The_Scream.jpg/500px-The_Scream.jpg' alt='Rock Plaza Central Are We Not Horses Rare' title='Rock Plaza Central Are We Not Horses Rare' />Get the latest breaking news across the U. S. on ABCNews. com. Musician Jokes Welcome to the Worlds Largest Collection of Musician Jokes. No instrument, musician or music style is sacred here. Special thanks to. Jerusalem Wikipedia. Jerusalem. City. Nicknames Ir ha Kodesh The Holy City,Bayt al Maqdis House of the HolinessCoordinates 3. N3. 51. 3E 3. N 3. E 3. Coordinates 3. N3. 51. 3E 3. N 3. E 3. Administered by Israel. Claimed by. Israel and Palestinenote 1Israeli district. Jerusalem. Palestinian governorate. Jerusalem. Gihon Spring settlement. BCECity of David. BCEPresent Old City walls built. East West Jerusalem division. Reunification. 19. Jerusalem Law. 19. Government  Type. Mayorcouncil  Body. Jerusalem Municipality  Israeli mayor. Nir Barkat Likud  Palestinian mayor EastZaki al Ghul titularArea  City. Metro. 65. 2,0. 00 dunams 6. Elevation. 75. 4 m 2,4. Population 2. 01. City. 88. 2,6. 52  Density. Metro51,2. 53,9. DemonymsJerusalemite YerushalmiQudsiMaqdisi. Demographics 2. 01. Jewish. 64  Arab. Time zone. IST, PST UTC0. Summer DSTIDT, PDT UTC0. Postal code. 9XXXXXXArea code9. Websitejerusalem. IsraeliOfficial name. Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls. My Tokyo Tutor. Type. Cultural. Criteriaii, iii, vi. Designated. 19. 81. Reference no. 1. 48. Region. Jerusalem District. Endangered. 19. 82present. Jerusalem Hebrew  Yerushalayimjerualajim Arabic  al Qudsalqdsnote 2 is a city in the Middle East, located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital, as the State of Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there while the State of Palestine ultimately foresees the city as its seat of power however, neither claim is widely recognized internationally. One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem was named as Urusalima on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning City of Shalem after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period approximately 2. BCE. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE Iron Age II, and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 2. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1. Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quartersknown since the early 1. Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1. List of World Heritage in Danger. Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. Jerusalem is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to the Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, and his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city, transliterated ir haqodesh was probably attached to Jerusalem in post exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint1. Christians adopted as their own authority,1. New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. In Islamic tradition in 6. CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer salat,2. Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years later, ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran. As a result, despite having an area of only 0. Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. During the 1. 94. ArabIsraeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1. Six Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory. One of Israels Basic Laws, the 1. Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset Israels parliament, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, and the Supreme Court. Whilst the international community rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territoryoccupied by Israel,2. Israel has a stronger claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem. The international community, other than the United States, the Czech Republic and Vanuatu, does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and, since the 1. Presidential order has been issued in the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also home to some non governmental Israeli institutions of national importance, such as the Hebrew University and the Israel Museum with its Shrine of the Book. In 2. 01. 5, Jerusalem had a population of some 8. Jewish Israelis, 3. Ultra Orthodox Jews and 3. Palestinians. 3. 4note 6 In 2. Jews comprised 4. Muslims 2. 81,0. 00 3. Christians 1. 4,0. Etymology. A city called Rualim in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt c. BCE is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urualim in the Amarna letters of Abdi Heba 1. BCE. 3. 9The name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation Sumerian yeru, settlementSemitic yry to found, to lay a cornerstone of the god Shalem 4. Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim Jerusalem first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh God will see to it, the name given by Abraham to the place where he began to sacrifice his son and the town Shalem. The earliest extra biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE4. Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1. The inscription states I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem,4. Yahweh is the God of the whole earth. The mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem. Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S L M from which the Hebrew word for peace is derived Salam or Shalom in modern Arabic and Hebrew. The name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as The City of Peace,4. Abode of Peace,5. Vision of Peace in some Christian authors. The ending ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city initially sat on two hills. World of A Song of Ice and Fire. The fictional world in which the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin take place is divided into several continents. Most of the story takes place on the continent Westeros, in a large political entity known as the Seven Kingdoms. The Seven Kingdoms actually consist of nine regions the North, the Iron Islands, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Westerlands, the Stormlands, the Reach, the Crownlands, and Dorne,S 1 and there is a largely unmapped area to the north, separated from the Seven Kingdoms by a massive wall of ice and old magic. The vast continent of Essos lies to the east of Westeros, across the Narrow Sea. The closest foreign nations to Westeros are the Free Cities, a collection of independent city states along the western edge of this eastern continent. The lands along the