western Siberian peoples, living mainly in the Ob River basin of central Russia. They each speak an Ob-Ugric language of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic languages. Together they numbered some 30,000 in the late 20th century. They are descended ...
autonomous okrug (district), in Tyumen oblast (province), central Russia. The Khanty-Mansi national okrug was established in 1930 for the Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul) peoples, although the majority of the present population are Russian settlers; the national okrug became an ...
city and administrative centre of Khanty-Mansi autonomous okrug (district), a part of Tyumen oblast (province), Russia, in the West Siberian Plain. Situated on the Irtysh River near its confluence with the Ob River, the city was formed in 1950 from ...
city, south-central West Bengal state, northeastern India, just south of the Kasai River. Originally only the railway suburb of Midnapore (Medinipur), Kharagpur is now an important rail junction, with workshops and a large, carefully laid-out railway settlement. Rice milling and ...
town, north-central Balochistan province, Pakistan. It lies 6 miles (10 km) from the Baddo River. Long a caravan depot, it still trades in salt, millet, wheat, dates, melons, carpets, and baskets. The surrounding area is mostly desert but has cultivated ...
small Iranian island in the northern Persian Gulf, 34 miles (55 km) northwest of the port of Bushire (Bushehr). In the 15th century the Dutch established a factory (trading station) on the island, but in 1766 Kharg was taken by ...
city, southwestern Madhya Pradesh state, central India, just east of the Kundi River. It is a major agricultural-produce and timber market and is engaged in cotton ginning and rice and oilseed milling. It attained considerable importance under the Mughals and ...
any of several groups of hill people living in the Chota Nagpur area of Orissa and Bihar states, northeastern India, and numbering more than 280,000 in the late 20th century. Most of the Kharia speak a South Munda language of ...
town, capital of the muhafazah (governorate) of Al-Wadi al-Jadid (Arabic: "New Valley") and chief town of Al-Kharijah (Kharga) oasis, Egypt. The town's history dates back to the 25th dynasty (c. 750-656 BC), though inscriptions record that the oasis was a ...
oasis, east-central Saudi Arabia. It lies southeast of Riyadh, the national capital, with which it is associated administratively. Situated around a series of deepwater pools, near which numerous ancient tombs have been found, Al-Kharj was chosen as the site of ...
oblast (province), northeastern Ukraine. The valley of the Donets River forms the axis of the oblast, which also covers the southern end of the Central Russian Upland. Most of the area is steppe; some forest-steppe with groves of oak and ...
city and administrative centre of Kharkiv oblast (province), northeastern Ukraine. It lies at the confluence of the Uda, Lopan, and Kharkiv rivers. It was founded about 1655 as a military stronghold to protect Russia's southern borderlands; part of the old ...
writing system used in northwestern India before about AD 500. The earliest extant inscription in Kharosthi dates from 251 BC, and the latest from the 4th-5th century AD. The system probably derived from the Aramaic alphabet while northwestern India was ...
("Elephant's Trunk"), city, executive capital of The Sudan, just south of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers. It has bridge connections with its sister towns, Khartoum North and Omdurman, with which it forms The Sudan's largest conurbation. ...
city, east-central Sudan. It lies on the north bank of the Blue Nile and on the east bank of the Nile proper, with bridge connections to its sister cities of Khartoum and Omdurman. The main industrial centre of the region ...
(March 13, 1884-January 26, 1885), the siege of Khartoum, capital of the Sudan, by al-Mahdi and his followers. The city, which was defended by an Egyptian garrison under the British general Charles George ("Chinese") Gordon, was captured, and its defenders, ...
city, Donetsk oblast (province), eastern Ukraine. It is located on the Krynychne-Ilovaysk rail line in an upland area about 15 miles (25 km) east of Donetsk. Khartsyzsk was founded in 1869 and raised to city status in 1938. Its industry ...
city and centre of Khasavyurt rayon (sector), Dagestan republic, southwestern Russia. It lies along the Yaryksu River in a cotton-growing area, with cotton-ginning and fruit- and vegetable-canning industries. Agricultural and teacher-training colleges are in the city. Pop. (1995 est.) 84,300.
people of the Khasi and Jaintia hills of the state of Meghalaya in India. The Khasi have a distinctive culture. Both inheritance of property and succession to tribal office run through the female line, passing from the mother to the ...
physical region, central Meghalaya state, northeastern India. The area consists mostly of hilly regions and includes the Shillong plateau; it is drained by tributaries of the Brahmaputra and Surma rivers. The Cherrapunji scarp in the south has one of the ...
