‘Geography’ Archives
Columbia River
Columbia River About a third of the course of the Columbia River, one of the longest rivers in western North America, is in Canada, the rest in the United States. From its source at Columbia Lake in southeastern British Columbia, it travels 1,214 miles before it empties into the Pacific Ocean at Astoria, Oregon. In British Columbia, the river [...]
Canary Islands
Canary Islands The Canary Islands are a group of seven volcanic islands 70 miles off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean near the border of present-day Morocco and Western Sahara, about 600 miles to the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. They mark the beginning of the Canary Current, part of the circular system of currents in the [...]
Colorado River
Colorado River At 1,450 miles long, the Colorado River is the longest river west of the Rocky mountains in North America, and one of the major rivers of the United States. Originating just west of the Continental Divide in the Rockies of northern Colorado, it follows a southwesterly course across Colorado and southeastern Utah. After the Green [...]
Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc Mont Blanc is a mountain in the Alps of Europe, located in southwestern France in the Haute-Savoie Department, formerly the Duchy of Savoy. The name is also applied to the massif or range of which the mountain is a part, along the border between France and Italy. The French Mont Blanc, or Italian Monte Bianco, translates as “white [...]
Pyrometamorphism
Pyrometamorphism Rock that has undergone extreme metamorphism in lava or magma. As magma intrudes into preexisting rock, pieces of the cool rock are broken off into the extremely hot liquid. The broken rock is immediately cooked at very high temperatures. The minerals and texture change accordingly. The same process happens when extremely hot [...]
Midwest
Midwest The Midwest is the most ambiguous and least welldefined of major American regions. In contrast to the South the West, or New England the Midwest has neither a sharp, clear historical identity nor a strong presence in contemporary popular culture. There are no music or movie genres called “midwesterns” and no traditions of Midwest [...]
Land of the Hindus
Land of the Hindus Hindustan, which means “Land of the Hindus,” derives from the word “Hindu,” the Persian form of “Sindhu,” the Indus River. Hindustan is considered one of the earliest historical names for the nation of Bharat or India. Although occasionally used to mean all India, historically it refers to northern India, in [...]
History of Haiti
Haiti Haiti was the second colony in the Americas, after the United States, to win its independence from European control. Initially a Spanish possession peopled in large part by slaves imported from Africa, Haiti was ceded to France in 1697. A slave revolt led by Toussaint L’Ouverture first erupted in 1791 and defeated the French colonial [...]
Guatemala
Guatemala Guatemala is the Central American home of the Mayan civilization (c. 301–900) and a Spanish colony after 1524. Guatemala was the core of the Captaincy-General of Guatemala—comprising present-day Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama—until it achieved independence from Spain with Mexico in [...]
Aconcagua
Aconcagua Aconcagua is a peak in the ANDES MOUNTAINS of western Argentina, near the border with Chile. At 22,834 feet above sea level, it is the highest mountain in South America and in the Western Hemisphere. Fourteen other peaks in the Andes are more than 20,000 feet above sea level and taller than Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North [...]
