To make this feature more useful, Emacs remembers 16 previous locations of the mark in the mark ring . Most commands that operate on the text in the region have the word region in their names. This command sets the mark where point is. You can then move point away, leaving the mark behind. Since terminals have only one cursor, Emacs cannot show you where the mark is located.
Most people use the mark soon after they set it, before they forget where it is.
The extent of the region is unchanged, but the cursor and point are now at the previous location of the mark. Another way to set the mark is to push the mark to the beginning of a buffer while leaving point at its original location. It pushes the mark to the end of the buffer, leaving point alone. If you are using XEmacs under the X window system, you can set the variable zmacs-regions to t . See section Active Regions for more information.