Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Definitely Halfway

    I think it was back in January when I focused on the little town of Halfway, Oregon. I was pretty impressed when I thought they’d named it that way because of the nearby 45th parallel of latitude north — i.e., halfway between the equator and the North Pole. That turned out to be a false…

  • Intertwining Threads

    I’m predisposed to look for patterns and there are times when they come together better than others. This is one of those times although it may seem to have a bit of a stream-of-consciousness feel to it. Heading to San Diego I left for Dulles Airport on Monday morning for a week of work in…

  • Mistaken Identity, Part 3

    I’ve called the final installment of my series on geographic mistaken identities, Baltimore, DC. A couple of comments on the earlier articles referenced people making the wrong assumptions about airports. This is another instance of that phenomenon so I won’t dwell on it for long. Instead I’ll keep it short. That way I have room…

  • Mistaken Identity, Part 2

    I call the second case of mistaken geographic identity the “Invasion of a Maryland Beach Town!” This instance of mistaken geography happened long before my birth, and all the way back in 1941. It became Howder family legend. And it will undoubtedly pass along to our progeny for generations to come. Some families bestow royal…

  • Mistaken Identity, Part 1

    I know it’s sometimes difficult for us to believe, being all geo-geeky and such, that not everyone shares our passion for geography. I couldn’t help being reminded of that when I started drafting my latest new visitor roundup. It brought to mind a story from my past when an incorrect geographic assumption caused quite a…

  • County Counter Extraordinaire

    Fritz Keppler of Arlington, Virginia recently discovered my humble Twelve Mile Circle blog as he searched for the boundaries of the Sandoval County exclave. He’s quickly become a regular reader and contributor in the comments section over the last few weeks. One early comment caught my eye in particular. I fixated on its enormity as…

  • Another New Visitor Roundup

    My recent article on Running the Table with visitors from the United States reminded me that I haven’t provided a new visitor roundup in quite awhile. That’s where I recognize and salute an initial visitor from a country that has not previously sent a viewer to the website. It’s becoming increasingly unusual. Nonetheless the number…

  • One Flew Over the Void

    International borders serve as fodder for a frequently recurring topic on Twelve Mile Circle. I’ve written about borders in tunnels, borders across islands, and borders creating odd exclaves. I’ve even discussed a border that I crossed of somewhat dubious legality. However none of those approach the epic heights of one particularly noteworthy border crossing that…

  • Multi-Word Capital Cities

    So I get strange queries. I noticed one recently from somebody who wanted to know the name of each national capital city composed of two or more words. No, I didn’t try to figure out the logic. I have no idea why they wanted to find this. If people ever learned to do things like…

  • International Latitude Observatories

    I came across an interesting building while researching the Gaithersburg Doughnut Hole a few months ago. It’s just to the east of the hole by a couple of streets, so more accurately it’s just barely on the doughnut, perhaps it’s a coconut sprinkle. Here’s how it appears in a public domain photograph: It looks rather…

Latest Comments

  2. what is the total population that lives now in the land given back to Virginia should it be part of…

  5. Park ranger at Chalmette (New Orleans) Battlefield let me pull up the Union Jack 20 years ago. My dad would…