5 Things About Geography You’re Wrong About

Discover five surprising geographic myths debunked! From the Sahara's true terrain to distorted maps, coastlines' paradoxes, the real longest river, and unexpected transcontinental countries-prepare to rethink the world!
Warographics: / @warographics643
MegaProjects: / @megaprojects9649
Into The Shadows: / intotheshadows
Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
Brain Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
Casual Criminalist: / thecasualcriminalist
Decoding the Unknown: / @decodingtheunknown2373
Places: / @places302
Astrographics: / @astrographics-ve4yq

[@bioLarzen]

A France-related fun fact: most people with a degree of knowledge about European geography "know" that France and Netherlands are not neighbours (Belgium comes in between). Well, you can win an easy bet against such people by claiming France and Netherlands are in fact land neighbors - we just have to go to a different continent, namely North America, where, there is the island of Saint Martin / Sint Marteen, half of which is an overseas territory of France and the other half belongs to the Kingdom of the Netherlands - with a nice land border between them. There is your French-Dutch border. The only pair of European countries with a shared land border outside Europe.

[@dxruling]

That's occupied territories not the actual territories.

[@beurksman]

​@@dxruling If they can defend it it's theirs

[@DarrylWPerry1789]

The longest French border is shared with Brazil!

[@DarrylWPerry1789]

and the longest domestic flight in the world is from Paris to Tahiti!

[@whyshouldwecare3267]

JHTT

[@BradGryphonn]

5:35 With respect to Norway's coastline, Slartibartfast, when designing it, probably didn't expect it to be one of the longest coastlines in the world. He just had a thing about fjords.

[@douglaspealing5608]

I've always wondered if he ended up doing the southwest coast of New Zealand too, maybe just in his evenings. They're just as fiddly, but a much smaller project.

[@mlw5665]

Please tell me SlartiBartFest is real, and the mascot is beyond my imagination.

[@mccormyke]

Slartinbast was especially interested in the tiny creeks which he called...fjiodian slips

[@BradGryphonn]

@@douglaspealing5608 Perhaps after dinner whilst having a cup of tea.

[@mrthingy9072]

Upvote for the Douglas Adams reference.

[@KenFullman]

Everyone knows the Amazon is the longest river in the world, but we're still in denile.

[@kevinforgione3938]

“De-Nile” isn’t just a river 😂

[@pltc71]

Google is in denile

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:30 - Chapter 1 - The sahara isn't actually very sandy 2:50 - Chapter 2 - Maps are very, very warped 5:10 - Chapter 3 - Coastlines are not what you think 7:20 - Chapter 4 - The longest river might not be the Nile 9:15 - Chapter 5 - There are many continent splitters

[@MarkShockley]

*Nile

[@richdiddens4059]

A few more things need mentioning. 1- The Earth is not a sphere. It's an oblate spheroid being 42km shorter than wide. 2- There is still a fair amount of debate as to where the line between Asia and Europe is and some debate as to where the division between North and South America actually is. A small part of Panama might be considered south of the division. 3- While 7 is the most recognized number of continents I've seen it claimed anywhere between 4 and 9. One that is sometimes added is Oceania.

[@JamesDavy2009]

@@richdiddens4059 There's also Zealandia with the only parts of it above sea level is the country of New Zealand. Some circles have stated that the true mouth of the Nile is the Strait of Gibraltar.

[@neekfenwick]

you made it further through than I did :)

[@HeliosBeats]

thanks

[@BruceBoyde]

The Mercator projection thing that really stunned me is that Madagascar is actually almost 2.5 times larger than Great Britain.

[@JamesDavy2009]

That's bigger than only two states of my homeland.

[@Swamp72]

The most shocking part of this video is finding out that people think sand dunes are hills covered in sand

[@antshrike8238]

Totally! I’ve never heard anyone say anything suggesting confusion about that. I literally thought everyone knew they were shifting piles of sand, regardless of the underlying terrain. That’s like thinking that ice fields and ice sheets (big glaciers) only cover flat areas because their surfaces are largely flat.

[@Dangic23]

I still remember when this guy had 300 KZbin channels

[@A0A4ful]

By conservative estimates!

[@antshrike8238]

Does he not anymore?

[@LivingWithTheCoopers]

When I was in the Sahara in Morocco, it was mainly like a gravel car park, but with loads of fossils because it was an ancient sea bed.

[@nunyabiznez666]

Fun fact, in some parts of the Sahara the sand depth is 300ft deep 😳 I can only imagine what's buried under it, you know.....since it was a lush forest area at one point

[@sudazima]

most sand areas used to be lakes since its the lower lying areas that fill up with sand first.

[@alecogden12345]

Coal lol

[@davidwood9966]

They can’t use it for concrete cos it isn’t jagged enough at like the granular level. That’s a shame.

[@loddude5706]

@@davidwood9966 - Like inventing 'dehydrated water' . . . what do you mix it with?

