What does a hakka symbolize?

Hakka Americans (客家美國人 or 客裔美國人), also called American Hakka, are Han people in the United States of Hakka origin, mostly from present-day Guangdong and Fujian, China, and Taiwan. Many Hakka Americans have connections to Hakka diaspora in Jamaica, the Caribbean, South East Asia, Latin America, and South America. The Han characters for Hakka (客家) literally mean "guest families". Unlike other Han ethnic groups, the Hakkas are not named after a geographical region, e.g. a province, county or city. The Hakkas usually identify with people who speak the Hakka language or share at least some Hakka ancestry. The earliest Hakka immigrants to what is now the United States mostly went to Hawaii, starting when the Kingdom of Hawaii was an independent sovereign state. After the lifting of the Chinese Exclusion Act by the passage of the Magnuson Act in 1943, the Hakka began to come to the US from Taiwan and to a lesser extent Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Jamaica and the Caribbean.

Hakka Americans

The first wave of Taiwanese migration to the United States involved mostly post-World War II immigrants from the area now ruled by China ("Waishengren"), most of whom were not Hakka. Later, the other Taiwanese people, whose ancestors arrived in Taiwan before 1945, including many Hakkas, started immigrating in larger numbers after the 1960s.

It is estimated that there are currently over 20,000 Taiwanese Hakka in the United States.

Some Hakka Americans came from Meizhou (also called "Kaying" or "Jiaying"), Guangdong, China, or otherwise have ancestral roots in that area.

A small number of Hakka came to the continental US before the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Some Hakka also went to Hawaii, where they consisted a significant minority of the population.

During the 1960s and 1970s, substantial migration of Jamaican Hakkas to the USA and Canada occurred. Most Chinese Jamaicans are Hakka; they have a long history in Jamaica. Between 1854 and 1884, nearly 5000 Hakkas arrived in Jamaica in three major voyages, with some of them subsequently going to the United States. Many of these people also have African ancestry.

A significant minority of early Chinese immigrants to Hawaii, and even fewer to the Continental US, were Hakka, and much of the animosity between the Hakka and Punti Cantonese people carried over. In the first half of the 1800s, around 30 percent of Chinese in Hawaii were of Hakka, while only about 3 percent in the West Coast were Hakka. There was a communal ban on intermarriages between the two groups for the first generation of migrants. In the middle of the 19th century, Hakka immigrants in America were excluded from membership in the Chinese organizations. The largest surge of immigration in that century occurred after an 1876 treaty between the US and Kingdom of Hawaii led to an increased need for labor.

Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen lived in Hawaii for several years during his youth.

Many organizations have been formed to promote Hakka culture in the US. One group is the New England Hakka Association, which reminds its members not to forget their roots. One example is a blog by Ying Han Brach called "Searching for My Hakka Roots". Another group is the Hakka Association of New York, which aims to promote Hakka culture across the five boroughs of New York City. In the mid 1970s, the Hakka Benevolent Association in San Francisco (San Francisco Jiaying Association) was founded by Tu Chung. The association has strong ties with the San Francisco community and offers scholarships to their young members. The most prominent association in Hawaii is the Tsung Tsin Association (崇正會), which was founded in Honolulu in 1918 under the name "Nin Fo Fui Kon" (人和會館). It provides scholarships to US citizens in Hawaii that are preferably of Hakka background and/or interested in the Hakka culture.

The American Community Survey reported that 1,350 people in the United States speak Hakka at home. The actual number may be much higher because some respondents just filled out their response as "Chinese". Some Hakka Americans speak Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese instead.

There are some restaurants in the U.S. serving Hakka cuisine. American food writer Linda Lau Anusasananan wrote a popular Hakka cookbook simply titled, "The Hakka Cookbook" (University of California Press, 2014).

Hakka culture () refers to the culture created by Hakka people, a Han Chinese subgroup, across Asia. It encompasses the shared language, various art forms, food culture, folklore, and traditional customs. Hakka culture stemmed from the culture of Ancient Han Chinese, who migrated from China's central plain to what is modern day's Southern China during the 6th to 13th century, and intermixed with local non-Han ethnic groups such as the Miao people. It has also been influenced by the cultures of surrounding Han Chinese groups, such as the Cantonese and the Hoklo. Having historically lived in the mountains of Southern China and being minority groups in many of the surrounding Chinese provinces, Hakka have developed a culture characterized by reservedness, stability, and frugality.

Hakka culture

Hakkapop is a genre of Hakka pop music made primarily in Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Traditionally engaging in large amount of physical labor, Hakka people favor salty food and marinated vegetables that enable them to maintain their stamina.

The Hakka community is a source for a variety of martial arts including Southern Praying Mantis, Bak Mei and Southern Dragon Kung Fu.

Historically, Hakka women did not bind their feet when the practice was commonplace in China.

The religious practices of Hakka people are largely similar to those of other Han Chinese. Ancestor veneration is the primary form of religious expression. One distinctively Hakka religious practice involves the worship of dragon deities.

Hakka spirit refers to the Hakka people's spirit of endurance, diligence, and bravery in exploring new lands.

The Hakka (), sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese people whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhejiang, Hainan and Guizhou. The Chinese characters for "Hakka" () literally mean "guest families". Unlike other Han Chinese groups, the Hakkas are not named after a geographical region, e.g. a province, county or city, in China.

Hakka people

The Hakkas are thought to have originated from the lands bordering the Yellow River (the modern northern Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Henan, and Hubei). In a series of migrations, the Hakkas moved and settled in their present areas in Southern China, and from there, substantial numbers migrated overseas to various countries throughout the world. As the most diasporic among the Chinese community groups, the worldwide population of Hakkas is about 75 million. The Hakkas moved from northern China into southern China at a time when the Han Chinese people who already lived there had developed distinctive cultural identities and languages from their northern Han Chinese counterparts. The Tunbao and Chuanqing people are other Han Chinese subgroups that migrated from north China to south China while maintaining their northern Han Chinese traditions which differentiated them from their southern Han neighbours.

The Hakka people have had significant influence on the course of modern Chinese and overseas Chinese history; in particular, they have been a source of many revolutionary, government and military leaders. In the last 100 years, twenty-three Hakkas had or are still serving as heads of state or heads of government in various countries in the world.

The Hakka language was the national language of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which had, at one stage, occupied one-third of China in the 19th Century. Today, it is one of the official languages of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Migrants were referred to as Hakka and no specific people were referred to as Hakka at first. Northern China's Yellow River area was the homeland of the Hakka.

Since the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), the ancestors of the Hakka people have migrated southwards several times because of social unrest, upheaval and invasions. Subsequent migrations also occurred at the end of the Tang dynasty in the 10th century and during the end of the Northern Song dynasty in the 1120s, the last of which saw a massive flood of refugees fleeing southward when the Jurchens captured the northern Song capital of Bianliang (modern-day Kaifeng) in the Jingkang Incident of the Jin–Song Wars. The precise movements of the Hakka people remain unclear during the 14th century when the Ming dynasty overthrew the Yuan dynasty and subsequently fell to the Manchus who formed the Qing dynasty in the 17th century.

During the 16th century, in response to an economic boom, the Hakka moved into hilly areas to mine for zinc and lead, and also moved into the coastal plains to cultivate cash crops. After an economic downturn, many of these ventures failed and many people had to turn to pillaging to make ends meet.

During the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1661–1722) in the Qing dynasty, the coastal regions were evacuated by imperial edict for almost a decade, due to the dangers posed by the remnants of the Ming court who had fled to the island of Taiwan. When the threat was eliminated, Kangxi Emperor issued an edict to re-populate the coastal regions. To aid the move, each family was given monetary incentives to begin their new lives; newcomers were registered as "Guest Households" ().

Although different in some social customs and culture (e.g. linguistic differences) from the surrounding population, they belong to the Han Chinese majority. Historical sources shown in census statistics relate only to the general population, irrespective of particular districts, provinces, or regions. These census counts were made during imperial times. They did not distinguish what Chinese variety the population spoke. Therefore, they do not directly document Hakka migrations. The study by Lo Hsiang-lin, "K'o-chia Yen-chiu Tao-Liu / An Introduction to the Study of the Hakkas" (Hsin-Ning & Singapore, 1933) used genealogical sources of family clans from various southern counties.

According to the 2009 studies published in the "American Journal of Human Genetics", Hakka genes are slightly towards northern Han people compared with other southern Han people. Nevertheless, the study has also shown a strong common genetic relationship between all Han Chinese with only a small difference of 0.32%.
Lingnan Hakka place names indicate a long history of the Hakka being culturally Han Chinese.

Unlike other Han Chinese groups, the Hakkas are not named after a geographical region, e.g. a province, county or city. The Hakka people have a distinct identity from the Cantonese people. As 60% of the Hakkas in China reside in Guangdong province, and 95% of overseas Hakkas ancestral homes are in Guangdong. Hakkas from Chaozhou, Hainan and Fujian are also mistaken to be Chaoshanese, Hainanese and Hokkiens.

Strangers who find out that the other party is a Hakka will affectionately acknowledge each other as ""zìjiārén"" () meaning "all's in the same (Hakka) family".

It is commonly held that the Hakkas are a subgroup of the Han Chinese that originated in Northern China. To trace their origins, three accepted theories so far have been brought forth among anthropologists, linguists, and historians:The latter two theories are the most likely and are together supported by multiple scientific studies. Clyde Kiang stated that the Hakkas' origins may also be linked with the Han's ancient neighbors, the Dongyi and Xiongnu people. However, this is disputed by many scholars and Kiang's theories are considered to be controversial.

