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  • Ban Shigeru (Japanese architect)
    Before a catastrophic earthquake devastated the Kobe area in Japan on Jan. 17, 1995, Shigeru Ban was recognized as a rising Japanese architect. He therefore felt he had to help the afflicted people and went to the city in February. By the end of the summer, his relief work had brought to a section of Kobe what was popularly called a paper dome to temporarily replace a ruined Roman Catholic church...
  • ban sith (Celtic folklore)
    (“woman of the fairies”) supernatural being in Irish and other Celtic folklore whose mournful “keening,” or wailing screaming or lamentation, at night was believed to foretell the death of a member of the family of the person who heard the spirit. In Ireland banshees were believed to warn only families of pure Irish descent. The Welsh counterpart, the gwrach y Rhibyn...
  • Ban Zhao (Chinese scholar)
    renowned Chinese scholar and historian of the Dong (Eastern) Han dynasty....
  • Bāṇa (Indian writer)
    one of the greatest masters of Sanskrit prose, famed principally for his chronicle, Harṣacarita (“Deeds of Harṣa”), depicting the court and times of the Buddhist emperor Harṣa (reigned c. 606–647) of northern India....
  • Banaba (island, Kiribati)
    coral and phosphate formation, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. It is located 250 miles (400 km) west of the nearest Gilbert Islands and has a circumference of about 6 miles (10 km). Banaba is the location of the highest point in Kiribati, reaching 285 feet (87 metres) above sea level. Sighted in 1804 by the British ship ...
  • Banabakintu, Saint Luke (Ugandan saint)
    ...Kibuka, Anatole Kiriggwajjo, Achilles Kiwanuka, Mugagga, Mukasa Kiriwawanvu, Adolphus Mukasa Ludigo, Gyavira, and Kizito. The soldiers and officials Saints Bruno Serunkuma, James Buzabaliawo, and Luke Banabakintu were martyred with them....
  • Bāṇabhaṭṭa (Indian writer)
    one of the greatest masters of Sanskrit prose, famed principally for his chronicle, Harṣacarita (“Deeds of Harṣa”), depicting the court and times of the Buddhist emperor Harṣa (reigned c. 606–647) of northern India....
  • Banach space (mathematics)
    ...different areas of analysis all came together in a single generalization—rather, two generalizations, one more general than the other. These were the notions of a Hilbert space and a Banach space, named after the German mathematician David Hilbert and the Polish mathematician Stefan Banach, respectively. Together they laid the foundations for what is now called functional......
  • Banach, Stefan (Polish mathematician)
    Polish mathematician who founded modern functional analysis and helped develop the theory of topological vector spaces....
  • Banach-Tarski paradox (mathematics)
    Nonetheless, the axiom of choice does have some counterintuitive consequences. The best-known of these is the Banach-Tarski paradox. This shows that for a solid sphere there exists (in the sense that the axioms assert the existence of sets) a decomposition into a finite number of pieces that can be reassembled to produce a sphere with twice the radius of the original sphere. Of course, the......
  • banais righi (Celtic religion)
    ...central institution of sacral kingship. A good example is the pervasive and persistent concept of the hierogamy (sacred marriage) of the king with the goddess of sovereignty: the sexual union, or banais ríghi (“wedding of kingship”), that constituted the core of the royal inauguration seems to have been purged from the ritual at an early date through ecclesiastical.....
  • Banana (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
    port on the Atlantic coast in far southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo, central Africa, at the mouth of the Congo River. One of the nation’s older towns, it was known as a trading centre in the 19th century, mainly during the slaving era. In the 1970s and 1980s its port was developed to increase its facilities as a deepwater port, and a rail line was built to lin...
  • banana (plant)
    fruit of the genus Musa, of the family Musaceae, one of the most important food crops of the world. The banana is consumed extensively throughout the tropics, where it is grown, and is also valued in the temperate zone for its flavour, nutritional value, and availability throughout the year. The plant is a gigantic herb that springs from an underground stem, or rhizome, to form a false tru...
