Geography
Places, landforms and the physical world
Articles in this category are re-verified roughly every 180 days.
Geography
15-minute city
The 15-minute city is an urban-planning approach that seeks to make everyday destinations—such as shops, schools, healthcare, work, and recreation—reachable within a short walk or bicycle trip from home. Rather than prescribing a single city layout, the idea emphasizes proximity, mixed uses, and accessible local services. Its practical success depends on how access is measured and on who can reach which services, so it is best understood as a planning goal rather than a guarantee that every resident can reach every need in exactly 15 minutes.
Updated 27 Oct 2026
Geography
Afar Depression
The Afar Depression, also called the Afar Triangle, is a tectonically active lowland in the Horn of Africa where the Red Sea Rift, Gulf of Aden Rift and Main Ethiopian Rift converge. Its rifting, volcanic activity and evolving crust make it a notable example of continental breakup in progress.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Andes Mountains
The Andes are a mountain system along western South America, extending about 8,900 kilometres from the continent’s southern tip to the Caribbean coast. Their landscape includes parallel ranges, high plateaus and deep valleys; the highest summit is Aconcagua, at about 6,959 metres. The range formed as the oceanic Nazca Plate descended beneath the South American Plate, a process still associated with earthquakes and volcanism. Strong changes in latitude and elevation create diverse climates and ecosystems, including the Tropical Andes biodiversity hotspot, and the mountains supply the headwaters of major river systems such as the Amazon and Orinoco.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Angel Falls
Angel Falls, also known as Kerepakupai Merú and Salto Ángel, is a waterfall on the Churún River in Venezuela's Guiana Highlands. It descends from the Auyán-Tepui plateau within Canaima National Park. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives its total drop as 979 metres (3,212 feet), while UNESCO describes the park's highest waterfall as about 1,000 metres. The site is part of a vast landscape of tepuis, cliffs, rainforest and savanna.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Antarctica
Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, centered on the South Pole and surrounded by the Southern Ocean. It spans about 14 million square kilometres and is almost entirely covered by a continental ice sheet. The cold, dry interior supports little land life, while surrounding waters sustain a rich marine food web. The continent has no native human population; scientific activity is organized under international agreements that emphasize peaceful use and cooperation.
Updated 17 Oct 2026
Geography
Aogashima
Aogashima is a small inhabited volcanic island in Japan’s Izu archipelago, notable for its steep coastal cliffs and nested caldera landscape. Its latest well-documented eruptive period reshaped the island in the late eighteenth century.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea is a saline lake in Central Asia, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and historically sustained by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. Beginning in the 1960s, large-scale diversion of river water for irrigation sharply reduced inflows, causing the lake to contract, divide into separate bodies and lose much of its ecological and economic role. The exposed lakebed has become a source of salt- and chemical-laden dust. A dam completed by Kazakhstan in 2005 helped restore part of the northern lake, but recovery has been uneven and has not reversed the decline of the southern basin.
Updated 20 Oct 2026
Geography
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's oceans, centered on the North Pole and nearly enclosed by northern North America, Eurasia and Greenland. It connects with the Pacific through the shallow Bering Strait and with the Atlantic through waterways including Fram Strait. Seasonal sea ice shapes its climate, ecosystems and human use; long-term satellite observations show a marked decline in summer ice extent, with consequences for communities, wildlife and shipping.
Updated 13 Oct 2026
Geography
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert is a cool, extremely arid region along the Pacific coast of northern Chile, bounded on the east by the Andes and extending north toward Peru. Its dry climate results from several interacting factors, including the Andes' rain-shadow effect, descending high-pressure air and the cold Peru (Humboldt) Current. Though much of the landscape is sparsely vegetated, coastal fog supports scattered ecological oases, while mineral deposits, historic settlements and high-altitude observatories have given the region wider significance.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Benguela Current
The Benguela Current is a cool, northward-flowing eastern boundary current in the South Atlantic along southwestern Africa. Together with wind-driven coastal upwelling, it brings nutrient-rich water toward the surface and supports one of the world's productive marine ecosystems. Its regional oceanography is complex: the Benguela system varies from north to south and interacts with adjacent currents, winds and climate variability.
Updated 26 Oct 2026
Geography
Bering Strait
The Bering Strait is a shallow marine passage between Alaska and Russia that connects the Bering Sea, in the North Pacific, with the Chukchi Sea and Arctic Ocean. Its islands and international boundary make it a geographic divide as well as a route for ocean circulation and vessel traffic. During glacial periods, lower sea levels exposed Beringia, a much broader land region linking Asia and North America in the area of the modern strait.
Updated 20 Oct 2026
Geography
Beringia
Beringia is the northern region encompassing parts of northeastern Asia, Alaska and the submerged shelf between them. During periods of low sea level in the Pleistocene, the shelf emerged as dry land, linking Asia and North America and creating distinctive environments and routes for plants, animals and people. Its changing geography reflects the interaction of global sea level, ice sheets and local crustal movement; archaeological research continues to investigate how and when people moved through the region.
Updated 26 Oct 2026
Geography
Blood Falls
Blood Falls is a red-stained brine outflow at the terminus of Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. Its colour comes from iron-bearing water exposed to air, while geochemical and microbiological studies reveal a saline, chemically distinctive environment beneath and around the glacier. Research links the brine’s solutes to ancient seawater modified by interaction with bedrock, though the system’s history and pathways continue to be investigated.