Hakka–Chinese scientist and researcher Dr. Siu-Leung Lee stated in the book by Chung Yoon-Ngan, "The Hakka Chinese: Their Origin, Folk Songs And Nursery Rhymes", that the potential Hakka origins from the northern Han and Xiongnu, and that of the indigenous southern She (畬族) and Yue (越族) tribes, "are all correct, yet none alone explain the origin of the Hakka", pointing out that the problem with "DNA typing" on limited numbers of people within population pools cannot correctly ascertain who are really the southern Chinese, because many southern Chinese are also from northern Asia; Hakka or non-Hakka. It is known that the earliest major waves of Hakka migration began due to the attacks of the two afore-mentioned tribes during the Jin dynasty (265–420).

Hakka culture have been largely shaped by the new environment which they had to alter many aspects their culture to adapt, which helped influence their architecture and cuisine. When the Hakka expanded into areas with pre-existing populations in the South, there was often little agricultural land left for them to farm. As a result, many Hakka men turned towards careers in the military or in public service. Consequently, the Hakka culturally emphasized education, however this is by no means unique to the Hakkas as most of the other Han Chinese also culturally emphasized education.

Hakka Chinese is the native Chinese variety of the Hakka people. In Taiwan, the Ministry of Education named "Taiwanese Hakka Chinese" as one of the languages of Taiwan.

A linguistic study in the 19th century reported that the Hakka language had much more in common with Mandarin than the native languages of Shantou or Guangzhou do.

Hakka people built several types of tulou and fortified villages in the southwestern Fujian and adjacent areas of Jiangxi and Guangdong. A representative sample of Fujian Tulou (consisting of 10 buildings or building groups) in Fujian were inscribed in 2008 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hakka hill songs are traditionally used by hillside farmers in parts of Taiwan and China, mainly for entertainment in the farming fields and courting practices. They are characterized by the strong, resonating melody and voice, which would echo around hills and can be heard for up to a mile around the area. Hill songs can be considered a form of communication, as its participants often use it to communicate love songs or news.

Hakkapop is a genre of Hakka pop music made primarily in Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The mainland station China National Radio's Sound of the Divine Land () has a Hakka Chinese radio break. In Taiwan, there are seven Hakka Chinese radio channels.

Hakka TV was the first Hakka Chinese TV channel in the world. was the first Hakka Chinese TV channel in China.

Hakka cuisine is known for the use of preserved meats and tofu as well as stewed and braised dishes. A popular dish known as "Yong Tau Foo" is a Hakka Chinese food consisting primarily of tofu that has been filled with either a ground meat mixture or fish paste (surimi).

Historically, Hakka women did not bind their feet when the practice was commonplace in China.

The religious practices of Hakka people are largely similar to those of other Han Chinese. Ancestor veneration is the primary form of religious expression. One distinctively Hakka religious practice involves the worship of dragon deities.

Hakka populations are found in 13 out of the 27 provinces and autonomous regions of mainland China.

Hakkas who live in Guangdong comprise about 60% of the total Hakka population. Worldwide, over 95% of the overseas-descended Hakkas came from this Guangdong region, usually from Meizhou and Heyuan as well as other towns such as Shenzhen, Jieyang, Dongguan and Huizhou. Hakkas live mostly in the northeast part of the province, particularly in the so-called Xing-Mei (Xingning–Meixian) area. Unlike their kin in Fujian, Hakka in the Xingning and Meixian area developed a non-fortress-like unique architectural style, most notably the weilongwu ( or Hakka: Wui Lung Wuk) and sijiaolou ( or Hakka: Si Kok Liu).

Tradition states that the early Hakka ancestors traveling from north China entered Fujian first, then by way of the Ting River they traveled to Guangdong and other parts of China, as well as overseas. Thus, the Tingjiang River is also regarded as the Hakka Mother River.

The Hakkas who settled in the mountainous region of south-western Fujian province developed a unique form of architecture known as the "tulou" (土樓), literally meaning "earthen structures". The "tulou" are round or square and were designed as a combined large fortress and multi-apartment building complex. The structures typically had only one entrance-way, with no windows at ground level. Each floor served a different function: the first floor contained a well and livestock, the second food storage, and the third and higher floors living spaces. "Tulou" were built to withstand attack from bandits and marauders.

Today, western Fujian is inhabited by 3 million Hakkas, scattered around 10 counties (county-level cities and districts) in Longyan and Sanming cities, 98% of whom are Hakkas living in Changting, Liancheng, Shanghang, Wuping, Yongding, Ninghua, Qingliu and Mingxi counties.

Jiangxi contains the second largest Hakka community. Nearly all of southern Jiangxi province is Hakka, especially in Ganzhou. In the Song dynasty, a large number of Han Chinese migrated to the delta area as the Court moved southward because invasion of northern minority. They lived in Jiangxi and intermixed with the She and Yao minorities. Ganzhou was the place that the Hakka have settled before migrating to western Fujian and eastern Guangdong. During the early Qing dynasty, there was a massive depopulation in Gannan due to the ravage of pestilence and war. However, western Fujian and eastern Guangdong suffered population explosion at the same time. Some edicts were issued to block the coastal areas, ordering coastal residents to move to the inland. The population pressure and the sharp contradiction of the land redistribution drove some residents to leave. Some of them moved back to Gannan, integrating with other Hakka people who lived there already for generations. Thus, the modern Gannan Hakka community was finally formed.

The Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662–1722), after a tour of the land, decided the province of Sichuan had to be repopulated after the devastation caused by Zhang Xianzhong. Seeing the Hakka were living in poverty in the coastal regions in Guangdong province, the emperor encouraged the Hakkas in the south to migrate to Sichuan province. He offered financial assistance to those willing to resettle in Sichuan: eight ounces of silver per man and four ounces per woman or child.

Sichuan was originally the origin of the Deng lineage until one of them was hired as an official in Guangdong during the Ming dynasty but during the Qing plan to increase the population in 1671 they came to Sichuan again. Deng Xiaoping was born in Sichuan.

Hakka people are mainly concentrated in the eastern part of Hunan.

As with those in Sichuan, many Hakka emigrated to Xinyang prefecture (in southern Henan province), where Li Zicheng carried out a massacre in Guangzhou (now in Huangchuan) on Jan. 17th, 1636.

There is a Hakka saying, "", which literally means "Wherever there is sunshine, there are Chinese; wherever there are Chinese, there are Hakka."

The Hakka have emigrated to many regions worldwide, notably Taiwan, Suriname, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam (known as Ngai people), Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Burma.

Hakka people also emigrated to many countries in Europe, including Great Britain, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Netherlands. They also are found in South Africa and Mauritius, on the islands of the Caribbean (Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago), in the Americas, particularly in the United States, Canada, Panama, Argentina and Brazil, as well as in Australia. Most expatriate Hakkas in Great Britain have ties to Hong Kong as many migrated there when Hong Kong still was a British colony during a period coinciding with the Cultural Revolution of China and a minor economic depression in Hong Kong.

During the late Ming and Qing dynasties, Hong Kong was in the imperial district of Xin-An (now Shenzhen) County. The 1819 gazetteer lists 570 Punti and 270 Hakka contemporary settlements in the whole district. However, the area covered by Xin-An county is greater than what was to become the British imperial enclave of Hong Kong by 1899. Although there had been settlers originating from the mainland proper even before the Tang dynasty, historical records of those people are non-extant, only evidence of settlement from archaeological sources can be found. The New Territories lowland areas had been settled originally by several clan lineages in Kam Tin, Sheung Shui, Fanling, Yuen Long, Lin Ma Hang and Tai Po, and hence termed the Punti before the arrival of the Hakka, and fishing families of the Tanka and Hoklo groups to the area. Since the prime farming land had already been farmed, the Hakka land dwellers settled in the less accessible and more hilly areas. Hakka settlements can be found widely distributed around the Punti areas, but in smaller communities. Many are found on coastal areas in inlets and bays surrounded by hills.

Hakka-speaking communities are thought to have arrived in the Hong Kong area after the rescinding of the coastal evacuation order in 1688, such as the Hakka speaking Lee clan lineage of Wo Hang, one of whose ancestors is recorded as arriving in the area in 1688.

As the strong Punti lineages dominated most of the north western New Territories, Hakka communities began to organise local alliances of lineage communities such as the Sha Tau Kok "Alliance of Ten" or "Shap Yeuk" as Patrick Hase writes. Hakka villages from Wo Hang to the west and Yantian to the east of Sha Tau Kok came to use it as a local market town and it became the center of Hakka dominance. Further, the Shap Yeuk's land reclamation project transforming marshland to arable farmland with the creation of dykes and levees to prevent storm flooding during the early 19th century shows an example of how local cooperation and the growing affluence of the landed lineages in the Alliance of Ten provided the strong cultural, socioeconomic Hakka influence on the area.

Farming and cultivation has been the traditional occupations of Hakka families from imperial times up until the 1970s. Farming was mostly done by Hakka women while their menfolk sought labouring jobs in the towns and cities. Many men entered indentured labour abroad as was common from the end of the 19th century to the Second World War. Post war, males took the opportunity to seek work in Britain and other countries later to send for their families to join them once they sent enough money back to cover travel costs.