  • Banana, Canaan Sodindo (Zimbabwean theologian)
    Zimbabwean Methodist minister, theologian, and statesman (b. March 5, 1936, Esiphezini, Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia—d. Nov. 10, 2003, Harare, Zimb.), held the largely ceremonial post of president of Zimbabwe from 1980, when the country gained independence, until Prime Minister Robert Mugabe pushed through constitutional changes in 1987 that created an executive presidency for himself. I...
  • banana family (plant family)
    the banana family of plants (order Zingiberales), consisting of 2 genera, Musa and Ensete, with about 50 species native to Africa, Asia, and Australia. The common banana (M. sapientum) is a subspecies of the plantain (M. paradisiaca). Both are important food plants....
  • banana fish (fish)
    (Albula vulpes), marine game fish of the family Albulidae (order Elopiformes). It inhabits shallow coastal and island waters in tropical seas and is admired by anglers for its speed and strength. Maximum length and weight are about 76 cm (30 inches) and 6.4 kg (14 pounds). The bonefish has a deeply notched caudal fin (near the tail) and a small mouth beneath a pointed, piglike snout. It gr...
  • banana order (plant order)
    the ginger and banana order of flowering plants, consisting of 8 families, 92 genera, and more than 2,100 species....
  • banana wilt (plant disease)
    a devastating disease caused by the soil-inhabiting fungus species Fusarium oxysporum variety cubense, which is widespread in Asia, Africa, Australia, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and wherever susceptible banana cultivars, such as ‘Gros Michel,’ are grown....
  • Bananal, Ilha do (island, Brazil)
    island, Tocantins estado (state), central Brazil. The island is formed by the Araguaia River, which for 200 miles (320 km) divides into major (western) and minor (eastern) branches, with Bananal Island lying between them. The major branch of the Araguaia forms part of the boundary between Mato Grosso and Tocantins states. Small boats navigate the minor branch. The island ...
  • Bananal Island (island, Brazil)
    island, Tocantins estado (state), central Brazil. The island is formed by the Araguaia River, which for 200 miles (320 km) divides into major (western) and minor (eastern) branches, with Bananal Island lying between them. The major branch of the Araguaia forms part of the boundary between Mato Grosso and Tocantins states. Small boats navigate the minor branch. The island ...
  • bananaquit (bird)
    (Coereba flaveola), bird of the West Indies (except Cuba) and southern Mexico to Argentina. It is usually placed with honeycreepers in the family Emberizidae (order Passeriformes), but it may belong with woodwarblers (Parulidae). About 11 cm (4.5 inches) long, the bananaquit is blackish above and yellow below, with, generally, white stripes near the eyes and white patches on the wings. It ...
  • Bananas, Joe (Italian-American criminal)
    Italian-born American organized crime figure (b. Jan. 18, 1905, Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy—d. May 11, 2002, Tucson, Ariz.), was the founder of one of the five crime families that were the heart of the Commission, which united feuding Sicilian gangs. Although he guided the Bonanno family’s underworld activities from 1931 until the mid-1960s, he avoided imprisonment until t...
  • Banaras (India)
    city, southeastern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It is located on the left bank of the Ganges River and is one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus....
  • Banaras Hindu University (university, Vārānasi, India)
    ...in the Deccan in the 1880s. The movement for national education spread throughout Bengal, as well as to Varanasi (Banaras), where Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (1861–1946) founded his private Banaras Hindu University in 1910....
  • Banaras, Second Treaty of (Great Britain-Oudh [1775])
    The Second Treaty of Banaras is otherwise known as the Treaty of Faizābād (1775). It was forced on the new vizier of Oudh by the company’s governing council after the death of Shujā. The vizier had to pay a larger subsidy for the use of British troops and to cede Banaras to the company. This treaty led to a revolt by the raja Chaith Singh of Banaras in 1781....
  • Banaras, Treaties of (British-Indian history)
    (1773; 1775), two agreements regulating relations between the British government of Bengal and the ruler of the Muslim state of Oudh. The defense of Oudh had been guaranteed in 1765 on the condition that the state’s ruler, Shujāʿ-ud-Dawlah, pay the cost of the necessary troops. The First Treaty of Banaras (1773) was the result of the Mugha...
