My favorite one is that the northernmost point of Brazil is closer to every country in the Americas (along with Cabo Verde) than it is to the southernmost point of Brazil
Coolangatta Airport doesn't just cross a state border. Half the year it's in two different timezones. An absolute nightmare for people trying to catch flights!
Related to that last fact: if you draw the line of latitude at the southernmost point of Canada, obviously all of Canada is north of that line, but in fact there are more people living the the USA north of that line than the entire population of Canada.
Similarly, Greenland reaches further north, south, east, and west than Iceland. The same is true of Norway for Finland, of Italy for Slovenia, of China for Mongolia...
@@OznejSame with The Vatican and Italy! 😂😂 After reading this though I am trying to think of some more non-trivial answers… I wonder if Sumatra reaches farther than Borneo? Because then Indonesia would be farther north, south, east and west than Malaysia.
@@crazydog1750It unfortunately isn't. All it would take for Indonesia to reach further north, south, west and east of Malaysia would be to acquire the Nicobar Islands from India.
Back in the 1970s, the UK weather maps was aligned to have the south of England horizontal. This deviation from the N/S orientation many maps present has twisted the perception of locations in the UK.
My dad and I have been collecting these for years. I think our best ones are: * Marseille is south of Florence * Miami is west of Lima (or -- same underlying misintuition -- Boston is west of Santiago) * Prague is west of Vienna * Málaga is south of Tunis * Venice is west of Palermo And here's a trivia question: what's the closest US state to Baghdad?
@@mikespearwood3914 Yep, it's Alaska. I made some pictures to prove it, but it turns out I can't link to them, here. Basically, it's a shorter distance over the North Pole to the northernmost point of Alaska than it is across the Atlantic to the easternmost tip of Maine. It's one of those counterintuitive facts that come from our map-befuddled understanding of the world being 3-dimensional. See also: Sydney is closer to Reykjavik than it is to London... it took a globe and a piece of string to convince my daughter of that one.
There's also the one where the both the easternmost and westernmost points within the USA (not including territories) are both in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, where the westernmost Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian.
I always got a kick out of that 'Panama Canal Fact'... and unreasonably pleased with myself for having independently noticed this! (I was even going to point it out myself, had you not done so!) Few things I like better than browsing through atlases and maps for no particular reason -- just, 'because... '
I really enjoyed your video and it is so refreshing to hear a familiar Australian accent!. I live in Lavington, NSW, a suburb if Albury. There is an unnamed island in the Murray River near here which is in Victoria which can only be accessed from NSW. There may well be others along the river, but the one I'm talking about, but there are several farms on this one. I have search for this island's name, but so far have been unsuccessful.
If you happen to track down a historical record of what its name is you should submit it to the NSW gazette! I check out new locality naming proposals here in QLD occasionally when I'm bored and often see otherwise ignored geographical features finally recognised after centuries of having no formal name in the eyes of the law. There could be an Indigenous name for it recorded somewhere as well if it turns out the colonial one is lost to time.
Europe is generally very north compared to the rest of the world thanks to the gulf stream. Stockholm for example is on the same latitude as mostly uninhabited wasteland in Canada
Campobello Island is only accessible for part of the year via the bridge from Lubec in Maine. When weather permits there are ferries to other parts of Nova Scotia. The North-west Angle of Minnesota is only accessible via the road through Manitoba.
@@HweolRidda My apologies. New Brunswick. And is Google Maps incorrect now in showing a ferry to Deer Island and thence by ferry to the mainland? I presume that the Deer Island Ferry is/was seasonal?
Something about the US state borders, if they are a straight line, they are almost always, maybe even always, either on a parallel (42nd parallel for example) or half of a parallel(36th and a half parallel for example).
My fav one is the one I learnt about on a deployment to one of Australia's most remote territories - the Cocos-Keeling Islands. It is closer to Sri Lanka than it is to Perth while remaining (in some degree) part of WA.
Yeah... Here's the thing, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (not Cocos-Keeling) is NOT part of WA. It is its own territory with its own flag and own capital being West Island. And it's represented in the House of Representatives through the Division of Lingiari in the Northern Territory.
I'm so glad I found you today. Howdy from Texas. I love geography facts. Not that I'm good at geography. I'm not. That's why I like learning about it. I subscribed. It looks like I have many videos to catch up on.
If you zoom in and follow the Mississippi River you’ll find quite a few weird cases. Mostly due to the River changing course since the border was defined. A lot of one state owning land across the river only bordering another state by land. A big one is the Kentucky Bend. It’s surrounded on most sides by Missouri, to its south is its only land border, which is with Tennessee, and it has no connection to Kentucky proper, even over river.
My favorite quirk with the Mississippi is that it has changed course so aggressively that at one section (south of Davis Island, SW of Vicksburg, MS), the river actually flows the opposite direction as it did when the border was drawn, for a length of about 3 miles.
A fun fact like this about my native Finland that I like to throw around is the question of "What is the largest port east of Helsinki in Finland". The answer is Oulu, but this really doesn't fit the mental map of the country most Finns have.