As post war education became available to all children in Hong Kong, a new educated class of Hakka became more mobile in their careers. Many moved to the government planned new towns which sprung up from the 1960s. The rural Hakka population began to decline as people moved abroad, and away to work in the urban areas. By the end of the 1970s, agriculture was firmly in the decline in Hakka villages. Today, there are still Hakka villages around Hong Kong, but being remote, many of their inhabitants have moved to the post war new towns like Sheung Shui, Tai Po, Sha Tin and further afield.

The Hakka population in Taiwan is around 4.6 million people today. Hakka people comprise about 15 to 20% of the population of Taiwan and form the second-largest ethnic group on the island. They are descended largely from Hakka who migrated from southern and northern Guangdong to Taiwan around the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty (ca. 1644). The early Hakka immigrants were the island's first agriculturalists and formed the nucleus of the Chinese population, numbering tens of thousands at the time. They resided in "savage border districts, where land could be had for the taking, and where a certain freedom from official oppression was ensured." During the Qing era, the Hakka on Taiwan had gained a reputation with the authorities of being turbulent and lawless.

In Taiwan under Qing rule the Hakka on Taiwan owned matchlock muskets. Han people traded and sold matchlock muskets to the Taiwanese aborigines. The Aboriginals used their matchlock muskets to defeat the Americans in the Formosa Expedition. During the Sino-French War the Hakka and Aboriginals used their matchlock muskets against the French in the Keelung Campaign and Battle of Tamsui.

Liu Mingchuan took measures to reinforce Tamsui, in the river nine torpedo mines were planted and the entrance was blocked with ballast boats filled with stone which were sunk on September 3, matchlock armed "Hakka hill people" were used to reinforce the mainland Chinese battalion, and around the British Consulate and Customs House at the Red Fort hilltop, Shanghai Arsenal manufactured Krupp guns were used to form an additional battery.

The Hakka used their matchlock muskets to resist the Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895) and Han Taiwanese and Aboriginals conducted an insurgency against Japanese rule. The Hakka rose up against the Japanese in the Beipu uprising

Taiwan's Hakka population concentrates in Hsinchu and Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, and around Zhongli District in Taoyuan City, and Meinong District in Kaohsiung, and in Pingtung County, with smaller presences in Hualien County and Taitung County. In recent decades, many Hakka have moved to the largest metropolitan areas, including Taipei and Taichung.

On 28 December 1988, 14,000 Hakka protestors took to the streets in Taipei to demand the Nationalist government to "return our mother tongue", carrying portraits of "Sun Yat-sen". The movement was later termed "1228 Return Our Mother Tongue Movement".

Hakka-related affairs in Taiwan is regulated by the Hakka Affairs Council. Hakka-related tourist attractions in Taiwan are Dongshih Hakka Cultural Park, Hakka Round House, Kaohsiung Hakka Cultural Museum, Meinong Hakka Culture Museum, New Taipei City Hakka Museum, Taipei Hakka Culture Hall and Taoyuan Hakka Culture Hall.

There are two groups of Hakka in Vietnam. One is known as Ngái people and lives along the border with China in northern Vietnam. Another group are Chinese immigrants to southern Vietnam, known as Người Hẹ and is located around Sài Gòn and Vũng Tàu.

About 65% of the Hakka trace their roots back to Meizhou and Heyuan prefectures in Guangdong province. About 70% of the Hakkas are found in Phnom Penh where they dominate professions in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and shoemaking. Hakkas are also found in Takéo Province, Stung Treng and Rattanakiri who consist of vegetable growers and rubber plantation workers. Hakka communities in the provinces migrated to Cambodia through Tonkin and Cochinchina in the 18th and 19th centuries.

There are no records as to when Hakka descendants arrived in Thailand. In 1901, Yu Cipeng, a Hakka member of The League Society of China came to visit Thailand and found that the establishment of many varied organizations among the Hakka was not good for unity. He tried to bring the two parties together and persuaded them to dissolve the associations in order to set up a new united one. In 1909 The Hakka Society of Siam was established, and Chao Phraya Yommarat, then Interior Minister, was invited to preside over the opening ceremony for the establishment of the society's nameplate, located in front of the Chinese shrine "Lee Tee Biao". Yang Liqing was its first President.

In 2010, 232,914 people in Singapore reported Hakka ancestry.

Hakka people form the second largest subgroup of the ethnic Chinese population of Malaysia, particularly in the peninsula, with several prominent Hakka figures emerging during colonial British rule. There are 1,729,000 people of Hakka ancestry in Malaysia as of 2016. Chung Keng Quee, "Captain China" of Perak and Penang, was the founder of the mining town of Taiping, the leader of the Hai San, a millionaire philanthropist, and an innovator in the mining of tin, having been respected by both Chinese and European communities in the early colonial settlement. Another notable Hakka was Yap Ah Loy, who founded Kuala Lumpur and was a Kapitan Cina of the settlement from 1868 to 1885, bringing significant economic contributions, and was also an influential figure among the ethnic Chinese.

In the district of Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan, Hakka people make up more than 90% of the Chinese subgroup with dialect itself acting as a lingua franca there. This has contributed greatly to the fact that the place is commonly known among Hakka Chinese as "Hakka Village". The greatest concentration of Hakkas in northern peninsular Malaysia is in Ipoh, Perak and in Kuala Lumpur and its satellite cities in Selangor. Concentrations of Hakka people in Ipoh and surrounding areas are particularly high. The Hakkas in the Kinta Valley came mainly from the Jiaying Prefecture or Meixian, while those in Kuala Lumpur are mainly of Huizhou origin.

A large number of Hakka people are also found in Sarawak, particularly in the city of Kuching and Miri, where there is a notable population of Hakka people who speak the "Ho Poh" variant of Hakka.

In Sabah, most of the ethnic Chinese are of Hakka descent. In the 1990s, the Hakkas formed around 57% of the total ethnic Chinese population in Sabah. Hakka is the lingua franca among the Chinese in Sabah to such an extent that Chinese of other subgroups who migrate to Sabah from other states in Malaysia and elsewhere usually learn the Hakka dialect, with varying degrees of fluency.

In 1882 the North Borneo Chartered Company opted to bring in Hakka labourers from Longchuan County, Guangdong. The first batch of 96 Hakkas brought to Sabah landed in Kudat on April 4, 1883 under the leadership of Luo Daifeng (Hakka: Lo Tai Fung). In the following decades Hakka immigrants settled throughout the state, with their main population centres in Kota Kinabalu (then known as Jesselton) and its surroundings (in the districts of Tuaran, Penampang, Ranau, Papar, Kota Belud as well as a lesser extent to Kota Marudu), with a significant miniority residing in Sandakan (mainly ex-Taiping revolutionists), and other large populations in other towns and districts, most notably in Tawau, Tenom, Kuala Penyu, Tambunan, Lahad Datu, Semporna, Sipitang, Beaufort, Keningau and Kudat. The British felt the development of North Borneo was too slow and in 1920 they decided to encourage Hakka immigration into Sabah. In 1901, the total Chinese population in Sabah was 13897; by 1911, it had risen 100% to 27801. Hakka immigration began to taper off during World War 2 and declined to a negligible level in the late 1940s.

Migration of Hakka people to Indonesia happened in several waves. The first wave landed in Riau Islands such as in Bangka Island and Belitung as tin miners in the 18th century. The second group of colonies were established along the Kapuas River in Borneo in the 19th century, predecessor to early Singapore residents. In the early 20th century, new arrivals joined their compatriots as traders, merchants and labourers in major cities such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, etc.

In Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Hakka people are sometimes known as "Khek", from the Hokkien (Southern Min) pronunciation "kheh" of 客 (Hakka: "hak"). However, the use of the word 'Khek' is limited mainly to areas where the local Chinese population is mainly of Hokkien origin. In places where other Chinese subgroups predominate, the term 'Hakka' is still the more commonly used.

Hakka also live in Indonesia's largest tin producer islands of Bangka Belitung Province. They are the second majority ethnic group after Malays. The Hakka population in the province is also the second largest in Indonesia after West Kalimantan's and one of the highest percentages of Chinese living in Indonesia.

The first group of Hakka in Bangka and Belitung reached the islands in the 18th century from Guangdong. Many of them worked as tin mining labourers. Since then, they have remained on the island along with the native Malay. Their situation was much different from those of Chinese and native populations of other regions, where legal cultural conflicts were prevalent since the 1960s until 1999, by which Indonesian Chinese had finally regained their cultural freedoms. Here they lived together peacefully and still practiced their customs and cultural festivals, while in other regions they were strictly banned by government legislation prior to 1999. Hakka on the island of Bangka spoke Hopo dialect mixed with Malay, especially in younger generations. Hakka spoken in Belinyu area in Bangka is considered to be standard.

Hakka people in Pontianak live alongside Teochew speaking Chinese. While the Teochews are dominant in the centre of Pontianak, the Hakka are more dominant in small towns along the Kapuas River in the regencies of Sanggau, Sekadau and Sintang. Their Hakka dialect is originally Hopo which influenced by Teochew dialect and also has vocabulary from the local Malay and Dayak tribes. The Hakka were instrumental in the Lanfang Republic.

The Hakka in this region are descendants of gold prospectors who migrated from China in the late 19th century.

The Hakka in Singkawang and the surrounding regencies of Sambas, Bengkayang, Ketapang and Landak speak a different standard of Hakka dialect to the Hakkas along the Kapuas River. Originally West Borneo has diverse Hakka origin but during the 19th century, a large people came from Jiexi so more Hakkas in the region speak Hopo mixed with Wuhua and Huilai accents that eventually formed the dialect of Singkawang Hakka.

