Table Of ContentBritannica
CONCISE
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Front cover: (clockwise from top row, left) Vincenzo
Images; Angermayer;
Hans Hinz, Basel; Sean Gallup/Getty Images;
courtesy of the
Germany, John F. Shrawder/Shostal. Back cover:
NASA/JPL; Pramod
Chandra; Anthony Mercieca from The National
Audubon Society Collection/Photo Researchers;
J.C. Allen and Son; Stephen
Researchers.
Britannica
CONCISE
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Chicago • London • New Delhi • Paris • Seoul • Sydney • Taipei • Tokyo
Britannica
CONCISE
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Encyclopædia Britannica
First published in 1768, the Encyclopædia Britannica has long been the standard by which all
other reference works are judged. It represents a tradition of excellence that was built, over
the centuries, on meticulous scholarship and unmatched attention to detail. Today,
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., produces a range of fine products for reference, education, and
learning in different media and in many different languages. Wherever you see the Britannica
name—in print, on the Internet, CD-ROM, or DVD—it is your guarantee of quality, accuracy,
and authority.
© 2006 BYENCYCLOPÆDIABRITANNICA, INC.
Copyright Under International Copyright Union
All Rights Reserved Under International and Universal Copyright Conventions
by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006921235
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-59339-492-9
The original edition of this book, created in conjunction with Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, was published
in 2000 asMerriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia.
No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Encyclopædia Britannicaand other fine products are available on the Internet at http://www.britannica.com.
(Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.) Printed in Peru.
v
Contents
Foreword vi
Explanatory Notes vii
Abbreviations ix
Pronunciation Symbols x
Guide to Plates and Map Legend xi
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia 1
Encyclopædia Britannica Corporate Page 2115
Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff 2116
Foreword
The need for information and the craving newest versions of national flags as well as a
for knowledge are timeless and univer- world map, maps of world religions and popula-
sal. The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia tion characteristics, a selection of World Heritage
satisfies the essence of both these needs. sites, and a useful world map depicting interna-
This volume represents the distillation of tional time zones. More than 30 tables catalog
essential information into a compact and eminently everything from Nobel Prize winners to chemical
useful single volume. elements to popes to the International System of
Units of measurement and their U.S. equivalents.
This latest version of Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Many of the more than 190 maps have been
answers today’s need for a portable, convenient ref- revised, and all of the more than 150 illustrations
erence work covering history, geography, the sci- have been redrawn. The more than 2,000 photo-
ences, religion, sports, entertainment, technology, graphs enhance both the appearance and content
and the arts. We hope it will become a favourite of Britannica Concise.
source for helping students with their homework,
for background to news events, for writers and The editors of Encyclopædia Britannica are proud
crossword-puzzle enthusiasts, for solving disputes, to present the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. We
and for random browsing. hope that you will consult it often and that it will
both satisfy your immediate need for information
This printing of Britannica Concise Encyclopedia has and lead you to the in-depth information of the 40
beenbroadlyrevised.Amongthe2.8millionwords million words of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
that make up the nearly 28,000 entries are many Creating the highest level of reference works has
newtitlesandmanythathavebeenupdated.Inthe been our goal for 238 years, and we are pleased to
16-page colour plates section, you will find the welcome you to the Britannica family.
Anita Wolff
Editor
© 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
vii
Explanatory Notes
Alphabetization. The articles are alphabetized older and generally discarded name for an entity,
word by word, with further alphabetizing letter by usually a geographical locale. The label officially
letter within a word. A“word” is here defined as a indicates a formal or legal version of a name. The
unit of one or more characters set off from other labelinfullprecedesafullyspelled-outversionofa
words by spaces, dashes, hyphens, or other symbols. name that is usually encountered in its shorter
Entry titles consisting of more than one word are form. A label consisting of a language name pre-
arranged in alphabetical order of the succeeding cedesanativeversionorspellingofanameorterm.
words. Titles with identical spellings are arranged in
the order (1) persons, (2) places, and (3) things. The Biographical entry headwords in particular may
followinglistillustratestheword-by-wordprinciple: employ parentheses in several ways. Parentheses
may enclose portions of a person’s name that are
horn rarely used, a person’s original given name or
Horn, Cape names, a later addition such as a title, or transla-
Horn of Africa tions of titles or epithets.
hornbill
Horne, Lena drumorcroaker
horned toad OdinorWotan
Hornsby, Rogers Bacall, Lauren orig.Betty Joan Perske
O’Connell, Daniel known asthe Liberator
Further alphabetization rules include the follow- IqaluitformerlyFrobisher Bay
ing: (1) Diacritics, apostrophes, dashes, periods, LatviaofficiallyRepublic of Latvia
and ampersands are ignored in alphabetization. (2) OCRin fulloptical character recognition
Names of monarchs and popes that are identical faxin full facsimile
except for the Roman numeral following the name Magellan, Strait of Spanish Estrecho de
are ordered numerically. (3) Names beginning with Magallanes
Mac-andMc-are ordered literally, all names begin- OdysseusRomanUlysses
ning with Mac- preceding (by a number of pages) Connelly, Marc(us Cook)
all names beginning with Mc-. (4) Entry headwords Doctorow, E(dgar) L(aurence)
beginning with numbers are alphabetized as if they Hughes, (James Mercer) Langston
were spelled out. Basil II known asBasil Bulgaroctonus (“Slayer of
the Bulgars”)
Entry headword style. Variant spellings or ver-
sions of the encyclopedia’s entry headwords are Pronunciations. Entries for terms and names
printed in boldface type when they are in common whose pronunciation the encyclopedia’s likely
use; more obscure variants are printed in ordinary users might hesitate over are supplied with pro-
roman type. No effort has been made to be exhaus- nunciations. Foreign names or terms that are pro-
tive in listing variants. nounced in a markedly different way by native
speakers and English-speakers are frequently pro-
Several italicized terms are used to discriminate vided with two pronunciations, one of them pre-
amongthevariants.Thelabelorsimplyindicatesa ceded by a language label (e.g., English, French,
common alternative name or spelling. The label Spanish). Thus, for Hassan II we provide the pro-
. .
