrying the infant Jesus and holding a cross.


title: Anthony of Padua

text: In popular votive offerings, Anthony is often depicted as miraculously saving individuals in various accidents.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Suvarnabhumi Airport (, , ; from Sanskrit ("Suvarṇabhūmi"), literally 'golden land') , also known unofficially as Bangkok International Airport, is one of two international airports serving the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, the other one being Don Mueang International Airport (DMK), which remains open as a low-cost carriers hub. Suvarnabhumi Airport covers an area of , making it one of the biggest international airports in Southeast Asia and a regional hub for aviation. The airport is also a major Cargo Air Freight Hub (20th busiest in 2019), which has a designated Airport Free Zone, as well as road links to the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) on Motorway 7.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The name "Suvarnabhumi" is Sanskrit for "land of gold" (Devanagari:सुवर्णभूमि : "Suvarṇabhūmi"; "Suvarṇa" is "gold", "Bhūmi" is 'land'; literally "golden land"). The name was chosen by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej whose name includes "Bhūmi", referring to the Buddhist golden kingdom, thought to have been to the east of the Ganges, possibly somewhere in Southeast Asia. In Thailand, government proclamations and national museums insist that Suvarnabhumi was somewhere on the coast of the central plains, near the ancient city of U Thong, which might be the origin of the Indianised Dvaravati culture. Although the claims have not been substantiated, the Thai government named the new Bangkok airport Suvarnabhumi Airport, in celebration of this tradition.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport is currently the main hub for Thai Airways International, Thai Smile and Bangkok Airways, as well as the operating base for Thai VietJet Air, Thai AirAsia and Thai AirAsia X. It also serves as regional gateway and connecting point for various foreign carriers connecting to Asia, Oceania, Europe and Africa.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Suvarnabhumi was officially opened for limited domestic flight service on 15 September 2006, and opened for most domestic and all international commercial flights on 28 September 2006.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport is on what had formerly been known as Nong Nguhao (Cobra Swamp) in Racha Thewa in Bang Phli, Samut Prakan province as well as the districts of Bang Kapi, Lat Krabang, Bang Na and Prawet in the eastern side of Bangkok, about from downtown. The terminal building was designed by Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn Architects. It was constructed primarily by ITO JV. The airport had the world's tallest free-standing control tower () from 2006 to 2014, and the world's fourth largest single-building airport terminal ().


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Suvarnabhumi is the 17th busiest airport in the world, eleventh busiest airport in Asia, and the busiest in the country, having handled 60 million passengers in 2017, and is also a major air cargo hub, with a total of 95 airlines. On social networks, Suvarnabhumi was the world's most popular site for taking Instagram photographs in 2012.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport inherited the airport code, BKK, from Don Mueang after the previous airport ceased international commercial flights. Motorway 7 connects the airport, Bangkok, and the heavily industrial eastern seaboard of Thailand, where most export manufacturing takes place.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the airport was temporarily converted to a hospital and vaccination centre.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The need for the new airport was recognized in 1973 when 8,000 acres of land was purchased 40 kilometres east of Bangkok. The site, known as Cobra Swamp, was drained and named Suvarnabhumi, meaning "realm of gold". On 14 October 1973, student-led protests led to the overthrow of the military government of Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn and the project was shelved.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: After a series of ups and downs, the "New Bangkok International Airport" company (NBIA) was formed in 1996. Due to political and economic instabilities, notably the Asian financial crisis of 1997, construction did not begin until six years later in January 2002 by the government of Thaksin Shinawatra.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport was due to open in late 2004, but a series of budget overruns, construction flaws, and allegations of corruption plagued the project.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: A further delay was caused by the discovery that the airport had been built over an old graveyard. Superstitious construction workers claimed to have seen ghosts there. On 23 September 2005, the Thai airports authority held a ceremony where 99 Buddhist monks chanted to appease the spirits.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Full tests of the airport took place on 3 and 29 July 2006. Six airlines — Thai Airways International, Nok Air, Thai AirAsia, Bangkok Airways, PBair, and One-Two-GO — used the airport as a base for twenty domestic flights. The first international test flights were conducted on 1 September 2006. Two Thai Airways aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 and an Airbus A300-600, simultaneously departed the airport at 09:19 to Singapore and Hong Kong respectively. At 15:50 the same aircraft flew back and made simultaneous touchdowns on runways 19L and 19R. These test flights demonstrated the readiness of the airport to handle traffic.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: On 15 September 2006, the airport started limited daily operations with Jetstar Asia Airways operating three Singapore to Bangkok flights. Bangkok Airways moved to the airport on 21 September. AirAsia and Thai AirAsia followed on 25 September and on 26 September Nok Air moved to Suvarnabhumi Airport. During this initial phase, as well as in the previous tests, the airport used the temporary IATA code NBK.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Suvarnabhumi officially opened at 03:00 on 28 September 2006, taking over all flights from Don Mueang. The first flight to arrive was a Lufthansa Cargo flight LH8442 from Mumbai at 03:05. The first commercial arrival was Japan Airlines at 03:30. The first passenger arrival was Aerosvit flight VV171 from Kyiv at 04:30, and the first cargo departure was Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV-984 to Riyadh at 05:00. Aerosvit also had the first passenger departure (VV172 to Kyiv) around 05:30.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Difficulties were reported in the first few days of the airport's operation. On the first day alone, sluggish luggage handling was common—the first passenger arrival by Aerosvit took an hour for the luggage to start coming out, and some flights did not have their luggage coming out even after four hours. Flights were delayed (Thai Airways claimed that 17 of 19 flights were delayed that day), and there were failures with the check-in system. Subsequent problems included the failure of the cargo computer system, and the departure boards displaying the wrong information, resulting in confused passengers (especially as unlike Don Mueang, there were no "final calls" issued).


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Months after its opening, issues of congestion, construction quality, signage, provision of facilities, and soil subsidence continued to plague the project, prompting calls to reopen Don Mueang to allow for repairs to be made. Expert opinions varied widely on the extent of Suvarnabhumi's problems as well as their root cause. Most airlines stated that damage to the airport was minimal. Then Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont reopened Don Mueang for domestic flights on a voluntary basis on 16 February 2007, with 71 weekly flights moved back initially, but no international flights.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: In January 2007, ruts were discovered in the runways at Suvarnabhumi. The east runway was scheduled to close for repairs. Expert opinions varied as to the cause of the ruts. Airport authorities and airline representatives maintained that the airport was still safe and resisted suggestions that the airport should be completely closed and all flights moved back to Don Mueang.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: On 27 January 2007, the Department of Civil Aviation declined to renew the airport's safety certificate, which had expired the previous day. The ICAO requires that international airports hold aerodrome safety certificates, but Suvarnabhumi continued to operate because the ICAO requirement had yet to be adopted as part of Thai law.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: As of early 2016, tarmac problems persisted at Suvarnabhumi. Soft spots on the tarmac, taxiways, and apron area had not been permanently fixed. Aircraft were getting stuck on the soft surfaces that are the result of sub-standard materials. "The constant resurfacing of the tarmac, taxiways and apron area with asphalt is an unacceptable patchwork solution. We literally need a "concrete" solution", said Tony Tyler, IATA's director general and CEO.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: In January 2007, Thai Airways announced a plan to move some of its domestic operations back to Don Mueang International Airport due to overcrowding. Three days later, the Ministry of Transport recommended temporarily reopening Don Mueang while repair work on the runways at Suvarnabhumi proceeded. At that time, Thai Airways said it would shift most of its domestic flights back to Don Mueang while keeping flights with high international passenger connections such as Chiang Mai and Phuket at Suvarnabhumi. On 28 March 2009, Thai Airways discontinued all domestic flights from Don Mueang. Bangkok Airways and One-Two-GO Airlines had similar plans, but Bangkok Airways remained at Suvarnabhumi. Thai AirAsia said it would not move unless it could shift both its international and domestic operations, prompting them to stay at Suvarnabhumi for the time being. Nok Air and PBair were undecided, but Nok Air later relocated all flights to Don Mueang, where they operate today. As of January 2010, only Nok Air and One-Two-GO operated domestic flights from Don Mueang Airport. PBair have ceased operations altogether. One-Two-GO was integrated into Orient Thai Airlines in July 2010, but continues to operate from Don Mueang Airport.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: As of 1 October 2012 Air Asia has moved all of its Bangkok operations to Don Mueang International Airport (DMK) from Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK).


