Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

scalping

(Encyclopedia)scalping, taking the scalp of an enemy. The custom, comparable to head-hunting, was formerly practiced in Europe and Asia (Herodotus describes its practice by the Scythians, for example), but it is ge...

Research Triangle Park

(Encyclopedia)Research Triangle Park, research, business, medical, and educational complex situated in central North Carolina. It has an area of 6,900 acres (2,795 hectares) and is 8 × 2 mi (13 × 3 km) in size. N...

Viet Cong

(Encyclopedia)Viet Cong vēĕtˈ kông [key], officially Viet Nam Cong San [Vietnamese Communists], People's Liberation Armed Forces in South Vietnam. The term was originally applied by Diem's regime to Communist t...

Garnier, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Garnier, Charles (Saint Charles Garnier) shärl gärnyāˈ [key], 1606–49, French missionary in North America, one of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1624 and...

Ohrid, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Ohrid, Lake, Albanian Ohrit, deepest lake of the Balkans, c.130 sq mi (340 sq km), on the North Macedonia–Albania border. It is connected with Lake Prespa by underground channels and is drained to t...

Massachusetts Bay

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Bay, inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay, with its arms (Boston, Cape Cod, and Plymouth bays), extends 65 mi (105 km) from Cape Ann on the north to Cape Cod on the south. Its coastline ...

Velsen

(Encyclopedia)Velsen vĕlˈsən [key], city (1994 pop. 63,617), North Holland prov., W Netherlands, near the mouth of the North Sea Canal. It includes the port of IJmuiden. Paper is a major manufacture, and agricul...

Ruapehu

(Encyclopedia)Ruapehu ro͞oəpāˈho͞o [key], active volcano, 9,175 ft (2,797 m) high, on North Island, New Zealand; highest point of North Island. Ruapehu's most recent large eruptions were in 1995 and 1996. It i...

Ossetia

(Encyclopedia)Ossetia älänˈyä [key], Ossetian Iryston, region of the central Caucasus, divided between the Republic of Georgia and the Russian Federation. On the northern slope is North Ossetia-Alania (1990 est...

Lower Saxony

(Encyclopedia)Lower Saxony, Ger. Niedersachsen nēˈdərsäkˌsən [key], state (1994 pop. 7,480,000), 18,295 sq mi (47,384 sq km), NW Germany. Hanover is the capital. The state was formed in 1946 by the merger of ...

Browse by Subject