What are the most mind-blowing geography facts?

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#1 Australia is wider than the moon

Add this one to the #moreyouknow file: Australia’s diameter is 600km wider than the moon’s. The moon sits at 3400km in diameter, while Australia’s diameter from east to west is almost 4000km. The moon, as a sphere, has more surface size, but it’s still pretty amazing.

#2 More than half the world’s population lies inside this circle

Image: reddit

This eye-opening take on population sizes comes from redditor valeriepieris. Even more mind-blowing is the realisation that the circle pulls this feat off while being mostly water and including the most sparsely populated country on earth, Mongolia.

(And, yes, technically speaking the “circle” in the image isn’t actually a circle, based on the projection of the map and the relative shape/size/location of the countries in real life, but hey, it’s pretty cool anyway.)

#3 In the Philippines, there’s an island in a lake in an island in a lake in an island…

No, this isn’t some riddle. In fact, a tiny piece of land called Vulcan Point Island exists in a crater lake on Volcano Island in Lake Taal on the Philippine island of Luzon. If you’re interested (or just really bored) try zooming in and out of the dot on Google Maps – it’s worth it, I promise.

#4 The Pacific Ocean is so massive, it’s essentially its own hemisphere

One redittor pointed out that the Pacific Ocean is a lot larger than we think it is. “There’s a few points [on earth] where if you started in the Pacific Ocean, and [travelled] directly through the centre of the earth (through the core), and popped out on the opposite side of the planet, you’d still be in the Pacific Ocean,” says DoWnhillll. We think of it as smaller than it is because a lot of 2D maps split the Pacific in half.

#5 North America is a lot further south than you think it is

It’s all got to do with the Gulf Stream, a powerful and warm Atlantic Ocean current that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to Newfoundland before crossing over towards Europe. The Gulf Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America and the west coast of Europe.

What this means is that, if you were to look at a city like Toronto, you’d automatically assume it was in line, latitudinally, with a city like Oslo or Stockholm, simply because of the climate. But in fact, Toronto is in line with Florence in Italy, a city notorious for its vineyards and Tuscan sun. The same goes for New York City, whose European latitude twin is Madrid, not Berlin or Paris like the weather would suggest.

#6 China encompasses five time zones, despite the entire country only using one

Despite the fact that its geography spans five geographical time zones, all of China follows a single standard time offset (that of UTC+8:00). In 1918, the Central Observatory of the Republic of China divided the country into five different time zones, but following the Chinese Civil War in 1949, they were abolished to make room for one single time zone called Beijing Time, or China Standard Time, internationally. As a result, crossing over to the Afghan border on China’s west means a three and a half hour time difference.

In terms of daylight hours, January sees the westernmost point of Tibet observing daylight from about 9:41am to 7:49pm, compared to the easternmost point of Heilongjiang which sees daylight from 6:54am to 3:18pm. Similarly in July, Tibet has daylight time from 7:40am to 9.50pm, and Heilongjiang from 3:05am to 7:08pm.

#7 Even though Russia and the US are only 4km apart geographically, there’s a 21-hour time difference between them

Photo: Amusing Planet

The two islands where this distance is measured are the Diomede Islands, which consist of a Russian island called Big Diomede, and an American island called Little Diomede. As the islands are located in the middle of the Bering Strait between mainland Alaska and Siberia, they’re separated by the International Date Line. Big Diomede is almost a day ahead of Little Diomede – as a result the islands are sometimes called Tomorrow Island (Big Diomede) and Yesterday Isle (Little Diomede).

#8 You only have to cross one country on land to get from North Korea to Norway

And that country is Russia, the gigantic landmass that it is. Road trip, anyone?

#9 There’s only two countries in the world where you need to cross at least two countries to reach the sea

All others need to cross only one other country, or none at all. The countries in question? Uzbekistan and Liechtenstein. There is some contention over Uzbekistan however, as it all depends on whether you would consider the Caspian Sea an actual sea, or just a really big lake.

Thank you for reading.