Europe's Geography is Weirder Than You Think

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The Earth’s landmasses have some very interesting shapes, like how the west coast of South America is on more or less the same latitude as the east coast of North America, or how Maine is the closest US state to Africa. However, once you get humans involved to draw their little borders and build their cities, things can get even weirder. No surprise, weird geographical phenomena are things I find incredibly fascinating, so if you’ll forgive me I’m basically just going to spend this whole video nerding out about weird geography facts (but hopefully some that you probably haven’t heard before) like how Germany is technically only two countries away from the US. So you’re probably asking yourself, how? What do I even mean when I say Germany is two countries apart from the US? Is it some super technical thing where I actually mean France and Spain, once you exclude the Atlantic Ocean? No, what I mean is that Germany borders a country that borders another country that borders the US. Okay, but… how?! Well let’s start in Germany, first you’re going to want to go east (actually you’re going to want to go east the whole way, this should be a little hint), so first we reach Poland, which obviously borders Germany. As if they hadn’t had enough of their bad neighbors, Poland also borders Russia, which is obviously crucial to this. Now Poland doesn’t border Russia proper, but it does border the exclave of Kaliningrad (which I’m sure the comments will be quick to point out was once the German city of Königsberg) and still counts. Now Russia’s going to help us because it is… is it too late to say “heckin’ chonker”? Yeah probably, I’ve already made that joke a couple times, but nonetheless Russia is massive, so going east we eventually reach the northeasternmost point in Asia, or actually a little bit further to the Diomede islands. You’ve probably heard of these guys, they’re a pair of islands, one of which belongs to Russia and the other to the US, and right between the two runs a maritime border with Alaska, putting two countries directly between the US and Germany. What’s crazy about this is that when I said there are only two countries between Germany and the US, I didn’t necessarily have to use Poland and Russia, there are actually two more pairs I could use, as pointed out by Geography World on Twitter. So what other countries does Germany border? Well let’s see, Czechia, Austria, Switzerland… France… France is somewhat famously not confined to its territories in mainland Europe and Corsica, but also has far-flung territories scattered all over the place, most of which also fully count as France. If you want to learn more about these I made a video on these territories a few months ago, but what you need know here is the existence of St. Pierre and Miquelon, a pair of islands located right off the coast of Newfoundland, complete with a maritime border with the island (and yeah we’re going to count maritime borders for the sake of explanation), and now that you’re in Canada, yeah I’m pretty sure Canada borders the US no problem. Finally we have, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, and Denmark… if by Denmark we mean the Kingdom of Denmark, complete with the territory of Greenland, and what’s that up there? Oh you bet that’s another maritime border, with Canada! Okay maybe not a true maritime border, but it does have border disputes! Need I say more? So Germany is two countries away from the US, in three different ways, not exactly a realization that comes intuitively, but one that shows both how big Russia is and how many territories countries like France have all around the world. Going back to Germany, a good amount of playing with the measure tool on Google Maps reveals that Cologne is just as far from Berlin as it is from London. Going southward, Munich is also closer to Bosnia and Herzegovina than it is to Berlin. That however is nothing compared to a city like Freiburg im Breisgau, which really shows how kind of weirdly located Berlin is for a capital, since it is actually closer to Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg City, Amsterdam, Bern, Ljubljana, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and even Prague than it is to Berlin, seven foreign capitals (ten if you count the tiny microstates). These facts might make you feel like you’re this close to losing it, but Moldova is already about that close to not being landlocked. Seriously, the town of Palanca, located about 45 kilometers west of Odessa, is less than 3 kilometers from the Dniester Estuary on the Black Sea, but that 3km of land still belongs to Ukraine, so… sorry, Moldova. Of course the countries of Europe themselves are pretty small-- even the largest non-Russia country in Europe (Ukraine) is still smaller than the largest US state (Alaska)-- but one country that is ginormous is China. China has always seemed far from Europe (and to be fair it is), but if you look at the westernmost point in the country, just west of Kashgar, you’ll find that it is actually closer to Istanbul than Shanghai. In fact, it is also closer to Belarus than to Beijing. Let’s close this video with a few fun facts about linguistic geography, like what the closest English-speaking country to Italy is. I‘ll give you a hint, it‘s a left-side driving island nation. That’s right, it’s Malta (and, well, to be fair they were a British colony at one point, so that would explain that). Finally, what is the largest English-speaking city in the world? By that I mean what is the most populous city in an English-speaking country? It’s not New York, it’s not London, it’s not even in what’s generally considered the Anglosphere, it’s New Delhi, India, home to about the same number of people as live in New York and London… combined. Okay, now what is the largest Francophone city in the world? Judging from the last answer of course, I’d imagine you’re waiting for me to not say Paris, and you’re right it’s not Paris, it’s Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or Dr. Congo, as I prefer), beating out Paris by 3 million people. Lastly, what is the largest German-speaking city in the world? A bit of a tough one, isn’t it? Yeah it’s actually Berlin, the world isn’t *that* weird. As always thanks for watching, and please let me know if you want more of these kinds of videos. If you want to peer in on discussions about future videos, memes, and other random stuff, be sure to join the Discord server, and like, share, and subscribe to learn something new every Sunday.
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Channel: KhAnubis
Views: 457,093
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: KhAnubis, education, educational, geography, world geography, geography of europe, weird geography facts, europe, world, china, germany, maps, map, random geography facts, geography facts
Id: IChj247zfB8
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 7min 32sec (452 seconds)
Published: Sun Apr 26 2020
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