This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[Dirt Roads]

This is correct.  Understand that all of the western parts of all of the original states are based on "grants"  written by English kings who (leaving out the fact that the land wasn't theirs to grant) had little clue as to the geography.  As the area settled, PA advocated for the M-D line to be extended all the way to the Ohio, VA advocated for the Monongalia and Ohio rivers to be the border, which would have included all of what is now south western PA in VA.  A few locals wanted to be their own state which they called "Westsylvania"  but that is a common theme in that era and nobody took that seriously. 

One entire side of my dad's ancestry hails from "Greene County, Pennsylvania" prior to the Revolutionary War.  In reality, these were all considered citizens of Virginia living in [extinct] Yohogania County.  I haven't checked all of the details, but it appears that they all got run out of Yohogania during Dunmore's War and lost their homesteads to Pennsylvania after the Second Continental Congress brokered a treaty between Gov. Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania and newly-elected Gov. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.  The families split and settled in Wood County, (later) West Virginia and the part of Virginia now known as Ohio.

Fun fact:  Virginia didn't lose all of Yohogania County in the deal.  The remaining piece is now comprised of part of Brooke County and all of Hancock County, (now) West Virginia.  Amazingly, although those folks in the Northern Panhandle may be more like their counterparts in Western Pennsylvania, they have as staunch of a West Virginia identity as anyone else in the state.  This is likely because of the historical importance of Wheeling to the overall identity of those beleaguered western counties.

[J N Winkler]

Johnson County, Kansas (county code JO) surfaced recently in the License Plate News thread, which reminded me of this unusual fact:  the 12 states (AR, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, MO, NE, TN, TX, and WY) with a Johnson County form a contiguous block running northwest from Georgia to Wyoming, with the one in Kansas being the most populous.

[Scott5114]

Johnson County, Kansas (county code JO) surfaced recently in the License Plate News thread, which reminded me of this unusual fact:  the 12 states (AR, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, MO, NE, TN, TX, and WY) with a Johnson County form a contiguous block running northwest from Georgia to Wyoming, with the one in Kansas being the most populous.

Oklahoma can be included in this block if you stretch it a little to include Johnston County (which also has county code JO).

[empirestate]

Johnson County, Kansas (county code JO) surfaced recently in the License Plate News thread, which reminded me of this unusual fact:  the 12 states (AR, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, MO, NE, TN, TX, and WY) with a Johnson County form a contiguous block running northwest from Georgia to Wyoming, with the one in Kansas being the most populous.

Hmm, now I wonder if there are any other comparable blocks?

[tdindy88]

You can go coast to coast from Oregon to Florida and from Minnesota to Texas on Washington Counties. Since there's 31 states with one of that name.

[J N Winkler]

Hmm, now I wonder if there are any other comparable blocks?

You can go coast to coast from Oregon to Florida and from Minnesota to Texas on Washington Counties. Since there's 31 states with one of that name.

Wikipedia has an article with a list of the most common US county names.  Besides Washington (number one with 31 counties), there is probably at least one large block for each of Jefferson (26), Franklin (25), Jackson (24), Lincoln (24, including ones in the South named after Benjamin Lincoln, a Revolutionary War general), Madison (20), Clay (18), and so on.  Johnson is actually pretty far down the list and covers multiple namesakes.  I'm not sure how unusual it is in that there is just the one contiguous block that includes all of the counties with that name.

The county I live in is actually the basis for such a block--the only other Sedgwick County (which we occasionally hear of in TV weather trailers when a storm system overlaps the state line) includes the northeast corner of Colorado and has Julesburg as its seat.  I think the likelihood goes up for names that are regionally specific, like Lowndes (AL, GA, MS, and no other states).

Edit:  It seems there are three blocks for Washington:  (1) one covering most of the lower 48 from Vermont and Georgia westward to Oregon, (2) Maine, and (3) Rhode Island.  (Blame New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.)

[Dirt Roads]

Johnson County, Kansas (county code JO) surfaced recently in the License Plate News thread, which reminded me of this unusual fact:  the 12 states (AR, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, MO, NE, TN, TX, and WY) with a Johnson County form a contiguous block running northwest from Georgia to Wyoming, with the one in Kansas being the most populous.

Oklahoma can be included in this block if you stretch it a little to include Johnston County (which also has county code JO).

Add North Carolina to the Johnston County list.  But it's county code is "051".

[Dirt Roads]

Wikipedia has an article with a list of the most common US county names. 

