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  • yampi (plant)
    ...species of yams (vines of the genus Dioscorea) are grown for their edible tuberous roots, such as Chinese yam, or cinnamon vine (D. batatas); air potato (D. bulbifera); and yampee, or cush-cush (D. trifida)....
  • Yampi Sound (bay, Western Australia, Australia)
    portion of the Indian Ocean off the north coast of Western Australia, between King Sound and Collier Bay. It contains the four island clusters of the Buccaneer Archipelago, named for the buccaneer William Dampier. The largest of the islands are Koolan, Irvine (with extensive underwater iron deposits), and Cockatoo. Deposits of high-grade iron ore and other minerals are found on the islands. On Coc...
  • Yampolsky, Mariana (Mexican photographer)
    American-born Mexican photographer (b. Sept. 6, 1925, Chicago, Ill.—d. May 3, 2002, Mexico City, Mex.), moved to Mexico as a young woman and spent half a century capturing idyllic, elegiac images of that country, its people, and its daily life. Her work was exhibited all over the world and included in a number of compilations....
  • Yamskaya (Russia)
    city, Moscow oblast (province), western Russia, on the Klyazma River east of Moscow. Originally Yamskaya village, it became the town of Bogorodsk in 1781 and was renamed Noginsk in 1930. It is one of the largest Russian textile centres; cotton forms most of its production. Pop. (1991 est.) 122,700....
  • Yamuna (river, Asia)
    major river of Central and South Asia. It flows some 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometres) from its source in the Himalayas to its confluence with the Ganges River, after which the mingled waters of the two rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal. Along its course it passes through the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the Indian sta...
  • Yamunā (Hindu deity)
    ...Hinduism, Varuṇa plays a lesser role. He is guardian of the west and is particularly associated with oceans and waters. Thus he is often attended by the river goddesses Gaṅgā and Yamunā. He corresponds closely to the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazdā. ...
  • Yamuna River (river, India)
    river in Uttar Pradesh state, northern India, rising in the Himalayas near Jamnotri. It flows in a southerly direction through the Himalayan foothills and onto the northern Indian plain, along the Uttar Pradesh–Haryāna state border. The Eastern and Western Yamuna canals are fed from the river at that point....
  • Yamunācārya (Indian philosopher)
    ...the Vijayanagara kingdom (which, along with Mithilā in the north, remained strongholds of Hinduism until the middle of the 16th century), Vaiṣṇavism flourished. The philosopher Yamunācārya (flourished ad 1050) taught the path of prapatti, or complete surrender to God. The philosophers Rāmānuja (11th century), Madhva, and Nimb...
  • yan (bronze vessel)
    type of ancient Chinese bronze steamer, or cooking vessel, used particularly for grain. It consisted of a deep upper bowl with a pierced bottom, which was placed upon or attached to a lower, legged vessel similar in shape to the li. It was produced during the Shang, or Yin (18th–12th century ...
  • Yan (ancient kingdom, China)
    ...near the site where the city now stands. During the Zhanguo (Warring States) period (475–256 bc) of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bc), one of the powerful feudal states, the kingdom of Yan, established its capital, named Ji, near the present city of Beijing; this was the first capital city to be associated with the site. The city was destroyed by the troop...
  • Yan Fu (Chinese scholar)
    Chinese scholar who translated into Chinese works by T.H. Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Adam Smith, and others in an attempt to show that the secret to Western wealth and power did not lie in Western technological advances, such as gunmaking, but in the ideas and institutions that lay behind these techniques. His translations of and introductions to these works had great influence on ...
  • Yan Liben (Chinese painter)
    one of the most famous Chinese figure painters in the early years of the Tang dynasty (618–907)....
  • Yan Lide (Chinese painter)
    ...are original; the first six were copies of earlier works). Yan Liben has imbued them with subtly defined characters through a tightly controlled line and limited use of colour. His brother, Yan Lide, was also a famous official and painter....
  • Yan Mountains (mountains, China)
    ...the North China Plain and the northern ranges, plains, and plateaus, and routes running across the great plain naturally converge on the city. In addition, since the dawn of Chinese history, the Yan range has constituted a formidable barrier between the North China Plain to the south, the Mongolian Plateau to the north, and the Liao River Plain in the southern region of the Northeast......
  • Yan Ruoju (Chinese scholar)
    great Chinese scholar from the early period of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12) who proved that 25 chapters of the Shujing, or Shangshu, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, upon which the government modeled itself for more than a thousand years, were forged....
