Editing Caving (section)

== Caving organizations ==
{{main|Caving organizations}}
Cavers in many countries have created organizations for the administration and oversight of caving activities within their nations. The oldest of these is the [[French Federation of Speleology]] (originally Société de spéléologie) founded by Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1895, which produced the first periodical journal in speleology, ''Spelunca''. The first University-based speleological institute in the world was founded in 1920 in [[Cluj-Napoca]], Romania, by [[Emil Racovita]], a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist and explorer of Antarctica.

The [[British Speleological Association]] was established in 1935. In the United States, the [[National Speleological Society]] in the US was founded in 1941; however, it was originally formed as the Speleological Society of [[Washington, D.C.|the District of Columbia]] on May 6, 1939.

An international speleological congress was proposed at a meeting in Valence-sur-Rhone, France in 1949 and first held in 1953 in Paris. The [[International Union of Speleology]] (UIS) was founded in 1965.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.uis-speleo.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60&Itemid=184|title=What is the UIS?|website=www.uis-speleo.org|access-date=2019-04-28}}</ref>