298 résultats pour "mountains"

• Albania - country.

  Joining the international community in its concern over the degradation of the environment, Albania is party to international agreements concerning biodiversity, climatechange, and wetlands. III THE PEOPLE OF ALBANIA In 2008 Albania’s population estimate was 3,619,778, resulting in an average density of 132 persons per sq km (342 per sq mi). More and more people have left ruralareas for urban ones, particularly in the northern districts, such that in 2005 some 45 percent of the population live...

• Alabama (state) - geography.

  indentations along the coast are measured, the state’s shoreline is 977 km (607 mi) long. It includes the shores of Mobile Bay, an inlet 56 km (35 mi) long at the mouthof the Mobile River. Barrier beaches partly block the entrance to the bay, leaving narrow openings on either side of Dauphin Island. Dauphin and other islands alongAlabama’s coast west of Mobile Bay are separated from the mainland by Mississippi Sound. D Climate Alabama has a humid subtropical climate, with short, relatively mild...

• Alabama (state) - USA History.

  indentations along the coast are measured, the state’s shoreline is 977 km (607 mi) long. It includes the shores of Mobile Bay, an inlet 56 km (35 mi) long at the mouthof the Mobile River. Barrier beaches partly block the entrance to the bay, leaving narrow openings on either side of Dauphin Island. Dauphin and other islands alongAlabama’s coast west of Mobile Bay are separated from the mainland by Mississippi Sound. D Climate Alabama has a humid subtropical climate, with short, relatively mild...

• Colombia - country.

  In Bogotá the average high temperature in January is 20°C (68°F), and in July the average high is 19°C (65°F). The highs for the same months in Barranquilla are 32°C(89°F) and 33°C (91°F). Throughout the year, three-month periods of rain and dry weather alternate. Along the Pacific coast precipitation is heavy. At Bogotá the annual rainfall averages about1,060 mm (about 42 in), and in Barranquilla it averages about 800 mm (about 32 in). Dry weather prevails on the slopes of the Cordillera Orient...

• Native Americans of North America.

  addition to smallpox and measles, explorers and colonists brought a host of other diseases: bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, pleurisy, mumps,diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, malaria, yellow fever, and various sexually transmitted infections. Despite the undisputed devastation wreaked on Indian populations after European contact, native populations showed enormous regional variability in their response todisease exposure. Some peoples survived and, in some cases, even...

• Native Americans of North America - Canadian History.

  addition to smallpox and measles, explorers and colonists brought a host of other diseases: bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, pleurisy, mumps,diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, malaria, yellow fever, and various sexually transmitted infections. Despite the undisputed devastation wreaked on Indian populations after European contact, native populations showed enormous regional variability in their response todisease exposure. Some peoples survived and, in some cases, even...

• Cuba - country.

  Only two land mammals, the hutia, or cane rat, and the solenodon, a rare insectivore that resembles a rat, are known to be indigenous. The island has numerous batsand nearly 300 kinds of birds, including vultures, wild turkeys, quail, finches, gulls, macaws, parakeets, and hummingbirds. The bee hummingbird of Cuba is thesmallest bird in the world. Among the few reptiles are tortoises, caimans, the Cuban crocodile, and a species of boa that can attain a length of 3.7 m (12 ft). More than700 speci...

• South Africa - country.

  The major soil zones are conditioned largely by climatic factors. In the semiarid north and west, soils are alkaline and poorly developed. In the southern part of WesternCape Province, rain falls mostly in the winter months, and soils there form slowly and are generally thin and immature. The moderate temperatures and summer rainfallof the High Veld and eastern coastal areas create conditions for more productive organic decomposition, leading to dark, fertile soils, or chernozems, similar to tho...

• India - country.

  delta in the north, are intensely farmed. B Rivers and Lakes The rivers of India can be divided into three groups: the great Himalayan rivers of the north, the westward-flowing rivers of central India, and the eastward-flowingrivers of the Deccan Plateau and the rest of peninsular India. Only small portions of India’s rivers are navigable because of silting and the wide seasonal variation inwater flow (due to the monsoon climate). Water transport is thus of little importance in India. Barrages,...