[@matthewmckinney5387]

Lmao, there about 5 to 10 kilometers of dirt under your feet 😮

[@setra23]

Norway having the second longest coast line would make Slartibartfast proud

[@joelb8653]

Badly underrated comment.

[@dwaynecunningham2164]

​@@joelb8653OMG YES

[@dwaynecunningham2164]

Nice crinkly edges.

[@Justin.Martyr]

*Set23; Just another TrumpVoter!!!!!*

[@FistandFootMartialArts]

Justin.Martyr. Chump? Really? You're gonna go with that. Whatevs...

[@dcvariousvids8082]

I was correct on the Norway answer. After all, Slartibartfast liked all the crinkly bits.

[@darlenefraser3022]

YES! This is the only reason why I knew the answer to that one! 😅

[@loddude5706]

Thinks: Coast road tour of Norway with Ewan & Charlie in a Ford Prefect - would it make it? (Skinny tyres, twiddly bits, king pin wear, ice, snow & vacuum-driven windscreen wipers? : )

[@gcewing]

Or Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent in a Ford Prefect.

[@JesseJoyce-cj2xg]

A lot of people don’t seem to know that a small island off the coast of Newfoundland is controlled by France, but if that describes you, well, it no longer does. Now you know.

[@travesty-studios]

You can tell that some maps really mess up sizes when you learn that the length from top to bottom of Africa is similar to the width Russia.

[@glstka5710]

7:06 Norway coastline is due to its many fjords. The chjevys don't contribute to it.

[@cyanophage4351]

Haha 😂 yeah came to comments to make the same point.

[@jonrolfson1686]

Neither Bjenzes, Volksjwagjens, Volvjos, Dacijas, Sjeats, Sjaabs, nor even Fjiats get a proper look in. Only Fjords.

[@katfayegarrett3872]

😂😂😂❤

[@glfitz001]

This guy reminds me of Issac Asimov. When I was young I was astounded at his breadth of knowledge. When I was finally working I read something he wrote in my field, geography, and I was astounded at how shallow it was.

[@m.dwaynesteckley4832]

France also extends its border into North America, specifically off the coast of Canada's island of Newfoundland. This little French possession, the result of treaty ending the Seven Year War, is Saint-Pierre and Miquelon: an archipelago of eight islands off the southwestern coast of Newfoundland. It was established for fishing rights of the then abundant Grand Banks.

[@gwcrispi]

We should be glad the majority of the Sahara is not sand dunes. The sand worms would prevent crossing it...

[@JeffUmstead]

Shai Hulud

[@QBCPerdition]

Not if you know how to walk arhythmically

[@bobpourri9647]

Isn't Thumper a rabbit?

[@BrOckSams0n]

1:00 "only a portion is covered with sand, between 15 and 25%" ... that's like 700,000 square miles. I'd say that picturing this absolutely massive (staggeringly massive) landmark when thinking of the Sahara is perfectly reasonable.

[@BrOckSams0n]

additionally a lot that "isn't sand" is rocky sand and then a lot more is sandy rock... so yeah. Sahara = Sand

[@svargyle]

You can easily see the actual size of countries by using Google maps and zooming way out. It becomes a 3-D sphere. You can also look at a globe.

[@tobyray8700]

*as joke…. Simon tells us that the earth is actually flat, with a straight face 😂

[@jennyanydots2389]

In his personal time Simon actually is a flat earther, anti vaxer and Q anon supporter. The dude is totally out of his gord... bonkers... off his rocker. He's not even from the UK, the accent is fake, he's actually from Gary Indiana.

[@TommyChmelko]

I like all types of scientific aspects, geology, astrology, all different types, but not biology. That’s a joke. At least they transitioned it to be one.

[@squee222]

5:17 Your graphics department seems to forget that the Canadian Archipelago, and North West Passage are part of Canada - and that the "thousands of islands" you mentioned need to be included in their graphics.

[@ASlickNamedPimpback]

To be fair... if you've ever had to colour those islands in back in elementary school you'd know its basically impossibly annoying

[@DoktorApplejuceAbridged]

I'm more concerned about the fact that Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and part of Quebec have apparently seceded from Canada in that map.

[@mennomateo]

All land south of the st Lawrence seaway and all islands are missed

[@aaronbannerman4354]

and P.E.I. ... So that would total 4 or the 10 provinces, plus part of another and half of 2 territories missing.

[@shawnr6117]

Someone didn't do their job properly.

[@ArchangelXCI]

I’m surprised the continent debate didn’t include the mostly sunken continent of Zealandia, stretching from modern day Aotearoa New Zealand up through New Caledonia

[@h84gabor6]

respect for starting with what's in the thumbnail

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

And Iceland spans the continental plates of North America and Europe. That's why it is so volcanic. The plates are still drifting apart.