Updated 29 Oct 2026
Geography
Bouvet Island
Bouvet Island, also known as Bouvetøya, is a remote, uninhabited volcanic island administered by Norway in the South Atlantic. Much of it is glacier-covered, landing is difficult, and the island and its territorial waters have been protected as a nature reserve since 1971.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Braided river
A braided river is a river reach divided into multiple channels that repeatedly split and rejoin around sediment bars or islands. Its pattern develops through interactions among water flow, sediment supply, channel slope and erodible banks; bars can grow as sediment is deposited and exposed, redirecting the current into new channels. Because floods and changes in discharge continually reshape bars and channels, braided rivers are often highly dynamic.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Cartography
Cartography is the discipline of making, using, communicating and studying maps. A map is a selective, symbolized representation of places and spatial relationships, shaped by its purpose, scale, data and design. From historical charts and land surveys to satellite imagery and geographic information systems, cartographic methods help people describe, analyze and navigate the world.
Updated 16 Oct 2026
Geography
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water and the world’s largest salt lake. Lying between the Caucasus and Central Asia, it is bordered by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan. Its rivers, wetlands, fisheries, shipping routes, hydrocarbon resources, and distinctive wildlife connect it closely to the surrounding region.
Updated 18 Oct 2026
Geography
Cave of the Crystals (Naica)
The Cave of the Crystals is a chamber in the Naica Mine in Chihuahua, Mexico, famous for enormous gypsum crystals. The crystals formed as mineral-rich water cooled slowly over long periods, under conditions that allowed a small number of crystals to grow exceptionally large. The cave’s heat and humidity make human access hazardous, and mine operations and water levels affect access and preservation.
Updated 6 Nov 2026
Geography
Challenger Deep
Challenger Deep is the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, at its southern end in the western Pacific Ocean. The deepest seafloor measured there lies about 10,935 metres below mean sea level, making it the deepest known part of the global ocean. The feature lies in a tectonically active subduction zone and is surveyed using sonar and deep-diving submersibles, whose work helps refine measurements of the ocean floor.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
Chicxulub impact structure
The Chicxulub impact structure is a deeply buried, roughly 180–200-kilometre-wide impact crater beneath Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and the adjacent Gulf of Mexico. Formed at the end of the Cretaceous, about 66 million years ago, it is linked to the mass extinction at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. Its identification drew on geophysical mapping, impact-shocked minerals and melt rocks, and the matching ages of crater material and boundary deposits. Scientific drilling has since provided samples from the crater, helping researchers investigate its formation and environmental consequences.
Updated 24 Oct 2026
Geography
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean made up of 27 coral islands in two atolls. Their history includes Malay settlement, a long coconut-plantation economy, and a 1984 vote to integrate with Australia.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Congo River
The Congo River is a major Central African river system about 4,700 kilometres long when its most distant headstream is counted. Rising in northeastern Zambia, it travels in a broad arc to the Atlantic through a vast drainage network. Its waterways support transport, drinking water, irrigation and hydropower, while the surrounding Congo Basin contains globally important forests, wetlands and wildlife.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Danube River
The Danube is Europe's second-longest river, rising in Germany's Black Forest and flowing about 2,850 kilometres through ten countries to the Black Sea. Its wider basin spans parts of 19 countries and links central and southeastern Europe through major cities, tributaries and trade routes. At its mouth, the river forms the ecologically important Danube Delta.
Updated 19 Oct 2026
Geography
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is a landlocked, exceptionally saline lake in the Jordan Rift Valley, bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its main inflow is the Jordan River, and because it has no natural outlet, water leaves chiefly through evaporation. The lake occupies one of Earth's lowest land areas, and its dense water makes swimmers unusually buoyant. Reduced river inflow associated with upstream water use has contributed to a long-term fall in lake level, exposing salt-rich ground and creating sinkhole hazards along parts of the receding shore.
Updated 13 Oct 2026
Geography
Deccan Traps
The Deccan Traps are an extensive volcanic province in west-central India, formed by repeated eruptions of basaltic lava in the Late Cretaceous and early Paleogene. Layered lava flows now cover about 500,000 square kilometres, with thicker sequences in the Western Ghats. The province is important in studies of flood-basalt volcanism, India's geological history and the environmental changes associated with the end-Cretaceous mass extinction; the precise role of the eruptions in that extinction remains a subject of research.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Doggerland
Doggerland was a now-submerged prehistoric landscape in the southern North Sea that once connected Britain to continental Europe. During the Early Holocene, rising seas progressively inundated its low-lying terrain and affected Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
East African Rift System
The East African Rift System is an active zone of continental extension running from the Afar region south toward Mozambique. As parts of the African lithosphere move apart, fault-bounded valleys, volcanic fields and deep lakes form, making the rift a major natural example of how continental crust stretches and changes.