• Native American Architecture I INTRODUCTION Native American Architecture, traditional architecture of the peoples of who lived in North America before Europeans arrived.

  Mound Builders who resided in the area.John Elk III/Bruce Coleman, Inc. Another mound building culture, named Hopewell, also appears to have originated in Ohio but expanded west to Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma, south to Louisiana,Mississippi, and Alabama, east to Georgia and the Appalachian Mountains, and north to Wisconsin, Michigan, and lower Ontario in Canada. The Hopewell culture lastedfrom about 200 BC to 400 AD. Hopewell people built large, linear mounds to create enclosures in geometrical...

• South Korea - country.

  forest habitat, and overhunting. The Siberian tiger has not been sighted in the wild in South Korea since the 1920s; the Asiatic black bear can still be found in someremote mountain areas. Several species of deer are indigenous to the peninsula, including the roe deer, water deer, and Siberian musk deer. The musk deer, which hasbeen overhunted for its musk glands, is legally protected as a threatened species. Smaller mammals indigenous to the peninsula include the wild boar, red fox, badger,rabb...

• Argentina - country.

  Patagonia lies in the rain shadow of the Andes and so receives little moisture. As a result it is used primarily for grazing sheep, although some crops are grown on smallfarms in irrigated valleys. Several major oil fields also are in Patagonia. At the southern tip of Patagonia is Tierra del Fuego, a large mountainous island shared byArgentina and Chile. B Rivers and Lakes Most of Argentina’s rivers empty into the Atlantic Ocean. Three rivers—the Paraná, Paraguay, and Uruguay—flow generally sou...

• Georgia (country) - country.

  1917. During the subsequent Soviet period, religious practice was strongly discouraged because the Soviet state was officially atheistic; however, the GeorgianOrthodox Church was allowed to function openly. Orthodox Christianity is the religion of about 58 percent of the Georgian population. Muslims represent about 19 percent of the country’s population, with ethnicAzerbaijanis, Kurds, and Ajars comprising the principal Muslim groups. Ajars are ethnic Georgians who converted to Islam in the 17th...

• Australien - geographie.

  und 3,7 Milliarden Jahren aufweist. Diese Formationen stellen zusammen mit der Antarktis das Herzstück des alten Kontinents dar, der sich vor weniger als 200 MillionenJahren im Jura von Gondwana abspaltete und in östliche und nördliche Richtung fortzudriften begann ( siehe Plattentektonik, Kontinent). Vor ungefähr 100 Millionen Jahren entstand Australien als eigenständiger Kontinent, nachdem sich die Antarktis abgetrennt und in südliche Richtung bewegt hatte. Auch heute noch entfernt sich derau...

• Tunisia - country.

  mixture of Berber and Arab stock, and they regard themselves as Arabs. Nearly everyone speaks Arabic. The population of Tunisia is concentrated in the coastal plain. It is fairly dense in the hilly north, but the arid plateau, basin, and south are thinly settled. About two-thirds of the country’s people live in urban areas. A Principal Cities The capital and largest city of Tunisia is the seaport of Tunis. Other important cities include Sfax, a port and center of trade on the eastern coast; Sūs...

• Yemen - country.

  port. Al Ḩudaydah (155,110), in the Tih āmah, is the second largest port. Ta‘izz, (178,043), in the highlands above Aden, is an important commercial and light industrialcenter. Among Yemen’s larger towns are Şa‘dah, far to the north; Dham ār, Yarim, and Ibb, in the middle region; Al Mukall ā, on the southern coast; and in Hadhramaut,the towns of Shib ām, Say‘ ūn, and Tar īm. C Language Nearly all Yemenis speak Arabic. However, the country’s extremely rugged terrain, widely separated population...