  • Banarjee, Bibhuti Bhusan (Bengali writer)
    ...house as a commercial illustrator, becoming a leading Indian typographer and book-jacket designer. Among the books he illustrated (1944) was the novel Pather Panchali by Bibhuti Bhushan Banarjee, the cinematic possibilities of which began to intrigue him. Ray had long been an avid filmgoer, and his deepening interest in the medium inspired his first attempts to write screenplays and......
  • Banas River (river, India)
    river in Rājasthān state, northwestern India. It rises near Kūmbhalgarh and cuts its way tortuously through the Arāvali Range. It then flows in a northeasterly course onto the plains and joins the Chambal River, just north of Sheopur, after a course of 310 miles (500 km). The Banās is a seasonal river that is often dry in the hot months, but it is still a source...
  • Banat (historical region, Europe)
    ethnically mixed historic region of eastern Europe; it is bounded by Transylvania and Walachia in the east, by the Tisza River in the west, by the Mures River in the north, and by the Danube River in the south. After 1920 Banat was divided among the states of Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. The name banat has its origin in a Persian word meaning lord, or master...
  • Banat Mountains (mountains, Europe)
    Among the massifs themselves, the Banat and Poiana Ruscăi mountains contain a rich variety of mineral resources and are the site of two of the country’s three largest metallurgical complexes, at Reșița and Hunedoara. The marble of Ruschița is well known. To the north lie the Apuseni Mountains, centred on the......
  • Banat of Temesvár (historical region, Europe)
    ethnically mixed historic region of eastern Europe; it is bounded by Transylvania and Walachia in the east, by the Tisza River in the west, by the Mures River in the north, and by the Danube River in the south. After 1920 Banat was divided among the states of Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. The name banat has its origin in a Persian word meaning lord, or master...
  • Banawali (archaeological site, India)
    ...one direction being used for taller crops, such as peas, and the narrow perpendicular rows being used for oilseed plants such as those of the genus Sesamum (sesame). From Banawali and sites in the desiccated Sarasvati River valley came terra-cotta models of plows, supporting the earlier interpretation of the field pattern....
  • Banbalūnah (city, Spain)
    capital of both the provincia (province) and the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Navarra, northeastern Spain. It lies on the western bank of the Arga River in the fertile La Cuenca region. Situated in an irrigated cereal-producing area, Pamplona is a flourishing...
  • Banbridge (Northern Ireland, United Kingdom)
    town, seat, and district (established 1973), formerly within County Down, southeastern Northern Ireland. Located on the River Bann, the town of Banbridge came into existence following the building of a stone bridge across the river in 1712. It is the main agricultural and population centre of the region; manufactures include linen, light footwear, and motor vehicle components. M...
  • Banbridge (district, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom)
    ...vehicle components. Much of the land in the surrounding area is utilized for crops, including oats, potatoes, and barley, or as pasture for livestock (mostly pigs). Primary roads connect the town of Banbridge with the towns of Lisburn to the north and Newry to the south....
  • Banbury (England, United Kingdom)
    town, Cherwell district, administrative and historic county of Oxfordshire, England. It lies along the River Cherwell. For centuries Banbury was noted for its ale, cheese, and Banbury cakes, a spiced currant pastry. Part of the original 16th-century cake house remains, together with several timbered and stone houses. The original Banbury Cross, celebrated in t...
  • Banbury mixer (technology)
    The workhorse mixer of the plastics and rubber industries is the internal mixer, in which heat and pressure are applied simultaneously. The Banbury ® mixer, shown in Figure 1, resembles a robust dough mixer in that two interrupted spiral rotors move in opposite directions at 30 to 40 rotations per minute. The shearing action is intense, and the power input can be as high as 1,200 kilowatts....