The northern most islands of Australia Bramble Cay (uninhabited) and Boigu Island (inhabited) are north of both Port Moresby the capital of PNG and Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. Another interesting fact is that the eastern border of South Australia is aligned with majority of the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia at 141° East
I've just looked this up. Awesome! But, I find it so strange when a country owns islands right next to the mainland of neighbouring countries. For example, the UK owning the channel islands next to France or Greece owning Rhodes which is right next to Turkey.
It is shorter to fly from the East Coast of Australia (Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne) to San Francisco than to Los Angeles (by about 100-200km depending on which city) You think it is the other way due to LA being that much further south, not thinking Sam Fran being that further west make any difference - but I guess it does! Lol
The Coolangata airport (officially called "Gold Coast Airport") had trouble during Covid - when Queensland decided to open it they had trouble because half the employees are from NSW, which was locked down. I don't have more details on how they dealt with it.
4:25 reminds me of a river near my house which crosses into my county, and then about 100ft further downstream it crosses back into the neighboring county.
I have 2 favorite geography facts: St martin is an island so nice they named it thrice And The city of london is a city in a city in a country in a country
4:30 - I'm sure its far from being the only river like this, but the Mississippi River in the US has a bunch of places where state lines were drawn along the river, and as the course of the river has changed over the last, say 150 years, the borders no longer reflect the location of the river. I'm specifically thinking of the Tennessee/Arkansas border north of Memphis where there's big pockets (several miles long and/or wide) that are actually on the other side of the current river.
New South Wales has the longest land border of all the Aussie states and territories. It adjoins Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory, making a total of 4 635 kilometres.
Cool facts! Thanks NSW is north of the Murray River. Vic. is South of the Murray River. But the Barmah Hotel, in Victoria, is the only hotel north of the Murray River. Broken Hill, which is in NSW, actually runs on the SA time zone.
There was also a small pocket of NSW that was inaccessible from NSW but accessible from the ACT like your SA / Victoria pocket. However the ACT is going to purchase the land from NSW and redraw the border to expand a housing estate in the ACT.
A few hundred metres east of the southern end of Coolangatta airport is a gated community called Kirra Shores. The only car entrance is at the intersection of Appel St and Binya Ave, which is in Qld, though all the property is in NSW. A few of the houses on the edge have private personal gates through the fence, but cars can only exit by going to another state.
Norway is the number one country in terms of distance between undisputed northern and southern territory. Norway has both Svalbard and Bouvet Island, which spans 135.4 degrees. Including the Antarctic claim, that becomes a whopping 171 degrees. Second is the UK at 111.7 degrees from the Shetland Islands to the Falkland Islands (including the british antarctic claim: 120 degrees) Third is France at 100.3 degrees from Northern France to the Kerguelen Islands (including the french antarctic claim: 101 degrees) Only considering inhabited territory, France remains quite high at 72.1 degrees (northern France to Reunion), but Chile beats it with 73.4 degrees (all mainland territory!). Then there's Australia at 54.5 (Bamaga to Cockle Creek, Tasmania), the US at 52.2 (Utqiaġvik/Barrow, Alaska to Naalehu, Hawaii), Brazil at 38.3 (Uiramutã to Chuí), and so on. Norway falls down to only 20.3 degrees (Svalbard to Mandal) and the UK is a measly 10.1 (Shetland Islands to Isles of Scilly). Also, Norway's mainland goes from being as far west as Amsterdam to being as far east as Antalya, Turkey. Many people think of Norway as this tiny vertical country at the top of the map but it's got some serious geographical flexes.
The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador mostly borders Quebec, but it also shares a tiny land border with the territory of Nunavut, on Killiniq Island, just north of Cape Chidley, the northernmost mainland part of Labrador.
There is a part of NSW that is also isolated by a river and the ACT border. As Canberra grows, this area is proposed to become a residential area and has become subject to discussions about a potential border shift.
My favourite Australian one is that Tasmania shares a common border with Victoria. Apparently, there is a small island between Tasmania and Victoria that is jointly owned by the two states - hence they have a border!
I was not surprised by Edinburgh and Bristol. Quite a number of years ago, the British weather maps were not aligned North-South, but with the south coast of England positioned horizontally. Not sure when the map became N/S aligned, but it was at that point I started checking out the long, lat of places. It felt very weird, as if I had been lied to all my life.
there's also a part in the USA called Point Roberts, that's in the northwest separated from the rest of the USA, and kids in high school have to travel in Canada, then back into the USA that's not separated just to go to high school.
For the river-border intersections, there is another in Australia! Along the north-western border between NSW and ACT, there is a suburb-sized region which is closed off from the rest of NSW by the Murrumbidgee River and Ginniderra Creek. My personal favourite facts are: that Harbin, China (famous for its ice festivals and generally being very cold) is at the same latitude as the northernmost point of the Mediterranean, at the town of Monfalcone, Italy, and that France shares its longest country border with Brazil, thanks to French Guyana
One of my favorite geography quirks is that New York and Rhode Island have a shared border, just it's over water. Another one is just how close some states get to each other without actually bordering. Louisiana and Oklahoma are only 49 miles apart, New Jersey is really close to both Maryland and Connecticut, Maine is really close to Vermont and Massachusetts, Texas and Colorado are only 30 miles apart, and there's a bunch of other combinations, too
In North America, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the U.S./Canada border. The library has two different addresses: 93 Caswell Avenue, Derby Line, Vermont, USA, and 1 rue Church (Church Street), Stanstead, Quebec, Canada.
