This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[thenetwork]

Then we should rename the Ohio the Mississippi, the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo IL the Missouri, and the Mississippi upstream of St. Louis something else.

Then I say we rename it the I-555 River, since it would be a spur route!!!   

[Jordanes]

Or, you know, not.

Actually this can become a hot topic. Imagine that instead of being a small town  on barely known tributary of great river you now have a major city on one of biggest rivers in the world - all at a cost of sorting out some old geographical mistakes and changing a few labels on a map?
It can mean a huge economic boost for the area, a new era for entire region!

Then why is Cairo, IL small?

Railroads and the New Madrid earthquake.

It actually has a lot to do with racism, and very little to do with either of those.

[inkyatari]

Then why is Cairo, IL small?

Railroads and the New Madrid earthquake.

It actually has a lot to do with racism, and very little to do with either of those.

Mostly , from what I understand, it has to do with the death of the coal industry.  Racism just hastened the demise of the town.  Pity, as it seems to me that area is so geographically unique, that Cairo could have been a giant city. (And yes, I know that Giant City State Park is an hour away.)

[ftballfan]

Then why is Cairo, IL small?

Railroads and the New Madrid earthquake.

It actually has a lot to do with racism, and very little to do with either of those.

Mostly , from what I understand, it has to do with the death of the coal industry.  Racism just hastened the demise of the town.  Pity, as it seems to me that area is so geographically unique, that Cairo could have been a giant city. (And yes, I know that Giant City State Park is an hour away.)

I-57 bypassing Cairo far to the west did not help either

[inkyatari]

Then why is Cairo, IL small?

Railroads and the New Madrid earthquake.

It actually has a lot to do with racism, and very little to do with either of those.

Mostly , from what I understand, it has to do with the death of the coal industry.  Racism just hastened the demise of the town.  Pity, as it seems to me that area is so geographically unique, that Cairo could have been a giant city. (And yes, I know that Giant City State Park is an hour away.)

I-57 bypassing Cairo far to the west did not help either

I'm surprised that Cairo didn't try to annex the exit a bit further up the way.  Should they build the portion of I-57 that connects the thing to Little Rock, I could see that particular interchange booming a bit.

EDIT.. Looking at a map, I see that they annexed a few of the ramps, but not enough land around it for development.

[TXtoNJ]

Or, you know, not.

Actually this can become a hot topic. Imagine that instead of being a small town  on barely known tributary of great river you now have a major city on one of biggest rivers in the world - all at a cost of sorting out some old geographical mistakes and changing a few labels on a map?
It can mean a huge economic boost for the area, a new era for entire region!

Then why is Cairo, IL small?

Railroads and the New Madrid earthquake.

It actually has a lot to do with racism, and very little to do with either of those.

That doesn't make sense. Racism didn't stop New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis from getting big.

Bad race relations certainly hastened Cairo's decline, but that could have been weathered if it were a more essential town in the first place. Chicago, the earthquake dampening the early development of the area, and the massive floods every 20-30 years had a much stronger stifling effect on the town's growth. I don't think I-57 could have saved it.

[kkt]

Cairo, ancient floodplain, tends to be foggy and damp even when the higher country around it has better weather, racism problems continued long after other segregated cities acknowledged that the era of legal racism was over.

[CarmineJan]

Cairo, ancient floodplain, tends to be foggy and damp even when the higher country around it has better weather, racism problems continued long after other segregated cities acknowledged that the era of legal racism was over.

Honestly, I was caught surprised by the fact that Mexico has almost 130 million people. I'm still thinking in figures I've learned in school. Anyone else like that when it comes to populations of countries?

[hotdogPi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong

Guangdong province has more people than UK, France combined. But Guangdong is as big as Mexico and Japan in terms of population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Honestly, I was caught surprised by the fact that Mexico has almost 130 million people. I'm still thinking in figures I've learned in school. Anyone else like that when it comes to populations of countries?

Indonesia has 237 million.

[english si]

Indonesia has 237 million.

And really hated the break up of the USSR, as it meant they gained a place to be fourth. Nearly half that number live on Java, too, which exacerbates the problem of the notion of too many people in the country.

The population figures that really get me is Indochina: Cambodia only having 15 million and Laos 7 million, whereas Vietnam has 94 million. My expectations gave me roughly the right figure for the area, but not the distribution - I'd have had something like 70 million in Vietnam, 30 million in Cambodia, and 15 million in Laos.