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Airports of Thailand found that the cost of fixing 60 identified problems at the airport would be less than one percent of the total airline cost and the problems could be fixed in up to four to five years. Dr Narupol Chaiyut, a member of a committee overseeing service problems at the new airport, estimated that 70 percent of the problems would be fixed in 2007. Twenty of the 60 problems were successfully fixed by February 2007.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Suvarnabhumi Airport's main terminal roof is designed with structural elements and bays placed in a cantilevered, wavelike form to appear to "float" over the concourse beneath. This overall design principle was to express the former essence of the site, from which water had to be drained before construction could begin. The eight composite 2,710-ton trusses supporting the canopy of the main terminal are essentially diagrams of the bending moments acting on them, with the greatest depth at mid-span and over the supports.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The result of Helmut Jahn's vision is a structure with performance materials serve in their total composition and in use more than in their conventional roles. This maximizes daylight use in comfort with substantial energy life-cycle cost savings. The installed cooling system reduced up to 50 percent compared to a conventional system. A translucent membrane with three layers was developed to mediate between the interior and exterior climate, dealing with noise and temperature transmission, while still allowing natural flow of daylight into building along with views of greenery outside.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport was ranked number 48 among the world's top 100 airports in 2020. Other ASEAN airports in 2020 were ranked: Singapore Changi Airport, 1; Kuala Lumpur International Airport, 63; Jakarta, 35; Hanoi, 87. Suvarnabhumi was ranked 46 in 2019, 38 in 2017 and 36 in 2016. According to the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) in 2018, the airport's ranking had not improved over the past six years. Customer complaints include: lengthy immigration waiting times; transit day room issues; insufficient numbers of chairs and phone charging points; insufficient English-speaking staff; and poor information displays.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: On 25 January 2007, due to work upgrading the taxiways which suffered from small cracks, a few incoming flights were delayed and several flights were safely diverted to U-Tapao International Airport in Rayong Province.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: On 26 November 2008, an illegal occupation of the airport took place by People's Alliance for Democracy, closing the departure lounge and blocking exits and leaving almost 3,000 passengers stranded in the main terminal and another 350,000 stranded inside the country, as all flights were grounded. The People's Alliance for Democracy seized the control tower at 12:00. On 2 December 2008, protesters agreed to leave the airport as they had been illegally protesting and permitted the resumption of flights. Security checks, clean-ups, and re-certification once the illegal occupation ended delayed the airport from being fully functional until 5 December 2008.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: In January 2021, a motorist drove his car through security gates and onto the tarmac at the airport while it was in use. It was later revealed that the driver had been under the influence of methamphetamine, which were also discovered in the trunk of the car. The driver claimed that he had taken a wrong turn.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Petty thieves and confidence men, the majority of them illegal taxi drivers or tour guides, are known to prey on tourists in the arrival hall. They belong to politically well connected criminal groups: Kamnan Samruay, Boonruang Srisang, Sak Pakphanang, the Pattaya Mafia and Phuyai Daeng. Evicting them has proved difficult as they allegedly are well connected. (The head of the Pirap gang is supposedly related to an Airports of Thailand executive, while the Phuyai Daeng has ties to influential civil servants in Samut Prakan.)


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: On 1 October 2010, two hundred armed men occupied the airport's parking area for an hour, blocking the building's entrances and seizing ticket booths to collect fares from motorists. Airport security personnel failed to respond, reportedly because of an internal dispute within the parking management company, the firm contracted to run the parking facilities.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Costing an estimated 155 billion baht (US$5 billion), the airport has two parallel runways (60 m wide, 4,000 m and 3,700 m long) and two parallel taxiways to accommodate simultaneous departures and arrivals. It has a total of 120 parking bays (51 with contact gates and 69 remote gates), with five of these capable of accommodating the Airbus A380. Suvarnabhumi Airport has 72 jet bridges and 69 non-jet bridges. Additionally, flights are able to park at remote locations on the ramp, from which airport buses transport passengers to and from the terminal. Suvarnabhumi Airport has 18 jet bridges and 6 non-jet bridges for Airbus A380.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport's two runways can accommodate 64 flights per hour. At peak times the runways average 63 flights per hour. In April 2019 the Thai cabinet approved a sum of 21.8 billion baht for the construction of a third runway. Construction will start in 2019 and be completed in 2021. The third runway will accommodate a maximum of 30 flights per hour. The project will be managed by Airports of Thailand (AOT).


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The main passenger terminal building, with a capacity of handling 76 flight operations per hour, co-locates the international and domestic terminals, though assigning them to different parts of the concourse. In the initial phase of construction, it was capable of handling 45 million passengers and three million tonnes of cargo per year. Above the underground rail link station and in front of the passenger terminal building is a 600-room hotel operated by Accor Group under the Novotel brand.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport's passenger terminal is the world's largest passenger terminal ever constructed in one phase at , and is also currently the fourth biggest passenger terminal building in the world, after the Hong Kong International Airport (), Beijing Capital International Airport (), with the largest passenger terminal at Dubai International Airport (Terminal 3 is over ). The airport air-traffic control tower was the tallest in the world at from 2006 to 2014.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: From the opening of Suvarnabhumi in 2006 to early 2017, eight people had fallen to their deaths from upper-floor walkways, prompting the airport to spend 33 million baht in 2013 building glass barriers to prevent people from falling and/or taking their lives.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: By mid-2015, the airport was handling more than 800 flights per day, higher than its 600-flight capacity. It has exceeded its capacity of 45 million passengers per year.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Airports of Thailand (AOT) approved an investment budget for the expansion of Suvarnabhumi Airport and construction began in late 2016 and finish in 2021 or early 2022. The plan was to strengthen Suvarnabhumi Airport's position as a regional aviation hub. Phase Two would raise the airport's capacity to 65 million passengers a year and would be undertaken in parallel with the construction of a new domestic terminal. The new domestic terminal will be intended to accommodate more than 30 million passengers annually.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The two expansion projects are part of the overall airport enlargement that would see Suvarnabhumi raise its annual passenger handling capacity to 125 million passengers, 90 million international and 35 million domestic passengers by 2024 at an estimated cost of 163 billion baht (US$5.25 billion/€3.62 billion). The expansion includes the construction of one additional runway, subsequent enlargement of domestic and international terminals, and improvements to parking bays, car parks, and other airport infrastructure.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Once completed the expansion plans to increase passenger capacity of Suvarnabhumi Airport to 65 million per year. The new satellite passenger concourse will be linked to the current main terminal via an underground automated people mover (APM) system that was voted by the AOT board during a 17 May 2012 meeting. The new people mover is being provided by Siemens using the VAL technology. Originally set to be completed by 2019/20, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the completion of the concourse terminal has now been set to 2021. The expansion also includes a plan to expand the airport parking garage as well as the expansion of the eastern end of the main passenger terminal by along with the construction of a new airline office building. The expansion includes plans to construct a third runway of . According to the Bangkok Post, the new satellite terminal will have a total of 28 gates, with eight for the Airbus A380 super jumbo jet.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The new passenger terminal will be used only by Bangkok Airways and flag carrier Thai Airways International (and its regional subsidiary Thai Smile). Upon completion of the satellite terminal, other Star Alliance members will be given the check-in concourse of Thai Airways.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Suvarnabhumi accounted for the largest share of air traffic at Thailand's airports in 2015, handling 52.9 million passengers, up by nearly 14 percent from the previous year despite its passenger capacity of only 45 million a year. International passengers passing through Suvarnabhumi grew 15.9 percent to 44.2 million, while domestic volume edged up 4.87 percent to 8.68 million. Aircraft movements showed a 9.5 percent increase to 317,066, consisting of 247,584 international (up 11 percent) and 69,482 domestic (up 4.4 percent).


