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Salamanca, University of

(Encyclopedia)Salamanca, University of, at Salamanca, Spain; founded 1218 by Alfonso IX of León, reorganized 1254 by Alfonso X of Castile and León. It has faculties of philosophy, philology, geography and history...

Abu al-Fida

(Encyclopedia)Abu al-Fida äˌbo͞o äl-fēˈdä, –fĭdäˈ [key], 1273–1331, Arab historian, b. Damascus. He fought against the Christians in the last period of the Crusades and later became (1310) governor of...

Rennell, James

(Encyclopedia)Rennell, James, 1742–1830, English cartographer, geographer, and oceanographer. He was surveyor general (1764–77) of Bengal and published A Bengal Atlas (1779). He constructed the first approximat...

Nordenskjöld, Nils Otto Gustaf

(Encyclopedia)Nordenskjöld, Nils Otto Gustaf, 1869–1928, Swedish geographer and explorer, nephew of Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld. He headed an expedition to Patagonia (1895–97) and later explored the Klondike...

Ptolemy

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), fl. 2d cent. a.d., celebrated Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He made his observations in Alexandria and was the last great astronomer of ancie...

Pimería Alta

(Encyclopedia)Pimería Alta pēmārēˈä älˈtä [key], region in the U.S. Southwest and N Mexico, chiefly in SW Arizona and NW Sonora. It was inhabited by the Pimas and was the scene of the missionary labors of ...

wickiup

(Encyclopedia)wickiup wĭkˈēŭpˌ [key], temporary dwelling of nomadic Native North Americans. It is a framework of arched poles covered by brush, bark, rushes, or mats. The wickiup is found among Native American...

Pima

(Encyclopedia)Pima pēˈmə [key], Native North American tribe of S Arizona. They speak the Pima language of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic family (see Native American languages). There are t...

Münster, Sebastian

(Encyclopedia)Münster, Sebastian sābäsˈtyänˌ münˈstər [key], 1489–1552, German scholar and geographer. He was a Franciscan monk but after the Reformation became a Protestant and taught at Heidelberg and ...

Sauer, Carl Ortwin

(Encyclopedia)Sauer, Carl Ortwin, 1889–1975, American geographer, b. Warrenton, Mo., grad. Univ. of Chicago (Ph.D., 1915). Sauer was a professor for over 50 years at the Univ. of California at Berkeley, where he ...