• Haiti - country.

  Haitian Creole and French are the official languages of Haiti. Haitian Creole, a French-based Creole with influences from West African languages, was made an officiallanguage under the 1987 constitution. It is the mother tongue for nearly the entire population of Haiti and the language of instruction in schools. French is spokenmainly as a second language by a small section of the population. B Religion About 80 percent of Haiti’s people are nominal Roman Catholics, many of them combining an Af...

• Algeria - country.

  areas to fishing. National parks, including the giant Tassili N’Ajjer National Park in the eastern corner of the country, comprise a large proportion of the protected area. The effects of Algeria’s human population on the fragile landscape have been severe. The greatest ecological threats are deforestation and burning of scrub vegetation,conversion of steppe habitat to arable land, and soil erosion due to overgrazing and poor farming practices. Pollution of Mediterranean coastal waters is pervas...

• American Civil War.

  free state to keep the balance in the Senate. It also provided that slavery would be excluded from the still unorganized part of the Louisiana Territory. A line was drawnfrom Missouri’s southern boundary, at the latitude of 36°30’, and slavery would not be allowed in the territory north of that line,with the exception of Missouri. B Compromise of 1850 Agitation against slavery continued in the North. The South reacted by defending it ever more strongly. The Mexican War, by which the United Stat...

• American Civil War - U.

  free state to keep the balance in the Senate. It also provided that slavery would be excluded from the still unorganized part of the Louisiana Territory. A line was drawnfrom Missouri’s southern boundary, at the latitude of 36°30’, and slavery would not be allowed in the territory north of that line,with the exception of Missouri. B Compromise of 1850 Agitation against slavery continued in the North. The South reacted by defending it ever more strongly. The Mexican War, by which the United Stat...

• Sydney (Australia) - geography.

  blocks in the eastern suburbs and around railway stations elsewhere; and homes on large lots in the outer suburbs, especially those to the northwest. For publichousing, the state government built a number of high-rise apartment blocks in run-down inner suburbs after World War II (1939-1945). These housing projects weresoon deemed unsuccessful and were discontinued because they fostered crime and other social problems. More recently, public housing has taken the form of separateor semidetached ho...

• Zebras.

  All zebras like physical contact. They groom each other by nibbling on each other’s fur. They flick theirtails to keep flies away from each other’s faces. THREATS TO ZEBRAS The main natural enemies of zebras are lions, hyenas, and other wild animals. However, people are agreater threat to zebras. People hunt zebras. They hunted a kind of zebra called the quagga until theanimal died out. Today, Grévy’s zebra and the mountain zebra are endangered. People still hunt them for meat and hides.People t...

• San Jose (California) - geography.

  The San Jose metropolitan area is an economic powerhouse. It is the single most important high-technology center in the United States, specializing in aerospace andcomputer technology. Assisting in the area’s steady innovation is its many venture capital firms, which loan money to entrepreneurs starting new companies. It isestimated that the region contains one-half of the leading venture capital firms in the world. Among the nation’s largest companies in the San Jose metropolitan regionare Inte...

• Cameroon - country.

  seminomadic herders of the north. Cattle, goats, and fowl are the most commonly raised animals. B Forestry and Fishing Timber is traditionally one of Cameroon’s most valuable exports, consisting mainly of mahogany, ebony, and teak. The timber cut in 2006 amounted to 11.4 million cu m(401 million cu ft). Most of the fish caught in Cameroon come from the country’s rivers and lakes and are consumed locally. However, deep-sea fishing activity isincreasing, especially from the port of Douala. Some 1...

• Bhutan - country.

  languages ( see Indo-Iranian Languages) and follow Hinduism. Nepalese people constitute a significant portion of Bhutan’s population. They are the most recent settlers, occupying south central and southwestern Bhutan. TheNepalese are mainly Rai, Gurung, and Limbu ethnic groups from the eastern mountains of Nepal. Nepalese immigration has been banned since 1959, when theBhutanese government feared the minority would become too populous. Nepalese are not permitted to live in the central Middle Hi...

