Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

284 results found

La Paz, city, Bolivia

(Encyclopedia)La Paz lä päs [key], city (1992 pop. 713,378), W Bolivia, administrative capital (since 1898) and largest city of Bolivia. The constitutional capital is Sucre. La Paz, the highest capital in the wor...

Native American music

(Encyclopedia)Native American music. The music of Native North Americans is primarily a vocal art, usually choral, although some nations favor solo singing. Native American music is entirely melodic; there is no ha...

recorder

(Encyclopedia)recorder, musical wind instrument of the flute family, made of wood, varying in length, and having an inverted conical bore (largest end near the mouthpiece). Its tone is produced by an air stream aga...

Oakland

(Encyclopedia)Oakland, city (1990 pop. 372,242), seat of Alameda co., W Calif., on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay; inc. 1852. Together with San Francisco and San Jose, the city comprises the fourth largest m...

orientation

(Encyclopedia)orientation, in architecture, the disposition of the parts of a building with reference to the points of the compass. From remote antiquity the traditional belief in the efficacy of religious ceremoni...

Simon, Claude Eugène Henri

(Encyclopedia)Simon, Claude Eugène Henri, 1913–2005, French novelist. He was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and studied at Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge. He fought in World War II both as a soldier and later i...

Brooks, Garth

(Encyclopedia) Brooks, Garth , 1962- , American country singer/songwriter, b. Luba, OK, Oklahoma State Univ. (B.A., 1984). Brooks's mother was a country singer who pe...

land art

(Encyclopedia)land art or earthworks, art form developed in the late 1960s and early 70s by Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Michael Heizer, and others, in which the artist employs the elements of nature in situ or ...

Atacama Desert

(Encyclopedia)Atacama Desert ätäkäˈmä [key], arid region, c.600 mi (970 km) long, N Chile, extending south from the border of Peru. The desert itself, c.2,000 ft (610 m) above sea level, is a series of dry sal...

ash, in botany

(Encyclopedia)ash, in botany, any plant of the genus Fraxinus of the family Oleaceae (olive family), trees and shrubs mainly of north temperate regions. The ashes are characterized by small clusters of greenish flo...