Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

420 results found

Ukrainka, Lesia

(Encyclopedia)Ukrainka, Lesia lāsˈyə o͝okrīnˈkə [key], 1871–1913, Ukrainian poet and dramatist, whose original name was Larysa Kvitka-Kosach. Ukrainka spent most of her life abroad fighting to recuperate f...

Jaisalmer

(Encyclopedia)Jaisalmer jəsälˈmər [key], former principality, Rajasthan state, NW India. Its terrain is largely a sandy or stony waste and constitutes a section of the Thar Desert. Jaisalmer was brought under t...

Jones, Brian

(Encyclopedia)Jones, Brian, 1947–, British balloonist, b. Bristol. A former Royal Air Force pilot, he entered the world of ballooning in the 1980s, and in 1997 became an organizer for the attempt of the British-b...

Zeravshan

(Encyclopedia)Zeravshan zyĕrəfshänˈ [key], river, c.460 mi (740 km) long, rising in the Turkistan Range of the Pamir-Alai mountain system, in Tajikistan. It flows westward through the agricultural Zeravshan val...

caravan

(Encyclopedia)caravan, group of travelers or merchants banded together and organized for mutual assistance and defense while traveling through unsettled or hostile country. Caravan trade is associated with the hist...

botanical garden

(Encyclopedia)botanical garden, public place in which plants are grown both for display and for scientific study. An arboretum is a botanical garden devoted chiefly to the growing of woody plants. The plants in bot...

Ar Ramadi

(Encyclopedia)Ar Ramadi är rämäˈdē [key], town, provincial capital, central Iraq, on the Euphrates River. It is the eastern terminus of a highway across the desert from the Mediterranean Sea. The town was foun...

Auchinleck, Sir Claude John Eyre

(Encyclopedia)Auchinleck, Sir Claude John Eyre âr ôˌkĭnlĕkˈ, ôˌkhĭn– [key], 1884–1981, British field marshal. In World War II he commanded briefly (1940) at Narvik, Norway, then in building defenses in...

Mary, city, Turkmenistan

(Encyclopedia)Mary or Mari mäˈrē [key], city (1991 pop. 94,900), capital of Mary region, SE Turkmenistan. Lying in a large oasis of the Kara Kum desert, on the Murgab River delta, Mary is the center of a rich co...

Ili

(Encyclopedia)Ili ēˈlā [key], river of China and Kazakhstan, 590 mi (950 km) long, rising in the Tian Shan, NW Xinjiang, and flowing W across the China-Kazakhstan border, through the sandy Sary Ishikotrau Desert...