[Khan], the title of a Tartar sovereign or prince; also an Eastern inn or caravansary.
[Khandesh], a district of Bombay in the valley of the Tapti; a great cotton-growing centre; Dhulia, the capital.
[Kharkoff] (194), important town in Little Russia, 350 m. NE. of Odessa; has immense horse and wool fairs, and manufactures sugar, soap, felt, and iron; it is a Greek bishopric, a university seat, and has various schools of learning.
[Khartoum] (60), a caravan depôt in the Soudan, just above the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, 1100 m. S. of Cairo; was an active slave-trade centre, and commercially important; was captured by the Mahdists in 1885, when General Gordon fell; retaken by Lord Kitchener in 1898; lately has been superseded by Omdurman on the opposite bank of the Nile.
[Khatmandu] (50), the capital of Nepal, India, at the confluence of the Baghmati and Vishnumati Rivers, 60 m. N. of the British frontier; is the centre of a considerable trade.
[Khedive], the official title of the Viceroy of Egypt since 1867, the first to hold it being Ismail, the son of [Ibrahim Pasha] (q. v.), by grant of the Sultan, his suzerain.
[Kherson] (62), on the Dnieper, 19 m. from the sea and 60 m. E. of Odessa; capital of the Russian government of Kherson; has been surpassed in importance by Odessa; its trade is in timber, and industries are soap-making, brewing, and wool-cleansing.
[Khingans, The], a range of volcanic mountains on the E. of the desert of Gobi.
[Khiva] (500), a Turkestan province or khanate in Central Asia, S. of the Sea of Aral; is under Russian protection since 1873; a sandy desert with many oases, and in some parts well irrigated from the Oxus; it produces wheat, rice, cotton, and fruit; climate subject to extremes. Khiva, the capital (20), on a canal connected with the Amu, some distance from the left bank of the Oxus, and 300 m. NW. of Merv, is a town of earth huts; it was at one time one of the chief slave-markets in Asia till the traffic was put a stop to by Russia.
[Khorassan], the largest province of Persia; is on the Afghan border, mountainous, and fertile only in the N. among the valleys of the Elburz range; grain, tobacco, and medicinal plants are grown; gold and silver, turquoises, and other gems found. The capital is Meshed (50), a sacred Moslem city, with carpet, jewellery, and silk manufactures.