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Central Asia
central region of Asia, extending from the Caspian Sea in the west to the border of western China in the east. It is bounded on the north by Russia and on the south by Iran, Afghanistan, and China. The region consists of the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Area 1,54...
Central Asia, history of
history of the area from prehistoric and ancient times to the present....
Central Asian arts
the literary, performing, and visual arts of a large portion of Asia embracing the Turkic republics (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan), Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and parts of Russia and China. As used here, the term denotes only those traditions that were not...
Central Asian literatures
the poetry and prose writings produced in a variety of languages in Central Asia, roughly defined as the region bounded to the east by the Tarim Basin in China, to the west by the Caspian Sea, and to the south by the Amu Darya (Oxus Riv...
Central Asian oil conflicts (petroleum)
At the end of the 19th century, the Caspian Sea region in Asia was one of the biggest suppliers of oil to the world. Seven decades of Soviet rule in this century, however, effectively cut off the region--and its energy resources--from international markets. The big question in the late 1990s was whether the newly emerged Caspian and Central Asian republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakst...
Central Asian region (biogeography)
Centred on the desert steppes of Central Asia and Mongolia, this floristic zone consists of 200 or more endemic genera and extends from the Caucasus to the Plateau of Tibet, with arid zone plants of the family Chenopodiaceae (goosefoot) and genera such as Salix (willow), Astragalus (milk vetch), and Picea (spruce) (Figure 1)....
central atom (molecule)
...however, that do not conform to the octet rule. The most common exceptions to the octet rule are the so-called hypervalent compounds. These are species in which there are more atoms attached to a central atom than can be accommodated by an octet of electrons. An example is sulfur hexafluoride, SF6, for which writing a Lewis structure with six S−F bonds requires that......
central bank
institution, such as the Bank of England, the U.S. Federal Reserve System, or the Bank of Japan, that is charged with regulating the size of a nation’s money supply, the availability and cost of credit, and the foreign-exchange value of its currency. Regulation of the availability and cost of credit may be nonselect...
Central Bank of Brazil (Brazilian government)
The National Monetary Council, under the direction of the minister of finance, is Brazil’s chief financial policy-making body. It oversees the Central Bank of Brazil, which issues currency (the real) and controls the money supply, credit, foreign capital, and other top-level financial matters. The federal government also uses other public financial institutions to implement its policies, th...
Central Bank of Chile (Chilean government)
The peso is the national currency of Chile. The Central Bank of Chile, established in 1925, is the official bank of the country; it implements the internal banking policies of the government and also conducts foreign trade. In 1989 the bank became an autonomous institution entirely responsible for the country’s financial and exchange-rate policies. The State Bank of Chile is also a state......
Central Bank of Iraq (Iraqi government)
All banks and insurance companies were nationalized in 1964. The Central Bank of Iraq (founded in 1947 and one of the first central banks in the Arab world) has the sole right to issue the dinar, the national currency. The Rafidain Bank (1941) is the oldest commercial bank, but in 1988 the state founded a second commercial bank, the Rashid (Rasheed) Bank. There are also three state-owned......
Central Bank of Ireland (Irish government)
...punt) was linked to the British pound sterling until 1979, when the republic joined the European Monetary System. Today, the euro, the EU’s single currency, is the country’s official currency. The Central Bank of Ireland, established in 1942, is the national monetary authority. Its responsibilities include licensing and overseeing the country’s financial institutions and su...
Central Bank of Kenya (Kenyan government)
The state-run Central Bank of Kenya, established by legislation in 1966, regulates the money supply (the monetary unit is the Kenyan shilling), assists in the development of the monetary, credit, and banking system, acts as banker and financial adviser to the government, and grants short-term or seasonal loans. There also are a large number of commercial, merchant, and foreign banks in Kenya.......
