What is "xanadu"

Mongol city founded by Kublai Khan, 1620s, anglicized form of Shang-tu. Sense of "dream place of magnificence and luxury" derives from Coleridge's poem (1816).

n. The summer capital of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kublai%20Khan's empire

Xanadu is a 1980 American romantic musical fantasy film written by Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the nightclub in the film, which takes its name from Xanadu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China. This city appears in Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poem that is quoted in the film. The film's plot was inspired by 1947's Down to Earth.

Xanadu stars Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck, and Gene Kelly, and features music by Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Cliff Richard, and The Tubes. The film also features animation by Don Bluth.

A box office flop, Xanadu earned mixed to negative critical reviews and was an inspiration for the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year. Despite the lacklustre performance of the film, the soundtrack album became a huge commercial success around the world, and was certified double platinum in the United States. The song " Magic" was a U.S. number one hit for Newton-John, and the title track (by Newton-John and ELO) reached number one in the UK and several other countries around the world.

Xanadu (often called "Xanadu Region" , though this is not its official name) is a highly reflective area on the leading hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan. Its name comes from an alternate transcription of Shangdu, the summer capital of the Yuan Dynasty established by Kublai Khan and made famous by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The feature was first identified in 1994 by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope at infrared wavelengths, and has recently been imaged in more detail by the Cassini space probe. Xanadu is about the size of Australia. Preliminary observations indicate that Xanadu is a plateau-like region of highly reflective water ice, contrasting somewhat with the darker lower regions. These in turn seem to contrast quite sharply with the very dark maria, which were once believed to be seas of liquid hydrocarbons, but are now thought to be plains.

Recent images by Cassini during encounters in October and December 2004 reveal complex albedo patterns in the western portion of Xanadu. While scientists are still debating the significance and cause of the albedo patterns, one likely culprit is tectonism. Evidence for this exists in a pattern of criss-crossing dark lineaments near the western side of Xanadu. Scientists are also investigating the boundary between Xanadu and Shangri-la, a dark region to the west. The shape of the boundary suggests that the dark material embays the bright terrain.

Radar images taken by Cassini have revealed dunes, hills, rivers and valleys present on Xanadu. The features are likely carved in water ice by liquid methane or ethane. Water ice behaves similarly to rock at the pressures and temperatures present on Titan's surface.

Xanadu may refer to:

• Xanadu, China or Shangdu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan empire
• " Kubla Khan", a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which popularised the name Xanadu for Shangdu

Xanadu is the soundtrack of the 1980 musical film of the same name, featuring the Australian singer Olivia Newton-John and the British group Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).

The original LP release featured on side one the songs of Newton-John, and on side two the songs of ELO. In 2008 the soundtrack album was digitally remastered as a bonus CD as part of the film's DVD release entitled Xanadu - Magical Musical Edition.

Although the film was a critical and commercial disappointment, the soundtrack was a worldwide success and received positive reviews from music critics going double platinum in the US and Canada. The hit singles " Magic" and " Xanadu", peaked at number one in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively. Both singles also went to number one in the Netherlands and Italy, respectively. It was the 5th most popular US soundtrack in 1981.

Xanadu is the fictional estate of Charles Foster Kane, the title character of the film Citizen Kane (1941). The estate derives its name from the ancient city of Xanadu, known for its splendor. Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, is the obvious inspiration for Xanadu, due to the Hearst/Kane comparison that is central to the film.

Xanadu is a song by Canadian rock band Rush from their 1977 album A Farewell to Kings. It is approximately eleven minutes long, beginning with a five-minute-long instrumental section, then transitioning to a narrative written by Neil Peart, inspired by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan.

Xanadu (1981) is Menudo's eighth Spanish album and the second one released in 1981 featuring René Farrait, Johnny Lozada, Ricky Meléndez, Xavier Serbiá and Miguel Cancel. On this album, half of the songs were previously featured on past albums and re-recorded with this new line up; the other half of the songs are from other English speaking groups that were big hits in the late 70s and early 80s, translated into Spanish.

"Xanadu" is the title song from the soundtrack album Xanadu, and is the title song from the 1980 film of the same name. A rare collaboration for ELO, the song is performed by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and Olivia Newton-John. Newton-John sings the primary vocals, with ELO ( Jeff Lynne) adding "parenthetic" vocals in the style of their other songs on the Xanadu soundtrack, along with providing the instrumentation.

The single reached number 1 in several countries, and was the band's only UK number 1 single, when it peaked there for two weeks in July 1980. The song peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.

Xanadu is a musical comedy with a book by Douglas Carter Beane and music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar, based on the 1980 cult classic film of the same name, which was, in turn, inspired by the 1947 Rita Hayworth film Down to Earth, a sequel to the 1941 movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which was an adaptation of the play Heaven Can Wait by Harry Segall. The title is a reference to the poem Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province where Khan establishes his pleasure garden in the poem.

The musical opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran for over 500 performances. It earned an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and a Drama Desk Award for Best Book. It was also nominated for Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book. The US Tour officially began on December 15, 2009, in the Orange County Performing Arts Center. A Korean production has opened, and a national tour and several foreign productions are planned.

, also known as Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II, is an action role-playing game developed by Nihon Falcom and released in for the PC-8801, X1, PC-8001, PC-9801, FM-7 and MSX computers. Enhanced remakes were later released for the Sega Saturn, PC-9801 and Windows platforms. It is the second in the Dragon Slayer series, preceded by Dragon Slayer and followed by Dragon Slayer Jr: Romancia, which, as most games in the Dragon Slayer series, have very little relation with each other.

Xanadu is notable for several reasons, including its sales record for computer games in Japan with over 400,000 copies sold there in 1985. It was also one of the foundations of the RPG genre, particularly the action RPG subgenre, featuring real-time action combat combined with full-fledged character statistics, innovative gameplay systems such as the Karma meter and individual experience for equipped items, and platform game elements combined with the dungeon crawl gameplay of its predecessor. It also had towns to explore and introduced equipment that change the player character's visible appearance, food that is consumed slowly over time and essential for keeping the player character alive, and magic used to attack enemies from a distance. The following year saw the release of Xanadu Scenario II, an early example of an expansion pack.