Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Khmelnytskyy ... Khwae Noi River

Khmelnytskyy: oblast (province), western Ukraine. The oblast extends across the Volyn-Podilsk Upland and slopes gently down in the south to the Dniester River. The oblast's natural forest-steppe vegetation has been almost wholly plowed up; intensive erosion has ensued, and a network ...
Khmer: any member of an ethnolinguistic group that constitutes most of the population of Cambodia. Smaller numbers of Khmer also live in southeastern Thailand and the Mekong River delta of southern Vietnam. The Khmer language belongs to the Mon-Khmer family, itself ...
Khmer Issarak: (Khmer: "Independent Cambodians"), an anti-French nationalist movement organized in Cambodia in 1946. It quickly split into factions, and by the time of independence in 1953 all but one of these were incorporated into Prince Norodom Sihanouk's political structure. The dissident ...
Khmer language: Mon-Khmer language spoken by most of the population of Cambodia, where it is the official language, and by some 1.3 million people in southeastern Thailand, and also by more than a million people in southern Vietnam. The language has been ...
Khmer literature: body of literary works of Khmer peoples of Southeast Asia, mainly Cambodia.
Khmer Rouge: radical communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 after winning power through a guerrilla war. It was purportedly set up in 1967 as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.
Khmuic languages: group of languages spoken primarily in Laos in areas scattered around Luang Prabang and extending into parts of Thailand and northern Vietnam. The Khmuic languages form a branch of the Mon-Khmer family, itself a part of the Austroasiatic stock.
Khnum: ancient Egyptian god of fertility, associated with water and with procreation. Khnum was worshiped from the 1st dynasty (c. 2925-2775 BC) into the early centuries AD. He was represented as a ram with horizontal, twisting horns or as a man ...
Khoei, Abolqasem al-: Iranian-born cleric who, as a grand ayatollah based in the holy city of Al-Najaf, Iraq, was the spiritual leader of millions of Shi'ite Muslims.
Khoekhoe: any member of a people of southern Africa whom the first European explorers found in areas of the hinterland and who now live either in European settlements or on official reserves in South Africa or Namibia. Khoekhoe (meaning "men of ...
Khoekhoe languages: a subgroup of the Khoe language family, one of three branches of the Southern African Khoisan languages. Two main varieties have been distinguished: the first includes the extinct South African languages !Ora and Gri (click for an audio clip ...
Khoisan languages: a unique group of African languages spoken mainly in southern Africa, with two outlying languages found in eastern Africa. The term is a compound adapted from the words khoekhoe 'person' and saan 'bush dweller' in Nama, one ...
Khoja: caste of Indian Muslims converted from Hinduism to Islam in the 14th century by the Persian pir (religious leader, or teacher) Sadr-ud-Din and adopted as members of the Nizari Isma'ili sect of the Shi'ites (see Isma'ilite). Forced to feign either ...
Kholmogory: village, port, and administrative centre of Kholmogory rayon (sector), Arkhangelsk oblast (province), northwestern Russia. It lies along the Northern Dvina River, 47 miles (75 km) southeast of the city of Arkhangelsk. The village has existed since 1355, when it served ...
Khomeini, Ruhollah: Iranian Shi'ite cleric who led the revolution that overthrew Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979 and who was Iran's ultimate political and religious authority for the next 10 years.
Khomyakov, Aleksey Stepanovich: Russian poet and founder of the 19th-century Slavophile movement that extolled the superiority of the Russian way of life. He was also an influential lay theologian of the Russian Orthodox church.
Khon Kaen: town, northeastern Thailand, on the Khorat Plateau. It is a rice-trading centre on the railway between Nakhon Ratchasima and Udon Thani. Khon Kaen University was founded in 1965; the Rajamangala Institute of Technology, Khon Kaen Campus (1963) is also there. ...
Khond: people of the hills and jungles of Orissa state, India. Their numbers are estimated to exceed 800,000, of which about 550,000 speak Kui and its southern dialect, Kuwi, of the Dravidian language family. Most Khond are now rice cultivators, but ...
Khone Falls: series of cataracts on the Mekong River, extreme southern Laos, on the Cambodian border. The falls are the principal impediment to navigation of the river and have impeded economic use of the Mekong by the peoples of the Cambodian plain ...
Khons: in ancient Egyptian religion, moon god who was generally depicted as a youth. A deity with astronomical associations named Khenzu is known from the Pyramid Texts (c. 2350 BC) and is possibly the same as Khons. In Egyptian mythology, Khons ...
Khorana, Har Gobind: Indian-born American biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that helped to show how the nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of ...
Khorasan: historical region and realm comprising a vast territory now lying in northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan. The historical region extended, along the north, from the Amu Darya (Oxus River) westward to the Caspian Sea and, along the south, ...
Khorasan carpet: handwoven floor covering made in the region of Khorasan, in northeastern Iran. Herat carpets are the classic carpets of the district. From the late 18th and early 19th centuries there are carpets in the herati pattern, probably ...
Khorat Plateau: saucer-shaped tableland of northeastern Thailand. It occupies 60,000 square miles (155,000 square km), is situated 300-650 feet (90-200 m) above sea level, and tilts southeastward. The plateau is drained by the Chi and Mun rivers and is bounded by the ...
Khorram-dinan: esoteric Islamic religious sect whose leader Babak led a rebellion in Azerbaijan (now divided between Iran and Azerbaijan) that lasted from 816 until 837.