Central Bank of Malta (Maltese government)
The state-run Central Bank of Kenya, established by legislation in 1966, regulates the money supply (the monetary unit is the Kenyan shilling), assists in the development of the monetary, credit, and banking system, acts as banker and financial adviser to the government, and grants short-term or seasonal loans. There also are a large number of commercial, merchant, and foreign banks in Kenya.........
Central Bank of Mauritania (bank, Mauritania)
The Central Bank of Mauritania was established in 1973 and issues the national currency, the ouguiya. In addition to the central bank, there are a number of commercial banks of varying size. Mauritania’s banking sector is centred at Nouakchott. Insurance companies in Mauritania were state-owned prior to the liberalization of that sector by the government in the 1990s; by the early 2000s the...
Central Bank of Namibia (Namibian government)
...Standard Bank Namibia (subsidiaries of South African parent companies), account for most banking business. Reorganization of land, housing, and development banks was begun after independence. The Central Bank of Namibia launched an independent currency, the Namibian dollar, to replace the South African rand in the mid-1990s....
Central Bank of Nicaragua (Nicaraguan government)
The Central Bank of Nicaragua, established in 1961, has the sole right of issue of the national currency, the córdoba. The financial system had been dominated by the government-owned Finance Corporation of Nicaragua, an amalgamation of the country’s banks established in 1980, but by the early 21st century, several private banks and microfinance institutions had been established....
Central Bank of Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan government)
Banking and the issue of currency are controlled by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Until the late 1970s, commercial banking was the near-exclusive monopoly of two state-run banks, the Bank of Ceylon and the People’s Bank. The postliberalization period allowed the establishment of several private commercial banks and an overall expansion in banking, particularly with the government’s ...
Central Bank of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (bank, North Korea)
The North Korean won is the official currency, and the Central Bank of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the sole bank of issue. It receives all national revenues and precious metals and provides government agencies with working capital. There are several other state banks, all supervised by the Central Bank. Among these is the Foreign Trade Bank, which handles all foreign......
Central Bank of The Gambia (bank, The Gambia)
The Central Bank of The Gambia issues the national currency, the dalasi. There are several private banks in the country as well....
Central Bank of Uruguay (Uruguayan government)
...known as an offshore financial centre. Partly because of the large volume of international banking, the vast majority of Uruguayan bank deposits are in U.S. dollars and other foreign currencies. The Central Bank of Uruguay (1967) issues currency (the Uruguayan peso), regulates foreign exchange, and oversees the country’s private banks. Other state banks include the Bank of the Eastern Re...
Central Bank of West African States (West African government)
...West African States and African Union suspended the country, and Gbagbo, his family, and associates were the targets of sanctions and travel bans. The World Bank froze the country’s funding, and the Central Bank of West African States, which held the country’s accounts, blocked Gbagbo’s administration from having access to them. Gbagbo still refused to cede power, though, a...
Central Bank of Yemen (bank, Yemen)
The Central Bank of Yemen was formed in 1990 from the merger of the central banks of the two Yemens. It is responsible for issuing the rial, the national currency, and for managing the government’s foreign exchange and other financial operations. The Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1962) provides commercial and customer services. Banking is a small sector of the economy; serv...
Central Bohemia (region, Czech Republic)
The Central Bank of Yemen was formed in 1990 from the merger of the central banks of the two Yemens. It is responsible for issuing the rial, the national currency, and for managing the government’s foreign exchange and other financial operations. The Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1962) provides commercial and customer services. Banking is a small sector of the economy; serv...
Central Bohemian Highlands (region, Czech Republic)
The Central Bank of Yemen was formed in 1990 from the merger of the central banks of the two Yemens. It is responsible for issuing the rial, the national currency, and for managing the government’s foreign exchange and other financial operations. The Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1962) provides commercial and customer services. Banking is a small sector of the economy; serv...