[michravera]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong

Guangdong province has more people than UK, France combined. But Guangdong is as big as Mexico and Japan in terms of population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Honestly, I was caught surprised by the fact that Mexico has almost 130 million people. I'm still thinking in figures I've learned in school. Anyone else like that when it comes to populations of countries?

Indonesia has 237 million.

... and that's AFTER the independence of Timor L'este....

[mgk920]

Indonesia has 237 million.

And really hated the break up of the USSR, as it meant they gained a place to be fourth. Nearly half that number live on Java, too, which exacerbates the problem of the notion of too many people in the country.

The population figures that really get me is Indochina: Cambodia only having 15 million and Laos 7 million, whereas Vietnam has 94 million. My expectations gave me roughly the right figure for the area, but not the distribution - I'd have had something like 70 million in Vietnam, 30 million in Cambodia, and 15 million in Laos.

And Cambodia lost several million during the 'Killing Fields' genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975, too.

Mike

[english si]

And Cambodia lost several million during the 'Killing Fields' genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975, too.

True, but '75 is 40 years ago, so a lot of those people would have died since of natural causes. And the regime afterwards pushed breeding as a priority.

[jwolfer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong

Guangdong province has more people than UK, France combined. But Guangdong is as big as Mexico and Japan in terms of population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Honestly, I was caught surprised by the fact that Mexico has almost 130 million people. I'm still thinking in figures I've learned in school. Anyone else like that when it comes to populations of countries?

Indonesia has 237 million.

The USA, Canada and Australia are on the same scale of size.. but Canada and Australia have about the same population as California. 

In Canada and Australia the population is much more concentrated on the margins with vast areas of empty space.. not even agriculture

And to bring it back to roads.. I sometime s drive on SR19 in Ocala National Forest between Jacksonville and Orlando and think in Australia this is what roads between some major cities in Australia are like, 2 lanes is all that is needed(until Friz Owl get down under and makes them all interstating LOL)

Z981

[Max Rockatansky]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong

Guangdong province has more people than UK, France combined. But Guangdong is as big as Mexico and Japan in terms of population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Honestly, I was caught surprised by the fact that Mexico has almost 130 million people. I'm still thinking in figures I've learned in school. Anyone else like that when it comes to populations of countries?

Indonesia has 237 million.

The USA, Canada and Australia are on the same scale of size.. but Canada and Australia have about the same population as California. 

In Canada and Australia the population is much more concentrated on the margins with vast areas of empty space.. not even agriculture

And to bring it back to roads.. I sometime s drive on SR19 in Ocala National Forest between Jacksonville and Orlando and think in Australia this is what roads between some major cities in Australia are like, 2 lanes is all that is needed(until Friz Owl get down under and makes them all interstating LOL)

Z981

Some of the remote roads in the Outback in Australia are probably more akin to the Old Brick Highway near Espanola.  The amount of variation on Highway 1 looping the country is amazing.

[Chris]

More demographic than geographic... but the population growth of Ethiopia is astounding. In 1985, when we had 'USA For Africa' charities, Ethiopia had a population of 41 million. Today it has 102 million people.

And its population is still very rural. Addis Ababa is by far the largest city at 3.4 million, being 10 times larger than the second-largest city of Adama. There are only 3 other cities with a population over 300,000.

[Roadgeekteen]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong

Guangdong province has more people than UK, France combined. But Guangdong is as big as Mexico and Japan in terms of population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Honestly, I was caught surprised by the fact that Mexico has almost 130 million people. I'm still thinking in figures I've learned in school. Anyone else like that when it comes to populations of countries?

Indonesia has 237 million.

... and that's AFTER the independence of Timor L'este....

That tiny 1/2 of an island which I have no clue why it was colonized by Portugal not the Dutch probably does not affect much.

[english si]

That tiny 1/2 of an island

It's only a million, though Indonesia really got annoyed by the loss of Timor Timur.

So much so that they did a whole lot of cunning stuff in Papua, to weaken the independence movement there.

I have no clue why it was colonized by Portugal not the Dutch

Same as why they had Goa until Indian independence: they claimed it before the other European power got there and the other power wasn't bothered about them having it (Portugal lost a lot of its coastal possessions to other countries though).

Though Timor Leste's independence had more to do with Javan colonialism than different western powers colonising it for 300+ years. One could talk about the Catholic nature of the province being a hangover of Portuguese, rather than Dutch rule, but the surrounding islands are mostly Christian: most notably Nusa Tenggara Timur (the province including West Timor) is majority classed-as-Catholic (in Indonesia you must have one of 5 religions) and only 5% Muslim. That lack of the Islam that dominates Indonesia (87%), remoteness from Java, and relative poverty, is the sort of mix that creates separatist movements elsewhere in Indonesia. I imagine that seeing the might of the Indonesian state to try and keep Timor Timur in their power, plus getting refugees from that conflict and conflicts in Maluku and Irian Jaya/Papua has put the eastern southeastern islands (that's literally what the province name means) off revolting.