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The 30 billion baht Suvarnabhumi Airport Link was opened on 23 August 2010, after multiple delays. The Airport Rail Link (ARL) is operated by SRTET, a subsidiary company of the State Railway of Thailand. The standard gauge line is long and is elevated for most of its length, running mostly above existing regional railway lines and parallel to Motorway 7 and Si Rat Expressway. There is a short at-grade/underground segment as the line approaches the passenger terminal building of Suvarnabhumi Airport.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The ARL Station is located on the Underground floor of Suvarnabhumi Airport which also links to the Airports' Novotel Hotel adjacent to the Main Terminal.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The ARL hours of service are 06:00 to 00:00. The ARL has two interchange stations, namely Phaya Thai (changing for BTS Green Line services) and Makkasan (linking Phetchaburi station of the MRT Blue Line). In the future, the ARL will complement the SRT Red Line commuter service, which comprises two-meter gauge, dual-track lines. The ARL may also be extended from Phaya Thai to Don Mueang via Bang Sue Grand Station, given that the old Don Mueang International Airport has now been reopened for civil aviation under a dual-airport policy.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Meanwhile, SRT provides a suburban commuter train service between Lad Krabang (the nearest station to Suvarnabhumi on the East line, one station from the airport by Airport Rail Link) and the northern suburban city of Rangsit via downtown Bangkok and the old Don Mueang Airport. The train also connects with BTS and MRT at Phaya Thai and Phetchaburi stations respectively. A shuttle bus service linking the airport with Hua Takhe railway station is provided by BMTA. The train service is currently not as popular as the bus service because it requires a shuttle bus connection. The service will be stopped when the Airport Express Link is completed.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Northeast of the Airport is Suvarnabhumi Public Transport Center, which is the Airport's Main Bus Terminal.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: A free bus service connecting Suvarnabhumi Airport and Don Mueang Airport operates from 05.00 until midnight. Three air-conditioned city bus routes are operated by Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) serve the airport's dedicated bus terminal. There are also direct buses between the airports operated by Airport Shuttle Bus.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: Located on Level 1 (Ground Level) are where the Public Taxis are located. A ticket printed from the ticket queue machine (located on the same floor) is required before queuing up for a taxi.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport has five main access routes. Among these the most convenient route is via the Bangkok Chon Buri Motorway (Motorway 7). Another main airport entrance is in Samut Prakan Province via the expressway from Bang Na to Bang Pakong.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The Airport has 7 different car park zones, with zone 2 & 3 having direct access to the departure/arrival terminal. Located northeast of the airport is the Longterm Car Park Zone, next to the Bus Terminal.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: The airport has provided five entrance routes. The main route is via the motorway in the north of Bangkok, directly connecting Bangkok's downtown and Chonburi Province, the industrial and harbor city in eastern Thailand. However, another main airport entrance is in Samut Prakan Province, connecting an elevated highway in the south of Bangkok from Bang Na to Bang Pakong.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: In December 2015, Airports of Thailand introduced Sky Lane (), a cycling track around the Suvarnabhumi airport perimeter. The entrance to Sky Lane is located in the northeastern corner of the airport area. Cyclists can bring their bicycles and bike here for free. The Sky Lane is a controlled-access, one-direction, two-lane track built only for cycling, so the riders can be ensured that they won't be bothered by any vehicle. The Sky Lane's length is 23.5 km, making it the longest in Asia. Sky Lane's facilities, which are specially designed for cyclists, include medical facilities, shops, food & beverage, track, parking lot and a rest area. The entrance gate is open from 06:00 to 18:00.


title: Suvarnabhumi Airport

text: On 23 November 2018, King Rama X presided over the official opening of cycling lane at Suvarnabhumi airport and denominated the track as Happy and Healthy Bike Lane.


title: Monetary policy

text: Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often as an attempt to reduce inflation or the interest rate, to ensure price stability and general trust of the value and stability of the nation's currency.


title: Monetary policy

text: Monetary policy is a modification of the supply of money, i.e. "printing" more money, or decreasing the money supply by changing interest rates or removing excess reserves. This is in contrast to fiscal policy, which relies on taxation, government spending, and government borrowing as methods for a government to manage business cycle phenomena such as recessions.


title: Monetary policy

text: Further purposes of a monetary policy are usually to contribute to the stability of gross domestic product, to achieve and maintain low unemployment, and to maintain predictable exchange rates with other currencies.


title: Monetary policy

text: Monetary economics can provide insight into crafting optimal monetary policy. In developed countries, monetary policy is generally formed separately from fiscal policy.


title: Monetary policy

text: Expansionary policy occurs when a monetary authority uses its procedures to stimulate the economy. An expansionary policy maintains short-term interest rates at a lower than usual rate or increases the total supply of money in the economy more rapidly than usual. It is traditionally used to try to reduce unemployment during a recession by decreasing interest rates in the hope that less expensive credit will entice businesses into borrowing more money and thereby expanding. This would increase aggregate demand (the overall demand for all goods and services in an economy), which would increase short-term growth as measured by increase of gross domestic product (GDP). Expansionary monetary policy, by increasing the amount of currency in circulation, usually diminishes the value of the currency relative to other currencies (the exchange rate), in which case foreign purchasers will be able to purchase more with their currency in the country with the devalued currency.


title: Monetary policy

text: Contractionary policy maintains short-term interest rates greater than usual, slows the rate of growth of the money supply, or even decreases it to slow short-term economic growth and lessen inflation. Contractionary policy can result in increased unemployment and depressed borrowing and spending by consumers and businesses, which can eventually result in an economic recession if implemented too vigorously.


title: Monetary policy

text: Monetary policy is associated with interest rates and availability of credit. Instruments of monetary policy have included short-term interest rates and bank reserves through the monetary base.


title: Monetary policy

text: For many centuries there were only two forms of monetary policy: altering coinage or the printing of paper money. Interest rates, while now thought of as part of monetary authority, were not generally coordinated with the other forms of monetary policy during this time. Monetary policy was considered as an executive decision, and was generally implemented by the authority with seigniorage (the power to coin). With the advent of larger trading networks came the ability to define the currency value in terms of gold or silver, and the price of the local currency in terms of foreign currencies. This official price could be enforced by law, even if it varied from the market price.


title: Monetary policy

text: Paper money originated from promissory notes termed "jiaozi" in 7th century China. Jiaozi did not replace metallic currency, and were used alongside the copper coins. The succeeding Yuan Dynasty was the first government to use paper currency as the predominant circulating medium. In the later course of the dynasty, facing massive shortages of specie to fund war and maintain their rule, they began printing paper money without restrictions, resulting in hyperinflation.


title: Monetary policy

text: With the creation of the Bank of England in 1694, which was granted the authority to print notes backed by gold, the idea of monetary policy as independent of executive action began to be established. The purpose of monetary policy was to maintain the value of the coinage, print notes which would trade at par to specie, and prevent coins from leaving circulation. The establishment of national banks by industrializing nations was associated then with the desire to maintain the currency's relationship to the gold standard, and to trade in a narrow currency band with other gold-backed currencies. To accomplish this end, national banks as part of the gold standard began setting the interest rates that they charged both their own borrowers and other banks which required money for liquidity. The maintenance of a gold standard required almost monthly adjustments of interest rates.


title: Monetary policy

text: The gold standard is a system by which the price of the national currency is fixed vis-a-vis the value of gold, and is kept constant by the government's promise to buy or sell gold at a fixed price in terms of the base currency. The gold standard might be regarded as a special case of "fixed exchange rate" policy, or as a special type of commodity price level targeting.


title: Monetary policy

text: During the period 1870–1920, the industrialized nations established central banking systems, with one of the last being the Federal Reserve in 1913. By this time the role of the central bank as the "lender of last resort" was established. It was also increasingly understood that interest rates had an effect on the entire economy, in no small part because of appreciation for the marginal revolution in economics, which demonstrated that people would change their decisions based on changes in their economic trade-offs.


title: Monetary policy

text: Monetarist economists long contended that the money-supply growth could affect the macroeconomy. These included Milton Friedman who early in his career advocated that government budget deficits during recessions be financed in equal amount by money creation to help to stimulate aggregate demand for production. Later he advocated simply increasing the monetary supply at a low, constant rate, as the best way of maintaining low inflation and stable production growth. However, when U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker tried this policy, starting in October 1979, it was found to be impractical, because of the unstable relationship between monetary aggregates and other macroeconomic variables. Even Milton Friedman later acknowledged that direct money supplying was less successful than he had hoped.


title: Monetary policy

text: The main monetary policy instruments available to central banks are open market operation, bank reserve requirement, interest rate policy, re-lending and re-discount (including using the term repurchase market), and credit policy (often coordinated with trade policy). While capital adequacy is important, it is defined and regulated by the Bank for International Settlements, and central banks in practice generally do not apply stricter rules.


title: Monetary policy

text: The central bank influences interest rates by expanding or contracting the monetary base, which consists of currency in circulation and banks' reserves on deposit at the central bank.


title: Monetary policy

text: Central banks have three main methods of monetary policy: open market operations, the discount rate and the reserve requirements.