Central Brāhui Range (mountains, Pakistan)
southern offshoot of the Himalayas, lying in the centre of the Balochistān plateau, Pakistan. It extends southward for about 225 miles (360 km) from the Pishīn Lora and Zhob rivers to the Mūla River. The range is a series of parallel limestone ridges covered with juniper forests and hemming in narrow valleys, and its trend is north-south between Mūla and Quetta but tur...
central bulge (astronomy)
Surrounding the nucleus is an extended bulge of stars that is nearly spherical in shape and that consists primarily of Population II stars, though they are comparatively rich in heavy elements. (For an explanation of Population II stars, see below Stars and stellar populations.) Mixed with the stars are several globular clusters of similar stars, and both the star...
Central Cattle Pattern (settlement pattern)
...grazing animals, others associate the appearance of domestic stock with the emergence of a different and distinctive tradition of ceramics and a characteristic settlement pattern—known as the Central Cattle Pattern—that embodied both the new centrality of cattle and the different nature of hierarchy in these communities....
Central Caucasian languages
languages spoken in the Caucasus in southwestern Russia and in the Akhmeta district of Georgia. The Nakh language group includes Chechen, Ingush, and Bats (Tsova-Tushian). Because Bats has no written form, its speakers use Georgian as their literary language. The Nakh group, sometimes called the Central Caucasian languages...
Central Chamber (Japanese government)
...the Dajōkan was finally restructured on Sept. 13, 1871, into three chambers: a Left Chamber (Sa-in), the legislative body; a Right Chamber (U-in), which directed the various ministries; and a Central Chamber (Sei-in), which subsumed the powers of the other two chambers....
Central City (Colorado, United States)
city, seat (1861) of Gilpin county, north-central Colorado, U.S. It lies along North Fork of Clear Creek in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, 26 miles (42 km) west of Denver. A historic mining town on a rocky hillside along Gregory Gulch (elevation 8,560 feet [2,...
Central Committee (Soviet political body)
in the history of the Soviet Union, the highest organ of the Communist Party between party congresses, though in practice this status was held by the Politburo from the 1920s on. The Communist parties of other countries were also governed by central committees....
Central Committee (Chinese political body)
The Central Committee meeting, which was attended by more than 300 senior party members, committed the state to a policy of loosening the restrictive household-registration system that bifurcated Chinese society in terms of access to resources between those born in the country and those born in the city. In addition, the Central Committee also signaled that Chinese farmers would soon be......
Central Committee for the Inner Mission (German organization)
...rally) of the German Evangelical Church in Wittenberg in 1848, Wichern urged that the church minister to the physical and social needs as well as the spiritual needs of people. As a result, the Central Committee for the Inner Mission was formed in 1849, and Inner Mission societies were formed in Germany’s large cities and in the territorial churches....
Central Conference of American Rabbis (American organization)
...an important conference of Reform rabbis issued the Columbus (Ohio) Platform, supporting the use of traditional customs and ceremonies and the liturgical use of Hebrew. In the late 20th century the Central Conference of American Rabbis continued to debate how best to continue the spirit of the Reform movement. It issued several new prayer books for the modern age and considered such issues as.....
Central Connecticut State College (university, New Britain, Connecticut, United States)
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in New Britain, Conn., U.S. It is one of four universities in the Connecticut State University system. The university includes schools of business, technology, arts and sciences, and education and professional studies. The graduate school offers master’s degree prog...
Central Connecticut State University (university, New Britain, Connecticut, United States)
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in New Britain, Conn., U.S. It is one of four universities in the Connecticut State University system. The university includes schools of business, technology, arts and sciences, and education and professional studies. The graduate school offers master’s degree prog...
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Puerto Rico)
limestone mountain range that forms the interior of Puerto Rico island. It consists of three parts. The Cordillera Central proper occupies the west-central part of the island, extending about 50 miles (80 km) from San Germán in the west to the watershed between th...
