noun
definition
The grasslands of Eastern Europe and Asia. Similar to (North American) prairie and (African) savanna.
definition
A vast cold, dry grass-plain.
Examples of steppe in a Sentence
They were called steppe peasants.
In the hollows of this steppe region, salt water lakes occur, known.
The steppe region, whose flora begins to appear east of the western ridge, is distinguished by the variety of its species, the dry and thorny character of its shrubs, and great poverty in trees.
Beyond, once more beyond, spreads the Scythian steppe, not the dead level of Lombardy, but an expanse of long low modulations, which would be reckoned hills in our home counties, seamed by long shining ribbons, which mark the courses of the tributaries of the Terek..
Isolated tufts or tussocks are also characteristic of steppe - and savanna - vegetation and open places generally in the warmer parts of the earth.
European climate contends against the Asiatic, and where a struggle is carried on between the forest and the steppe.
But cultivation rapidly changes the physiognomy of the steppe.
During these interminable struggles of rival princes, Kiev, which had been so long the residence of the grand-prince and of the metropolitan, was repeatedly taken by storm and ruthlessly pillaged, and finally the whole valley of the Dnieper fell a prey to the marauding tribes of the steppe.
The central zone includes Hejaz (or Hijaz), Nejd and El Hasa; much of it is a dry, stony or sandy steppe, with few wells or watering-places, and only occupied by nomad tribes; but the great wadis which intersect it contain many fertile stretches of alluvial soil, where cultivation is possible and which support a considerable settled population, with several large towns and numerous villages.
The greater portion of this region is an open steppe, sandy in places and in others dotted with low volcanic hills, but with occasional ground water and in favourable seasons furnishing support for a considerable pastoral population.
West of Abu Dhabi a low flat steppe with no settled inhabitants extends up to the Katr peninsula, merging on the north into the saline marshes which border the Persian Gulf, and on the south into the desert.
The latter were indubitably the Ugrian nomads of the steppe, akin to the Tatar invaders of Europe, who filled the armies and convoyed the caravans of the ruling caste.
Amidst this white race of the steppe the Khazars can be first historically distinguished at the end of the 2nd century A.D.
The pressure of the nomads of the steppe, the quest of plunder or revenge, these seem the only motives of these early expeditions; but in the long struggle between the Roman and Persian empires, of which Armenia was often the battlefield, and eventually the prize, the attitude of the Khazars assumed political importance.
Famous as the one stone structure is in that stoneless region, the post became known far and wide amongst the hordes of the steppe as Sar-kel or the White Abode.
The eastern stream dies away in the sandy steppe about 25 miles from the Caspian, though it is said sometimes to reach the Kuma through the Huiduk, a tributary of the Kuma.
The range has not so many offshoots as occur on the west side of Lebanon; under its precipitous slopes stretch table-lands and broad plateaus, which, especially on the east side looking towards the steppe, steadily increase in width.
The plateau is partly grass land without bush and forest, partly steppe covered with mimosa bush, which sometimes is almost impenetrable.
Of birds there are comparatively few on the steppe, but by rivers, lakes and swamps they are found in thousands.
Mushketov, the Kalmuck Steppe must be divided into two parts, western and eastern.
The steppe has an estimated population of 130,000 persons, living in over 27,700 kibitkas, or felt tents.
Researches in the Kalmyk Steppe in X884188 5 (St Petersburg, 1894, in Russian); Kostenkov's works (1868-1870); and other works quoted in Semenov's Geogr.
Again, it should have been the first duty of the Republic adequately to fortify the dzikie pola, or "savage steppe," as the vast plain was called which extended from Kiev to the Black Sea, and some feeble attempts to do so were at last made.
At the beginning of the 16th century the illimitable steppe of south-eastern Europe, extending from the Dnieper to the Urals, had no settled population.
The steppe for miles around was strewn with corpses, and the Cossacks are said to have reaped io,000,000 guldens worth of booty when the fight was over.
The most interesting poem of Bogdan Zaleski is his "Spirit of the Steppe" (Duch od stepu).
