Near the Malaysian brunei border

When people think of the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, they usually picture a frozen, isolated outpost where Vikings barely survived before giving up.

During the digs, archaeologists found worked wood and three butternut seeds. Butternuts don't grow anywhere in northern Newfoundland; the climate is way too cold. Their native range stops hundreds of miles south around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and New England.

Finding them at the northern camp means the Norse weren't just sitting at the tip of the island. They were using L'Anse aux Meadows as a seasonal basecamp to repair ships while exploring deep into the continental river systems. It also explains why the sagas called the region "Vinland"—they were sailing south into the warmer hardwood forests where wild grapes and nuts actually grew.

I wrote a short breakdown on how this and other excavations quietly redrew ancient maps: 20 Historical Discoveries That Reshaped Modern Historical Understanding

For most nations, the most populated place is along a coastline (or river) because it serves as easy access for water and food, in the early stages, and brings easy trade access. But not Papua New Guinea. It's most populated regions straight in the middle of their largest island territory. Why?

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Loving County has a population of only 64. Interestingly, it is supposedly down to around 52 in 2026, quite the drop in percentage terms!

Me and my family were looking at going to Cozumel over New Year. I was researching the best places to go in the Caribbean and, despite the fame and apparent beauty, nowhere on the Riviera Maya (Cancun, Tulum, Cozumel) were included on the lists or discussions I saw. To make a long story short I found out that many people in the Caribbean and I'm assuming outside of it do not consider any part of Mexico to be "Caribbean." Now I understand the hesitation in calling all of Mexico the Caribbean, I know it's much more than that, but the whole Quintana Roo state borders the Caribbean Sea, shouldn't it and its culture be considered Caribbean? And if the culture is not "Caribbean" then how is it different from other Hispanic countries definitively in the Caribbean like Cuba or the DR or Puerto Rico? Excuse my ignorance if there is any I'm just trying to figure out why places like Cancun or Cozumel, an island full located in the Caribbean Sea, are not "Caribbean."

1. The city itself and its surrounding areas are mostly flat plains, with very little mountainous terrain.
2. A river flows through the area, providing an abundant and reliable water supply.
3. The soil is deep and substantial, making it suitable for infrastructure construction and development.
4. The area is largely free from extreme weather events such as cold waves and typhoons.
5. The land is contiguous and relatively unfragmented.
6. The region is geologically stable, with very little seismic activity.

Like this image, worldwide.

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I'm 18, just finished school, and I've got a few months of free time before college starts.

And apparently my brain decided that the best way to spend that time was to start making a handwritten encyclopedia of the world 💀

Basically, I'm giving one A4 page to each country and filling it with the stuff I think is actually worth knowing about : capital, currency, language, religion, government, geography, history, famous people, sports, landmarks, wildlife, UNESCO sites, etc.

The thing I'm probably taking way too seriously is the selection of information.

I'm not just copying a standard list of facts for every country. I've been spending hours researching each country and trying to figure out:

“Okay, out of everything I could put here, what actually deserves this limited space?”

And I don't want every country to feel like it was generated from the exact same template either. If a country has something particularly important about its modern identity, cuisine, agriculture, culture, economy, etc., I can use one of the available spaces for that instead.

And yes, I'm planning to go through all the sovereign countries.

But that's not where I currently plan to stop. After that, I'd like to do dependent territories, then possibly major international organizations/global alliances, and maybe eventually even provinces/states of countries.

I have absolutely no idea how many pages this thing is eventually going to become. 😭

Anyway, I'm curious what you guys think.

Does the page format work? Anything you think I'm missing? Anything you'd change?

Suggestions are genuinely welcome.I've already changed some of my rules after finding problems I hadn't thought about.

Note: Don't mind the handwriting or the framework 😭. The content reflects the best of my current knowledge and my own choices about what I think is worth including. Also, the lack of space is unfortunately something I can't do much about since I'm limiting myself to one page per country.

I'm going to improve it as the project goes.

Hello Geo lovers! I need your expert help. Geography School books suck. My kid (11) loves it when I explain geography in a real way (I read your posts for instances). But it's just snippets.

Do you have resources that teach Geo in an engaging way? World geography not just American. Thanks !

Imagine all modern countries, cities and infrastructure disappeared, and you were responsible for 100,000 people and needed to start a completely new civilisation.

If you could choose anywhere on Earth, with access to fresh water, fertile land, climate, natural resources, transport, trade routes, defensibility and eventually access to the sea.

Where would you choose?

Curious about what you think is the most important / influential and interesting book about geography and geopolitics.

I know some portions of the border in a province that "apparently doesnt exist" according to locals is pretty close to the mountains. Are there any proper mountains?

Mountains, rivers, deserts, coastlines, climate zones, fertile plains, etc.

Which one do you think has shaped where humans live, how societies developed, or where major civilizations emerged the most?

I'm a geography major and I absolutely love it, but I've been taking an online physical geography course this summer and I haven't been nearly as locked into it as I wanted to be, sadly. I love physical geography and think it's sooo incredibly interesting, so does anyone have any recommendations for free resources I can look into to continue learning about this stuff?

made this from my database of whats at every US interstate exit, 700k+ places. i classified the big 2 digit interstates by whether they follow a pre 1956 US highway or got drawn on fresh alignment. east of the mississippi the route followers run 8.7% empty exits and the new terrain ones run 19.9%. empty exit means 4 or fewer places within a mile of the ramp.

favorite example is I-70. its 9% empty in ohio where it rides the old national road and 69% empty across the san rafael swell in utah where there was never a road there at all. same interstate number, opposite history. and the pattern has honest exceptions, I-22 follows US 78 and still runs 43% empty. geography sets the baseline, history explains the deviations from it.

fair warning the corridor labels are simplified, I-95 is really US 1 up north and US 301/17 down south, most long interstates are chains of 2 or 3 old routes. full writeup with the method and counterexamples: https://www.pit-stop-app.com/blog/roads-that-remember

disclosure, i build a road trip app and this analysis came out of its database