  • Banc One (bank)
    Former U.S. bank holding company that merged with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in 2004. Bank One had been created through the 1998 merger of First Chicago NBD Corp. and Banc One. Although the 1998 merger created one of the country’s largest banks, it performed poorly until Jamie Dimon, a former Citigroup executive, became chief executive officer and revamped operations. Based in Chicago, ...
  • Banca (island, Indonesia)
    island, Bangka-Belitung propinsi (province), Indonesia. The island is situated off the eastern coast of Sumatra across the Bangka Strait, which is only 9 miles (14 km) wide at its narrowest point. On the east, Gaspar Strait separates Bangka from Belitung island. The soil is somewhat dry and stony but is largely covered with tropical vegetati...
  • Banca Romana (Italian bank)
    ...former treasury minister Giovanni Giolitti, who was prime minister from May 1892 to November 1893. Politicians needed the money to finance their election expenses and to run or bribe newspapers. The Banca Romana scandal of 1893 was the first of many famous Italian corruption scandals, and, like the others, it discredited the whole political system....
  • Banche Svizzere, Unione di (bank, Switzerland)
    one of the largest commercial banks in Switzerland, with overseas representative offices and branches. Headquarters are in Zürich....
  • Banchieri, Adriano (Italian composer)
    one of the principal composers of madrigal comedies, choral pieces that suggest plots and action to be imagined by the performers and listeners....
  • Banco, El (Colombia)
    city, northern Colombia, at the junction of the Magdalena and César rivers. The conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quezada arrived at the site in 1537 and found the Indian village of Sompallón; he called it Barbudo (“Bearded One”) because of its bearded chief. In 1544 Alonzo de San Martín renamed it Tamalameque (now the name of a town a few miles to the south...
  • Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (international organization)
    international organization founded in 1959 by 20 governments in North and South America to finance economic and social development in the Western Hemisphere. The largest charter subscribers were Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. Subscribers now include nearly 30 countries in North and South America and more than 15 countries in Europ...
  • Banco National Park (park, Côte d’Ivoire)
    national park, southeastern Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It lies immediately north of Abidjan, the national capital. Declared a national park in 1953, Banco conserves both flora and fauna in some 116 square miles (300 square km). Tropical hardwood trees occupy most of the park; an arboretum displays trees (especially teak) and shrubs from all over the country. Afri...
  • Banco, Parc National du (park, Côte d’Ivoire)
    national park, southeastern Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It lies immediately north of Abidjan, the national capital. Declared a national park in 1953, Banco conserves both flora and fauna in some 116 square miles (300 square km). Tropical hardwood trees occupy most of the park; an arboretum displays trees (especially teak) and shrubs from all over the country. Afri...
  • Bancroft (Ontario, Canada)
    village, Hastings county, in the hills of southeastern Ontario, Canada. Bancroft lies 60 miles (95 km) northeast of Peterborough. It originated as a farming settlement called York River in 1855, but later became a lumbering community and was renamed in 1878 for Phoebe Bancroft, wife of Senator Billa Flint, a prominent Canadian politician of ...
  • Bancroft (Zambia)
    mining town, north-central Zambia, eastern Africa, just south of the international frontier with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa). It lies at 4,459 feet (1,360 metres) in Zambia’s rich highland copper belt. Chililabombwe is the northern terminus of the Zambian rail line serving the copper country. Its main copper mine, the Bancroft ...
  • Bancroft, Ann (American explorer)
    American explorer who was the first woman to participate in and successfully finish several arduous expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic....
  • Bancroft, Anne (American actress)
    American actress (b. Sept. 17, 1931, Bronx, N.Y.—d. June 6, 2005, New York, N.Y.), was a versatile performer whose half-century-long career was studded with renowned successes on stage, screen, and television. She won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for one of her most physically and emotionally demanding roles, that of Helen Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, in The Miracle...
  • Bancroft, Edward (British spy)
    secretary to the American commissioners in France during the American Revolution who spied for the British....
  • Bancroft, Effie Wilton (British actress)
    ...was educated privately in England and France. He first appeared on the stage in Birmingham in 1861 and played in the provinces before his London appearance in 1865. He married the theatre manager Marie Effie Wilton in 1867. At the Prince of Wales’s Theatre they produced all the better known comedies of Thomas William Robertson, among them Society (1865) and Caste (1867). Th...
