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Weird Facts

There is a town in Norway where the sun does not set for 76 days

Geography

Longyearbyen, on the Svalbard archipelago, experiences continuous daylight from late April to late August — and continuous darkness for about four months in winter.

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Mongolia is extremely sparsely populated

Geography

Mongolia has one of the lowest population densities of any sovereign country.

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Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa

Geography

Lesotho is an independent mountain kingdom completely enclosed by South Africa.

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The Pacific Ocean is shrinking, the Atlantic is growing

Geography

Plate tectonics: the Pacific is being consumed at subduction zones around the Ring of Fire while the Atlantic widens by about 2.5 cm per year at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

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The Everglades is a slow-moving river

Geography

Florida's Everglades is often described as a wide, shallow river of grass.

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Moeraki Boulders are giant concretions

Geography

The nearly spherical stones on a New Zealand beach formed inside ancient sediments.

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Vatican City is the smallest country

Geography

Vatican City is a sovereign state contained within Rome and covers less than a square kilometer.

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Pamukkale's white terraces are mineral deposits

Geography

Hot springs at Pamukkale build bright travertine terraces from dissolved calcium carbonate.

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The Danube touches many countries

Geography

The Danube flows through or along more countries than any other river in the world.

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The Caspian Sea is technically a lake

Geography

The Caspian Sea is an inland body of water, despite its name and saltiness.

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Canada has more lakes than any other country

Geography

Canada contains an enormous share of the world's lakes, spread across glaciated landscapes.

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Greenland is the largest island that is not a continent

Geography

Greenland is huge, icy, and politically tied to Denmark, but geographically counted as an island.

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The Diomede Islands sit a day apart

Geography

Big Diomede and Little Diomede are close together but separated by the International Date Line.

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Mount Roraima is a tabletop world

Geography

Mount Roraima's flat summit and cliffs create isolated habitats above the surrounding landscape.

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Russia spans 11 time zones

Geography

From Kaliningrad on the Baltic to Kamchatka on the Pacific, Russia covers 11 official time zones — more than any other country.

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Mauna Kea is tallest when measured from base

Geography

Measured from its seafloor base, Mauna Kea is taller than any mountain measured only above sea level.

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Antarctica is a desert

Geography

Antarctica is classified as a desert because it receives very little precipitation.

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Kiribati reaches all four hemispheres

Geography

Kiribati's islands straddle the equator and the 180th meridian area, placing it across four hemispheres.

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Iceland is split by a spreading ridge

Geography

Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where tectonic plates pull apart.

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Cano Cristales changes color with river plants

Geography

Colombia's famous river glows with reds, greens, and yellows from aquatic plants during certain seasons.

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The Atacama is one of Earth's driest deserts

Geography

Parts of Chile's Atacama Desert can go years with almost no recorded rainfall.

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The Great Blue Hole is a marine sinkhole

Geography

Belize's Great Blue Hole is a giant circular sinkhole in the sea.

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The Door to Hell crater has burned for decades

Geography

A gas crater in Turkmenistan has been burning since a Soviet-era drilling accident.

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Indonesia is a country of thousands of islands

Geography

Indonesia stretches across a vast archipelago between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

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