• South Dakota - geography.

  C1 Temperatures Average January temperatures are everywhere less than -4° C (24° F) and decrease to less than -12° C (10° F) in some northern sections. The January temperaturesin Sioux Falls range from -16° to -4° C (3° to 24° F). Nightime lows of -29° C (-20° F) occur during most winters. July averages are in the low and middle 20°s C (lowand middle 70°s F) throughout most of the state, and are somewhat lower in the Black Hills. The average temperature range in Sioux Falls in July is 17° to 30...

• South Dakota - USA History.

  C1 Temperatures Average January temperatures are everywhere less than -4° C (24° F) and decrease to less than -12° C (10° F) in some northern sections. The January temperaturesin Sioux Falls range from -16° to -4° C (3° to 24° F). Nightime lows of -29° C (-20° F) occur during most winters. July averages are in the low and middle 20°s C (lowand middle 70°s F) throughout most of the state, and are somewhat lower in the Black Hills. The average temperature range in Sioux Falls in July is 17° to 30...

• Saudi Arabia - country.

  C Natural Resources Some of the world’s largest oil and natural gas fields lie beneath Saudi Arabia and its offshore waters, representing the country’s most economically important naturalresource. In 2007 Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves were estimated at 264 billion barrels. Before the discovery and exploitation of these reserves in the mid-20th century,Saudi Arabia was one of the poorest countries in the world. Its relatively small population subsisted in a harsh environment with little agricultur...

• Salt Lake City - geography.

  Mormon Temple, Salt Lake CitySalt Lake City is the contemporary center of the Mormon church, officially The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The city’sTemple Square contains the impressive Mormon Temple, shown here. The temple was completed in 1893 after 40 years ofconstruction. Its six towers rise about 67 m (about 220 ft) in the air.Tom Dietrich/ALLSTOCK, INC. Salt Lake City has been at the forefront of education in Utah since 1850, when the University of Deseret was founded. Renam...

• Wolf - biology.

  VIII RED WOLF The red wolf is smaller than the gray wolf. An adult red wolf stands about 65 cm (about 2 ft) high at the shoulder, measures 100 to 130 cm (3 to 4 ft) in lengthexcluding the tail, and weighs 20 to 36 kg (45 to 80 lb). It has long legs and ears and its head is not as wide as that of the gray wolf. The coat of red wolves varies incolor from light tan to black with reddish head, ears, and legs. Scientists have debated whether the red wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf, a separate...

• Las Vegas (Nevada) - geography.

  way for the Paiute people. In the late 1820s early Spanish explorers searching for water discovered an oasis in the region that now contains the city. They named theoasis “Las Vegas,” Spanish for “the meadows.” These expanses of wetlands, once irrigated by artesian waters carried under pressure from the nearby mountain ranges,were a main draw to southern Nevada until the 1940s. Las Vegas was an important stop along the Old Spanish Trail between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and southern California for m...

• Mammal - biology.

  On land, mammals live in many different habitats, and at a wide range of altitudes. Many mammals dig burrows as refuges or as places to raise their young, but somehave developed a largely subterranean lifestyle, feeding on small animals or plant roots beneath the soil's surface. These animals, including moles and mole-rats, digthrough the ground either with spadelike front paws or with their teeth, and they detect danger by being highly sensitive to vibrations transmitted through the soil.Most m...

• Las Vegas (Nevada) - geography.

  Las Vegas CasinoCasinos are gambling establishments that range from small rooms in bars or restaurants to huge resorts—such as this one in LasVegas, Nevada—filled with slot machines and other games. Gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931 and has grown into amultibillion-dollar industry, helping make the state one of the fastest-growing in the nation.Jeff Greenberg/age fotostock Las Vegas bills itself as the “Entertainment Capital of the World,” and tourism, gaming, and entertainment represent...