If you want strange border stuff there is always Baerle-Duc and Baarle-Nassau at the Belgium and Netherlands border. And the many Spanish enclave in Morocco like Ceuta or Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and Llívia in France
The little pocket cut off by the river can also be found in my home state of Kentucky! It’s called New Madrid and it’s completely surrounded by the land of Tennessee and the Mississippi River. Another interesting fact is it’s a seismic hotspot home to one of the largest earthquakes in USA history, which caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards creating what is now Reelfoot Lake!
A fun fact to go along with the Canada/California bit is that while the 49th parallel defines the bulk of the US/Canada border, 70% of Canadians live south of it.
One of my favorites: The US state of Arkansas borders six other states (Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma); it is possible to cross from Arkansas to each of these six states while traveling directly south.
Similar to the part of South Australia that is only accessible by land from Victoria due to a river, the southwestern-most part of Kentucky is only accessible from Tennessee due to a bend in the Mississippi River.
a)Check out the lines on longitude between the Welland Canal and the Panama Canal! b)the shoreline of the Great Lakes is about 10,000 miles c) You can fit Wales into Lake Huron- twice!
There are six US state capitals, that are west of Los Angeles, CA: Sacramento, CA, Carson City, NV, Portland, OR, Olympia, WA, Juneau, AK, and Honolulu, HI.
Some cool city ones in the North America are Point Roberts, which is just weird, and there’s one city in Mexico in that little nook between California and Arizona where going in any cardinal direction ends you in the US. Also it’s always weird for me to remember that Paris is north of most of the population of Canada.
The point on the southeast corner of Queensland, on the coast at the border with New South Wales, is closer to: -every other Australian state -New Caledonia -Vanuatu -New Zealand -Papua New Guinea -and Solomon Islands than it is to Boigu Island, the furthest point from it in Queensland.
The most interesting border in Australia which not only is the shortest land border between two states but is also the only land border between Tasmania and Victoria. It is located in the Bass Strait on what is called Boundary Islet.
One of my favorites is the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of the coldest cities in the Continental United States is about the same latitude as Bordeaux, France.
In Albury Wodonga there an island in the murray River that is in Victoria, but you can only access by driving into Nsw. Must've been hard for the people living there during the border closures!
The southernmost tip of the North Island of NZ is 125 km south of the northernmost tip of the South Island. The Cook Strait ferry from the North Island (Wellington) travels North West to get to the South Island (Picton), and travels South East to get from south to north.
There is a similar point in northern Minnesota, called the northwest angle, that is completely cut off from the rest of the country by a lake. When the lake isn’t frozen over, residents have to travel either by boat or through Canada to reach the rest of the state. It is actually the most northern point of the continental US.
out of all the big west coast cities (seattle, portland, SF, Sacramento, LA) portland is simultaneously the furthest from the ocean and the furthest west of them all
One of my favourites is that Nelson, the most northerly city on the South Island of New Zealand, is the same latitude as Wellington, the most southerly city on the North Island. In fact, if you measure the centre point of each city as being their respective town halls, then Nelson is the more northerly of the two cities.
The municipal borders of the state of New Jersey form a near straight 67.5 mile long line from Hillsborough Township to Little Egg Harbor. It's the remnants of something called the Kieth Line.
The southernmost airport in Canada is closer to Atlanta Hartfield Airport than Miami Airport The flight from Melbourne to Auckland is shorter than the flight from Melbourne to Perth If you fly non-stop from Sao Paulo to Seoul (shortest route), you fly over Europe, but if you fly non-stop from Sao Paulo to Tokyo, you fly over North America. You can sail in a straight line from England to New Zealand
One that I got for you, Winnipeg the coldest provincial capitol of Canada is further south than 16 European capitols, all cities with vastly warmer climates than Winnipeg.
My favorite geography thing: out of the six extremes in the United States (highest point, lowest point land point, easternmost, westernmost, southernmost, and northernmost - and only looking at the 50 states); four of the six are in Alaska. Hawaii is southernmost, California is Lowest (Death Valley); and Alaska is north, west, east (Crosses 180, though the date line bends around the Aleutian Islands), and highest (Mount Denali).
The surprising one for me was learning that the US-Canada border, specifically the 49th Parallel portion, is not actually a straight line. At the local level it swoops around a lot because of the low tech survey equipment used at the time, but because the line cuts through a lot of forested area you can actually see the political boundary from satellite because of all the cleared away trees xD
A fact I find wild is that the most direct route from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Santiago, Chile would be to go north through Russia and the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole. It looks crazy on a Mercator projection but makes more sense when you switch it to a globe projection
To the point on the Gold Coast airport how you touch the tarmac in New South Wales first but the plane stops in Queensland, there is another interesting fact for most passengers. They nearly all live in Queensland, but when we drive to that airport, we drive down the highway from Queensland into New South Wales and back across the border into Queensland to park our cars as the highway sort of curves and loops around the border. It’s only for about 300-400 metres but it happens.
The easternmost point of Norway, is further east than Istanbul. It just stretches out so much towards the north, similar to the UK example, it's much more diagonal than at least I imagined
Here is a US one possibly not already mentioned - there is a significant area of the US, complete with several significant cities, roads, etc. where, if you head in a straight line directly along the lines of true north, south, east, and west, the next other US state you enter will be the same one state for any of the 4 directions - the SW corner of Connecticut, with the other state being New York.