[@chadp363]

Why did the map of Canada's coast line leave the four eastern provences out? I understand 2 are islands, but still, they, and two provences attached to the rest of the country were not highlighted

[@bid84]

They belong to India now 🇮🇳

[@hosermcmoose]

Let's be honest, most Canadians forget about New Brunswick too.

[@tarazieminek1947]

Maybe it's an older map - Newfoundland didn't join Canada until 1949.

[@neskire]

They also left out all of the islands north of Nunavut. Shoddy work, I'd say.

[@bradfilippone7064]

Only Prince Edward Island is entirely an island. Many people forget that Newfoundland and Labrador is mostly mainland because they forget the Labrador part of it.

[@wocookie2277]

I’ve been in many deserts, from the Arctic, to Egypt, and the empty 1/4. In the UAE. As well the Mediterranean area, and Afghanistan. All deserts are mostly rock. Only the empty 1/4, and a stretch outside Cairo, had the sand dunes we expect of a desert.

[@JamesDavy2009]

Technically sand is a collection of at least trillions of little rocks, mostly quartz.

[@tanjredshirt]

As an Alaskan, I utterly LOATHE Mercator projection maps. It's surprising how much it malforms the outline of our state.

[@toweypat]

I'm starting to dislike it, too.

[@bobthecomputerguy]

It maintains the shapes of things zoomed in though. Like buildings and road intersections. idvux.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/mercator-vs-well-not-mercator-platte-carre/

[@castorchua]

We get fucked even harder. Australia is basically as large as the entire united states in reality

[@SkunkApe407]

Now imagine being a Land Surveyor.😂

[@teun911]

Americans trying not to mention their state or NOT view things from their geographical perspective (literally impossible)

[@bioLarzen]

Accurately measurng coastlines is not only tricky because of the coastline paradox - but also because of the constantly changing sea levels.

[@SkunkApe407]

The Coastline Paradox is far less of a problem when using US Survey Feet, instead of metric. That's because, when measuring with the US Survey Foot, values are collected in feet, tenths, hundredths, and thousandths of a foot. Smaller units create more accurate measurements.

[@EndertheWeek]

@@SkunkApe407 So centimeters, millimeters, nanometers etc. etc. don't exist?

[@SkunkApe407]

@@EndertheWeek yes, they do, but US Survey Feet offer smaller measurements than all of those, in a practical application. Nobody said anything about them not existing, only that the US Survey Foot allows for far more precise measurements. If you had any background in Geomatics, you'd know that. Any engineer who has used both systems of measure will tell you that SAE offers finer, more precise measurements.

[@SkunkApe407]

@@EndertheWeek just for reference, one millimeter is just over three hundredths of a foot. I can split your millimeter with my US Survey Feet, therefore making my US Survey Feet more precise than your millimeter.

[@paulanergraz]

@@SkunkApe407 and then i go to micrometer. and if you split it up again i go the nano so what do you want to tell us? Espacialy as the length of a US Survey Feet is defined as 1200/3937 meters so it's based on meters. and the U.S. survey foot is phased out at least by NOAA and NIST and changed to international feet. but that's something you need to know when you talk about measurements and have a background in geomatics ;-) oceanservice.noaa.gov/geodesy/international-foot.html

[@pooryorick831]

The Sauara is still growing. It claims a few more acres every year. Fun fact. 🙂👍🏻☮️

[@FinrodFelagundTheFair]

Not so fun fact maybe?

[@toweypat]

Yes, and many African countries are planting a line of trees to stop its advance. A battle for the ages!

[@geradkavanagh8240]

I encountered the coastline edge problem numerous times while working for a cadastral surveyor. Just defining the median high tide mark could be an absolute headache in areas where the nearest tidal gauges were a long way away. Add to that both erosion and accretion events along shorelines and before you knew it, nothing would match previous survey plans and areas of land allotments along coastal areas.

[@Pushing_Pixels]

Why are high tides used to define the coast, instead of low tide marks? Doesn't the shore include the areas flooded by tides?

[@geradkavanagh8240]

@@Pushing_Pixels Median high tide mark defines the accepted boundary between what is ocean/sea and what is land. Shoreline fluctuates over time depending on erosion or accretion along the shoreline and thus affects the amount (square metres/square feet) of land described on a land title bordering the sea.

[@emptytee6992]

Iceland has a visible fault running through the country that places it on both the European and North American continental plates. It’s interesting to see. Great country too.

[@antshrike8238]

If we’re talking about continental plates, then there are WAY more.

[@roywhitworth]

Pretty sure I was taught that the Amazon river was the longest river in the 1990s

[@bigbirdmusic8199]

That would be the Nile. As a matter of fact, the Nile being the longest river in the world is generally the only thing people actually know about it, other than being a river in Africa.