• Yangtze - geography.

  Yangtze Gorges, ChinaThe Yangtze Gorges, also known as the Three Gorges, once drew many tourists with their scenic beauty. However, the Three GorgesDam that was constructed in the early 21st century raised the level of the Yangtze River upstream, forming a deep reservoir thatflooded the gorges.Dean Conger/Corbis The Yangtze originates in the mountains of southwestern Qinghai Province, located in the northern Tibetan Plateau. The river has three headwaters, the highest of whichdescends from an el...

• San Jose (California) - geography.

  San Jose has a rich selection of performing arts, including the San Jose Repertory Theatre, the American Musical Theatre of San Jose, Opera San Jose, Ballet San JoseSilicon Valley, and the Margaret Wingrove Dance Company. Annual events include the San Jose Jazz Festival in August and the San Jose Film Festival, beginning in January.The city has numerous community festivals throughout the year, many celebrating ethnic themes. V RECREATION The largest of the many parks inside San Jose is Alum Roc...

• Lointaine, immense, aride, l'Australie concentre ses forces vives dans le sud-est du pays.

  eucalyptus et les araucarias, forêt tropicale dense au nord. Mais, très vite, la forêt s'éclaircit, passe à une forêt claire, à une savane ponctuée d'arbres adaptés à la sécheresse (acacia), puis à la steppe, le scrub , et enfin au désert avec un tapis végétal clairsemé, formé de touffes de spinifex, une herbe acérée et tranchante. On a découvert en 1995, en Nouvelle-Galles du Sud, dans une « niche écologique », des colonies d'arbres dont les plus proches parents auraient...

• Ape - biology.

  previous infant has been weaned. This process—like all aspects of ape development—takes a remarkable length of time. A gibbon is weaned by the age of about 2years, while chimps take more than 4 years. Like young monkeys, young apes are carried by their mothers. They either cling to the mother's belly or, in the case ofolder chimps, ride on her back. In great apes, infant care is largely the job of the females, while in some gibbons the mother hands over responsibility to the fatherwhen the infan...

• Debating Sports Records Mark Purdy, sports columnist for the San Jose Mercury News in California, compiles a list of sports records that he believes will never be broken and a separate list of records that he thinks are soon to be eclipsed.

  UCLA’s dominance of NCAA men’s college basketball in the late 1960s and early 1970s will never be matched. With John Wooden as coach, the Bruins went from1967 to 1973 without losing a tournament game. Wooden built a dynasty around a system that stressed team play and solid defense, anchored by standout centersLew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton. The Bruins’ ten straight appearances in the Final Four (1967-1976) will alsobe tough to top, given that tod...

• Debating Sports Records Mark Purdy, sports columnist for the San Jose Mercury News in California, compiles a list of sports records that he believes will never be broken and a separate list of records that he thinks are soon to be eclipsed.

  UCLA’s dominance of NCAA men’s college basketball in the late 1960s and early 1970s will never be matched. With John Wooden as coach, the Bruins went from1967 to 1973 without losing a tournament game. Wooden built a dynasty around a system that stressed team play and solid defense, anchored by standout centersLew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton. The Bruins’ ten straight appearances in the Final Four (1967-1976) will alsobe tough to top, given that tod...

• Fur Trade in North America - Canadian History.

  Injured by the competition from the North West Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company changed its methods in the late 18th century and began extending its operationsinland. After a period of intense and often violent conflict, the two companies merged in 1821 under the charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The trade monopoly andpower to govern that had been originally given to Hudson’s Bay in 1670 were extended to all British-held territory west of Rupert’s Land. The company dominated mostof present-d...

• Seoul - geography.

  higher learning in South Korea. All of South Korea’s top-ranked universities are in Seoul, including Chung-ang University (1918), Ewha Women’s University (1886),Korea University (1905), Seoul National University (1946), Sogang University (1960), Sung Kyun Kwan University (1938), and Yonsei University (1885). The National Museum features collections of Korean art and artifacts, and the National Science Museum showcases modern Korean technology. The National Library ofKorea, the country’s largest...