  • Bancroft, George (American historian)
    American historian whose comprehensive 10-volume study of the origins and development of the United States caused him to be referred to as the “father of American history.”...
  • Bancroft, Hubert Howe (American historian)
    historian of the American West who collected and published 39 volumes on the history and peoples of western North America. His work remains one of the great sources of information on the West....
  • Bancroft, Richard (archbishop of Canterbury)
    ...was made chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and it was there that a series of conflicts took place that eventually broke his judicial career. At the time of Coke’s appointment, Archbishop Richard Bancroft had already started his attempt to shake off the control of the common-law courts over the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts. This matter came to a head in Fuller’s ...
  • Bancroft, Sir Squire (British actor and manager)
    English actor and manager whose espousal of careful craft in the writing and staging of plays did much to lay the foundations of modern theatrical production....
  • bancroftian filariasis (disease)
    ...into motile, infective larvae that, at the insect’s next blood meal, are introduced into the human host, where they reach maturity in about a year. The term filariasis is commonly used to designate bancroftian filariasis, caused by Wuchereria bancrofti, organisms that are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world and are transmitted to man by mosquitoes, ...
  • band (architecture)
    (1) The fascia, face, or band is a continuous member with a flat surface, parallel to the surface that it ornaments and either projecting from or slightly receding into it. (2) The fillet, listel, or regula is a relatively narrow band, usually projecting, commonly used to separate curved moldings or to finish them at the top or bottom. (3) A bevel, or chamfer, molding is an inclined band,......
  • band (collar)
    in dresswear, crimped or pleated collar or frill, usually wide and full, worn in Europe, especially from the mid-16th century into the 17th century, by both men and women. The beginnings of the ruff can be seen in the early years of the 16th century, when men allowed the top of the shirt to be exposed. A drawstring through the top, when pulled tight, created an incipient ruff. The ruff increased ...
  • band (music)
    (from Middle French bande, “troop”), in music, an ensemble of musicians playing chiefly woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments, in contradistinction to an orchestra, which contains stringed instruments. Apart from this specific designation, the word band has wide vernacular application, from generalized usage (as in “dance band” and “jazz band”...
  • band (kinship group)
    in anthropology, a notional type of human social organization consisting of a small number of people (usually no more than 30 to 50 persons in all) who form a fluid, egalitarian community and cooperate in activities such as subsistence, security, ritual, and care for children and elders....
  • band (geology)
    ...in Great Britain includes the Millstone Grit and the Coal Measures—names in use since the naming of the system. Local names are applied to specific intervals, and marine horizons, called bands, are named either for their characteristic fossil occurrence (i.e., Listeri Marine Band) or for a geographic locality (i.e., Sutton Marine Band). This process is followed in most areas outside......
  • band 3 (glycoprotein)
    ...and carry antigens of the ABO, Hh, Ii, and P systems. Glycoproteins, which traverse the red cell membrane, have a polypeptide backbone to which carbohydrates are attached. An abundant glycoprotein, band 3, contains ABO, Hh, and Ii antigens. Another integral membrane glycoprotein, glycophorin A, contains large numbers of sialic acid molecules and MN blood group structures; another, glycophorin.....
  • band displacement method (chemistry)
    The band displacement method of separating individual rare-earth elements was first published in 1952. This process is capable of being scaled up to handle any quantity of rare earths. The mixture can be resolved so that 98 or 99 percent of each individual rare earth can be recovered with less than 0.1 percent of other rare-earth impurities; and, if the rare earths are taken from the middle......
  • band drive (mechanics)
    in machinery, a pair of pulleys attached to usually parallel shafts and connected by an encircling flexible belt (band) that can serve to transmit and modify rotary motion from one shaft to the other. Most belt drives consist of flat leather, rubber, or fabric belts running on cylindrical pulleys or of belts with a V-shaped cross section running on grooved pulleys. To create an...