Hakka people in Jakarta mainly have roots from Meizhou, who came in the 19th century. Secondary migration of the Hakkas from other provinces like Bangka Belitung and West Borneo came later. Mostly Hakka people in Jakarta resided along Kelapa Gading, Pluit, Penjaringan and surrounding areas, while other Chinese in Glodok, Taman Sari are Hokkien speakers.

There was already a relatively large and vibrant Hakka community in East Timor before the 1975 Indonesian invasion. According to an estimate by the local Chinese Timorese association, the Hakka population of Portuguese Timor in 1975 was estimated to be around 25,000 (including a small minority of other Chinese ethnicities from Macau, which like East Timor was a Portuguese colony). According to a book source, an estimated 700 Hakka were killed within the first week of invasion in Dili alone. No clear numbers had been recorded since many Hakka had already escaped to neighbouring Australia. The recent re-establishment of Hakka associations in the country registered approximately 2,400 Hakka remaining, organised into some 400 families, including part-Timorese ones.

The Timorese Hakka diaspora can currently be found in Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia; in Portugal; in Macau; and in other parts of the world in smaller numbers. They often are highly educated, and many continue their education in either Taiwan or the People's Republic of China, while a majority of the younger generation prefer to study in Australia. The Australian government took some years to assess their claims to be genuine refugees and not illegal immigrants, as partially related to the political situation in East Timor at the time. As Asian countries were neither willing to accept them as residents nor grant them political asylum to the Timorese in general, they were forced to live as stateless persons for some time. Despite this condition, many Hakka had become successful, establishing restaurant chains, shops, supermarkets, and import operations in Australia. Since the independence of East Timor in 2000, some Hakka families had returned and invested in businesses in the newborn nation.

There used to be sizable Hakka communities at Tangra in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, and Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay). However, from the 1960s, when the Vietnam War broke out, there has been a steady migration to other countries, which accelerated in the succeeding decades. The majority moved to Canada, while others went to the United States, Australia, Taiwan, Austria and Sweden. The predominant dialect of Hakka in these communities is Meixian.

It should be noted that during the time he held office in Kolkata until the late 2000s, Yap Kon Chung, an ambassador for The Republic of China (Taiwan), protected and helped the Chinese residents in India. Specifically, during the Indo-Chinese war of 1962, oppression of Sino-Indian residents was escalated. Yap then made appeals to Prime Minister Nehru to bridge a bond between the Indian and Chinese people. During his office, he was also the principal at a highly regarded school as well as a political facilitator who helped many families migrate to other countries such as Canada, the United States and parts of Europe until he himself migrated to Toronto, Canada to join his family. Yap died surrounded by family on April 18, 2014, at the age of 98.

Some Hakka people, notably from Taiwan, migrated to South Africa.

The vast majority of Mauritian Chinese are Hakkas. Most of the Mauritian Hakkas emigrated to Mauritius in the mid-1940s came from northeastern Guangdong, especially from the Meizhou or Meixian region.

As of 2008, the total population of Sino-Mauritian, consisting of Hakka and Hokkien, is around 35,000.

Many Chinese people in Réunion are of Hakka origin. They either came to Réunion as indentured workers or as voluntary migrants.

Hakka from all over the world have also migrated to the USA. One group is the New England Hakka Association, which reminds its members not to forget their roots. One example is a blog by Ying Han Brach called "Searching for My Hakka Roots". Another group is the Hakka Association of New York, which aims to promote Hakka culture across the five boroughs of New York City. In the mid 1970s, the Hakka Benevolent Association in San Francisco was founded by Tu Chung. The association has strong ties with the San Francisco community and offers scholarships to their young members. There are significant Hakka communities in San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Los Angeles.

There are around 20,000 Taiwanese Hakkas in the United States.

There are several Hakka communities across Canada. One group that embraces on Hakka culture in this diverse country is the Hakka Heritage Alliance.

Most Chinese Jamaicans are Hakka; they have a long history in Jamaica. Between 1845 and 1884, nearly 5000 Hakkas arrived in Jamaica in three major voyages. The Hakkas seized the opportunity to venture into a new land, embracing the local language, customs and culture. During the 1960s and 1970s, substantial migration of Jamaican Hakkas to the USA and Canada have occurred. The Hakkas in Jamaica came mainly from Dongguan, Huiyang and Bao'an counties of Guangdong Province.

The Chinese in Suriname are homogeneous as a group and the great majority can trace their roots to Huidong'an in Guangdong.

At a 1994 seminar of the World Hakka Association held in Meixian, statistics showed that there were 6,562,429 Hakkas living abroad.

In 2000, the worldwide population of Hakka was estimated at 36,059,500 and in 2010 it was estimated at 40,745,200.

Another estimate is that approximately 36 million Hakka people are scattered throughout the world. More than 31 million lives in over 200 cities and counties spread throughout seven provinces of China: Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Fujian, Hong Kong, Hunan.

Hakkaology (客家學) is the academic study of the Hakka people and their culture. It encompasses their origins, identity, language, traits, architecture, customs, food, literature, history, politics, economics, diaspora and genealogical records.

The study of the Hakka people first drew attention to Chinese and foreign scholars, missionaries, travellers and writers during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom era in the middle of the nineteen century. Many wanted to know more about the Hakka people who had started the Taiping Rebellion which almost overthrew the Qing dynasty. Ernest John Eitel, a prominent German missionary, was one of those who took a great interest in this area. Theodore Hamberg, who also wrote an early English-language account of the Taiping Rebellion, is also considered a forefather of Hakka studies in the West.

Many foreign scholars were full of admiration of the Hakka people. According to prominent sinologist Victor Purcell, the Hakkas "have a stubbornness of disposition that distinguishes them from their fellow Chinese".

The Hakkas have had a significant influence, disproportionate to their smaller total numbers, on the course of modern Chinese and overseas Chinese history, particularly as a source of revolutionary, political and military leaders.

Hakkas started and formed the backbone of the Taiping Rebellion, the largest uprising in the modern history of China. The uprising, also known as Jintian Uprising, originated at the Hakka village of Jintian in Guiping, Guangxi province. It was led by the failed Qing scholar, Hong Xiuquan, who was influenced by Protestant missionaries. Hong's charisma tapped into a consciousness of national dissent which identified with his personal interpretations of the Christian message. His following, who were initially Hakka peasants from Guangxi, grew across the southern provinces.

The hugely disciplined Taiping army, which included women in their ranks, captured stoutly defended towns and cities from the Qing defenders. Four of the six top Taiping leaders are Hakkas: Hong Xiuquan, Feng Yunshan, Yang Xiuqing and Shi Dakai. In 1851, less than a year after the uprising, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was established. It had, at one stage, occupied one-third of China and almost toppled the Qing dynasty. Hong Rengan, the Premier of the Kingdom, was the first person in China to advocate modern-style government and opening up reforms. The kingdom lasted for thirteen years, from 1851 to 1864.

Hakkas continued to play leading roles during the Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty and the republican years of China. When Sun Yat-sen was small, together with other children in his village, he used to listen to an old Taiping soldier telling them stories about the heroics of the Taipings. This influenced Sun and he proclaimed that he shall be the second Hong Xiuquan. Sun was to become the Father of modern China and many of his contemporaries were his fellow Hakkas.

Zheng Shiliang, a medical student and classmate of Sun, led the Huizhou Uprising () in 1900. Huizhou is an area in Guangdong province where most of the population are Hakkas. Deng Zhiyu led the Huizhou Qinühu Uprising () in 1907. All of the Four Martyrs of Honghuagang () are Hakkas – one of which was Wen Shengcai who assassinated the Manchu general, Fu Qi, in 1911.

Brothers Hsieh Yi-qiao and Hsieh Liang-mu raised the 100,000 Chinese Yuan needed for the Huanghuagang Uprising from the overseas Chinese community in Nanyang (Southeast Asia) in 1911. At least 27 of the 85 (initially 72 because only 72 bodies could be identified) martyrs of Huanghuagang are Hakkas. Yao Yuping led the Guangdong Northern Expeditionary Force () to successive victories against the Qing Army which were vital in the successful defence of the Provisional Government in Nanjing and the early abdication of Xuan Tong Emperor.

Liao Zhongkai and Deng Keng were Sun Yat-sen's main advisors on financial and military matters respectively. A big majority of the soldiers in the Guangdong Army () were Hakkas. Eugene Chen, whose father was a former Taiping, was an outstanding foreign minister in the 1920s. Some of the best of Nationalist China generals: Chen Mingshu, Chen Jitang, Xue Yue and Zhang Fakui amongst many others are Hakka as well.

The Communist Party of China already had many Hakkas in its ranks before the outbreak of the Civil War. Li Lisan was the top leader of the party from 1928 to 1930. The Jiangxi-Fujian Soviet was the largest component territory of the Chinese Soviet Republic which was founded in 1931. It reached a peak of more than 30,000 square kilometres and a population that numbered more than three million, covering mostly Hakka areas of two provinces: Jiangxi and Fujian. The Hakka city of Ruijin was the capital of the republic.

When it was overrun in 1934 by the Nationalist army in the Fifth of its Encirclement Campaigns, the Communists began their famous Long March with 86,000 soldiers, of which more than 70% were Hakkas. The Fifth Encirclement Campaign was led by Nationalist Hakka general, Xue Yue. During the retreat, the Communists managed to strike a deal with the Hakka warlord controlling Guangdong province, Chen Jitang, to let them pass through Guangdong without a fight. When the People's Liberation Army had its rank structure from 1955 to 1964, the highest number of generals, totalling 54, came from the small Hakka county of Xingguo in Jiangxi province. The county had also previously produced 27 Nationalist generals. Xingguo county is thus known as the Generals' County.