[@castorchua]

@@bigbirdmusic8199 I remember being taught the Amazon was the longest river in the 90's too... I'm in Australia

[@EagleOxford]

Largest by volume I believe. Probably taught garbage in the 80's

[@mbc1994]

Sure you don't remember wrong, like another comment here, I think it was taught it was the "biggest" (like volume of water flow)

[@maxwellabbushi1650]

Amazon = largest water flow for a river, Nile = longest

[@jerryodell1168]

" Good Video ": Ref. Sahara There is sand as stated in this video. But as stated not that much. The USS Canberra CAG-2 went to North Africa in either 1962 or 1963. I was a sailor on her. Liberty took me on a tour that shocked me. I was so patterned to think of miles of sand and few people trudging to get somewhere. This might be true in some areas, however, as a whole the lands within a few miles of the coast, the mountains, and in certain other places are very much like Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, and Southern California with huge numbers of people, houses, stores, businesses, manufacturing buildings, huge areas for camels, farms, roads, and more. Grant it, thing are different, but definitely not the image as seen in most movies. People live and work there.

[@Craig-wp3pz]

Course, fjords become fashionable, and I get an award for Norway..... 🏆 I just like a good fjord, gives a continent a nice baroque feel.... ....... -By Slartibartfast Possibly 👀 📖 📕

[@danortmembers3243]

Thank you very much for addressing the issue of variance in measuring coastlines! This is such a pain in the ass to explain to non-geographically inclined individuals.

[@montecorbit8280]

At 9:10 Output of the Amazon.... I was told that several of the top 10 rivers in world by volume of output or tributaries to the Amazon....so there is a decent chance that some of those next seven are tributaries!

[@Spacemongerr]

Two of them are, number 6 and 7, Rio Negro and Rio Madeira

[@eleanorsky1]

Well... I can agree that the Sahara is not all sand dunes. But I have ridden camels there and talked with oasis farmers and collected some of the extremely fine sand there- some is red and some white. So that vision is not totally off. It's sort of like imagining America as the land of cowboys and bison

[@boxsterman77]

But he gave an actual percentage of what part is covered with sand.

[@veruspatri]

Interesting fact about Nova Scotia: a province in the Maritimes, of eastern Canada, has an approximate coastline of around 13,000 km (8,000+ miles) long. While the entire US east coast is only 3330 km (2069 miles) long.

[@bob_._.]

France also has land in North America: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon islands, just off the Newfoundland coast, are a self-governing region of France. And Russia used to extend also onto North America until the sale of Alaska to the USA.

[@hosermcmoose]

France also has numerous islands in the Caribbean, which is usually lumped in with North America. This is in addition to the territories in South America (French Guiana), off the coast of African (like Reunion) mentioned in this video. France also has several pacific islands. Put quite simply, France has little bits strewn all over the planet, all legacies of the colonial days.

[@markduffy5773]

How long is Britain's coastline? How long is the ruler?

[@Kyrelel]

He is 1.78m, apparently.

[@mormacil]

King Charles is 1.78 m

[@UntakenNick]

As the delta x (your ruler) approaches zero, the measured length tends to the actual length, not to infinity.

[@mormacil]

@@UntakenNick It will never reach the actual length in physical reality, thus without an end it is infinite.

[@UntakenNick]

@@mormacil As the number of rulers increases, their length decreases. You're adding an increasingly larger number of segments of an increasingly shorter length, the convergence of the resulting measure is the actual length of the curve. I want to believe you're trolling, it's the base of differential calculus.

[@RetNemmoc555]

I've never heard Mercator accented on the first syllable, even in the UK.

[@RCassinello]

Whistler has picked up all sorts of weird pronunciations over the years. At least he's dropped that god-awful transatlantic accent he was putting on for a while that made him sound like a blend between Tony Blackburn and Loyd Grossman.

[@ErwinPommel]

Fact boi doesn't know how to say a lot of words. It's a shame that's his only job.

[@J3scribe]

Europe and Asia are on the same tectonic plate, so are one continent. North and South America are on separate tectonic plates. They are separated by the Caribbean Plate, which hosts much of Central America. One might argue that Central America is the smallest continent. Fun fact: Far eastern Russia, and a goodly part of Japan, are on the North American plate.

[@sirnirvikingur]

And half of Iceland sits also on the N American plate.

[@Pirate_Knight27]

Only if you define continents by tectonic plates, which is problematic. There are a couple tectonic plates that are just ocean and definitely don't count as continents. Also, Africa would be split between the African plate and the Somali plate, but no one would consider those 2 separate continents.

[@thabzmad7265]

​@@Pirate_Knight27Gotta draw the line somewhere 😅😅😅

[@shenhue7041]

Why is europe its own continent anyway?

[@Pirate_Knight27]

@@shenhue7041 It makes more sense then making all 20 tectonic plates a separate continent.