  • band gap (physics)
    As stated above, the thermal properties of superconductors indicate that there is a gap in the distribution of energy levels available to the electrons, and so a finite amount of energy, designated as delta (Δ), must be supplied to an electron to excite it. This energy is maximum (designated Δ0) at absolute zero and changes little with increase of temperature until the......
  • band saw (tool)
    The vertical bandsaw blade is an endless narrow metal strip, with teeth along one edge, that runs around two large motorized pulleys or wheels that are mounted on a frame so that one is directly above the other. The blade passes through the table on which the work is laid. Blades are available with various sizes of teeth, and on most machines the blade speed can be varied to suit the material......
  • band spectrum (physics)
    ...the elements that emit the radiation. Line spectra are also called atomic spectra because the lines represent wavelengths radiated from atoms when electrons change from one energy level to another. Band spectra is the name given to groups of lines so closely spaced that each group appears to be a band, e.g., nitrogen spectrum. Band spectra, or molecular spectra, are produced by molecules...
  • Band, the (American rock group)
    Canadian-American band that began as the backing group for both Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, then branched out on its own in 1968. The Band’s pioneering blend of traditional country, folk, old-time string band, blues, and rock music brought them critical acclaim in the late 1960s and ’70s and served as a tem...
  • band theory (physics)
    in solid-state physics, theoretical model describing the states of electrons, in solid materials, that can have values of energy only within certain specific ranges. The behaviour of an electron in a solid (and hence its energy) is related to the behaviour of all other particles around it. This is in direct contrast to the behaviour of an electron in free space where it may have...
  • Band-e amīr (dam, Fārs, Iran)
    The Būyid state was then at its peak; it engaged in public works, building hospitals and the Band-e amīr (Emir’s Dam) across the Kūr River near Shīrāz; it had relations with the Sāmānids, Ḥamdānids, Byzantines, and Fāṭimids; it patronized artists, notably the poets al-Mutanabbī and Ferdowsī. The......
  • Band-e Qeyṣar (dam, Shūshtar, Iran)
    ...later famous as a centre of learning. Using the same captives, who excelled the Persians in technical skill, he built the dam at Shūshtar known from that time as the Band-e Qeyṣar, Dam of Caesar....
  • band-pass filter (electronics)
    arrangement of electronic components that allows only those electric waves lying within a certain range, or band, of frequencies to pass and blocks all others. The components may be conventional coils and capacitors, or the arrangement may be made up of freely vibrating piezoelectric crystals (crystals that vibrate mechanically at their resonant frequency when excited by an app...
  • band-winged grasshopper (insect)
    The band-winged grasshoppers, subfamily Oedipodinae, produce a crackling noise during flight. When they are not in flight, their conspicuous, brightly coloured hind wings are covered by their forewings, which blend into surrounding vegetation. The band-winged grasshoppers are the only type of short-horned grasshoppers that can produce sound during flight. One of the common species, the Carolina......
  • banda (music)
    In the 1930s Tejano’s second major form, banda, or orquesta, emerged. Tejano big bands, most notably La Orquesta de Beto Villa, building upon the big band lineup popularized by swing bands, quickly incorporated Mexican folk music and conjunto traditions. By the mid-1950s.....
  • Banda (ancient state, Africa)
    ...people as possible. On the northern fringes of the forest, astride the routes along which gold and kola nuts were brought for exchange with the Dyula, important new kingdoms emerged such as Bono and Banda, both of which were probably in existence by about 1400. As the economic value of gold and kola became appreciated, the forest to the south of these states—which had hitherto been littl...
  • Banda (people)
    a people of the Central African Republic, some of whom also live in Congo (Kinshasa) and Cameroon and possibly in the Sudan. The Banda speak a language of the Adamawa-Ubangi subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family that is related to that of their Gbaya and ...
  • Banda (India)
    city, southern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India, near the Ken River (a tributary of the Yamuna). An agricultural marketplace, Bānda lies at a road junction on a major rail line. The city’s trade has been declining, and the road leading southward is no longer maintained. Bānda is noted for its agates from the Ken riverbed, which are exported. There are several mosques and H...
