Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: International

  • Same City Name Distance

    I’ve been experiencing an ongoing conundrum. I have a huge pile of potential topics to cover on Twelve Mile Circle but I never get around to using them. I seem to get diverted onto whatever topic happens to be on hand and I forget about those I’ve held in reserve. Occasionally I’ll take a look…

  • Longest Google Maps Routes

    [EDITOR’S NOTE: Google Maps changes its algorithms over time. Many of the solutions developed when the article was written in 2012 no longer work] I received an email message from 12MC reader Andrew a few days ago. He said that he and a friend have been playing a game using Google Maps. The rules are…

  • Brezovica pri Metliki & Malo Lesce

    The border between Croatia and Slovenia turns particularly unusual and twisted at several points west of Zagreb. At one point a little bulb of Croatia protrudes into Slovenia like a geographic hernia. It’s not a practical exclave or a pene-exclave, either. A road goes straight down its pencil-thin neck to connect a small town and…

  • License to Map

    I guess I didn’t know until this morning that license plates, those little identification signs we attach to our automobiles, are more generically called vehicle registration plates. Right now I’m sure my North American audience is wondering why I even bothered to define “license plate” when the meaning is so intuitively obvious. That’s because the…

  • Natural Forces: Magnetism

    Twelve Mile Circle focused recently on gravity. That suggested a theme: the four forces of nature as described by physics. Magnetism comes next on the list. It has more populated places named accordingly than any of the other forces. When I mention the plethora of magnetic place names however, I don’t mean to imply that…

  • Deepest Lakes

    It often seems to start with the simplest of questions before turning hopelessly complex. What’s the deepest lake? That doesn’t sound too difficult. It’s straight-forward. It seems to beg an easy answer, and it even provides one. Sort-of. Maximum depth or mean depth? Does it have to poke above the surface? What if it’s covered…

  • Residential Airparks

    I didn’t know at the time that the formal terms “residential airpark” and “fly-in community” existed. Still, I found it pretty cool that people could own an airplane, keep it in a garage attached to their homes, and roll it directly onto an active runway mere steps away. Actually I noticed the phenomenon a number…

  • Gravity Hills

    Many years ago I had an acquaintance who was an accomplished magician. Fortunately I got to see him practice various magic ticks as he perfected his craft. So of course I learned the secrets behind many of the illusions. The human brain likes to believe what it thinks it sees. The magic tricks often reveal…

  • Semi-Practical Exclaves Galore!

    I mentioned a semi-practical exclave in Australia a few days ago. This was a spot in New South Wales where a resident in an automobile could exit his neighborhood without ever leaving NSW. However, he could return only via Queensland. I noted somewhat tongue-in-cheek that the “…situation becomes very special, perhaps unique, meaning I didn’t…

  • Australian Semi-Practical Exclave

    I had an interesting exchange of email messages with reader “New Taste” recently. It involved a little corner of Australia where Queensland and New South Wales hit the Coral Sea. The discussion had been triggered by one of my earlier articles I called “What Crosses an Airport Runway?” Well, a surprising number of unexpected things…