The Caspian Sea is about as strange as a body of water gets. Its surface still sits 27.5 meters (90 feet) below sea level, and water doesn’t flow out of it—it’s isolated from the oceans, and relies on a series of Asian rivers to maintain its levels.
Modern travel has made life so convenient that it’s easy to imagine pretty much anywhere on Earth should be accessible within 24 hours. That’s not the case. In fact, there are many places that would take far longer and several others where no one has ever stepped foot at all.
We are visual beings: Our perception of the world is intrinsically tied to our ability to perceive light. But what about the places where light doesn’t fall? Do places in shadow still encode information for the visual cortex to process? Can shadows actually tell us something meaningful about the landscapes they darken?
Which empire was the biggest throughout history? Which had the most people? Which had the biggest contiguous empire? The map below details all the most powerful empires from history and shows the area each empire covered, the amount of people they had under their rule, the year they reached their political height, the…
British geophysicists have discovered evidence of an ancient drainage network buried beneath Greenland’s ice sheet that once extended across nearly a fifth of its total surface. Some of the channels within this system were about a mile deep and over seven miles wide.
As a kid I spent a lot of time on the Maryland shore. Squinting out across the endless blue expanse, I could have sworn I saw the edge of Portugal once or twice. I was shocked recently to learn that my childhood imagination had it all wrong. (Truly, a first.) With telescopic vision, I wouldn’t see the coast of Europe.…
This story takes place far inside the Arctic Circle but, no, it’s not about Santa Claus. What it is about is truly embracing the Christmas spirit—the part where you give of yourself.
Is this a forest? That depends on what you mean.
Someone at the British Geological Survey managed to convince a boss that engaging with the kids via Minecraft might be a good idea, so here we all are reading about accurate maps of West Thurrock, York and Ingleborough that have been built using existing national topography and geology databases.
Summer, season of roadtrips, is upon us! But where should I go? That, my friends, depends on you.
Whether you want to tell people about what’s it’s really like during Alaska’s shortest days or reveal a relatively unknown bit of local geography, we want to know what always takes people by surprise about your home.
It’s not just people who sometimes have surprising twists and turns in their backstories. Places—whether just a location, a house, or a building—also can lead complicated lives. We want to know about the locations near you (or even a place not so near that you’ve visited) with the most interesting histories.
What are they eating a lot of in each state, and only there? This map has the answers.
Glaciers around the world are in retreat, but not Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier. It’s steadily advancing into Disenchantment Bay, threatening to block the entrance to Russell Fjord and disrupt life in the nearby town of Yakutat.
Every city, town, and neighborhood has its own collection of local lore. Today we want to hear yours.
By the turn of the 20th Century, Africa had been invaded, occupied, and colonized by several European nations. This wonderful map by redditor whiplashoo21 shows how the Scramble for Africa divided the Dark Continent.
Deep beneath the surface of the water, an undersea volcano erupted this winter in the Southern Pacific Ocean. This is what it left behind.
Forget the guidebooks. Today, we want to know about the much lesser known attractions near you.
What an amazing year we are living in! “San Francisco. I almost felt like I was with you as we flew overhead a few minutes ago,” NASA astronaut Scott Kelly posted on his Facebook page directly from the International Space Station. Wish we were with you space station commander!
In this brand new map of the Ares Vallis region of Mars, released by the German space agency DLR, you can see the true differences in height between the high and low parts of our neighboring planet. The highest parts, expressed in red, are about 4000 meters (2.4 miles) above the lowest parts, in blue.