Updated 19 Oct 2026
Geography
Ennedi Massif: Natural and Cultural Landscape
The Ennedi Massif in northeastern Chad is a sandstone plateau shaped by water and wind into canyons, cliffs and natural arches. Its perennial water sources sustain life in the Sahara, while thousands of rock paintings and engravings record a long human presence; UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage property in 2016.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Everglades
The Everglades is a subtropical wetland ecosystem in southern Florida, linking freshwater marshes and prairies with mangroves, estuaries, and coastal waters. Its habitats support diverse wildlife, and decades of water-management changes have made restoration a major regional effort.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Fjords
Fjords are long, deep sea inlets occupying valleys carved and widened by glaciers. When ice retreats, seawater can flood the trough; many fjords have steep sides and a deep inner basin, sometimes separated from the open sea by a shallower sill. They occur in formerly glaciated coastal regions around the world, and their shapes record the combined influence of moving ice, bedrock and geological structure.
Updated 16 Oct 2026
Geography
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an Ecuadorian archipelago near the Equator, about 1,000 kilometres west of mainland South America. Formed by volcanic and seismic processes, their isolation and meeting ocean currents have helped produce distinctive land and marine ecosystems. The islands are known for endemic wildlife and their connection to Charles Darwin’s 1835 visit, and are protected through a national park, marine reserve and international heritage designation.
Updated 13 Oct 2026
Geography
Ganges River
The Ganges, called the Ganga in many Indian languages, is a major South Asian river that rises in the Himalayas and flows east across northern India into Bangladesh, where its waters join the Brahmaputra–Meghna system before reaching the Bay of Bengal. Its fertile basin supports extensive settlement and agriculture, and the river is sacred to Hindus. The river system also faces significant pollution and water-management pressures.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
Giant's Causeway
The Giant's Causeway is a coastal basalt formation on Northern Ireland's Antrim plateau, made up of about 40,000 columns. It forms part of the Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site and records volcanic activity and subsequent landscape change around 60 million years ago.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Gobi Desert
The Gobi is a vast cold-desert and semidesert region of Central Asia spanning parts of southern Mongolia and northern China. It is not simply a sea of sand: rocky plains, basins, mountain margins, steppe and limited dune fields form a varied landscape. Severe winters, warm summers and scarce, uneven precipitation shape its ecosystems and long-standing pastoral land use. Protected areas in Mongolia conserve distinctive desert and mountain-steppe habitats, while climate and land-use pressures affect parts of the region.
Updated 18 Oct 2026
Geography
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a vast gorge cut by the Colorado River through the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, United States. Its steep walls expose rock layers recording nearly two billion years of regional geologic history, far older than the canyon itself. River incision, tributary erosion and tectonic uplift shaped the landscape; the precise history of how the modern river system developed remains an active subject of geological research. The canyon also contains varied habitats and has deep ancestral and cultural ties for Indigenous peoples.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Great Blue Hole (Belize)
The Great Blue Hole is a large marine sinkhole within Lighthouse Reef Atoll off Belize. Its nearly circular opening, ancient cave formations and setting in the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System make it a notable geological feature and part of a globally important marine landscape.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a system of five interconnected freshwater lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario—on the Canada–United States border. Shaped by glaciation and linked to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence River, they form the world’s largest freshwater lake system by surface area. The lakes support communities, shipping, ecosystems and a substantial share of North America’s surface freshwater, while facing pressures that require ongoing binational cooperation.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream is a swift, warm current in the western North Atlantic and the western boundary current of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. It flows through the Florida Straits and along the eastern coast of North America before turning east into the Atlantic. By moving heat and water through the ocean, it affects regional marine and climate conditions; it is one component of, not a synonym for, the broader Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
Updated 16 Oct 2026
Geography
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Heard Island and McDonald Islands are a remote, uninhabited Australian external territory in the Southern Ocean. Their active volcanoes, glaciers, and largely undisturbed ecosystems have earned the island group World Heritage recognition and protection as a marine reserve.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Himalayas
The Himalayas are a vast east–west mountain system in Asia, forming a high barrier between the Tibetan Plateau and the plains of the Indian subcontinent. Extending across parts of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and China, the range includes Mount Everest and many other high peaks. Formed by the continuing convergence of the Indian and Eurasian plates, the Himalayas also shape regional climate, river systems, ecosystems and human life.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Hirakud Dam
Hirakud Dam is a multipurpose project across the Mahanadi River near Sambalpur in Odisha, India. Planned for flood control, irrigation and hydroelectric generation, it became one of the country’s major post-independence river-valley projects and created the Hirakud Reservoir.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Ijen volcanic complex
Ijen is a volcanic complex in eastern Java, Indonesia, whose active intracaldera cone, Kawah Ijen, contains a highly acidic crater lake. The landscape is notable for active volcanic processes, sulfur deposits and a longstanding hand-mining industry, as well as risks from volcanic gases and unrest.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Indian monsoon
The Indian monsoon is a seasonal circulation that reverses direction between summer and winter, bringing most of the subcontinent's rain during the southwest monsoon. Its onset and regional rainfall reflect the movement of moisture-bearing winds, seasonal pressure patterns and topography; rainfall is vital but varies considerably across time and place.
Updated 28 Oct 2026
Geography
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the world’s third major ocean, lying between Africa, Asia, Australia and the Southern Ocean. Its northern waters include the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, while monsoon winds drive seasonally changing circulation across much of the basin. The ocean is a major setting for marine ecosystems and international shipping.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Indian Standard Time
Indian Standard Time (IST) is India's national standard time, set at UTC+05:30. It is based on the standard meridian at 82°30′ east longitude, near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, and is maintained by India's National Physical Laboratory. A single time standard coordinates civil life across a country whose east and west have substantially different local solar times.
