Guatemala - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Otto Pérez Molina (2012)Land area: 41,865 sq mi (108,430 sq km);total area: 42,042 sq mi (108,890 sq km)Population (2013 est.): 14,373,472 (growth rate: 1.91%); birth rate: 25.99/1000; infant mortality rate: 24.32/1000; life expectancy: 71.46Capital and largest city (2009 est.): Guatemala City, 1.075 millionMonetary unit: QuetzalNational name: República de GuatemalaCurrent government officialsLanguages: Spanish 60%, Amerindian languages 40% (23 officially recognized Amerindian languages, including Quiche, Cakchiquel, Kekchi, Mam, Garifuna, and Xinca)Ethnicity/race: Mestizo (Ladino)—mixed Amerindian-Spanish ancestry—and European 59.4%, K'iche 9.1%, Kaqchikel 8.4%, Mam 7.9%, Q'eqchi 6.3%, other Mayan 8.6%, indigenous non-Mayan 0.2%, other 0.1% (2001)Religions: Roman Catholic, Protestant, indigenous Mayan beliefsNational Holiday: Independence Day, September 15Literacy rate: 71% (2003 est.)Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2012 est.): $79.97 billion; per capita $5,300.Real growth rate: 3%.Inflation: 3.8%.Unemployment: 4.1% (2011 est.).Arable land: 13.22%.Agriculture: sugarcane, corn, bananas, coffee, beans, cardamom; cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens.Labor force: 5.571 million; agriculture 38%, industry 14%, services 48% (2011 est.).Industries: sugar, textiles and clothing, furniture, chemicals, petroleum, metals, rubber, tourism.Natural resources: petroleum, nickel, rare woods, fish, chicle, hydropower.Exports: $10.09 billion (2012 est.): coffee, sugar, petroleum, apparel, bananas, fruits and vegetables, cardamom.

Imports: $15.84 billion (2012 est.): fuels, machinery and transport equipment, construction materials, grain, fertilizers, electricity.Major trading partners: U.S., El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, South Korea, China.Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 1.626 million (2011); mobile cellular: 20.716 million (2011).Broadcast media: 4 privately-owned national terrestrial TV channels dominate TV broadcasting; multi-channel satellite and cable services are available; 1 government-owned radio station and hundreds of privately-owned radio stations (2007).Internet hosts:357,552 (2012).Internet users: 2.279 million (2009).Transportation: Railways: total: 332 km (2008).Highways: total: 14,095 km; paved: 4,863 km (including 75 km of expressways); unpaved: 9,247 km (2000).Waterways: 990 km; note: 260 km navigable year round; additional 730 km navigable during high-water season (2012).Ports and harbors: Puerto Quetzal, Santo Tomas de Castilla.Airports: 291 (2012).

International disputes: annual ministerial meetings under the Organization of American States-initiated Agreement on the Framework for Negotiations and Confidence Building Measures continue to address Guatemalan land and maritime claims in Belize and the Caribbean Sea; Guatemala persists in its territorial claim to half of Belize, but agrees to Line of Adjacency to keep Guatemalan squatters out of Belize's forested interior; Mexico must deal with thousands of impoverished Guatemalans and other Central Americans who cross the porous border looking for work in Mexico and the United States.

Once the site of the impressive ancient Mayan civilization, Guatemala was conquered by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 and became a republic in 1839 after the United Provinces of Central America collapsed. From 1898 to 1920, dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera ran the country, and from 1931 to 1944, Gen. Jorge Ubico Castaneda served as strongman.

Tags: Guatemala - The Wide Worlds Snaps,The Wide Worlds Snaps,Guatemala,Guatemala beutifull picture,Guatemala beautifull country,Guatemala snps,Guatemala pictures,Guatemala whole country pictures,Guatemala whole country snaps,Guatemala beautifull country pictures,

Read More

Dominican Republic - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Danilo Medina (August 2012)Land area: 18,680 sq mi (48,381 sq km);total area: 18,815 sq mi (48,730 sq km)Population (2012 est.): 10,088,598 (growth rate: 1.31%); birth rate: 19.44/1000; infant mortality rate: 21.3/1000; life expectancy: 77.44; density per sq km: 196Capital and largest city (2009 est.): Santo Domingo, 2,138,000Other large city: Santiago de los Caballeros, 501,800Monetary unit: Dominican Peso

The Dominican Republic was explored by Columbus on his first voyage in 1492. He named it La Española, and his son, Diego, was its first viceroy. The capital, Santo Domingo, founded in 1496, is the oldest European settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

Spain ceded the colony to France in 1795, and Haitian blacks under Toussaint L'Ouverture conquered it in 1801. In 1808, the people revolted and captured Santo Domingo the next year, setting up the first republic. Spain regained title to the colony in 1814. In 1821 Spanish rule was overthrown, but in 1822 the colony was reconquered by the Haitians. In 1844, the Haitians were thrown out and the Dominican Republic was established, headed by Pedro Santana. Uprisings and Haitian attacks led Santana to make the country a province of Spain from 1861 to 1865.

