Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Narragansett Bay

(Encyclopedia)Narragansett Bay, arm of the Atlantic Ocean, 30 mi (48 km) long and from 3 to 12 mi (4.8–19 km) wide, deeply indenting the state of Rhode Island. Its many inlets provided harbors that were advantage...

Hell Gate

(Encyclopedia)Hell Gate, narrow channel of the East River, SE N.Y., between Wards Island and Astoria, Queens, New York City. Named Hellegat by the Dutch navigator Adriaen Block, who passed through it into Long Isla...

Îsle-aux-Coudres

(Encyclopedia)Îsle-aux-Coudres ēl-ō-ko͞oˈdrə [key], island, c.6 mi (9.7 km) long and 2.5 mi (4 km) wide, in the St. Lawrence River, SE Que., Canada. It was named by Jacques Cartier in 1535 for the hazelnuts g...

Isle La Motte

(Encyclopedia)Isle La Motte īl lə mŏt [key], island and village, 6 mi (9.7 km) long and 2 mi (3.2 km) wide, in Lake Champlain, NW Vt. The French chose the island as the site for Fort Ste Anne (built 1666), the f...

Laval, city, Canada

(Encyclopedia)Laval, city (1991 pop. 314,398), coextensive with Île-Jésus (94 sq mi/243 sq km), S Que., Canada, between the Rivière des Mille Îles and the Rivière des Prairies, just NW of Montreal. The second ...

Hirado

(Encyclopedia)Hirado hēräˈdō [key], town, Nagasaki prefecture, on Hirado island, off NW Kyushu, Japan. ...

Portoferraio

(Encyclopedia)Portoferraio pôrˈtōfār-räˈyō [key], town (1991 pop. 11,042), Tuscany, Italy, on the north coast of Elba Island. The principal port of Elba, it handles most of the iron shipped from the island. ...

Babeldaob

(Encyclopedia)Babeldaob or Babelthuap, volcanic island, 143 sq mi (370 sq km), largest island of Palau, in the W Caroline Islands, W Pacific. In 2006, Palau's capital was moved from the island of Oreor (Koror) to M...

Nunivak

(Encyclopedia)Nunivak no͞oˈnĭvăk [key], island, c.1,700 sq mi (4,400 sq km), off W Alaska, in the Bering Sea. It is the second largest island in the Bering Sea. Fogbound most of the year, Nunivak is covered wit...

Quemoy

(Encyclopedia)Quemoy kĭmoiˈ [key], Chin. Chinmen, Kinmen, or Jinmen, Taiwanese island group (2010 pop. 56,703), Taiwan Strait, just off Fujian prov., China, and c.150 mi (240 km) W of Taiwan. The group consists o...
 

Browse by Subject