There are so many white spots on the world map! But not just an example more than they are in people's heads - after all, to our shame, we don’t even know half of the geographical discoveries that have already taken place - but meanwhile there is so much amazing and fascinating in them! We will talk about some of the most interesting geographical facts below.
Serpent island
Have you heard of an island full of snakes and completely deserted? Meanwhile, this exists. It is called Keymada Grandi, located just over thirty kilometers from Brazil and is considered the most dangerous island in the world - all because it is teeming with poisonous snakes, including the island botrox, the most terrible (and so rare that it is even listed to the Red Book) of all reptiles.
Kaymada Grandi has a lighthouse that was previously run by a ranger. However, after the snakes killed the caretaker and his family, there is no one willing to settle on the terrible island. Not only that: there is no other living creature there now, only snakes rule the ball, the prey of which are birds and their eggs. Serpentologists are rare guests at Keymada Grandi - for obvious reasons, nobody really wants to risk their lives.
Great Mount Masis
Only small children do not know about Mount Ararat, but there are quite a few interesting geographical facts related to it that are not widely known. For example, Armenians do not call Ararat Ararat. For them, he is Masis, which means "great mountain." And this mountain consists of two peaks - Big Ararat and Small, whose height is more than five thousand meters and almost four thousand, respectively.
Ararat is a symbol of Armenia, but territorially for almost a century belongs to Turkey. Many Armenian men bear the name Ararat, and even in this country there is an opinion that no one is destined to climb the highest point of the mountain, because the conquest of Masis is not a charitable deed.
Ghost islands
An interesting fact about the geographical map: it often depicts ghost islands. These are the islands that supposedly exist - a certain number of people are sure of this, but in fact it is impossible to find them. Scientists believe that the appearance of such ghostly lands can be due to several reasons. Firstly, these are icebergs that seem like landmass to sailors, secondly, mirages, and thirdly, floating volcanic formations on which birds sometimes settle and vegetation appears, which unwittingly gives them similarity with island land.
Interesting facts about geographical coordinates
- The most reliable method for determining longitude even today, in addition to GLONASS and GPS, is the marine chronometer.
- Methods for determining geographic coordinates are described in detail by Jules Verne in his famous "Mysterious Island".
- There is an entertaining task in the school geography course: is there a point in the world with coordinates of 180 degrees longitude and the same number of latitudes? Adults often cannot answer it correctly, but meanwhile the answer is the following: no, because the limits of latitude range from 0 to +90 in one direction and to -90 in the other direction.
Interesting geographic facts about Russia
We live in this country, but meanwhile we know so little about it! For example, do you know that ...
- In our country there is the so-called cold pole - in the Oymyakon district of Yakutia. The average temperature of the winter months there is more than 60 degrees below zero, and this is the only place on the whole globe where people in these conditions live and work constantly.
- The easternmost point of Russia is Ratmanova Island. Only four kilometers away is the island of Kruzenshtern, but it already belongs to the States. It is between these island lands that the border lies between our country and America.
- It is in Russia that the largest active volcano (Klyuchevskaya Sopka), the oldest mountains (Ural), the deepest lake (Baikal), the largest forest (taiga in Siberia) and even the largest swamp (Vasyugan) are located.
- Siberia occupies about nine percent of the entire surface of our ball.
Enrico Portuguese
One of the interesting facts about geographical discoveries is the information that the very possibility of all these discoveries the world owes to the son of the Portuguese king Enrico, who lived in the fifteenth century. It was he who, in 1420, gathered all the best shipbuilders, ordering them to create caravels that could sail against the wind. Various kinds of expeditions were subsequently undertaken on such ships, which made it possible to discover new lands, cross the equator, and so on.
A bit about the equator
The equator is a very attractive object for study, so it is not at all surprising that a large number of interesting geographical facts are connected with it. So, for example, the length of the equator is more than forty thousand kilometers - just think about how huge this number is! It will take about eight years to get around on foot. The length of the equator was first established by another ancient Greek mathematician, and the word itself in Latin means “flatten” - after all, the equator divides the Earth into equal parts.
The equator crosses the state of Ecuador, which is why it bears a similar name. And an interesting geographical fact is that in the Brazilian city of Macapa, through which the equator line also runs (it is even called the capital of the middle of the world), no less than a monument rises - a monument to the equator!
How to break the tongue
Fans of tongue twisters will obviously enjoy the following interesting geographical fact: a hill with a name consisting of more than eighty letters is located in New Zealand.
Its full name is as follows: Taumatafakatangihangakauauauotamyateaturipukaka pikimaungahoronukupokainufenuakitananu - try to say it! This toponym is even recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest in the world. And by the way, 83 letters in the Russian version are still flowers, the English version has 92 letters.
Cold mainland
You can not ignore Antarctica - a great geographical discovery, interesting facts about which will not leave indifferent any lover of geography. So, for example, despite the fact that the mainland was discovered in 1820, people landed on it for the first time only after a long 75 years.
Antarctica is unique by many standards. There are no permanent settlements, not a single country controls it, and it is precisely this continent that owns more than 90 percent of all world ice. And here the coldest winds blow, whose speed is sometimes more than three hundred meters per minute!
Lapidarity - Above All
Lapidarno means short. Various names consisting of a large number of letters are very common and always of interest - and we are not talking only about toponyms. However, why should you always talk about the long? For example, on the border of Sweden and Norway there is one tiny village, the name of which consists ... of just one letter - in short, you can’t imagine! This settlement is called no less than just A. And in translation from the Scandinavian languages ​​it means “river”.
Name for a chant
It is no secret that the vocalists are singing before the performance, pulling the vowels - “aaa” or “oooh”. In Italy there is one mountain, the former name of which is fully consistent with these vocal subtleties. Today the mountain is called Circeo, and earlier it was called Aeeaa.
Do you know that…
About some interesting geographical facts - briefly further.
- It was snowing once in the Sahara.
- There are almost four thousand islands in Japan.
- The longest volcanic eruption was the eruption of the volcano Parikutin, which in Mexico - it lasted for nine whole years.
- Antarctica is the cleanest sea in the world.
- In Nauru (a state on the island of the same name) there is no official capital.
- The United States has its own Moscow, its own London, its own St. Petersburg, and as many as nine Paris.
- The island of Hawaii, on which many people love to relax, is actually not a drop on the island, but a real mountain. It’s just that it is almost completely hidden under water, and only its crown is visible on the surface.
These are some of the most interesting geographical facts. Perhaps not mathematics, but geography is the queen of science?