President Buenaventura Báez, faced with an economy in shambles, attempted to have the country annexed to the U.S. in 1870, but the U.S. Senate refused to ratify a treaty of annexation. Disorder continued until the dictatorship of Ulíses Heureaux; in 1916, when chaos broke out again, the U.S. sent in a contingent of marines, who remained until 1924.

A sergeant in the Dominican army trained by the marines, Rafaél Leonides Trujillo Molina, overthrew Horacio Vásquez in 1930 and established a dictatorship that lasted until his assassination in 1961, 31 years later. In 1962, Juan Bosch of the leftist Dominican Revolutionary Party, became the first democratically elected president in four decades.

Tags: Dominican Republic - The Wide Worlds Snaps,The Wide Worlds Snaps,Dominican Republic,Dominican Republic beutifull country oictures,Dominican Republic beautifull pictures,Dominican Republic pictures,Dominican Republic beautifull snaps,Dominican Republic snaps,Dominican Republic cities,Dominican Republic whole country,

Read More

Cuba - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Raúl Castro (2008)
Total area: 42,803 sq mi (110,860 sq km)
Population (2012 est.): 11,075,244 (growth rate: -0.12%); birth rate: 9.96/1000; infant mortality rate: 4.83/1000; 

life expectancy: 77.87;

density per sq km: 103
Capital and largest city (2009 est.): Havana, 2,140,000
Other large cities: Santiago de Cuba, 554,400; Camagüey, 354,400; Holguin, 319,300; Guantánamo, 274,300;Santa Clara, 251,800

Monetary unit: Cuban Peso

Arawak (or Taino) Indians inhabiting Cuba when Columbus landed on the island in 1492 died from diseases brought by sailors and settlers. By 1511, Spaniards under Diego Velásquez had established settlements. Havana's superb harbor made it a common transit point to and from Spain.

In the early 1800s, Cuba's sugarcane industry boomed, requiring massive numbers of black slaves. A simmering independence movement turned into open warfare from 1867 to 1878. Slavery was abolished in 1886. In 1895, the poet José Marti led the struggle that finally ended Spanish rule, thanks largely to U.S. intervention in 1898 after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor.
An 1899 treaty made Cuba an independent republic under U.S. protection. The U.S. occupation, which ended in 1902, suppressed yellow fever and brought large American investments. The 1901 Platt Amendment allowed the U.S. to intervene in Cuba's affairs, which it did four times from 1906 to 1920. Cuba terminated the amendment in 1934.

In 1933, a group of army officers, including army sergeant Fulgencio Batista, overthrew President Gerardo Machado. Batista became president in 1940, running a corrupt police state.
In 1956, Fidel Castro Ruz launched a revolution from his camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Castro's brother Raul and Ernesto (Ché) Guevara, an Argentine physician, were his top lieutenants. Many anti-Batista landowners supported the rebels. The U.S. ended military aid to Cuba in 1958, and on New Year's Day 1959, Batista fled into exile and Castro took over the government.

Tags: Cuba - The Wide Worlds Snaps,The Wide Worlds Snaps,Cuba,Cuba beautifull country,Cuba snaps,Cuba whole country cities,Cuba beautifull snaps,Cuba cities,Cuba pictures,

Read More

Canada - The Wide Worlds Snaps

Sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II (1952)

Governor-General: David Lloyd Johnston (since 2010)

Prime Minister: Stephen Harper (since 2006)

Land area: 3,511,003 sq mi (9,093,507 sq km);

total area: 3,855,102 sq mi (9,984,670 sq km)

Population (2014 est.): 34,834,841 (growth rate: 0.76%); birth rate: 10.29/1000; infant mortality rate: 4.71/1000; life expectancy: 81.67

Capital (2011 est.): Ottawa, Ontario, 1.208 million

Largest cities (metropolitan areas) (2011 est.): Toronto 5.573 million; Montreal 3.856 million; Vancouver 2.267 million; Calgary 1.216 million; OTTAWA (capital) 1.208 million; Edmonton 1.142 million

Monetary unit: Canadian dollar

Covering most of the northern part of the North American continent and with an area larger than that of the United States, Canada has an extremely varied topography. In the east, the mountainous maritime provinces have an irregular coastline on the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. The St. Lawrence plain, covering most of southern Quebec and Ontario, and the interior continental plain, covering southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan and most of Alberta, are the principal cultivable areas. They are separated by a forested plateau rising from Lakes Superior and Huron.

