German customs union established in 1834 under Prussian leadership. It created a free-trade area throughout much of Germany and is often seen as an important step in German reunification.
city, southern Malawi. It lies on the lower slopes of Zomba Mountain in the Shire Highlands, 37 miles (60 km) northeast of Blantyre. Established in 1885 as a planters' settlement, ...
isolated mass of syenite (igneous rock composed chiefly of feldspar) rising from the Shire Highlands, southern Malawi. Occupying an area of about 50 square miles (130 square km), it reaches ...
any of a series of eight unmanned Soviet lunar and interplanetary probes. Zond 1 (launched April 1964) and Zond 2 (November 1964) were aimed at Venus and Mars respectively, but ...
any of a group of techniques used to purify an element or a compound or control its composition by melting a short region (i.e., zone) and causing this liquid zone ...
city, capital of Zonguldak il (province), northwestern Turkey, on the Black Sea coast. The well-equipped port is the main outlet for coal extracted from the basin between ...
town, administrative headquarters of Zonheboto district, Nagaland state, northeastern India. Formerly in the Mokokchung subdivision, it is situated 41 mi (66 km) northeast of Kohima town. The town has some ...
the legislative method of controlling land use by regulating such considerations as the type of buildings (e.g., commercial or residential) that may be erected and the population density. Applied primarily ...
place where wild animals and, in some instances, domesticated animals are exhibited in captivity. In such an establishment animals can generally be given more intensive care than is possible in ...
any small green alga (often Chlorella) or, sometimes, flagellate protozoan (e.g., the chlamydomonad Carteria) that lives within the bodies of various freshwater protozoans and invertebrates. Zoochlorellae often colour their hosts ...
any flagellate protozoan that is traditionally of the protozoan class Zoomastigophorea (sometimes called Zooflagellata), although recent classifications of this group have questioned the taxonomic usefulness of the term because some ...
the branch of the science of biogeography (q.v.) that is concerned with the geographic distribution of animal species. In addition to mapping the present distribution of species, zoogeographers formulate theories ...
branch of biology concerned with the members of the animal kingdom and with animal life in general. It embraces all conceivable forms of study, not only of the components of ...
branch of biology that studies the members of the animal kingdom and animal life in general. It includes both the inquiry into individual animals and their constituent parts, even to ...
any disease shared by humans and other vertebrate animals. The term was originally defined to describe a group of diseases that humans may acquire from domestic animals. This definition has ...
sexual relations between a human being and an animal. Although the practice is illegal in most countries, occasional zoophilic encounters are fairly common, especially in rural areas, where 17 percent ...
small floating or weakly swimming organisms that drift with water currents and, with phytoplankton, make up the planktonic food supply upon which almost all oceanic organisms are ultimately dependent. Many ...
any flagellate protozoan, sometimes classified as a yellow-green alga, with yellow or brown pigments contained in chromatophores. Zooxanthellae live in other protozoa (foraminiferans and radiolarians) and in some invertebrates. They ...
in the Book of Job (2:11, 11:1, 20:1, 42:9), one of the three comforters of Job, a biblical archetype of the good man whose misfortunes are undeserved. Like the other ...
U.S. traditionalist sculptor of simple, figurative subjects who was a leading figure in the early 20th-century revival of direct carving, whereby the sculptor seeks his image directly from the material ...
any member of the insect order Zoraptera, consisting of one family and at least 22 described species. They are found on every continent except Europe. They are minute insects, less ...
(Ictonyx [sometimes Zorilla] striatus), African carnivore of the weasel family (Mustelidae), frequenting diverse habitats. It has a slender body, 29-39 centimetres (12-16 inches) long, and a bushy white tail, 21-31 ...
statement in the language of set theory, equivalent to the axiom of choice, that is often used to prove the existence of a mathematical object when it cannot be explicitly ...
the ancient pre-Islamic religion of Iran that survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parsis, or ...
Uruguayan poet famous for a long historical verse epic, Tabare (1886; final edition after several revisions, 1926), a poem in six cantos, based upon a legend of the love between ...
poet and dramatist, the major figure of the nationalist wing of the Spanish Romantic movement. His work was enormously popular and is now regarded as quintessentially Spanish in style and ...
town, northwestern Liberia, West Africa. It is situated along the road from Monrovia to Sierra Leone. A local trade centre for agricultural products (rice, cassava, pineapples, and palm oil and ...
pope from March 417 to December 418. He was consecrated as Pope St. Innocent I's successor on March 18, 417. His brief but turbulent pontificate was embroiled in conflicts involving ...