During the same period, there were 132 Hakkas out of 325 generals in Jiangxi, 63 Hakkas out of 83 generals in Fujian, and 8 Hakkas out of 12 generals in Guangdong respectively, not mentioning those from Guangxi, Sichuan and Hunan. The number could have been significantly higher if the majority of the personnel who started the Long March had not perished before reaching its destination. Only less than 7,000 of the original 86,000 personnel had survived it.

Prominent Hakka communist leaders include: Marshal Zhu De, the founder of the Red Army, later known as the People's Liberation Army; Ye Ting, Commander-in-chief, New Fourth Army, one of the two main Chinese communist forces fighting the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War (the other main communist force, Eighth Route Army, was commanded by Zhu De); Marshal Ye Jianying, who led the overthrow of the Gang of Four in 1976, which marked the end of the Cultural Revolution; and Hu Yaobang, where the memorial service for his death sparked off a pro-democracy movement which led to the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. In Guangdong, China's most prosperous province, the "Hakka clique" () has consistently dominated the provincial government. Guangdong's Hakka governors include Ye Jianying, Ding Sheng, Ye Xuanping and Huang Huahua.

Besides playing leading roles in all the three major revolutions of China, Hakkas had also been prominently involved in many of the wars against foreign intrusion of China. During the First Opium War, Lai Enjue led the Qing navy against the British at the Battle of Kowloon in 1839 and Yan Botao commanded the coastal defence at the Battle of Amoy in 1841. Feng Zicai and Liu Yongfu were instrumental in the defeat of the French at the Battle of Bang Bo which led to the French Retreat from Lạng Sơn and the conclusion of the war in 1885. During the Japanese invasion of Taiwan in 1895, the Taiwanese militia forces led by Qiu Fengjia and formed mainly by Hakkas, were able to put up a stiff resistance to the Japanese when the Qing army could not. During the Battle of Shanghai in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the heroism of Xie Jinyuan and his troops, known as the "Eight Hundred Warriors" () in Chinese history, gained international attention and lifted flagging Chinese morale in their successful Defence of Sihang Warehouse against the more superior Japanese Imperial Army. However, in the ensuing Battle of Nanjing, seventeen Nationalist generals were killed in action, of which six were Hakkas.

During the war against the Japanese, both the commander-in-chiefs of the two main Chinese communist forces, Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army, are Hakkas: Zhu De and Ye Ting. On the Nationalist side, Xue Yue and Zhang Fakui were commander-in-chiefs for the 9th and 4th War Zones respectively. Called the "Patton of Asia" by the West and the "God of War" () by the Chinese, Xue was China most outstanding general during the war, having won several major battles which killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops. Luo Zhuoying was the commander-in-chief for the 1st Route Expeditionary Forces, Burma (China's first participation of a war overseas), 1942.

During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941–1945, the Dong River Column guerrilla force () was a constant harassment to the Japanese troops. The force, whose members were mostly Hakkas and led by its legendary commander, Zeng Sheng, was highly successful due to its strong Hakka network. Noteworthy accomplishments of the guerrilla force included the aiding of British and Commonwealth prisoners of war to escape successfully from Japanese internment camps and the rescuing of twenty American pilots who parachuted into Hong Kong when they were shot down. Since the Xinhai Revolution, Meizhou alone which consisted of 7 Hakka counties has produced 474 generals (there are more than 200 Hakka or partial-Hakka counties in China).

According to some books, the Soong family from which the Soong Sisters had been influential figures during the Republican period, has been cited to have Hakka ancestors.
In the book, "My father Deng Xiaoping" (), by China paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's daughter, Deng Rong, she had mentioned that the Deng family's ancestry is possibly Hakka, but not definitely.

Overseas Hakkas have also been prominent politically in the countries they had migrated to, many of which are leading political figures of the countries or the Chinese communities there. Since the 20th century, there have been twenty Hakkas who had become heads of state or heads of government in different countries.My grandfather is Hakka. The origin of Hakka is found in the central plains. The Hakka Cultural Center opens at the Zhengdong Economic Center. I will reveal a statue of my grandfather in the cultural center to promote the Hakka spirit. - Sun Huifang, granddaughter of Sun Yat-sen, founding father of modern China (2003) [112]

Over time the newcomers adopted the term "Hakka" to refer to themselves, not least due to the migratory tendencies inherent in their own culture. However, because the term also covers Hakka speakers (in the same way that Punti covered several people speaking different tongues), and because the Han Chinese registered as Guest Families who migrated may not have been Hakka speakers, and because of intermarriages among Hakka and Punti members (which showed that relations between the two were very good at times), identification as Hakka was largely a matter of self-selection. Through studies of both Cantonese and Hakka genealogies, some Hakka and Punti people with the same surnames claim the same ancestors, although their descendants strongly identify with one group to the exclusion of the other.

Punti-Hakka Clan Wars

Punti-Hakka Clan Wars or Hakka-Punti Clan Wars were a conflict between the Hakka and Cantonese people in Guangdong, China between 1855 and 1867. The wars were fierce around the Pearl River Delta, especially in Toi Shan of the Sze Yup counties. The wars resulted in roughly a million dead with many more fleeing for their lives.

Hakka literally means guest family, and Punti literally means natives. The Punti are also referred to by the dialect they spoke, Yue Chinese. The origins of this bloody conflict lay in the resentment of the Cantonese towards the Hakka people whose dramatic population growth threatened the Cantonese people. The Hakka were marginalized and resentful in turn, and were forced to inhabit the hills and waterways rather than the fertile plains.

The existing Cantonese-speaking natives (, "bendi") of these areas, known in Cantonese as "Punti", were protective of their own more fertile lands, and the newcomers were pushed to the outer fringes of fertile plains, despite having migrated legitimately, or they settled in more mountainous regions to eke out a living. Conflict between the two groups grew and it is thought that "Hakka" became a term of derision used by the "Punti" aimed at the newcomers. Eventually, the tension between the two groups (the Hakkas had by then been settled for several hundred years and could not be regarded as migrants in any sense) would lead to a series of 19th-century skirmishes in the Pearl River Delta known as the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars. The problem was not that the two groups spoke a different tongue. In fact, the "locals" comprised different peoples speaking several mutually unintelligible tongues, as was typical of the Chinese countryside all over southern China, but they would regard each other as "locals" or Puntis, but exclude the Hakka from such designation. (The Chinese "bendi" describes any native people in any location; the English term "Punti" describes the native Cantonese in Guangdong but not the emigrant Cantonese elsewhere.)

During the Qing conquest of the Ming, Ming loyalists under Koxinga invaded Taiwan and established an independent kingdom in the hopes of eventually retaking mainland China. In an attempt to defeat these warriors and pirates without a war, the Kangxi Emperor strengthened his dynasty's sea ban ("haijin") in 1661 and issued the order for the Great Clearance of the southeastern coast. The Chinese from Shandong to Guangdong were ordered to destroy their property and move inland 30 to (about ) upon pain of death in order to deprive the Taiwanese rebels of support or targets to raid. The governors and viceroys of the affected provinces submitted scathing memorials and the policy was reversed after eight years. In 1669 and 1671, however, strong typhoons destroyed what few settlements existed.

As far fewer Punti returned to the abandoned lands than expected, the Qing emperor provided incentives to repopulate these areas. The most visible of those who responded were the Hakka. For some time the Punti and Hakka lived together peacefully. As the population of Guangdong Province soared, life became increasingly difficult and unrest broke out.

In 1851, the Taiping Rebellion, led by the Hakka Hong Xiuquan, erupted in Guangxi Province and quickly spread throughout Southern China. The rebellion was finally suppressed in 1867. In 1854, during the rebellion, a local anti-Qing triad took the opportunity to rebel, attacking Ho Yun and Fat Shan. This Red Turban Rebellion was finally suppressed in 1857.

During this rebellion, the Hakka had helped the imperial army to raid Punti villages to attack the rebels and their sympathisers. This precipitated open hostility between the Hakka and Punti, with the Punti attacking Hakka villages in revenge.

Battles raged. Both sides fortified their villages with walls, destroyed bridges and roads, and raised armies as best they could. Entire villages were involved in the fighting with all able-bodied men called to fight. The Cantonese were armed with the help of their genetic relatives in Hong Kong and the Chinese diaspora who lived abroad. Some captives were sold to Cuba and South America as coolies through Hong Kong and Macau, and others sold to the brothels of Macau. More than 3000 Hakkas, who were defeated by the Punti in Gui county, joined the God Worshipping Society.

Conflict reached a devastating scale. Over a million died and thousands of villages were destroyed. Because the Punti significantly outnumbered the Hakka, the Hakka losses were more extensive. After the clan war, the population share of Hakka in the Sze Yup area dropped to 3%, with many relocated to Guangxi.

With the end of the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing government was able to send the imperial army to suppress the conflict with indiscriminate savagery. Afterwards they separated the combatants. For many years the Hakka were allocated their own independent sub-prefecture, Chek Kai (赤溪镇), which was carved out of south-eastern Toishan, while others were relocated to Guangxi Province.