The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, Italy (45.43N) is just north of the Peace Tower on the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada (45.42N). Most of Venice is north of most of Ottawa.
There are 6 states that border Arkansas in the US, and you can travel to each of them by going in a straight line south from different points in Arkansas, only crossing the border once.
I think the thing British people find difficult to wrap their heads around with Bristol/Edinburgh is that Bristol is the West Country city - it's the big city where everyone talks like the Wurzels and it's in the south west, so obviously it's further west than a city on the east coast of Scotland, right? Obviously not!
If you drive west from Toronto to Hamilton Ontario, you arrive in west Hamilton. If you Drive South from Detroit and cross the river, you arrive in Sarnia Canada. You can't drive to Point Roberts Washington without going through British Columbia Canada. It's an exclave on the southernmost tip of a peninsula south of Downtown Vancouver. You can't drive to Elm Point, Buffalo Bay Point or Angle Inlet Minnesota without going through Manitoba Canada. It's the opposite for Akwesasne Quebec as you cant drive to it without going through New York USA _and_ Ontario Canada.
I never looked at a map of the UK in detail before but I always generaliser Scotland as being more west then England and Wales given the shape of the continent so I guess I knew Edinburgh was further west
@@FlarezapOk but that still technically makes it an exclave. For the same reason that Crimea is an exclave (if you consider it part of Russia that is).
In New Zealand when traveling from the North Island to the South Island via ferry you actually spend more time traveling north to get south. Same going South to North spend more time going South
I drove to Point Pelee just so I could stand at the tip of mainland Canada. Well, you can't drive there. You drive as far south as you can and then walk. And it really does come to a point.
All those weird facts were pretty interesting. Edinburgh really got me because Britain seems quite North South but aint. BTW I thought a friend who also likes weird facts would be surprised by a Vic Tas land border but he already knew about it. Common Trivia Night question he said.
I can travel from Victoria into Sth Aust & into NSW & by going north, south, east or west. Same going from NSW into Victoria & Sth Aust. Same going from Sth Aust into Victoria and NSW. Check out the surveying error up past Mildura towards the Sth Aust border.
Spokane, Washington, which is right next to the Idaho border, is 15 minutes and 15 seconds West of San Diego, California. Spokane is also 4 minutes and 58 seconds farther North than the Northernmost part of the state of Maine.
My favorite one is that the northernmost point of Brazil is closer to every country in the Americas (along with Cabo Verde) than it is to the southernmost point of Brazil
That's actually such an awesome fact
Yeah
The longest land border France holds with another country is with Brazil
@@LilacVeritasYayyy an Enter Shikari fan🤟
Thats obvious.
Coolangatta Airport doesn't just cross a state border. Half the year it's in two different timezones. An absolute nightmare for people trying to catch flights!
Related to that last fact: if you draw the line of latitude at the southernmost point of Canada, obviously all of Canada is north of that line, but in fact there are more people living the the USA north of that line than the entire population of Canada.
Related to that last fact: a large part of the Can-USA border lies along 49°N. Of people living in Canada, more live south of that than north of it.
@@rosiefay7283 95% of people living in Canada live further south than 95% of people in the UK.
@rosiefay7283 In fact 50% live south of 45.7.
In the US, living in Detroit area and further north, you have to drive south to go to Canada.
Over half of Canada's population lives further south than Seattle
Similar to the Panama question. You actually travel south across the bridge from Detroit in USA to Windsor in Canada.
Posed a bit differently.. Detroit is a US city that is north of Canada.
Born and raised in South Detroit = Canadian
I love that Japan is further north, east, south and west from the entire Korean peninsula
Similarly, Greenland reaches further north, south, east, and west than Iceland. The same is true of Norway for Finland, of Italy for Slovenia, of China for Mongolia...
@@OznejSame with The Vatican and Italy! 😂😂
After reading this though I am trying to think of some more non-trivial answers… I wonder if Sumatra reaches farther than Borneo? Because then Indonesia would be farther north, south, east and west than Malaysia.
@@crazydog1750 yes, that's correct
@@crazydog1750It unfortunately isn't. All it would take for Indonesia to reach further north, south, west and east of Malaysia would be to acquire the Nicobar Islands from India.
@@samuelcheung4799 Dang. Well, at least it I for Brunei. And Singapore. And East Timor. Although they’re not very impressive. 🤣
As a Brit the Edinburgh thing did indeed blow my mind
Back in the 1970s, the UK weather maps was aligned to have the south of England horizontal. This deviation from the N/S orientation many maps present has twisted the perception of locations in the UK.
As someone who isn’t a Brit but still is familiar with UK cities this also blew my mind
My dad and I have been collecting these for years. I think our best ones are:
* Marseille is south of Florence
* Miami is west of Lima (or -- same underlying misintuition -- Boston is west of Santiago)
* Prague is west of Vienna
* Málaga is south of Tunis
* Venice is west of Palermo
And here's a trivia question: what's the closest US state to Baghdad?
The closest US state to Baghdad? Well, it must be an easterly one like Maine or Florida, right?
