Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Riga, Gulf of, eastern arm of the Baltic Sea, bordering on Estonia and on Latvia. At its mouth it is nearly closed off by the Estonian island of Saaremaa. The gulf, which is frozen from December to Ap...

(Encyclopedia) Severodvinsk syĕˈvĕrŏdvinsk [key], city (1989 pop. 249,000), NW European Russia, on the Dvina Bay of the White Sea. The main industries are shipbuilding, lumbering, and transshipment. It is a base...

(Encyclopedia) Spars [from the motto “Semper Paratus,” Lat.,=always prepared], the women's reserve of the U.S. Coast Guard, created in Nov., 1942, to release men for sea duty. Wartime enlistment reached a peak o...

(Encyclopedia) Thailand, Gulf of, or Gulf of Siam, shallow arm of the South China Sea, c.500 mi (800 km) long and up to 350 mi (560 km) wide, separating the Malay Peninsula from E Thailand, Cambodia, and S Vietnam. ...

(Encyclopedia) Gard gär [key], department, S France, on the Rhône River and the Mediterranean Sea. Nîmes ...

(Encyclopedia) fur seal, fin-footed marine mammal of the eared seal family (Otaridae), highly valued for its fur. Like the closely related sea lion, the nine species of fur seals are distinguished from the true seal...

(Encyclopedia) coral, small, sedentary marine animal, related to the sea anemone but characterized by a skeleton of horny or calcareous material. The skeleton itself is also called coral. Although most corals form c...

(Encyclopedia) Sevastopol sĭvăsˈtəpōlˌ [key], formerly spelled Sebastopol, city (1989 pop. 355,000), on the Crimean peninsula and the Bay of Sevastopol, an inlet of the Black Sea. From 1954 part of Ukraine (th...

(Encyclopedia) Norton Sound, inlet of the Bering Sea, c.150 mi (240 km) long and 125 mi (200 km) across at its widest point, W Alaska, S of the Seward Peninsula. Norton Bay is its northeast arm. Nome is on the north...

(Encyclopedia) Nubian Desert, eastern region of the Sahara Desert, c.157,000 sq mi (407,000 sq km), NE Republic of Sudan, NE Africa, between the Nile and the Red Sea. The arid region, largely a sandstone plateau, ha...