Conflict between Cantonese and Hakka people also occurred in the state of Perak, Malaya (present-day Malaysia) during the mid-19th century when southern Chinese immigrants arrived to work as coolies and mine laborers. Due to linguistic differences and a history of mutual hatred for each other back in China, bloody wars broke out. This series of conflicts, marked by violence between the Cantonese-dominated (and later on, Fujianese) Ghee Hin Kongsi and the primarily Hakka Hai San Secret Society, is known as the Larut War, which concluded with the signing of the Pangkor Treaty of 1874. Although Ghee Hin Kongsi was Cantonese-dominated, it had Hakkas on its side and the leader was a Dabu Hakka, Chin Ah Yam.


Where was Tristan und Isolde first performed?

This is an audio and video discography of Tristan und Isolde, an opera by Richard Wagner which was first performed on 10 June 1865 in Munich.

Tristan und Isolde discography

"Tristan und Isolde" has a long recorded history. In the years before World War II, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior were considered to be the prime interpreters of the lead roles, and mono recordings exist of this pair in a number of live performances led by conductors such as Thomas Beecham, Fritz Reiner, Artur Bodanzky and Erich Leinsdorf. Flagstad recorded the part commercially only near the end of her career in 1952, under Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI, producing a set which is considered a classic recording. Following the war, the performances at Bayreuth with Martha Mödl and Ramon Vinay under Herbert von Karajan (1952) were highly regarded, and these performances are now available as a live recording. In the 1960s, the soprano Birgit Nilsson was considered the major Isolde interpreter, and she was often partnered with the Tristan of Wolfgang Windgassen. Their performance at Bayreuth in 1966 under the baton of Karl Böhm was captured by Deutsche Grammophon—a performance often hailed as one of the best "Tristan" recordings. Some collectors prefer the pairing of Nilsson with the Canadian tenor Jon Vickers, available in "unofficial" recordings from performances in Vienna or Orange.

There are several DVD productions of the opera including Götz Friedrich's production at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin featuring the seasoned Wagnerians René Kollo and Dame Gwyneth Jones in the title roles. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of a Metropolitan Opera performance featuring Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner, conducted by James Levine, in a production staged by Jürgen Rose, and a DVD of the 1995 Bayreuth Festival production with conductor Daniel Barenboim and featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Siegfried Jerusalem as Tristan, staged by Heiner Mueller.


When was HGTV network started?

Using local Scripps cable franchises (since divested), the Federal Communications Commission "must carry" provisions of Scripps medium-market television stations, and other small television operators to gain cable carriage, the channel launched on December 1, 1994. The major programming themes, unchanged since the beginning, were home building and remodeling, landscaping and gardening, decorating and design, and crafts and hobbies.
During its development, the channel was originally named the Home, Lawn, and Garden Channel. The name was later shortened and a logo was developed. The logo was amended in 2010, with this version debuting on March 1 of that year. The square with the "G" in it was removed, the roof was increased in size and the "HGTV" letters are now set in Gotham Black (from the original mixture of Futura and Times New Roman), with the other Gotham fonts being used around the network. The network debuted with a skeletal staff, but with gradual acceptance by other cable operators, it now reaches 94 million households in the United States and has either partner networks, or network interests, in Canada, Japan, and elsewhere. It is now referred to simply as "HGTV"; the full name of the channel is de-emphasized.

HGTV

HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by Discovery, Inc.

The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, approximately 95,628,000 American households (82.2% of households with television) receive HGTV. In 2016, HGTV overtook CNN as the third most-watched cable channel in the United States, behind Fox News and ESPN.

Kenneth W. Lowe (then a radio executive with The E.W. Scripps Company and, subsequently, the chief executive officer of Scripps Networks Interactive) envisioned the concept of HGTV in 1992. With modest financial support from the E.W. Scripps corporate board, he purchased Cinetel, a small video production company in Knoxville, as the base and production hub of the new network. Lowe cofounded the channel with Susan Packard.

Cinetel became Scripps Productions, but it found producing more than 30 programs simultaneously daunting. The organization brought in former CBS television executive Ed Spray, who implemented a system of producing (nearly all) programming through independent production houses around the United States. Burton Jablin, as Vice President of Programming, set the tone and oversaw the production of the early series. About 90 percent of the channel's programming consisted of original productions at launch, with ten percent licensed and rerun from Canadian channels, PBS, and other sources.

In July 2008, the E.W. Scripps Company spun off the channel and the other Scripps cable channels and web-based properties into a separate company, Scripps Networks Interactive; E.W. Scripps broadcast television and newspaper properties remain as part of the original company.

In December 2011, the channel began broadcasting all of its programming in aspect ratio format on its primary standard definition channel. This results in the appearance of black bars on the top and bottom of the screen on 4:3 aspect ratio televisions; its high-definition channel displays the channel's programming in its native aspect ratio.

HGTV's current programming focuses primarily on home-buying, renovation, and reality shows following the business of house flipping. SNI CEO Ken Lowe stated of the programming strategy that "We're not going to surprise you. We're not going to throw you a curve ball. It's not easy to create content that people are passionate about and somewhat addicted to that is somewhat repetitive." As of 2016, HGTV has invested at least $400 million annually on original programming.

An annual promotion held by the network is the "HGTV Dream Home", a sweepstakes which awards a custom-built house as its grand prize.

The 1080i high definition simulcast feed of HGTV launched on March 31, 2008. Originally, the HD channel did not simulcast the standard definition feed of HGTV. Instead, the HD channel featured programming separate from the standard channel. The standard definition feed of the channel began to carry the full aspect ratio downgraded from the HD feed in a letterboxed format in early 2013.

On December 31, 2009, Scripps Networks Interactive removed the Food Network and HGTV from New York City-area cable provider Cablevision, on the day that its carriage contract was set to expire. After months of negotiations, an agreement between Scripps and Cablevision was not reached, prompting the removal of the two channels. On January 21, 2010, Cablevision and Scripps reached a deal and the channels were restored to Cablevision's systems in the New York City area on the same day and by the next day in other areas.

On November 5, 2010, AT&T U-verse dropped the DIY Network, Cooking Channel, Food Network, Great American Country and HGTV, due to a carriage dispute with Scripps Networks. The carriage dispute was resolved two days later, on November 7, 2010, through a new carriage agreement.

On June 13, 2012, representatives for HGTV admitted that scenes featured in the original series "House Hunters" are mostly re-creations of prior events. In many cases, the final decision and purchase were made prior to filming. In some cases, homes visited were not even on the market.

In May 2014, HGTV decided not to premiere the Benham Brothers' series "Flip It Forward" (which was created for the channel), due to a controversy regarding the Brothers' beliefs concerning homosexuality and pro-life beliefs.

In 1997, Atlantis Communications and Scripps Networks launched a Canadian version of HGTV as a Category B specialty channel. Through a series of acquisitions over the years, Corus Entertainment became Scripps Networks' partner in the network.

The Canadian version features much of the same programming as the U.S. channel, along with domestically-produced programs—some of which have also been picked up by the U.S. channel. Two series originating from Canada—"Love It or List It" and "Property Brothers"—have ranked among HGTV's most popular programs in the United States.

On 6 March, 2014, HGTV Launch in Singapore Via Starhub TV, but on August 31, 2018 it (and other Discovery Network channels) ceased transmission. It was launched on Singtel TV Platform on 28th September 2018 on Channel 250.

HGTV is available in Sri Lanka via Dialog TV

On 1 February 2015, HGTV launched in Australia on Australian IPTV service Fetch TV. Programming from the network also airs free-to-air on Nine Network's digital network 9Life.

On 31 August 2015, HGTV launched in Malaysia on DBS Pay TV Astro (television).

On 27 June 2016, HGTV launched in New Zealand as a free-to-air channel on the Freeview terrestrial platform. On 24 August 2016, HGTV launched on the Freeview satellite platform and on Sky.

On 1 July 2016, HGTV launched in Indonesia on MNC Vision.

Scripps Network Interactive has purchased a majority stake in TVN from Grupa ITI, taking control of company's channels. On 7 January 2017, HGTV has replaced fitness and weather channel TVN Meteo Active. HGTV is referred to in Poland as HGTV Home&Garden. This was the first market in Europe the channel has expanded to.

On 1 March, 2015, HGTV launched in the Philippines on Skycable, Destiny Cable, and Cignal.

On 29 May 2016, HGTV launched in Taiwan Via Kbro, Taipei Cable, TWT Cable, and New Taipei City Cable. It plans to also launch on Chunghwa Telecom MOD Channel 281.

HGTV plans to launch on Now TV Channel 530, simulcast in SD and HD.

HGTV It's Launch in Sky Net Channel 67 on October 19, 2018, and also plans to launch in Myanmar on CANAL+ Channel 119.

HGTV was honored with the Academy of Achievement Award for their significant impact on the home and garden décor industry at the 22nd Annual Accessories Resource Team (ARTS) gala event on January 2, 2011. In 2012, HGTV won the Dixon Award for Best TV Channel.


When were the North American time zones established?

In 1870 Charles F. Dowd proposed four time zones based on the meridian through Washington, DC for North American railroads. In 1872 he revised his proposal to base it on the Greenwich meridian. Sandford Fleming, a Scottish-born engineer operating in Canada, proposed worldwide Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879. Cleveland Abbe advocated standard time to better coordinate international weather observations and resultant weather forecasts, which had been coordinated using local solar time. In 1879 he recommended four time zones across the contiguous United States, based upon Greenwich Mean Time. The General Time Convention (renamed the American Railway Association in 1891), an organization of US railroads charged with coordinating schedules and operating standards, became increasingly concerned that if the US government adopted a standard time scheme it would be disadvantageous to its member railroads. William F. Allen, the Convention secretary, argued that North American railroads should adopt a five-zone standard, similar to the one in use today, to avoid government action. On October 11, 1883, the heads of the major railroads met in Chicago at the Grand Pacific Hotel and agreed to adopt Allen's proposed system.