title: Monetary policy

text: By far the most visible and obvious power of many modern central banks is to influence market interest rates; contrary to popular belief, they rarely "set" rates to a fixed number. Although the mechanism differs from country to country, most use a similar mechanism based on a central bank's ability to create as much fiat money as required.


title: Monetary policy

text: The mechanism to move the market towards a 'target rate' (whichever specific rate is used) is generally to lend money or borrow money in theoretically unlimited quantities until the targeted market rate is sufficiently close to the target. Central banks may do so by lending money to and borrowing money from (taking deposits from) a limited number of qualified banks, or by purchasing and selling bonds. As an example of how this functions, the Bank of Canada sets a target overnight rate, and a band of plus or minus 0.25%. Qualified banks borrow from each other within this band, but never above or below, because the central bank will always lend to them at the top of the band, and take deposits at the bottom of the band; in principle, the capacity to borrow and lend at the extremes of the band are unlimited. Other central banks use similar mechanisms.The target rates are generally short-term rates. The actual rate that borrowers and lenders receive on the market will depend on (perceived) credit risk, maturity and other factors. For example, a central bank might set a target rate for overnight lending of 4.5%, but rates for (equivalent risk) five-year bonds might be 5%, 4.75%, or, in cases of inverted yield curves, even below the short-term rate. Many central banks have one primary "headline" rate that is quoted as the "central bank rate". In practice, they will have other tools and rates that are used, but only one that is rigorously targeted and enforced.


title: Monetary policy

text: "The rate at which the central bank lends money can indeed be chosen at will by the central bank; this is the rate that makes the financial headlines." Henry C.K. Liu explains further that "the U.S. central-bank lending rate is known as the Fed funds rate. The Fed sets a target for the Fed funds rate, which its Open Market Committee tries to match by lending or borrowing in the money market ... a fiat money system set by command of the central bank. The Fed is the head of the central-bank because the U.S. dollar is the key reserve currency for international trade. The global money market is a USA dollar market. All other currencies markets revolve around the U.S. dollar market." Accordingly, the U.S. situation is not typical of central banks in general.


title: Monetary policy

text: Typically a central bank controls certain types of short-term interest rates. These influence the stock- and bond markets as well as mortgage and other interest rates. The European Central Bank, for example, announces its interest rate at the meeting of its Governing Council; in the case of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Both the Federal Reserve and the ECB are composed of one or more central bodies that are responsible for the main decisions about interest rates and the size and type of open market operations, and several branches to execute its policies. In the case of the Federal Reserve, they are the local Federal Reserve Banks; for the ECB they are the national central banks.


title: Monetary policy

text: A typical central bank has several interest rates or monetary policy tools it can set to influence markets.


title: Monetary policy

text: Some central banks (e.g. in Denmark, Sweden and the Eurozone) are currently applying negative interest rates.


title: Monetary policy

text: Through open market operations, a central bank influences the money supply in an economy. Each time it buys securities (such as a government bond or treasury bill), it in effect creates money. The central bank exchanges money for the security, increasing the money supply while lowering the supply of the specific security. Conversely, selling of securities by the central bank reduces the money supply.Open market operations usually take the form of:


title: Monetary policy

text: These interventions can also influence the foreign exchange market and thus the exchange rate. For example, the People's Bank of China and the Bank of Japan have on occasion bought several hundred billions of U.S. Treasuries, presumably in order to stop the decline of the U.S. dollar versus the renminbi and the yen.


title: Monetary policy

text: Historically, bank reserves have formed only a small fraction of deposits, a system called fractional-reserve banking. Banks would hold only a small percentage of their assets in the form of cash reserves as insurance against bank runs. Over time this process has been regulated and insured by central banks. Such legal reserve requirements were introduced in the 19th century as an attempt to reduce the risk of banks overextending themselves and suffering from bank runs, as this could lead to knock-on effects on other overextended banks. "See also money multiplier."


title: Monetary policy

text: As the early 20th century gold standard was undermined by inflation and the late 20th-century fiat dollar hegemony evolved, and as banks proliferated and engaged in more complex transactions and were able to profit from dealings globally on a moment's notice, these practices became mandatory, if only to ensure that there was some limit on the ballooning of money supply.


title: Monetary policy

text: A number of central banks have since abolished their reserve requirements over the last few decades, beginning with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in 1985 and continuing with the Federal Reserve in 2020. For the respective banking systems, bank capital requirements provide a check on the growth of the money supply.


title: Monetary policy

text: The People's Bank of China retains (and uses) more powers over reserves because the yuan that it manages is a non-convertible currency.


title: Monetary policy

text: Loan activity by banks plays a fundamental role in determining the money supply. The central-bank money after aggregate settlement – "final money" – can take only one of two forms:


title: Monetary policy

text: The currency component of the money supply is far smaller than the deposit component. Currency, bank reserves and institutional loan agreements together make up the monetary base, called M1, M2 and M3. The Federal Reserve Bank stopped publishing M3 and counting it as part of the money supply in 2006.


title: Monetary policy

text: Central banks can directly or indirectly influence the allocation of bank lending in certain sectors of the economy by applying quotas, limits or differentiated interest rates. This allows the central bank to control both the quantity of lending and its allocation towards certain strategic sectors of the economy, for example to support the national industrial policy, or to environmental investment such as housing renovation.


title: Monetary policy

text: The Bank of Japan used to apply such policy ("window guidance") between 1962 and 1991. The Banque de France also widely used credit guidance during the post-war period of 1948 until 1973 .


title: Monetary policy

text: The European Central Bank's ongoing TLTROs operations can also be described as form of credit guidance insofar as the level of interest rate ultimately paid by banks is differentiated according to the volume of lending made by commercial banks at the end of the maintenance period. If commercial banks achieve a certain lending performance threshold, they get a discount interest rate, that is lower than the standard key interest rate. For this reason, some economists have described the TLTROs as a "dual interest rates" policy. China is also applying a form of dual rate policy.


title: Monetary policy

text: To influence the money supply, some central banks may require that some or all foreign exchange receipts (generally from exports) be exchanged for the local currency. The rate that is used to purchase local currency may be market-based or arbitrarily set by the bank. This tool is generally used in countries with non-convertible currencies or partially convertible currencies. The recipient of the local currency may be allowed to freely dispose of the funds, required to hold the funds with the central bank for some period of time, or allowed to use the funds subject to certain restrictions. In other cases, the ability to hold or use the foreign exchange may be otherwise limited.


title: Monetary policy

text: In this method, money supply is increased by the central bank when it purchases the foreign currency by issuing (selling) the local currency. The central bank may subsequently reduce the money supply by various means, including selling bonds or foreign exchange interventions.


title: Monetary policy

text: In some countries, central banks may have other tools that work indirectly to limit lending practices and otherwise restrict or regulate capital markets. For example, a central bank may regulate margin lending, whereby individuals or companies may borrow against pledged securities. The margin requirement establishes a minimum ratio of the value of the securities to the amount borrowed.


title: Monetary policy

text: Central banks often have requirements for the quality of assets that may be held by financial institutions; these requirements may act as a limit on the amount of risk and leverage created by the financial system. These requirements may be direct, such as requiring certain assets to bear certain minimum credit ratings, or indirect, by the central bank lending to counter-parties only when security of a certain quality is pledged as collateral.


title: Monetary policy

text: Forward guidance is a communication practice whereby the central bank announces its forecasts and future intentions to increase market expectations of future levels of interest rates.


title: Monetary policy

text: Other forms of monetary policy, particularly used when interest rates are at or near 0% and there are concerns about deflation or deflation is occurring, are referred to as unconventional monetary policy. These include credit easing, quantitative easing, forward guidance, and signalling. In credit easing, a central bank purchases private sector assets to improve liquidity and improve access to credit. Signaling can be used to lower market expectations for lower interest rates in the future. For example, during the credit crisis of 2008, the US Federal Reserve indicated rates would be low for an "extended period", and the Bank of Canada made a "conditional commitment" to keep rates at the lower bound of 25 basis points (0.25%) until the end of the second quarter of 2010.


title: Monetary policy

text: Further heterodox monetary policy proposals include the idea of helicopter money whereby central banks would create money without assets as counterpart in their balance sheet. The money created could be distributed directly to the population as a citizen's dividend. Virtues of such money shock include the decrease of household risk aversion and the increase in demand, boosting both inflation and the output gap. This option has been increasingly discussed since March 2016 after the ECB's president Mario Draghi said he found the concept "very interesting". The idea was also promoted by prominent former central bankers Stanley Fischer and Philipp Hildebrand in a paper published by BlackRock, and in France by economists Philippe Martin and Xavier Ragot from the French Council for Economic Analysis, a think tank attached to the Prime minister's office.