[@Mikkelltheimmortal]

James May already proved that the Nile River starts long before lake Victoria and doesn't meet the tidal ocean until Portugal, making it the longest river with the largest pools on earth

[@sudazima]

for most of the year the amazon is certainly longer, only part time could the nile be longer since many stream fill up during rain season.

[@hurricanefury439]

and Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond were there too.

[@Mikkelltheimmortal]

@@hurricanefury439 true true, it's a team effort afterall.

[@Mikkelltheimmortal]

@@sudazima you need to get out more. I'm making a reference to the BBC series Top Gear and one of their Special episodes. Since you are unable to recognize a joke when it's presented to you even in a simple manner I will explain it to you. The "source" is a spring in the mountains south of Lake Victoria. The two "Really big pools" are Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea. It's not serious and not meant to be taken as such. You don't need to attempt to be correct about everything. It makes you sound like an unpleasant person to be around. It's also okay to be kinda close.

[@JamesDavy2009]

@@Mikkelltheimmortal According to their lingo, a total Muppet.

[@Educated2Extinction]

I was disappointed to find out that I wasn't wrong about these things.

[@LordSluggo]

About map projections: I feel like I must be the only person in the past 100 years to have ever owned an actual globe

[@HeidiBuss-pd8cw]

I had one. When I was a college Freshman I learned about the different types of maps in a Geography 101 class.

[@brendant19]

Or use google earth apparently. Also, one thing that's always left out in the discussion of projections is their function. Simon didn't go hard at Mercator for being colonialist or anything, but others have and that's straight BS. It's a map used for navigation. If you use it for that purpose, it will get you where you're going and give you a fairly accurate representation of the shape of the place you're in. It's actually a very impressive map, but it's not intended, as most maps haven't been until recently, to merely be an accurate picture of the world.

[@shaneeslick]

no you're not the only one, so at least 2 people have never owned a Globe

[@andydavis8437]

@@shaneeslick Yes, and at school we had globes. I still use digital globes a lot.

[@TheCatLady65]

Used for navigation by *white* people, for colonial purposes.

[@Jay-er1oh]

Fun fact, you left out 4 of Canadas Provinces in the graphic. Pretty easy thing to figure out but on par with the content

[@seanlander9321]

It’s quite intriguing the ignorance of Europeans that very few understand that all their countries and seas easily fit inside the Australian continent.

[@DarrylWPerry1789]

Can't believe you didn't mention Iceland sitting on the North American & Eurasian plates!

[@Moohasha1]

Ok, look....I know the Brits and Americans get into it all the time over different pronunciations, but I can never forgive you for how you pronounced Mercator.

[@shamelessstacib7351]

I was thinking the same thing

[@DanDeebster]

As a Brit, he says all kinds of words weird, and mer-KAY-tur is how everyone else says it. For someone whose job is saying words, he often comes out with bizarre versions of them! It's normally a sign of being well read, but you'd think someone would let him know that that's not what the script says.

[@QBCPerdition]

​@DanDeebster They do...in fact, this commentor just did...and by making the comment, he has helped the almighty algorithm promote this video. While I don't dive into the conspiracy that Simon intentionally mispronounced in order to drive engagement, I do believe that he doesn't care that he mispronounced words, since doing so helps him and fixing it is a huge hassle.

[@DanDeebster]

@@QBCPerdition I was thinking of people who are there at the time of filming - it's not much use us complaining about it after the fact. Another option is that he's filming outside the UK, and people don't want to correct him as they assume his pronunciation is standard for Britain.

[@QBCPerdition]

@@DanDeebster he films alone and lives in Prague with his family.

[@itsa-itsagames]

Legend has it that Simon Whistler hasnt been allowed out of that room for the laat decade 😅

[@dbblues.9168]

Simon has definitely cloned himself. The way he pronounced Mur-Kahtoor was a cloning glitch. Bro is hosting 22 channels simultaneously

[@edwinwhitaker5679]

The coastline of Norway wasn't carved by the sea. The reason why the coastline is so large is due to glaciers.

[@derrickthewhite1]

The most annoying thing about deserts is that english doesn't really have the vocabulary to talk about them. There was an interesting moment when I realized that I lived in a desert, I just hadn't realized it because common depictions of what a desert is are so bad.

[@Bacopa68]

It kinda means "deserted". Wild thing is that "jungle" borrowed into English from Hindustani dialects. In those dialects "jungle" meant "few inhabitants". Also, that last point about continents. Herodotus was skeptical that there were three continents. He thought there was a Eurasiaafrica. Aristotle thought there had to be a balance in the continents and that there had to be something like the Americas and a giant Australia-Antarctica hybrid. Weider is that going as far back as the Odyssey, there was speculation about great lands far past the known world. The shade of Agamemnon prophecies that Odysseus will grow restless and take his family to lands past the Pillars,

[@toweypat]

To show how true that is, the largest desert in the world is Antarctica.