  • Yan Ruoqu (Chinese scholar)
    great Chinese scholar from the early period of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12) who proved that 25 chapters of the Shujing, or Shangshu, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, upon which the government modeled itself for more than a thousand years, were forged....
  • Yan Song (Chinese official)
    ...Ming rulers. The former was an adventure-loving carouser, the latter a lavish patron of Daoist alchemists. For one period of 20 years, during the regime of an unpopular grand secretary named Yan Song, the Jiajing emperor withdrew almost entirely from governmental cares. Both emperors cruelly humiliated and punished hundreds of officials for their temerity in remonstrating....
  • Yan Xijai (Chinese philosopher)
    Chinese founder of a pragmatic empirical school of Confucianism opposed to the speculative neo-Confucian philosophy that had dominated China since the 11th century....
  • Yan Xishan (Chinese warlord)
    ...by Yüan Shih-k’ai, who became president of the Chinese republic in 1912. A period of domination by a succession of autonomous warlords in Hopeh followed Yüan’s death in 1916. The warlord Yen Hsi-shan continued to govern independently in Hopeh until the Japanese invasion of 1937. After Japan’s defeat the occupiers surrendered to the Chinese Nationalists in 1945...
  • Yan Yuan (Chinese philosopher)
    Chinese founder of a pragmatic empirical school of Confucianism opposed to the speculative neo-Confucian philosophy that had dominated China since the 11th century....
  • yāna (Buddhism)
    In early Buddhism, the various yānas, or ways of enlightenment, included the way of the disciple (śrāvakayāna) and the way of the self-enlightened buddha (pratyeka-buddhayāna). The latter concept was retained only in the Theravāda tradition. By contrast, Mahāyāna Buddhists emphasize the ideal of......
  • Yana (people)
    Hokan-speaking North American Indians formerly living along the eastern tributaries of the upper Sacramento River, from the Pit River to southwest of Lassen Peak, in what is now California. Traditional Yana territory comprised a myriad of foothills and narrow, rugged canyons, partly wooded but mostly brush-covered and rocky....
  • Yana language
    ...the process has gone beyond agglutination and is called polysynthesis, a process characteristic of many American Indian languages. Some Hokan languages are extremely polysynthetic, among them the Yana language of northern California. The Yana word yābanaumawildjigummaha’nigi means “let us, each one [of us], move indeed to the west across [the creek].” It is co...
  • Yana-Indigirka (lowlands, Asia)
    ...the Asian mainland, particularly the vast West Siberian and Turan plains of the interior. The remaining lowlands are distributed either in the maritime regions—such as the North Siberian and Yana-Indigirka lowlands and the North China Plain—or in the piedmont depressions of Mesopotamia, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, and mainland Southeast Asia. These plains have monotonously level......
  • Yanagi Sōetsu (Japanese artist)
    In addition to the continuation of various traditional lineages, the most significant development in ceramics of the modern period was the return to folkcraft tastes. Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961) espoused anonymity, functionality, and simplicity as a corrective to the industrialism and self-aggrandizement characteristic of the age. In league with potters such as the British artist......
  • Yanagimachi, Ryuzo (Japanese-American biologist)
    An ingenious scientist dedicated to research in the field of reproductive biology, Ryuzo Yanagimachi happily spent more than 30 years quietly working in his laboratory at the University of Hawaii, attracting the interest of fellow scientists but few others. In the past two years, however, he made headlines worldwide and appeared in front of almost as many reporters and photographers as he had test...
  • Yanam (district, India)
    Formerly part of the Cōḷa empire, the area came under Muslim occupation in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was the scene of constant warfare between Muslim, British, and French troops. When much of the coastal plain was incorporated into the Madras Presidency in 1765, Yanam remained a French enclave. It joined the union territory in 1954. Pop. (1981) 11,631....
  • Yanam (India)
    town, Pondicherry union territory, an enclave within northeastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India, on the main mouth of the Godāvari River....
  • Yan’an (China)
    city, northern Shaanxi sheng (province), north-central China. It became famous as the wartime stronghold of the Chinese communists from the mid-1930s to 1949. Yan’an is on the heavily dissected Loess Plateau, which consists of loess (windblown soil) that is deeply etched by gullies. The city sta...
