Content tagged with “geography” under “The Interesting List”

“ There’s a unique architecture to keeping the South Pole research station running. ”

“ A photo gallery of ad hoc graves found in the American desert. ”

“ A settlement in Antarctica is so remote and isolated, that you can’t still have your appendix and live there because the nearest hospital is so hard to get to that a burst appendix will kill you. ”

“ Prevailing winds and historical poor sanitation have caused the east side of cities to be generally less wealthy than the west sides. ”

“ Of the coast of Brazil is a small island which has evolved to become the home of one the most venomous snakes in the world. One bite will cause you to ‘die screaming,’ and there are thousands of them on the island, preying on migrating birds. ”

“ Swiss mapmakers have an odd habit of hiding secret images in maps, for no particular reason. ”

“ A group of Wikipedia editors broke off, and the reasons why give an interesting look into how Wikipedia works, and how different people and subjects can come into conflict. ”

“ There are ‘bar codes’ printed on the ground in multiple places around the United States, used to calibrate spy satellites. ”

“ Maps throughout history show how a 100-million year old coastline predicts voting demographics in modern-day Alabama. ”

“ Russia would absolutely love an independent Scotland, because its withdrawal from the NATO has a shockingly large impact on world security and the world’s economy. ”

“ A remote town in Alaska is only accessible via a single tunnel, and the entire population lives, learns, worships, and socializes in a single high-rise apartment building. ”

“ An artist has finally revealed a massive sculpture he spent half a century working on. ”

“ There’s actually a lot of information embedded an interstate highway’s number. ”

“ The title gets fact-checked, but is mostly true: the vast majority of the population of the world will experience sunlight at the same time during a 1-minute period every July 8. ”

“ A journalist finds some strange circles on Google Maps. He goes down a research rabbit hole which culminates with adventurers driving out into the middle of nowhere, digging up dynamite, and bringing home sardine cans. ”

“ Climate change has opened year-round shipping lanes along Russia’s northern coast. This will dramatically affect both Russia’s and the world’s economy and geopolitical balance. ”

“ The world’s shortest scheduled commercial flight lasts 1 minute, 20 seconds and flies at 350 feet. ”

“ There is an area of the Sahara desert that no country will claim because it would require affirming a border which would exclude more valuable land. So it belongs to no one. ”

“ An island belonging to Alaska is so far to the west that it’s technically…east. ”

“ A 3D visualization of the depth of the oceans. ”

“ Most Canadians live south of the northern border of the United States. The Canadian population is wildly undistributed. ”

“ A sizable city in Siberia is the coldest place in the world, with winter temps dipping to -90F. This is how they survive. ”

“ There’s a ridiculous ultra-marathon that goes through the Sahara. In 1994, an Italian competitor got lost in the desert for 11 days. ”

“ Where the ‘summit’ lies on a tall mountain is a matter of debate. Consequently, many people think they’ve climbed to the top, but haven’t really. ”

“ Twice a week, a van makes a 16-hour, 500-mile drive from Fairbanks, Alaska, north to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. ”

“ There’s a ‘wet spot’ in the California desert that started slowly moving in 2016, and no one knows why. It’s wiggling under highways, train tracks, and other infrastructure, which causes problems. ”

“ Over a hundred years ago, Chinese immigrants settled in the Mississippi Delta. Their descendants still live in the Deep South. ”

“ In 1977, a German tourist accidentally de-planed in Bangor, Maine, and spent three days thinking he was in San Francisco. When the truth was discovered, he become a brief sensation. ”

“ When geographic coordinates are empty – ‘0,0’ or ‘null’ – mapping databases use a fake placename called ‘Null Island’ to represent the thing that is not there. ”

“ Hardly anyone lives in a big chunk of the United States, and that pattern is true for most countries. Where cities historically started and thrived comes down to geography and water. ”

“ There are places where the original wagon wheel ruts from covered wagons in the late 1800s have remained undisturbed and are still visible. ”

“ A lonely stretch of railroad cuts hundreds of miles through the Sahara desert, taking iron ore from interior mines to the coast. ”

“ The longest contiguous train ride in the world is from Porto, Portugal to Saigon, Vietnam. Unsurprisingly, it takes a long time, and costs a lot of money. ”

“ A documentary on how climate change is slowly sinking the Marshall Islands and how that population might be reestablished in the American South. ”

“ An interesting meditation on spelunking and how that morphed into a ground-breaking computer game. ”

“ Satellite and photo analysis shows the ship that brought the explosive chemicals to Beirut sank, just across the harbor, where it still lies. ”

“ Ultimately, climate change is a migration problem. Humanity can survive it, but lots of people are going to have to move, and that causes other problems. ”

“ An ordered listing of countries by actual landmass, not simply perceived size, which is affected by mapping distortions. ”

“ A look at the occasionally ridiculous ways that countries will split islands, which sometimes just comes down to spite and national pride. ”

“ If climate change continues as projected, humanity can survive, but most of the world will have to move. Also, Russia and Canada will be in charge. ”

“ There are seven countries ending in the suffix ‘-stan’ and they all share borders. What would happen if they all became one country? ”

“ A vehicle was designed to move scientists around Antarctica in the 1930s. It performed poorly, was abandoned, re-discovered in the 50s, re-abandoned, and might now be floating around the South Pacific, encased in an iceberg. ”

“ A full-length documentary about the establishment of an airport and commercial air service on the remote island of St. Helena. ”

“ The story behind a viral photo of climbers waiting to summit Everest earlier this year. Multiple people died, and questions are being asked about the future of climbing the mountain. ”

“ This short video of a landing at Gibraltar International Airport shows the only way a tiny, narrow country can fit an airport runway – by bisecting an active city street, at which cars have to wait for the landing plane to cross (at 0:43 in the video). ”

“ A 2013 story about poverty in Appalachia. The author is a conservative, but he concedes that there are no easy solutions to what happens in the back woods. Hauntingly well-written. ”