It has in the east the Karnap-chul steppe, covered with grass in early summer, and in the north an intrusion of the Kara-kum sand desert.
So when the hot sandstorms blow in the lower steppe the scorching heat is carried right up to the foot of the mountains.
Having also succeeded in detaching part of the Shammar under Shlosh, he told the `Anaza he no longer needed their help. In the futile attempt of the three parties to dislodge the `Anaza Shlosh lost his life; but with the help of the Zubeid the other two succeeded, and Sufug was now supreme "King of the Steppe," levying blackmail as he pleased.
Ferhan and the South Shammar claimed the steppe south-east of a line from Mosul to Mayadin (just below Karl isiya), and Faris and the North Shammar the north-west.
The normal Castilian landscape is an arid and sterile steppe, with scarcely a tree or spring of water; and many even of the villages afford no relief to the eye, for they are built of sunburnt unbaked bricks, which share the dusty brownish-grey tint of the soil.
In summer, indeed, the vast expanse is little better than an arid steppe; but in the winter it furnishes abundant pasture to flocks of sheep from the Apennines and herds of silver-grey oxen and shaggy black horses, and sheep passing in the summer to the mountain pastures.
From the latitude of Bagdad northward the region between the two rivers is an arid, waterless, limestone steppe, inhabited only by roving Arabs.
The bordering regions, moreover, are as varied in character as is the country itself - sea to the west, a mountainous and sandy desert to the south, a lofty steppe plateau to the east, and the great masses of Lebanon to the north.
It is a wide steppe region which (though it contains many remains of ancient towns and settlements, and was evidently at one time a terri tory of great importance) is now almost entirely inhabited by nomads.
As we approach inner Persia the flora rapidly makes place to steppe vegetation in the plains, while the mediterranean flora predominates in the hills.
The steppe vegetation extends in the south to the outer range of the hills which separate inner Persia from the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
In inner Persia the hills and plains are bare of trees, and steppe and desert predominate.
Originally a part of the Turanian steppe belonged to the Arsacids; it was the starting-point of their power.
The Yarkand-Darya and its numerous tributaries, which are fed by the glaciers of the mountain regions, as also many rivers which are now lost in the steppe or amidst the irrigated fields, bring abundance of water to the desert; one of them is called Zarafshan ("gold-strewing"), as much on account of the fertility it brings as of its auriferous sands.
In the first part of its course, which may be said to end at Dorogobuzh, it flows through an undulating country of Carboniferous formation; in the second it passes west to Orsha, south through the fertile plain of Chernigov and Kiev, and then southeast across the rocky steppe of the Ukraine to Ekaterinoslay.
The steppe flora penetrates into the mountains, ascending some 1100-1200 ft., and in sheltered valleys even up to 5500 ft., when it of course comes into contact with the purely alpine flora.
It is the chief centre for the supply of agricultural machinery to the steppe governments of southeastern Russia.
Agriculture is spreading but slowly among them; they still prefer to plunder the stores of bulbs of Lilium Martagon, Paeonia, and Erythronium Dens canis laid up by the steppe mouse (Mus socialis).
The passes lie at relatively great altitudes and are few in number, so that although the northern versants of the various ranges all have a tolerably gentle slope, communication between the Black Sea and the valley of the Kuban, and the low steppe country beyond, is the reverse of easy.
It is divided into three zones - steppe, forest and alpine.
Moldavia and the Baragan Steppe resemble the Russian prairies in their variety of molluscs and the lower kinds of mammals.
The southern Dobrudja and the Baragan Steppe, with the mountain pastures of Argeh, Buzeu, Dimbovitza, Muscel and Prahova, are occupied by large sheep-runs; 1200 farms were created in the Baragan by the Land Act of 1889.
Having an open steppe behind it, this fort was often destroyed by the Tatars.
There is the Famine steppe (Bekpak-dala), while in the Ak-kum steppe, which surrounds Lake Karakul, large areas consist of nothing but sands, partly shifting.