Updated 31 Oct 2026
Geography
International Date Line
The International Date Line is a conventional boundary between consecutive calendar dates, running mainly through the Pacific near 180° longitude. It is not a fixed legal border: the line bends around inhabited areas and political boundaries, and countries determine the civil dates and time zones they use. Crossing it westward generally advances the calendar by one day; crossing eastward sets it back by a day.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
K2
K2 is an 8,611-metre mountain in the Karakoram Range, on the China–Pakistan border. It is the world's second-highest peak above sea level after Mount Everest. Surveyors assigned the name K2 in the nineteenth century because it was the second peak measured in the Karakoram. The summit was first reached in 1954 by Italian climbers Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory combines tropical wetlands, floodplains, escarpments and diverse habitats with a living Aboriginal cultural landscape. Its rock art and archaeological places document a long history of human presence and connection to Country; its natural and cultural values are recognized through World Heritage listing.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Karakoram Range
The Karakoram is a high mountain system in central Asia, extending along the watershed between Central and South Asia. It includes K2 and extensive glaciers; its rugged terrain, active geological processes and distinctive climate make it an important region for mountain and glacier research.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Karst
Karst is a type of landscape shaped as groundwater dissolves soluble bedrock, most often limestone or dolomite. Its interconnected surface and underground features can include sinkholes, caves, sinking streams and springs. Karst also forms important aquifers, but water can move through them quickly with limited natural filtration, making them particularly vulnerable to contamination.
Updated 17 Oct 2026
Geography
Katabatic wind
A katabatic wind is a downslope flow driven when relatively cold, dense air moves under gravity toward lower elevations. It occurs at many scales, from nighttime drainage along local hillsides to persistent winds over ice sheets. Terrain channels and steepens some flows, while atmospheric pressure patterns can also shape observed winds, especially in Antarctica. The term is therefore most useful when the cold, dense character and gravity-driven descent are distinguished from downslope winds caused by other processes.
Updated 24 Oct 2026
Geography
Kaziranga National Park
Kaziranga National Park is a protected floodplain landscape in Assam, India, shaped by the Brahmaputra River and known for its globally important populations of Indian rhinoceros and other wildlife. Its grasslands, wetlands and forests support rich biodiversity, while seasonal floods sustain important ecological processes and also create serious conservation challenges. UNESCO inscribed the park on the World Heritage List in 1985.
Updated 31 Oct 2026
Geography
Keoladeo National Park
Keoladeo National Park is a 2,873-hectare protected wetland in Rajasthan, India, near Bharatpur. Formerly managed as a duck-hunting reserve, it became a national park in 1982 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. Its mosaic of marshes, grasslands and woodlands supports resident and migratory birds, including large wintering gatherings of waterfowl. UNESCO records about 375 bird species and notes that the wetland's ecology depends on carefully managed water supplies.
Updated 1 Nov 2026
Geography
Kerguelen Islands
The Kerguelen Islands are a remote subantarctic archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, administered as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. The group includes a large, heavily glaciated main island and nearly 300 smaller islets; Port-aux-Français has served as a permanent scientific base since 1950.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Kiel Canal
The Kiel Canal (German: Nord-Ostsee-Kanal) is a navigable waterway in northern Germany connecting the North Sea with the Baltic Sea. Opened in 1895 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, it provides a shorter alternative to sailing around the Jutland peninsula. The German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration reports that the canal is 98.6 kilometres long and 11 metres deep; its width varies along the route. It remains an important route for commercial shipping and a substantial engineering and transport system maintained by Germany.
Updated 1 Nov 2026
Geography
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is an empirical system for grouping the world's climates using long-term patterns in temperature and precipitation, with natural vegetation informing its climatic boundaries. Its five main groups—tropical, arid, temperate, continental and polar—are subdivided into coded climate types. The system offers a practical way to compare climates, but its mapped boundaries depend on data, thresholds and the period studied.
Updated 31 Oct 2026
Geography
Kuroshio Current
The Kuroshio is a major warm western-boundary current in the North Pacific. It originates where the westward North Equatorial Current divides east of the Philippines, with a branch flowing north past the Philippines and Taiwan toward Japan. Its route and strength vary with season, ocean eddies and local topography. By carrying heat and salt poleward, and interacting with the atmosphere and marine ecosystems, the current influences conditions across the northwestern Pacific.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is a large freshwater lake in south-eastern Siberia, Russia, occupying a deep basin in the Baikal Rift Zone. Estimated to be roughly 20–25 million years old, it is the world's deepest lake and largest freshwater lake by volume; its maximum depth is about 1.6 kilometres, and it contains roughly one-fifth of Earth's fresh surface water. Its ancient, isolated setting supports unusually rich freshwater life, including many endemic species, and makes the lake an important site for geological and ecological research.
Updated 14 Oct 2026
Geography
Lake Kaindy
Lake Kaindy is a small mountain lake in Kazakhstan's Tian Shan, known for the dead spruce trunks that rise above its surface and continue beneath its clear, cold water. A 1911 earthquake-triggered landslide blocked a valley and formed the natural dam behind the lake.