  • Banda Aceh (municipality, Indonesia)
    kotamadya (municipality), capital of Aceh semiautonomous province, Indonesia. It is located on the Aceh River at the northwestern tip of the island of Sumatra, facing the Andaman Sea....
  • Banda Besar (island, Indonesia)
    ...Indonesia. The islands lie in the Banda Sea, southeast of Ambon Island and south of Ceram. The largest of the nine islands, which have a total land area of 17 square miles (44 square km), is Great Banda (Banda Besar) Island. An inland sea, formed by three of the group, provides an outstanding harbour; the coral gardens beneath the sea are virtually unrivaled. Great Banda has coral rock......
  • Banda, Hastings Kamuzu (president of Malaŵi)
    first president of Malaŵi (formerly Nyasaland) and the principal leader of the Malaŵi nationalist movement. He ruled Malaŵi from 1963 to 1994, combining totalitarian political controls with conservative economic policies....
  • Banda Islands (islands, Indonesia)
    island group, Maluku propinsi (province), Indonesia. The islands lie in the Banda Sea, southeast of Ambon Island and south of Ceram. The largest of the nine islands, which have a total land area of 17 square miles (44 square km), is Great Banda (Banda Besar) Island. An inland sea, formed by three of the group, provides an outstanding harbour; the coral gardens beneath the...
  • Banda, Laut (sea, Pacific Ocean)
    portion of the western South Pacific Ocean, bounded by the southern islands of the Moluccas of Indonesia (Alor, Timor, Wetar, Babar, Tanimbar, and Kai on the south and Ceram, Buru, and Sula on the north). It occupies a total of 180,000 square miles (470,000 square km) and opens to the Flores (west), Savu (southwest), Timor (south), Arafura (southeast), and Ceram and Molucca (nor...
  • Banda Oriental del Río Uruguay (historical region, Uruguay)
    ...achieved by setting aside, rather than resolving, certain fundamental difficulties. In particular, the institutional organization of the country was not carried out, and nothing was done about the Banda Oriental (the east bank of the Uruguay River), which was occupied first by Portuguese and then by Brazilian troops. By 1824 both problems were becoming urgent. Britain was willing to recognize.....
  • Banda, Rupiah (president of Zambia)
    ...and he died several weeks later. Under the terms of the constitution, a special election to choose a new president was eventually scheduled for later that year; in the interim, Vice President Rupiah Banda served as acting president. The election, held on October 30, was contested by four candidates, including Banda and Sata. Banda won, although by only a narrow margin, and Sata, who......
  • Banda Sea (sea, Pacific Ocean)
    portion of the western South Pacific Ocean, bounded by the southern islands of the Moluccas of Indonesia (Alor, Timor, Wetar, Babar, Tanimbar, and Kai on the south and Ceram, Buru, and Sula on the north). It occupies a total of 180,000 square miles (470,000 square km) and opens to the Flores (west), Savu (southwest), Timor (south), Arafura (southeast), and Ceram and Molucca (nor...
  • Bandā Singh Bahādur (Sikh military leader)
    first Sikh military leader to wage an offensive war against the Mughal rulers of India, thereby temporarily extending Sikh territory....
  • Bandai Sikh (Sikh group)
    ...(“Victory to the Guru!”). He also required his followers to be vegetarians and to wear red garments instead of the traditional blue. Those who accepted these changes were called Bandai Sikhs, while those opposed to them—led by Mata Sundari, one of Guru Gobind Singh’s widows—called themselves the Tat Khalsa (the “True” Khalsa or “Pure...
  • Bandak Canal (canal, Norway)
    ...Skien’s lumber and mining concerns began the development of the area in the mid-1600s. The ore has been exhausted, but the town has important foundries and a thriving lumber and pulp trade. The Bandak Canal (also known as the Telemark Canal) is Norway’s longest; completed in 1892, it runs 65 miles (105 km) between Skien and Dalen in western Telemark. The Regional Museum of Telemar...
