Laghouat \la-'gwat\ Town (pop., 1998 prelim.: 96,342) and oasis, north-central Algeria. At the southern edge of the Atlas Mountains, it was built on two hills that are extensions of Mount Tizigarine. It was settled in the 11th century and came under Moroccan and Ottoman control. Seized by the French in 1852, it reverted to Algeria in 1962.
lagoon Area of relatively shallow, quiet water with access to the sea but separated from it by sandbars, barrier islands, or coral reefs. Coastal lagoons have low to moderate tides and constitute about 13% of the world’s coastline. Their water is colder than the sea in winter and warmer in summer. In warm regions, evaporation may more than balance any freshwater input and may result in hypersaline water and even the buildup of thick salt deposits. Coral-reef lagoons occur on marginal reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef, but the most spectacular examples, some more than 30 mi (50 km) across, are associated with Pacific atolls.
Lagos Vla-.gas, 'la-gos\ City (pop., 1999: urban agglomeration, 12,763,000) and chief port, Nigeria. It is Nigeria’s largest city, built on
four main islands—Lagos, Iddo, Ikoyi, and Victoria—that are connected to each other and to the mainland by bridges. Its population is centered on Lagos Island, on the Bight of Benin. Part of the kingdom of Benin in the 16th century, it was inhabited largely by the Yoruba. Beginning in 1808, as Britain attempted to end the slave trade, Lagos came into increasingly greater contact with the British. It was ceded to Britain in 1861, became a crown colony, and was governed from Sierra Leone (1866-74) and as part of the Gold Coast colony (1874-86). Joined with the protectorate of Southern Nigeria in 1906, it was made the capital of the colony of Nigeria in 1914. It was the capital (1960-91) of independent Nigeria until Abuja became the new capital. It is a major trade and industrial centre.
Lagrange \la-'gra n zh\, Joseph-Louis later count de L'Empire (b.
Jan. 25, 1736, Turin, Sardinia-Piedmont—d. April 10, 1813, Paris, France) Italian-born French mathematician who made important contributions to number theory and to classical and celestial mechanics. By age 25 he was recognized as one of the greatest living mathematicians because of his papers on wave propagation (see wave motion) and maxima and minima (see maximum; minimum) of curves. His prodigious output included his text¬ book Mecanique analytique (1788), the basis for all later work in this field. His remarkable discoveries included the Lagrangian, a differential operator characterizing a system’s physical state, and the Lagrangian points, points in space where a small body in the gravitational fields of two large ones remains relatively stable.
Laguna de Bay See Laguna de Bay Laguna Madre See Laguna Madre
Lahn River River, western Germany. A tributary of the Rhine River, it rises in western Germany and after a southerly course reaches the Rhine at Lahnstein. It is 152 mi (245 km) long. Small barges are able to navi¬ gate to Giessen on the partly canalized river.
Lahore \b-'hor\ City (pop., 1998: 5,143,495), capital of Punjab prov¬ ince, northeastern Pakistan. The second largest city of Pakistan, it lies in the upper Indus plain on the Ravi River. It was the capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty in the 12th century and was captured by the Mughal Babur’s troops in 1524; it was later under Akbar and Jahangir. Ruled by Sikhs in the early 19th century, it passed to the British in 1849. After Indian inde¬ pendence, Lahore became part of Pakistan in 1947. It is the site of the mosque of Wazir Khan (1634); a mosque built by Aurangzeb; and the Shalimar gardens, laid out in 1641. It is the seat of Pakistan’s oldest edu¬ cational institution, the University of the Punjab (founded 1882).
Laibach Vll-bak\, Congress of (Jan. 26-May 12, 1821) Meeting of the Holy Alliance powers that set the conditions for Austrian intervention in and occupation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in action against the Neapolitan revolution (1820). The congress proclaimed its hostility to revolutionary regimes, agreed to abolish the Neapolitan constitution, and authorized the Austrian army to restore the absolutist monarchy. The Brit¬ ish and French protested the decision.
Laing VlaqV R(onald) D(avid) (b. Oct. 7, 1927, Glasgow, Scot.—d. Aug. 23, 1989, St. Tropez, France) Scottish psychiatrist. In his widely read and highly controversial book The Divided Self (196 0), his analysis of schizophrenia led him to theorize that insecurity about one’s existence prompts a defensive reaction in which the self splits into separate com¬ ponents, generating psychotic symptoms, and he opposed standard schizo¬ phrenia treatments such as hospitalization and electroshock. He even opposed the concept of mental illness, viewing it as induced by family relationships and society, and radically reconceived the role of the psy¬ chiatrist. He later modified some of his controversial positions.
laissez-faire \,le-sa-'fer\ French "allow to do" Policy dictating a minimum of governmental interference in the economic affairs of indi¬ viduals and society. It was promoted by the physiocrats and strongly sup¬ ported by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Widely accepted in the 19th century, laissez-faire assumed that the individual who pursues his own desires contributes most successfully to society as a whole. The function of the state is to maintain order and avoid interfering with individual ini¬ tiative. The popularity of the laissez-faire doctrine waned in the late 19th century, when it proved inadequate to deal with the social and economic problems caused by industrialization. See also classical economics.
lake Relatively large body of slow-moving or standing water that occu¬ pies an inland basin. Lakes are most abundant in high northern latitudes and in mountain regions, particularly those that were covered by glaciers
Engraved silver vase of King Entemena, from Lagash, Early Dynastic Period; in the Louvre, Paris
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Lake Clark National Park and Preserve ► Lamar I 1069
in recent geologic times. The primary sources of lake water are melting ice and snow, springs, rivers, runoff from the land surface, and direct pre¬ cipitation. In the upper part of lakes there is a good supply of light, heat, oxygen, and nutrients, well distributed by currents and turbulence. As a result, a large number of diverse aquatic organisms can be found there. The most abundant forms are plankton (chiefly diatoms), algae, and flagel¬ lates. In the lower levels and in the sediments, the main forms of life are bacteria. See also limnology.
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve National park, south¬ ern Alaska, U.S. Located on the western shore of Cook Inlet, it was pro¬ claimed a national monument in 1978 and a national park in 1980. Its total area is 3,653,000 acres (1,478,300 hectares). Lake Clark, more than 40 mi (65 km) long, is the largest of its glacial lakes; it feeds rivers that provide the most important spawning ground for red salmon in North America. The park includes glaciers, waterfalls, and active volcanoes.
Lake District Mountainous region, administrative county of Cumbria, northwestern England. Roughly coextensive with Lake District National Park, the country’s largest, it occupies an area of 866 sq mi (2,243 sq km). It contains numerous lakes, including Windermere (England’s larg¬ est), Grasmere, and Coniston Water, as well as England’s highest moun¬ tains, the loftiest being Scafell Pike, which rises to 3,210 ft (978 m). The district was home to several English poets, including William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who celebrated its landscape. It became a national park in 1951.