Updated 10 Nov 2026
Geography
Lake Kivu
Lake Kivu is a deep, permanently stratified lake on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its deep waters contain large quantities of dissolved methane and carbon dioxide, supplied in part by geological processes and microbial activity. The gases create both a valuable energy resource and a hazard that requires careful monitoring; extraction and power generation began commercially in 2015.
Updated 24 Oct 2026
Geography
Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa or Lake Niassa, is a deep East African Rift lake shared by Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. Its clear, seasonally influenced waters support a remarkably diverse fish fauna, especially endemic cichlids, and provide food and other ecosystem services across the basin.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
Lake Natron
Lake Natron is a shallow saline-alkaline lake in northern Tanzania, near the Kenyan border, within the Eastern Rift Valley. Fed by rivers, rainfall and hot springs, it has no outlet other than evaporation, so its area and salinity vary seasonally. Its soda-rich waters and mudflats support adapted microorganisms and provide an important breeding habitat for lesser flamingos.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
Lake Ohrid
Lake Ohrid is a deep, ancient lake on the border between North Macedonia and Albania. It is notable for its endemic freshwater life, its connection to nearby Lake Prespa through underground channels, and the cultural and natural heritage of the surrounding region.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is a high-altitude freshwater lake in the Andes, shared by Peru and Bolivia. At about 3,810 metres above sea level, it is the world's highest lake navigable by large vessels. Its waters, marshes and reed beds support distinctive wildlife and long-standing human communities, while its limited surface outflow and strong evaporation shape the lake's water balance.
Updated 22 Oct 2026
Geography
Lake Toba
Lake Toba is a large volcanic lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, occupying the Toba Caldera. It is centered on Samosir Island and is part of a landscape shaped by major volcanic eruptions and inhabited by Batak communities.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
Lake Turkana
Lake Turkana is a large, saline lake in the East African Rift, lying mainly in northwestern Kenya and extending into southwestern Ethiopia. It is among the world's largest permanent desert lakes and has no outlet; the Omo River supplies most of its water. The lake and its surrounding national parks are notable for distinctive ecosystems, volcanic and sedimentary landscapes, and fossil deposits that have contributed to research on past environments and human evolution.
Updated 22 Oct 2026
Geography
Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by surface area, lying on a high plateau in East Africa and bordered by Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. Its largest inflow is the Kagera River, while the Victoria Nile carries water north from the lake into the Nile system. The lake's fisheries and waters are important to surrounding communities, and its ecology is shaped by both natural variation and human pressures.
Updated 16 Oct 2026
Geography
Lalbagh Botanical Garden
Lalbagh Botanical Garden, also known as Lalbagh or Lal Bagh, is a historic public garden in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Initiated under Hyder Ali in the eighteenth century and expanded under Tipu Sultan, it is now managed by Karnataka's Department of Horticulture and serves as a botanical, horticultural and public green space.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
Lut Desert (Dasht-e Lut)
The Lut Desert, or Dasht-e Lut, is an arid region of southeastern Iran known for wind-sculpted yardangs, extensive dune fields and stony desert landscapes. Its exceptional geological processes and landforms led to its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is an Inca archaeological site on a mountain ridge above Peru's Urubamba River valley. Built in the fifteenth century, its carefully arranged buildings, plazas, agricultural terraces and waterworks form part of a larger landscape where the Andes meet the upper Amazon basin. The site is widely associated with the ruler Pachacuti, though its exact original role and the reasons for its abandonment are not settled. The surrounding Historic Sanctuary is recognized for both cultural and natural significance.
Updated 12 Oct 2026
Geography
Magnetic Declination
Magnetic declination, also called magnetic variation, is the angle between true north and the direction a compass indicates at a particular place. It varies geographically and changes over time, so navigators account for it when relating magnetic compass bearings to true bearings.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky protects the world’s longest known cave system, a vast limestone landscape shaped by water and recognized for its geological features and cave wildlife.
Updated 10 Nov 2026
Geography
Map projection
A map projection is a systematic method for representing a round surface—usually Earth—on a flat map. Because flattening a curved surface inevitably distorts spatial properties, projections are designed to preserve selected qualities, such as area, local shape, direction or distance, for particular uses.
Updated 20 Oct 2026
Geography
Marree Man
The Marree Man is a large modern geoglyph etched into a remote plateau in South Australia. First reported in 1998, it depicts a human figure holding a hunting implement and is visible in satellite imagery. Its creator has not been credibly identified. After erosion diminished the outline, local organizers re-etched it in 2016 with permission from Arabana representatives.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Mascarene Plateau
The Mascarene Plateau, also called the Seychelles-Mauritius Plateau, is an extensive submarine plateau in the western Indian Ocean. Its banks, islands and underwater topography reflect varied geological histories and influence regional ocean circulation and marine habitats. The Saya de Malha Bank is one of its largest shallow features.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
McMurdo Dry Valleys
The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a group of largely ice-free valleys in Victoria Land, Antarctica. This cold-desert landscape has glaciers, seasonally flowing meltwater streams, perennially ice-covered lakes and sparse microbial communities. Long-term ecological studies track how climate and water connect these environments, while recent measurements have documented changes in glaciers, ground ice and permafrost.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Mekong River
The Mekong is the longest river in Southeast Asia, rising on the Tibetan Plateau and flowing through or alongside China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam before reaching the South China Sea through a broad delta. Its seasonal flow connects upland tributaries, the Tonle Sap lake system and the Mekong Delta. The river supports fisheries, farming, transport and the water needs of millions of people, while dams, sediment extraction and other changes create difficult environmental and management questions.
