Geography — Page 3
Wonders of our planet
127 facts
The Sahara Desert was once green and had giant lakes about 10,000 years ago.
About 10,000 years ago, the Sahara was a savannah with lakes, rivers and abundant vegetation. The period, known as…
La Rinconada, in Peru, is the highest permanent settlement in the world.
La Rinconada is at an altitude of about 5,100 metres, in the Peruvian Andes, near a gold mine. About 50,000 people…
Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world's highest waterfall.
Angel Falls, in Venezuela, has a total height of 979 metres, of which 807 metres are an uninterrupted drop. It is the…
The Dead Sea is the lowest point of dry land on the planet.
The Dead Sea is located about 430 metres below sea level, on the border between Israel and Jordan. It is also one of…
The Pacific Ocean is shrinking by a few centimetres per year.
The Pacific Ocean is shrinking by a few centimetres per year due to the movement of tectonic plates. The Pacific and…
The Bahamas are made up of more than 700 islands.
The Bahamas archipelago is made up of about 700 islands and more than 2,000 cays. Only about 30 islands are…
Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt.
Sudan has about 200 to 255 pyramids, built by the Kingdom of Kush at Meroë, while Egypt has about 138. The Sudanese…
Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, with about 0.44 square kilometres.
Vatican City has an area of just 0.44 square kilometres, making it the smallest country in the world. The population…
Bolivia has a navy, despite having no sea coast.
Bolivia lost its access to the sea to Chile in 1884, during the War of the Pacific. It still maintains a navy of…
Alaska is both the easternmost and westernmost state in the United States at the same time.
Alaska s Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian, which marks the international date line. That is why Alaska is…
Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world.
Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia, is at an altitude of 3,812 metres and is the highest navigable lake in the…
Lake Baikal contains about 20 percent of the planet's liquid fresh water.
Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is the deepest lake in the world, at 1,642 metres. It contains about 23,000 cubic kilometres…
La Paz, Bolivia, is the highest capital in the world.
La Paz is at an altitude of about 3,640 metres, making it the highest administrative capital in the world. Although…
Hawaii is the southernmost state in the United States.
Hawaii is the southernmost state in the United States. It stretches for 2,400 kilometres in the Pacific and is the…
Sweden has more than 267,000 islands.
Sweden has more than 267,000 registered islands, the highest number in the world. Most are small and uninhabited, but…
The deepest hole ever drilled by humans is in Russia and is about 12 kilometres deep.
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, on the Kola Peninsula in Russia, was drilled between 1970 and 1989 and reached about…
On the island of Socotra there are trees that bleed when cut.
The Dracaena cinnabari, or dragon's blood tree, is native to the island of Socotra, in Yemen. When the bark is cut…
The Richat Structure in Mauritania is visible from space and looks like a giant eye.
The Richat Structure, also known as the Eye of the Sahara, is a circular geological formation about 40 kilometres in…
Svalbard is the northernmost inhabited place in the world.
Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, about 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole. Its main town…
The Nile is one of the two longest rivers in the world.
The Nile, which crosses northeastern Africa, is about 6,650 kilometres long and disputes with the Amazon the title of…
Dust storms on Mars can cover the entire planet.
Dust storms on Mars can grow to cover the entire planet, lasting weeks or even months. In 2018, one such storm ended…
Greenland is the largest island in the world, but it is not a continent.
Greenland is the largest island in the world, with about 2.2 million square kilometres. Despite its size, it is…
Russia has a larger surface area than the planet Pluto.
The surface area of Russia is about seventeen million square kilometers, while the surface area of Pluto is only…
Liechtenstein abolished its army in 1868 because it was too expensive to maintain, and has never had armed forces since.
The last time it sent troops in 1866, the tiny country sent eighty soldiers and returned eighty-one, as they…