  • Yan’an period (Chinese history)
    ...odyssey, which was to be characterized by a renewed united front with the Nationalists against Japan and by the rise of Mao to unchallenged supremacy in the party. This phase is often called the Yan’an period (for the town in Shaanxi where the communists were based), although Mao did not move to Yan’an until December 1936. In August 1935 the Comintern at its Seventh Congress in Mo...
  • Yanaon (India)
    town, Pondicherry union territory, an enclave within northeastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India, on the main mouth of the Godāvari River....
  • Yanbuʿ (Saudi Arabia)
    town, western Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea north of Jidda. It serves as the country’s second Red Sea port, after Jidda, and is the main port for Medina, 100 miles (160 km) to the east. The economy of Yanbuʿ was traditionally based on the pilgrim trade and the export of agricultural products, especially dates. Its harbour is being enlarged and improved to ease the pressure on Jidda, a...
  • Yancey, James Edward (American musician)
    American blues pianist who established the boogie-woogie style with slow, steady, simple left-hand bass patterns. These became more rapid in the work of his students Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis, who popularized the “Yancey Special.”...
  • Yancey, Jimmy (American musician)
    American blues pianist who established the boogie-woogie style with slow, steady, simple left-hand bass patterns. These became more rapid in the work of his students Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis, who popularized the “Yancey Special.”...
  • Yancey, Mama (American musician)
    ...George V of England in 1913. Returning to Chicago, Yancey performed at small taverns and informal gatherings. He played baseball in the Negro leagues until 1919, the year he married Estella Harris (Mama Yancey), who sang with him at house parties throughout the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. They had three recording sessions together and performed on network radio in 1939 and at Carnegie ...
  • Yancey, William Lowndes (American politician)
    American southern political leader and “fire-eater” who, in his later years, consistently urged the South to secede in response to Northern antislavery agitation....
  • Yancheng (China)
    city, north-central Jiangsu sheng (province), eastern China, in the province’s eastern coastal district....
  • Yancheng National Nature Reserve (nature reserve, China)
    Yancheng National Nature Reserve (established 1983) and the smaller Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve (1986) encompass much of Jiangsu’s Yellow Sea coastline north and south of Yancheng. They protect salt marsh and mudflat habitats and are home to large populations of fish and aquatic birds and such endangered species as the red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) and (at Dafe...
  • Yandabo, Treaty of (Myanmar-United Kingdom [1826])
    ...capital failed as Burmese resistance stiffened. In 1825 the British Indian forces advanced northward. In a skirmish south of Ava, the Burmese general Bandula was killed and his armies routed. The Treaty of Yandabo (February 1826) formally ended the First Anglo-Burmese War. The British victory had been achieved mainly because India’s superior resources had made possible a sustained campai...
  • Yáñez, Agustín (Mexican writer and statesman)
    Mexican novelist, short-story writer, and active political figure whose novels, explorations of their protagonists’ social realities, established a major current in 20th-century Mexican fiction....
  • Yáñez, Fernando (Spanish artist)
    During the first decade of the 16th century, Fernando Yáñez, who may have assisted Leonardo da Vinci on the “Battle of Anghiari” in 1505, executed works showing a good knowledge of Italian Renaissance developments. Further Italianate tendencies emerged strongly in the Valencian works of Juan de Macip and his son Juan de Juanes. Full-fledged Mannerism made its......
  • Yáñez Pinzón, Vicente (Spanish shipowner and navigator)
    brothers from a family of Spanish shipowners and navigators who took part in Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to America....
  • yang (Eastern philosophy)
    in Eastern thought, the two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life. Yin is a symbol of earth, femaleness, darkness, passivity, and absorption. It is present in even numbers, in valleys and streams, and is represented by the tiger, the colour orange, and a broken line. Yang is conceived of as heaven, maleness, light, activity, and penetration. It is present in odd numbe...
  • yang cai (Chinese art)
    ...porcelain wares characterized by decoration painted in opaque overglaze rose colours, chiefly shades of pink and carmine. These colours were known to the Chinese as yang cai (“foreign colours”) because they were first introduced from Europe (about 1685). By the time of the reign of Yongzheng (1722–35) in the Qing dynasty......
  • Yang, Chen Ning (American physicist)
    Chinese-born American theoretical physicist whose research with Tsung-Dao Lee showed that parity—the symmetry between physical phenomena occurring in right-handed and left-handed coordinate systems—is violated when certain elementary particles decay. Until this discovery it had been assumed by physicists that...