southern coastline of the eastern continent, collectively called the Lands of the Summer Sea, include Slavers Bay and the ruins of Valyria, the former home of Westeros Targaryen kings. To the south of Essos lie the continents of Sothoryos and Ulthos, which in the narrative are largely unexplored. George R. R. Martin set the Ice and Fire story in an alternative world of Earth, a secondary world, such as J. R. R. Tolkien pioneered with Middle Earth. S 2 Martin has also suggested that world may be larger than the real world planet Earth. The Ice and Firenarrative can be considered to be set in a post magic world where people no longer believe in supernatural things such as the Others,S 3 and while the characters understand the natural aspects of their world, they cannot comprehend its magical elements. S 4 Religion, though, has a significant role in the life of people with the characters practicing many different religions. A Game of Thrones, the first installment of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, has two maps of Westeros. Each new book has added one or two maps so that, as of A Dance with Dragons, seven individual maps of the fictional world are available in the books see table. Martin said in 2. Middle Ages who were unilluminated about distant places. S 5 He also did not subscribe to the theory put forth in The Tough Guide To Fantasyland. The Map. S 6 However, he said readers may be able to piece together a world map by the end of the series. S 5 He was intentionally vague with the size of the Ice and Fire world, omitting a scale on the maps to discourage prediction of travel lengths based on measured distances. S 7 Map artists changed during the writing of A Dance with Dragons so that the maps are available in two versions by James Sinclair and Jeffrey L. Ward, depending on the books. The old maps were redone to match the style of the new ones. S 8A set of foldout maps was published on 3. October 2. 01. 2 as The Lands of Ice and Fire ISBN 9. The maps are drawn by illustrator and cartographer Jonathan Roberts based on drafts by George R. R. Martin. The twelve maps in the set are The Known World, The West, Central Essos, The East, Westeros, Beyond The Wall, The Free Cities, Slavers Bay, The Dothraki Sea, Kings Landing, Braavos and Journeys, which tracks the paths taken by the novels characters. For details about map use in the television adaptation, please see Game of Thrones title sequence. Westeros editWesteros. A map of the Westeros continent. A Song of Ice and Fire location. Created by. George R. R. Martin. Genre. High fantasy. Type. Continent. Notable locations. Kings Landing, Seven Kingdoms. Notable characters. Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Eddard Stark, Catelyn Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Cersei Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Theon Greyjoy. First appearance. A Game of Thrones. The story takes place primarily on a continent called Westeros, which is roughly the size of South America. The continent is home to the Seven Kingdoms and lands beyond the great Wall, which makes up a large chunk of Westeros, being roughly the size of Canada, with most of it largely unmapped and unexplored. S 9 Westeros is at the mercy of erratic seasons of unpredictable duration that last for many years. S 1. At the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire the continent has enjoyed a decade long summer, and many fear that an equally long and harsh winter will follow. At the novels beginning, the majority of Westeros is united under the rule of a king, with each of nine regions controlled by a different major house. Martin here drew inspiration from medieval European history S 1. S 5 in particular the Hundred Years War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Wars of the Roses. S 1. S 1. 2 The first inhabitants of the continent were the Children of the Forest a nature worshipping anthropoid species who carved the faces of their gods in weirwood trees. Some time later, the First Mens attempts at cultivating the land led to a war with the Children which was eventually settled by an agreement known as the Pact, signalling the beginning of the Age of Heroes. During that time, the First Men adopted the Childrens gods, who later became known in Westeros as the Old gods. Eight thousand years before the events of the novels, an enigmatic species called the Others emerged from the furthermost north, accompanying a winter named The Long Night that lasted decades, whereafter the Children of the Forest and the First Men jointly repelled the Others, and a massive Wall was erected barring passage from the far north. Some time later, the Andals invaded Westeros and established the Faith of the Seven, writing, and steel. Only the North remained unconquered and the Children disappeared from Andal lands. Over time seven kingdoms were forged across Westeros The North, The Iron Islands, The Vale, The Westerlands, The Stormlands, The Reach, and Dorne. S 1 The Seven Kingdoms were constantly at war with one another, and no Kingdom remained dominant for long. Three hundred years before the novels begin, Aegon the Conqueror and his two Targaryen sister wives came from Dragonstone and landed in what is now known as Kings Landing. The three assembled a temporary battalion, known as Aegons Fort, which would grow into the capital city. Their powerful dragons overwhelmed six of the Seven Kingdoms through conquest or treaty, but Dorne remained independent for another two hundred years until it was absorbed through marriage alliance. The Targaryens made the Iron Throne from the swords of the defeated rulers, fused by dragonfire, establishing Kings Landing as their capital city, and remained the ruling power on the continent until deposed by Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. The North edit. Author George R. R. Martin compared the North of Westeros to     Scotland. S 1. The North consists of the northern half of the Seven Kingdoms and is ruled by House Stark from Winterfell. The North is nearly as big as the other six kingdoms combined, but only sparsely populated. Martin compared the North to Scotland. S 1. It is cold in the North mild snows are common regardless of season, whereas the winters are described as hard. The regions northern border is the New Gift, a stretch of land 5. Nights Watch. An isthmus of swampland named the Neck separates the North from the South it is home to small, marsh dwelling crannogmen and ruled by House Reed of Greywater Watch, bannermen of House Stark.