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Philippines)
The Cordillera Central, the central mountain chain of Luzon, running north to the Luzon Strait from the northern boundary of the central plain, is the most prominent range. It consists of two and in places three parallel ranges, each with an average elevation of about 5,900 feet (1,800 metres). The Sierra Madre, extending along the Pacific coast from northern to central Luzon, is the longest......
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Panama)
A central spine of mountain ranges extends almost the entire length of Panama, dividing the country into Atlantic- and Pacific-facing slopes. The two principal ranges, the Tabasará Mountains (Cordillera Central) in the west and the Cordillera de San Blas in the east, are separated near the centre of the country by a saddle of lower land. This depression (the Panama Canal site) divides......
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Peru)
North of the Pasco Knot, three different ranges run along the plateau: the Cordilleras Occidental, Central, and Oriental. In the Cordillera Occidental, at latitude 10° S, the deep, narrow Huaylas Valley separates two ranges, Cordillera Blanca to the east and Cordillera Negra to the west; the Santa River runs between them and cuts Cordillera Negra to drain into the Pacific. Cordillera Blanca...
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Colombia)
...Caracas, before turning to the southwest and entering Colombia. In Colombia the Andes—which trend generally to the north and south—form three distinct ranges: the Cordilleras Oriental, Central, and Occidental. The valley of the Magdalena River, between the Oriental and the Central ranges, and the valley of the Cauca River, between the Central and the Occidental ranges, are huge......
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Ecuador)
...the west, in the geologically recent and relatively low Cordillera Occidental, stands a line of 19 volcanoes, 7 of them exceeding 15,000 feet in elevation. The eastern border is the higher and older Cordillera Central, capped by a line of 20 volcanoes; some of these, such as Chimborazu Volcano (20,702 feet), have permanent snowcaps....
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Dominican Republic)
mountain range in western Dominican Republic. The core of its highlands rises just west of Santo Domingo, the national capital, and extends northwestward to the Haitian border; from it flow the headstreams of the nation’s three chief river systems—the Yuna,...
Central, Cordillera (mountains, Costa Rica)
...the Cordillera de Talamanca. The Cordillera Volcánica may be divided into three ranges, from northwest to southeast: the Cordillera de Guanacaste, the Cordillera de Tilarán, and the Cordillera Central. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983, the Cordillera de Talamanca is a massive granite batholith, quite different geologically from the volcanically active northern......
Central Council of Hungarian Trade Unions (Hungarian organization)
The Soviet-style Central Council of Hungarian Trade Unions was reorganized in 1988 as the National Confederation of Hungarian Trade Unions. It remains the largest trade union in Hungary, with some 40 organizations under its umbrella at the start of the 21st century. It is joined by the Association of Hungarian Free Trade Unions, Democratic Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Forum for the......
Central Council of Trade Unions (labour organization, Bulgaria)
...made up of more than 100,000 separate subgroups. Only an insignificant portion of the country’s workforce does not belong to a trade union. Until the late 1980s all trade unions belonged to the Central Council of Trade Unions (Tsentralen Sŭvet na Profesionalnite Sŭyuzi), founded in 1944 and allied with the Bulgarian Communist Party. It was reconstituted in 1989 as the......
Central Cushitic languages
...about 40 languages that are spoken mainly in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and northwestern Kenya. There are six major subdivisions within the Cushitic family: North Cushitic, or Beja; Central Cushitic (also known as Agau), with languages such as Bilin, Kemant, Kwara, Xamtage, and Awngi; South Cushitic (spoken mainly in Tanzania), including Iraqw, Burunge, and Gorowa, the hybrid......
Central Democratic Union (political party, Spain)
...in 1977, national politics have been dominated by a small number of parties. From 1977 until 1982 Spain was governed by the Union of the Democratic Centre (Unión de Centro Democrático; UCD), and the major opposition party was the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español; PSOE). The only other national parties of importance were the right-wi...
central diabetes insipidus (disease)
...that results from injury to the hypothalamic nucleus, which is the tract by which vasopressin is conveyed to the neurohypophysis (posterior lobe of the pituitary gland) for storage, is called central diabetes insipidus. This condition may be caused by trauma, such as brain or pituitary surgery, and diseases, such as brain tumours, pituitary tumours, or granulomatous infiltration......