one of several members of the Khasian branch of the Mon-Khmer family, which is itself a part of the Austroasiatic stock. Khasi is spoken by some 900,000 people living in the region surrounding the Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills of ...
group of languages spoken primarily in the Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya state of northeastern India. The Khasian languages form the westernmost branch of the Mon-Khmer language family, itself a part of the Austroasiatic stock, and are the ...
town, southern Bulgaria. It lies in the northeastern foothills of the Rhodope Mountains. Founded about 1385 at the outset of the Ottoman period, it is located on the Sofia-Istanbul road and is connected by rail with the Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul trunk rail ...
Moroccan educator, literary critic, and novelist. He was a member of the angry young generation of the 1960s whose works initially challenged many tenets on which the newly independent countries of the Maghrib were basing their social and political norms.
exclave and port town, Ash-Shariqah emirate, United Arab Emirates. It is on the east coast of the Oman promontory, facing the Gulf of Oman; the port and its hinterland divide the emirate of Al-Fujayrah into its two major portions.
Arab sheikh (ruler) of the city of Mohammerah (now Khorramshahr) who attempted to create an independent state in the oil-rich Iranian region of Khuzestan.
member of a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes that in the late 6th century AD established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia. Although the origin of the term Khazar and the early history of the ...
city, east-central Gujarat state, west-central India. It is situated in the lowlands between the Sabarmati and Mahi rivers. The city existed as early as the 5th century AD. Early in the 18th century it passed to the Babi family but ...
title granted by the Ottoman sultan Abdulaziz to the hereditary pasha of Egypt, Isma'il, in 1867 and used by his successors Tawfiq and 'Abbas Hilmi II. It was replaced by the title sultan in 1914, when Egypt became a British ...
town, north-central Morocco. The town is located between the imperial cities of Rabat and Meknes, at the edge of the Moroccan upland plateau. It is a market centre for the local Zemmour Berbers. To the north of Khemisset lies a ...
town, central Morocco. It is situated in the western foothills of the southern Middle Atlas mountains and lies along the banks of the Oum er-Rbia River at an elevation of 3,280 feet (1,000 m). The site was originally the wintering ...
oblast (province), southern Ukraine. The oblast extends across the lower Dnieper River and along the shores of the Black Sea, Syvash Lake, and the Sea of Azov. Named for its capital, it comprises a level plain, with almost no surface ...
city and administrative centre of Kherson oblast (province), southern Ukraine. It lies on the right (west) bank of the lower Dnieper River about 15 miles (25 km) from the latter's mouth. It was founded in 1778 by the military leader ...
(Arabic, contraction of al-Khadir, "the Green One"), a legendary Islamic figure endowed with immortal life who became a popular saint, especially among sailors and Sufis (Muslim mystics).
force that arose in India in the early 20th century as a result of Muslim fears for the integrity of Islam. These fears were aroused by Italian (1911) and Balkan (1912-13) attacks on Turkey-whose sultan, as caliph, was the religious ...
city and centre of a rayon (sector), Moscow oblast (province), western Russia. It lies along the Moscow-St. Petersburg railway northwest of the capital. Incorporated in 1939, Khimki grew from a small nucleus of summer cottages (dachi). It is now an ...
(Arabic: "rag"), a woolen robe traditionally bestowed by Sufi (Muslim mystic) masters on those who had newly joined the Sufi path, in recognition of their sincerity and devotion. While most sources agree that the khirqah was a patched piece of ...
any member of a Mongol people that ruled Manchuria and part of North China from the 10th to the early 12th century under the Liao dynasty (q.v.). See also Manchuria.
in Islam, circumcision of the male; by extension it may also refer to the circumcision of the female (properly khafd). Muslim traditions (Hadith) recognize khitan as a pre-Islamic rite customary among the Arabs and place it in the same category ...
city, south-central Uzbekistan. It lies west of the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus River) on the Palvan Canal, and it is bounded on the south by the Karakum Desert and on the northeast by the Kyzylkum desert. A notorious slave market ...
leader (1648-57) of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who organized a rebellion against Polish rule in Ukraine that ultimately led to the transfer of the Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper River from Polish to Russian control.
city and administrative centre of Khmelnytskyy oblast (province), western Ukraine. It lies along the upper Southern (Pivdennyy) Buh River. Originally a Polish military post, it dates from the late 15th century. The fort was seized by Cossacks during the mid-17th ...
