At the end of the long Valnerina Valley, near the town of Marmore in the Italian region of Umbria, there’s a 165-meter-high waterfall divided into three drops, one of the tallest in Europe. A portion of the Velino River’s flow, originating from Lake Piediluco, plunges down the falls before joining the Nera River. Over centuries, […]
Geography
Just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they also exist in space and have a geography (United States National Research Council, 1997)
Posted inGeography, Science
The Sphinx Astronomical Observatory is the Highest Altitude Building in Europe
The spectacular Piz Gloria is a revolving restaurant built on the summit of Schilthorn in the Swiss Alps, at an altitude of 2,970 meters. One of the sections of the Eiger Ultra Trail passes through there, a race held every July as part of the Ultra-Trail World Tour, covering a distance of 101 kilometers with […]
Posted inGeography, Prehistory
Paratethys, the Largest Lake Ever to have Existed on Earth
Scientists have discovered that around 11 million years ago, Europe was home to the largest lake the world has ever seen. Known as Lake Paratethys, it stretched from the Alps all the way to Central Asia, covering an enormous area of over 2.8 million square kilometers. Dr. Dan Palcu of Utrecht University in the Netherlands […]
Posted inGeography, Travel
Rhine Falls, Europe’s Largest Waterfall
In Europe, there are no waterfalls as large as those in America and Africa, but that doesn’t mean the old continent lacks important and beautiful waterfalls. The largest one is formed by the Rhine River as it passes through Switzerland, specifically in the towns of Neuhausen am Rheinfall and Laufen-Uhwiesen, near the northern city of […]
Posted inGeography, Modern Era
Kaliningrad, the Strategic City no one Wants
Similar to what happened with the Treaty of Versailles in 1918, the end of World War II reshaped the European map, with a special impact on the eastern part of the continent and the borders between Germany, Poland, Russia, and the present Baltic states. This resulted in some cities that previously belonged to one country […]
Posted inGeography, Travel
The spectacular Katskhi Pillar in Georgia
Near the village of Katskhi in the Imereti region of western Georgia, there is a natural monolith of rock about 40 meters (131 feet) high known as the Katskhi Pillar. The first mention of it in historical records appears in the 18th-century work “Description of the Kingdom of Georgia” by the cartographer, historian, and geographer […]
Posted inGeography
The spectacular Northeast Greenland National Park covers almost half of the island and is larger than 165 countries
Established in 1974, it’s a vast protected area located in the northeast of the island, spanning approximately 972,000 square kilometers—about the size of France and Spain combined—making it the world’s largest national park. It occupies nearly half of the island, which has a total area of 2,166,086 square kilometers, surpassing the size of 165 countries […]
Posted inGeography, Middle Ages
Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Greek traveler and geographer, is the sole known medieval author who believed that the Earth was flat
Syrian Greek merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes, born in the 6th century, penned a controversial work ‘Christian Topography’. He rejected the Greek concept of a spherical earth and provided firsthand descriptions from his travels, including maritime trade and Arabian flora and fauna, influencing Western depictions of the region.
Posted inGeography, Travel
The largest cave in the world is so high that it could house 40-story skyscrapers
In the year 1991, a man named Hồ Khanh discovered a cavity in the Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng park on the coast of Vietnam, about 500 kilometers south of the capital Hanoi. As he later recounted, he felt a gust of wind and heard the running of a river inside. The whole park contains numerous caves […]
Posted inGeography
Why are there firefighters in Antarctica? Fire services at the South Pole
In 1948 an accidental fire destroyed the facilities of Station D, the scientific base that Great Britain had built in Hope Bay, the eastern end of the Trinidad Peninsula. The thing seems to be nothing special except for one detail: this place is located in Antarctica and the devastating effect of the fire not only […]