[Roadgeekteen]

That tiny 1/2 of an island

It's only a million, though Indonesia really got annoyed by the loss of Timor Timur.

So much so that they did a whole lot of cunning stuff in Papua, to weaken the independence movement there.

I have no clue why it was colonized by Portugal not the Dutch

Same as why they had Goa until Indian independence: they claimed it before the other European power got there and the other power wasn't bothered about them having it (Portugal lost a lot of its coastal possessions to other countries though).

Though Timor Leste's independence had more to do with Javan colonialism than different western powers colonising it for 300+ years. One could talk about the Catholic nature of the province being a hangover of Portuguese, rather than Dutch rule, but the surrounding islands are mostly Christian: most notably Nusa Tenggara Timur (the province including West Timor) is majority classed-as-Catholic (in Indonesia you must have one of 5 religions) and only 5% Muslim. That lack of the Islam that dominates Indonesia (87%), remoteness from Java, and relative poverty, is the sort of mix that creates separatist movements elsewhere in Indonesia. I imagine that seeing the might of the Indonesian state to try and keep Timor Timur in their power, plus getting refugees from that conflict and conflicts in Maluku and Irian Jaya/Papua has put the eastern southeastern islands (that's literally what the province name means) off revolting.

Were the Dutch more hands on?

[english si]

Were the Dutch more hands on?

I believe it was less to a large extent (eg no one speaks Dutch), though the Portuguese colonisation isn't viewed as negative by Timorans (and the Indonesians don't really talk about the Dutch at all, let alone negatively) as the colonisation by the Japanese during WW2 was far worse than European rule, and Javanese colonisation has been, at times, likewise terrible for the outlying areas (East Timor having a return to Portuguese rule, and Papua to Dutch, in between the two).

But the demographics and remoteness from Java would have had the locals opposed to Javanese rule even if they were a Dutch colony like the other half of the island - North Suluwesi, Papua (which, like Timor Leste, was absorbed into Indonesia after its founding) and nearby Maluku islands have all resisted the Indonesian government's rule from time to time.

Java has over 140 million people living there. Sumatra 47 million. Suluwesi 17, Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) 15, Papua and Bali 4 each. Timor (the whole island) has 3 million, as does Lombok. The other islands are smaller. You can understand why places far flung from Java (so not Bali or Lombok), and not sharing much in common with Java (so not Sumatra, large parts of Suluwesi and Kalimantan), feel colonised by the Javans. Add in that Indonesia was ruled by a dictator for a long time, and there were resettle-the-Javanese programmes (still going on with Papua) to ease the problems on that very crowded island and create national unity by sending thousands of Javans to places that aren't keen on Java - its a tiny number of Java's population, but becomes a few percent of the other places'.

[ghYHZ]

Across the west....the 49th parallel is the border between the US and Canada.

Now head to the east coast and all of the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are located entirely below the 49th plus about 2/3 of the island of Newfoundland.

Ontario and Quebec are above and below the 49th.

[Buck87]

Another fun one - the Upper Mississippi is hydrologically a tributary of the Ohio River. The Allegheny-Ohio-Lower Mississippi are together the main stream of the Mississippi River system. On average, the Ohio has a larger flow at Cairo, and can be almost twice as much at times of the year.

Indeed. I was fascinated by this fact when I first stumbled on it, and have referenced it in my signature ever since. Knowing this fact in advance made my quick stop through Cairo in 2014 all the more interesting, though unfortunately the park at the confluence was closed due to flooding at the time. 

The Ohio River kinda gets shafted on both ends by unconventional naming.....the Allegheny-Ohio-Lower Mississippi stream would have one contiguous name if the rivers had been named in the conventional way. In fact, the Natives considered what we call the Allegheny to just be more of the Ohio, and there's even a hand drawn map by George Washington from 1754 that calls it the Ohio.

[Bruce]

Combining geography and demographics, NASA has produced a nice tool that estimates population based on shapes you draw over a map.

For example, here is the Cascadia "megaregion" (OR/WA/ID/BC), with a population of 17.5 million people.

[mrpablue]

Cartagena, Colombia is farther north than Costa Rica capital, San Jose.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Cartagena, Colombia is farther north than Costa Rica capital, San Jose.

FTFY.