Yeah, definitely Maine
@@samuelseefeld Nope
So what is it? Hawaii or Alaska I guess?@@deepbackwardandsquare
@@mikespearwood3914 Yep, it's Alaska. I made some pictures to prove it, but it turns out I can't link to them, here. Basically, it's a shorter distance over the North Pole to the northernmost point of Alaska than it is across the Atlantic to the easternmost tip of Maine. It's one of those counterintuitive facts that come from our map-befuddled understanding of the world being 3-dimensional. See also: Sydney is closer to Reykjavik than it is to London... it took a globe and a piece of string to convince my daughter of that one.
There's also the one where the both the easternmost and westernmost points within the USA (not including territories) are both in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, where the westernmost Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian.
I always got a kick out of that 'Panama Canal Fact'... and unreasonably pleased with myself for having independently noticed this! (I was even going to point it out myself, had you not done so!) Few things I like better than browsing through atlases and maps for no particular reason -- just, 'because... '
One of my favorites: The Niagara Falls are shy south of the city of Marseille in southern France at the Mediterranean Sea.
With that exact wording, Dili of Timor Leste is the closest capital city to Darwin
I really enjoyed your video and it is so refreshing to hear a familiar Australian accent!. I live in Lavington, NSW, a suburb if Albury. There is an unnamed island in the Murray River near here which is in Victoria which can only be accessed from NSW. There may well be others along the river, but the one I'm talking about, but there are several farms on this one. I have search for this island's name, but so far have been unsuccessful.
If you happen to track down a historical record of what its name is you should submit it to the NSW gazette! I check out new locality naming proposals here in QLD occasionally when I'm bored and often see otherwise ignored geographical features finally recognised after centuries of having no formal name in the eyes of the law. There could be an Indigenous name for it recorded somewhere as well if it turns out the colonial one is lost to time.
As a Swede, it blows my mind that all of Mongolia is further south than all of Sweden.
Europe is generally very north compared to the rest of the world thanks to the gulf stream. Stockholm for example is on the same latitude as mostly uninhabited wasteland in Canada
@@smorajs A straight line from Boston, MA across the Atlantic leads you to the small Galician village of Oia in Spain.
@@smorajs Barely any of Great Britain is south of the 50th, and as someone who lives on the 43rd in Canada, that seems quite north.
As a non-Swede it is no surprise at all. Everyone knows that Sweden is seriously Northern.
That's not even a tiny bit surprising.
One that always mess with my brain is the Montreal is more south then Paris. The weather are so opposite!
Point Roberts, Washington is a great one. It's in Washington, but it's only accessible through Canada.
second this one it is really cool. Schools were actually bussing across two international borders twice a day.
Campobello Island is only accessible for part of the year via the bridge from Lubec in Maine. When weather permits there are ferries to other parts of Nova Scotia.
The North-west Angle of Minnesota is only accessible via the road through Manitoba.
Blaine, WA represent !
... Go Borderites 😂
(Yes that is actually the school mascot)
@@theoztreecrasher2647Campobello Island is not in Nova Scotia and there are no ferries going there.
@@HweolRidda My apologies. New Brunswick. And is Google Maps incorrect now in showing a ferry to Deer Island and thence by ferry to the mainland? I presume that the Deer Island Ferry is/was seasonal?
Something about the US state borders, if they are a straight line, they are almost always, maybe even always, either on a parallel (42nd parallel for example) or half of a parallel(36th and a half parallel for example).
My fav one is the one I learnt about on a deployment to one of Australia's most remote territories - the Cocos-Keeling Islands. It is closer to Sri Lanka than it is to Perth while remaining (in some degree) part of WA.
Yeah... Here's the thing, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (not Cocos-Keeling) is NOT part of WA. It is its own territory with its own flag and own capital being West Island. And it's represented in the House of Representatives through the Division of Lingiari in the Northern Territory.
I'm so glad I found you today. Howdy from Texas. I love geography facts. Not that I'm good at geography. I'm not. That's why I like learning about it. I subscribed. It looks like I have many videos to catch up on.
If you zoom in and follow the Mississippi River you’ll find quite a few weird cases. Mostly due to the River changing course since the border was defined. A lot of one state owning land across the river only bordering another state by land.
A big one is the Kentucky Bend. It’s surrounded on most sides by Missouri, to its south is its only land border, which is with Tennessee, and it has no connection to Kentucky proper, even over river.
My favorite quirk with the Mississippi is that it has changed course so aggressively that at one section (south of Davis Island, SW of Vicksburg, MS), the river actually flows the opposite direction as it did when the border was drawn, for a length of about 3 miles.
A fun fact like this about my native Finland that I like to throw around is the question of "What is the largest port east of Helsinki in Finland". The answer is Oulu, but this really doesn't fit the mental map of the country most Finns have.
The northern most islands of Australia Bramble Cay (uninhabited) and Boigu Island (inhabited) are north of both Port Moresby the capital of PNG and Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands.
Another interesting fact is that the eastern border of South Australia is aligned with majority of the border between
Papua New Guinea and Indonesia at 141° East
I've just looked this up. Awesome! But, I find it so strange when a country owns islands right next to the mainland of neighbouring countries. For example, the UK owning the channel islands next to France or Greece owning Rhodes which is right next to Turkey.
