Map of the Great Lakes: Five Lakes, Two Countries, One Drainage
The Great Lakes are usually listed as five separate lakes, but a map shows them better as one connected system. Water moves from the far…
Map of the Atlantic Ocean: Basins, Ridges and a Sea Still Widening
The Atlantic is the ocean most maps put at the centre of the world, which makes it oddly easy to overlook. It is also the…
Map of the Rocky Mountains: From British Columbia to New Mexico
The Rocky Mountains are the backbone of western North America, but on a map they are easy to misread. They are not the first mountains…
Map of the Alps: Eight Countries Along One Mountain Arc
On a map of Europe the Alps look like a single wall between Italy and the rest of the continent. In reality they form a…
Map of the Himalaya: Where the Range Runs and What Sits Behind It
The Himalaya is usually drawn as a line, and that is the first thing to unlearn. It is a belt several hundred kilometres deep, made…
Map of the Mediterranean: Three Continents Around One Sea
The Mediterranean is the rare sea that organises three continents around itself instead of separating them. Europe to the north, Africa to the south, Asia…
Map of the Caribbean: 700 Islands, 13 Countries and a Lot of Confusion
The Caribbean is one of the hardest regions to read off a map, because what looks like a single scatter of islands is in fact…
Raja Ampat, Indonesia: The Reefs That Started the Whole Coral Triangle Idea
Raja Ampat sits at the far eastern edge of Indonesia, closer to Papua New Guinea than to Bali, and it takes real effort to reach….
Map of the Caucasus: Where Europe and Asia Actually Meet
Ask a geographer where Europe ends and Asia begins, and the Caucasus is one of the few places on Earth where the answer is genuinely…
Map of the Arctic: Sea Ice, Shipping Routes and Who Owns What
Antarctica has a landmass under its ice. The Arctic does not. At the top of the world sits an ocean, frozen over for most of…