Needless to say, Virginia and West Virginia do not have any counties with overlapping names.  But we do collectively share all of the top 17 county names on the list:

Virginia:  Washington (#1), Franklin (#3), Madison (#6), Montgomery (#8), Marion (#10T), Greene (#12T), Warren (#15), Carroll (#16), Lee (#17T)
West Virginia:  Jefferson (#2), Jackson (#4), Lincoln (#5), Clay (#7), Union (#9), Monroe (#10T), Wayne (#12T), Grant (#14), Marshall (#17T)

That trend hits a stopper at #17 where neither state has Adams, Clark, Douglas, Johnson, Lake or Polk.  But Virginia used to have a Clark County (named after George Rogers Clark), which has since been renamed Clarke County.  I used to live there back in my MTR days.  (Thinking Johnson/Johnston upthread, this might still count in the list).

Anywhoosit, you will either have a hole for Virginia or West Virginia in your county name block of states no matter which one you pick.

[JayhawkCO]

This isn't really geographic, but I thought I would put it here.

Kiribati is pronounced KEE-ree-BOSS.

Gilbertese (the language of Kiribati) uses 'ti' to make S sounds. So for instance, Christmas Island in the local dialect is Kiritimati.

[CtrlAltDel]

I recently learned that Hawaii is not part of NATO.

[kphoger]

I recently learned that Hawaii is not part of NATO.

Nor is Puerto Rico.  Weird.

[Scott5114]

I would have to imagine that any attack on Hawaii or Puerto Rico would probably end up with the United States strongarming the rest of NATO into responding pretty much the same way as if they had attacked New York.

After all, witness how we reacted the last time Hawaii was attacked. And it wasn't even a state then.

[empirestate]

Here's one I meant to bring up, pending completion of my recent "guess the city" challenge.

Two African capitals are Freetown and Libreville, which are literally the same name in different languages. What other world capitals are the same or similar (either near-exactly, like Kingston/Kingstown, or indirectly, like the above example)?

[NWI_Irish96]

Puerto Rico isn't a separate country, but San Juan and Saint John's, Antigua and Barbuda, mean the same thing.

[JayhawkCO]

Here's one I meant to bring up, pending completion of my recent "guess the city" challenge.

Two African capitals are Freetown and Libreville, which are literally the same name in different languages. What other world capitals are the same or similar (either near-exactly, like Kingston/Kingstown, or indirectly, like the above example)?

Georgetown, Guyana vs. George Town, Cayman Islands comes to mind.

Also Oranjestad being the capital of both Aruba and Sint Eustatius.

[empirestate]

Puerto Rico isn't a separate country, but San Juan and Saint John's, Antigua and Barbuda, mean the same thing.

If you're going that route, you can throw in the identical Saint John's, Newfoundland (itself not to be confused with Saint John, New Brunswick, which is not a capital).

[JayhawkCO]

Puerto Rico isn't a separate country, but San Juan and Saint John's, Antigua and Barbuda, mean the same thing.

If you're going that route, you can throw in the identical Saint John's, Newfoundland (itself not to be confused with Saint John, New Brunswick, which is not a capital).

I was going to mention that, but thought we were only doing capitals. "Major cities easily confused" obviously includes those two.

[michravera]

Hmm, now I wonder if there are any other comparable blocks?

You can go coast to coast from Oregon to Florida and from Minnesota to Texas on Washington Counties. Since there's 31 states with one of that name.

Wikipedia has an article with a list of the most common US county names.  Besides Washington (number one with 31 counties), there is probably at least one large block for each of Jefferson (26), Franklin (25), Jackson (24), Lincoln (24, including ones in the South named after Benjamin Lincoln, a Revolutionary War general), Madison (20), Clay (18), and so on.  Johnson is actually pretty far down the list and covers multiple namesakes.  I'm not sure how unusual it is in that there is just the one contiguous block that includes all of the counties with that name.

The county I live in is actually the basis for such a block--the only other Sedgwick County (which we occasionally hear of in TV weather trailers when a storm system overlaps the state line) includes the northeast corner of Colorado and has Julesburg as its seat.  I think the likelihood goes up for names that are regionally specific, like Lowndes (AL, GA, MS, and no other states).

Edit:  It seems there are three blocks for Washington:  (1) one covering most of the lower 48 from Vermont and Georgia westward to Oregon, (2) Maine, and (3) Rhode Island.  (Blame New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.)

