Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Shanhaiguan

(Encyclopedia)Shanhaiguan or Shanhaikwan both: shän-hī-gwän [key] [Chin.,=mountain sea door], city, NE Hebei prov., China, on the Bohai. Strategically situated where the Great Wall meets the sea and on the narro...

Port Sudan

(Encyclopedia)Port Sudan so͞odănˈ [key], city (1993 pop. 308,195), NE Sudan, on the Red Sea. The country's major seaport, it handles the bulk of Sudan's foreign trade. The city is also a rail terminus that serve...

Rhine Canals

(Encyclopedia)Rhine Canals. Among the chief canals linking the Rhine with other river systems are the Rhine-Rhône Canal, 217 mi (349 km) long (built 1784–1833, now unimportant), connecting with the Rhône River ...

Cam Ranh Bay

(Encyclopedia)Cam Ranh Bay käm rän [key], inlet of the South China Sea, 10 mi (16 km) long and 20 mi (32 km) wide, S Vietnam. It is an excellent harbor linked to the sea by a strait (1 mi/1.6 km wide), and there ...

Mahan, Alfred Thayer

(Encyclopedia)Mahan, Alfred Thayer məhănˈ [key], 1840–1914, U.S. naval officer and historian, b. West Point, N.Y. A Union naval officer in the Civil War, he later lectured on naval history and strategy at the ...

Perekop, Isthmus of

(Encyclopedia)Perekop, Isthmus of pĕrĭkôpˈ [key], c.19 mi (30 km) long and from 5 to 14 mi (8–23 km) wide, connecting Crimea with the Ukrainian mainland. The Crimean portion of the isthmus passed to Russian c...

Lyakhov Islands

(Encyclopedia)Lyakhov Islands lyäˈkhəf [key], c.2,700 sq mi (7,000 sq km), southern group of the New Siberian Islands, N Siberian Russia, between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea, Sakha Republic. They in...

Göta älv

(Encyclopedia)Göta älv yöˌtä ĕlvˈ [key], river, 56 mi (90 km) long, SW Sweden, draining Vänern lake into the Kattegat. It is part of the Göta Canal, a 240-mi (386-km) system of rivers, lakes, and canals, w...

Corbière, Tristan

(Encyclopedia)Corbière, Tristan trēstäNˈ kôrbyĕrˈ [key], 1845–75, French poet, born Édouard Joachim Corbière. He spent most of his life on the coast of Brittany, living a Bohemian existence and suffering...

Peterhead

(Encyclopedia)Peterhead pētərhĕdˈ [key], town (1991 pop. 16,804), Aberdeenshire, NE Scotland, on a peninsula on the North Sea. It is the easternmost town, with a good harbor, of Scotland. Chiefly a center of he...