It is shorter to fly from the East Coast of Australia (Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne) to San Francisco than to Los Angeles (by about 100-200km depending on which city)
You think it is the other way due to LA being that much further south, not thinking Sam Fran being that further west make any difference - but I guess it does! Lol
The Coolangata airport (officially called "Gold Coast Airport") had trouble during Covid - when Queensland decided to open it they had trouble because half the employees are from NSW, which was locked down. I don't have more details on how they dealt with it.
Perth to Cairns (3441 km) is a shorter air line than Perth to Brisbane (3606 km)
If you are in Detroit, Michigan, the fastest and easiest way to go to Canada is to go south.
4:25 reminds me of a river near my house which crosses into my county, and then about 100ft further downstream it crosses back into the neighboring county.
One of the disputes that Brazil have with Uruguay is because there is 2 possible origins to a river and both has exactly the same lenght.
I have 2 favorite geography facts:
St martin is an island so nice they named it thrice
And
The city of london is a city in a city in a country in a country
4:30 - I'm sure its far from being the only river like this, but the Mississippi River in the US has a bunch of places where state lines were drawn along the river, and as the course of the river has changed over the last, say 150 years, the borders no longer reflect the location of the river. I'm specifically thinking of the Tennessee/Arkansas border north of Memphis where there's big pockets (several miles long and/or wide) that are actually on the other side of the current river.
New South Wales has the longest land border of all the Aussie states and territories. It adjoins Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory, making a total of 4 635 kilometres.
A good chunk of Northeast TN (like most of the area east of I 75 and North of I 40) is closer as the crow flies to Canada than Memphis
Cool facts! Thanks
NSW is north of the Murray River. Vic. is South of the Murray River.
But the Barmah Hotel, in Victoria, is the only hotel north of the Murray River.
Broken Hill, which is in NSW, actually runs on the SA time zone.
There was also a small pocket of NSW that was inaccessible from NSW but accessible from the ACT like your SA / Victoria pocket. However the ACT is going to purchase the land from NSW and redraw the border to expand a housing estate in the ACT.
So the ACT is going to get slightly bigger soon?
A few hundred metres east of the southern end of Coolangatta airport is a gated community called Kirra Shores. The only car entrance is at the intersection of Appel St and Binya Ave, which is in Qld, though all the property is in NSW. A few of the houses on the edge have private personal gates through the fence, but cars can only exit by going to another state.
Very fun and thank you for going through them without excessively dragging it out like many creators. Subscribed!
Norway is the number one country in terms of distance between undisputed northern and southern territory. Norway has both Svalbard and Bouvet Island, which spans 135.4 degrees. Including the Antarctic claim, that becomes a whopping 171 degrees.
Second is the UK at 111.7 degrees from the Shetland Islands to the Falkland Islands (including the british antarctic claim: 120 degrees)
Third is France at 100.3 degrees from Northern France to the Kerguelen Islands (including the french antarctic claim: 101 degrees)
Only considering inhabited territory, France remains quite high at 72.1 degrees (northern France to Reunion), but Chile beats it with 73.4 degrees (all mainland territory!). Then there's Australia at 54.5 (Bamaga to Cockle Creek, Tasmania), the US at 52.2 (Utqiaġvik/Barrow, Alaska to Naalehu, Hawaii), Brazil at 38.3 (Uiramutã to Chuí), and so on. Norway falls down to only 20.3 degrees (Svalbard to Mandal) and the UK is a measly 10.1 (Shetland Islands to Isles of Scilly).
Also, Norway's mainland goes from being as far west as Amsterdam to being as far east as Antalya, Turkey. Many people think of Norway as this tiny vertical country at the top of the map but it's got some serious geographical flexes.
The Falklands are inhabited though?
The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador mostly borders Quebec, but it also shares a tiny land border with the territory of Nunavut, on Killiniq Island, just north of Cape Chidley, the northernmost mainland part of Labrador.
There is a part of NSW that is also isolated by a river and the ACT border. As Canberra grows, this area is proposed to become a residential area and has become subject to discussions about a potential border shift.
My favourite Australian one is that Tasmania shares a common border with Victoria. Apparently, there is a small island between Tasmania and Victoria that is jointly owned by the two states - hence they have a border!
great to see a new video of yours! i just recently found this channel and i was sad to see it inactive but i subscribed anyway!
detroit michigan is surrounded by Canada on 3 sides ( north, east and south)
The southernmost point of Greenland is further south than the northernmost point of Scotland.
I was not surprised by Edinburgh and Bristol. Quite a number of years ago, the British weather maps were not aligned North-South, but with the south coast of England positioned horizontally. Not sure when the map became N/S aligned, but it was at that point I started checking out the long, lat of places. It felt very weird, as if I had been lied to all my life.
I think it has been covered many times before. There is a part of the USA that is cut off in Canada in a town called Point Roberts.
My favorite one is that France's largest land border they share is with Brazil.
there's also a part in the USA called Point Roberts, that's in the northwest separated from the rest of the USA, and kids in high school have to travel in Canada, then back into the USA that's not separated just to go to high school.
For the river-border intersections, there is another in Australia! Along the north-western border between NSW and ACT, there is a suburb-sized region which is closed off from the rest of NSW by the Murrumbidgee River and Ginniderra Creek.