title: Monetary policy

text: Some have envisaged the use of what Milton Friedman once called "helicopter money" whereby the central bank would make direct transfers to citizens in order to lift inflation up to the central bank's intended target. Such policy option could be particularly effective at the zero lower bound.


title: Monetary policy

text: A nominal anchor for monetary policy is a single variable or device which the central bank uses to pin down expectations of private agents about the nominal price level or its path or about what the central bank might do with respect to achieving that path. Monetary regimes combine long-run nominal anchoring with flexibility in the short run. Nominal variables used as anchors primarily include exchange rate targets, money supply targets, and inflation targets with interest rate policy.


title: Monetary policy

text: In practice, to implement any type of monetary policy the main tool used is modifying the amount of base money in circulation. The monetary authority does this by buying or selling financial assets (usually government obligations). These open market operations change either the amount of money or its liquidity (if less liquid forms of money are bought or sold). The multiplier effect of fractional reserve banking amplifies the effects of these actions on the money supply, which includes bank deposits as well as base money.


title: Monetary policy

text: Constant market transactions by the monetary authority modify the supply of currency and this impacts other market variables such as short-term interest rates and the exchange rate.


title: Monetary policy

text: The distinction between the various types of monetary policy lies primarily with the set of instruments and target variables that are used by the monetary authority to achieve their goals.


title: Monetary policy

text: The different types of policy are also called monetary regimes, in parallel to exchange-rate regimes. A fixed exchange rate is also an exchange-rate regime; The gold standard results in a relatively fixed regime towards the currency of other countries on the gold standard and a floating regime towards those that are not. Targeting inflation, the price level or other monetary aggregates implies floating the exchange rate unless the management of the relevant foreign currencies is tracking exactly the same variables (such as a harmonized consumer price index).


title: Monetary policy

text: Under this policy approach, the target is to keep inflation, under a particular definition such as the Consumer Price Index, within a desired range.


title: Monetary policy

text: The inflation target is achieved through periodic adjustments to the central bank interest rate target. The interest rate used is generally the overnight rate at which banks lend to each other overnight for cash flow purposes. Depending on the country this particular interest rate might be called the cash rate or something similar.


title: Monetary policy

text: As the Fisher effect model explains, the equation linking inflation with interest rates is the following:


title: Monetary policy

text: where π is the inflation rate, "i" is the home nominal interest rate set by the central bank, and "r" is the real interest rate. Using "i" as an anchor, central banks can influence π.


title: Monetary policy

text: Central banks can choose to maintain a fixed interest rate at all times, or just temporarily. The duration of this policy varies, because of the simplicity associated with changing the nominal interest rate.


title: Monetary policy

text: The interest rate target is maintained for a specific duration using open market operations. Typically the duration that the interest rate target is kept constant will vary between months and years. This interest rate target is usually reviewed on a monthly or quarterly basis by a policy committee.


title: Monetary policy

text: Changes to the interest rate target are made in response to various market indicators in an attempt to forecast economic trends and in so doing keep the market on track towards achieving the defined inflation target. For example, one simple method of inflation targeting called the Taylor rule adjusts the interest rate in response to changes in the inflation rate and the output gap. The rule was proposed by John B. Taylor of Stanford University.


title: Monetary policy

text: The inflation targeting approach to monetary policy approach was pioneered in New Zealand. It has been used in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland, India, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.


title: Monetary policy

text: Price level targeting is a monetary policy that is similar to inflation targeting except that CPI growth in one year over or under the long term price level target is offset in subsequent years such that a targeted price-level trend is reached over time, e.g. five years, giving more certainty about future price increases to consumers. Under inflation targeting what happened in the immediate past years is not taken into account or adjusted for in the current and future years.


title: Monetary policy

text: Uncertainty in price levels can create uncertainty around price and wage setting activity for firms and workers, and undermines any information that can be gained from relative prices, as it is more difficult for firms to determine if a change in the price of a good or service is because of inflation or other factors, such as an increase in the efficiency of factors of production, if inflation is high and volatile. An increase in inflation also leads to a decrease in the demand for money, as it reduces the incentive to hold money and increases transaction costs and shoe leather costs.


title: Monetary policy

text: In the 1980s, several countries used an approach based on a constant growth in the money supply. This approach was refined to include different classes of money and credit (M0, M1 etc.). In the US this approach to monetary policy was discontinued with the selection of Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman.


title: Monetary policy

text: Central banks might choose to set a money supply growth target as a nominal anchor to keep prices stable in the long term. The quantity theory is a long run model, which links price levels to money supply and demand. Using this equation, we can rearrange to see the following:


title: Monetary policy

text: where π is the inflation rate, μ is the money supply growth rate and g is the real output growth rate. This equation suggests that controlling the money supply's growth rate can ultimately lead to price stability in the long run. To use this nominal anchor, a central bank would need to set μ equal to a constant and commit to maintaining this target.


title: Monetary policy

text: However, targeting the money supply growth rate is considered a weak policy, because it is not stably related to the real output growth, As a result, a higher output growth rate will result in a too low level of inflation. A low output growth rate will result in inflation that would be higher than the desired level.


title: Monetary policy

text: While monetary policy typically focuses on a price signal of one form or another, this approach is focused on monetary quantities. As these quantities could have a role in the economy and business cycles depending on the households' risk aversion level, money is sometimes explicitly added in the central bank's reaction function. After the 1980s, however, central banks have shifted away from policies that focus on money supply targeting, because of the uncertainty that real output growth introduces. Some central banks, like the ECB, have chosen to combine a money supply anchor with other targets.


title: Monetary policy

text: Related to money targeting, nominal income targeting (also called Nominal GDP or NGDP targeting), originally proposed by James Meade (1978) and James Tobin (1980), was advocated by Scott Sumner and reinforced by the market monetarist school of thought.


title: Monetary policy

text: Central banks do not implement this monetary policy explicitly. However, numerous studies shown that such a monetary policy targeting better matches central bank losses and welfare optimizing monetary policy compared to more standard monetary policy targeting.


title: Monetary policy

text: This policy is based on maintaining a fixed exchange rate with a foreign currency. There are varying degrees of fixed exchange rates, which can be ranked in relation to how rigid the fixed exchange rate is with the anchor nation.


title: Monetary policy

text: Under a system of fiat fixed rates, the local government or monetary authority declares a fixed exchange rate but does not actively buy or sell currency to maintain the rate. Instead, the rate is enforced by non-convertibility measures (e.g. capital controls, import/export licenses, etc.). In this case there is a black market exchange rate where the currency trades at its market/unofficial rate.


title: Monetary policy

text: Under a system of fixed-convertibility, currency is bought and sold by the central bank or monetary authority on a daily basis to achieve the target exchange rate. This target rate may be a fixed level or a fixed band within which the exchange rate may fluctuate until the monetary authority intervenes to buy or sell as necessary to maintain the exchange rate within the band. (In this case, the fixed exchange rate with a fixed level can be seen as a special case of the fixed exchange rate with bands where the bands are set to zero.)


title: Monetary policy

text: Under a system of fixed exchange rates maintained by a currency board every unit of local currency must be backed by a unit of foreign currency (correcting for the exchange rate). This ensures that the local monetary base does not inflate without being backed by hard currency and eliminates any worries about a run on the local currency by those wishing to convert the local currency to the hard (anchor) currency.


title: Monetary policy

text: Under dollarization, foreign currency (usually the US dollar, hence the term "dollarization") is used freely as the medium of exchange either exclusively or in parallel with local currency. This outcome can come about because the local population has lost all faith in the local currency, or it may also be a policy of the government (usually to rein in inflation and import credible monetary policy).


title: Monetary policy

text: Theoretically, using relative purchasing power parity (PPP), the rate of depreciation of the home country's currency must equal the inflation differential:


title: Monetary policy

text: The anchor variable is the rate of depreciation. Therefore, the rate of inflation at home must equal the rate of inflation in the foreign country plus the rate of depreciation of the exchange rate of the home country currency, relative to the other.


title: Monetary policy

text: With a strict fixed exchange rate or a peg, the rate of depreciation of the exchange rate is set equal to zero. In the case of a crawling peg, the rate of depreciation is set equal to a constant. With a limited flexible band, the rate of depreciation is allowed to fluctuate within a given range.