  • Yang Ch’eng (Chinese judge)
    Yang Ch’eng (or Yang Hsi-chi), who served the Liang Wu Ti emperor (reigned ad 502–549) as a criminal judge in Hunan Province, was deeply disturbed that the ruler was destroying the normal family life of dwarfs by pressing them into service as personal servants and court entertainers. Yang admonished the emperor, pointing out that these unfortunate people were subjects, ...
  • Yang Cheng (Chinese judge)
    Yang Ch’eng (or Yang Hsi-chi), who served the Liang Wu Ti emperor (reigned ad 502–549) as a criminal judge in Hunan Province, was deeply disturbed that the ruler was destroying the normal family life of dwarfs by pressing them into service as personal servants and court entertainers. Yang admonished the emperor, pointing out that these unfortunate people were subjects, ...
  • Yang Chu (Chinese Taoist philosopher)
    one of the early Taoist philosophers. Yang has been infamous in Chinese history for what was thought to be his extreme hedonism. This characterization of Yang was fostered by the great Confucian philosopher Mencius (c. 371–289 bc), the second Sage (after Confucius) of China, who condemned Yang Chu for upholding the principle of “each for himsel...
  • Yang Chuan-kwang (Taiwanese athlete)
    At the 1960 Games the decathlon competition became a duel between Johnson and Taiwan’s Yang Chuan-kwang, who was Johnson’s friend and teammate at UCLA. After the first day, Johnson led Yang by 55 points, despite the fact that Yang had finished ahead of Johnson in four of the five competitions. On the second day, Johnson fell from the lead when he hit the first hurdle in the 110-metre...
  • Yang Dechang (Taiwanese film director)
    Taiwanese film directorwho was in the vanguard of the Taiwanese New Wave, a 1980s movement that brought international attention to the island state with films that probed political, economic, and social issues in Taiwan’s rapidly changing environment. Yang made his full-length-film debut in 1983 with Haitan de yitian (“That Day, on the Beach”), which chronicled the reun...
  • Yang Dezhi (Chinese military official)
    Chinese military official (b. 1911, Zhuzhou (Chu-chou), Hunan province, China--d. Oct. 25, 1994, Beijing (Peking), China), joined the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at its creation and went on to serve in virtually every major Chinese military conflict for the next 50 years, eventually becoming the army’s chief of staff. Yang was raised in a peasant family in an area that ...
  • Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Malaysian monarch)
    Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy with a ceremonial head of state—a monarch—who bears the title Yang di-Pertuan Agong (“paramount ruler”) and who is elected from among nine hereditary state rulers for a five-year term. The Malaysian constitution, drafted in 1957 following the declaration of independence (from the British...
  • Yang, Edward (Taiwanese film director)
    Taiwanese film directorwho was in the vanguard of the Taiwanese New Wave, a 1980s movement that brought international attention to the island state with films that probed political, economic, and social issues in Taiwan’s rapidly changing environment. Yang made his full-length-film debut in 1983 with Haitan de yitian (“That Day, on the Beach”), which chronicled the reun...
  • Yang, Frank (American physicist)
    Chinese-born American theoretical physicist whose research with Tsung-Dao Lee showed that parity—the symmetry between physical phenomena occurring in right-handed and left-handed coordinate systems—is violated when certain elementary particles decay. Until this discovery it had been assumed by physicists that...
  • Yang Guang (emperor of Sui dynasty)
    posthumous name (shi) of the second and penultimate emperor (604–617/618) of the Sui dynasty (581–618). Under the Yangdi emperor canals were built and great palaces erected....
  • Yang Guifei (Chinese concubine)
    notorious beauty and concubine of the great Tang emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–756). Because of her the emperor is said to have neglected his duties, and the Tang dynasty (618–907) was greatly weakened by a rebellion that ensued. Her story has been the subject of many outstanding Chinese poems and dramas, including Changhen’ge (...
  • Yang Guozhong (Chinese minister)
    ...An Lushan had accumulated three frontier provinces under his command and was the most powerful general in the empire. After the dictator’s demise an intense struggle developed between An Lushan and Yang Guozhong, the cousin of Yang Guifei, who attempted to take over Li Linfu’s position. Though Yang Guozhong could attack and destroy An Lushan’s supporters at court, he was un...
