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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...

caper

(Encyclopedia)caper, common name for members of the Capparidaceae, a family of tropical plants found chiefly in the Old World and closely related to the family Cruciferae (or Brassicaceae; mustard family). Capparis...

Gordian

(Encyclopedia)Gordian gôrˈdēən [key], name of three Roman emperors. Gordian I (Marcus Antonius Gordianus Africanus), d. 238, was a Roman of great wealth and was colleague in the consulship with Caracalla and wi...

Armstrong, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Armstrong, Henry, 1912–88, American boxer, b. Columbus, Miss. He was originally named Henry Jackson. He began his professional career in 1931, and soon became known as a strong and tireless puncher....

Hari Rud

(Encyclopedia)Hari Rud häˈrē ro͞od [key], river, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, rising in the Kuh-e Baba range, central Afghanistan, and flowing west and then north into the steppes S of the Kara Kum desert in Turkm...

Foucauld, Charles, vicomte de

(Encyclopedia)Foucauld, Charles, vicomte de shärl vēkôNtˈ də fo͞okōˈ [key], 1858–1916, French priest and missionary in the Sahara. After a career as an army officer and an explorer in Algeria and Morocco,...

Indio

(Encyclopedia)Indio ĭnˈdē-ōˌ [key], city (2020 pop. 89,137), Riverside co., SE Calif., in the Coachella Valley of the Colorado...

Coachella Valley

(Encyclopedia)Coachella Valley kōˌəchĕlˈə [key], arid region, SE Calif., N of the Salton Sea. Water is brought into the region by artesian wells and by the Coachella Canal (123 mi/198 km long), a branch of th...

Romberg, Sigmund

(Encyclopedia)Romberg, Sigmund rŏmˈbûrg [key], 1887–1951, Hungarian-American composer, educated in Vienna. He came to the United States in 1909, played in restaurant and café orchestras, and soon had his own ...

Piura

(Encyclopedia)Piura pyo͞oˈrä [key], city (1993 pop. 199,484), capital of Piura dept., NW Peru, in the irrigated Piura valley of the Peruvian coastal desert. It is the commercial center for the region's cotton, s...