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West Lafayette ... Westerwald
West Lafayette
city, Tippecanoe county, west-central Indiana, U.S. It lies along the Wabash River (bridged) opposite Lafayette. A town was platted on the west bank of the Wabash in 1836, but it ...
West Lancashire
district, administrative and historic county of Lancashire, northwestern England, north of the city of Liverpool. West Lancashire is separated from the Irish Sea by the narrow coastal strip of Sefton ...
West Liberty State College
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in West Liberty, West Virginia, U.S. It is a four-year liberal arts college that confers two-year associate as well as bachelor's degrees. The campus ...
West Lindsey
district, administrative and historic county of Lincolnshire, east-central England, north of the city of Lincoln. West Lindsey district comprises two low-lying fertile clay valleys at an elevation of less than ...
West Lothian
council area and historic county, southeastern Scotland, on the southern shore of the River Forth estuary and the Firth of Forth just west of Edinburgh. The council area and historic ...
West Malaysia
wing of the 13-state federation of Malaysia. It occupies the southern half of the Malay Peninsula and is separated from East Malaysia by the South China Sea. Formerly the Federation ...
West Memphis
city, Crittenden county, eastern Arkansas, U.S. It lies along the west bank of the Mississippi River opposite Memphis, Tennessee (with which it is linked by bridges). It was founded in ...
West Midlands
metropolitan county of England, comprising seven metropolitan boroughs: the city of Birmingham (England's second largest city), the city of Coventry, and the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, and Wolverhampton. ...
West New York
town, Hudson county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It lies along the Hudson River, adjacent to Weehawken. The area, originally settled by the Dutch in 1790, was alternately a part of ...
West Nile virus
virus belonging to the family Flaviviridae, related to viruses that can cause yellow fever and dengue and more closely to viruses that can cause encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). Predominantly ...
West Orange
township (town), Essex county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., about 4 miles (6 km) northwest of Newark. It was part of Orange until set off in 1863 as the township of ...
West Oxfordshire
district, administrative and historic county of Oxfordshire, south-central England, encompassing a mainly rural area in the western part of the county. The Cotswold Hills extend into the northwest, and the ...
West Palm Beach
city, seat (1909) of Palm Beach county, southeastern Florida, U.S. It is situated along the western shore of Lake Worth (part of the Intracoastal Waterway), a lagoon separated from the ...
West Plains
city, seat (1858) of Howell county, south-central Missouri, U.S. It is situated in the Ozark Mountains, near the Arkansas state line, about 100 miles (160 km) east-southeast of Springfield. Laid ...
West Point
city, seat (1874) of Clay county, eastern Mississippi, U.S., 47 miles (76 km) south of Tupelo. With Columbus and Starkville it forms the Golden Triangle industrial region. It was developed ...
West Scotia Basin
submarine trough of the Scotia Sea, an arm of the South Atlantic Ocean, about 500 miles (800 km) southeast of Tierra del Fuego, South America. Its mean depth is about ...
West Seneca
town (township), Erie county, western New York, U.S. It lies immediately southeast of Buffalo, in the lee of Lake Erie. It was settled in 1842 by the Ebenezer Society Amana ...
West Siberian Plain
one of the world's largest regions of continuous flatland, central Russia. It occupies an area of nearly 1,200,000 square miles (3,000,000 square km) between the Ural Mountains in the west ...
West Somerset
district, administrative and historic county of Somerset, southwestern England, on the southern shore of the Bristol Channel. West Somerset district is an elevated area of moors and wooded hills including ...
West Spitsbergen
largest island of the Spitsbergen group of islands in the Arctic Ocean, and part of Norway. The Spitsbergen group (area 23,641 square miles [61,230 square km]) is itself the main ...
West Springfield
town (township), Hampden county, southwestern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along the Westfield and Connecticut rivers opposite Springfield and Chicopee. It was settled about 1660 and incorporated in 1774. The town's ...
West Sussex
administrative county of southern England, bordering the English Channel. West Sussex lies within the historic county of Sussex, except for a small area in the north around Gatwick Airport, which ...
West Vancouver
district municipality forming a suburb of Vancouver, southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It lies on the north side of the entrance to Burrard Inlet, across from the city of Vancouver. West ...
