Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Fleetwood

(Encyclopedia)Fleetwood, town, Lancashire, NW England, on Morecambe Bay at the mouth of the Wyre estuary. Fleetwood, a port, trades and has a ferry service with the I...

United Nations

(Encyclopedia)CE5 CE5 United Nations (UN), international organization established immediately after World War II. It replaced the League of Nations. In 1945, when the UN was founded, there were 51 members; 193...

circle

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Circle circle, closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from some fixed point, called the center. A circle is a conic section cut by a plane perpendicular to the axis of...

Lucerne

(Encyclopedia)Lucerne lo͞otsĕrnˈ [key], canton (1993 pop. 331,800), 576 sq mi (1,492 sq km), central Switzerland. Drained by the Reuss and Kleine Emme rivers, Lucerne is mainly an agricultural and pastoral regio...

geodesy

(Encyclopedia)geodesy jēŏdˈĭsē [key] or geodetic surveying, theory and practice of determining the position of points on the earth's surface and the dimensions of areas so large that the curvature of the earth...

contour

(Encyclopedia)contour or contour line, line on a topographic map connecting points of equal elevation above or below mean sea level. It is thus a kind of isopleth, or line of equal quantity. Contour lines are drawn...

Neariah

(Encyclopedia)Neariah nēˌərīˈə [key], in the Bible. 1 One of David's line. 2 Son of Ishi, a Simeonite captain. ...

Eidsvoll

(Encyclopedia)Eidsvoll or Eidsvold both: ātsˈvôl [key], town, Akershus co., SE Norway, near Lake Mj...

Saint Marys City

(Encyclopedia)Saint Marys City, village (1990 pop. 3,200), St. Marys co., S Md., on the St. Marys River; est. 1634 as Maryland's first town. English colonists purchased a Native American village, renamed it St. Mar...

Mercier, Honoré

(Encyclopedia)Mercier, Honoré ōnôrāˈ mĕrsyāˈ [key], 1840–94, Canadian political leader, b. Quebec prov. Opposing confederation (1867) on the ground that unification of the Canadian provinces would imperil...

Browse by Subject