Standard time

Standard time is the synchronization of clocks within a geographical area or region to a single time standard, rather than using solar time or a locally chosen meridian (longitude) to establish a local mean time standard. Historically, the concept was established during the 19th century to aid weather forecasting and train travel. Applied globally in the 20th century, the geographical areas became extended around evenly spaced meridians into time zones which (usually) centered on them. The standard time set in each time zone has come to be defined in terms of offsets from Universal Time. In regions where daylight saving time is used, that time is defined by another offset, from the standard time in its applicable time zones.

The adoption of standard time, because of the inseparable correspondence between time and longitude, solidified the concepts of halving the globe into an eastern and western hemisphere, with one prime meridian (as well its opposite International Date Line) replacing the various prime meridians that had previously been used.

During the 19th century, scheduled steamships and trains required time standardization in the industrialized world.

A standardized time system was first used by British railways on December 1, 1847, when they switched from local mean time, which varied from place to place, to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It was also given the name railway time reflecting the important role the railway companies played in bringing it about. The vast majority of Great Britain's public clocks were standardized to GMT by 1855.

Until 1883 each United States railroad chose its own time standards. The Pennsylvania Railroad used the "Allegheny Time" system, an astronomical timekeeping service which had been developed by Samuel Pierpont Langley at the Western University of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh. Instituted in 1869, the Allegheny Observatory's service is believed to have been the first regular and systematic system of time distribution to railroads and cities as well as the origin of the modern standard time system. By 1870 the Allegheny Time service extended over 2,500 miles with 300 telegraph offices receiving time signals. However, almost all railroads out of New York ran on New York time, and railroads west from Chicago mostly used Chicago time, but between Chicago and Pittsburgh/Buffalo the norm was Columbus time, even on railroads such as the PFtW&C and LS&MS, which did not run through Columbus. The Santa Fe Railroad used Jefferson City (Missouri) time all the way to its west end at Deming, New Mexico, as did the east-west lines across Texas; Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads used San Francisco time all the way to El Paso. The Northern Pacific Railroad had seven time zones between St. Paul and the 1883 west end of the railroad at Wallula Jct; the Union Pacific Railway was at the other extreme, with only two time zones between Omaha and Ogden.

The members agreed that on Sunday, November 18, 1883, all United States and Canadian railroads would readjust their clocks and watches to reflect the new five-zone system on a telegraph signal from the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh at exactly noon on the 90th meridian. Although most railroads adopted the new system as scheduled, some did so early on October 7 and others late on December 2. The Intercolonial Railway serving the Canadian maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia just east of Maine decided not to adopt Intercolonial Time based on the 60th meridian west of Greenwich, instead adopting Eastern Time, so only four time zones were actually adopted by U.S./Canadian railroads in 1883. Major American observatories, including the Allegheny Observatory, the United States Naval Observatory, the Harvard College Observatory, and the Yale University Observatory, agreed to provide telegraphic time signals at noon Eastern Time.

Standard time was not enacted into US law until the 1918 Standard Time Act established standard time in time zones; the law also instituted daylight saving time (DST). The daylight saving time portion of the law was repealed in 1919 over a presidential veto, but was reestablished nationally during World War II. In 2007 the US enacted a federal law formalizing the use of Coordinated Universal Time as the basis of standard time, and the role of the Secretary of Commerce (effectively, the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and the Secretary of the Navy (effectively, the U.S. Naval Observatory) in interpreting standard time.

In 1999, standard time was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in the category "National: Technical Innovations."

The Dominion of Newfoundland, whose capital St. John's falls almost exactly midway between the time zones of Atlantic Time Zone and, voted to create a half-hour time zone known as the Newfoundland Time Zone; it is set at GMT-3:30.

In the Netherlands, introduction of the railways made it desirable to create a standard time. On 1 May 1909, or Dutch Time was introduced. Before that, time was measured in different cities and in the east of the country, this was a few minutes later than in the west. In 1909, a national time was introduced which was the same as the local time in Amsterdam, to be precise the exact time of the Wester Tower (Westertoren/4°53'01.95" E). This time was indicated as GMT +0h 19m 32.13s until 17 March 1937, after which it was simplified to GMT+0h20m. This time zone was also known as the "Loenen time" or "Gorinchem time", as this was the exact time in both Loenen and Gorinchem. At noon in Amsterdam, it was 11:40 in London and 12:40 in Berlin.

The shift to the current Central European Time zone took place on 16 May 1940. The German occupiers ordered the clock to be moved an hour and forty minutes forward. This time was kept in summer and winter throughout 1941 and 1942. It was only in November 1942 that a different Winter time was introduced, and the time was adjusted one hour backwards. This lasted for only three years; after the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945, Summer time was abolished for over thirty years, so during those years, standard time was 40 minutes ahead of the original Amsterdam Time. As of 2017, the Netherlands is in line with Central European Time (GMT+1 in the winter, GMT+2 in the summer, which is significantly different from Amsterdam Time).

In 1868, New Zealand was the first country in the world to establish a nationwide standard time.

A telegraph cable between New Zealand's two main islands became the instigating factor for the establishment of "New Zealand time". In 1868, the Telegraph Department adopted "Wellington time" as the standard time, across all their offices, so that opening and closing times could be synchronised. The Post Office, which usually shared the same building followed suit. However protests that time was being dictated by one government department, led to a resolution in parliament to establish a standard time for the whole country.

The director of the Geological Survey, James Hector, selected New Zealand time to be at the meridian 172° 30'. This was very close to the country’s mean longitude and exactly hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time. It came into effect on 2 November 1868.

For over fifty years, the Colonial Time Service Observatory in Wellington, determined the correct time each morning. At 9 a.m. each day, it was transmitted by morse code to post offices and railway stations around the country. In 1920, radio time signals began broadcasting, greatly increasing the accuracy of the time nationwide.

On 11 October 1883, a convention of railroad executives met in Chicago and agreed to the implementation of five time zones in North America, using as a basis Greenwich Mean Time. Before the invitations to the Washington conference were sent out on December 1, the joint efforts of Abbe, Fleming and William Frederick Allen, Secretary of the US railways' "General Time Convention" and Managing Editor of the "Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways", had brought the US railway companies to an agreement which led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883 across the nation. Although this was not legally established until 1918, there was thus a strong sense of "fait accompli" that preceded the Washington conference, although setting local times was not part of the remit of the conference.

International Meridian Conference

The International Meridian Conference was a conference held in October 1884 in Washington, D.C., in the United States, to determine a prime meridian for international use. The conference was held at the request of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur. The subject to discuss was the choice of "a meridian to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world". It resulted in the recommendation of the Greenwich Meridian as the international standard for zero degrees longitude.

By the 1870s there was pressure both to establish a prime meridian for worldwide navigation purposes and to unify local times for railway timetables. The first International Geographical Congress, held in Antwerp in 1871, passed a motion in favour of the use of the Greenwich Meridian for (smaller scale) passage charts, suggesting that it should become mandatory within 15 years.
In Britain, the Great Western Railway had standardised time by 1840 and in 1847 the "Railway Clearing Union" decreed that "GMT be adopted at all stations as soon as the General Post Office permitted it". The Post Office was by this time transmitting time signals from Greenwich by telegraph to most parts of the country to set the clocks. By January 1848, Bradshaw's railway guide showed the unified times and met with general approval, although legal disputes meant that it was not until 1890 that GMT was formally established across the UK.

In the United States, the problems were much more severe, with one table showing over 100 local times varying by more than 3 hours. In 1870, Charles F. Dowd published a pamphlet titled "A System of national time and its application" advocating three time zones across the country based on the Washington meridian, modifying this to four zones based on the Greenwich meridian in 1872.

The first proposal for a consistent treatment of time worldwide was a memoir entitled ""Terrestrial Time"" by Sandford Fleming, at the time the chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, presented to the Canadian Institute in 1876. This envisaged clocks showing 24-hour universal time with an extra dial having a local time rounded to the nearest hour. He also pointed out that many of the corrections for local mean time were greater than those involved in abandoning solar time. In 1878/9, he produced modified proposals using the Greenwich meridian. Fleming's two papers were considered so important that in June 1879 the British Government forwarded copies to eighteen foreign countries and to various scientific bodies in England. At the same time the "American Metrological Society" produced a "Report on Standard Time" by Cleveland Abbe, chief of the United States Weather Service proposing essentially the same scheme.

These proposals did not meet universal approval in the scientific community, being opposed by John Rodgers, Superintendent of the Naval Observatory, Washington and British Astronomer Royal, George Airy who had both established wire services supporting local time in various cities. The Naval Observatory had also foiled the onward transmission of the Greenwich time signal from Harvard, where it was received via transatlantic cable and used to time a signal ball in Boston.

The International Meridian Conference had its origins in the Third International Geographical Congress held in Venice in 1881, in which the establishment of a universal prime meridian and a uniform standard of time was high on the agenda. The Seventh "International Geodesic Conference" in Rome in October 1883 then thrashed out most of the technical details, leaving the diplomatic agreements to a later conference. The United States passed an Act of Congress on 3 August 1882 authorizing the President to call an international conference to fix on a common prime meridian for time and longitude throughout the world.