orig. precedes the birth name of a person who is nunciations \9ha-san, English ha-9sän\. The sym-
enteredunderanamethatwasadoptedoracquired bols employed and the sounds they represent are
subsequently.Whenaperson’soriginalsurnameis listed on page x.
differentfromthenameintheprincipalheadword,
the entire birth name is given, not enclosed in Romanization of foreign languages. Words from
parentheses.Thelabelknownasprecedesacommon languages that do not use the Western (Roman)
way of referring to a person that may never have alphabet generally reflect the spellings most com-
had formal status. The label formerly indicates an monly seen in English-language contexts.
© 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
viii
Chinese names are almost always transcribed there is no ambiguity as to alphabetical placement,
according to the Pinyin system. Where a Chinese the entire name appears in small capitals.
name or term appears as a headword, the older
Wade-Giles spelling is given as an orvariant. Place- Aterm is cross-referenced only when it is likely that
names and biographical names on Taiwan, howev- the reader of the article within which the cross-ref-
er, are generally listed in their Wade-Giles spelling, erence appears would want to be notified about the
with the Pinyin spelling as a variant. Afew Chinese additional article. Hence many terms for which
names widely used in English (e.g., Confucius) there are corresponding entries are not highlighted
retain their traditional English spelling. as references. For instance, in the article on Tim
Berners-Lee, we have cross-referenced “World Wide
Japanese names and terms are generally transcribed Web” (whose invention was his principal achieve-
according to the Hepburn system but without ment) but not “Internet,” which is naturally cross-
macrons to indicate vowel length. referenced within the “World Wide Web” article.
Because cross-referencing of this kind is discre-
Russian names and terms generally observe tradi- tionary, readers should not assume that a noun
tional Western spellings and follow the diacritic- lacks its own entry simply because it is not refer-
free system employed by the U.S. Board on enced within the article being read.
Geographic Names.
For the sake of saving space, many people who
Arabic names and terms generally follow the best- receive their own entries have their given names
established Western usage. Except in a few well- abbreviated and their surnames in small capitals
establishedWesterntransliterations,thelinthearti- when they are mentioned in an article, regardless of
cleal-orel-(“the”) is not assimilated to a following how likely the reader of the article is to want to be
consonant (thus, we employ the spelling Harun al- alerted to the biographical entry. The names of
Rashid, not Harun ar-Rashid), even though such countries, U.S. states, and Canadian provinces, by
assimilation reflects Arabic pronunciation and is contrast, are virtually never referenced, regardless
sometimes encountered in English sources. of their centrality to a given article, on the pre-
sumption that readers will correctly assume that the
Cross-references. Cross-references to other articles encyclopedia contains articles on all such entities.
are indicated by small capitals in sans-serif type for
the alphabetized element of the term or name. Thus, Some 3,000 cross-references are provided at their
“J. VON NEUMANN” sends the reader to the V’s, “J. W. own alphabetical place, to direct the reader who has
vonGOETHE” to the G’s; “CAPEBRETONISLAND” sends the looked up a variant version of the name or has
reader to the C’s, “Cape of GOOD HOPE” to the G’s; expected an entry to be alphabetized according to
and so on. In the case of personal names in which an element other than the one actually used.
© 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
ix
Abbreviations
Mass. Massachusetts
Md. Maryland
AD anno Domini Me. Maine
Adm. Admiral mi mile(s)
Ala. Alabama Mich. Michigan
Amer. American Minn. Minnesota
Ariz. Arizona Miss. Mississippi
Ark. Arkansas ml millilitre(s)
BC before Christ mm millimetre(s)
C Celsius Mo. Missouri
c. circa Mont. Montana
Cal. California mph miles per hour
Capt. captain N North
cc cubic centimetre(s) N.C. North Carolina
cent. century, centuries N.D. North Dakota
cm centimetre(s) NE northeastern
Co. Company, County Neb. Nebraska
Col. Colorado, Colonel Nev. Nevada
Conn. Connecticut N.H. New Hampshire
Corp. Corporation N.J. New Jersey
cu cubic N.M. New Mexico
D.C. District of Columbia NW northwestern
Del. Delaware N.Y. New York
Dr. Doctor Okla. Oklahoma
E East Ore. Oregon
e.g. exempli gratia (for example) oz ounce(s)
est. estimate, estimated Pa. Pennsylvania
Eth. Ethiopia Ph.D. Doctor of Philosophy
F Fahrenheit Pres. President
fl. flourished Queen. Queensland
Fla. Florida r. reigned, ruled
ft foot, feet Rev. Reverend
g gram(s) R.I. Rhode Island
Ga. Georgia S South
Gen. General S.C. South Carolina
Gov. Governor S.D. South Dakota
i.e. id est (that is) SE southeastern
Ill. Illinois Sen. Senator
in. inch(es) sq square
Ind. Indiana St. Saint
Jr. Junior SW southwestern
K Kelvin Tenn. Tennessee
Kan. Kansas UN United Nations
kg kilogram(s) U.S. United States
km kilometre(s) Va. Virginia
kph kilometres per hour vs. versus
Ky. Kentucky Vt. Vermont
La. Louisiana W West
lb, lbs pound, pounds W.V. West Virginia
m metre(s) Wash. Washington
M.A. Master of Arts Wisc. Wisconsin
Maj. Major Wy. Wyoming
© 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
