12 Counter-Intuitive Geography Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

Most geography knowledge comes from looking at a world map on a wall. That map feels like the truth. It is not. The map we all grew up with stretches some places, shrinks others, and puts everything in a flat rectangle even though the Earth is a sphere. That is why our gut feeling about countries, distances and sizes is wrong in so many places.

In this article we collect the most surprising geography facts. Most of them are numerical in nature: how many neighbors, how many kilometers, how many times larger. And almost every one of them will make you look at the map differently.

1. Russia has 14 neighboring countries

Russia shares a land border with 14 other countries. Only China has the same number. Most people guess somewhere around 6 to 8. The full list: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea.

Russia spans 11 time zones. When people in Moscow are starting work, people in Vladivostok are already in bed. The country is so wide that flying across it takes longer than flying from London to New York.

2. Alaska lies west, north and east of the other US states

Alaska is so large and extends so far west that the Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian. That means parts of Alaska are technically in the eastern hemisphere. So Alaska is the westernmost, northernmost, and easternmost state of the US all at once.

At about 1.7 million square kilometers, Alaska is bigger than Texas, California and Montana combined. But only around 730,000 people live there. That is fewer people than in a single European city like Frankfurt.

3. The USA, China, India and Europe all fit inside Africa

Africa covers around 30.4 million square kilometers. You can fit the contiguous USA (8.1 million), China (9.6 million), India (3.3 million), and all of Europe (10.2 million) inside it, and still have room for Argentina. On a standard map this looks impossible, because Mercator stretches everything near the poles.

Africa has 54 countries, 1.4 billion people, and a mainland coastline of around 30,000 kilometers. Most people guess Africa is somewhere between the size of Greenland and Russia. It is much, much bigger than both.

4. Canada has the longest coastline in the world at 202,000 km

Canada has around 202,000 kilometers of coastline. That is longer than the rest of the world's top 10 countries combined. The reason: Canada owns thousands of islands in the Arctic, plus deep fjords along the Pacific coast and endless bays along the Atlantic.

For comparison: the USA has around 19,900 km, Russia 37,650 km, and Australia 25,760 km of coastline. Canada beats all of them by a factor of 5 to 10.

5. Reno, Nevada lies further west than Los Angeles

Reno, Nevada is at about 119.8 degrees west longitude. Los Angeles is at 118.2 degrees west. That means Reno is roughly 140 kilometers further west than LA. On a map it looks the opposite because California's coast curves inward and Nevada sits to the east of California.

Another similar surprise: the southernmost point of Canada is further south than 27 out of 50 US states. The town of Pelee Island in Ontario sits at the same latitude as northern California.

6. Monaco is smaller than Central Park

Monaco has an area of just 2.02 square kilometers. Central Park in New York covers 3.41 square kilometers. In other words: you could fit the entire country of Monaco inside Central Park and still have more than a third of the park left over.

Monaco is the second smallest country in the world, just behind Vatican City (0.49 square kilometers). But it has a population density of around 19,000 people per square kilometer, one of the highest in the world.

7. Siberia is larger than the USA

Siberia is just one region of Russia, but at 13.1 million square kilometers it is bigger than the entire United States (9.8 million square kilometers including Alaska). In fact, Siberia is larger than any other country in the world except Russia itself and Canada.

Despite its size, only about 33 million people live in Siberia. That is a population density of around 3 people per square kilometer. For comparison: Germany has 237 people per square kilometer.

8. Greenland is 14 times smaller than Africa

On almost every standard world map, Greenland looks roughly the same size as Africa. In reality Greenland is 2.16 million square kilometers. Africa is 30.4 million square kilometers. That makes Africa about 14 times larger. Greenland is actually closer in size to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This is the single most famous example of map distortion. Once you see it correctly, you start to understand why Africa, South America, and India look much smaller than they really are on a typical wall map.

9. Istanbul lies on two continents

Istanbul is the only major city in the world that spans two continents. The Bosporus strait divides the European half from the Asian half. Around 15 million people live in the city, split roughly 65 percent in Europe and 35 percent in Asia. You can literally take a ferry between continents in 15 minutes.

There are three bridges across the Bosporus and a tunnel under it. Daily commuters cross from Asia to Europe and back, making continental commuting an ordinary part of life.

10. Australia is wider than the diameter of the moon

From east to west, Australia stretches around 4,000 kilometers. The moon has a diameter of only 3,474 kilometers. So if you placed the moon flat next to Australia, it would not cover the continent from coast to coast.

Australia is the 6th largest country in the world with 7.7 million square kilometers, but it has just 26 million inhabitants. Most live on the coast. The interior, the Outback, is almost empty.

11. Finland has more lakes than any other country, 188,000 of them

Finland has around 188,000 lakes larger than 500 square meters. The country is often called the land of a thousand lakes, but the real number is 188 times that. About 10 percent of Finland's entire land surface is water.

Canada is often believed to have the most lakes, and with lakes of all sizes it does (around 2 million). But measured per person or per square kilometer, Finland leads the world. There is one lake for every 26 Finns.

12. Only three countries do not use the metric system

The USA, Liberia and Myanmar are the only three countries in the world that officially do not use the metric system. Everyone else measures in meters, kilograms and liters. Even the UK has switched almost completely, although miles still show up on road signs.

NASA uses the metric system internally. The US military uses it too. The main holdouts are everyday life in the US, where gallons, miles, pounds and Fahrenheit are still standard.

Why our gut feeling about geography is so often wrong

Three things trip us up. First, the Mercator map stretches everything near the poles, so Greenland, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia look way bigger than they are. Second, we think about borders in terms of short driving distances, not continental scale, so countries like Russia, Canada and Australia feel smaller than they are. Third, we remember countries by their shape and name, not their area. Once you look at the actual numbers, the world looks very different.

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