Updated 15 Oct 2026
Geography
Mercator projection
The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection introduced by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It preserves local angles and represents constant compass courses as straight lines, properties that made it useful for navigation. Its scale increases with distance from the equator, however, so land areas at high latitudes appear greatly enlarged; it is therefore not an equal-area representation of the world.
Updated 24 Oct 2026
Geography
Meteora
Meteora is a landscape of sandstone and conglomerate rock pillars in Thessaly, central Greece, crowned by Eastern Orthodox monasteries. Monks began settling among its near-inaccessible formations in the 11th century; the monasteries and landscape were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus is an active stratovolcano on Ross Island in Antarctica. Its summit crater has hosted a persistent lava lake, and the volcano is monitored using satellite observations and scientific fieldwork.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is a peak in the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and China's Tibet Autonomous Region. At 8,848.86 metres above sea level, according to the joint Nepal–China announcement in 2020, it is Earth's highest mountain by elevation. Its geological formation, cultural significance for local communities, climbing history and place within Sagarmatha National Park make it an important natural and human landscape.
Updated 12 Oct 2026
Geography
Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji, also known as Fujisan, is a 3,776-metre stratovolcano on Japan’s Honshu island and the country’s highest mountain. Long revered as a sacred place and celebrated in Japanese art, it is the focus of a UNESCO World Heritage cultural property comprising 25 sites. The volcano’s last known eruption began in 1707 and continued into 1708.
Updated 2 Nov 2026
Geography
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash, also known as Gang Rinpoche and by several other regional names, is a mountain in the Ngari region of Tibet in China. It is a major sacred landscape for Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bon, and forms part of a wider region of mountains and lakes associated with pilgrimage and distinctive high-altitude geography.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Mount Kilimanjaro
Mount Kilimanjaro is a 5,895-metre volcanic massif in northeastern Tanzania and the highest point in Africa. Its three principal cones, Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira, rise above a sequence of habitats from mountain forest to alpine desert and the summit. The mountain and its surrounding forest are protected within Kilimanjaro National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
Mount Roraima
Mount Roraima is a high, flat-topped mountain in the Pakaraima range at the meeting point of Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela. Its sheer escarpments are a striking example of the tepui formations characteristic of the Guiana Highlands and Canaima National Park.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Mullaperiyar Dam
Mullaperiyar Dam is a late-nineteenth-century dam in Kerala whose waters are diverted eastward to Tamil Nadu. Its history is closely tied to an 1886 lease and to a continuing inter-state debate over water use, dam safety, and oversight. The Supreme Court of India’s 2014 judgment addressed reservoir levels and established a supervisory framework, while later proceedings have continued to consider monitoring and operation.
Updated 8 Nov 2026
Geography
New Delhi
New Delhi is the national capital of India, situated in the north-central part of the country within the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Planned after the 1911 decision to move British India’s capital from Calcutta, it was laid out as an administrative city by British architects including Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker and officially opened in 1931. It remains the seat of India’s central government, but is distinct from the larger territory and urban region commonly called Delhi.
Updated 12 Oct 2026
Geography
Niger River
The Niger River is the principal river of West Africa and one of the continent's longest waterways. Rising in Guinea's Fouta Djallon highlands, it flows northeast into Mali, makes a broad loop through the Sahel, then turns southeast through Niger and Nigeria. Near Lokoja it joins the Benue, its largest tributary, before reaching the Gulf of Guinea through a major delta. The river and its basin support settlements, agriculture, fishing, transport and diverse wetland ecosystems across a region shared by several countries.
Updated 22 Oct 2026
Geography
Nile River
The Nile is a transboundary river system in northeastern Africa that flows north from the equatorial lake region and the Ethiopian highlands, through Sudan and Egypt, to the Mediterranean Sea. Its two principal branches, the White Nile and Blue Nile, meet at Khartoum. Seasonal rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands drives major rises in the river, while the Aswan High Dam has reshaped the timing and movement of water and sediment in its lower course.
Updated 13 Oct 2026
Geography
Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System
The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is a major transboundary groundwater system beneath parts of Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan. Its water occurs in sedimentary rocks and reflects both ancient, wetter climatic periods and more limited modern recharge in some areas. Shared use and uneven replenishment make its geology, monitoring and cooperative management important across the region.
Updated 29 Oct 2026
Geography
Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta is a large inland delta in north-western Botswana, where the Okavango River spreads into channels, marshes and seasonally flooded plains instead of draining to the sea. Its distinctive flood pulse arrives during Botswana’s dry season, sustaining a dynamic wetland ecosystem, wildlife and local fisheries.
Updated 19 Oct 2026
Geography
Palsa
A palsa is a peat-covered mound, ridge or plateau containing a frozen core of permafrost. These landforms occur mainly in discontinuous and sporadic permafrost zones of the Northern Hemisphere, where peat insulation, winter snow conditions and local climate allow frozen ground to persist. Thaw can lower the surface, create waterlogged hollows and alter peatland habitats and carbon cycling.