English jurist, one of the founders of international law, who became regius professor of civil law at Oxford and later practiced successfully in London.
town, north-central Mauritania. It is the site of iron-mining operations, which account for a sizable portion of Mauritania's export earnings. It is connected by railway to the Atlantic port of ...
genus of creeping grasses of the family Poaceae, containing four or five perennial species native to southeastern Asia and New Zealand. They are excellent cover for flat, sandy, open areas.
city, northeastern Buenos Aires provincia (province), eastern Argentina. It is located on the Parana de las Palmas River, a channel of the lower Parana River delta emptying ...
Austrian chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1925 for research on colloids, which consist of submicroscopic particles dispersed throughout another substance. He invented the ultramicroscope in the ...
tsarist colonel of the Russian gendarmes known for his establishment of a system of surveillance to monitor the activities of revolutionary organizations.
town, southeastern Iraq. Located just southeast of Lake al-Hammar at the terminus of a railway line to Baghdad, it has long been important in trade with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ...
Spanish Christian Existential philosopher who was known for his analysis of reality in terms of the interrelations of philosophy, science, and religion.
Italian painter and art theorist who became the central figure of the Roman Mannerist school and, after the death of Titian, possibly the best known painter in Europe.
small silk skullcap worn by Roman Catholic clergymen. Developed from the pileus (q.v.), a close-fitting, brimless hat commonly worn by the Romans, the zucchetto has probably been worn by ecclesiastics ...
Italian astronomer who, in approximately 1616, designed one of the earliest reflecting telescopes, antedating those of James Gregory and Sir Isaac Newton. A professor at the Jesuit College in Rome, ...
capital of Zug canton, north central Switzerland, on the northeastern shore of Lake Zug (Zugersee), at the foot of the Zugerberg (3,409 ft [1,039 m]), just south of Zurich. First ...
smallest undivided canton of Switzerland, with an area of 92 sq mi (239 sq km), of which 12 sq mi are occupied by Lakes Zug and Ageri. Bounded by the ...
mountain, southern Germany, the highest point (9,718 ft [2,962 m]) in the country. Zugspitze is part of the Wettersteingebirge in the Bavarian Alps, lying on the Austrian border. The mountain ...
(Arabic: "detachment"), in Islam, asceticism. Even though a Muslim is permitted to enjoy fully whatever unforbidden pleasure God bestows on him, Islam nevertheless encourages and praises those who shun luxury ...
provincie, western Netherlands, bordering the North Sea and adjoining the provincies of Noord-Holland (north), Utrecht and Gelderland (east), and Noord-Brabant and Zeeland (south). Drained by the ramifications of the Lek, ...
former inlet of the North Sea. From the 13th to the 20th century, the Zuiderzee penetrated The Netherlands and occupied some 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km); it was separated ...
estado ("state"), northwestern Venezuela. Zulia is bounded north by the Gulf of Venezuela and west by Colombia. Except for two narrow corridors on the southeastern shore, the largest one lying ...
a nation of Nguni-speaking people in KwaZulu/Natal province, South Africa. They are a branch of the southern Bantu and have close ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties with the Swazi and ...
a Bantu language spoken by more than nine million people mainly in South Africa, especially in the Zululand area of KwaZulu/Natal province. The Zulu language is a member of the ...
(1879), decisive six-month war in eastern South Africa, resulting in British victory over the Zulus. Before the war the Tugela River formed the boundary between Zululand and the British colony ...
Spanish military tactician and the most brilliant soldier to fight for Don Carlos, a Bourbon traditionalist contender for the Spanish throne, in the First Carlist War (1833-39).
any of a wide range of ancient Chinese wine vessels. These forms are characterized by an ample interior volume for containing wine and a wide opening for drinking.
North American Indian pueblo in west-central New Mexico, on the Arizona border (see Pueblo Indians). The Zuni speak a language related to Penutian. Their origin and early history are unknown; ...
German historian of Jewish literature who is often considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the 19th century. He began (1819) the movement called Wissenschaft des Judentums ("Science of Judaism"), which ...
Spanish novelist and short-story writer whose straightforward narrative technique was rooted in the 19th century. His subject was chiefly social criticism of modern life in Bilbao and Madrid. A member ...