• Confederation of Canada - Canadian History.

  Québec conference seemed in many ways to give Macdonald the centralized union he wanted. The federal government would control banking, finance, defense,transportation, and commerce among the provinces. It would also have far greater powers of taxation than the provincial governments would have. In private,Macdonald predicted that the central government would be so strong that it would soon swallow up the provinces completely. Yet the Québec resolutions were vague or contradictory enough to give...

• Tuberculosis.

  TB has existed for thousands of years. Scars on a skull found in Turkey indicate the presence of the disease 500,000 years ago. Scientists also have found tubercles inmummified bodies from ancient Egypt. References to TB can be found in the writings of ancient Babylonia, Egypt, and China. The term tuberculosis was first used in 1839; it was derived from the Latin word tubercula, meaning small lump, referring to the small scars seen in tissues of infected individuals. TB reappeared in Europe...

• Sierra Leone (country) - country.

  commodities such as palm oil, palm kernels, coffee, cacao, ginger, kola nuts, and piassava (palm fibers) are grown for export. Cattle, goats, and sheep are raised, andthe fishing industry is of increasing importance. B Mining Gem and industrial diamonds are the leading mineral products of Sierra Leone. In 2004, 309,390 carats of gem-quality diamonds were produced. Rutile, a titanium oreof which Sierra Leone has one of the world’s largest deposits, and bauxite are also mined in large quantities....

• Army. I INTRODUCTION Army, military land forces of a nation, assembled, drilled, disciplined,

  disappearance for several centuries of large standing armies in Europe. A Middle Ages Feudalism was based on a concept of local defense, each baron or landowner governing land that had been given him by the king, and each lord having his ownpersonal protective forces recruited from among men who worked for him. In return, each lord and his men were pledged to annual service to the monarch and couldbe called on in special instances, as in the defense of Christendom during the Crusades. National...

• Igneous Rock.

  As a magma cools, the first crystals to form will be of minerals that become solid at relatively high temperatures (usually olivine and a type of feldspar known asanorthite). The composition of these early-formed mineral crystals will be different from the initial composition of the magma. Consequently, as these growing crystalstake certain elements out of the magma in certain proportions, the composition of the remaining liquid changes. This process is known as magmatic differentiation.Sometime...

• John Macdonald.

  dissolution of the existing Union. The Atlantic colonies, which consisted of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, were considering the question of their own union andplanned to meet at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on September 1, 1864. Macdonald saw his opportunity and secured an invitation for the Canadians to attend.The delegates of the Atlantic colonies put off their own discussion until they had heard the Canadians. Macdonald spoke of the advantages in...

• John Macdonald - Canadian History.

  dissolution of the existing Union. The Atlantic colonies, which consisted of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, were considering the question of their own union andplanned to meet at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on September 1, 1864. Macdonald saw his opportunity and secured an invitation for the Canadians to attend.The delegates of the Atlantic colonies put off their own discussion until they had heard the Canadians. Macdonald spoke of the advantages in...

• John Macdonald - Canadian History.

  dissolution of the existing Union. The Atlantic colonies, which consisted of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, were considering the question of their own union andplanned to meet at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on September 1, 1864. Macdonald saw his opportunity and secured an invitation for the Canadians to attend.The delegates of the Atlantic colonies put off their own discussion until they had heard the Canadians. Macdonald spoke of the advantages in...

• East Timor - country.

  members are designated by the Superior Council for the Judiciary. This council is the organ of management and discipline of judges and is responsible for judiciaryappointments, transfers, and promotions. VI HISTORY Timor was a destination on ancient Chinese trade routes and was particularly known for its sandalwood. The Portuguese began colonizing Timor in the early 16thcentury as European trade and influence expanded in the region. They exploited Timor for its forest products and spices, and...