Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

Lampang ... Lancisi, Giovanni Maria

Lampang: city, northern Thailand, located about 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Chiang Mai. It lies on the Wang River in the forested Khun Tan Range and is an administrative and commercial centre for the surrounding region. Once the seat of ...
Lampasan Series: division of Pennsylvanian rocks and time in the south central and southwestern U.S., especially Texas (the Pennsylvanian Period, roughly equivalent to the Upper Carboniferous, began about 325,000,000 years ago and lasted about 45,000,000 years). The Lampasan Series is correlated with ...
Lampedusa Island: largest island (area 8 square miles [21 square km]) of the Isole (islands) Pelagie (which include Linosa and Lampione islets), in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and Tunis, 105 miles (170 km) southwest of Licata, Sicily. Administratively the group is ...
Lamphun: town, northern Thailand. Lamphun is an old walled town on the Kuang River, 16 miles (26 km) south of Chiang Mai. Although located on the Bangkok-Chiang Mai railway, it lost its commercial importance to Chiang Mai after 1921. Wat Phra ...
Lampman, Archibald: important Canadian poet of the Confederation group, whose most characteristic work sensitively records the feelings evoked by scenes and incidents of the outdoors.
Lampong: people indigenous to Lampung province on the Sunda Strait in southern Sumatra, Indonesia. They speak Lampong, a Malayo-Polynesian language that has been written in a script related to the Hindu alphabet. A dependency of the Sultan of Bantam (western Java) ...
lampoon: virulent satire in prose or verse that is a gratuitous and sometimes unjust and malicious attack on an individual. Although the term came into use in the 17th century from the French, examples of the lampoon are found as early ...
Lamprecht, Karl Gottfried: German historian who was one of the first scholars to develop a systematic theory of psychological factors in history.
lamprey: any of about 22 species of primitive, fishlike, jawless vertebrates placed with hagfishes in the class Agnatha. Lampreys belong to the family Petromyzonidae. They live in coastal and freshwaters and are found in temperate regions around the world, except in ...
lamprophyre: any of a group of dark gray to black intrusive igneous rocks that generally occur as dikes (tabular bodies inserted in fissures). Such rocks are characterized by a porphyritic texture in which large crystals (phenocrysts) of dark, iron-magnesium (mafic) minerals ...
Lampsacus: ancient Greek city on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont, best known for its wines, and the chief seat of the worship of Priapus, a god of procreation and fertility. Colonized in 654 BC by Ionian Phocaea, the city had ...
Lampung: provinsi (province), southern Sumatra, Indonesia, bounded by the Java Sea to the east, the Sunda Strait to the south, the Indian Ocean to the west, and Sumatera Selatan (South Sumatra) province to the north and northwest. It ...
Lamu: town, port, and island in the Indian Ocean off the East African coast, 150 miles (241 km) north-northeast of Mombasa. It is administered as part of Kenya. The port lies on the southeastern shore of the island. A former Persian, ...
lan: administrative subdivision (county) of Sweden; see landskap.
Lan Ts'ai-ho: in Chinese mythology, one of the Pa Hsien, the Eight Immortals of Taoism, whose true identity is much disputed. Artists depict Lan as a young man-or girl-carrying a flute or a pair of clappers and occasionally wearing only one shoe. ...
Lan Xang: Laotian kingdom that flourished from the 14th century until it was split into two separate kingdoms, Vien Chang and Luang Prabang, in the 18th century. Conflict with its Myanmar (Burmese) and Thai (Siamese) neighbours forced the kingdom's rulers to transfer ...
Lan-chou: city, capital of Kansu province (sheng), China. It is situated on the upper course of the Huang Ho (Yellow River), where the river emerges from the mountains. Lan-chou has been a centre since early times, being at ...
Lanai: island, Maui county, Hawaii, U.S. Situated across the Auau Channel from Maui island, it is formed by the extinct volcano Lanaihale (Palawai; 3,366 feet [1,026 metres]). The sixth largest of the Hawaiian Islands, Lanai has an area of 140 square ...
Lanao, Lake: lake, west-central Mindanao, Philippines. It is situated just south of Marawi, northwest of the Butig Mountains. Lake Lanao is the second largest lake in the Philippines and has an area of 131 square miles (340 square km). Its outlet is ...
Lanark: royal burgh (town), South Lanarkshire council area, historic county of Lanarkshire, south-central Scotland, situated by the right bank of the River Clyde, southeast of the Glasgow metropolitan area. The town developed around a castle built by David I of Scotland ...
Lanarkshire: historic county of south-central Scotland, roughly coinciding with the basin of the River Clyde. It is bounded to the south by the historic county of Dumfriesshire, to the east by Peeblesshire, Midlothian, and West Lothian, to the north by Stirlingshire ...
Lancashire: administrative, geographic, and historic county in northwestern England, bounded on the north by Cumberland and Westmorland (in the present administrative county of Cumbria), on the east by Yorkshire, on the south by Cheshire, and on the west by the Irish ...
Lancaster: urban area and city (district), administrative and historic county of Lancashire, England, at the head of the estuary of the River Lune, 7 miles (11 km) from the Irish Sea.
Lancaster: county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., consisting of a hilly piedmont region bounded by the Susquehanna River to the west, Conewago Creek to the northwest, and Octoraro Creek to the southeast. Impoundments of the Susquehanna River form Lakes Clarke and Aldred and ...
