Category: International
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My Ridiculous Historic Parallel
My interest in history is probably as great as my interest in geography. So naturally that’s a theme I’ve woven into Twelve Mile Circle quite regularly. Keeping that in mind, I’ve grown ever-excited as events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War approach. Activities will escalate rapidly on April 12, 2011 with the…
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Random Canada
Many months ago I toyed with an idea that I called “Throw the Dart”. That’s where I’d go into Google Street View, drop the cursor onto some random part of the world and then try to create an article from thin air. It worked pretty well in October 2009 when I hit a spot outside…
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Turlough
Sometimes odd geography intersects with odd geology. One particularly rare example occurs on the island of Ireland. It’s called a Turlough or Turlach. Described very simply, it’s an ephemeral lake that appears during the wetter months of autumn through springtime and dries-up during the summer. Most of the examples happen west of the River Shannon.…
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Octagons
I’ve been going through old digital photographs, labeling and geotagging them so they’ll be easier to find in my collection. I have an appreciation for unique architecture in addition to my fascination with odd geography. Thus, I’ve noticed several photos that feature structures of unusual shape and design The octagon ranks high amongst them. Apparently…
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Amerika
Readers posted a number excellent comments in response to the recent Right Place — Wrong Side of the Atlantic article. It’s not just England where place names migrated counter-intuitively against the tide away from the Americas, but to other parts of Europe as well. I noticed patterns as I savored the comments including the repetition…
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Right Place – Wrong Side of the Atlantic
I recently read the the Basement Geographer’s True Name Map of the West Kootenay/Boundary. That, in turn, derived from an earlier project from Kalimedia. I wondered how a detailed True Name map would look for my little corner of the world as I considered the project. For now it remains on that large pile of…
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Exclamatory Towns!
I intended to focus on places that have punctuation included as part of their official names. I found two basic categories: those with an apostrophe denoting a possessive; and well, that’s about it. Undeterred, I searched further and eventually found three towns with exclamation points. Excited in Westward Ho! The name of a town in…
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Antipodes Islands
I’m back to my antipodes fixation again, a recurring theme here on Twelve Mile Circle. I’d placed this one on my mental list as I researched the Closest Antipodal National Capitals a few weeks ago. Today I feature the Antipodes Islands Group of New Zealand (map). Characteristics The Antipodes Islands, part of a collective of…
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St. John’s at Long Last
I made an offer to the kind readers of Twelve Mile Circle back in September 2010. I said I’d be glad to explore and present geo-oddities for any location based on user suggestions. So I took this as a personal challenge and an opportunity to investigate areas that may have escaped my attention previously. “Katy”…
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Right Up to the Line (again)
This is my second attempt to present this article, following the debacle yesterday evening when I posted a rough outline. That was the first time I’d hit the publish button prematurely in nearly 500 articles. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. Hopefully it didn’t cause too much confusion. The whole point of this…