My personal favourite facts are: that Harbin, China (famous for its ice festivals and generally being very cold) is at the same latitude as the northernmost point of the Mediterranean, at the town of Monfalcone, Italy, and that France shares its longest country border with Brazil, thanks to French Guyana
Great video, I love geography stuff like this so my RUclips recommended actually did something right for once
One of my favorite geography quirks is that New York and Rhode Island have a shared border, just it's over water.
Another one is just how close some states get to each other without actually bordering. Louisiana and Oklahoma are only 49 miles apart, New Jersey is really close to both Maryland and Connecticut, Maine is really close to Vermont and Massachusetts, Texas and Colorado are only 30 miles apart, and there's a bunch of other combinations, too
In North America, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the U.S./Canada border. The library has two different addresses: 93 Caswell Avenue, Derby Line, Vermont, USA, and 1 rue Church (Church Street), Stanstead, Quebec, Canada.
If you want strange border stuff there is always Baerle-Duc and Baarle-Nassau at the Belgium and Netherlands border. And the many Spanish enclave in Morocco like Ceuta or Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and Llívia in France
The little pocket cut off by the river can also be found in my home state of Kentucky! It’s called New Madrid and it’s completely surrounded by the land of Tennessee and the Mississippi River. Another interesting fact is it’s a seismic hotspot home to one of the largest earthquakes in USA history, which caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards creating what is now Reelfoot Lake!
A fun fact to go along with the Canada/California bit is that while the 49th parallel defines the bulk of the US/Canada border, 70% of Canadians live south of it.
One of my favorites: The US state of Arkansas borders six other states (Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma); it is possible to cross from Arkansas to each of these six states while traveling directly south.
Similar to the part of South Australia that is only accessible by land from Victoria due to a river, the southwestern-most part of Kentucky is only accessible from Tennessee due to a bend in the Mississippi River.
a)Check out the lines on longitude between the Welland Canal and the Panama Canal!
b)the shoreline of the Great Lakes is about 10,000 miles
c) You can fit Wales into Lake Huron- twice!
There are six US state capitals, that are west of Los Angeles, CA: Sacramento, CA, Carson City, NV, Portland, OR, Olympia, WA, Juneau, AK, and Honolulu, HI.
The capital of Oregon is Salem, but your point stands.
Some cool city ones in the North America are Point Roberts, which is just weird, and there’s one city in Mexico in that little nook between California and Arizona where going in any cardinal direction ends you in the US. Also it’s always weird for me to remember that Paris is north of most of the population of Canada.
The point on the southeast corner of Queensland, on the coast at the border with New South Wales, is closer to:
-every other Australian state
-New Caledonia
-Vanuatu
-New Zealand
-Papua New Guinea
-and Solomon Islands
than it is to Boigu Island, the furthest point from it in Queensland.
2:50 - Technically Port Moresby, and Dili are closer to Darwin (need to reword the claim to "closest Australian capital city).
The most interesting border in Australia which not only is the shortest land border between two states but is also the only land border between Tasmania and Victoria. It is located in the Bass Strait on what is called Boundary Islet.
One of my favorites is the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of the coldest cities in the Continental United States is about the same latitude as Bordeaux, France.
Nsw and Act. There is a small section of Nsw only assessable from Act because of a river. Though I heard that are trading the land from Nsw to Act.
In Albury Wodonga there an island in the murray River that is in Victoria, but you can only access by driving into Nsw. Must've been hard for the people living there during the border closures!
The southernmost tip of the North Island of NZ is 125 km south of the northernmost tip of the South Island. The Cook Strait ferry from the North Island (Wellington) travels North West to get to the South Island (Picton), and travels South East to get from south to north.
There is a similar point in northern Minnesota, called the northwest angle, that is completely cut off from the rest of the country by a lake. When the lake isn’t frozen over, residents have to travel either by boat or through Canada to reach the rest of the state. It is actually the most northern point of the continental US.
contiguous US, not continental US (Alaska is definitely North America)
out of all the big west coast cities (seattle, portland, SF, Sacramento, LA) portland is simultaneously the furthest from the ocean and the furthest west of them all
Interestingly, California is known for its wine industry. So is the southernmost part of Canada.
Medellin Colombia is further east than Miami, Florida, despite Colombia being in the north west corner of South America.
Yes, it is about the 42nd parallel. It was the border with New Spain back in the day.
One of my favourites is that Nelson, the most northerly city on the South Island of New Zealand, is the same latitude as Wellington, the most southerly city on the North Island. In fact, if you measure the centre point of each city as being their respective town halls, then Nelson is the more northerly of the two cities.
The municipal borders of the state of New Jersey form a near straight 67.5 mile long line from Hillsborough Township to Little Egg Harbor. It's the remnants of something called the Kieth Line.
The southernmost airport in Canada is closer to Atlanta Hartfield Airport than Miami Airport
The flight from Melbourne to Auckland is shorter than the flight from Melbourne to Perth
If you fly non-stop from Sao Paulo to Seoul (shortest route), you fly over Europe, but if you fly non-stop from Sao Paulo to Tokyo, you fly over North America.
You can sail in a straight line from England to New Zealand
One that I got for you, Winnipeg the coldest provincial capitol of Canada is further south than 16 European capitols, all cities with vastly warmer climates than Winnipeg.