  • Yang Hsi (Chinese Daoist)
    ...that had arisen in the north and west during the Dong Han. In that context, new priestly cults arose in the south. Their teachings were connected with a series of revelations, the first through Yang Xi, which led to the formation first of the Shangqing sect and later to the rival Lingbao sect. By the end of the period of division, Daoism had its own canons of scriptural writings, much......
  • Yang Hsi-chi (Chinese judge)
    Yang Ch’eng (or Yang Hsi-chi), who served the Liang Wu Ti emperor (reigned ad 502–549) as a criminal judge in Hunan Province, was deeply disturbed that the ruler was destroying the normal family life of dwarfs by pressing them into service as personal servants and court entertainers. Yang admonished the emperor, pointing out that these unfortunate people were subjects, ...
  • Yang Hsien-chih (Chinese author)
    Among prose masters of the 6th century, two northerners deserve special mention: Yang Hsien-chih, author of Lo-yang Chia-lan chi (“Record of Buddhist Temples in Lo-yang”), and Li Tao-yüan, author of Shui Ching chu (“Commentary on the Water Classic”). Although both of these works seem to have been planned to serve a practical,......
  • Yang Hsiu-ch’ing (Chinese rebel leader)
    organizer and commander in chief of the Taiping Rebellion, the political-religious uprising that occupied most of South China between 1850 and 1864....
  • Yang Hsiung (Chinese poet and philosopher)
    Chinese poet and philosopher best known for his poetry written in the form known as fu....
  • Yang Hu-ch’eng (Chinese general)
    Chiang was determined, however, to press on with his extermination campaign. He ordered the Manchurian army under Zhang Xueliang, now based in Xi’an (Sian), and the Northwestern army under Yang Hucheng (Yang Hu-ch’eng) to attack the communist forces in northern Shaanxi. Many officers in those armies sympathized with the communist slogan “Chinese don’t fight Chinese...
  • Yang Hucheng (Chinese general)
    Chiang was determined, however, to press on with his extermination campaign. He ordered the Manchurian army under Zhang Xueliang, now based in Xi’an (Sian), and the Northwestern army under Yang Hucheng (Yang Hu-ch’eng) to attack the communist forces in northern Shaanxi. Many officers in those armies sympathized with the communist slogan “Chinese don’t fight Chinese...
  • Yang Hui (Chinese mathematician)
    mathematician active in the great flowering of Chinese mathematics during the Southern Song dynasty....
  • Yang Hui suanfa (work by Yang Hui)
    ...of the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Procedures”) in a handwritten copy of an imperial Ming dynasty encyclopaedia, and he later discovered in Suzhou a Song dynasty edition of Yang Hui suanfa (1275; “Yang Hui’s Mathematical Methods”). The latter contains three treatises, Chengchu tongbian benmo (1274; “Fundament and......
  • Yang Hui-chih (Chinese sculptor)
    ...painted clay. Examples of dry lacquer sculpture of the 8th century survive in the temples at Nara. Some Chinese sculptors, according to contemporary records, worked primarily in clay. One such was Yang Hui-chih, who strove in his figures to capture the style of the 6th-century painter Chang Seng-yu. His work, too, has disappeared, but the influence of painting can clearly be seen in clay......
  • Yang Jian (emperor of Sui dynasty)
    posthumous name (shi) of the emperor (reigned 581–604) who reunified and reorganized China after 300 years of instability, founding the Sui dynasty (581–618). He conquered southern China, which long had been divided into numerous small kingdoms, and he broke the power of the Turks in the northern part of the country....
  • Yang Kuei-fei (Chinese concubine)
    notorious beauty and concubine of the great Tang emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–756). Because of her the emperor is said to have neglected his duties, and the Tang dynasty (618–907) was greatly weakened by a rebellion that ensued. Her story has been the subject of many outstanding Chinese poems and dramas, including Changhen’ge (...
  • Yang Lan (Chinese television journalist)
    In 1996 one of China’s top television journalists, Yang Lan returned to her country after a two-year absence, during which she pursued graduate studies at Columbia University, New York City. Prior to her departure, Yang was cohost of the weekly show "Zheng Da Variety Show," having been chosen from among 1,000 applicants. This was China’s top-rated talk show from 1990 to 1993. Yang f...
  • Yang Meizi (Chinese emperor)
    ...leave a body of his own writings and he did not earn a biography in the dynastic history. He seems, however, to have been in high favour at court, particularly under Ningzong, who, with his empress, Yang Meizi, wrote poems or short inscriptions inspired by a number of his paintings....
