Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) continent, largest unit of landmasses on the earth. The continents include Eurasia (conventionally regarded as two continents, Europe and Asia), Africa, North America, South America, Australia, and An...

(Encyclopedia) England, the largest and most populous portion of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2022Se pop. 68,429,595), 50,334 sq mi (130,3...

(Encyclopedia) Germanic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by about 470 million people in many parts of the world, but chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. All the modern ...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Oregon ŏrˈĭgən, –gŏn [key], state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is bordered by Washington, largely across the Columbia River (N), Idaho, partially across the Snake Ri...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Position of the sun in the Milky Way Milky Way, the galaxy of which the sun and solar system are a part, seen as a broad band of light arching across the night sky from horizon to horizon; if ...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Northwest Territories, territory (2001 pop. 37,360), 532,643 sq mi (1,379,028 sq km), NW Canada. The Northwest Territories lie W of Nunavut, N of lat. 60°N, and E of Yukon. Until 1999, when th...

(Encyclopedia) map, conventionalized representation of spatial phenomena on a plane surface. Unlike photographs, maps are selective and may be prepared to show various quantitative and qualitative facts, including b...

(Encyclopedia) Zoroastrianism zôˌrōăsˈtrēənĭzəm [key], religion founded by Zoroaster, but with many later accretions. The religion's priests, successors to the pre-Zoroastrian Magi, acquired great power b...

(Encyclopedia) Risorgimento rēsôrˌjēmĕnˈtō [key] [Ital.,=resurgence], in 19th-century Italian history, period of cultural nationalism and of political activism, leading to unification of Italy. Sardinia a...

(Encyclopedia) mathematics, deductive study of numbers, geometry, and various abstract constructs, or structures; the latter often “abstract” the features common to several models derived from the empirical, or ...