Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: International

  • No Water Necessary

    The Henley Royal Regatta is perhaps the most famous boat race in the world. It takes takes place each year along a particularly straight segment of the River Thames at Henley-on-Thames, England (map). This huge sporting event features world-class competition and serves as a primary attraction in the summer social season. The regatta revels in…

  • Railroad Ferry

    Ferries for trains? I thought it might be a late April Fool’s joke when I first encountered the possibility. They do exist. For the sake of accuracy I should note that operators do uncouple the railcars into shorter segments. The entire train doesn’t simply roll onto a ship in one long string. I’d love to…

  • Little Circles

    I love circles, which I guess would be an entirely redundant statement on Twelve Mile Circle. I’ve been toying with a concept in the back of my mind for awhile. What it the smallest circle that I can draw on a map that touches the largest number of countries? Google Maps doesn’t offer such a…

  • Heterogram Place Names

    It’s not only geography that makes a place unique. It can also be an unusual array of letters forming its name, for example what I featured awhile ago on Place Name Palindromes. I traveled down a several-hours tangent recently in search of heterogram place names. Those are words where each letter of the alphabet appears…

  • What-le-What?

    I ponder the intricacies of maps, just staring at various corners of the world for no particular reason. I think that’s fairly typical for much of the 12MC crowd although maybe not completely understood by the public at large. That’s their loss. How else would I find an odd conglomeration of LE towns in the…

  • Wyoming, Texas

    No, as far as I know there isn’t a town of Wyoming in Texas. Believe me, I’d hoped there might be such a place but the Geographic Names Information System provided by the U.S. Geological Survey doesn’t list one. Conversely there aren’t many items of significance named Texas in Wyoming either, other than a mine,…

  • Would You Believe?

    Have you ever dropped into Google Street View and found terrain that just didn’t “look right,” and differed from your expectations? I think we all have stereotypical preconceptions of how a place is supposed to appear, especially if we’ve never fully explore the area in person. Below is the image that surprised me a few…

  • Longest International Bridge

    I like extremes. The middle is boring. I’m also fairly certain that if I feature one end of the spectrum such as the Shortest International Bridge, that I’ll also feature the other end eventually. However, it’s going to be difficult to compete with that earlier article. Reader participation during the hunt and resulting discussions were…

  • As the Bird Flies

    There are people who read Twelve Mile Circle from places located literally around the globe. It’s hard to believe in an era of instantaneous worldwide communication that pigeons were once considered a viable method to pass information in certain specialized instances. Often these were for specific military or governmental purposes. However, I’m not quite as…

  • Barrier Island Superlatives

    I have a thing for islands but I think you already knew that. Barrier island fascinate me in particular and these narrow landforms hug coastlines all over the world. Their sand moves continuously, sculpting by tides, waves and winds according to the elements. They’re ephemeral and they change. So this left me to wonder about…