title: Monetary policy

text: By fixing the rate of depreciation, PPP theory concludes that the home country's inflation rate must depend on the foreign country's.


title: Monetary policy

text: Countries may decide to use a fixed exchange rate monetary regime in order to take advantage of price stability and control inflation. In practice, more than half of nations’ monetary regimes use fixed exchange rate anchoring.


title: Monetary policy

text: These policies often abdicate monetary policy to the foreign monetary authority or government as monetary policy in the pegging nation must align with monetary policy in the anchor nation to maintain the exchange rate. The degree to which local monetary policy becomes dependent on the anchor nation depends on factors such as capital mobility, openness, credit channels and other economic factors.


title: Monetary policy

text: Following the collapse of Bretton Woods, nominal anchoring has grown in importance for monetary policy makers and inflation reduction. Particularly, governments sought to use anchoring in order to curtail rapid and high inflation during the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, countries began to explicitly set credible nominal anchors. In addition, many countries chose a mix of more than one target, as well as implicit targets. As a result, after the 1970s global inflation rates, on average, decreased gradually and central banks gained credibility and increasing independence.


title: Monetary policy

text: The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 sparked controversy over the use and flexibility of inflation nominal anchoring. Many economists argued that inflation targets were set too low by many monetary regimes. During the crisis, many inflation-anchoring countries reached the lower bound of zero rates, resulting in inflation rates decreasing to almost zero or even deflation.


title: Monetary policy

text: The anchors discussed in this article suggest that keeping inflation at the desired level is feasible by setting a target interest rate, money supply growth rate, price level, or rate of depreciation. However, these anchors are only valid if a central bank commits to maintaining them. This, in turn, requires that the central bank abandon their monetary policy autonomy in the long run. Should a central bank use one of these anchors to maintain a target inflation rate, they would have to forfeit using other policies. Using these anchors may prove more complicated for certain exchange rate regimes. Freely floating or managed floating regimes have more options to affect their inflation, because they enjoy more flexibility than a pegged currency or a country without a currency. The latter regimes would have to implement an exchange rate target to influence their inflation, as none of the other instruments are available to them.


title: Monetary policy

text: The short-term effects of monetary policy can be influenced by the degree to which announcements of new policy are deemed credible. In particular, when an anti-inflation policy is announced by a central bank, in the absence of credibility in the eyes of the public inflationary expectations will not drop, and the short-run effect of the announcement and a subsequent sustained anti-inflation policy is likely to be a combination of somewhat lower inflation and higher unemployment (see Phillips curve § NAIRU and rational expectations). But if the policy announcement is deemed credible, inflationary expectations will drop commensurately with the announced policy intent, and inflation is likely to come down more quickly and without so much of a cost in terms of unemployment.


title: Monetary policy

text: Thus there can be an advantage to having the central bank be independent of the political authority, to shield it from the prospect of political pressure to reverse the direction of the policy. But even with a seemingly independent central bank, a central bank whose hands are not tied to the anti-inflation policy might be deemed as not fully credible; in this case there is an advantage to be had by the central bank being in some way bound to follow through on its policy pronouncements, lending it credibility.


title: Monetary policy

text: There is very strong consensus among economists that an independent central bank can run a more credible monetary policy, making market expectations more responsive to signals from the central bank.


title: Monetary policy

text: Optimal monetary policy in international economics is concerned with the question of how monetary policy should be conducted in interdependent open economies. The classical view holds that international macroeconomic interdependence is only relevant if it affects domestic output gaps and inflation, and monetary policy prescriptions can abstract from openness without harm. This view rests on two implicit assumptions: a high responsiveness of import prices to the exchange rate, i.e. producer currency pricing (PCP), and frictionless international financial markets supporting the efficiency of flexible price allocation. The violation or distortion of these assumptions found in empirical research is the subject of a substantial part of the international optimal monetary policy literature. The policy trade-offs specific to this international perspective are threefold:


title: Monetary policy

text: First, research suggests only a weak reflection of exchange rate movements in import prices, lending credibility to the opposed theory of local currency pricing (LCP). The consequence is a departure from the classical view in the form of a trade-off between output gaps and misalignments in international relative prices, shifting monetary policy to CPI inflation control and real exchange rate stabilization.


title: Monetary policy

text: Second, another specificity of international optimal monetary policy is the issue of strategic interactions and competitive devaluations, which is due to cross-border spillovers in quantities and prices. Therein, the national authorities of different countries face incentives to manipulate the terms of trade to increase national welfare in the absence of international policy coordination. Even though the gains of international policy coordination might be small, such gains may become very relevant if balanced against incentives for international noncooperation.


title: Monetary policy

text: Third, open economies face policy trade-offs if asset market distortions prevent global efficient allocation. Even though the real exchange rate absorbs shocks in current and expected fundamentals, its adjustment does not necessarily result in a desirable allocation and may even exacerbate the misallocation of consumption and employment at both the domestic and global level. This is because, relative to the case of complete markets, both the Phillips curve and the loss function include a welfare-relevant measure of cross-country imbalances. Consequently, this results in domestic goals, e.g. output gaps or inflation, being traded-off against the stabilization of external variables such as the terms of trade or the demand gap. Hence, the optimal monetary policy in this case consists of redressing demand imbalances and/or correcting international relative prices at the cost of some inflation.


title: Monetary policy

text: Corsetti, Dedola and Leduc (2011) summarize the status quo of research on international monetary policy prescriptions: "Optimal monetary policy thus should target a combination of inward-looking variables such as output gap and inflation, with currency misalignment and cross-country demand misallocation, by leaning against the wind of misaligned exchange rates and international imbalances." This is main factor in country money status.


title: Monetary policy

text: Developing countries may have problems establishing an effective operating monetary policy. The primary difficulty is that few developing countries have deep markets in government debt. The matter is further complicated by the difficulties in forecasting money demand and fiscal pressure to levy the inflation tax by expanding the base rapidly. In general, the central banks in many developing countries have poor records in managing monetary policy. This is often because the monetary authorities in developing countries are mostly not independent of the government, so good monetary policy takes a backseat to the political desires of the government or is used to pursue other non-monetary goals. For this and other reasons, developing countries that want to establish credible monetary policy may institute a currency board or adopt dollarization. This can avoid interference from the government and may lead to the adoption of monetary policy as carried out in the anchor nation. Recent attempts at liberalizing and reform of financial markets (particularly the recapitalization of banks and other financial institutions in Nigeria and elsewhere) are gradually providing the latitude required to implement monetary policy frameworks by the relevant central banks.


title: Monetary policy

text: Beginning with New Zealand in 1990, central banks began adopting formal, public inflation targets with the goal of making the outcomes, if not the process, of monetary policy more transparent. In other words, a central bank may have an inflation target of 2% for a given year, and if inflation turns out to be 5%, then the central bank will typically have to submit an explanation. The Bank of England exemplifies both these trends. It became independent of government through the Bank of England Act 1998 and adopted an inflation target of 2.5% RPI, revised to 2% of CPI in 2003. The success of inflation targeting in the United Kingdom has been attributed to the Bank of England's focus on transparency. The Bank of England has been a leader in producing innovative ways of communicating information to the public, especially through its Inflation Report, which have been emulated by many other central banks.


title: Monetary policy

text: The European Central Bank adopted, in 1998, a definition of price stability within the Eurozone as inflation of under 2% HICP. In 2003, this was revised to inflation below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. Since then, the target of 2% has become common for other major central banks, including the Federal Reserve (since January 2012) and Bank of Japan (since January 2013).


title: Monetary policy

text: There continues to be some debate about whether monetary policy can (or should) smooth business cycles. A central conjecture of Keynesian economics is that the central bank can stimulate aggregate demand in the short run, because a significant number of prices in the economy are fixed in the short run and firms will produce as many goods and services as are demanded (in the long run, however, money is neutral, as in the neoclassical model). However, some economists from the new classical school contend that central banks cannot affect business cycles.


title: Monetary policy

text: Conventional macroeconomic models assume that all agents in an economy are fully rational. A rational agent has clear preferences, models uncertainty via expected values of variables or functions of variables, and always chooses to perform the action with the optimal expected outcome for itself among all feasible actions – they maximize their utility. Monetary policy analysis and decisions hence traditionally rely on this New Classical approach.


