19th Geographical fact - about our World

1. Lesotho, Vatican City, and San Marino are the only countries completely surrounded by one other country. Lesotho is completely surrounded by South Africa, and Vatican City and San Marino are both completely surrounded by Italy.

longest village name in the world (Pic Credit)

2. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll llantysiliogogogoch is the longest village name in the world (and third longest geographical name). it is located in Wales, and yes there are four l’s in a row!

3. While other continents cover a maximum of one and a half hemispheres, Africa covers the northern, southern, eastern and western hemispheres.

Sargasso Sea (pic Credit)

4. Located in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, the Sargasso Sea has the Gulf Stream in the west, North Atlantic Current in the north, Canary Current in the east and the North Atlantic Equatorial Current in the south. Therefore, no coastline.

5. . The deepest hole ever drilled by man is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, in Russia. It reached a depth of 12,261 meters (about 40,226 feet or 7.62 miles). It was drilled for scientific research and gave up some unexpected discoveries, one of which was a huge deposit of hydrogen – so massive that the mud coming from the hole was “boiling” with it. The borehole is pictured above.

6. . In 1811 and 1812, three earthquakes measuring around 8 on the Richter scale, caused the Mississippi River to flow backward. These earthquakes also created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee.

7. With Kangchenjunga and Mount Everest to boast about, the Himalayas have the most number of highest peaks in the world.

8. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the Longest mountain chain on earth (at 40 thousand kilometers). It is located along the middle of the Atlantic. Iceland is the only part of this chain that is above water. The Andes form the longest exposed mountain range at 7,000 kilometers.

9. . Glaciers store between 70% and 80% of all the freshwater on the planet. 99% of those glaciers are in the Arctic and Antarctic.

10. An island country located in the Pacific Ocean, Nauru although bigger than Vatican City has no official capital. It does however have its government offices in Yaren.

11. The Shortest place name is ‘Å’ it is located in both Sweden and Norway. In Scandinavian languages, ‘Å’ means “river”. The image above is one of the newly replaces road signs for the area – they are frequently stolen for their novelty value.

12. The hottest temperature recorded on earth is El Azizia Libya at 136 F, the coldest was -134 degrees fahrenheit in Vostok Antarctica. The hottest average temp is in western Australia, it is 96 degrees year round on average.

13. The Vatican city is the smallest country in the world at only .2 square miles. That is smaller than the average city! The largest country is (surprise surprise) Russia.

14. When it comes to being the highest (in terms of sea level), Everest is the reigning champion. But, thanks to a weird bulge near the equator, Chimborazo in Ecuador is the closest to the moon.

15. Mount Circeo on Cape Circaeum on the western coast of Italy was once called Aeaea (5 vowels in a row with no consonants). It was believed in mythology to be the home of the witch Circe. Two other vowel-only geographic locations are the town of Aiea in Hawaii, and Eiao – one of the Marquise Islands.

16. Alaska is the most Northern, Eastern, AND Western state in all of America. It is the only state that enters the “Eastern Hemisphere” making it also the most eastern lying and western lying state.

17. The Bering Strait joins part of Russia and Alaska with two islands - Big Diomede and Little Diomede. Big Diomede belongs to Russia, while the little one belongs to the USA. The distance between them can be crossed in a span of a few hours.  

18. San Marino claims to be the world’s oldest constitutional republic – it was founded in 301 by a Christian stonemason fleeing persecution under Emperor Diocletian. Its constitution of 1600 is the oldest written constitution in the world. 

19. The largest city in the world – based on surface area, is Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia which is 263,953 km squared.

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