“Central do Brasil” (film by Salles)
...had long been a grande dame of the Brazilian stage and screen, she was little known in Europe or Anglo-America prior to her appearance in the 1998 film Central do Brasil (1998; Central Station). Critics praised her portrayal of Dora, an embittered retired schoolteacher in Rio de Janeiro who ekes out a living writing letters for illiterate people and who finds......
central dogma (molecular biology)
For many years there existed a paradigm in molecular biology known as the “central dogma.” This asserted that DNA is first transcribed into RNA, RNA is translated into amino acids, and amino acids assemble into long chains, called polypeptides, that make up proteins—the functional units of cellular life. However, while this central dogma is true, as with many paradigms of......
Central Dravidian languages
The Central Dravidian languages are spoken by some 200,000 individuals. Kolami has the largest number of speakers, approximately 122,000 people, and has borrowed heavily from Telugu....
Central Eskimo (people)
...as the Labrador Eskimo and the Eskimo of Quebec; these were often described as whole units, although each comprises a number of separate societies. The Baffinland Eskimo were often included in the Central Eskimo, a grouping that otherwise included the Caribou Eskimo of the barrens west of Hudson Bay and the Iglulik, Netsilik, Copper, and Mackenzie Eskimo, all of whom live on or near the Arctic....
Central Europe
...as the Labrador Eskimo and the Eskimo of Quebec; these were often described as whole units, although each comprises a number of separate societies. The Baffinland Eskimo were often included in the Central Eskimo, a grouping that otherwise included the Caribou Eskimo of the barrens west of Hudson Bay and the Iglulik, Netsilik, Copper, and Mackenzie Eskimo, all of whom live on or near the Arctic....
Central European climate (meteorology)
The central European, or transitional, type of climate results from the interaction of both maritime and continental air masses and is found at the core of Europe, south and east of the maritime type, west of the much larger continental type, and north of the Mediterranean type. This rugged region has colder winters, with substantial mountain snowfalls, and warmer summers, especially in the......
Central European University of Budapest (university, Budapest, Hungary)
In the period after the fall of communism, several private and religious universities were established, including the Central European University of Budapest, founded by the Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros as an English-language postgraduate institution where the students are introduced to Sir Karl Popper’s idea of an “open society.” The best-known religious......
Central Falls (Rhode Island, United States)
city, Providence county, northeastern Rhode Island, U.S. It forms part of the lower Blackstone River valley community, which includes the city of Pawtucket and the towns (townships) of Cumberland and Lincoln. Central Falls was originally a part of Smithfield, when that town was set apart ...
Central Female Institute (college, Clinton, Mississippi, United States)
...that ownership passed to the Mississippi Baptist Convention. The Baptist church disallowed women at Mississippi College but, in 1853, founded the nearby Central Female Institute, which was renamed Hillman College in 1891. In 1942 Mississippi College subsumed Hillman College and again became coeducational. Graduate-level courses were offered from 1950, and the Graduate School was formed in......
central fissure
Two major furrows—the central sulcus and the lateral sulcus—divide each cerebral hemisphere into four sections: the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes. The central sulcus, also known as the fissure of Rolando, also separates the cortical motor area (which is anterior to the fissure) from the cortical sensory area (which is posterior to the fissure). Starting from the......
Central Florida, University of (university, Orlando, Florida, United States)
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Orlando, Florida, U.S. It is part of the State University System of Florida. It consists of a main campus in Orlando and branch campuses in Cocoa (Brevard campus) and Daytona Beach, as well as two additional Orlando locations. The university offers an undergraduate curriculum in busines...