title: Monetary policy

text: However, as studied by the field of behavioral economics that takes into account the concept of bounded rationality, people often deviate from the way that these neoclassical theories assume. Humans are generally not able to react fully rational to the world around them – they do not make decisions in the rational way commonly envisioned in standard macroeconomic models. People have time limitations, cognitive biases, care about issues like fairness and equity and follow rules of thumb (heuristics).


title: Monetary policy

text: This has implications for the conduct of monetary policy. Monetary policy is the final outcome of a complex interaction between monetary institutions, central banker preferences and policy rules, and hence human decision-making plays an important role. It is more and more recognized that the standard rational approach does not provide an optimal foundation for monetary policy actions. These models fail to address important human anomalies and behavioral drivers that explain monetary policy decisions.


title: Monetary policy

text: An example of a behavioral bias that characterizes the behavior of central bankers is loss aversion: for every monetary policy choice, losses loom larger than gains, and both are evaluated with respect to the status quo. One result of loss aversion is that when gains and losses are symmetric or nearly so, risk aversion may set in. Loss aversion can be found in multiple contexts in monetary policy. The "hard fought" battle against the Great Inflation, for instance, might cause a bias against policies that risk greater inflation.


title: Monetary policy

text: Another common finding in behavioral studies is that individuals regularly offer estimates of their own ability, competence, or judgments that far exceed an objective assessment: they are overconfident. Central bank policymakers may fall victim to overconfidence in managing the macroeconomy in terms of timing, magnitude, and even the qualitative impact of interventions. Overconfidence can result in actions of the central bank that are either "too little" or "too much". When policymakers believe their actions will have larger effects than objective analysis would indicate, this results in too little intervention. Overconfidence can, for instance, cause problems when relying on interest rates to gauge the stance of monetary policy: low rates might mean that policy is easy, but they could also signal a weak economy.


title: Monetary policy

text: These are examples of how behavioral phenomena may have a substantial influence on monetary policy. Monetary policy analyses should thus account for the fact that policymakers (or central bankers) are individuals and prone to biases and temptations that can sensibly influence their ultimate choices in the setting of macroeconomic and/or interest rate targets.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The Magellan expedition, also known as the Magellan–Elcano expedition, was the first voyage around the world in recorded history. It was a 16th century Spanish expedition initially led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to the Moluccas, which departed from Spain in 1519, and completed in 1522 by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, after crossing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, culminating in the first circumnavigation of the world.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The expedition accomplished its primary goalto find a western route to the Moluccas (Spice Islands). The fleet left Spain on 20 September 1519, sailed across the Atlantic ocean and down the eastern coast of South America, eventually discovering the Strait of Magellan, allowing them to pass through to the Pacific Ocean (which Magellan named). The fleet completed the first Pacific crossing, stopping in the Philippines, and eventually reached the Moluccas after two years. A much-depleted crew led by Juan Sebastián Elcano finally returned to Spain on 6 September 1522, having sailed west across the great Indian Ocean, then around the Cape of Good Hope through waters controlled by the Portuguese and north along the Western African coast to eventually arrive in Spain.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The fleet initially consisted of five ships and about 270 men. The expedition faced numerous hardships including Portuguese sabotage attempts, mutinies, starvation, scurvy, storms, and hostile encounters with indigenous people. Only 30 men and one ship (the "Victoria") completed the return trip to Spain. Magellan himself died in battle in the Philippines, and was succeeded as captain-general by a series of officers, with Elcano eventually leading the "Victoria"s return trip.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The expedition was funded mostly by King Charles I of Spain, with the hope that it would discover a profitable western route to the Moluccas, as the eastern route was controlled by Portugal under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Though the expedition did find a route, it was much longer and more arduous than expected, and was therefore not commercially useful. Nevertheless, the expedition is regarded as one of the greatest achievements in seamanship, and had a significant impact on the European understanding of the world.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Christopher Columbus's voyages to the West (1492–1503) had the goal of reaching the Indies and establishing direct commercial relations between Spain and the Asian kingdoms. The Spanish soon realized that the lands of the Americas were not a part of Asia, but another continent. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas reserved for Portugal the eastern routes that went around Africa, and Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese arrived in India in 1498.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Given the economic importance of the spice trade, Castile ("Spain") urgently needed to find a new commercial route to Asia. After the Junta de Toro conference of 1505, the Spanish Crown commissioned expeditions to discover a route to the west. Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean in 1513 after crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and Juan Díaz de Solís died in Río de la Plata in 1516 while exploring South America in the service of Spain.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sailor with previous military experience in India, Malacca, and Morocco. A friend, and possible cousin, with whom Magellan sailed, Francisco Serrão, was part of the first expedition to the Moluccas, leaving from Malacca in 1511. Serrão reached the Moluccas, going on to stay on the island of Ternate and take a wife. Serrão sent letters to Magellan from Ternate, extolling the beauty and richness of the Spice Islands. These letters likely motivated Magellan to plan an expedition to the islands, and would later be presented to Spanish officials when Magellan sought their sponsorship.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Historians speculate that, beginning in 1514, Magellan repeatedly petitioned King Manuel I of Portugal to fund an expedition to the Moluccas, though records are unclear. It is known that Manuel repeatedly denied Magellan's requests for a token increase to his pay, and that in late 1515 or early 1516, Manuel granted Magellan's request to be allowed to serve another master. Around this time, Magellan met the cosmographer Rui Faleiro, another Portuguese subject nursing resentment towards Manuel. The two men acted as partners in planning a voyage to the Moluccas which they would propose to the king of Spain. Magellan relocated to Seville, Spain in 1517, with Faleiro following two months later.


title: Magellan expedition

text: On arrival in Seville, Magellan contacted Juan de Aranda, factor of the "Casa de Contratación". Following the arrival of his partner Rui Faleiro, and with the support of Aranda, they presented their project to the king Charles I of Castile and Aragon (future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). Magellan's project, if successful, would realise Columbus' plan of a spice route by sailing west without damaging relations with the Portuguese. The idea was in tune with the times and had already been discussed after Balboa's discovery of the Pacific. On 22 March 1518 the king named Magellan and Faleiro captains so that they could travel in search of the Spice Islands in July. He raised them to the rank of Commander of the Order of Santiago. They reached an agreement with King Charles which granted them, among other things:


title: Magellan expedition

text: The expedition was funded largely by the Spanish Crown, which provided ships carrying supplies for two years of travel. Though King Charles V was supposed to pay for the fleet he was deeply in debt, and he turned to the House of Fugger. Through archbishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, head of the "Casa de Contratación," the Crown obtained the participation of merchant Cristóbal de Haro, who provided a quarter of the funds and goods to barter.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Expert cartographers Jorge Reinel and Diego Ribero, a Portuguese who had started working for King Charles in 1518 as a cartographer at the "Casa de Contratación", took part in the development of the maps to be used in the travel. Several problems arose during the preparation of the trip, including lack of money, the king of Portugal trying to stop them, Magellan and other Portuguese incurring suspicion from the Spanish, and the difficult nature of Faleiro.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The fleet, consisting of five ships with supplies for two years of travel, was called "Armada del Maluco", after the Indonesian name for the Spice Islands. The ships were mostly black, due to the tar covering most of their surface. The official accounting of the expedition put the cost at 8,751,125 maravedis, including the ships, provisions, and salaries.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Food was a hugely important part of the provisioning. It cost 1,252,909 maravedis, almost as much as the cost of the ships. Four-fifths of the food on the ship consisted of just two items – wine and hardtack.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The fleet also carried flour and salted meat. Some of the ships' meat came in the form of livestock; the ship carried seven cows and three pigs. Cheese, almonds, mustard, and figs were also present. , made from preserved quince, was a delicacy enjoyed by captains which may have unknowingly aided in the prevention of scurvy.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The fleet initially consisted of five ships, with "Trinidad" being the flagship. All or most were carracks (Spanish "carraca" or "nao"; Portuguese "nau"). The "Victoria" was the only ship to complete the circumnavigation. Details of the ships' configuration are not known, as no contemporary illustrations exist of any of the ships. The official accounting of the "Casa de Contratación" put the cost of the ships at 1,369,808 maravedis, with another 1,346,781 spent on outfitting and transporting them.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The crew consisted of about 270 men, mostly Spaniards. Spanish authorities were wary of Magellan, so that they almost prevented him from sailing, switching his mostly Portuguese crew to mostly men of Spain. In the end, the fleet included about 40 Portuguese, among them Magellan's brother-in-law Duarte Barbosa, João Serrão, Estêvão Gomes and Magellan's indentured servant Enrique of Malacca. Crew members of other nations were also recorded, including 29 Italians, 17 French, and a smaller number of Flemish, Greek, Irish, English, Asian, and black sailors. Counted among the Spanish crew members were at least 29 Basques (including Juan Sebastián Elcano), some of whom did not speak Spanish fluently.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Ruy Faleiro, who had initially been named co-captain with Magellan, developed mental health problems prior to departure and was removed from the expedition by the king. He was replaced as the fleet's joint commander by Juan de Cartagena and as cosmographer/astrologer by Andrés de San Martín.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Juan Sebastián Elcano, a Spanish merchant ship captain living in Seville, embarked seeking the king's pardon for previous misdeeds. Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian scholar and traveller, asked to be on the voyage, accepting the title of "supernumerary" and a modest salary. He became a strict assistant of Magellan and kept a journal. The only other sailor to keep a running account during the voyage would be Francisco Albo, who kept a formal nautical logbook.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Juan de Cartagena, suspected illegitimate son of archbishop Fonseca, was named Inspector General of the expedition, responsible for its financial and trading operations.