Updated 29 Oct 2026
Geography
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is an approximately 80-kilometre lock canal across the Isthmus of Panama, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Its locks lift ships from sea level to Gatun Lake, about 26 metres above sea level, and lower them again on the other side. Opened in 1914, the waterway became a major international shipping route; Panama assumed control in 1999, and a third set of locks opened in 2016.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
Pockmark
A pockmark is a depression on a submerged sedimentary surface, commonly found on the seabed and also in lakes. Pockmarks occur in varied geological settings and may record fluid escape, but their formation and maintenance are not universal: studies of California's Sur Pockmark Field found evidence for sediment gravity flows rather than methane seepage as the process maintaining its ancient depressions.
Updated 28 Oct 2026
Geography
Rain shadow
A rain shadow is a relatively dry area on the leeward side of a mountain range, where terrain affects the movement and precipitation of moist air. Air forced up a mountain slope expands and cools; when moisture condenses, precipitation commonly falls on the windward side. As air descends on the opposite slope, it warms, and the leeward region often receives less precipitation. The strength and extent of this pattern depend on winds, topography and weather, so a rain shadow need not be a desert.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Republic of Naoero (Nauru)
The Republic of Naoero, formerly known internationally as Nauru, is a small independent island country in the central Pacific. It is a raised coral atoll with no official capital city. Phosphate extraction shaped its modern economy and landscape: mining generated substantial income but left major land-restoration challenges. The country became independent in 1968 and joined the United Nations in 1999; its official name changed to the Republic of Naoero in 2026.
Updated 29 Oct 2026
Geography
Ring of Fire
The Ring of Fire, also called the circum-Pacific belt, is a broad zone of earthquakes and volcanism around the Pacific Ocean. It is not one continuous geological structure: it groups many volcanic regions along different plate boundaries, most associated with subduction, where one tectonic plate descends beneath another. The belt includes active margins of the Americas and western Pacific, but its exact boundaries vary by definition.
Updated 25 Oct 2026
Geography
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata is a broad, funnel-shaped estuary on South America's Atlantic coast, between Argentina and Uruguay. Fed mainly by the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, it forms a dynamic meeting zone between continental fresh water and Atlantic salt water. Its waters support major ports and connect the capitals Buenos Aires and Montevideo with inland river routes.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
Sahara
The Sahara is a vast, variably bounded desert spanning much of North Africa and the world's largest hot desert. Despite its popular image as a sea of dunes, its terrain includes gravel plains, rocky plateaus, mountains, seasonal watercourses and inhabited oases. The region's climate and ecosystems have shifted over long periods, while scarce water shapes both biodiversity and human settlement; airborne Saharan dust also travels far beyond the desert.
Updated 14 Oct 2026
Geography
Sailing stones
Sailing stones are rocks that slide across a playa and leave long trails in the mud. At Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, researchers directly observed the stones move when thin floating ice panels, pushed by light winds across shallow water, nudged them over the wet surface.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Salar de Atacama
The Salar de Atacama is a salt flat and sedimentary basin in northern Chile’s Antofagasta Region. Its arid basin contains lithium-rich brines as well as distinct freshwater, transitional and saline environments that sustain fragile desert ecosystems. Research combines hydrogeology, geochemistry and satellite observation to study its water systems and the effects of resource extraction.
Updated 10 Nov 2026
Geography
Salar de Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni, also called the Uyuni Salt Flat, is a vast evaporite basin on Bolivia's Altiplano in the Andes. Formed through the evaporation of ancient lakes, it contains extensive salt crusts and lithium-bearing brines, and its seasonal water cover can create a reflective surface.
Updated 1 Nov 2026
Geography
Sardar Sarovar Dam
The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a major multipurpose concrete dam on the Narmada River in Gujarat, India. It forms a central part of the Sardar Sarovar Project, a regional water and power development scheme involving Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. The project has been associated with irrigation, drinking-water supply and hydroelectricity, as well as long-running debates over displacement, rehabilitation and environmental effects.
Updated 31 Oct 2026
Geography
Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is a region of the North Atlantic distinguished by floating Sargassum seaweed and boundaries formed by ocean currents rather than coastlines. Located within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, it supports a distinctive open-ocean ecosystem, including nursery habitat for turtles and other marine life. Its changing current-defined boundaries and exposure to shipping, fishing, pollution and climate change make it a focus of international conservation efforts.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
Geography
Seiche
A seiche is a standing oscillation of water in a partly or fully enclosed basin, such as a lake, harbor, or bay. Winds and rapid atmospheric-pressure changes commonly displace water; after the forcing weakens, the water moves back and forth at periods shaped by the basin. Seiches may last hours or days and can produce unusually high water at one shore while levels fall elsewhere. They are distinct from tides and from progressive meteotsunami waves, although weather can generate both seiches and meteotsunamis in the same event.