[@_theBigGOAT]

Well that’s more so from not knowing the definition or seeing examples.

[@shaneeslick]

Deserts are designated by a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation

[@jamesbazen5606]

That’s weird actually cause between the US and Australia the English language covers a lot of desert.

[@agneteht]

Since we are talking about geography of Chile it is actually quite interesting (even to us chileans) to think that we are tricontinrntal and trioceanic since the chile includes easter Idland and parts of Antarctica, and borders on the atlantic in the eastern magallanic region, the sea of antarctica, and the pacific.

[@ericbananas6419]

Who tf thinks sand dunes are just hills covered in sand?

[@EagleOxford]

Oh somebody does I'm sure, they move though so yeah, that is foolish.

[@gcewing]

Of course they're not. Otherwise how would the sandworms get through them?

[@bobpourri9647]

The Mercator map projection is specifically intended for navigation only .....it allows the lines of latitude & longitude to lie just so....etc.etc.etc.. How it ever made it out of oceangoing vessels and into classrooms around the world astounds me.

[@jamiemcbride7990]

E is not actually the capital of England

[@kellyphx]

That's right. It's the Pound Sterling.

[@cuddlestsq2730]

Many languages, like my own, make a distinction between continents(landmasses) and parts of the world, what we call "verdsdelar/verdensdeler". The latter is less about landmasses and more about culture and politics. Though I do think we could stand to add a few more to that category, as we still talk about Asia as a single entity which doesn't work culturally or politically. We should probably divide it into East, South and Middle eastern, with some regions between as transitional perhaps.

[@paulabeard9063]

Canada and Denmark share a land border, thanks to a 2022 treaty which splits the Arctic Hans Island between the two countries. This followed a 50-year territorial dispute that never once led to any shots being fired.

[@dsclayton4016]

Any day we can bring fractals into the discussion is a good day.

[@howitzer13b]

what about the newly discovered 8th continent Zealandia?

[@mormacil]

Continental plate =/= a continent. By that definition Somalia is a continent and so is Central America, Japan would be American. What is a continent is ultimately very arbitrary.

[@christophersayrs907]

@@mormacil Japan would not be American. Part of northern Japan would be, but...c'mon.

[@mormacil]

@@christophersayrs907 Half with the majority of population, it's not a little bit. It's arguably the majority of the country.

[@christophersayrs907]

@@mormacil Just looked it up...Japan isn't on the North American plate at all. A newly identified plate, the Okhotsk plate, is the plate upon which the northern part of Japan is found. So...there.

[@mormacil]

​@@christophersayrs907 That's a proposed microplate, not part of scientific consensus yet. It's also not new, the idea has been around for half a century. Till today we still lack the data to confirm it truly exists. Hence it's merely a proposed microplate.

[@glstka5710]

7:19 They are trying to tell me that the Amazon is longer but I just don't want to believe it. I'm in denial.

[@gosnooky]

Coastlines being fractal in nature does not imply they are infinite because there is the lower limit to length as it can meaningfully be measured - the Planck Length.

[@_PITBOY]

Nobody makes fun of flat earthers quite like our boy Simon.

[@jbrown7403]

Steve Martin totally caught me by surprise! 😉

[@DavidBenner-cy4zl]

Hey! Scorpion stings hurt. A lot! For several days! 😢😢😢

[@Jacqui_Lantern234]

fun fact about Denmark's extension into North America. in 2022, Denmark and Canada split Hans Island roughly in half giving Canada its 2nd land boarder. its also impossible for us Canadians to stop talking about our new welcome neighbours :P

[@mirthenary]

And we all know James May is the discoverer of the true source of the Nike

[@samanjj]

Based on the last segment, If I understand it right Kazakhstan is transcontinental, Turkey is transcontinental, but Iran which is more west than Kazakhstan isn’t. Eurasia makes more sense since Europe is more of a political area.

[@mormacil]

Of all the divides, the Eurasian border is indeed the most arbitrary.

[@Pushing_Pixels]

@@mormacil Is it the Ural River, mountains, or both?

[@mormacil]

@@Pushing_Pixels It's arbitrary

[@eekee6034]

They're all arbitrary and politically-motivated, I mean part of Turkey is African, but yeah, the Eurasian border is the longest arbitrary border.

[@victoriaeads6126]

I think of the Arabian peninsula when I think of open sand desert, but maybe that's just me? I mean... That's where they filmed Dune. Dune. The planet with, like, NO water.

[@bioLarzen]

You made the explanation for why Norway has the second largest coastline unnecessarily complicated IMHO - the truth is much more simple: Norway's coastline is so huge becuase it has by far the highest number if islands in the world, at a staggering 320,000. Just for comparison: Sweden, the country with the second most islands, has a "mere" 267,000 (both rounded figures). There's your reason, coastline paradox or not. (Third on the list is Finland, proving how tremedously jagged the coastline of Scandinavia is. Fun fact: Indonesia, the country maybe most of us would guess as the country with the most islands, is only #8 on the list, with a puny 17,500 islands... Yep, Norway has almost 20 times as many islands as Indonesia has.)