West Virginia
constituent state of the United States of America. Admitted to the Union as the 35th state in 1863, it is a relatively small state, with an area of 24,232 square ...
West Virginia University
public, coeducational institution of higher learning, one of the two state universities of West Virginia, U.S.; the other is Marshall University. West Virginia University, a land-grant college, is located on ...
West Wiltshire
district, administrative and historic county of Wiltshire, southern England, in the west-central part of the county, some 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Bristol. West Wiltshire consists of chalk uplands ...
West Wyalong
town, south-central New South Wales, Australia, in the fertile Riverina district. Founded as a gold-mining settlement in 1895, it was originally known as Main Camp to distinguish it from Wyalong ...
West Yorkshire
metropolitan county of northern England, comprising five metropolitan boroughs: Calderdale, Kirklees, and the city of Bradford in the west and the cities of Leeds and Wakefield in the east. From ...
West, Benjamin
American-born painter of historical, religious, and mythological subjects who had a profound influence on the development of historical painting in Britain. He was historical painter to George III (1772-1801) and ...
West, Cornel
American philosopher, scholar of African American studies, and political activist. His influential book Race Matters (1993) lamented what he saw as the spiritual impoverishment of the African ...
West, Dame Rebecca
British journalist, novelist, and critic, who was perhaps best known for her reports on the Nurnberg trials of war criminals (1945-46).
West, Dorothy
American writer who explored the aspirations and conflicts of middle-class African Americans in many of her works and was one of the last surviving members of the prominent group of ...
West, Jessamyn
American writer, a master of the short story and an accomplished novelist, who wrote with particular sensitivity about mother-daughter relationships. She is perhaps best remembered for The ...
West, Mae
American stage and film actress, a sex symbol whose frank sensuality, languid postures, and blase wisecracking became her trademarks. She usually portrayed women who accepted their lives of dubious virtue ...
West, Morris
Australian novelist noted for such best-sellers as The Devil's Advocate (1959) and The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963).
West, Nathanael
American writer best known for satiric novels of the 1930s.
West, The
region, western U.S., mostly west of the Great Plains and including, by federal-government definition, Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Virtually every ...
Westbury
town ("parish"), West Wiltshire district, administrative and historic county of Wiltshire, southern England. It was noted as "Westberie a royal manor" in Domesday Book (1086), the record of the land ...
Westchester
county, southeastern New York state, U.S., lying just north of New York City. It consists of a hilly region bounded to the east by Connecticut, to the southeast by Long ...
Westcott, Brooke Foss
Anglican bishop of Durham, Eng., and biblical scholar who collaborated with Fenton J.A. Hort on an influential critical edition of the Greek text of the New Testament.
Westcott, Edward Noyes
American novelist and banker whose posthumously published novel David Harum: A Story of American Life (1898) was immensely popular.
Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale
major German commercial and investment bank. Its owners (guarantors) are the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Regional Associations of the Rhineland and Westphalia-Lippe, and the Savings Banks and Giro Associations ...
Westerbork
small Jewish transit camp in World War II, located near the village of Westerbork in the rural northeastern Netherlands. The Dutch government originally set up the camp in 1939 to ...
Westerly
town (township), Washington county, southwestern Rhode Island, U.S. It lies along the Pawcatuck River across from Pawcatuck, Connecticut. The state's westernmost town-hence the name-it includes the villages of Westerly, Bradford, ...
Westermann, Diedrich
German scholar of African languages and culture who refined and extended the work of Carl Meinhof, his teacher. Westermann specialized in the languages of an enormously complex linguistic region extending ...
Westermarck, Edward
Finnish sociologist, philosopher, and anthropologist who denied the widely held view that early humans had lived in a state of promiscuity and instead theorized that the original form of human ...
western
a genre of novels and short stories, motion pictures, and television and radio shows that are set in the American West, usually in the period from the 1850s to the ...
Western Africa
region lying south of the Sahara and east and north of the Atlantic Ocean. It is latitudinally divided into two parallel belts of land: the western portion of the Sudan, ...
western Africa, history of
history of the region from the 11th century to the present.