Central Food Committee (French revolutionary organization)
In October Lindet assumed direction of the Central Food Committee, which was to requisition food and military supplies for the troops. Soon the efficient bureaucratic apparatus he set up was regulating much of the production and distribution of agricultural and industrial goods. Nevertheless, he remained essentially a moderate. He looked forward to the eventual elimination of controls,......
Central German (language)
Dutch emerged as a structurally distinct branch of West Germanic as the result of language contact between speakers of North Sea Germanic and speakers of the South Germanic “Franconian,” or Frankish. The crucial early period of this contact occurred in the 7th and 8th centuries and resulted from the expansion of Frankish (Merovingian and early Carolingian) power into the western......
Central German Uplands (upland, Germany)
Geographically, the Central German Uplands form a region of great complexity. Under the impact of the Alpine orogeny, the planed-off remnants of the former Hercynian mountains were shattered and portions thrust upward to form block mountains, with sedimentary rocks preserved between them in lowlands and plateaus. The Central German Uplands may be divided into three main parts: a predominantly......
central government
the political system by which a country or community is administered and regulated....
Central Greece (region, Greece)
region of mainland Greece lying south of the provinces of Epirus (Modern Greek: Ípeiros) and Thessaly (Thessalía), and north of the gulfs of Pátrai and Corinth (Korinthiakós) and the Saronic Gulf....
Central Gur languages
Most Gur languages fall into one of two groups: Central Gur and Senufo. Central Gur itself breaks down into two major subgroups, termed Oti-Volta (with some 25 languages in Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso) and Grusi (with a further 20 languages, some to the west and others to the east of the Oti-Volta group). The largest languages in the Oti-Volta group include Moore, the principal......
Central Harmony, Hall of (hall, Beijing, China)
North of it, beyond another courtyard, is the Hall of Central (or Complete) Harmony (Zhonghedian), where the emperor paused to rest before going into the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Beyond the Hall of Central Harmony is the last hall, the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohedian), after which comes the Inner Court (Neiting). The Inner Court was used as the emperor’s personal apartment. It contain...
central heating (process and system)
...fueled by gas or electricity, is known as direct heating because the conversion of energy into heat takes place at the site to be heated. A more common form of heating in modern times is known as central, or indirect, heating. It consists of the conversion of energy to heat at a source outside of, apart from, or located within the site or sites to be heated; the resulting heat is conveyed to......
Central Highlands (region, Brazil)
eroded plateau region of central and southeastern Brazil. Comprising more than half of the country’s landmass, the highlands are located mainly in Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Goias, and Mato Grosso estados ...
Central Highlands (mountains, Dominican Republic)
mountain range in western Dominican Republic. The core of its highlands rises just west of Santo Domingo, the national capital, and extends northwestward to the Haitian border; from it flow the headstreams of the nation’s three chief river systems—the Yuna,...
central highlands (region, Afghanistan)
The central highlands—actually a part of the Himalayan chain—include the main Hindu Kush range. Its area of about 160,000 square miles (414,000 square km) is a region of deep, narrow valleys and lofty mountains, some peaks of which rise above 21,000 feet (6,400 metres). High mountain passes, generally situated between 12,000 and 15,000 feet (3,600 to 4,600 metres) above sea level,......
Central Highlands (region, Arizona, United States)
...Plateau is marked by a series of giant escarpments known collectively as the Mogollon Rim. West and south of the rim, a number of streams follow narrow canyons or broad valleys south through the Transition Zone and into the Basin and Range Province. The Transition Zone bordering the plateaus comprises separated plateau blocks, rugged peaks, and isolated rolling uplands so forbidding that......
central hypothyroidism (pathology)
...which is characterized by goitre (enlargement of the thyroid), and atrophic thyroiditis, which is characterized by shrinkage of the thyroid gland. There also exists a form of hypothyroidism known as central hypothyroidism, in which there is a deficiency of thyrotropin (thyroid-stimulating hormone; TSH), the hormone of the anterior pituitary gland that controls the thyroid. Central hypothyroidis...