Westward toward the Pacific, most of British Columbia, the Yukon, and part of western Alberta are covered by parallel mountain ranges, including the Rockies. The Pacific border of the coast range is ragged with fjords and channels. The highest point in Canada is Mount Logan (19,850 ft; 6,050 m), which is in the Yukon. The two principal river systems are the Mackenzie and the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence, with its tributaries, is navigable for over 1,900 mi (3,058 km).

Canada is a federation of ten provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) and three territories (Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut). Formally considered a constitutional monarchy, Canada is governed by its own House of Commons. While the governor-general is officially the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, in reality the governor-general acts only on the advice of the Canadian prime minister.

The first inhabitants of Canada were native Indian peoples, primarily the Inuit (Eskimo). The Norse explorer Leif Eriksson probably reached the shores of Canada (Labrador or Nova Scotia) in 1000, but the history of the white man in the country actually began in 1497, when John Cabot, an Italian in the service of Henry VII of England, reached Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Canada was taken for France in 1534 by Jacques Cartier. The actual settlement of New France, as it was then called, began in 1604 at Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia; in 1608, Quebec was founded. France's colonization efforts were not very successful, but French explorers by the end of the 17th century had penetrated beyond the Great Lakes to the western prairies and south along the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, the English Hudson's Bay Company had been established in 1670. Because of the valuable fisheries and fur trade, a conflict developed between the French and English; in 1713, Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, and Nova Scotia (Acadia) were lost to England. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), England extended its conquest, and the British general James Wolfe won his famous victory over Gen. Louis Montcalm outside Quebec on Sept. 13, 1759. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 gave England control.

Tags: Canada - The Wide Worlds Snaps,The Wide Worlds Snaps,Canada,Canada beautifull country,Canada cities,Canada whole country pictures,Canada snaps,Canada beautifull pictures,Canada world country,Canada snaps,

Read More

Mexico - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Enrique Peña Nieto (2012)

Land area: 742,485 sq mi (1,923,039 sq km);

total area: 761,602 sq mi (1,972,550 sq km)

Population (2010 est.): 112,468,855 (growth rate: 1.1%); birth rate: 19.4/1000; infant mortality rate: 17.8/1000; life expectancy: 76.2; density per sq km: 57

Capital and largest city (2003 est.): Mexico City, 19,013,000 (metro. area), 8,591,309 (city proper)

Other large cities: Ecatepec, 1,731,900 (part of Mexico City metro. area); Guadalajara, 1,665,800; Puebla, 1,345,500; Nezahualcóyotl, 1,250,700 (part of Mexico City metro. area); Monterrey, 1,135,000

Monetary unit: Mexican peso

At least three great civilizations—the Mayas, the Olmecs, and the Toltecs—preceded the wealthy Aztec empire, conquered in 1519–1521 by the Spanish under Hernando Cortés. Spain ruled Mexico as part of the viceroyalty of New Spain for the next 300 years until Sept. 16, 1810, when the Mexicans first revolted. They won independence in 1821.

From 1821 to 1877, there were two emperors, several dictators, and enough presidents and provisional executives to make a new government on the average of every nine months. Mexico lost Texas (1836), and after defeat in the war with the U.S. (1846–1848), it lost the area that is now California, Nevada, and Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1855, the Indian patriot Benito Juárez began a series of reforms, including the disestablishment of the Catholic Church, which owned vast property. The subsequent civil war was interrupted by the French invasion of Mexico (1861) and the crowning of Maximilian of Austria as emperor (1864). He was overthrown and executed by forces under Juárez, who again became president in 1867.

Tags: Mexico - The Wide Worlds Snaps,The Wide Worlds Snaps,Mexico,Mexico beautifull country,Mexico snaps,Mexico country,Mexico cities,Mexico cities beautifull pictures,Mexico country,Mexico whole country,

Read More