My favorite geography thing: out of the six extremes in the United States (highest point, lowest point land point, easternmost, westernmost, southernmost, and northernmost - and only looking at the 50 states); four of the six are in Alaska. Hawaii is southernmost, California is Lowest (Death Valley); and Alaska is north, west, east (Crosses 180, though the date line bends around the Aleutian Islands), and highest (Mount Denali).
One I love is that the southernmost point in Canada is more west than the entirety of South America
The surprising one for me was learning that the US-Canada border, specifically the 49th Parallel portion, is not actually a straight line. At the local level it swoops around a lot because of the low tech survey equipment used at the time, but because the line cuts through a lot of forested area you can actually see the political boundary from satellite because of all the cleared away trees xD
A fact I find wild is that the most direct route from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Santiago, Chile would be to go north through Russia and the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole. It looks crazy on a Mercator projection but makes more sense when you switch it to a globe projection
To the point on the Gold Coast airport how you touch the tarmac in New South Wales first but the plane stops in Queensland, there is another interesting fact for most passengers. They nearly all live in Queensland, but when we drive to that airport, we drive down the highway from Queensland into New South Wales and back across the border into Queensland to park our cars as the highway sort of curves and loops around the border. It’s only for about 300-400 metres but it happens.
When I went to Sydney, I went north ( I live 30min from the NSW-QLD border) to the GCA, and then flew south to Sydney.
It's not a river but there is a small locality in New South Wales called Wallaroo. It is impossible to get to/from Wallaroo without crossing into ACT
The easternmost point of Norway, is further east than Istanbul. It just stretches out so much towards the north, similar to the UK example, it's much more diagonal than at least I imagined
Here is a US one possibly not already mentioned - there is a significant area of the US, complete with several significant cities, roads, etc. where, if you head in a straight line directly along the lines of true north, south, east, and west, the next other US state you enter will be the same one state for any of the 4 directions - the SW corner of Connecticut, with the other state being New York.
The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, Italy (45.43N) is just north of the Peace Tower on the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada (45.42N). Most of Venice is north of most of Ottawa.
Reno, Nevada is further west than L.A.
I've flown in and out of Coolangata Airport several times for the Indy races 15 years ago. I had no idea!
Chicago, USA is slightly south of Rome, Italy.
Rome receives almost no annual snowfall while Chicago receives 94 cm.
There are 6 states that border Arkansas in the US, and you can travel to each of them by going in a straight line south from different points in Arkansas, only crossing the border once.
I think the thing British people find difficult to wrap their heads around with Bristol/Edinburgh is that Bristol is the West Country city - it's the big city where everyone talks like the Wurzels and it's in the south west, so obviously it's further west than a city on the east coast of Scotland, right? Obviously not!
Yeah, seems counterintuitive that the east coast of Scotland is further west than the west coast of England!
Another counterintuitive one is the west coast of South America: Santiago, Chile, is further east than the east coast of the USA: New York!
If you drive west from Toronto to Hamilton Ontario, you arrive in west Hamilton.
If you Drive South from Detroit and cross the river, you arrive in Sarnia Canada.
You can't drive to Point Roberts Washington without going through British Columbia Canada. It's an exclave on the southernmost tip of a peninsula south of Downtown Vancouver.
You can't drive to Elm Point, Buffalo Bay Point or Angle Inlet Minnesota without going through Manitoba Canada.
It's the opposite for Akwesasne Quebec as you cant drive to it without going through New York USA _and_ Ontario Canada.
I never looked at a map of the UK in detail before but I always generaliser Scotland as being more west then England and Wales given the shape of the continent so I guess I knew Edinburgh was further west
4:51 doesn't the river also cut off Victoria directly south of that example.
@@FlarezapOk but that still technically makes it an exclave. For the same reason that Crimea is an exclave (if you consider it part of Russia that is).
Los Angeles, California is east of Reno, Nevada. That one blew my mind!
I think the ACT and NSW share one of the river borders too.
In New Zealand when traveling from the North Island to the South Island via ferry you actually spend more time traveling north to get south. Same going South to North spend more time going South
I drove to Point Pelee just so I could stand at the tip of mainland Canada. Well, you can't drive there. You drive as far south as you can and then walk. And it really does come to a point.
All those weird facts were pretty interesting. Edinburgh really got me because Britain seems quite North South but aint.
BTW I thought a friend who also likes weird facts would be surprised by a Vic Tas land border but he already knew about it. Common Trivia Night question he said.
I'll try him with this batch.
There is a Tasmanian island 2ks off the coast of Victoria ( near Wilson’s Prom)
I can travel from Victoria into Sth Aust & into NSW & by going north, south, east or west.
Same going from NSW into Victoria & Sth Aust.
Same going from Sth Aust into Victoria and NSW.
Check out the surveying error up past Mildura towards the Sth Aust border.
Spokane, Washington, which is right next to the Idaho border, is 15 minutes and 15 seconds West of San Diego, California.
Spokane is also 4 minutes and 58 seconds farther North than the Northernmost part of the state of Maine.
Very interesting video, well done!
technically the darwin one isnt true, since adelaide and west island (cocos keeling islands) are almost exactly 5000 km apart