West Bank

The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية‎ aḍ-Ḍiffah l-Ġarbiyyah; Hebrew: הגדה המערבית‎, HaGadah HaMa'aravit) or Cisjordan is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, forming the bulk of the Palestinian territories and the State of Palestine. The West Bank shares boundaries (demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949) to the west, north, and south with the state of Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore.

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km² plus a water area of 220 km², consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. It has an estimated population of 2,676,740 (July 2013). More than 80%, about 2,800,000, are Palestinian Arabs, and approximately 500,000 are Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank, including about 192,000 in East Jerusalem, in Israeli settlements, built on the 43% of the West Bank which Israel has allocated to local settler councils. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. The International Court of Justice advisory ruling (2004) concluded that events that came after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank by Israel, including the Jerusalem Law, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords, did not change the status of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as occupied territory with Israel as the occupying power.

East London

East London is a term referring to part of London, capital of the United Kingdom. The current official definition is that East London includes Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Greenwich, Hackney, Havering, Lewisham, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. East London should not be confused with the E postcode area, which is a coding for the postal services and is not intended to provide any official definition of East London or other areas of London.

The East End of London is a subset of East London, corresponding to areas closer to the ancient City.

Geography

Limits and extent

The East End is the old core of East London and there are differing views about how much of East London should be considered part of that core area.

By contrast the extent of East London as a whole can be confidently expressed: lying north of the Thames, stretching from the Roman and Medieval walls of the City to the Metropolitan Green Belt.

Aldgate Pump on the edge of the City is a symbolic start of East London – more specifically the East End. Tower Bridge is sometimes also described in these terms.

Bank

A bank is a financial institution that creates credit by lending money to a borrower, thereby creating a corresponding deposit on the bank's balance sheet. Lending activities can be performed either directly or indirectly through capital markets. Due to their importance in the financial system and influence on national economies, banks are highly regulated in most countries. Most nations have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, known as the Basel Accords.

Banking in its modern sense evolved in the 14th century in the rich cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways was a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the ancient world. In the history of banking, a number of banking dynasties — notably, the Medicis, the Fuggers, the Welsers, the Berenbergs and the Rothschilds — have played a central role over many centuries. The oldest existing retail bank is Monte dei Paschi di Siena, while the oldest existing merchant bank is Berenberg Bank.

West

West is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. West is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of east and is perpendicular to north and south.

Etymology

The word "West" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (ouest in French, oest in Catalan, ovest in Italian, oeste in Spanish and Portuguese). As is apparent in the Gothic term vasi (Visigoths), it stems from the same Indo-European root that gave the Sanskrit vas-ati (night) and vesper (evening) in Latin.

Navigation

To go west using a compass for navigation, one needs to set a bearing or azimuth of 270°.

West is the direction opposite that of the Earth's rotation on its axis, and is therefore the general direction towards which the Sun appears to constantly progress and eventually set.

Moving continuously west is following a circle of latitude.

Cultural

The phrase "the West" is often spoken in reference to the Western world, which includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, and the United States of America.

Post office

A post office is a customer service facility forming part of a national postal system. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels; provision of post office boxes; and sale of postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. In addition, many post offices offer additional services: providing and accepting government forms (such as passport applications), processing government services and fees (such as road tax), and banking services (such as savings accounts and money orders). The chief administrator of a post office is a postmaster.

Prior to the advent of postal and ZIP codes, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. In 19th-century America, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the Post Office Department ceased to permit duplicate station names within a state.

Name

The term "post office" or "post-office" has been in use since the 1650s, shortly after the legalisation of private mail service in England in 1635. In early Modern England, post riders – mounted couriers – were placed ("posted") every few hours along post roads at "posting houses" or "post houses" between major cities ("post towns"). These stables or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay. In early America, post offices were also known as "stations". This term and "post house" fell from use as horse and coach service was replaced by railways, aircraft, and automobiles.