Funnily enough, California not only doesn't have any counties of your top 7, it doesn't many counties named for individual people of recent times. A dozen or so Catholic saints, Another dozen or so named for nations of people. Many named for geographic features. Also, funnily enough, few, if any of the counties, are named for days of the year that aren't feast days of saints. This was a common method for naming things. First, see, if you can ask someone who lives there what they call it and try to approximate that. Second, name a feature after yourself. Then, after some of the members of your party. Finally you've named one of everything for everyone in your party, you turn to the day of the year that you discovered it. The Catholic calendar barely had more that a day or two between feast days, so you had a name that you could use until you had discovered too many things.

[Max Rockatansky]

Hmm, now I wonder if there are any other comparable blocks?

You can go coast to coast from Oregon to Florida and from Minnesota to Texas on Washington Counties. Since there's 31 states with one of that name.

Wikipedia has an article with a list of the most common US county names.  Besides Washington (number one with 31 counties), there is probably at least one large block for each of Jefferson (26), Franklin (25), Jackson (24), Lincoln (24, including ones in the South named after Benjamin Lincoln, a Revolutionary War general), Madison (20), Clay (18), and so on.  Johnson is actually pretty far down the list and covers multiple namesakes.  I'm not sure how unusual it is in that there is just the one contiguous block that includes all of the counties with that name.

The county I live in is actually the basis for such a block--the only other Sedgwick County (which we occasionally hear of in TV weather trailers when a storm system overlaps the state line) includes the northeast corner of Colorado and has Julesburg as its seat.  I think the likelihood goes up for names that are regionally specific, like Lowndes (AL, GA, MS, and no other states).

Edit:  It seems there are three blocks for Washington:  (1) one covering most of the lower 48 from Vermont and Georgia westward to Oregon, (2) Maine, and (3) Rhode Island.  (Blame New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.)

Funnily enough, California not only doesn't have any counties of your top 7, it doesn't many counties named for individual people of recent times. A dozen or so Catholic saints, Another dozen or so named for nations of people. Many named for geographic features. Also, funnily enough, few, if any of the counties, are named for days of the year that aren't feast days of saints. This was a common method for naming things. First, see, if you can ask someone who lives there what they call it and try to approximate that. Second, name a feature after yourself. Then, after some of the members of your party. Finally you've named one of everything for everyone in your party, you turn to the day of the year that you discovered it. The Catholic calendar barely had more that a day or two between feast days, so you had a name that you could use until you had discovered too many things.

The unique county and place names certainly are supposed I appreciate when I write about highway in California.  It makes it so much easier to quickly identify a locale when it has a easily referenced unique name.

[thenetwork]

There are NO bridge crossings over the Amazon River proper anywhere in South America.

[empirestate]

There are NO bridge crossings over the Amazon River proper anywhere in South America.

The real oddity would be if there were one on some other continent. :-)

[michravera]

There are NO bridge crossings over the Amazon River proper anywhere in South America.

Yeah, the bridge at Manaus crosses the Rio Negro, but not the Amazon. My understanding is more that no road network goes close enough to it where it is narrow and where there is a road network, you wouldn't want to build a bridge because the level changes enough that you'd either have to build it too high or it would get flooded and it would be too long to do any good.

[oscar]

This isn't really geographic, but I thought I would put it here.

Kiribati is pronounced KEE-ree-BOSS.

Gilbertese (the language of Kiribati) uses 'ti' to make S sounds. So for instance, Christmas Island in the local dialect is Kiritimati.

The Hawaiian language, and Hawaiian place names, use similar workarounds for letters missing from the Hawaiian alphabet (such as C, R, S, and T). K gets used a lot as a substitute for C or S. Vowels also get a lot of work, with five vowels in the alphabet but only seven consonants.

[michravera]

This isn't really geographic, but I thought I would put it here.

Kiribati is pronounced KEE-ree-BOSS.

Gilbertese (the language of Kiribati) uses 'ti' to make S sounds. So for instance, Christmas Island in the local dialect is Kiritimati.

The Hawaiian language, and Hawaiian place names, use similar workarounds for letters missing from the Hawaiian alphabet (such as C, R, S, and T). K gets used a lot as a substitute for C or S. Vowels also get a lot of work, with five vowels in the alphabet but only seven consonants.

I've often joked that perhaps, the Hawaiians could sell some of their extra vowels to Poland and the Poles could sell some of their extra consonants to Hawaii.

[kkt]

I recently learned that Hawaii is not part of NATO.

The mutual defense part of the NATO treaty is only mandatory for member countries' territories within North America and Europe.  So not only Hawaii, but the British territory of the Falkland Islands are not covered, territories in West Africa that were ruled by France at the time the NATO treaty was negotiated, even Spain's little inholding of Cueta in Africa is not covered.

Doesn't mean the other NATO countries necessarily ignore it if such territories were invaded, but they would have an out of they wanted one.