Central Inland Water Transport Board (Indian government agency)
In Bangladesh inland water transport is the responsibility of the Inland Water Transport Authority. In India the Central Inland Water Transport Board formulates policy for inland waterways, while the Inland Waterways Authority develops and maintains an extensive system of national waterways. Approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of waterways in the Ganges basin from Allahabad to Haldia are......
Central Institute for Intelligence and Security (Israeli intelligence agency)
(Hebrew: “Central Institute for Intelligence and Security”), one of the five major intelligence organizations of Israel, being concerned with espionage, intelligence gathering, and covert political operations in foreign countries....
Central Intelligence Agency (United States government)
principal foreign intelligence and counterintelligence agency of the U.S. government. Formally created in 1947, the CIA grew out of the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Previous U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence efforts had been conducted by the military and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)...
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directors (Central Intelligence Agency)
The Central Intelligence Agency was formally created in 1947 and is the principal foreign intelligence and counterintelligence agency of the U.S. government. The CIA is headed by a director and deputy director, only one of whom may be a military officer. The director of central intelligence (DCI) serves as the chief intelligence adviser to the preside...
Central Intelligence Office (Soviet military intelligence organization)
(Russian: Chief Intelligence Office), Soviet military intelligence organization. It had no formal connection to the KGB, the Soviet political police and security agency, though Western intelligence authorities believed that the KGB had agents within the GRU....
Central Java (province, Indonesia)
provinsi (province), central Java, Indonesia. It is bounded by Jawa Barat (West Java) province on the west, the Java Sea on the north, Jawa Timur...
Central Jurisdiction (American Methodist organization)
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, lost its African American members before and during the Civil War. In 1939 the Central Jurisdiction was formed for all African American members of the church. It was one of six jurisdictions—administrative units responsible for electing bishops—of the church and the only racial jurisdiction. Unlike the other jurisdictions, which were determined....
Central Kalahari Game Reserve (park, Botswana)
...by delays in the construction of a new suburb near the Gaborone airport. The Botswana government continued to narrowly interpret the High Court judgment permitting Bushmen to return to live in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as applying only to named litigants and their immediate relatives. Filming resumed around Gaborone in September for the upcoming television series The No 1 Ladies......
Central Kalimantan (province, Indonesia)
propinsi (or provinsi; province), south-central Borneo, Indonesia, bounded by the provinces of East Kalimantan (Kalimantan Timur) to the north and northeast and South Kalimantan...
Central Karakum (desert, Turkmenistan)
...Mountains, and in the west and northwest it borders the course of the ancient valley of the Uzboy River. It is divided into three parts: the elevated northern Trans-Unguz Karakum; the low-lying Central Karakum; and the southeastern Karakum, through which runs a chain of salt marshes. Along the border of the Trans-Unguz and Central Karakum runs the Unguz chain of saline, isolated, eolian......
Central Karoo (plateau, South Africa)
plateau basin in Western Cape province, South Africa, lying between the Great Escarpment (north) and the Swartberg (south). It represents the effect of headwater erosion by river...
Central Khoisan languages
A traditional linguistic classification of the Southern African Khoisan languages divides them into three effectively unrelated groups: Northern, Central, and Southern. Sandawe of Tanzania has a distant relationship to the Central group, but the place of Hadza even in relation to Sandawe has always been unclear; and the status of Kwadi, an extinct language of Namibe (formerly......
Central Latinoamericana de Trabajadores (Latin American labour organization)
(CLAT), regional Christian Democrat trade union federation linked to the World Confederation of Labour (WCL). Its affiliated member groups represent some 10,000,000 workers in more than 35 Latin-American and Caribbean countries and territories. Its h...