[@christopherx7428]

I see that this is claimed on the wikipedia site while also saying that an older figure was some 55.000. This is quite a difference and Norway does not have the shallow waters of both Finland and Sweden. I wonder how they measured this higher number? A Google search för 320.249 Øyer gives no results.

[@bioLarzen]

@@christopherx7428 Good question. For Finland I can imagine that the islands in all those lakes were also included - Finland has an awful lot of lakes too - for they are islands too, after all... But Norway doesn't have nearly as many of those, and would most certainly not account for this huge discrepancy.

[@christopherx7428]

@@bioLarzen The same probably goes for Sweden as well, plenty of lakes and many islands in them Like you say, not that many in Norway. The long coastline seems obvious, but I must say I doubt the number of islands.

[@bioLarzen]

@@christopherx7428 Let's count them :D :D :D Jokes aside, yeah, that's a figure I kept coming across, and not just on Wiki. I've been making goegraphy quizzes for quite some time, I've been using a lot of sources - but, sure, I don't know where all these sources get their numbers from, I just learned which ones to trust and which ones not. 320 thousand does sound hard to believe indeed... but I kept coming accross similar figures, that's why I believe it. Maybe wrongly.

[@krisinsaigon]

France has land in South America and off the coast of Africa and North America, but I dont think they have any territory left in Asia

[@sydhenderson6753]

He may be counting Reunion, but that also gets counted as part of Africa. However, if you count Reunion as part of Asia, France still has Mayotte which is counted as part of Africa.

[@krisinsaigon]

@@sydhenderson6753 yes I was thinking Mayotte for Africa, but reunion for Asia seems a stretch

[@sydhenderson6753]

@@krisinsaigon New Caledonia seems a stretch too. That's closer to New Guinea and Australia.

[@Knot_Sean]

Whats funny is too is that if you look at it from a map view, You can see long fingers where there would be bands of hilly sahara dunes and then vast swathes of flat terrain, Broken up again by a mile or two wide of sandy dunes.

[@stephenbanks5952]

I have been to Atyrau, Kazakhstan and walked across a frozen river from Europe to Asia.

[@mihailovuletic]

In eastern Europe we were taught that Mississippi with Missouri was the longest, then Amazon, Nile was only mentioned as longest in Africa Also, there are clearly 6 continents, but Europe was always callled separate because Europeans figured it out and Europe was unique in culeture since the Greeks (who named it).

[@steverempel8584]

A coastline isn't infinitely long. It has a true length, that you will never be able to reach by measuring. The smaller the measuring stick, the bigger the value, it will keep up going infinitely up to this true length, which requires an infinitely small measuring stick to measure. It's one of those cases of infinite growth, where there's a limit that you are growing towards, but will never reach.

[@zurielsss]

And there is the tide and water levels to mess up your coastline too. But yes it's not indefinitely long

[@shaneeslick]

Rather than "Straigh Edge Measuring Device" using a "trundle wheel" would be a more consitently acurate way Not "indefinitely long", but "ever changing" would be a good descriptor as to why getting an acurate measurement even at the tiniest level is basically impossible

[@bigpicturethinking5620]

The “plank coast”

[@EagleOxford]

I get your point, but what we could do is proclaim a measurement Higher than any particular coastline could possibly be. An estimated mile long coastline is Never going to be measured and accepted as being a million miles long. Certainly it could be said that there is a "cap" on this type of measuring, at which point it becomes useless and even absurd. For any practical use anyway.

[@ChrisSmith-bh2hg]

The White desert in Egypt is quite beautiful.

[@TheCrosshare]

Regardng to continents, since it's defined as "large continuous landmass", depending on what defines "large", one could say there are 3. Antarctica, arfieurasia, america. All connected via some route, and north pole hs no land. Greenland and australia coming in next if we go smaller. Then there's islands. It's definetaly similar to coastlines, where a line has to be drawn somewhere :D

[@michaelpyatt831]

At 11.08 , France also has territorial land right in Canada with st Pierre and Miquelon which are considered part of France

[@TastyScotch]

The globe stuff is nuts. The fact that Mecca is somehow northeast of NYC boggles my mind 😅

[@quokkaw]

But it's not. Mecca is at 21°25′21″N 39°49′24″E, while NYC is at 40.7127°N 74.0059°W. So Mecca is south of NYC, and by a good margin.