  • Bandaka (people)
    People practicing shifting cultivation have been present in the Ituri for 2,000 years or more. Most of these peoples, including the Bila, Budu, and Ndaka, speak one of the numerous Bantu languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa, but others, such as the Mamvu and Lese, speak tonal Central Sudanic dialects. In general, the agriculturalists live in small villages with 10 to 150 residents, all......
  • Bandama River (river, Côte d’Ivoire)
    longest and, commercially, most important river in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast); with its major tributaries, the Red Bandama (Marahoué) and the Nzi, it drains half of the surface area of the country. It rises as the White Bandama in the northern highlands and flows southward for 497 miles (800 km) to enter the Gulf of Guinea and the Tagba Lagoon near Grand-Lahou. A hydroelectr...
  • Bandamanna saga (Icelandic saga)
    ...killing the farmer and the entire household, he is prosecuted and later put to death. Ölkofra tháttr (the term tháttr is often used for a short story) and Bandamanna saga (“The Confederates’ Saga”) satirize chieftains who fail in their duty to guard the integrity of the law and try to turn other people’s mistakes into profit ...
  • Bandar (India)
    city, eastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. Masulipatam was the first British trading settlement (1611) on the Bay of Bengal. From 1686 to 1759 the city was held by the French and Dutch, until it was finally ceded to the British, who captured the city and fort from the French in 1759. The ruined fort is still a point of interest. The city received its present name in 1949....
  • Bandar ʿAbbās (Iran)
    port city on the Strait of Hormuz, the main maritime outlet for much of southern Iran. It lies on the northern shore of Hormuz Bay opposite the islands of Qeshm, Lārak, and Hormuz. The inhabitants are mainly Arabs and African blacks. The summer climate is oppressively hot and humid, and many inhabitants then move to...
  • Bandar Lampung (Indonesia)
    port city, kotamadya (municipality), and capital of Lampung propinsi (province), Indonesia. It lies at the head of Lampung Bay on the south coast of Sumatra. Bandar Lampung was created in the 1980s from the amalgamation of the former provincial capital, Tanjungkarang, with the port of Telukbetung. The city’s cottage industries include meta...
  • Bandar Maharani (Malaysia)
    town and port on the southwestern coast of Peninsular (West) Malaysia. It lies along the strait of Malacca, at the mouth of the Muar River. An old town, it was occupied by the end of the 14th century ad by Parameswara, founder of the Malay kingdom of Malacca (Melaka). Naval battles involving neighbouring sultanates and kingdoms were fought at Muar in 1517, 1615, and 1616. The present...
  • Bandar Penggaram (Malaysia)
    port, West Malaysia (Malaya), on the Strait of Malacca at the mouth of the Batu Pahat River. It is a fishing town and a distribution centre; and, until the completion of a bridge in 1968, it was a ferry point for road traffic across the river. Sago palms, rubber, coconuts, and fruit are grown in the area. Batu Pahat (“Carved Rock”) is also a petroleum depot. Iron is mined at Seri Med...
  • Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei)
    capital of Brunei. The city lies along the Brunei River near its mouth on Brunei Bay, an inlet of the South China Sea on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Bandar Seri Begawan was once predominantly an agricultural trade centre and river port. After suffering extensive damage during World War II, it was largely re...
  • Bandar Sri Aman (Malaysia)
    market town and port, East Malaysia (northwestern Borneo), on the Lupar River. Situated in one of the few major agricultural areas of Sarawak, it is a trade centre for timber, oil palms, rubber, and pepper. Sri Aman has an airstrip and a road link to Kuching, 80 miles (129 km) west-northwest. Pop. (1980) 4,552....
  • Bandar-e ʿAbbās (Iran)
    port city on the Strait of Hormuz, the main maritime outlet for much of southern Iran. It lies on the northern shore of Hormuz Bay opposite the islands of Qeshm, Lārak, and Hormuz. The inhabitants are mainly Arabs and African blacks. The summer climate is oppressively hot and humid, and many inhabitants then move to...
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