Central League (Japanese baseball)
one of the two associations of professional baseball teams in Japan. Both the Central League and the Pacific League were founded in 1950. The Central League comprises six teams, each of which is owned and sponsored by a major corporation. The league consists of the Chūnichi Dragons, Hanshin Tigers, Hiroshima Tōyō Carp, Yakult Swallows, Yokohama BayStars, and...
Central Lenin Museum (museum, Moscow, Russia)
...point for these collections. Another type was the memorial museum housing the personal effects of well-known figures. These were often used as a means of communicating political propaganda—the Central Lenin Museum in Moscow, opened in 1936, serving this purpose....
Central Library for Students (library, London, United Kingdom)
Under Mansbridge’s administration, the WEA created a tutorial system and a scholarly library (National Central Library) for working people unaffiliated with an academic institution. He organized WEA branches in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada; and, after recovering from spinal meningitis, he established other adult-education groups: the World Association for Adult Education (1918), the.....
central limit theorem (mathematics)
in probability theory, a theorem that establishes the normal distribution as the distribution to which the mean (average) of almost any set of independent and randomly generated variables rapidly converges. The central limit theorem explains why the normal distribution arises so commonly and why it is generally an excellent approximation for...
central lobe (anatomy)
Not visible from the surface of the cerebrum is the insular, or central, lobe, an invaginated triangular area on the medial surface of the lateral sulcus; it can be seen in the intact brain only by separating the frontal and parietal lobes from the temporal lobe. The insular lobe is thought to be involved in sensory and motor visceral functions as well as taste perception....
Central Lowland (region, Connecticut, United States)
The Central Lowland is different in character from the other two regions, being a downfaulted block of land approximately 20 miles (30 km) wide at the Massachusetts border and narrowing as it progresses toward the sea, which it meets at New Haven. It is filled with sandstone and shale. Periodic volcanic activity some 150–200 million years ago pushed immense quantities of molten rock to......
Central Lowland (region, United States)
...lies the boundary between crystalline and sedimentary rocks; abruptly, everything is different. The core of this sedimentary region—the heartland of the United States—is the great Central Lowland, which stretches for 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) from New York to central Texas and north another 1,000 miles to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. To some, the landscape may......
Central Lowlands (region, Scotland, United Kingdom)
...relative of English) in contrast to the Scottish Gaelic (a Celtic language) spoken in the Highlands. The Lowlands, as a cultural area, include two main topographic regions: the Midland Valley (or Central Lowlands) and the Southern Uplands (of southern Scotland)....
Central Malayo-Polynesian languages
The Central Malayo-Polynesian languages are found throughout much of eastern Indonesia, including the Lesser Sunda Islands from Sumbawa through Timor, and most of the Moluccas. Many of the changes that define this linguistic group cover most of the languages but do not reach the geographic extremes, and the group has therefore been questioned by some scholars. Few of the languages are large or......
Central Maryland (area, Maryland, United States)
Central Maryland comprises the city of Baltimore and five counties. Four of the counties contain most of Baltimore’s suburbs; the fifth is Montgomery, on the northwestern edge of Washington, D.C. Only about one-sixth of Marylanders live outside metropolitan areas. Central Maryland is one long, contiguous metropolitan area that stretches from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., and reaches over t...
Central, Massif (area, France)
upland area in south-central France. Bordered by the lowlands of Aquitaine on the west, the Paris Basin and the Loire River valley on the north, the Rhône-Saône river valley on the east, and the Mediterranean coastland...
Central Michigan Normal School and Business Institute (university, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, United States)
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Mount Pleasant, Mich., U.S. The university is composed of the colleges of business administration, communication and fine arts, education and human services, health professions, humanities and social and behavioral sciences, science and technology, and graduate studies....
Central Michigan University (university, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, United States)
public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Mount Pleasant, Mich., U.S. The university is composed of the colleges of business administration, communication and fine arts, education and human services, health professions, humanities and social and behavioral sciences, science and technology, and graduate studies....