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 10 August 1519, the five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and descended the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river. There they remained more than five weeks. Finally they set sail on 20 September 1519 and left Spain.


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 26 September, the fleet stopped at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where they took in supplies (including vegetable and pitch, which were cheaper to acquire there than in Spain). During the stop, Magellan received a secret message from his father-in-law, Diogo Barbosa, warning him that some of the Castilian captains were planning a mutiny, with Juan de Cartagena (captain of the "San Antonio") being the ring-leader of the conspiracy. He also learned that the King of Portugal had sent two fleets of caravels to arrest him.


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 3 October, the fleet departed the Canary Islands, sailing south along the coast of Africa. There was some disagreement over directions, with Cartagena arguing for a more westerly bearing. Magellan made the unorthodox decision to follow the African coast in order to evade the Portuguese caravels which were pursuing him.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Toward the end of October, as the Armada approached the equator, they experienced a series of storms, with such intense squalls that they were sometimes forced to strike their sails. Pigafetta recorded the appearance of St. Elmo's fire during some of these storms, which was regarded as a good omen by the crew:


title: Magellan expedition

text: During these storms the body of St. Anselme appeared to us several times; amongst others, one night that it was very dark on account of the bad weather, the said saint appeared in the form of a fire lighted at the summit of the mainmast, and remained there near two hours and a half, which comforted us greatly, for we were in tears, only expecting the hour of perishing; and when that holy light was going away from us it gave out so great a brilliancy in the eyes of each, that we were near a quarter-of-an-hour like people blinded, and calling out for mercy. For without any doubt nobody hoped to escape from that storm.


title: Magellan expedition

text: After two weeks of storms, the fleet spent some time stalled in calm, equatorial waters before being carried west by the South Equatorial Current to the vicinity of the trade winds.


title: Magellan expedition

text: During the ocean crossing, the "Victoria"'s boatswain, Antonio Salamón was caught in an act of sodomy with a cabin boy, Antonio Ginovés. At the time, homosexuality was punishable by death in Spain, though in practice, sex between men was a common occurrence on long naval voyages. Magellan held a trial on board the "Trinidad" and found Salamón guilty, sentencing him to death by strangulation. Salamón was later executed on 20 December, after the fleet's landfall in Brazil. The fate of Ginovés is unclear, with some accounts saying that he was thrown overboard, and others claiming that taunts from his fellow sailors drove him to commit suicide by jumping overboard.


title: Magellan expedition

text: In a meeting following the trial, Magellan's captains challenged his leadership. Cartagena accused Magellan of risking the King's ships by his choice of route, sailing South along the African coast. When Cartagena declared that he would no longer follow Magellan's command, Magellan gave the signal for a number of armed loyalists to enter the room and take hold of Cartagena. Magellan called Cartagena a "rebel" and branded his behaviour as mutinous. Cartagena called on the other two Castilian captains (Quesada and Mendoza) to stab Magellan, but they held back.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Immediately following the episode, Cartagena was placed in stocks. Magellan could have tried Cartagena for mutiny and sentenced him to death, but at the urging of Quesada and Mendoza, he agreed to merely relieve Cartagena of his command of the "San Antonio", and allow him to move freely within the confines of the "Victoria". Antonio de Coca replaced Cartagena as captain of the "San Antonio".


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 29 November, the fleet reached the approximate latitude of Cape Saint Augustine. The coastline of Brazil (which Pigafetta refers to as "Verzin" in his diary, after the Italian term for brazilwood) had been known to the Spanish and Portuguese since about 1500, and in the intervening decades, European powers (particularly Portugal) had been sending ships to Brazil to collect valuable brazilwood. The Armada carried a map of the Brazilian coastline, the "Livro da Marinharia" (the "Book of the Sea"), and also had a crew member, the "Concepción"'s pilot, João Lopes Carvalho, who had previously visited Rio de Janeiro. Carvalho was enlisted to lead the fleet's navigation down the Brazilian coastline to Rio, aboard the "Trinidad", and also helped communicate with the locals, as he had some rudimentary knowledge of their Guarani language.


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 13 December, the fleet reached Rio de Janeiro. Though nominally Portuguese territory, they maintained no permanent settlement there at the time. Seeing no Portuguese ships in the harbour, Magellan knew it would be safe to stop. Pigafetta wrote of a coincidence of weather that caused the armada to be warmly received by the indigenous people:


title: Magellan expedition

text: It is to be known that it happened that it had not rained for two months before we came there, and the day that we arrived it began to rain, on which account the people of the said place said that we came from heaven, and had brought the rain with us, which was great simplicity, and these people were easily converted to the Christian faith.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The fleet spent 13 days in Rio, during which they repaired their ships, stocked up on water and food (such as yam, cassava, and pineapple), and interacted with the locals. The expedition had brought with them a great quantity of trinkets intended for trade, such as mirrors, combs, knives and bells. The locals readily exchanged food and local goods (such as parrot feathers) for such items. The crew also found they could purchase sexual favours from the local women. Historian Ian Cameron described the crew's time in Rio as "a saturnalia of feasting and lovemaking".


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 27 December, the fleet left Rio de Janeiro. Pigafetta wrote that the natives were disappointed to see them leave, and that some followed them in canoes trying to entice them to stay.


title: Magellan expedition

text: The fleet sailed south along the South American coast, hoping to reach "el paso", the fabled strait that would allow them passage past South America to the Spice Islands. On 11 January, a headland marked by three hills was sighted, which the crew believed to be "Cape Santa Maria". Around the headland, they found a wide body of water that extended as far as the eye could see in a west-by-southwest direction. Magellan believed he had found "el paso", though in fact he had reached the Río de la Plata. Magellan directed the "Santiago", commanded by Juan Serrano, to probe the 'strait', and led the other ships south hoping to find "Terra Australis", the southern continent which was then widely supposed to exist south of South America. They failed to find the southern continent, and when they regrouped with the "Santiago" a few days later, Serrano reported that the hoped-for strait was in fact the mouth of a river. Incredulous, Magellan led the fleet through the western waters again, taking frequent soundings. Serrano's claim was confirmed when the men eventually found themselves in fresh water.


title: Magellan expedition

text: On 3 February, the fleet continued south along the South American coast. Magellan believed they would find a strait (or the southern terminus of the continent) within a short distance. In fact, the fleet would sail south for another eight weeks without finding passage, before stopping to overwinter at St. Julian.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Not wanting to miss the strait, the fleet sailed as close to the coast as feasible, heightening the danger of running aground on shoals. The ships sailed only during the day, with lookouts carefully watching the coast for signs of a passage. In addition to the hazards of shallow waters, the fleet encountered squalls, storms, and dropping temperatures as they continued south and winter set in.


title: Magellan expedition

text: By the third week of March, weather conditions had become so desperate that Magellan decided they should find a safe harbour in which to wait out the winter, and resume the search for a passage in spring. On 31 March 1520, a break in the coast was spotted. There, the fleet found a natural harbour which they called Port St. Julian.


title: Magellan expedition

text: Within a day of landing at St. Julian, there was another mutiny attempt. Like the one during the Atlantic crossing, it was led by Juan de Cartagena (former captain of the "San Antonio"), aided by Gaspar de Quesada and Luis Mendoza, captains of the "Concepción" and "Victoria", respectively. As before, the Castilian captains questioned Magellan's leadership, and accused him of recklessly endangering the fleet's crew and ships.