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isthmus
isthmus , narrow neck of land connecting two larger land areas. Since it commands the only land route between two large areas and is on two seas, an isthmus has great strategical and commercial importance and is a favorable situation for a city. In modern times many isthmuses have been cut through b...
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Mareotis
Mareotis or Maryut , salt lake, c.95 sq mi (250 sq km) excluding marshes, N Egypt, in the Nile delta. It is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow isthmus on which Alexandria is situated. There are fisheries and saltworks on the lakeshore.
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Madison: Introduction
Madison: Introduction
The capital of Wisconsin, Madison is also the seat of Dane County and the focus of a metropolitan statistical area that includes the entire county. The city was founded as the state capital, where no other permanent settlement had previously existed, on a unique geographic sit...
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Kintyre
Kintyre , peninsula, 42 mi (68 km) long and 10 mi (16 km) wide, Argyll and Bute, W Scotland, joined to the mainland at the isthmus of Tarbert between East Loch Tarbert and West Loch Tarbert. The Mull of Kintyre, at the southwestern tip, is 13 mi (21 km) from Ireland. The terrain is hilly and unculti...
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Tintagel
Tintagel , small town, Cornwall, SW England. It is S of Tintagel Head, a promontory connected to the mainland by a narrow, rocky neck of land. The ruined Tintagel Castle, which extends from the promontory across the isthmus, was built in the 12th cent. on the site of a Celtic monastery. The area is ...
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Vanua Levu
Vanua Levu or Sandalwood Island, volcanic island, 2,137 sq mi (5,535 sq km), S Pacific, second largest of the Fiji Islands. Nasoro Levu, or Mt. Thurston (3,139 ft/960 m), is the highest peak. The Dreketi is the principal river. The large east peninsula is connected with the rest of the island...
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pass
pass opening or way by which a natural or artificial barrier can be crossed. The term pass is usually applied to a relatively narrow passage through a mountainous region. A pass, like an isthmus, may have great strategic and economic importance; the history of a nation has often been determined b...
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Spanish Main
Spanish Main mainland of Spanish America, particularly the coast of South America from the isthmus of Panama to the mouth of the Orinoco River. Spanish treasure fleets, sailing home from the New World, passed through the Caribbean N of the Main and were attacked by English buccaneers raiding from t...
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Finnish-Russian War
Finnish-Russian War 1939-40, war between Finland and the Soviet Union. After World War II broke out in Sept., 1939, the USSR, never on cordial terms with Finland, took advantage of its nonaggression pact (Aug., 1939) with Germany to make several far-reaching demands on Finland. These demands includ...
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Zapotec
Zapotec , indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Little is known of the origin of the Zapotec. Unlike most native peoples of Middle America, they had no traditions or legends of migration, but believed themselves to have been born directly from rocks, t...
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