Khorramabad: city, western Iran. It commands a river gap in the Lorestan mountains used by the main road from Khuzestan to the highland plateau. A summer market for the nomadic Lur tribes, it has lively bazaars and a strong garrison. On ...
Khorramshahr: city and port, southwestern Iran. It lies on the right (west) bank of the Karun River where it enters the Shatt al-Arab, 45 miles (72 km) from the Persian Gulf. The city occupies the site of the old 'Abbasid port ...
Khorugh: capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan ("Mountain Badakhshan") autonomous region, south-central Tajikistan. It is situated near the border with Afghanistan in the southwestern Pamirs range at an elevation of 7,200 feet (2,200 m) and on the Gunt River where it flows into ...
Khosrow I: Persian king who ruled the Sasanian empire from 531 to 579 and was remembered as a great reformer and patron of the arts and scholarship.
Khosrow II: late Sasanian king of Persia (reigned 590-628), under whom the empire achieved its greatest expansion. Defeated at last in a war with the Byzantines, he was deposed in a palace revolution and executed.
Khotan: oasis town in the southwest of the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang, China. Khotan forms a county (hsien) and is the administrative centre of the Ho-t'ien (Khotan) prefecture (ti-ch'u), which administers a string of counties based on the oases along ...
Khotan rug: floor covering handwoven in or about the ancient city of Khotan (Hotan) in the southern Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang (Chinese Turkistan). Khotan rugs were once called Samarkand rugs after the Central Asian trading centre. They combine Chinese details with ...
Khouribga: city, provincial capital, and province, Centre region, northwestern Morocco. The city is situated on an infertile, upland plateau (unofficially called the Plateau des Phosphates) west of the Moyen (Middle) Atlas mountains. It owes its growth to the nearby phosphate deposits, ...
Khrapovitsky, Antony: Russian Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev, antipapal polemicist, and controversialist in theological and political affairs who attempted an exclusively ethical interpretation of Christian doctrine.
Khrushchev's secret speech: (February 25, 1956), in Russian history, denunciation of the deceased Soviet leader Joseph Stalin made by Nikita S. Khrushchev to a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The speech was the nucleus ...
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich: first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953-64) and premier of the Soviet Union (1958-64) whose policy of de-Stalinization had widespread repercussions throughout the communist world. In foreign policy he pursued a policy of "peaceful coexistence" with ...
Khuang Aphaiwong: Thai politician who founded and led Thailand's strongest opposition party and was three times premier of Thailand (1944-45, 1946, 1947-48). Khuang was a member of the Khmer family that under Thai auspices ruled western Cambodia from the 18th century and ...
Khubar, Al-: oasis and port city, Al-Sharqiyah mintaqah (province) and region, eastern Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf south of Al-Dammam. The city is a commercial and industrial centre lying in a valley on the main road to Jordan. ...
Khuc Thua Du: Vietnamese ruler in 906-907 whose rise to power, as a result of a successful rebellion in 906, constituted one of the first attempts of the Vietnamese to achieve independence.
Khuddaka Nikaya: (Pali: "Short Collection"), diverse group of separate Buddhist texts constituting the fifth and last section of the Pali Sutta Pitaka ("Basket of Discourse"). Although it contains some very early works, as a collection it is later than ...
Khufu: second king of the 4th dynasty (c. 2575-c. 2465 BC) of Egypt and builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza, the largest single building to that time.
Khujand: city, northwestern Tajikistan. The city lies along both banks of the Syr Darya (river) at the entrance to the fertile and heavily populated Fergana Valley. One of the most ancient cities of Central Asia, it lay along the great Silk ...
Khulna: city, southwestern Bangladesh. It lies along the Bhairab River in the south-central Gangetic delta. An important river port and produce collection and trade centre, it is connected by river steamer, road, and rail to the major cities of the region. ...
Khums, Al-: town, northwestern Libya. It is located on the Mediterranean coast about 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Tripoli. The town was founded by the Turks and gained importance after 1870 by exporting esparto grass (used for cordage, shoes, and paper). ...
Khuri, Bishara al-: Lebanese statesman, president of Lebanon from 1943 to 1952.
Khury Mury: island group of Oman, in the Arabian Sea, situated 25 miles (40 km) off the country's southeastern coast. The five islands, which have a total land area of 28 square miles (73 square km), are composed largely of granite and ...
khutbah: in Islam, the sermon, delivered especially at a Friday service, at the two major Islamic festivals ('ids), at celebrations of saintly birthdays (mawlids), and on extraordinary occasions.
Khuzdar: town, Balochistan province, southwestern Pakistan. The town lies along the Kolachi River at the apex of a narrow valley in the Pab (Pubb) Range and lies at an elevation of 4,060 feet (1,237 m) above sea level. It is located ...
Khuzestan: geographic region in southwestern Iran, lying at the head of the Persian Gulf and bordering Iraq on the west. It is notable for its oil resources.
Khvoy: city, northwestern Iran. The city is well laid out, with cool streams and lines of willows along broad, regular streets. There are several mosques, an extensive brick bazaar, a fine caravansary, and gardens. Khvoy is a trade centre and has ...
Khwae Noi River: tributary of the Mae Klong River, flowing wholly in western Thailand. It rises near Three Pagodas Pass (Phra Chedi Sam Ong) on the mountainous Myanmar-Thailand border and runs southeast, parallel to the border, to its confluence near Kanchanaburi town with ...