  • Yang Qianguang (Chinese mathematician)
    mathematician active in the great flowering of Chinese mathematics during the Southern Song dynasty....
  • Yang Quyun (Chinese leader)
    ...where he founded an anti-Manchu fraternity called the Revive China Society (Xingzhonghui). Returning to Hong Kong, he and some friends set up a similar society under the leadership of his associate Yang Quyun. Sun participated in an abortive attempt to capture Guangzhou in 1895, after which he sailed for England and then went to Japan in 1897, where he found much support. Tokyo became the......
  • Yang Shangkun (president of China)
    Chinese revolutionary figure and politician who was a veteran of Mao Zedong’s Long March in 1934-35, in 1966 became a victim of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and was sent to prison for 12 years, and then regained power, serving as president from 1988 to 1993; in 1989, under instruction from national leader Deng Xiaoping, Yang gave the order for the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-d...
  • Yang Shen (Chinese writer)
    One of the great all-around literati of Ming times, representative in many ways of the dynamic and wide-ranging activities of the Ming scholar-official at his best, was Yang Shen. Yang won first place in the metropolitan examination of 1511, remonstrated vigorously against the caprices of the Zhengde and Jiajing emperors, and was finally beaten, imprisoned, removed from his post in the Hanlin......
  • Yang Shui (river, Shensi and Hupeh province, China)
    one of the most important tributaries of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) of China. It has a total length of about 950 miles (1,530 km). The Han River rises in the Shenqiong Mountains, part of the Micang Mountains in the extreme southwestern part of Shaanxi province. Its upper stream is known successively as the Yudai, the Yang, and, below Mi...
  • Yang Te-chih (Chinese military official)
    Chinese military official (b. 1911, Zhuzhou (Chu-chou), Hunan province, China--d. Oct. 25, 1994, Beijing (Peking), China), joined the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at its creation and went on to serve in virtually every major Chinese military conflict for the next 50 years, eventually becoming the army’s chief of staff. Yang was raised in a peasant family in an area that ...
  • yang ts’ai (Chinese art)
    ...porcelain wares characterized by decoration painted in opaque overglaze rose colours, chiefly shades of pink and carmine. These colours were known to the Chinese as yang cai (“foreign colours”) because they were first introduced from Europe (about 1685). By the time of the reign of Yongzheng (1722–35) in the Qing dynasty......
  • Yang Tseng-hsin (Chinese official)
    After the revolution of 1911–12 Yang Tseng-hsin, a Han commander of native Turkic troops, seized control of Sinkiang and was later appointed governor by the Peking government. He maintained control until his assassination in 1928, which was followed by a series of rulers and shifting allegiances. After the Communist victory in 1949, the central government implemented moderate policies......
  • Yang Xi (Chinese Daoist)
    ...that had arisen in the north and west during the Dong Han. In that context, new priestly cults arose in the south. Their teachings were connected with a series of revelations, the first through Yang Xi, which led to the formation first of the Shangqing sect and later to the rival Lingbao sect. By the end of the period of division, Daoism had its own canons of scriptural writings, much......
  • Yang Xiong (Chinese poet and philosopher)
    Chinese poet and philosopher best known for his poetry written in the form known as fu....
  • Yang Xiuqing (Chinese rebel leader)
    organizer and commander in chief of the Taiping Rebellion, the political-religious uprising that occupied most of South China between 1850 and 1864....
  • Yang Yan (Chinese minister)
    minister to the Tang emperor Dezong (reigned 779–805)....
  • Yang Yang (A) (Chinese skater)
    Chinese short-track speed skater Yang Yang—known as Yang Yang (A)—confirmed her dominance on the ice in 2001 by winning her fifth consecutive world championship overall title. During three days of competition in Chonju, S.Kor., Yang reached the finals of all five women’s events, taking gold in the 1,000-, 1,500-, and 3,000-m individual races and the 3,000-m relay and silver in...
  • Yang Yen (Chinese minister)
    minister to the Tang emperor Dezong (reigned 779–805)....
  • Yang Ying (emperor of Sui dynasty)
    posthumous name (shi) of the second and penultimate emperor (604–617/618) of the Sui dynasty (581–618). Under the Yangdi emperor canals were built and great palaces erected....
  • Yang Zhu (Chinese Taoist philosopher)
    one of the early Taoist philosophers. Yang has been infamous in Chinese history for what was thought to be his extreme hedonism. This characterization of Yang was fostered by the great Confucian philosopher Mencius (c. 371–289 bc), the second Sage (after Confucius) of China, who condemned Yang Chu for upholding the principle of “each for himsel...