Lancaster: city, seat of Lancaster county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., and the centre of a metropolitan area comprising a number of small towns and boroughs, 71 miles (114 km) west of Philadelphia. The original site on Conestoga Creek, known as Gibson's Pasture, ...
Lancaster: city, seat of Lancaster county, northern South Carolina, U.S., near the Catawba River. It was founded in the 1750s by settlers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The architect Robert Mills designed the jail (1823) and the courthouse (1828). In the early 19th ...
Lancaster: city, Los Angeles county, southwestern California, U.S. Lying in Antelope Valley at the western edge of the Mojave Desert, it is 80 miles (130 km) north of the city of Los Angeles and separated from it by the San Gabriel ...
Lancaster: county, northern South Carolina, U.S. It is bounded by the Catawba River and its Wateree Lake extension to the west, the Lynches River to the east, and North Carolina to the north. The county lies in hilly piedmont terrain, much ...
Lancaster: city, seat (1800) of Fairfield county, south-central Ohio, U.S., on the Hocking River, 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Columbus. It was founded (1800) by Ebenezer Zane on land granted to him in payment for blazing Zane's Trace, a 266-mile ...
Lancaster Sound: western arm of Baffin Bay (an inlet of the North Atlantic Ocean), in north-central Baffin region, Nunavut territory, Canada. The sound is 200 miles (320 km) long and 40 miles (64 km) wide. It extends between Devon Island (north) and ...
Lancaster, Burt: American film actor who projected a unique combination of physical toughness and emotional sensitivity.
Lancaster, Edmund, 1st Earl of: fourth (but second surviving) son of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, who founded the house of Lancaster.
Lancaster, Henry, 1st Duke and 4th Earl of, Earl Of Leicester, Earl Of Derby, Earl Of Lincoln, Earl Of Moray, Lord Lancaster: soldier and diplomatist, the most trusted adviser of King Edward III of England (reigned 1327-77). He was unquestionably the most powerful feudal lord in England at that time.
Lancaster, Henry, 3rd Earl of, Earl Of Leicester, Lord Lancaster: second son of Edmund ("Crouchback"), 1st Earl of Lancaster, and the brother of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster.
Lancaster, House of: a cadet branch of the house of Plantagenet (q.v.). In the 15th century, it provided three kings of England-Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI-and, defeated by the house of York (q.v.), passed on its claims to the Tudor dynasty.
Lancaster, Joseph: British-born educator who developed the system of mass education known as the Lancasterian method, a monitorial, or "mutual," approach in which brighter or more proficient children were used to teach other children under the direction of an adult. In the ...
Lancaster, Sir James: merchant who commanded the first English vessel to reach the East Indies and who established the first English trading post in Southeast Asia.
Lancaster, Sir Osbert: English cartoonist, stage designer, and writer, best-known for his suave cartoons that appeared from 1939 in the Daily Express (London), which gently satirized the English upper class, especially its response to social change. He was also noted for his architectural ...
Lancaster, Thomas, 2nd Earl of, Earl Of Leicester, Earl Of Derby: a grandson of King Henry III of England and the main figure in the baronial opposition to King Edward II. His opposition to royal power derived more from personal ambition than from a desire for reform.
lance: spear used by cavalry troops. It usually consisted of a long wooden shaft with a sharp metal point. Its employment can be traced to the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians, and it was widely used by the Greeks and Romans, despite ...
Lance Formation: division of Late Cretaceous rocks in the western United States (the Cretaceous period began about 144 million years ago and ended 66.4 million years ago). Where it occurs, the Lance Formation is the uppermost rock unit of the Cretaceous. It ...
Lance missile: U.S.-made short-range ballistic missile, adopted by the U.S. Army in 1972 and subsequently by the armies of West Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Israel.
Lancelot: one of the greatest knights in Arthurian romance; he was the lover of Arthur's queen, Guinevere, and was the father of the pure knight Sir Galahad.
lancet fish: either of two species of widely distributed, deepwater marine fish of the genus Alepisaurus (the family Alepisauridae). Lancet fish are elongated and slender, with a long, very tall dorsal fin and a large mouth that is equipped with formidable fanglike ...
lancet window: narrow, high window capped by a lancet, or acute, arch. The lancet arch is a variety of pointed arch in which each of the arcs, or curves, of the arch have a radius longer than the width of the arch. ...
Lancet, The: British medical journal established in 1823. The journal's founder and first editor was Thomas Wakley, considered at the time to be a radical reformer. Wakley stated the intent of the new journal was to report on the metropolitan hospital lectures ...
lancewood: tough, heavy, elastic, straight-grained wood obtained from several different trees of the custard-apple family (Annonaceae). True lancewood, Oxandra lanceolata, of the West Indies and Guianas, furnishes most of the lancewood of commerce in the form of spars about 13 feet ...
Lanchester, Frederick William: English automobile and aeronautics pioneer who built the first British automobile (1896).
Lanciani, Rodolfo Amadeo: Italian archaeologist, topographer, and authority on ancient Rome who discovered many antiquities at Rome, Tivoli, and Ostia. He published a 1:1,000-scale map of classical, medieval, and modern Rome in Forma Urbis Romae (1893-1901).
Lanciano: town, Chieti provincia, Abruzzi regione, south-central Italy. An archbishopric and agricultural centre, it has textile, machinery, and furniture manufactures. It originated as the Roman Anxanum. The town's Cistercian-Gothic church of Santa Maria Maggiore dates from 1227, and its cathedral has ...
Lancisi, Giovanni Maria: Italian clinician and anatomist who is considered the first modern hygienist.