Western Air Lines, Inc.
former American airline that was first incorporated in 1925 as Western Air Express, Inc., reincorporated in 1928 as Western Air Express Corp., and renamed Western Air Lines in 1941. The ...
Western Australia
state of western Australia, occupying that part of the continent most isolated from the major cultural centres of the east. Western Australia is bounded on the north by the Timor ...
Western Cape
province, Republic of South Africa, situated in the southern extremity of the African continent. The provincial capital, Cape Town, is also the nation's legislative capital. Western Cape province was part ...
Western Chin
a phase of the Chin dynasty, ruling China from AD 265 to 317. See Chin dynasty.
Western Dvina River
major river of Latvia and northern Belarus. It rises in the Valdai Hills and flows 632 miles (1,020 km) in a great arc south and southwest through Russia and Belarus ...
Western Electric Company Inc.
American telecommunications manufacturer that throughout most of its history was under the control of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). The company was dissolved as a separate subsidiary in ...
Western European Union
association of 10 countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom) that operates as a forum for the coordination of matters of European ...
Western Illinois University
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Macomb, Illinois, U.S. It was established in 1899 as Western Illinois State Normal School. Instruction began in 1902. The school evolved into a ...
Western Indian bronze
any of a style of metal sculpture that flourished in India during the 6th to the 12th century and later, mainly in the area of modern Gujarat and Rajasthan states. ...
Western Indian painting
a highly conservative style of Indian miniature painting largely devoted to the illustration of Jaina religious texts of the 12th-16th century. Though examples of the school are most numerous from ...
Western Isles
council area of Scotland, in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwestern coast of the Scottish mainland, comprising the islands of the Outer Hebrides. Lewis, the northern part of the principal ...
Western Kentucky University
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Bowling Green, Kentucky, U.S. It comprises five colleges: Potter College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Gordon Ford College of Business; the College ...
Western literature
history of literatures in the languages of the Indo-European family, along with a small number of other languages whose cultures became closely associated with the West, from ancient times to ...
Western Michigan University
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Kalamazoo, Mich., U.S. It comprises Haworth College of Business, the Graduate College, colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Fine ...
Western Port
circular bay, about 20 miles (32 km) across, indenting the south coast of Victoria, Australia, southeast of Melbourne. An inlet of Bass Strait, it is separated from Port Phillip Bay ...
Western Reserve
in American history, territory of some 6,000 square miles (15,500 square km) along the southern shore of Lake Erie in what is now northeastern Ohio. After the Revolutionary War, when ...
Western Rift Valley
(Africa), branch of the East African Rift System (q.v.).
Western Sahara
former overseas province of Spain occupying an extensive desert Atlantic-coastal area (97,344 square miles [252,120 square km]) of northwest Africa. It is composed of the geographic regions of Rio de ...
Western Scheldt
estuary, flowing westward for about 30 miles (50 km) through the Delta Islands in southwestern Netherlands to the North Sea. The former islands of Walcheren and Zuidbeveland (now a peninsula) ...
Western Schism
in the history of the Roman Catholic church, the period from 1378 to 1417, when there were two, and later three, rival popes, each with his own following, his own ...
Western State College of Colorado
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Gunnison, Colorado, U.S. A liberal arts college, Western State offers bachelor's degree programs. The college provides a general education program that includes requirements ...
Western Union Corporation
former telecommunications company that was the largest provider of telegraphic services in the United States.
Western Wall
in the Old City of Jerusalem, a place of prayer and pilgrimage sacred to the Jewish people. It is the only remains of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, held to ...
Western Washington University
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Bellingham, Washington, U.S. It comprises Fairhaven College (an interdisciplinary studies program); Woodring College of Education; Huxley College of Environmental Studies; colleges of business ...
western yew
(Taxus brevifolia), an evergreen timber tree of the yew family (Taxaceae). It is the only commercially important yew native to North America, where it is found from Alaska to California. ...
Westernizer
in 19th-century Russia, especially in the 1840s and '50s, one of the intellectuals who emphasized Russia's common historic destiny with the West, as opposed to Slavophiles, who believed Russia's traditions ...
Westerwald
mountainous region in western Germany lying northeast of Koblenz and east-southeast of Bonn. It is on the right (east) bank of the Rhine and extends eastward for about 50 miles ...