  • Yang Ziyun (Chinese poet and philosopher)
    Chinese poet and philosopher best known for his poetry written in the form known as fu....
  • yang-ch’in (musical instrument)
    Chinese stringed instrument of the dulcimer, or struck zither, family. The yangqin is played with bamboo beaters having rubber or leather heads. Its trapezoidal wooden body is strung with several courses (from 7 to 18 sets) of strings on four or five bridges. The sets of strings on each bridge are pitched whole steps apart and neighbouring...
  • Yang-cho-yung (lake, China)
    ...lakes, the three largest are located in central Tibet, northwest of Lhasa: Lakes T’ang-ku-la-yu-mu (Tibetan Tangra Yum), Na-mu (Nam), and Ch’i-lin (Ziling). South of Lhasa lie two large lakes, Yang-cho-yung (Yamdrok) and P’u-mo (Pomo). In western Tibet two adjoining lakes are located near the Nepal border, Ma-fa-mu Lake, sacred to both Buddhists and Hindus, and Lake La-ang ...
  • Yang-chou (China)
    city, southwest-central Jiangsu province (sheng), eastern China. It lies to the north of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) at the southern terminus of the section of the Grand Canal that joins the Huai River to the Yangtze. Pop. (2002 est.) 548,204....
  • Yang-ch’üan (China)
    city, eastern Shanxi province (sheng), northeast-central China. It is a prefecture-level municipality (shi) located in the western portion of the Taihang Mountains at the eastern end of a route through the mountains via Niangzi Pass. Its site was of major strategic importance throu...
  • Yang-ming (mountain, Taiwan)
    Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. One of the most popular nearby recreation areas is Mount Yang-ming, which is only 6 miles (10 km) north of the central city. Both the mountain and the town of Pei-t’ou at its base are known for their hot springs. Pi Lake has boating and water sports. There are ocean beaches not far from the city, and Tan-shui...
  • yang-pan-hsi (Chinese entertainment)
    form of Chinese entertainment that flourished during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The works combined elements of traditional Chinese dramas, particularly jingxi (Beijing opera or Peking opera), with modern Western drama to treat contemporary topics and feature proletarian protagonists. The yangbanxi...
  • Yang-shao culture (archaeology)
    ...went to China in 1914 as a technical adviser on oil and coal resources. He immediately became interested in fossil remains and eventually devoted himself to archaeological exploration. In 1921, at Yang-shao, Honan Province, he found elegant painted pottery that provided the first evidence of Neolithic culture in China. Within a year he discovered many other comparable sites across the vast......
  • Yang-ti (emperor of Sui dynasty)
    posthumous name (shi) of the second and penultimate emperor (604–617/618) of the Sui dynasty (581–618). Under the Yangdi emperor canals were built and great palaces erected....
  • yang-tz’u (Chinese enamelwork)
    ...Chinese ware but also, in some cases, were copied. Representations of European subjects, copies of engravings and armorial decorations, are also found. Painted enamels are termed by the Chinese yang-tz’u (“foreign porcelain”), the palette of colours used being the same as with enamelled porcelain, whose decoration under foreign influence is called yang-ts’a...
  • Yangadin Formation (geological formation, Russia)
    ...l65 metres (540 feet). A halite bed 2 metres (6.6 feet) thick occurs in the Interlake Formation formed during the Wenlock Epoch in North Dakota. Gypsiferous beds occur in parts of the Upper Silurian Yangadin and Holuhan formations of Siberia, as well as in comparable formations in Latvia and Lithuania. Upper Silurian evaporites from the Pridoli Epoch are characteristic of three different basins...
  • Yangambi (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
    Typical of the climate in regions through which the Congo flows is that of Yangambi, a town situated on the river’s right bank slightly north of the equator and a little downstream of Kisangani. Humidity remains high throughout the year, and annual rainfall amounts to 67 inches and occurs fairly regularly; even in the driest month the rainfall totals more than 3 inches. Temperatures are als...
  • yangban (Korean society)
    (Korean: “two groups”), the highest social class of the Yi dynasty (1392–1910) of Korea. It consisted of both munban, or civilian officials, and muban, or military officials. The term yangban originated in the Koryŏ dynasty (935–1392), when civil service examinations were held under the two categories of...
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