Twenty-six nations, represented by 41 delegates, participated in the conference:On 22 October 1884, the following resolutions were adopted by the conference (voting took place on 13 October):

Resolution 2, fixing the meridian at Greenwich, was passed 22–1 (San Domingo, now the Dominican Republic, voted against); France and Brazil abstained. The French did not adopt the Greenwich meridian as the beginning of the universal day until 1911. Even then it refused to use the name "Greenwich", instead using the term "Paris mean time, retarded by 9 minutes and 21 seconds". France finally replaced this phrase with "Coordinated Universal Time" (UTC) in 1978.

Resolution 4 expressly exempts standard time from the universal day. Although two delegates, including Sandford Fleming, proposed the adoption of standard time by all nations, other delegates objected, stating that it was outside the purview of the conference, so neither proposal was subjected to a vote. Thus the conference did "not" adopt any time zones, contrary to popular belief.

Regarding resolution 6: Great Britain had already shifted the beginning of the nautical day from noon, twelve hours before midnight, to midnight in 1805, during the Battle of Trafalgar. The astronomical day was shifted from noon, twelve hours after midnight, to midnight effective by a resolution of the newly formed International Astronomical Union.

The following resolutions were not adopted:

From the Act of the Conference the Delegates were:

The main issue at the conference, apart from procedural issues such as the provision of an authorized French translation of the proceedings, was France's insistence that the meridian should have a strictly neutral character in the same way that they maintained that the metre was a neutral measure. This requirement conflicted with the need to base measurements on an established observatory on land and Fleming's proposal of using the anti-meridian of Greenwich was not supported by the British delegation. In the end, the pragmatic argument for continuity with most nautical charts won the day and the French delegation abstained in the vote.

By changing the start of the astronomical day from midday to midnight, the conference avoided an issue raised by the Geodetic Conference of a change of date happening in the middle of the day in Europe, so that the International Date Line could be where we now have it.

On the question of universal time, Fleming's opinion to one of the lead-up committees was borne out: "In my judgment, the nearest approach to it which may be attempted with any chance of success, is to have "first", a primary standard time, based on the prime meridian that is to be used for non-local purposes; "second", to have twenty-four secondary standard times to govern local reckoning." There was discussion of setting zones as small as 10 minutes (2½°) (that's 10 minutes of time, not 10 minutes of arc/angular measure), but no motion was tabled, as there was little experience to guide the choice.

Most European countries aligned their clocks with Greenwich within ten years, Sweden and North America already having done so, and the trend continued. The French maintained Paris time till 1911 and the following year convened a second conference to address the differences between different observatories which had become apparent, leading to the establishment of the Bureau International de l'Heure after World War I.

In order to compile his information, Abbe required a time-keeping system that was consistent among the stations. To accomplish this he divided the United States into four standard time zones. He published, in 1879, a paper titled "Report on Standard Time". In 1883, he convinced North American railroad companies to adopt his time-zone system. In 1884, Britain, which had already adopted its own standard time system for England, Scotland, and Wales, helped gather international consent for global time. In time, the American government, influenced in part by his 1879 paper, adopted the time-zone system.

Cleveland Abbe

Cleveland Abbe (December 3, 1838 – October 28, 1916) was an American meteorologist and advocate of time zones.

While director of the Cincinnati Observatory in Cincinnati, Ohio, he developed a system of telegraphic weather reports, daily weather maps, and weather forecasts. In 1870, Congress established the U.S. Weather Bureau and inaugurated the use of daily weather forecasts. In recognition of his work, Abbe, who was often referred to as "Old Probability" for the reliability of his forecasts, was appointed the first head of the new service, and is considered the father of the National Weather Service.

Cleveland Abbe was born in New York City and grew up in the prosperous merchant family of George Waldo and Charlotte Colgate Abbe. One of his younger brothers, Robert, became a prominent surgeon and radiologist. In school, Cleveland excelled in mathematics and chemistry, attending David B. Scott Grammar School, and graduating in 1857 from the Free Academy with a Bachelor of Arts. While at City College, he learned under Oliver Wolcott Gibbs. He tutored mathematics at the Trinity Latin School in New York City in 1857 and 1858. He then taught engineering, as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan in 1859, followed by a tutoring job, also in engineering, until he left in 1860. During this stay in Michigan, he also was studying astronomy under Franz Brünnow from 1858 to 1859. He received his second degree, a Master of Arts in 1860, from City College. When the Civil War broke out, he tried to join the Union Army; however, he failed the vision test, due to myopia, and spent the war years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, attending Harvard, and working as an assistant to Benjamin Gould, astronomer and head of the Longitude Department of the United States Coast Survey. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Harvard in 1864, which also marked the end of his working at the US Coast Survey. It was while in Cambridge that he rubbed shoulders with scientists from the Nautical Almanac, specifically, William Ferrel, which probably piqued his meteorological curiosity. He then studied abroad in Russia at the Observatory of Pulkovo, as a guest, and returned, in 1866, to the U.S. eager to study astronomy. It was said that he was his happiest while in Russia as he was surrounded by like-minded intellectuals, formed a relationship with Otto Struve, and enjoyed the scenery. His first job in astronomy as at the United States Naval Observatory until he was offered the director position at the Cincinnati Observatory, in 1868, by the Cincinnati Astronomical Society. He spent a few years in Cincinnati, but his interest were already evolving. Remembering that meteorological conditions directly affected the work of astronomers, he began working in the field of meteorology. He won approval to report on and predict the weather, working on the premise that forecasts could and should be generated at minimal expense and in such a way as to perhaps even produce income. By 1873 he was let go by the Cincinnati Observatory due to funding issues and it was then that he made the decision that would change his career path.

His first work on weather was centered on forecasting and issuance of warnings for severe weather. This preliminary work was started while still in Cincinnati. His first bulletin was issued on 1 September 1869. Abbe was appointed chief meteorologist at the United States Weather Bureau on 3 January 1871, which at the time was part of the Signal Corps. One of the first things that he addressed was the forecasting dimension of meteorology. He recognized that predicting the weather required a widespread, yet coordinated team. And so with short-term funding granted from the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, he enlisted twenty volunteer weather observers to help report conditions. Western Union agreed to permit the observers to communicate without charge, and Abbe and his team went to work. He selected data-collecting instruments that would be critical to the success of weather predicting, and he trained Army observer sergeants in their use. Field data was transmitted using code designed to minimize word count, and at the designated times, information flooded the transmission stations. Clerks would then decode and record the messages and manually enter data onto weather maps, which were then used to predict the weather.

On February 19, 1871, Abbe personally gave the first official weather report. He continued to forecast alone for the next six months, while simultaneously training others. He was joined in mid-1871 by two Army lieutenants and a civilian professor in giving reports, and the team was then able to rotate the heavy workload. Abbe demanded precise language in the forecasts and ensured that every forecast covered four key meteorological elements: weather (clouds and precipitation), temperature, wind direction, and barometric pressure. By the end of the first year of reporting, over 60 copies of weather charts had been sent to Congress, the press, and various scientific institutions. By 1872, Abbe regularly sent over 500 sets of daily maps and bulletins overseas in exchange for European meteorological data. Abbe also insisted on verifying predictions. During the first year of operation, in 1871, Abbe and his staff verified 69 percent of their predictions; the annual report apologized for the other 31 percent, citing the time constraints as the cause.

Abbe founded and was the initial editor of the "Monthly Weather Review" in 1872. He also was the editor from 1892 until 1915 (just before his death). The Mount Weather Observatory in Virginia also produced a weather bulletin, of which Abbe was the editor from 1909-1913.

Abbe required that the weather service stay at the forefront of technology. Over time, the instrument division at the headquarters tested and calibrated thousands of devices and even began to design and build their own instruments. By the end of the century, self-registering equipment came into use, and the United States led the meteorological world with 114 Class I (automatic recording) observation stations. Anticipating an increase in international cooperation, Abbe began to seek quality instruments calibrated to international standards. He enlisted Oliver Wolcott Gibbs of Harvard and Arthur Wright of Yale to design improved equipment. For comparison purposes, Abbe ordered a barometer from Heinrich Wild (director of the Nicholas Central Observatory in Russia), as well as an anemometer and several types of hygrometers from Germany. Abbe then invented an anemobarometer to test the effect of chimney and window drafts on barometers in enclosed spaces.

Abbe returned to academia in 1886, when he accepted a professorship at Columbian University, where he taught meteorology and remained until 1905. He was a regular lecturer at Johns Hopkins from 1896 through 1914. He has authored nearly 300 scientific papers. He was the recipient of three honorary degrees. His original school of higher learning, the City College of New York awarded him a PhD in 1891, in 1888 the University of Michigan gave Abbe an LL D as did the University of Glasgow in 1896.

Abbe was elected Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1884. In 1912 the Royal Meteorological Society presented him with their Symons Gold Medal, citing his contribution "to instrumental, statistical, dynamical, and thermo dynamical meteorology and forecasting." In 1916 he was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, which also gave him the Marcellus Hartley Medal. He was also one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society.

Abbe died the same year after more than 45 years of outstanding scientific achievement. He was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC. Abbe enjoyed ethnology, oriental archaeology, geology, botany, and music in his off time.

Cleveland Abbe founded the scientific journal "Monthly Weather Review" in 1872. The "Monthly Weather Review" began as a government publication under the United States Army Signal Corps. In 1891, the Signal Office's meteorological responsibilities were transferred to the Weather Bureau under the United States Department of Agriculture. The Weather Bureau published the review until 1970, when the bureau became part of the newly formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA published the review until the end of 1973. Since 1974, this well-respected scientific journal has been published by the American Meteorological Society.

His publications include: