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Balkash, lake, Kazakhstan

(Encyclopedia)Balkash, lake, 6,562 sq mi (16,996 sq km), c.350 mi (560 km) long, maximum width c.45 mi (70 km), in E Kazakhstan. The lake, which has an average depth of 20 ft (6 m), stretches from the Kazakh Upland...

Benedict XIV

(Encyclopedia)Benedict XIV, 1675–1758, pope (1740–58), an Italian (b. Bologna) named Prospero Lambertini; successor of Clement XII. Long before his pontificate he was renowned for his learning and wrote a class...

Ravenna, city, Italy

(Encyclopedia)Ravenna rävĕnˈnä [key], city (1991 pop. 135,844), capital of Ravenna prov., in Emilia-Romagna, N central Italy, near the Adriatic Sea (with which it is connected by a canal). It is an agricultural...

König Rother

(Encyclopedia)König Rother könˈĭk rōtˈər [key], earliest heroic minstrel epic from the precourtly period of Middle High German literature. Written in Bavaria in popular verse style by an unknown Rhenish poet...

Taoism

(Encyclopedia)Taoism däuˈĭzəm [key], refers both to a Chinese system of thought and to one of the four major religions of China (with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Chinese popular religion). Religious Taoism a...

temple, edifice of worship

(Encyclopedia)temple, edifice or sometimes merely an enclosed area dedicated to the worship of a deity and the enshrinement of holy objects connected with such worship. The temple has been employed in most of the w...

Bulgari

(Encyclopedia)Bulgari: see Bulgars, Eastern.

Bolgari

(Encyclopedia)Bolgari: see Bulgars, Eastern.

Gibraltar, Strait of

(Encyclopedia)Gibraltar, Strait of jĭbrôlˈtər [key], Lat. Fretum Herculeum or Fretum Gaditanum, passage, c.36 mi (58 km) long, connecting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, between southernmost Spain and north...

Front Range

(Encyclopedia)Front Range, an eastern range of the U.S. Rocky Mts., bordering the Great Plains and extending c.300 mi (480 km) S from SE Wyo. to the Arkansas River, S central Colo. It has several peaks, including G...