[@TastyScotch]

@@quokkaw but to pray to mecca from NYC, you face northeast 😱🤷‍♂️

[@Spacemongerr]

Yes, its because the Earth is a sphere. Same reason why the most direct route from Chicago to Thailand is to go almost straight north from Chicago

[@MrFightstarter]

Suprised not to find one of them to be about how the Everest is not actually the "tallest point on earth", yet the tallest only considering to mesure altitude from sea level. There's a mountain in the Andes wich also goes higher into to the sky, or into space if you will, mesuring form the central point of the planet, due to it's proximity to the Equator and the planet being Eliptical rather than perfectly round, while being a few kms shorter, mesuring it from sea level.

[@PA-yp6rw]

In France America is sometimes considered one sometimes two continents but Europe and Asia are always separated. Other transcontinental countries are Chile and the USA, with Hawaii and Easter Island as part of Oceania, Indonesia, with New Guinea as part of Oceania and Yemen with Socotra as part of Africa.

[@forestarcher47]

I like this channel he actually just gives information instead of long ass stories that he does on his other channels

[@Crioten]

Starfishes love learning

[@MarkShockley]

Most of those sand dune landscapes are probably filmed in the Arabian desert or Empty Quarter. Films (like Dune, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) frequently film in the Abu Dhabi area.

[@JamesDavy2009]

The scenes of Tatooine were filmed in Tunisia.

[@ngcf4238]

I just finished reading 125 pages for a geography assignment and I see this video on the top leftmost slot of my home page, it must be fate!

[@davidtymon8258]

I was at school in the 80s and some people did think that the Nile was still the longest river, but most agreed it was the Amazon. Dunno where you got 'early 2000s' from, unless i misheard.

[@user-lv7nz9kj6n]

The mountains of The Aheggar in the middle of the Sahara desert recibe a good fall of snow.

[@Harris83]

Shouldn't this be on "Places"? 0.o?

[@Manny-id3cz]

He has so many channels he’s starting to get confused

[@glandersonbooper9342]

Does it even matter at this point? 😂

[@AIGeographyTeacher]

Your content is so engaging! Thanks for providing such valuable and interesting geography lessons. 🌍❤

[@almightyswizz]

Who on earth assumed sand dunes were legit rock hills covered in sand sand as if it grew like grass?

[@anenemyanemone4923]

I was a bit taken aback by that one too. He claims that most people don't realize that sand dunes aren't completely comprised of sand, and that they assume that they're hills covered in sand. I don't have data to back this up, but I find it hard to believe that a majority of people think this. And that's speaking as someone who doesn't have a lot of faith in humanity.

[@arturass3896]

The countries with flat terrain are easily to measure, but the countries with mountains, if measuring slopes, are actually much larger than the surface (base of the mountains) area. Theoretically, it makes countries with mountains much larger, e.g. Slovakia.

[@jackhuenger7274]

This was interesting and informative. When he started talking about Continental divisions I was hoping it was going to be about things like the North American Continental divide. It would be interesting to see what things are like that divide for other continents.

[@simonmeadows7961]

The transcontinental countries have caused me many a headache in financial reporting. We had good data on the countries our customers were based in, but when the CFO wanted these mapped into regions that included: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Middle East - it was tricky. Certainly saying Australia instead of Australasia or Oceana was problematic for his New Zealand PA and then by including Middle East as a region in itself as well as the 3 surrounding continents, I had to create a mapping that said Egypt wasn't part of Africa, the UAE wasn't part of Asia and Turkey was neither European nor Asian.

[@tealkerberus748]

Half of New Zealand is on the Australian plate and the other half is on the Pacific plate. Also there's an area in the north end of the South Island where the fault line breaks up into several lines and you couldn't really say which bits are on which plate now. Good luck with that!

[@valdimareiriksson101]

Iceland is also on the European and north American tectonic plates... and you can walk across via bridge

[@pooryorick831]

Great! I love learning new geography! Yay!🙂👍🏻😁✌🏻

[@EAcapuccino]

1 thing that isnt wrong - Although controversial - apparently Australia 🇦🇺 is the only country on earth that is entirely its own continent Albeit a very hot and barren 1

[@mormacil]

New Zealand?

[@tealkerberus748]

The island of Papua is on the Australian continental plate, and parts of New Zealand are on it too. We have ocean between us, but in the last ice age when sea levels were lower, people could walk from Papua all the way to Tasmania. New Zealand (or Zealandia) is separated by proper ocean floor crust, but that's still on the same continental plate. Also, some maps of the continental plates show India and Australia being the same plate, because although there's an area of dispersed faulting between them, there isn't a clear rift, and they're moving in the same direction at the same speed so that dispersed faulting area is pretty inactive.

[@RainaEmms]

Want to know what's wrong with the Mercator map in a fun way? Go watch the West Wing episode "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail"

[@TheGabador]

That highlight of Canada at 5:15 not including any of the Nunavut island, nor any the 4 Maritime provinces is quite the mistake...

[@bluenosemum]

North America and Europe share a land border, specifically Canada and Denmark. The border was agreed upon fairly recently, thus ending the decades long whisky war.