Updated 24 Oct 2026
Geography
Socotra Archipelago
The Socotra Archipelago is a Yemeni island group in the northwest Indian Ocean, near the Gulf of Aden. Its distinctive biodiversity includes many species found nowhere else, and UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2008.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a major Southeast Asian waterway between the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Linking the Andaman Sea with the South China Sea, it is among the shortest sea routes between the Indian Ocean and East Asia and one of the world's heavily travelled shipping passages. Its narrow, shallow southern reaches and complex coastal geography make safe navigation and environmental protection important concerns for the states bordering it and the ships that use it.
Updated 20 Oct 2026
Geography
Subduction Zones
A subduction zone is a convergent boundary where one tectonic plate descends beneath another into Earth's mantle. These regions form deep ocean trenches and are associated with powerful earthquakes, some tsunamis, and volcanic arcs. Their geological activity reflects interactions among the descending slab, the overriding plate, and water and sediments carried to depth.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal is a sea-level artificial waterway across Egypt's Isthmus of Suez, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. By providing a shorter maritime route between Europe and Asia than passage around the Cape of Good Hope, it became one of the world's major shipping corridors. Built in the nineteenth century, it has also been central to modern Egyptian history and international affairs.
Updated 13 Oct 2026
Geography
Sundaland
Sundaland is a biogeographic and palaeogeographic region of Southeast Asia centred on the Sunda Shelf. During periods of lower sea level in the Pleistocene, much of the shallow shelf was exposed, connecting mainland Southeast Asia with present-day Sumatra, Java and Borneo. Subsequent sea-level rise submerged these lowlands, reshaping habitats, river systems and routes available to plants, animals and people.
Updated 26 Oct 2026
Geography
Sundarbans
The Sundarbans is a transboundary mangrove landscape at the mouth of the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta, spanning southern Bangladesh and India's West Bengal. Its tidal channels, mudflats, islands and salt-tolerant forests support distinctive wildlife and local livelihoods. Separate protected areas and World Heritage properties lie within this interconnected ecosystem, which faces pressures from cyclones, coastal erosion, changing freshwater flows and rising salinity.
Updated 18 Oct 2026
Geography
Surtsey
Surtsey is a volcanic island in Iceland's Vestmannaeyjar archipelago that emerged during eruptions from 1963 to 1967. Protected from its early formation, it has become a rare long-term natural experiment in how life colonizes new land and how island ecosystems develop. Its geology and biological communities continue to change through erosion, succession and interactions among organisms.
Updated 27 Oct 2026
Geography
Taal Volcano
Taal Volcano is an active volcanic system in Batangas province on the Philippine island of Luzon. It occupies a volcanic island within Taal Lake, itself held in a much larger caldera. The system includes multiple vents and eruptive centres and has produced recurrent eruptions, including a major eruption in 2020. Taal's distinctive nested landscape, ongoing activity and proximity to communities make it an important subject of volcanology and hazard monitoring.
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Geography
Thar Desert
The Thar Desert, also called the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent spanning parts of India and Pakistan. Its landscape includes shifting sand dunes, sandy plains and low hills; its people and ecosystems contend with highly limited and variable rainfall.
Updated 7 Nov 2026
Geography
Tidal bore
A tidal bore is a wave or surge formed when an incoming tide advances up a river or estuary against the river's downstream flow. Bores are associated with particular combinations of tidal range, channel depth, estuary shape and river discharge. They may travel far upstream, alter water conditions and create hazards for vessels and people near the banks. Satellite observations of the Severn bore have also shown how modern remote sensing can help measure these rapidly changing coastal and river environments.
Updated 24 Oct 2026
Geography
Tristan da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha is a remote volcanic island group in the South Atlantic Ocean and part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Its main island is an active stratovolcano; the permanent community lives at Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, and the 1961–62 eruption led residents to evacuate temporarily to Britain.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Tsingy de Bemaraha
Tsingy de Bemaraha is a striking karst landscape in western Madagascar, where limestone has been dissolved and sculpted into sharp pinnacles, deep fissures and gorges. The formation is also part of a wider protected landscape valued for its distinctive geology and endemic biodiversity.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls, also called Mosi-oa-Tunya, is a major waterfall on the Zambezi River along the Zambia–Zimbabwe border. UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences describe it as a notable natural site shaped by the river cutting into basalt and by continuing erosional processes.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Volcanoes
Volcanoes are vents through which molten rock, gases and fragmented material reach Earth's surface. Eruptions build varied landforms and can range from relatively fluid lava flows to explosive events, depending partly on magma properties and gas. Volcanoes occur in several tectonic settings and create hazards that include ash fall, pyroclastic flows and lahars.
Updated 16 Oct 2026
Geography
Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea is a coastal intertidal region along the North Sea shores of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Its extensive tidal flats, barrier islands, salt marshes and other habitats support rich ecological processes and large populations of migratory birds; much of the region is protected through national designations and a transnational UNESCO World Heritage property.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum is a desert landscape in southern Jordan known for its sandstone mountains, valleys, arches and narrow gorges. Its geological features and long record of human presence—from rock art and inscriptions to archaeological remains—contributed to its recognition as a mixed natural and cultural World Heritage property.
Updated 9 Nov 2026
Geography
Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area
Wulingyuan is a protected mountain landscape in Hunan, China, known for thousands of tall sandstone pillars, forested ravines, caves and natural bridges. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992, the area also supports diverse plant and animal life and faces continuing challenges from tourism and conservation management.
Updated 9 Nov 2026